Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Growing in Grace with Pastor Victor Morrison. This is a ministry of First Baptist Church located at 1700 Milam Street, Columbus, Texas. We are praying that God will bless you as you listen to this message.
Speaker: If you would like additional information on worship times and ministries at FBC Columbus, you can find out more at our website, fbccolumbustx.org. And now, take your copy of God's Timeless Word as Pastor Victor gives today's message.
Speaker: Welcome to Growing in Grace. You know, the author of Psalm 77 was a man named Asaph. Asaph was a worship leader appointed by King David.
Speaker: He actually signed about 12 psalms, something like that. He wrote a Psalm 50, and he wrote Psalm 73 through Psalm 83. And this particular psalm, I mean Psalm 77, gives us his game plan when trouble comes knocking at the door.
Speaker: Has trouble ever come knocking at your life's door? Well, he has a tendency to do that the longer we live. The setting when Asaph composed this psalm is unknown.
Speaker: And I think there's something that's good about that. That way we don't assume that it's not related to our troubles. But what is your response whenever you encounter difficulties in life?
Speaker: The character in Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel, Robinson Crusoe, certainly encountered lots of troubles in his life. You remember that character? Remember that book?
Speaker: He left the comforts of home for the sea. Unfortunately, he was captured by pirates and sold into slavery. Later, Crusoe emerges from a shipwreck as the sole survivor.
Speaker: However, life was still not easy because he was marooned on a tropical island all by himself for 28 years. His response was to read Scripture three times a day, and he learned to be grateful for the simple blessings in life.
Speaker: He actually... came across in the book as being a better man after he had been marooned on that island. Why don't we follow, though, not the footsteps of the fictional character Robinson Crusoe, but let's follow the footprints of Asaph.
Speaker: He lived in the real world. He was a real man. And let's see where he leads us in Psalm 77. And watch as he teaches us six secrets to surviving hard circumstances and difficult times.
Speaker: If that's you, I hope that you enjoy this message and it strengthens your faith. Psalm 77 verses 1 and 2 give us the first possible response.
Speaker: I will seek the Lord in prayer whenever trouble comes knocking. He starts out the Psalm saying this, I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and He will hear me.
Speaker: In the day of my trouble, I seek the Lord. In the night, my hand is stretched out without wearying. My soul refuses to be comforted.
Speaker: How did he pray about his personal troubles? He definitely prayed verbally, didn't he? He said, i i pray i pray aloud. And he prayed transparently because he uses that word cry. He cried out to God.
Speaker: He cried aloud to God. He also prayed directly. Did you notice that? Two times, this man says, I directed my prayer right to God himself.
Speaker: He also prayed persistently in the night, in the day, without wearying. He prayed confidently, my soul refuses to be comforted. I would recommend that we walk alongside of Asaph as we're going through life and say, whatever comes my way, if it's hard, I'm gonna take it to the Lord in prayer.
Speaker: That's one thing. Let's read on verses three and four and see that also in addition to seeking the Lord in prayer, we are permitted to weep before the Lord during pain.
Speaker: Here's what verses three and four says. When I remember God, I moan. When I meditate, my spirit faints. You hold my eyelids open.
Speaker: I am so troubled that I cannot speak. Did you catch Asaph's pain in there? It's interesting how he's not saying, i i didn't feel it was spiritual to to suffer the pain and to talk to God about my pain.
Speaker: No, he felt it was spiritual. As a matter of fact, he says, my spirit faints. So his pain was spiritual. His pain was internal. When he uses the word moan, have you ever heard any anyone moan?
Speaker: It's a deep pain. But there's also continual. It must have kept him awake at night. He said, my eyelids are open. I thought about getting this ah put on a banner in our church when some doze off during my sermons.
Speaker: When I remember God, I moan, he says. When I meditate, my spirit faints. You hold my eyelids open. I thought about that. You hold my eyelids open. Just joking.
Speaker: What about colossal? Yeah, he says, it was so much. There was so much hitting me at once with my troubles. I was so troubled that I could not speak.
Speaker: Have you ever been in pain that much that you really couldn't even talk about it? Let's move to a third thing. I believe that he also says, I'm gonna remember the Lord in praise.
Speaker: The writer deliberately tries to shift from the groans within him to the glory above him. With his heroic effort, he articulated in verse three, when I remember God.
Speaker: But he still couldn't bump the needle past his pain. Therefore, he tries a different approach in verses five and six. He recalls the great songs, the songs of praise and worship that renewed his understanding of who God is.
Speaker: He exclaims in this psalm, I said, let me remember my song in the night. Let me meditate in my heart. And then my spirit made a diligent search.
Speaker: Can't you see this man saying, there's got to be a praise and worship song that will remind me who my God is. You know, i believe that worship can help us with whatever's going on in our lives, because when we worship, it's another way of reminding us how great God is, how good God is, how present God is, how powerful God is.
Speaker: You see, worship songs can reconnect us with lessons about God from previous generations. you know Some of the songs we sing are contemporary. They're new ones. They're great songs. I love them.
Speaker: But some songs were written hundreds of years ago. Worship songs can also renew our grip in the dark upon truths about God that we used to sing in the light.
Speaker: Sometimes emotionally, it's hard. So you you get a song before you that you know, even if someone else sings it and you listen to it, or if you sing it. but you're reminding yourself of those truths about God that you used to sing in better days better times and better days.
Speaker: Worship songs can also reset our mind upon promises we first learned in the word I love that. You know, that he goes back to God's word and says, I need to reset my mind to trust in these promises.
Speaker: And I believe that also worship songs can relieve us of our search for security. They simply can't be found in emotions. I wonder if Asaph would have tried emotionally to pull himself up by his own bootstraps.
Speaker: But I wonder if he'd have said, I can't do it. Not this time. Not with this that I'm facing. It's too serious. It's too troublesome to me. And so what happens is when he sings those worship songs, he rediscovers a security that he has in Christ, a security that he has in the Lord. And he said, you know what?
Speaker: emotional Emotional stamina could have never withstood this. Oh, but these songs of worship remind me of my God. When we go to the next one, i will trust the Lord even though perplexed.
Speaker: It's from verses 7 through 12. I'll read those in a moment, but let me tell you what I thought about. I thought about a young lady who dove off of a wooden platform into a lake with a lot of her teenage friends and And what happened was when she dove in, she hit her head on a large rock that was underneath the water that she didn't even realize was there.
Speaker: And she became a quadriplegic. You know, that lady's name is Johnny Erickson Tada. I heard a podcast by Johnny Erickson Tada that really touched my heart. She was sharing hope about a life-changing song And she recorded this May 31st, 2024.
Speaker: But I wonder, what Psalm was it that changed her life? It was this one. Before I read these verses, let me let Johnny tell you about this.
Speaker: Back when I was in the hospital, she said, and still reeling from the news that I'd be a quadriplegic for the rest of my life. Back then,
Speaker: I fell into such a deep depression. I couldn't fathom life with total paralysis. What's more, my depression turned to anger, anger against God for allowing all this to happen. I felt there was no way he could possibly understand my disappointment.
Speaker: I felt so cheated But then someone one showed me Psalm 77, and it was the words of that Psalm that God used to really touch my heart.
Speaker: Psalm 77 verses 7, 8, and 9 are like six rapid-fire questions aimed at the Lord. Questions filled with hurt and disappointment because the psalmist cries out, "'Will the Lord reject us forever?' Will he never show his favor again?
Speaker: Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?
Speaker: And then she goes on to say, oh my goodness, those six questions are packed with explosive power. As I read them over and over, I was amazed that there was a Psalm with which i could totally identify.
Speaker: Oh my goodness, the Bible understands me. God understands exactly how I feel. I began to see how the psalmist's despair turned godly when it turned God-word.
Speaker: And the Holy Spirit was challenging me, Johnny, can you do the same? Will you stop turning away from the Lord and start turning toward Him?
Speaker: Friends, something awesome happens when we choose the direct line to the Lord. My friend, Dr. Dan Allender puts it this way. He says, the irony of questioning God is that it honors Him.
Speaker: It turns our hearts away from ungodly despair toward a passionate desire to comprehend Him. Don't you love that?
Speaker: I mean, looking back, my blunt, frank, and honest questions, even ugly questions, they honored God. As I looked further into Psalm 77, I could see that the psalmist questions serve as a reality check, exposing the fantasy of a blissful world, because those six questions cut to the core, and they destroy any illusion that the world, this world, can ever really keep its promises.
Speaker: For you well know the world can't, right? Psalm 77 should shake us awake, reminding us not to get too comfortable in a world destined for decay.
Speaker: I thought it was so well said. I had to share it with you today. You know, that's why i take passages that God uses to touch my heart. And I think if it touches my heart, perhaps it will touch someone else's heart.
Speaker: But then I noticed the four spiritual resolves that follow those six questions that Johnny shared with us from Psalm 77, verses 7 through 9. Let me read those four spiritual resolves. They begin with the word, I will.
Speaker: Then I said, i will appeal to this, to the years of the up to the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work and meditate on your mighty deeds." He brought his questions to God, that's right.
Speaker: Way to go, Asaph. You're not turning away from God, you're turning toward God with those questions. But then I thought, isn't it neat that following those questions, he says, you know what?
Speaker: These are my spiritual resolves. And he said, I will. I will, he says, recall his graciousness. I will recall his faithfulness.
Speaker: I will recall God's gloriousness. I will recall the Lord's greatness. Man, what a help this psalm not only was to Johnny Erickson Tada in her past,
Speaker: But think about when she recorded that. She recorded that May 31st, 2024, just a few years ago. Still, those verses are helping Johnny as she now helps others.
Speaker: Well, let me finish up this with two more two more strategies that I feel will help you when trouble comes knocking. The next thing he does in verses 13 and 14 and 15, the psalmist makes a definite switch from the pronouns I, remember the I wills? The psalmist makes a definite switch from the pronouns I and my to the pronouns you your.
Speaker: He no longer desires to focus on his problems. He wants to magnify God and he uses These magnifying glasses, magnifying the righteousness of God, magnifying the rule of God, and magnifying the redemption of God.
Speaker: Listen to the way Asaph wrote this. Your way, O God, is holy. What God is great like our God. You are the God who works wonders.
Speaker: You have made known your might among the peoples, You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph Selah.
Speaker: Wow, that's so wonderful, isn't it? You hear him no longer mentioning my problems. This is what I'm going to do. No, now he's got a magnifying glass in his hand. And he's saying, no matter what comes at me in my life,
Speaker: I'm gonna choose not to magnify the size of the problem. I'm gonna magnify the size of my God. And so it made such a difference in him as he magnifies God's righteousness and his rule and his redemption.
Speaker: The Lord rescued him and he's so grateful for it. You know I'll never forget hearing Corrie Ten Boom one time say this, that whenever she would face a problem that she felt was too hard for God,
Speaker: She would stand in front of the mirror in her home. And she said, I would say to myself, I want you to look yourself right in the eye. And I want you to say, this problem is too hard for your God.
Speaker: So she said, I had to say it 10 times. She said, I would stand there and say, this problem is too hard for your God. this problem is too hard for your God.
Speaker: And she said, I began to laugh. I began to get choked up. She said, I couldn't decide if I wanted to cry, if I wanted to laugh. But she said, I began to realize the more I said it to my own self,
Speaker: the more ridiculous it seemed. Standing there, looking in the mirror, looking at the one that God had saved, that God had been sovereignly at work in my life, that God, who doesn't make mistakes,
Speaker: that God is righteous and true and good and perfect and all of those things. And I thought to myself, what am I saying? God can't handle this. Of course he can handle my problems.
Speaker: That's why we call him God. That's why I bow beside my bed to pray to him. I just remember how amazing those words were to hear it from her lips and to read what she had said.
Speaker: I encourage you, the next time trouble comes knocking, rather than magnifying the the problem and the size of the problem, why don't you magnify the Lord? over the problem.
Speaker: Why don't you also, rather than taking all your questions and going away from God and trying to figure them out, taking them to social media, trying to figure them out, why don't you take all of your perplexed you know feelings that you're going through and just go ahead and give those questions to God, but give them to Him and then express your trust in who He is.
Speaker: I will trust the Lord, even though perplexed. Why don't you also try praising your way through those problems to say, you know what? I'm going to sing those songs from the past. I used to praise and worship God. i don't know why I'm not praising and worship him now in the present, but I know I used to do it.
Speaker: And so rediscover some of those great songs of worship and praise that remind you of the might of God and the the presence of God.
Speaker: But also, when trouble comes knocking, why don't you just weep before the Lord? There's nothing wrong. You know, one of my favorite scripture memory verses when I was a kid was Jesus wept.
Speaker: Man, whenever I was put on the spot, man, I could always pull that one out of the hat. Jesus wept. you know And so anyway, but what ah what a thing that the Lord shows us that, you know what?
Speaker: Like Ecclesiastes says, there's a time to rejoice, but there's also a time to weep. There's nothing that is more manly than to see a man who knows that he doesn't cry about everything, but he knows that there are some things that are worth crying about.
Speaker: And where do we cry? Well, Asaph took his tears to God because he knew that God promised to put them in his bottle, that God would keep them.
Speaker: But then also Asaph said, don't forget to pray about it. Don't forget to seek the Lord. So Asaph, man, he would pray verbally and transparently, directly, persistently, confidently. He definitely prayed to the Lord.
Speaker: But there's one last thing that I wanted to share with you from Psalm 77, the last few verses from verse 16 down through verse 20. I believe the last step that he takes in the biblical sands that we see before us, he says, you know what? I will reflect upon the Lord in the past.
Speaker: Going back to Robinson Crusoe and to that story from of old, Robinson Crusoe was scared to death one day when he thought he was by himself on the island and he discovered a single footprint in the sand.
Speaker: And so he got afraid. He thought, I thought I was all by myself. And it scared him to know that he was not all by himself. The remaining five verses of the Psalm remind us that we've not been walking alone along the shores of life.
Speaker: God has walked with us. So as Asaph reflects upon God's assistance across the years, he recalls two things.
Speaker: Let me share those with you. He reflects upon how God liberated the trapped in the past. Let me read verses 16 through 18.
Speaker: When the water saw you, O God, when the water saw you, They were afraid. Indeed, the deep trembled. The clouds poured out water. The skies gave forth thunder. Your arrows flashed on every side.
Speaker: The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind. Your lightnings lighted up the world. The earth trembled and shook. You know a lot of Bible scholars say it's a reflection to the Red Sea.
Speaker: When Israel was trapped, there was no way forward and there was certainly no way going back because now the Egyptian army was behind them. But the Red Sea was before them.
Speaker: What were they going to do? They were hemmed in Maybe that's how you feel. Some circumstance has you hemmed in. Don't forget how God opened up the Red Sea for the children of Israel. And that's what Asaph is remembering. But also, I think he not only reflected upon how God liberated the trapped in the past, he reflects upon how God led the teachable in the past.
Speaker: He says in verses 19 and 20, your way Wow. Hasn't God some your life? know he has certainly led one hymn writer named Fanny Crosby.
Speaker: you led your people like a flock by the hand of moses and aaron wow hasn't god led you at some point in your life i know he has certainly led one hymn rid named fanny crosby Man, she wrote so many these great hymns.
Speaker: But let me share one ah verse from one of her hymns that she wrote. And you remember, Fanny Crosby was blind. She had challenges. It doesn't mean that god's not goingnna that God's going to take all of the challenges away from us.
Speaker: Sometimes He gives us courage to face those challenges. But here's what she wrote today. In her hymn, all the way my Savior leads me.
Speaker: Here's what one verse says. All the way my Savior leads me. What have I to ask beside? Can I doubt His tender mercy?
Speaker: Who through life has been my guide? Heavenly peace divine is comfort, hereby faith in Him to dwell.
Speaker: For I know whatever befalls me, Jesus doeth all things well. Jesus doeth all things well.
Speaker: Man, what a great reminder. God's been at work in our lives. So don't forget what He's done. Don't forget the lessons that you've learned, even during the hard times.
Speaker: Because, you know, in that book, Robinson Crusoe, he learned a lot of skills that he wouldn't have learned. He had to learn to make do. And he says in the book how he was so incredibly amazed at what he learned to do with so little.
Speaker: He found gold at one point and thought, oh, great. Now all of my troubles are over. I found gold. Until he realized, how am I going to use gold on a deserted island with only me here?
Speaker: And so he said gold meant nothing. But there were other things that meant everything that were a part of his survival. So I just encourage you to say, God, the way that you've taught me in the past, I want to remember those lessons right now in the present.
Speaker: Help me not forget you and help me not forget your faithfulness through all of my life. Why don't we close and let me express on your behalf just some some gratefulness for all of us because I'm sure the Lord has been good to you in your life.
Speaker: Maybe these are hard times now, but they've been better times before. Let's pray that God will help you through this time. Oh Lord, I thank you for Psalms like Psalm 77.
Speaker: We needed this Psalm. This Psalm can connect with us. And Lord, I pray that you would take the words of this Psalm and speak it into the heart of those who are listening over and over and over again.
Speaker: Perhaps these are sunny days. Maybe everything's just going great. And I'm so thankful for that. But Lord, help them not forget because someday they may be in a storm.
Speaker: It may be dark and not light. And they'll need these words to guide them, to guide them toward you so that they will reflect upon what you've taught them in the past so that they will magnify you above all the problems so that they will trust you and bring their questions, their perplexity to you.
Speaker: that they would also remember you in those great songs of worship they've learned in their lifetime. Help them to feel comfortable taking their pain to you, even weeping to you and crying out to you.
Speaker: Help them pray and seek you as they go through these hard times. Lord, I thank you for those who are listening. Would you give them a special blessing? Would you remind them that they've never been alone nor will they ever be alone.
Speaker: And so I thank you so much that you will never leave us nor forsake us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, thank you, friend, for listening. I pray God will bless you as you go through the rest of your day today.
Speaker: This is a ministry of First Baptist Church located at 1700 Milam Street, Columbus, Texas.
