The Silence of God (Part 2)
Download MP3Good morning. Almost afternoon. Good morning. Thanks. If you will turn with me to Psalm 77.
Caleb Chancey:The Psalm of Asaph. I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me. 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.
Caleb Chancey:When I remember God, I moan. When I meditate, my spirit faints. Selah. You hold my eyelids open. I'm so troubled that I cannot speak.
Caleb Chancey:I consider the days of all the years long ago, I said, let me remember my song in the night. Let me meditate in my heart. Then my spirit made a diligent search. Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love forever ceased?
Caleb Chancey:Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion? Selah. Then I said, I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the most high.
Caleb Chancey: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. Your way, oh God, is holy. What God is great like our God.
Caleb Chancey:You are the God who works wonders. You have made known your might among the peoples. You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph Selah. Then the waters, when the waters saw you, oh God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid. Indeed, the deep trembled.
Caleb Chancey:The clouds poured out water. The skies gave forth thunder. Your arrows flashed on every side. The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind. Your lightnings lighted up the world.
Caleb Chancey:The earth trembled and shook. Your way was through the sea. Your path through the great waters. Yet your footprints were unseen. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
Caleb Chancey:This is the word of the lord. Let's pray together. Father, your love for us is great, and we thank you for the opportunity and privilege it is to gather together as sisters and brothers. Be with the preaching of your word. May you take these words, and do the thing that only you can do, just to make them living, so they can change and encourage our hearts.
Caleb Chancey:Finally, be with the one who preaches, for his sins are many. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. A few weeks ago, I was watching the 1987 cinematic masterpiece, The Princess Bride. Shoot.
Caleb Chancey:That's how Matt started his sermon. How'd that get in there? My name's Caleb Chancey, I'm one of the elders here at Redeemer, and this is in fact part 2 of a 2 part sermon that Matt Francisco and I are preaching called The Silence of God, a rather cheery title, I think. And if you didn't hear Matt's sermon last week, it's okay. It wasn't that great.
Caleb Chancey:I only cried, like, 6 times. And actually, Chase gave her testimony before Matt preached, so I kinda feel like her testimony was actually part 1. Matt's was part 2, so I'm part 3. So maybe expect less Empire Strikes Back and more Return of the Jedi, less I am your father, and more teddy bears killing space Nazis. One.
Caleb Chancey:Behind the door in my dad's office was a floor to ceiling bookshelf. But this bookshelf was not full of books. The other shelves in the office were filled with theological and historical works. But the shelf behind the door was my favorite. It was the movie shelf.
Caleb Chancey:That shelf contains most of what I can remember from my childhood. White clamshell Disney classics. The black and blue Star Wars trilogy case, followed by the even cooler black and gold Star Wars special edition case. Katharine Hepburn yelling at Cary Grant. Jimmy Stewart pawning his trombone for money and singing a song about forks, knives and spoons.
Caleb Chancey:I admit they weren't all bangers. In addition to the shelf though, there was a drawer in my parents bedroom, and this one was full of I Love Lucy and The Andy Griffith Show episodes. And we would watch these every night. I Love Lucy was my dad's favorite. And later in life, through my wife, she introduced me to the Dick Van Dyke Show, and it became my favorite.
Caleb Chancey:Even if you've never seen the Dick Van Dyke Show, you probably know Dick Van Dyke as Bert from the first Mary Poppins movie. This show that he was in was interesting for the time though, because it was kind of meta. It was a comedy show about the people who were writing a comedy show. Think of it as the original 30 Rock. But this odd format meant Dick Van Dyke could do something other shows at the time couldn't do.
Caleb Chancey:They would perform comedy like everyone else, but because they were playing writers in the show, they could openly talk about the art of comedy, and it was a masterclass for the audience. One of the questions that comes up in a few of the episodes is, What's the main difference between comedy and tragedy? In both comedy and tragedy, something unexpected happens. That's the tension. That's the drama of the story.
Caleb Chancey:A poor girl is lost, and falls into an underground cave. Is it tragedy or comedy? It all depends on the ending. If she's never found tragedy, if she discovers a long lost treasure and finds a way out, Comedy. Matt reminded us last week that as storytelling creatures, we are constantly interpreting our present, projecting what we think our future will be, and even reinterpreting our past in light of the stories we are telling ourselves.
Caleb Chancey:Psalm 42 and 43 from last week encourage us to not just listen to what our hearts are telling us, but to talk to our heart. To ask questions. Why are you downcast, oh my soul? We should minister to our heart by taking scriptural truth and preaching to ourselves, reminding ourselves of the true story that is happening, and not just the one that we think is happening. I usually experience this when I read scripture out loud.
Caleb Chancey:Whenever I prepare to give a sermon, I'm talking through out loud every point, and I will often find myself crying because of the truth that was just spoken out loud that I realized I don't fully believe at the time. This practice is a key defense against spiritual depression. But what about when that doesn't work? Or maybe you know it would work if you kept doing it, but you're just too tired. You have been in this valley for so long, you just can't take another step.
Caleb Chancey:You resolve that your story will be tragedy, because how could it turn out okay? Especially when God doesn't seem to even be there. Have you ever cried out to God and heard nothing? Have you ever questioned if God has forgotten you? Have you ever had a dark night, week, month or year, where you felt helpless?
Caleb Chancey:Psalm 77 is for you. Author Friedrich Buckner says that before there is good news, there is just news. And sometimes the news is so bad that you don't need the commentary. You can mute the TV, and the images tell you everything. So he says, let the preacher tell the truth.
Caleb Chancey:Let him make audible the silence of the news of the world with the sound turned off, so that's that so that in that silence, we can hear the tragic truth of the gospel, which is that the world where God is absent is a dark and echoing emptiness. And the comic truth of the gospel, which is that it is into the depths of his absence that God makes himself present in such unlikely ways, into such unlikely people, that you and I laugh till the tears run down our cheeks. Psalm 77, verse 1. I cry aloud to God. Aloud to God, and he will hear me.
Caleb Chancey:In the day of my trouble, I seek the Lord. In the night, my hand stretches out without wearying. My soul refuses to be comforted. When I remember God, I moan. When I meditate, my spirit faints.
Caleb Chancey:Selah. Something has happened to the psalmist, Asaph. Asaph was the chief musician from the line of the priests in the tribe of Levi. He was appointed by David, and he was known as a prophet. So basically, Lawrence Starnes.
Caleb Chancey:But something has happened to Asaph. A pain, a need, a fear. We don't know. Unlike a number of David's Psalms that give context, like a psalm of David when he was fleeing for his life, we don't know why Asaph writes this psalm. Maybe the bank account is empty again.
Caleb Chancey:Maybe his heart was broken again. Maybe his child cut off communication. Maybe a friend was taken far too early. Something has happened though, so he cries, and some translations say he yells. I yell out to my God.
Caleb Chancey:I yell with all my might. I yell at the top of my lungs. He listens. This opening line is a mixture of pain, hope, and accusation. Pain through the yelling and accusation.
Caleb Chancey:Pain through the yelling
Joel Brooks:and tears.
Caleb Chancey:Hope because he knows the Lord is listening. An accusation because he knows the Lord is listening, and he seems to not be doing anything. A year before her passing, the believer and songwriter Night Bird wrote, I have had cancer 3 times now, and I have barely passed 30. I am God's downstairs neighbor, banging on the ceiling with a broomstick. I show up at his door every day.
Caleb Chancey:In the day of my trouble, I seek the Lord. In the night, my hand is stretched out without wearying. Much like last week's Psalms, this psalm counsels the singer to bring their honest selves to seek the lord. Therapist Ethan Richardson says, god is much more interested in honesty than pietism. Because if you tarry till you think you're better, you will never come at all.
Caleb Chancey:The image of a hand stretched out calls up Moses raising his hand. And as long as his arms were raised, the battle would be won in Israel's favor. But this is not just a battle. This is a man who's lost something and is stumbling in the dark trying to find it. This is a widower who's stretching his hand across the bed to where his wife used to lay, and she's not there, and she should be there, but she's not.
Caleb Chancey:Charles Spurgeon refers to this word and says that it can metaphorically hand can metaphorically be used as wound. Asaph is holding his open wound of a hand to the Lord, and the bleeding will not stop, and the pain won't go away, and he's crying out, when will this stop? My soul refuses to be comforted. Asaph has poured the whiskey down the drain. He's unplugged the TV and deleted all social media to distract him.
Caleb Chancey:He will not accept a lesser comforter. This recalls Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis 32, refusing to let go until he is blessed by the Lord. Asaph is demanding God, But there's a problem. Verse 3. When I remember God, I moan.
Caleb Chancey:When I meditate, my spirit faints. So maybe it's not just a widower. Maybe it's the man whose wife left him, and she's called to tell him that she's gone, as if he didn't know. As if he doesn't know his own bed. As he wanders downstairs in the early morning, he sees photos from cookouts and their son's first birthday and their wedding.
Caleb Chancey:And these past joys are reinterpreted into present pain. My life is tragedy. When I remember God, I moan. To summarize John Calvin's commentary on this verse: Often in times of adversity, God's past mercies can aggravate our current anguish. Sometimes our tragedy becomes so dire, that it almost feels like almighty God is toying with us.
Caleb Chancey:You were faithful once. Where have you gone? Verse 4. You hold my eyelids open. I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
Caleb Chancey:Asaph's voice is raw from yelling, and he has no more tears to cry. And the God who created Sabbath rest has taken his divine fingers and his clockwork oranging Asaph's eyes. You can feel his exhaustion. I consider the days of old, the years long ago. I said, let me remember my song in the night.
Caleb Chancey:Let me meditate in my heart. I'm gonna go to the next stage. I'm gonna go to the next stage. I'm gonna go to the next stage. I'm gonna go to the next stage.
Caleb Chancey:I'm gonna go to the next stage. I'm gonna go to the next stage. I'm gonna go to
Joel Brooks:the next stage. I'm gonna go to the next stage. I'm gonna go to the next stage. I'm gonna go to the next stage. I'm gonna go to the next stage.
Joel Brooks:I'm gonna go to
Caleb Chancey:the next stage. Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion? Selah. This must be the end.
Caleb Chancey:It has to be. Asaph makes a diligent search and remembers the name of God revealed to Moses in Exodus 34. Asaph's heart is now working through the name of God line by line and asking questions at every turn. The Lord, the Lord, God merciful and gracious, it says. Will the Lord spurn forever?
Caleb Chancey:Has God forgotten to be gracious? Abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, he says, has his steadfast love forever ceased. Keeping steadfast love for 1,000 Are His promises that it end for all time? As He in anger shut up His compassion. Have you ever felt this?
Caleb Chancey:Have you ever been there? Are you there right now? Psalm, thank God, is about to take a turn. Before Asaph continues, he ends this section much like he did the section with the before with a single word, selah. This word is left untranslated because there's no clear translation for it.
Caleb Chancey:Some say that selah means make the music louder, as if he needed the encouragement just to get to the next line. But most translators have settled that selah means something like pause, reflect, silence, or in music, the rest symbol. Take a moment to reflect. Be still, it says. But why?
Caleb Chancey:Why reflect and remember the pain we experience? What good can come from this? I went to a small Christian high school in Dothan, Alabama. Brian Carlisle was my history teacher, and was known for taking prayer requests at the beginning of the class. We thought he was just being a kind and very good southern Christian, and he indeed was.
Caleb Chancey:But he was also teaching us a lesson, because at the end of every semester in history, he would take out his journal where he recorded all the prayer requests, and we would go around the room and give updates. How quickly we forget our past sufferings, and how equally quickly we forget the Lord's work in our lives. It was the greatest of history lessons. Reverend John Zall says that when he was counseling a congregant about suffering, he says, For some reason, God doesn't seem to be that interested in preventing suffering. But he seems very, very interested in redeeming suffering.
Caleb Chancey:We remember so that we can watch redemption grow. Paul furthers this reason of why we should remember past suffering in First Corinthians, saying that we need to remember how we suffer so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction. For those of us who are maybe coming out of a season of darkness, remember there are still sisters and brothers in that valley. So as much as we would like to forget, don't. We all need to know each other's full stories.
Caleb Chancey:Verse 10. Then I said, I will appeal to this. The years of the right hand of the Most High. Asaph is an artist. And when an artist chooses to do something called a cover song, it's always fascinating to me.
Caleb Chancey:Some covers are obvious money grabs trying to associate with a bigger artist. But if done well, a cover song is when an artist takes someone else's words, and they're being made fresh and new in their particular story. It's not that the artist can't write their own song, but sometimes our own feelings as humans are best communicated through someone else's words. So Asaph looks back, and when he looks back, he remembers something. He remembers a song.
Caleb Chancey:Something he called earlier his song in the night. But this isn't one of the songs that he wrote himself. No, this is the song of David. And when David played it, it pleased the Lord. David gave Asaph this song to sing, and we read it at the beginning of our service.
Caleb Chancey:Then on the day David first appointed that thanksgiving be sung to the Lord by Asaph and his brothers. And this is the song. Oh, give thanks to the Lord. Call upon his name. Make known his deeds among the people.
Caleb Chancey:Sing to him. Sing praises to him. Tell of all his wondrous works. Glory in his holy name. Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.
Caleb Chancey:Seek the Lord and his strength. Seek his seek his presence continually. Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered. Oh, offspring of Israel, his servant, children of Jacob, his chosen ones. And and Asaph remembers.
Caleb Chancey:And those words are made new in his heart, and he sings a response, a b side cover to that very song. Verse 11. 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.
Caleb Chancey:Your way, oh God, is holy. What God is great like our God. You are the God who works wonders. You have made known your might to the peoples, with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph. Jacob, the one who wrestled with God, and Joseph who was in prison for years.
Caleb Chancey:Something happens at this moment. Asaph remembers something, and it gives us insight to Asaph's true pain in the first part of the song. It's this. Asaph thought that he was alone in his pain. Not just in that moment though, but in history.
Caleb Chancey:He believed that he was the only person to ever feel this way, ask these questions. The only person to ever feel abandoned or lonely in this way. And praise God that to counter our feeling of loneliness, God gives us himself. But also, when we cannot feel his presence, he gives us a family. His church.
Caleb Chancey:His body. This psalm is reminding us that you are not the only person to ask those questions or feel the way you feel, and that the greatest trick of ourselves and the enemy is to make you think that no one else has been through what you were going through. And it's when our own story starts screaming judgment and loneliness in our ears that the generations of redeemed, both living here and in heaven, join together to sing, Hallelujah, you are not alone. And after this, Asaph is encouraged, and the lines flow out of him like streams of living water. Creation water, Noah, the parting of the sea.
Caleb Chancey:Asaph still feels tossed and turned by the waves, but now he remembers that his God, our God, has power over those chaotic waters. When the waters saw you, oh God, when the waters 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. The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwinds.
Caleb Chancey:Your lightnings lighted up the world. The earth trembled and shook. Your way was through the sea. Your path through the great waters. Yet your footprints were unseen.
Caleb Chancey:You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. At the end of the Psalm, Asaph is encouraged, but not in the way we would have thought at the beginning. We would think that the solution to the seeming silence of God is just for God to show up. Answer Asaph directly. And yes, sometimes, this is how God encourages his people.
Caleb Chancey:But more often, we see God encouraging his people, loving his people through his people. And this is not a poor consolation. It's by design. When I was studying this psalm, I believe it was the first time I ever asked this question. Where was God when the serpent was talking to Eve in Genesis 3?
Caleb Chancey:We're told that Adam is there with her because after she eats, she hands the fruit directly to him. It's not until after they eat that they hide themselves because they hear the lord coming. God wasn't there directly with them. But this is paradise. Wouldn't they always be in the direct presence of the lord in paradise?
Caleb Chancey:Why wasn't God there? And how could it have been good if he wasn't there? There's a deep truth that is so wonderful that we forget it, because we simply can't believe it. Especially if we are continuing telling our story as just tragedy. And this is that truth.
Caleb Chancey:God has interlocked himself with his children. He placed his very breath into Adam. We share an inheritance with Christ. God did not need to directly be there with Eve, because Eve was looking out for Adam and Adam was looking out for Eve. Adam was there for Eve.
Caleb Chancey:The Lord desires us to experience every facet of his love, and one of the facets of his love is love through his children, through his image bearers, protection through his image bearers. Christ has so interlocked with us that he says that if you give someone a cup of cold water, you're giving it directly to me. James goes on to say that if you say the love of God is in you, yet you hurt and curse man, the love of God cannot be in you. And when the ascended Christ confronts Paul on the road to Emmaus, he doesn't say, why are you persecuting them? He says, why are you persecuting me?
Caleb Chancey:The love you receive from a child of God is not a watered down version of the love of God. It is the love of God. And we are at our lowest, when our faith has run out, when we have no more tears to cry, it is by design that we lean on the faith of others. In Mark, the paralytic was lowered through the roof and was forgiven of his sins, not because of his own faith, but because of the faith of his friends. We need each other, and we need to stop acting like we don't.
Caleb Chancey:One of the greatest representations of the gospel in media today is the children's show, Bluey. Amen? We've got the backup of every parent in here. There's a mom in Bluey named, Chili. These are all cartoon dogs, by the way.
Caleb Chancey:I just want you to know that as I'm crying up here, I'm crying over Australian cartoon dogs. Chili is raising her first child, and she's determined to hit every milestone. This child is going to crawl when she's supposed to crawl, pull up when she's supposed to pull up. She's gonna walk when she's supposed to walk. And Chili is failing at every single milestone.
Caleb Chancey:And to make it worse, everybody else seems to be succeeding. Near the end of the episode, Chili is sitting on her back porch alone and desperate. Another mom from the class comes in. She takes out a photo, and she is surrounded by a bunch of kids. Like, a lot of kids.
Caleb Chancey:Like, more than Laura and I have. Chili says, with all those kids, you must have learned a thing or 2. And the mom says, yes. I have something to tell you. And Chili looks down, because she knows what's coming.
Caleb Chancey:It's the thing that she's been telling herself the entire time and now it's just gonna be said out loud. But instead, the mom says, you're doing great. When Christ was baptized in the waters that were probably still shaking in their boots from creation, He heard the audible voice of God saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. But in the garden of Gethsemane, as Christ poured out his heart and said, if there's any way for this to depart from me, let it be so. He did not hear the voice of God.
Caleb Chancey:Instead, he heard his friends snoring. The friends he had asked to stay up and pray with him. There was no gathering around him in his lowest moment. There was no laying on of hands and praying. There was no encouragement saying, You're doing great.
Caleb Chancey:His friends failed him. Just like Adam failed Eve. Just like we fail each other. We fail when we don't see those in need around us, and we fail when we don't show our need, and tell our stories honestly, because we think, I should be able to do this alone. I should be able to handle this alone.
Caleb Chancey:And maybe it'll just get better tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. But we do not need to face the valley of alone. Christ experienced the ultimate loneliness for us in both the garden and the cross, so it never has to define our lives. He has interlocked himself with us and given us a family, and nothing can separate us from the love of God. The wounded hands that Asaph held up are now replaced by the scars of the cross that Christ bears for all eternity.
Caleb Chancey:Because of this, we can now remind each other of our true stories of redemption. And although the aching may remain because of the work of Christ, the breaking does not. He has given us his spirit. And in his resurrection, he performed the greatest cosmic joke in history by turning all tragedy to comedy. He will never fail us.
Caleb Chancey:Hallelujah. We are not alone.
