I Remember You

Introduction

Psalm 77:1–4 NASB95

1 My voice rises to God, and I will cry aloud; My voice rises to God, and He will hear me. 2 In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; In the night my hand was stretched out without weariness; My soul refused to be comforted. 3 When I remember God, then I am disturbed; When I sigh, then my spirit grows faint. Selah. 4 You have held my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

Psalm 77:5–8 NASB95

5 I have considered the days of old, The years of long ago. 6 I will remember my song in the night; I will meditate with my heart, And my spirit ponders: 7 Will the Lord reject forever? And will He never be favorable again? 8 Has His lovingkindness ceased forever? Has His promise come to an end forever?

Psalm 77:9–12 NASB95

9 Has God forgotten to be gracious, Or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion? Selah. 10 Then I said, “It is my grief, That the right hand of the Most High has changed.” 11 I shall remember the deeds of the Lord; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old. 12 I will meditate on all Your work And muse on Your deeds.

Psalm 77:13–16 NASB95

13 Your way, O God, is holy; What god is great like our God? 14 You are the God who works wonders; You have made known Your strength among the peoples. 15 You have by Your power redeemed Your people, The sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah. 16 The waters saw You, O God; The waters saw You, they were in anguish; The deeps also trembled.

Psalm 77:17–20 NASB95

17 The clouds poured out water; The skies gave forth a sound; Your arrows flashed here and there. 18 The sound of Your thunder was in the whirlwind; The lightnings lit up the world; The earth trembled and shook. 19 Your way was in the sea And Your paths in the mighty waters, And Your footprints may not be known. 20 You led Your people like a flock By the hand of Moses and Aaron.

When we are going through a problem that doesn’t seem to go away …

I. Depression Causes Us to Doubt God’s Ability (vv. 1-5)

A. The difference between knowledge and belief

Asaph begins this psalm with a couple of facts, facts we see confirmed in Scripture:

When I pray, my prayers rise to God

When I pray, the Lord hears my prayers

In fact, Asaph is so sure of these facts that he fervently prays without weariness. There’s no effort that is being exerted.

Have you tried to call customer support these days? You have some sort of problem with a product or service, so you attempt to find a solution. It used to be you picked up the phone, called customer support, and they answered. Now it’s a twelve step process. The automated answering system asks you a series of questions to determine if your problem really warrants talking to a real life representative, and you spend half your time just trying to get the AI to understand you. And once they have determined that it’s a legitimate problem, they will patch you through.

But it’s not done there because you’ll hear this, “We’re sorry, we are experiencing an unusually high number of calls at this time. Your wait time is currently 1 hour.” And then your stuck there listening to that static filled elevator music, and by the time someone actually comes on the line you’re exhausted! By the time someone tries to solve your problem, you’re thinking to yourself, “I’m not sure the solution is worth it!”

Asaph recognizes the truth: whenever I cry out to God, no matter if it’s a big problem or little problem, He hears it immediately. There is no effort.

We have a knowledge of this truth, but do we have a belief in this truth?

When it comes to prayer, belief is more than acknowledging God hears our prayers. Belief is not only the confidence that God hears us, it is having faith that God not only hears, but that He also has the ability to act in our lives and is keenly interested in doing so.

Knowledge is necessary, but knowledge alone will lead to depression.

Why?

Because we will begin to question, “God, if You really hear my prayers, if You really care, then why is nothing happening? God where are You when I need You?

B. Where is God when I need Him?

That’s why Asaph pens verses 2 and 3:

Psalm 77:2–3 (NASB95)

2 … My soul refused to be comforted. 3 When I remember God, then I am disturbed; When I sigh, then my spirit grows faint. Selah.

In other words, God if all these things are really true, why do I see no evidence of it in my life?

With the problems we experience, there is often a disconnect between knowledge and belief, between knowledge and faith.

I heard Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel say this:

One of our problems is that we hate the life of faith.

I hate it when God says, “Just trust Me son.”

I want God to explain to me exactly what He is doing. I want to know exactly how long the process will take. I want to know exactly how it will work out. I want to see the exact path he will take me down.

If God doesn’t show us the big picture, which in my experience is most of the time, then we begin to doubt His ability.

We get depressed!

Why?

Because when we have the knowledge that God hears our problems, but our troubles remain, it brings us more frustration not less.

Maybe my problem is too small for God.

Maybe my problem is too big for God.

Maybe I have done something to anger Him.

Maybe if I was a better person, God would care.

And the more we focus on the extent of our problems and the apparent “silence” of God, we can find in ourselves in a depression so deep that we no longer have the words to pray.

We look at all the times in Scripture that God intervened in incredible ways and wonder why He isn’t doing the same in our lives.

The more we focus on our problem, the more depression creeps in. The more depression creeps in, the more we doubt God’s ability to work. The more we doubt God’s ability to work, the more we focus on our problem. It’s a vicious cycle.

And when we begin to doubt God’s ability in our depression, it always leads to us questioning God’s character.

When we are going through a problem that doesn’t seem to go away …

II. Depression Causes Us to Question God’s Character (vv. 6-9)

A. Knowledge alone is not enough

Asaph ponders six questions:

To ponder means to weigh heavily in the mind, to think about carefully, to think about deeply.

In other words, as we will see, none of these questions can be taken lightly.

Will the Lord reject forever?

Has God forgotten me and my problem?

Will He never be favorable again?

Is this problem now my future?

Has His lovingkindness ceased forever?

Is God’s love still there for me?

Has His promise come to an end forever?

Is God’s promise still there for me?

Has God forgotten to be gracious?

Will God still show me grace?

Has God in His anger withdrawn His compassion?

Does God no longer care about my needs?

Christian, you never have to ask these questions, but each of us, in one way or another, has questioned the character of God as we experience difficulties in our lives.

Take comfort knowing you are not alone. You are not alone in your doubts and questions, but if you remain in your doubts and questions, you will live in misery. At some point, as Christians, we must choose to step out in faith.

At some point, as Christians, we must acknowledge we do not understand and leave it to the One who does.

Habakkuk questioned why it seemed God did not care about the state of the nation of Judah. The government was crumbling, the politicians were corrupt, there was violence everywhere and yet it seemed from Habakkuk’s perspective that God didn’t care. He continued to allow this lawlessness to run rampant.

God, where are You when I need You?

So God tells Habakkuk, “Habakkuk, chill out. I am doing something in your days you would not believe [Habakkuk 1:5].”

And Habakkuk says, “Really? Well, what are you doing?”

And God says, “I’m bringing the Chaldeans as my tool of judgment on Judah to draw them back to Myself.”

And Habakkuk says, “Why on earth would You do that?”

And God says, “I told you you wouldn’t understand.”

We then get to a tremendously powerful verse in Habakkuk:

God says, “The righteous will live by his understanding.”

Just kidding, God doesn’t say that at all.

When it comes to the work God is doing, our understanding is meaningless because His ways are higher than our ways. We are unable to comprehend His grand plan.

Habakkuk 2:4 NASB95

4 “Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.

God tells Habakkuk the only way to live is by trusting that God will work it all out, even if we don’t understand.

That’s exactly what Habakkuk did. He lifted up his concerns to God, God assured him He was working, and even though Habakkuk didn’t understand, he prayed, “Lord, revive Your work … [and] make it known [Habakkuk 3:2].”

Lord, whatever You are doing, keep doing it!

B. The righteous shall live by faith

Until you get to a place where you can say, “Lord, I don’t understand, and that’s okay,” you will never have rest.

Just like Habakkuk, that’s exactly where we will see Asaph land. You see, doubts and questions will come, but you can’t remain there. For the Christian, it’s okay to doubt, it’s okay to question, as long as you always return to what you know to be true.

When we are going through a problem that doesn’t seem to go away …

III. Resolve to Remember What God Has Done (vv. 10-15)

A. Returning in faith

This is the climactic turning point in the psalm

Grief gives way to relief, not because of anything we do, but because we begin to focus on what God has done and will do.

Asaph models three steps for us to experience relief from our problems:

Remember what God has done

Call to mind evidence in Scripture and your life of how God has worked.

Meditate on what God has done

Rather than occupying our minds with our present state, we purposefully occupy our minds with God’s transforming work and how it can shape our lives today.

Share what God has done

Use the experiences in Scripture and your life as a testimony of God’s tremendous power.

Does this mean by doing this our problems cease to exist?

Absolutely not! But in doing this, we train ourselves to live by faith. We recognize God has worked, is working, and will continue to work even if we cannot see how.

When we are going through a problem that doesn’t seem to go away …

IV. Resolve to Remember that God Sees His Path (vv. 16-20)

A. A perfect example

The Holy Spirit brings to mind Israel’s crossing of the Red Sea

You remember this account?

Before God raised up Moses, He told the Israelites exactly what He was going to do right?

He told them Pharoah was going to continuously refuse, and His response would be to rain down plagues.

He told them Pharaoh would finally let them go, but then change his mind and chase after them with his army.

He told them He would lead them to the Red Sea where no one could cross and they would be cornered facing down the entire Egyptian army.

Of course God didn’t tell the people that!

If He told the people what would happen, they would have said, “On second thought, slavery sounds pretty good. Maybe we’ll just continue to live here.”

By faith the people continued to follow Moses, and God continued to demonstrate his ability to save the people.

But the people struggled with the disconnect between knowledge and belief. Even though they had seen God work mightily time and time again, any time they arrived at a barrier they thought was impassible, they complained to Moses.

That’s exactly what happens when they arrive at the Red Sea. The people complain that Moses has led them out of Egypt with an angry Egyptian army chasing them just to die.

But what does Asaph tell us about that account?

B. God is always in complete control

The waters of the Red Sea saw You, and they trembled.

The storm that arose was orchestrated by You. The lightning was Yours. The thunder was Yours.

In the midst of a seemingly hopeless, dangerous, desperate situation, God was at work.

And don’t miss verse 19.

Psalm 77:19 NASB95

19 Your way was in the sea And Your paths in the mighty waters, And Your footprints may not be known.

What does Asaph recognize?

God we couldn’t see Your way. We couldn’t see Your path. We couldn’t see Your footprints. But they were right there all along. You had already prepared a path, we just couldn’t see it.

And because You had prepared a path, You had also prepared Moses and Aaron to lead us on that path. You’re the Chief Shepherd, and in the midst of a problem that seemed to have no end, You continued to lead Your sheep.

Conclusion