When God Seems Far Away #1

David was feeling alone and alienated. He felt as though God was for away so as we come to Psalm 61. We can ask ourselves what do we do when God seems far away never seems to fail. Just when we think life is perfect and we got everything under control will come crashing down.

Of course, as believers we know we can cry out to the Lord is. But what if he doesn't seem to be listening hello and welcome again to the true pulpit with gone green founding pastor of truth Community Church in Cincinnati Ohio I built right and today Don brings us part one of a special message called when God seems far away will show us that the only path out of the disastrous situation is to stop trusting in our own strength and submit our lives to the care and concern and proven character of our loving heavenly father.

Even when we can't see them moving on our behalf. Done. It can be unsettling for us to realize our own weakness and desperation in those situations, so I guess the only thing that could make things worse is to feel like God. For some inexplicable reason has gone silent what you have to say about that will bill whenever this topic comes up my mind always goes to the experience of the apostle Paul.

He knew about unanswered prayer he knew about suffering without relief and in second Corinthians chapter 12 he talks about a thorn in the flesh that he had and he said that he prayed three times for the Lord to remove it and God didn't answer. He didn't respond in that way. Instead, God revealed something different to him. He said that my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness, and sometimes my friend, God leaves us in our weaknesses, so that we would learn better to depend upon his grace find its sufficiency and live in the power of the spirit rather than in the power of our own flesh and so the thing that we need to remember the presence of grace in your life is not measured by how you feel about your circumstances but rather the presence of grace is measured in the person of Christ and what God has said in his holy word. That's why were turning to Psalm 61 today to study these things on the truthful. Thanks Don and Fred. Let's join our teacher now as he delivers today's lesson on the truthful. We love the Psalms in part because they give voice to our distress in times of weakness. Many of the Psalms.

Do that and Psalm 61 is certainly in that same genre. Let's read it together for all read it as you listen along might be a better and more accurate way to say it. Psalm 61.

The inscription reads for the choir director on a stringed instrument, a Psalm of David. Perhaps a song to be sung as opposed to simply read in its original day in verse one here my cryo God give heed to my prayer from the end of the earth. I call to you in my heart is faint, lead me to the rock that is higher than I for you have been a refuge to me. A tower of strength against the enemy. Let me dwell in your tent forever. Let me take refuge in the shelter of your wings selloff you have heard my vows of God.

You've given me the inheritance of those who fear your name, you will prolong the king's life, his years will be as many generations, he will abide before God forever appoint loving kindness and truth, that they may preserve him so I will sing praise to your name forever, but I may pay my vows day by day will hear and Psalm 61 David finds hope in God and in his enduring promises and there is no historical setting that is given for this song.

Many commentators believe that perhaps David wrote it when he was fleeing from his son Absalom. During that time of distress in his life. Whatever the setting is the key for understanding this Psalm is that David was feeling alone and alienated. He felt as though God was far away and so as we come to Psalm 61 we we can ask ourselves what do we do when God seems far away are times like that in the lives of believers is not a universal experience, but certainly those who have been dislocated by job transfers or new situations in education or death of a loved one's things like that leave you without your comfortable sense of supporting the things that are familiar that have always informed and given you a sense of direction as you follow God. What about when those times are taken away when those things are no longer present. David was in that situation is.

He wrote Psalm 61 and were going to see how he responded to it together will start out with his call for help. Point number one if you're taking notes David's call for help and he opens with a call to God to answer his prayers. Look at verse one with me. He says here my cryo God and then as though it were an echo. Give heed to my prayer and so weak he calls on God at the opening of the song to say God hear me.

I need your attention. I need you to listen to what I have to say here and as you go on in the song you find that the seeking divine protection in a time of weakness. Look at verse two, he says from the end of the earth. I call to you when my heart is faint, lead me to the rock that is higher than I and there in verse two, you get a sense of what the condition of his heart isn't maybe a sense also of what his circumstances were, somehow, either literally or simply metaphorically maybe a combination of both. David was it seems as though he was separated from Jerusalem and separated from the established place of worship and so is perhaps in a foreign land, leading a military battle or something like that. It's as though he was.

He was far away from that which he loved and treasured the most. It's ER and I'm calling to you from the ends of the earth. He says and he says that my heart is faint and so David is weary and is at the point of despair as he opens this prayer and you get a sense of get a sense that he feels distant from God, and yet even when God seems far away.

David knew that he could call on.

That's one of the sweetest things to take from the song right from the beginning is that when you have that sense of distance. Your alone may be been transferred your away from family or away from your church or away from your fellow believers. Or maybe your new believer and and your family won't have you anymore. What then, and in a human horizontal level you're all alone will.

How sweet is it to see David calling to God with a sense of confidence that God will hear his prayer in that time of distress and so he says there in verse to look at the end of it with me. He says lead me to the rock that is higher than I and here is one of the hardest things for us to kind of grasp and to embrace believe we all love the sense of being self-sufficient. We like to be independent. We like to have a sense that you know we kind of have things under control, but life isn't always like that. Is it and David was in a situation where the things that he wanted in the things they needed were outside of his control. He wasn't able to make it happen on his own and so he asks God he says lead me to the rock that is higher than I the rock being a place of refuge, a place of safety. Picture a cliff that is high above the valley were enemy forces are your up on this cliff and you're protected by the physical distance and the in the place of safety. Is there.

David says I can't get there on my own. What I need God.

I am not able to provide on my own and so with humility and with a sense of dependence. He comes to God and he says God take me and lead me to a rock that is higher than I am where I need to go is too far away for me to reach what what would comfort my soul is beyond my circumstances to accomplish the beloved one of the one of the keys to true spiritual growth.

I believe, is coming to recognize what David is presupposing here and that is is that you cannot always control your circumstances, you're not always in a position to be able to change that which would make things more comfortable for you. You cannot be the instrument of your own deliverance. You cannot be the source of your own safety. Your two week you're too vulnerable you're too impotent to do that and blood… Kinda step back here for a moment and stop for a moment and realized that, isn't it true that when you truly came to Christ want all of those principles in play at the moment of your conversion isn't conversion simply a statement.

God, I realize that I'm in a place of danger and alienation from you.

I am under judgment.

I am a guilty sinner before a holy God and isn't the isn't the principle that is it working conversion is an understatement. God, you must deliver me because I cannot deliver myself.

God I need you to show mercy to me that I cannot earn with the works of my own hands.

This principle of helplessness and dependence is woven into the very beginning of the Christian life. It's it's at the heart of conversion that that God I I have to come to you as a beggar I come to you as a sinner separated from you and unable to save myself. No one is a Christian who doesn't know something about appealing to God in that in that desperate humility and dependence that he would have mercy on you because you know that you can't do anything to save yourself. What you see in Psalm 61 is just a carryover that that that the things that animate that initial moment of conversion is the same thing that animates us later in spiritual life. When we find ourselves weak and separated and isolated and you come back. It brings you back to not to be saved again, but it brings you back to that that start position of dependence that says God I need your help and I am relying on you because I cannot do anything with power my own hands. You need help. That is beyond yourself.

You need God to lead you and those who would advance in spiritual life.

Those who would grow in their sanctification are those who will embrace that principle in humility rather than resist it in and pride say I don't want to confess my weakness well then. Now don't be surprised if God doesn't humble you further until you do. Point is for us to recognize our dependence on God and to live in a trusting sense of of of committal to him. And yes, it humbles you, but it promotes your spiritual growth. What you find in Psalm 61 is David, as we will see is David growing ever closer in and in increasing degrees of intimacy as he feels to God will beloved you in the sense you gonna have to make a choice about what you want and what you will embrace in life and when the humble circumstances, and you're not the tower strength that you once thought you were that others thought you were in your humble danger, reduced then him embrace that and enter into the spirit of Psalm 61 because that is what will promote your spiritual growth.

No one grow spiritually, who has a sense of self-sufficiency that is animating their life so we have to put that pride aside was you continuing the Psalm ultimately what you're going to see is that what David ultimately has in mind for for what his rock is it's it's God himself. God himself is the rock that he wants him to lead David to me saying God lead me to yourself as we'll see in verses three and four as David appeals in and states the basis for why he is praying and in his expectation for God's answer.

Look at verses three and four with me lead me to the rock that is higher than I for any goes on and he explains the basis of his prayer. Here in verses three and four, he says, for you have been a refuge for me. A tower of strength against the enemy. Let me dwell in your tent forever.

Let me take refuge in the shelter of your wings several different things are going on in these two verses that are all very sweet and very and very enriching for our first spiritualize for hearts to feed on.

First of all, David is saying is he as he says God lead me to the rock that is higher than I is as he states that is his prayer. Here I am faint, distant. You seem so far away.

God lead me to the rock that is higher than I and then he says for any goes in need. He unfolds the basis of of his prayer.

First of all he he says God you've been like this to me in the past you've been a refuge to me in the past and therefore based on the reality that the you've already dealt with me in this manner. In the past I have a confident expectation as I pray that you will do that again in the future.I'm just asking you to do what you've already done for me in the past am not asking for anything new, of course, you will answer this prayer. Of course I prevail upon you to do that which you've already shown yourself willing to do what that's wonderful, isn't it. Doesn't that strengthen your sense of approaching God in prayer. Can't you step back in your own spiritual life and realize urban times were God has strengthened you and help you when there was no way that you can help yourself.

Isn't that true is that true when you've you had loved ones on the brink of death and said God help my loved one. And God answered and and now you find yourself in a position of blessing once again. Isn't that a sweet place to be, well, as you grow and multiply those experiences over the course of your life. They become the grounds upon which you said God help me again.

Do what you did in the past. Do it for me again there's that growing sense of intimacy and trust that comes and starts to break the eye isolation when God seems far away and say no.

I remember I've been in this position before God help me, then he'll help me again. David is reasoning with God in that sense and uses for metaphors in these two verses and these are very interesting to us to look at and to watch look at look at these four metaphors. These word pictures of what he is asking for from God.

He says in verse three. You've been a refuge for me in the second half of verse three a tower of strength, a refuge, a tower verse four. He says let me dwell in your tent forever.

At the end of verse four. Let me take refuge in the shelter of your wings.

Look at these metaphors because a really key to the core. The Psalm here refuge tower of strength. A tent in wings what each of these pictures is doing is they are showing confidence in his God. They are picturing the way he is viewing the protective hand of God on his life there there pictures to explain a greater principle and invisible principle of what he wants God to be like to them and watch this with each of these metaphors, they become increasingly personal. Along the way. This is one of the highlights of Psalm 61, at least in my judgment, these metaphors are increasingly personal thing about refuge being like a high rock, a high rugged rock where your your safe from the enemy, but you're still kind of out and exposed, but at least your safe go on to the next metaphor that tower strength. That was the place of protection in a fortress on the city wall so your within the walls are within the protection of the city. Now closer than you were on the refuge on the high rock closer and more intimate with perhaps the people of God. There goes more from there he goes to to the tent, perhaps even referring to the very tabernacle in the wilderness where the presence of God was made known before the temple was built and so from the rock to the fortress to the tent and then to the most intimate place it all look look at the end of verse four. Here he says let me take refuge in in the shelter of your wings picturing the protective presence that young birds take under their caring mother where they are close where the mother is safe and there is that warmth and intimacy right under the wings of mother herself well David is saying God, where I ultimately want to be.

I want to be in that place of close, intimate fellowship with you where there is nothing between you and me. Where there is where there is no separation where as it were. I am I am right on your chest, even his disciple John leaned his head onto the chest of Jesus at the Last Supper that close intimacy.

So from a high rock to a city tower to attentive dwelling to the most intimate place.

David is saying God. What I want you to do. I want you to lead me right next to yourself.

You seem far away right now. God I want you to step by step-by-step bring me into that place of intimacy that we once enjoyed in the past and he says that's what I'm after here is not so much, not so much protection from the enemy that is visible here in Psalm 61 but it's that earnest desire for the intimate fellowship with his God, and so beloved.

Let's step back and just be a little bit personal here. Does God seem far away to come in estranged with sensitive so many problems that are just weighing down upon me so many different things that I'm thinking about and God seems like he's a million miles away will. How sweet to see in Scripture itself, a God inspired word through the pen of David telling you this is the way back to intimacy and rather than trying to fix all of your problems are weighing down on your mind set those aside and just say cot I can't fix this I I am not able to solve the problems that I face.

And here I am in my weakness.

I pray that you would take me and that she would lead me right into the center core fellowship with you and realize that in Psalm 61 you see the evidence of God delights to answer that prayer and so beloved in those times.

Stir yourself up to face. Don't collapse in your weakness.

Don't melt under the waiter under the heat of the you would kinda collapse under the weight of something you would melt under the heat of your trials trying to keep my own metaphor straight here.

Don't just melt there, stir yourself up and said God lead me, help me. I trust in you. I need you to lead me ever closer to you because I don't want to stay in this place. You seem so far away.

He ends this first section of four verses with the word cell law word that's designed to have a stop and pause and meditate on it to recognize that this is what God is like that God receives prayers of of tender bruised hearts in response to them with positive, loving, gracious answers. That's who God is, were supposed to stop and reflect on that that God is not a God who chastises us for the sense of distance is not a God who repudiates the prayers because we are weak, is precisely on the basis of our weakness that he receives us is precisely when the patient says I am sick that the doctor comes to heal.

Jesus said those that are well don't need a physician, not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. This is the whole principle on which God receives us. He told Paul he said my strength is perfected in your weakness.

Paul said that I'm content to be weak. If only the power of God would be perfected in me and my weakness. And so it turns all of our normal human thinking on its head that when we are weak, then we are strong.

And that's when we are weak that we call out to God in a way that he is pleased to answer. That's an encouragement for us to come to them and encouragement to trust him now as you move on into the second half of the song you find a call of confidence a call of confidence now, having prayed this way saying God lead me to the rock that is higher than I lead me all of the way into progressive steps of close intimacy with you now what you find in the second half of the Psalm is is David's confidence that God will indeed honor his prayer and his commitment.

Look at verse five. He says for because God I'm confident that you will let me take refuge in the shelter of your wings because you have heard my vows of God and you have given me the inheritance of those who fear your name and what you find here is David's confidence was was rooted in God's promises God had made a covenant with David back in second Samuel chapter 7, to give David life and to give David an enduring kingdom. A dynasty that would flow from his through his descendents, and that there would be men to sit on his throne in, and may we be like King David who placed his trust in God rather than in himself will friend if you'd like to hear this message again or you'd like to share it with a friend or loved one.

Just go to the truth. Pulpit.com also, feel free to post these teachings to your favorite social media page so that more people can hear about the good news of God's grace. Again, that's the truth. Pulpit.com hi Bill, right. Thanks for listening. See you next died on the truth. Pulpit teaching God's people got