Songs of Summer: Psalm 22

Well, good morning. Good morning. It was kind of sad to be away from you guys last week. I've not even been here that long, but I felt like I was already missing home. So it's great to be with you this morning.

My name's Josh. If we haven't met yet, I would love to meet you. I will do my best to remember your name. The number of names swimming in my head right now is pretty ridiculous. So great to be with you.

Today is week two of of our Songs of Summer series. Micah did a great job last week in Psalm 135. Absolutely, absolutely want to remind you that we do have a devotional that we've put together that we would love for you to take part in. So if you haven't gotten it already, no big deal, you can catch up or you can just start this week. They'll be on the tables.

On your way out. There'll be a family version and at Harbor Town at the dock, and then there'll be some at the information desk as well. We're trying to put them everywhere. We had, I was told about 400 of them picked up last week. That's fantastic.

And if you would like a digital version of it or you would also like to find a summer of our Songs of Summer playlist, you can visit this website here. Whitewatercrossing.org SongsOfSummer Huge shout out to Shannon Davis and our volunteer, volunteer front desk team who put this whole thing together. So thank you. Thank you.

So like I said, last week Micah was in Psalm 135 and he talked about the power of remembrance, the significance of remembrance, that we all have a history book with God. We all have stories in that book about how we have interacted with God and how God has interacted with us throughout our lives. Right. Some of us have a really positive history book with God. Some of us struggle deeply to maintain faith as we look at our history book with God because of all of the difficult things that we've been through.

Some of us have a very long book that's been written and some of us are writing chapter one right now, whatever that is. In addition to all of this, we can be confident that there is even more to a history book with God. As long as our book may be or as short as it may be. And that is the history book of scripture. The Bible is a much more robust and complete history book, isn't it?

More than anything we have in our own history book. And Micah said last week, remembering what God has done in the past Helps us to trust what he's going to do in the future. In fact, this theme of remembering is on repeat all throughout Scripture. If you look for it, you can see that there's this constant call to remember from the rainbow in the sky after the flood that served as a reminder that God will never again flood the entire earth. To the repeated call to Israel to remember that God brought them out of slavery in Egypt.

To remembering God's protection through the meal of the Passover, to the commandment to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Two weeks ago, we looked back at the story of Israel crossing over into the promised land in the pile of the twelve rocks. God said that this pile of stones was so that in the future, when young people asked, hey, why is there a pile of stones there? The older people could say, let me tell you the story of God's faithfulness. As he stopped the waters of the river and we crossed over on dry land, just like he had done when he split the sea and we crossed on dry land so that they would not forget.

God told the people to set up monuments like this. Remember, remember, remember. There's also this phrase on repeat all throughout Scripture. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You've probably heard this plenty of times.

This phrase is super short, but it carries with it over 400 years and multiple generations of God's faithfulness to his people, taking care of them through trial and difficulty and hardship, but also through blessing in times of rich abundance. And the theme of remembrance isn't just for the Old Testament. The New Testament quotes directly the old testament over 300 times and indirectly references the Old Testament over a third thousand times. Paul, through his letters to the early Christian churches, he calls them, hey, don't forget what you've been taught. Remember what matters most.

Do not get lost in the prevailing wind of the age. Sounds like something that we could all read today, right? And of course, the most poignant moment of remembrance in the New Testament is from Jesus himself as he shares the Last Supper with his disciples. And he says, each time you come together, and then us, each time you come together, remember the sacrifice that I've made for you. This is why we do this every week, to remember.

So why is there this constant call to remember? Well, I think forgetting is like the Achilles heel of humanity. It seems to be programmed into our DNA that we're forgetful, isn't it? I think that it's true for all of us that often the difficulty of our situation tends to take our eyes off of God and cause us to forget that he is our source, forget what he has already done. But it isn't just true of when things are going poorly.

It's also true when things are going really well, isn't it? You might remember a few weeks back on family dedication Sunday, we read from Deuteronomy 6. And this is Moses talking to the people before they go into the promised land. He says, hey guys, things are about to get way easier and way better. But don't forget Deuteronomy 6, starting in verse 10.

And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, into Jacob, there's that phrase to give you with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant. And when you eat and are full, when things are good, then take care, lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Take care, lest you forget the Lord. You know, I have to make myself remember the first few years that Heidi and I were married. The very first year Heidi and I were married, we had just about $0.

Heidi was in a master's program and doing her teaching and practicum full time. I was in the very lucrative business of waiting tables to make ends meet. And I would open the restaurant in the morning and then work a full eight hour shift. And I remember one day I've worked that full eight hour shift and I was so rich I walked out with $15 in my hand. Yeah, I don't want to brag, but $15.

And here's what life looked like really for us in that moment. Here's what life looked like. I would look at that $15 and I thought to myself, I have to get to the gas station to put just enough gas in the truck to get back to work tomorrow. Because I had to do the same thing yesterday. And then I'm gonna go into the grocery store and I'm going to carefully do all the math and put things in and take things back out and put things in and take things back out to make sure that I've got just enough money to get groceries so that we can eat tonight and have some breakfast so that I can get back to the restaurant and make another 15 bucks tomorrow.

Right? I didn't. I just had to. I had to live in a very different way. And the truth is, today I just take all that for granted.

I pull up to the gas pump, I put the thing in, let it run till it clicks. I don't even pay attention to how much it was. I put the gas thing away. I go to the grocery store and I'm like, doritos, I would like to have Doritos. I put them in my cart.

I get surprised at how much the amount is when I get to the end of the day, right? And I completely take it for granted that, that my life used to be much more complex than that. And then I have an outrageously blessed life that I can even do those things, let alone go on vacation or whatever else we get, right? We forget. We completely forget.

But why is forgetfulness such a big deal? Why does it matter that much? Why does the Bible call us over and over and over to remember? It isn't just so that we'll constantly view God as our source. It certainly is at least that that.

But there's something much more dangerous happening in our forgetfulness. Don't miss this. Satan knows that we all have this tendency toward forgetfulness. He is constantly working to exploit this weakness in us. In good times he's wanting us to forget and believe that we are the ones who made this happen.

And in bad times he's trying to leverage our forgetfulness against us to try to get us to believe that God is holding out on us. Maybe he's abandoned us altogether. But the Bible teaches that there is a way for us to combat this forgetfulness and the lies and the deception of Satan. It is to do what Moses called the Israelites to do. It is to do exactly what Jesus did.

If you remember when he was tempted by by Satan in the desert when he was fasting, Remember. Remember who God is. Remember what God has done. Remember that he is the source. And what is our path to remembrance?

It's scripture. It's scripture. The Bible is what we use as our weapon to combat the lies with truth. The Bible is the antidote to our forgetfulness. So today we're going to look back at one of my all time favorite psalms.

It's a psalm that God's people have been singing as a psalm of remembrance for thousands of years. In fact, we're going to look back and see how Jesus himself used this psalm to remember God's faithfulness in the middle of the most significantly terrible moment in his life. You may have never thought about this, but since Jesus was a Jew, he would have grown up memorizing scripture. He would have grown up singing the psalms in worship in the synagogue, as they would work, as they would walk, everywhere they went, as they would go on long journeys. The Psalms that we read in our Bibles would have been very familiar to Jesus, just like many of us who grew up in the church could recall any number of old hymns or worship songs we've sung over the years.

Or for that matter, all the lyrics we used to love to listen to in high school, Right? In fact, very few of you will remember any point that I made in this sermon two years from now. But if I started singing one of those songs you SANG in church 20 years ago, you would be able to finish it, right? If I started singing or humming the line to the song you used to blast with your windows down when you were 18, you wouldn't have any trouble remembering that for Jesus, the Psalms would have been like that, like deeply formed monuments and memories from his childhood. Melodies and words that could be recalled in a moment.

And the Bible records that Jesus actually drew from his memory of Psalms in the darkest moment of his life through the words of Psalm 22. Now, a little backstory of Psalm 22. Psalm 22 was written by King David. King David was a songwriter and a poet. He's actually attributed with writing 73 of the 150 Psalms.

David was one of the great kings of Israel. But I think it's important for us to note that his life was certainly not without difficulty and challenge. In fact, his life was filled with lots of challenges and difficulties. When David was 15, he was anointed king by God through Samuel. But he was not established as king for another 15 years.

He spent a quarter of his life waiting on the promise that God had made to him. David was the youngest of his brothers, so that meant he was the shepherd. This was a lowly, dirty job. But as shepherd, he experienced something that would prepare him for the future on at least two different occasions. We find out later that David was confronted with fighting a lion once and a bear once to rescue the sheep.

I'll ask the question that I asked from a few weeks ago. Does this sound good or does this sound bad? As tough as I might think that I am, being faced with fighting a lion or a bear sounds nothing but all kinds of bad to me, right? But this is exactly the experience that David draws on later as he faces a giant Goliath and he kills him with a stone and a sling. In fact, he looked back on God's faithfulness in delivering him from the lion and the bear, and he leveraged his confidence that God would deliver him from Goliath.

Here's what he says in 1 Samuel 17. He says, the Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine. I've seen this before. I know how this ends. My God is faithful.

David's confidence in facing Goliath was that he had seen God provide before and he knew that God would provide again. I got to pause here and I got to say to any of you that feel like you're in a season, that feels like God might have been good before, but but somehow has forgotten about you, do not allow your circumstances to form your view of God. Do not be an easy target for the enemy. Who knows what strength and confidence and faithfulness God is building up in you in this very moment that he plans to unleash in the future for his glory. And notice that killing Goliath wasn't the end of David's prayer trials and difficulty.

David was later a fugitive. He was on the run from King Saul, who wanted to kill him multiple times. And as he ran and hid, he was in a desert land. He experienced starvation. He experienced what it was like to really be dehydrated and be thirsty.

David dealt with the pain and the sorrow of his own sin and the loss of a child because of that same sin. He dealt with the terrible heartbreak of his granddaughter being raped by her own uncle. He grieved as one of his sons was murdered by another one of his sons. And later on, Absalom, his third son, formed a coup to take over the throne. And he was successful for a period of time.

He chased David down to kill him. And then later Absalom was killed. And David went through this terrible grief of losing the throne to his son who wanted to kill him, and then losing his son. I say all this to get us to understand that David was a man who truly understood great pain, loss, suffering and difficulty. These extreme situations gave him rich words of poetry to Write in Psalm 22, words that would connect with readers for thousands of years.

He didn't know that. And it was in one of these moments of deep sorrow, suffering and grief that he wrote Psalm 22. Several years ago, as I was reading through the Psalms, I came to the opening line of Psalm 22. And it really. It almost took my breath away.

These are words that I had heard before. These are words that Jesus spoke a thousand years after David wrote them. You might recognize them. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me until I had this moment of Clarity. In reading Psalm 22, I always struggled with those words from Jesus.

Was Jesus really struggling? Did he really believe that God had forsaken him? Was his faith weak in this moment? I don't think that's what was happening at all. I think that Jesus, in the very darkest and most difficult moment of his life on this earth, wasn't wavering.

I think that Jesus was declaring that the same God who delivered David from the bear and the lion and the giant and the loss and the sorrow and the pain and the difficulty a thousand years previously was the same God who was with him as he hung on the cross. As Jesus hung on the cross, suffering and dying an agonizing death, he was remembering and reciting, maybe even singing, the words of Psalm 22, words that would have been taught to him by his parents, words he would have sung in his childhood, words that were always there in his heart, waiting and ready to be deployed in this moment, words that maybe he begrudgingly memorized as a kid to be a good Jew. These words were the words that he recalled. These are the words that he spoke to bring him encouragement, to bring him strength, to bring him power to endure the cross. It was by way of remembrance that Jesus even had these words.

It was only by way of remembrance that Jesus could keep a strong grip on the truth of God's faithfulness, even as he was being mocked, beaten and crucified. And again, these words were written by King David one thousand years before the moment that Jesus would speak them on the cross. David had no clue that his brokenness, his sorrow, his pain would one day be spoken as an anchor and a reminder to the Messiah himself as he hung on the cross. That is awesome. That's awesome.

And it shows us the deep significance in the explosive power of remembrance. So I want us to read Psalm 22, and as we do, I want us to imagine these two moments in time a thousand years apart. David, in whatever this difficulty was that he was experiencing, using hyperbole and speaking poetically to express his angst and difficulty in Jesus hanging on the cross, recalling these words from his youth.

And notice as we read Psalm 22, that David and Jesus, brutally honest with their struggle. And notice how unbelievably descriptive David's words are for exactly what Jesus is experiencing. And then notice the multiple flip flops, the struggle of now and what I'm experiencing and what I know to be true and back to now and what I'm experiencing and what I know to be true, looking back, becomes the weapon used against the Accusations and the lies of the enemy. Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer by night. But I find no rest in this beautiful word. Yet here's the turning. Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One.

I know who you are. You are the one Israel praises. In you our ancestors put their trust. I'm looking back. They trusted you and you delivered them to you.

They cried out and were saved. In you they trusted and were not put to shame. And then we flip again. But I am a worm and not a man. Scorned by everyone, despised by the people.

All who see me mock me. They hurl insults, shaking their heads. He trusts in the Lord, they say. Let the Lord rescue him, let him deliver him, since he delights in him in a flip. Yet.

Yet you brought me out of the womb. You made me trust in you, even at my mother's breast. You've been with me from birth. From birth I was cast on you. From my mother's womb.

You have been my God. Then he goes into a longer trial and difficulty. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there's no one to help. Many bulls surround me. Strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.

Bashan was a region that got lots more rain than all the other regions, and so it was very lush, and the cattle there were fat and thick. And so he's saying, these big fat bulls of Bashan encircle me. Roaring lions that tear their prey open their mouths wide against me. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax.

It has melted within me. My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, which is just a dry, broken piece of pottery. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death. Dogs surround me.

A pack of villains encircles me. They pierce my hands and my feet. All my bones are on display. People stare and gloat over me. They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.

What an incredible prophecy from David about what Jesus would experience on the cross. When you compare this with the Gospels, it is so closely aligned, it's incredible. Again, David had no clue that his own hyperbole was for his situation would be exactly what Jesus would be experiencing. And then, just at the climax of despair, comes the climax of remembrance. Verse 19.

But you, Lord, do not Be far from me. You are my strength. Come quickly to help me. Deliver me from the sword, my. My precious life.

From the power of the dogs. Rescue me from the mouth of the lions. Save me from the horns of the wild oxen. I will declare your name to my people in the assembly. I will praise you.

Remember David and Jesus proclaiming these words. You who fear the Lord, praise him hanging on the cross, declaring Israel, Praise the Lord. All you descendants of Jacob, honor him, revere him, all you descendants of Israel. For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one. He has not hidden his face from him, but has listened to his cry for help.

From you comes the theme of my praise. In the great assembly, before those who fear you, I will fulfill my vows. This changes everything in the way that we hear the words of of Jesus from the cross. Jesus was worshiping as he hung on the cross. He wasn't wallowing in sorrow and lack of faith.

He was declaring to Satan, you have not won. You are not my source. And no matter how dark and difficult and terrible my situation is right now, the same God who delivered David in his time of struggle is the same God who will deliver me now.

And in their difficulty, both David and Jesus said, before the sun rises, before the pain fades, before my physical body ever experiences relief, even before I can see things get better, I will declare the praises of my God for what he has done, for what he is doing that I cannot see, and for what I am confident that he will do.

And even more, they say we'll read for what he will do for those who have not yet been born. The poor will eat and be satisfied. Those who seek the Lord will praise Him. May your hearts live forever. All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord.

And all the families of the nations who will will bow down before Him. For dominion belongs to the Lord and He rules over the nations. All the rich of the earth will feast and worship. All who go down to the dust will kneel before him. Those who cannot keep themselves alive, listen to this.

Posterity will serve him. Future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn in he has done it or it is finished.

What an explosive reality that God would be so patient and so deliberate to leverage David's struggle from more than 3,000 years ago to be an anchor of remembrance for Jesus more than 2,000 thousand years ago, and then be a rich blessing for us today. That's amazing. Praise God. For that church. This is the very same God that we worship and serve.

It is the very same God that we have given our lives to. But if we never take the time to be in the Word to read this rich history of his faithfulness, then all Satan has to do is whisper a lie into our ears and then we are sunk. It is the Word that is the antidote to our forgetfulness. It is the Word that is the weapon we can use to combat the lies of the enemy. But here's the brutal truth.

You cannot remember what you do not already know. Let me say that again. We cannot remember what we do not already know. So what do we do about it? What do we do about it?

Well, I want to help provide a super easy and practical resource for all of us today. And then I want to give us a challenge as we close. The resource is simple. It's a half sheet of paper. They're at the exits on your way out.

It's a simple list of scriptures that I've just entitled Weapons of Remembrance. These are verses that are for when you feel angry or hurt or sad or left behind or depressed or whatever else. And whether you have this on your fridge or your bedside table or you got a picture of it on your phone, my encouragement is to you that when you start to feel one of those words on there, you'll grab that scripture and you will proclaim it out loud against the enemy. You'll pull it out and read the scripture as a weapon of remembrance. If you find yourself headed to the same verse a few times, then I want to encourage you to memorize it so that it's there, it's in you, just like it was in Jesus.

That's the resource. Here's the challenge. I want to challenge all of us to make a decision to be in the Word every day of our lives during two super significant times. The very first thing before you get out of bed in the morning, that is the first thing that goes into your head. And the very last thing before you turn off the light and go to bed at night.

It's the last thing into your head.

A super simple way we can do this is through the device that you all have on your nightstand already. Your smartphone, right? Might as well leverage it for something good. If you haven't downloaded the YouVersion Bible app, there are lots of others. This is a really simple one.

Super popular. It's got a verse of the day. So pick it up in the morning. Your alarm goes off. Do nothing else.

Grab that. Just read the verse of the day. Just start with that. And before you turn off the light at night, pull it back up. Read the verse of the day.

You want to go one step further. They've got a whole devotion that goes with it. They got a prayer that goes with it. Spend a little more time in it. You want to go one more step.

Step. You want to become a real boy? Put your real Bible right next to your bedside table and pick that up and read a chapter in the morning. Just read a chapter in the morning. Then before you go to bed, read that same chapter and just ask the Holy Spirit to put it in you.

I believe that this will change us. And some days it will feel exciting, and some days you will wonder why it mattered at all. But we must trust that God's doing things that we cannot see.

It's powerful. The Word is powerful. And the Word works on us even when we don't see it, even when we don't feel it. So will you join me in this challenge? This is like, the easiest thing you can do.

I'm going to publicly shame you right now if you do not take part in this challenge. It's the easiest thing you can do. Read one scripture when you get up, one scripture when you go to bed. This whole message has been looking at how Jesus found comfort in the words of Psalm 22 as he hung on the cross. Even in his agony, his torture, his death, he kept his eyes fixed on not even just his history book, but David's history book of God's faithfulness.

He found hope in who God is, in God's faithfulness in the past. And he calls us in Scripture to remember his sacrifice, too. He showed us this beautiful example of what it looks like to be the one who is remembering, and then he calls us to be the ones who remember.