Psalm 42 is gonna be our text today. Read that now. Psalm 42 to the choir master, a mask of the sons of Ko. As a dear pants for flowing streams, soul pants my soul for you. Oh god. My soul first for god for the living God. When shall they come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night All they say to me all the day long, where is your god? These things I remember is I pour out my soul how I would go with a t and lead them into procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise and multitude keeping festival. Why are you cast down oh my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope God for I shall, again, praise in my salvation and my god. My soul is cast down within me. Therefore, I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Herman from Mount M, deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers in your ways have gone over me By day, the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night, his song is with me a prayer to the god of my life. I say to God my rock. Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go morning because of the oppression of the enemy As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries haunt me. While they say to me all the day long, where is your God? Why are you cast down oh my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Open God, fry shall, again praise him, my salvation and my god. This is the word of lord. Father, I ask now as we continue in our worship here this morning, It's we return now to your written word given to us for all times sake. I asked that your word would do its intended effect that it would penetrate our hearts. That you would settle our anxious thoughts now, the murmur, the to dos, the things that we have going on after service maybe, wherever minds might be, may you just give us a sense of stillness now, and I ask that you would stir in us our affection of faith that we make come to know you even more. You have something for us here today. I'm convinced of that. So lead us, open our hearts Remove the distractions help us to hear what it is you want us to hear. For your glory, ask these things. Amen. My name is Dan Sp. I'm 1 of the pastors on staff here. And as you just heard Red Psalm 42 as our text today as we continue in our summer series, looking at various psalms. And because of the song that we're in today, I wanna do just a really quick overview, very brief kind of introduction here before we get into the text and my heart as a pastor for you all is that when you leave here and you read your bible and you and you see things, you have a understanding of what these things are. So you don't just gloss over things Mean the, that doesn't matter. It's there. It matters. So just a quick over quick, really quick overview, probably unjust in some ways. First, just a quick note about to structure the book of psalms. There's 5 books, kind of like sub books that make up the whole collection of the book of psalms. And I won't get into all that today. I just wanted to call it out because when you come to Psalm 42, If you look in your bible just above it, it says book 2. And you might be wondering that's weird. Why does it say that? Well, there's 5 books in the book of Psalms. That's how when they put them together, that's kind of like the breakdown that they did, the... When they pile, compiled this collection of poetry. In psalm 42 is a start of book too. At at the end of each of the book, there's actually a do that comes right before you know, the the next book. So in in Psalm 41, at the end of the psalm, we read gillespie be the Lord, the God of Israel from ever last to ever lasting amen and amen. Now this is just 1 example at the end of each book There's other docs. He'll say a about the same thing. This is probably 1 of the shorter of them, but but that's how each book ends. So there you go, 5 books. And And also by way of structure too you, this the song kicks off kind of like as some scholars, they look at different collections within the within the book of psalms, so that's another way kinda break the psalms down. This is the el he psa, psalms 42 to 83. And you're like, what did you just say? Yep. I actually was like, can I say this word? El is where the root of that word. It... It's translated God and are in bible. That's the divine name. So this kind of collection uses that word a lot. So that's why they say like, oh, that's interesting. This word this this hebrew word keeps repeating. There's different ways we can refer to God and this is the word that they use. Now, I I take a moment to explain that because in our bible today. I'm sorry. In our in our psalm today, the author not only uses this el word, God, you know, several times throughout. But but on 1 occurrence, He actually pivot and he uses the word y. And you know you'll note that in your bible. It says the Lord, small caps, Y, that's the covenant name of God. When you hear that name, it's it's reminder of the covenant, and when you're reading, and you see things like that. I wanna just encourage you, always, like, slow down and just pause for a moment like that's interesting. I wonder why he just did that. And we're gonna look into that in a in a few minutes. The second thing to note by way of introduction, is that according to first chronicles, the Sons of Quo, who he he just heard in that title. The Sons of Ko, we're were temple keepers and and temple singers. During the rains of David and solomon. So if you're wondering, like, oh, that's interesting. Said sons of cor who are they. That's who there. They're in the temple with David, and solomon. Numbers 26 has them listed as 1 of the 5 major levi families, the core heights, and 1 comment adds that they were the door keepers and singers and performed more men chores. But they're they're serving in the temple as as the invites in the time of David and Solomon. The third thing to note 2 kind of still in that same title area is a... Is this word mask. This is a a term that you'll see some of the different psalms also have this as well. This isn't the only 1. And scholars believe that that map that mask was meant to be an artistic or teaching song. Some of you might have that footnote. It's a lit word, that's what Mask is. So as we come to these psalms, as note that that's what the scholars belief. That is the... Use of that word. Again, really quick overview, but these are words that you're seeing in your bible, and I want to inform you as you read your bible. And lastly, and and the most important thing, by way of overview and introduction, it's important to note that Psalms are incredibly artistic and use different literary devices to communicate. You see psalms are scripture that are meant to be sung. They're they're actually their poetry. That's their form. And and in this song you'll see the use of a parallel structure, for example, as we work through the text. There's this lament that happens in versus 1 through 4 and then we get the refrain. And then this lament that happens in versus 6 through 10. And then we get this refrain again. And if you connect psalm 42 and 43, some scholars do that in some ancient manuscripts, they kind of appear as 1 full lament, other places. They're they're different. So we'll treat them differently here today. But if you were to connect them, that pattern continues. There's a lament, and then the same refrain. So lament reframe, reframe. Like... So there's there's a pattern. There's a reason why the author of the Psalm would do that. It invites us in. Psalm 42 also uses emotional language to help us draw truth and to make its point. That might make you uncomfortable. That's my home. I love it. I'm very thankful for emotion language. I'm very thankful for the psalms. In 1 place in verse 2, it uses gapping in, like, this repetition technique, which is which is meant to slow us down and and kinda of the fill in the blank. There's a gaps, Like what's what's missing in this gap? What do we do here? We see this in verse 2. It says my soul thirst for God for the living God. Now we would, you know, if we were to kind of dissect it, we would say, my soul thirst for God kind of my soul thirst for the living God. You see that There's like, a repetition. There's a we're meant to fill in that blank. And notice it goes from God to the living God. Like, there's as there's this heighten, like, they're intensifying that's taking place. This technique is intentional and draws out deeper meaning and feeling from the text and and by the way, it's okay to feel these texts. I want you to know that. These this is emotional. These these are psalms to enter into with a sense of emotion. In fact, they're intended to to do just that. Psalm speak to every range of human emotion and experience and And I said they're they're they're like, a form of poetry. They're they're meant to, like, evo something inside of you. When you see them, you're not just meant to just read them flat, And if you if you take a look at our Psalms artwork, Jeremy, if you could put that back up again, the the psalms where it says Psalms and and the artwork. You could look at it, and you could be like, oh, wow. That's just like, a real, like, a bunch of colors isn't that neat and move on, or you can maybe sit with it for a little while and be like, wow, that's that's really interesting. Look at the look at the movement that I see in there. Look at the... Are those colors coming together are those colors kind of coming apart. Like, there's depth there. Like, what... Like, what's... There's something that is invoking something inside of us? Like, stirring us inside of us, and that's what psalms do. And the aim of the psalms is to stir a sense of wonder and odd who god is. As the author's pen these words as the collectors put these psalms together. That's what it was. It was all about going back to the covenant that we have with our heavenly father. To quote my per my seminary professor, you can approach psalms like an engineer, you have to be an artist. There's beauty in these words and in this structure that's meant to stir and en live in a sense of awe and wonder. This is what the psalms do. And my hope is for all of us today, wherever you are in your spiritual journey, My hope is that this particular psalm does just that stir this sense of awe and wonder of god. What we see in this psalm and psalm 42 is to follow Jesus is to have our souls san daily. Let me repeat that. To follow Jesus is to have our souls daily to have the holy spirit chipping away at you every moment of everyday, drawing you into this holy, relationship with our heavenly father, making you more like him, nothing is neutral. Every moment forms you from 1 glory, or to another, and we see in our text that this is what the Psalm is dealing with on a real level. Start to trade off. Verse 1. Says as a dear pants for flowing streams of water, so pants my soul for you oh god, as a deer pants. So when does a deer pants? Well, a deer pants when he's par desperate for water, maybe at the end of the day or during, like, the hot moments of the day during the heat, the deer might be pant for water or a dear pants when he's being chased. When the hunters are coming after him minute and he's on a run. He's he's running for its life, and he's tired. Both are relevant in this psalm. This is a psalm, a lament of a dry parts soul 1 who has for 1 reason or another allowed his soul to run dry on the lord. And this psalm also speaks to the troubles of the world pricing in on the psalm is causing the worthiness of the soul. Both are true. So we have to do some work here. If our souls are being san being made new every day as we walk with the Lord, then we have to ask there's 3 questions. What is the soul and why do we care? To? How is it being san and 3, how do we quench the thirst of our soul? So let's jump right in. What is the soul and why do we care? The soul is the intimate part of your person hood that is knit together with the lord. It's not separate from your body, you are 1 continuous person, body and soul. 1. When it comes to Understanding the soul and caring for our soul, Dallas Willard is is 1 of the leading scholars here, though, he's not he's not the only 1. Richard Foster and is another 1 that comes in my mind. But I've... But I have 2 quotes from Willard to help us. He nuances a little differently in both of So in the first quote, this is what Willard said. He says soul is here to find as the hidden or spiritual side of the person. It includes an individual's thoughts and feelings, along with heart or will. With its intents and choices. It also includes an individual's body, bodily life and social relations, which and their inner meaning in nature are just as hidden as the thoughts and feelings. Now that might be a bit much to take in. And and his second quote, maybe just a shorter summary, Nuance a little differently though. He says in renovation of the heart, he says, the soul is that aspect of your whole being that correlates, integrates and en live, everything going on in the various dimensions of the self. That's what your soul is. In that same place, I didn't add it in the quote here. The the very next words in his... In this book he said the soul is the life center of the human being. For believers, the soul is that hidden deep Wells spring of ourself that is ultimately united with Christ. It's where we are bound up and caught up in our life with Christ. Where we become 1 with Christ. We say it become 1 with Jesus. That happens at the soul level. And it's an act of the father's calling, the son redeeming and reconciling us to the father and the holy spirit live our faith response. But it's incredibly important to note that our body is connected with our soul. As Willard highlights. This is where we can get to the dangerous grounds, and I wanna tread cautiously here. You're not just a soul and separate body in your body doesn't matter. Right? If you've seen Disney's or a Pixar movie called soul, it's a very dangerous movie. It's not good theology. We're not just a bunch of souls kind of roaming about looking for containers to fill. Like, that's not what we are. Though, to be fair to Disney, we probably shouldn't go to Disney for our theology. I know some of you probably seen that movie, and you might be wanting to call, that's interesting. No. It's not. Stop. I wanna start with an understanding of our soul because of the implications for this psalm and for your own spiritual formation. In your life. What goes on in and to our body has an impact on our soul, and thus, our spiritual health and this is true by the way, for believers or un believers. This isn't just a, you know, Christian moment here. The health of your soul will have an impact on your body. Our physical abilities, our emotions, how we live the choices we make and so on And this is what it at stake here in this song. There's a disruption in this psalm is soul. Mean, he uses the word many times throughout this song. That's causing a disruption in his relationship with God? Why are you cast down oh my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? And he pens these words as a as a personal lament himself. This is a lament. This is unlike other lament in the altar. This is this is a little different. This is like a personal lament. He's coaching himself as he calls out to God and notice God never responds. There's never a... And the Lord said, or there's never any quotes like, you know, in God, you know, kind of giving God an attribution to these words, nothing. As as if we're entering someone's personal journal and honestly, we're better off for it. We see in in in the versus 1 through 4, we get a we get a portrait of his soul. Right? It says, his soul, his core sense of self is thirst for god and what's worse is that instead of having God to quench thirst, his tears had been his thirst quench, day and night. He feels far from God. When shall I come and appear before God? When will you reveal yourself to me in a way that I can comprehend in, like, a deep way People are questioning and challenging my faith. Where is your god? You hear that twice in the song being haunted. Where is your god? He remembers when he used to lead people to worship. He used to lead people and like the worship, the the different times of year that we go to the jerusalem in worship. I was 1 of those leaders, but not anymore. I'm not able to worship anymore. And later, he extends his description, he feels forgotten by God. He asked why do I go on morning because of the oppression of the enemy and he says that he's being tormented as if my bones have a wound in them. It's amazing rounds, we can cover in this poet poetic language that would take pages to write in other words. My bones have a deadly wound in them. From within his soul is parts, void of God from without his soul is tormented by his environment. You see our bodies, and our souls are connected. They're not separate. What we do with our bodies and forms our soul care and soul health, and our soul health influences our body, as well. A par tired dry sole will find something to soak up. It's like a dry bunch just looking for something to kind of fill it. The psalm speaks to himself here. Why Are you cast down oh my soul? It's a self evaluation? It's a it's a self diagnosis. It's like, why are you cast down all my soul? Perhaps all of us should do some self diagnosis as well. You see, as I keep saying, all of life is transformational You can't just watch a Tv show and not be formed in some way. All of life is transformational from 1 degree or to another. Everything matters. Our spiritual lives are constantly being formed in shaped by the circumstances we're in. Your physical reality matters, working out, sleeping, taking care of your body. The Tv shows you watch are the Youtube channels that maybe you just mindless stream nonstop and and they quantity of these things that you're taking in, your relationship with others and and the way that you are in relationship with others. Do you cross the line with your boyfriend or girlfriend or even your fiance, Fiance, not wife for or husband. You're not there yet. Or even what we allow ourselves to take part in to consume to to drink to eat to ingest in any form at all. That matters. Your emotional reality matters, what boundaries we put on our emotions. Do you have healthy boundaries and patience of people? Do we stunt our emotions? Do we over express our emotions? Do we grieve well and do we grieve with others well? When is the last time you allowed yourself to have a good cry? Your mental reality matters, the lies we tell ourselves, the the books we consume, our media feeds, we allowed to shape our thoughts What is your thought life like? Do you check your thoughts or challenge your thoughts? Your your spiritual reality matters, tending to your relationship with God, participating in Christ centered relationships with others, allowing yourselves space to to wander and wonder with God. And do you ever just allow yourself to approach God in general with a sense of, like, wonder and awe. It's beautiful. All of these are formative moments, nothing is neutral. We see this clear the galatians 5. The works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit, both are at work us. Both are at work on us, both are pulling us both are informing the health of our soul and our relationship with God. And this is where we find our psalm, doing this self evaluation, lament the state he's in. He's in a real hard place and his all is unsettled. But notice, god, who not speaking is still at work? So then our second point, how is your soul san? As you press in the psalm 42, what you'll find that it's actually a portrait of Christian life at large. Something we can all relate to. As there's mowing my lawn a few weeks back by about 2 weeks ago now. After another stressful point, something happened. In the midst of life, stress just in general with 0 margin. I mean, there's, like, no breathing room right now. There's no time for stressful things to happen, which led to a minor breakdown from a depleted soul a aka, I was angry. As I'm mowing my lawn, I'm reflecting on Psalm 42, and I had this, like, massive Aha moment. This psalm is a portrait of the Christian life. As you walk through the psalm, you'll notice that there's is, like, up and down movement throughout the somme. He he pivot from low points in life to these high points of faith and then back down again and then back up again. And honestly, the more that I talk to others, the more that I see that this is true of life for many of us or for all of us, honestly, And the faster you come to that realization, the better off you will be. It doesn't go away, but it's a good thing to just kind of come into recognition of. Take a look at the pattern throughout this psalm. Low. My my soul thirst for God. My tears have been my food. They say to me where is your god. And then this high point. I remember when I used to lead people to come in worship God with shouts madness and joy, and then we get this refrain. Why are you cast down, Hope God, my savior. And then low. My soul is cast down. And then hi. I remember you across all my wandering and then low. All your breakers have crashed over me and then I remember your steadfast love, and your song is with me and then low, why have you forgotten me? Why do I go on morning? And then even lower deadly wound in my bones, My avi adversaries are taunting me, and then we get this refrain again. Why are you cast down? Hoping God? If you do connect 42 and 43 together, as I said, some scholars do, this pattern continues. It goes right back to high vin neo o God, the defending me, you're to God and who I take refuge. Low, why you've rejected me, High. Send out your lights. You're you're at my God, my exceeding joy, and then the refrain again. You see this is a picture of god at work in and on us. San us. This is what it means to live and breathe as a accretion. And I wish I was here to tell you, don't worry. It gets better. It's gonna go away just... I can't do that. The more people I talk to that are older and wiser me, the the more that they confirm that, yes, this is this is life. And we need it. Frankly, If you've accepted Jesus at your Lord and Savior, you will walk this life. There will be this battle that goes on between your body and your soul between truth and lies between sin and wholeness is between external circumstances and internal realities between temporal and and what is seen and eternal and what is not seen. There's always gonna be this tension to walk as a christian is to live and that tension. This is why Paul said that the law didn't set him free. The minute that he was made aware of the law is like Sin came a lot I've inside of him, like, look at all these rules I can break. He felt this tension. This psalm is a psalm of salvation. Or better of san vacation. Now the hope is that you're actually being san as you live and as you walk with jesus, that you do heed god's work in your life and on your life. Making you more and more like him that you pay attention to how God is at work because you will face enemies of all kinds. Tangible and intangible. You will feel that god has abandoned you at times. You will have these deep moments of intimacy with God at times. You will know truth about God. You will forget truth about God. You will have ups and downs you will have seasons in life some shorter and some longer. And let me just emphasize that. When I say times, I'm not saying, like, 5 minutes. Like, Joseph was 17 when his brother sold them into say its slavery, and he was 30 when they came back. That's 13 years. But over time, the tumultuous line of your souls response will start to flatten out and you'll start to approach a type of steadfast with god. You'll find the s and integral living that comes from living a life of faith in a long direction. And I know some of you are there. I had the joy of getting to hear some of your stories. I'm amazed at the stories of faith, in light of some of the hardest situations, cancer diagnoses. And yet the way that people just continue forward and other just hardships What I'm not saying is that there are people in here that that don't have any problems or cares in a world. Nobody has this kind of, like, fake, like, perfect life, whatever you think that might be. All of our souls are constantly being formed to 1 degree or to another. God is that work on us, san us, all of us every day. And let me just add, we sin full and perfect people want that. In fact, we need that. Let me show you what this looks like in the psalm versus 6 through 8 are some incredibly profound versus in the psalm. I won't say in the whole Bible of maybe in the Bible. They're they're they're deep. These are some deep words his brother pens here. They can lead to a lack of clarity. I'm not sure Have a full graphs on them. I mean, this poetry. Right? So I wanna give you my best guess as to what the Psalm is saying here. We see in verse 6 after talking about having a soul that is cast down or a soul that is depressed. You can use that word here. My soul is depressed. The psalm calls upon his memory of god immediately. Says, my soul is cast down within within me. Therefore, I remember you. First 6. Verse 7, he says, deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls, all your breakers and your waves have gone over me. Immediately after this, he then uses this covenant language. Right? What I called you to in the beginning, pay attention to. Calling upon y, the Lord. He uses a different word for God here. The small caps, the Lord, not God or el, and he also calls upon God's he. His steadfast love, another covenant term. So between this depressed soul that remembers God and this soul that is remembers god's un covenant between these 2. Remembrance is stands verse 7. Deep calls to deep. All of your breakers in your waves have gone over me. I've been sitting with these for a while. These versus for a while, and here's the best that I got. When he says deep, calls to deep and light of the context of this song, I think he's continuing this remembrance idea with his relationship with God. So deep, y God calls to deep my soul. So we can say you lord, call to my soul. And in a relationship with God, the inverse is true, my soul calls to you god, deep calls to deep. My soul is permanently knit to you God in the hidden deepest parts. In the place where no 1 can ultimately touch our harm It is where you and I are knit together in a covenant of, steadfast, love, persistent, love, continual love, steady un shaking, unwavering love from the father. It's where I call out to you and you answer me. It's where you speak to me in a covenant with the God of my life. And this is where it gets hard. Because it says, in that same place, your waves, and your breakers go over me. But for my good, they hit me externally but they have this internal and in internal consequence. It's the san defined process. These are god's waves and breakers wave after wave. I'm hit, and it is suffocating. And my enemies are taunting me as well, my enemies are causing even more turmoil to my soul and yet, your steadfast love. Your covenant love. Your he is over me by day and your song is with me by night. These 2 verses go hand in hands. God's breakers are crashing over me. They're called they're called breakers. That's what they do. They they break things and yet, god's steadfast love surrounds me. In love, God's breakers go over me, and it's for my good. This is 1 of those like Christian kind of moments. We can all be like, yeah. Right. I've heard this maybe before. God's breakers, they break you. This is not a isolated idea we find in scripture We could look at Psalm 50 ones you, the lyric of a broken and con heart is what god desires. That's not easy. You can look at Psalm 23. You god leave me on paths of righteousness for your namesake. We can look at Joe 1, The Lord gives and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. This what Job says written chapter 1 of job there by the way. There's still, like 41 more to go. For Hebrews 12 and the discipline of a father, or we could look at first Peter, the book of James, Paul's life story, This is a constant theme throughout all of scripture, and this almost is describing it well for all of us putting it to words what many of us feel drawing us to the attention needed for our relationship with our heavenly father. And he concludes verse 8 with a prayer to the God of my life. In other words, make it so, God. Make me to know your love and to sing your song no matter what the circumstance. Help me to grow in my relationship with you as your waves and your breakers crash on me. I asked a few people to read the song and to give me their thoughts and 1 was a student heading into eleventh grade, and I was like, what do you think of this? And he said, well, it's really confusing, which I'm asking a student on summer break to dive into ancient hebrew poetry, probably a natural answer we should have all expected. Well then this young man after god's own heart, and this is true of him, said that which stood out to him was the test of faith. It's easy to have faith when things are going well, but when life gets hard, if you abandon faith, it makes you wonder if you have real faith. He's describing the san san simplification processing seen in this song. You see the life of god with contentment that Paul talks about. That's that's not easy. God's breakers and wage crash over us But are we paying attention? Are we doing the the soul check desired? Now for some of you, god's breakers are probably like this video that we have for you. You may not have even noticed them if you fell asleep there, wake up, come back. Those are still breakers They're still doing their intended purpose. Are you paying attention? Maybe you're choosing to ignore them and and God's san work is being lost on you. It's not good. You're heading to Dangerous territory For many of us, god's breakers have been or maybe are currently more like this. You see those breakers lead to this. That's just a a piece of niagara falls. That's the tumultuous niagara or river that that feeds into Niagara falls. It's a nearby an area where I grew up. I've spent a lot of time there. There's a boat you can ride called the maid of the mist if anybody is from that area. You've been on it at least once. It's like a mandatory field trip and elementary school. Everybody gets to go on it. If you get a chance to go, Let me encourage you do that, it's it's a really fascinating, just talking about staying an on wonder of God. That's a separate note. But the force of the falls. Like, as the as the boat is kind of pushing in, like, it takes your rate kind of into the falls. So ones that you can't see, like, oh, the far back the back there, the big ones. You kinda get into the into this... This area, Now you don't obviously enter into the falls, but the force of the fall are pushing the boat back. And there's like, so much mist that is just rising up from these falls crashing down it. Like, you get soaked. They give you these plastic poncho that you get to wear and you get to keep, it's wonderful. To keep you dry. And the volume is just ant. I mean, like, you heard just a little bit of that river, like, if you're standing at that river, like, it is so much louder and then when you get to the falls here. If you've never been, it is just so profoundly loud. And when god's breakers are at that level in your life, he's trying to catch your attention. He's calling to you. He's refining you his breakers are breaking you. And yet, he's still with you. He loves you is covenant with you. He's promise that. What's extraordinary that when John gives us his description of seeing Jesus in Revelation 1 In verse 15, we're kinda, like, jumping in the middle of this description. In verse 15, he pens these words. He says, his feet jesus his feet were like burn bronze refined in a furnace and his voice was like the roar of many waters. Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. Perhaps the roar these waterfalls as Psalm is referring to here is a voice of our savior calling to you, san you, making you holy and right before a heavenly father, breaking whatever never needs to be broken to draw you back to him. My wife last night a conversation. She said it's good that we we come to the Lord broken because that just strengthens our dependence upon him. We want that. We'd need him. We learn need to learn to depend upon him, and he's always with you. He's covenant with you through his blood. He loves you. He's doing this for your good. In this cleansing work of our soul leaves your soul par. Thirsty. So third then, how do we quench the thirst of a soul? Well, sadly, many of us, myself included, answer this question incorrectly. Our soul, my soul is thirsty for God, but I feel it with so much other stuff. I just... I numb it. Maybe you do too. Your soul wants water and you give it your your iphone, your job. Your relationship with others. Your idol, whatever they may be. Your selfish is, your self ambition, Your busy schedule, Your career success. You're your kids sports schedule. You can fill in the blank many different ways. We run our souls ragged pant like a deer that's been chased, only worth ones that are doing the chasing. This type of life is wearing to the soul. It it drains the soul. It makes you so tired at a soul level. It's soul rot. There's never enough So we just keep trying. We keep doing. Yet, we're never satisfied in our deepest longing, our souls remain par And we should stop right here right now and repent from this. See, this is idol tree at its core, and yet oftentimes, it's actually socially acceptable and and even encouraged. And like a virus, it's spread to all of us. Other times, we we trick our sole satisfaction with what we think are good things that that don't actually quench our soul. Like, I live a good life. I come to church. I tie. I volunteer. I'm in a life group. I'm a good student What are you feeding your soul instead of having it satisfied with god? Because some of us are just flat out soul tired. There's this wear to the soul and it seems like life demands don't allow any rest. You just gotta keep going. There's there's there's this tiring sense of living. And you probably feel like God has abandoned you when when actually, you've abandoned him. These things don't satisfy the longing of the soul. These are these are more like tears that's a Psalm reference. So what then? We have to ask ourselves what is it? What is it that I truly thirst for in that deep, like, that deep part inside of me. What is it that I'm longing for? That I'm thirsty 4. In this psalm, there's this repeated refrain. Why are you cast down all my soul and why are you're in turmoil within me? Hope in God. For Shall again praise, my salvation and my god It's it's probably over simplistic, Maybe just a little too easy, but there's only 1 ultimate quench for a par tired soul put your hope, your dependence, everything in God, your salvation. Psalm says it best. My soul, thirst for God for the living God. And ultimately, this is true for all of us. Regardless of where you are on this journey, your spiritual journey. This is true for everybody. We are wired. God designed us and innate inside of us He has wired us for relationship with him. What you need to know, we all here need to know is that this living god offers us living water that will satisfy your soul like nothing else. John 4, we read these words Jesus having exchanged with a woman at the well. It's picking up in verse 10. And says Jesus answered her If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw water with. And the well is deep. Where do you get that living water from? Are are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drink from it himself as did his sons and his livestock. Is this if she's saying the Jesus? She's staying their face to face with Jesus? Is this she's saying, are you greater than my religion? Maybe we do this. Are you greater than my self ambitions? Are you are you greater than my progress? Are you greater than my social media feeds? Are you greater than? And in his mercy and kindness Jesus replies her and to us today. He says, everyone who drinks of this water. Everyone who's filling their soul with all these things We'll be Thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become to in him a spring of water well up to eternal life. Jesus is the living water that can satisfy your soul that that deep hidden place inside all of us. And and he's more than just a thirst quench. He offers rest for your tired soul Matthew 11 come to me and you will find rest for your soul. And a secure eternal relationship with your heavenly father. He is the final answer to the tired parts soul. And after you taste him, you will want more of what he offers. As George read for us taste and see that the Lord is good. And hopefully then, you will have a soul that thirst for god that hunger after God in a right and healthy way, so that you will experience even more of him. He's doing this work on you and in you. He's drawing you to him, but it all starts with a self examination like the Psalm What is the thing that you are giving your soul instead of the water offered by Jesus? What is it? There's something. I'm sure if it challenge yourself. We're not yet in heaven, so we don't have a perfect life yet. Write something down, now. What is it? What is it that is just that you're just distracting your soul with? Even if you think it's a really good thing. And repent even now. Your soul is thirsty. How are you satisfying it? I understand clinging to Jesus is not always easy in life's hard seasons. When when his waves are breaking over you and crashing you and breaking you, your your natural inclination probably is not like Jesus. I I want you. We have to train ourselves though. He's trying to catch your attention. Sometimes you yourself are putting yourself in harms way. But through it all, our sovereign god is at work chipping away drawing us to him. Look at the psalm again. Every low, every trial, every breaker It's met with the psalm recalling how faithful god has been in the past, meeting his thirst. A friend of mine who's no longer with us. Used to always say, it's good to look back. Look back and see god at work in your life. And remember those times recall them and see God at work then and how he is at work now. Because God is always at work. Each moment has spiritual significant on us and to us. Every moment is transformational. He's at work wrong you to him san you. For those in Christ, the father's steadfast love is with you every day, and as song is over you every night, so put your hope in him. Put your hope in Jesus and draw near to him. And if you're not yet a follower of Christ. Perhaps it's time for you to to do a soul evaluation. Your soul also thirst. And you're trying to satisfy it with something that will never quench that thirst. You're have to keep going back to whatever that is over. And over and over and over again. It feels like progress but it's actually reg egress. What's stopping you from tasting this living water from the living God right now. The choice is yours. So put your hope in God and draw near to him. Let me pray for us. Father, I thank you I thank you for your word. I thank you for your promises. I thank you for your your covenant with us, the way that you love us and I thank you for the way that you relentlessly pursue us. And as I prayed during first service. I'm gonna pray again here that my my guess is were surrounded by a bunch of brothers and sisters that somebody or maybe several of us in here are in the midst of just being broken right now, that you are just breaking us. And while my tender heart wants to say, stop, you know, rescue them. My pastor heart says, finish your job, draw them back to you. If you're in that place, may you receive what God has for you, may you return to him, may you be drawn into a deeper relationship with him. He loves you. He loves you. He's pursuing you, and it's 4 our good. Help us to grow and our san notification as you work in, that you might become more glorified in our lives. We asked this in your name, Amen.