Christmas Hope

Hope is another vague Christian word that warms us but doesn't always carry clear meaning. How does Jesus' birth bring hope and what does it mean for our daily lives? Our families? Our marriages? Our decisions? Our work? Our experience of joy and suffering?

 

Psalm 42 sheds light on this in three ways. It reveals truths about hopeless situations, hopeless emotions, and hopeful response.

 

The writer was experiencing a situation which appeared to disproved the very existence of a loving and powerful God (v.3). This situation was public (v.4) and it involved people set against him (v.3 and 10). The situation might have been something like Tim Tebow losing his game, his health, and his family in a public and humiliating way, prompting his detractors to mock him openly.

 

But ultimately we don't get much information about the situation and that's because this is a Psalm, written so that we can insert our situation. So what is your hopeless situation? Or perhaps more pressing, how does your situation make you feel?

 

Hopeless Emotions
For the writer, it feels like deep soul-thirst (v.1-2). It feels like distance and disconnection from God (v.2, 9). It feels like sorrow so deep that he's lost his appetite and all he can do is cry (v.3, 9). It feels terminal, like it will kill him (v.10).

 

Clearly God's people get depressed. We see it here and all through the Bible. There's reason to believe that Jonah, Job, Elijah, Jeremiah, David, and more could have at some point in their lives been diagnosed, labeled, and medicated as depressed people. We see it in church history (Augustine, Martin Luther, John Bunyon, John Wesley, Jonathon Edwards, Charles Haddon Spurgen). We see it in current Christian leadership. I've heard or read testimonies from John Piper and Randy Alcorn of their struggle with this darkness.

 

My point is that severe emotional suffering is not outside the parameters of the Bible or the Christian life. So there's no need to hide yours. In fact, the writer of this Psalm wrote it into a "Maskil", which seems to be a song written to instruct people. It wasn't just open record. It was proclaimed for the masses! Which brings us to the final point:

 

 

1. Open up.
Who knows about your situation and your struggles? Who can you talk do about the deep stuff? If you're a Dulins Grover, House to House is built for this. You need deep relationships in which you can bare your soul. If you don't have such relationships, look for them. You will not grow spiritually without it.

 

2. Turn toward God.

Notice that in all the writer's thirsting, he's stretching toward God (v.1-2, 8-9). Suffering pulls us inward, but be warned: there is no hope inside you. There should be a sign at the door of introspection reading, "Abandon hope ye who enter here." You're designed to reach up and out.

 

3. Preach to yourself. (v.5, 11)

Listen to Martin Lloyd Jone's quote about this verse:

“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc.

Somebody is talking. Who is talking? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul?’ he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: ‘Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you.’…

The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: ‘Why art thou cast down’– what business have you to be disquieted?

You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: ‘Hope thou in God’– instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do.

Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: ‘I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God.’”

 

So what makes preaching to yourself "Hope in God; for I shall again praise him" any more powerful than the power of positive thinking? It's powerful because it taps into the Biblical idea of hope.

 

The Biblical idea of hope is more than wishing or desire. It's not what you do when you blow out the birthday candles, buy the lottery ticket, vote for the president, or cross your fingers. When you do those things you know there is a chance your "hope" won't come true. Biblical hope is certainty is something to come.

 

It's like a 16 year old girl in her dad's Lexus, broken down in a bad neighborhood. She might "hope" a cop will happen upon her before hoodlums do. But that is no hope at all. It's wishful thinking. She can't stand on it and endure the wait because of it. So she calls her dad and he speeds her way. Now she has hope. Now she knows dad is on the way. And in her anxious waiting, she can preach to herself, "Hope in dad. I will again be safe."

 

You're wondering what all this has to do with Christmas. Christmas is the arrival and confirmation of our hope. Because of Jesus' birth we can know some things. We can know God loves us. We can know God is powerful. We can know that God is greatly motivated for our good. And so, we can hope in him.

 

This gospel is solid. You can stand on it. And from there you can endure, knowing that one day like the writer of Psalm 42 your suffering will transform into a song of praise.

 

1. What struck you most in Psalm 42?

2. What is your seemingly hopeless situation? Or if you're not in one now, describe a time when you were.

3. Work together to paint a picture of the writer's emotional state. How did these emotions play a role in his hopelessness/hopefulness.

a. How do/did emotions play a role in your hopelessness/hopefulness?

4. Do you find it encouraging or discouraging to know that emotional suffering (i.e. anxiety, depression, etc.) are such a common part of the Christian life?

5. Do you think God works through the gospel, the Holy Spirit, the church, and the Bible sufficiently for those suffering from depression, or do you think medication and outside therapy are necessary? Why?

6. Do you have people close enough that you can open up about the deepest situations/emotions in your life? If so, describe those relationships.

7. Read the passage and find all the ways the writer turns Godward in his hopelessness.

8 Does this hope as certainty in something to come idea coincide with your own hoping in God? Or is your hoping more like wishful thinking or strong desire for something that deep down you feel may or may not come through?

9. Read verses 5 and 11. What is the difference between listening to yourself and speaking to yourself? How might this kind of speaking to yourself be helpful in your situation?

10. How does Jesus' birth give you hope in your current situations? Be specific.

11. How can your group pray for you this week?