Out of the Depths: The Night, The Shift, and The Fight

Richard Starling

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WELCOME

Good morning Jones Road! It is so good to see each and every one of you this morning.

Whether this is your first time or you have been coming here for years — welcome home.

If you are a guest this morning we are especially glad you chose to spend your Sunday with us. We would love to get to know you. There is a connect card in the seat back in front of you — fill that out and drop it in one of the giving boxes on your way out or hand it to one of our greeters. We would love to follow up with you this week.

Before we worship together let me take just a moment to go over a few announcements.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

First — today is our Benevolence Offering. If you would like to give toward the benevolence fund to help those in need in our congregation and community, there will be an opportunity to do so this morning.

Second — our Wednesday night ministries are back this week. July 8th at 6:30pm we have our Grow Meeting — everyone is invited. And at the same time, Kidz Konnect Discipleship will be meeting for ages 5 through 10. We would love to see your whole family there.

Third — we have two Churchwide Workdays coming up. Saturday July 11th and Saturday July 18th from 8am to noon. Our buildings and property need some attention and we need your help. Everyone is invited. There is a sign up sheet in the Commons Area.

Fourth — Food Bag Prep is Thursday July 9th at 6:30pm. And our next Food Giveaway is Thursday July 16th at noon. If you know someone in need, spread the word.

Fifth — mark your calendars for a Churchwide Luncheon on Sunday July 19th immediately after the morning service. A sign up sheet is in the Commons Area — please be sure to sign up so we can plan accordingly.

Sixth — Kidz Korner ministry will be hosting Back-to-School Prep Pop-Ups on Saturday August 1st, giving school supplies to students in our community. Pop-up locations and times are still being determined. Donations for school supplies are needed — there is a flyer in your bulletin — and volunteers will be needed as well. A sign up sheet is in the Commons Area.

And finally — we are prayerfully considering a Mission Trip to Costa Rica in 2027 in partnership with 6:8 Ministries. If you are interested there is a sign up sheet in the Commons Area. Depending on interest more information will follow.

And as always — if you would like to give this morning our giving boxes are located at the doors and on either side of the sound booth. You can also give online — the QR code is in your bulletin. Thank you for your faithfulness and generosity.

CALL TO WORSHIP — Psalm 42:1–2, 5

Before we sing let's be called to worship together. I want to read over you this morning from Psalm 42.

"As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God."

Church — whatever you are carrying this morning, whatever night you have been walking through — hope in God.

He is worthy of our praise even before the feeling catches up.

Let's worship him together now.

INTRO

If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Psalm 77.

Today, we are continuing our series called Out of the Depths.

In this series we have been looking at select Psalms that take us into the hard places. The dark seasons. The moments where faith feels thin and God feels distant.

And as we have been seeing, these are some of the most human… the most honest prayers in the Bible.

A few weeks ago we were in Psalm 130.

Psalm 130 verse 1 says, Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.

We learned that we can cry out from the very bottom. From the worst place. And God hears.

This is a promise in Scripture. You can call out to God at any time. Even the worst of times.

Last week we were in Psalm 40.

In Psalm 40, we saw a man pulled out of the pit. Rescued. Feet set on solid ground.

We have seen in this series that the Psalms are ultimately about Christ.

In Psalm 40 we saw that Christ did not hover above the human condition at a safe distance.

He went down.

All the way down.

Into the pit.

He bore what none of us could bear — the full weight of God's wrath for sin. Forsakenness that we will never experience because he experienced it for us.

And on the third day, God drew him up.

Out of the pit.

Out of the grave.

Which means Christ has been in the depths before you.

He knows what it is to cry out.

He knows what it is to suffer.

He knows what it is to feel the darkness press in from every side.

And because he does — you are never in the pit alone.

At the end of Psalm 40, we saw the Psalmist right back in the pit by the end of the same psalm.

Because that's the terrain of the Christian life. Not a detour. The terrain.

This week we go deeper still.

Now before we get into the text this morning I want to make sure we are all on the same page about where we are in this series.

The Depths, the Pit, and the Night are different things. Although they are related.

The depths is the umbrella term.

It is the broad category — any hard, low, painful season of life. Any moment where faith feels thin and God feels distant.

Every psalm in this series lives inside the depths.

But within the depths, there are different kinds of terrain.

The pit is about location.

Entrapment. No way out, no ladder, no handholds.

You are stuck and you cannot get yourself out.

The answer to the pit is rescue — someone outside of yourself reaching down and pulling you up.

This week we are in a night.

And I want to make sure you don't think I'm just preaching the same sermon three times — because the night is not the same thing as the pit.

The night is not about where you are. It is about what you can see.

Or rather — what you cannot see.

The night is any season where God feels distant.

Where your prayers feel like they are hitting the ceiling. Where you know what you believe and feel none of it.

Where the lies you are telling yourself in the dark feel more true than the truth you have known your whole life.

That is the night.

And the answer to the night is not rescue from a location.

The answer is truth that holds even when your feelings say otherwise.

And Psalm 77 shows us what it looks like to fight for that truth in the middle of the dark.

This morning, we will have just three points from this Psalm.

VERSE 1 — THE FOUNDATION

But before we get to the night, I want you to see something.

The writer of this Psalm is Asaph.

Before Asaph describes the darkness — before a single word about sleeplessness or a soul refusing comfort — he opens with this.

Psalm 77:1 “I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me.”

He will hear me. That is more than a feeling. That is a conviction.

It is a truth Asaph has already settled long before the night is even described.

And this is something that we have to understand before anything else. We have to understand that when we cry aloud to God, he will hear us.

Is this a settled conviction for you? That you have access to the Father whenever you need him?

Before the darkness. Before the sleeplessness. Before the soul refuses comfort and the questions start coming.

You must believe this.

Not because you can feel it in the moment.

But because it is true whether you feel it or not.

Hold onto that. We are coming back to it.

POINT I — The Night Is Real (vv. 1–3)

Before we get into the text, let me just say that the night is real. Many of you have experienced it.

Last week I shared with you a statistic from the CDC that said 1 in 5 Americans have been diagnosed with depression or anxiety disorders.

With numbers like that, this means that there is not a person in this room that either is not a part of that statistic or someone they love is.

And even if you haven’t been diagnosed with something… the night is much broader than a diagnosis of depression.

The night is any season where God feels absent.

Where you are reaching out to God with everything you have and feeling nothing come back.

All of us have been there. And we must be prepared for the night before it comes, which is why Asaph begins with a conviction for prayer.

Verse 1,

Psalm 77:1 “I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me.”

Before the night is described. Before the sleeplessness. Before the questions start coming.

Again, Asaph has already settled this. And so must we.

Now look at how Asaph describes being in the night…

Verse 2,

Psalm 77:2 “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.”

Psalm 77:3 “When I remember God, I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints. Selah”

He says when he was in the day of his trouble, he sought the Lord.

We don’t know what he was going through specifically but we do know Asaph’s posture as he was going through it.

Look at what Asaph describes in verse 2.

In the night my hand is stretched out without wearying.

The CSB renders verse 2 as “My hands were continually lifted up all night long.”

He kept praying through the night. In desperation.

A hand extended in the dark, reaching toward God, finding nothing to hold onto.

And the soul refuses to be comforted.

Where you are praying so desperately for God’s help and you just aren’t hearing anything back?

And in those moments, there is nothing that anyone can say to you that can bring real comfort.

This is what Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones calls Spiritual Depression.

Do you know what that is like?

I know what it is like. I have been in nights where it felt like God was hiding himself from me.

I have had my hand stretched out and just couldn't feel him.

The night was so dark I couldn't see him.

And any of us can experience this kind of Spiritual Depression. It doesn’t matter how spiritual or theologically minded you are.

Have you ever heard of Charles Spurgeon?

Spurgeon, the great Baptist pastor in London in the 1800s.

At the height of his ministry he was preaching to crowds of ten thousand people.

He filled the Metropolitan Tabernacle week after week for decades.

He wrote commentaries. He wrote devotionals. He planted churches. He started a pastors college.

By any measure — one of the most fruitful ministers in the history of the Christian church.

And Charles Spurgeon suffered from severe depression his entire life.

Not occasionally. Not in one difficult season that he eventually moved past.

His whole life.

He wrote about it openly. He called these seasons his fainting fits.

There were Sundays where he stood in that pulpit in front of ten thousand people — and was barely holding on himself.

There were weeks where the darkness was so heavy he could hardly get out of bed.

And yet he kept preaching.

He kept reaching.

He kept his hand stretched out.

If you are in the night this morning — you are in good company.

The greatest preacher of the modern era sat right where you are.

Asaph did not give up. Spurgeon did not give up.

And you don’t have to either.

Asaph kept his hand stretched out. When he had nothing else to hold onto, he held onto his faith.

If you are still reaching. That means you still believe there is someone to reach for.

Verse 3,

Psalm 77:3 “When I remember God, I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints. Selah”

Even remembering God brings pain in the night.

Not because God is not good.

But because the gap between who you know God to be and what you are experiencing in the darkness — that gap itself is painful.

That is how deep the night can go. That is what Spiritual Depression looks like.

Now let me say something about the night that may surprise you.

As terrible as it is — and it is terrible — there is a gift in it.

The night strips away every false source of comfort.

Every distraction. Every substitute. Every thing you were relying on that wasn't God.

Until God is the only one left to reach for.

That is not a punishment. That is a mercy.

He is the only one who can deliver you from the night.

And the night makes sure you know it.

But I want you to know something about the night… You can fight back. We will talk about that but before we do, let’s talk about what it looks like when you stay in the night without fighting back.

POINT II — The Night Will Lie to You (vv. 4–9)

Look at what Asaph experiences next,

Psalm 77:4 “You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.”

He’s so distressed that he cannot sleep.

He’s laying in bed just thinking. This is exactly what happens when we are alone at night with our thoughts. Can’t sleep.

We become introspective.

When we can’t hear God, we focus on our own thoughts looking for anything that will bring us comfort.

Verse 5,

He says,

Psalm 77:5 “I consider the days of old, the years long ago.”

Psalm 77:6 “I said, “Let me remember my song in the night; let me meditate in my heart.” Then my spirit made a diligent search:”

We turn back to the stories of God and how faithful he had been in the past. We think about all of the great things that he had done for us and for others.

And then we start to think,

“If God was faithful back then, why isn’t he answering my prayers now?”

Notice what Asaph is doing here.

He is trying to do the right thing.

He is turning back to God's past faithfulness. He is meditating. He is searching for anything that get him out of his Spiritual Depression.

But the night has gotten into his thinking. And when we are in the night, we are not in our right minds.

Instead of remembrance bringing comfort — it brings questions.

Dark ones.

Verse 7,

Psalm 77:7 ““Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable?”

Psalm 77:8 “Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time?”

Psalm 77:9 “Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” Selah”

Something shifts here.

In verses 1 and 2, Asaph is crying out to God directly.

By verses 7 through 9 he is no longer talking to God.

He is talking about God.

Six questions in three verses.

Will the Lord spurn forever? Has his steadfast love ceased? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?

Those are not prayers.

Those are the sounds of a soul that has turned inward and started listening to itself.

And here is what I want you to understand about the listening soul.

When we are in the dark — when we cannot feel God or hear God — our soul's ear listens for anything in the quiet.

And the first voice it hears is its own.

But here is the problem.

That voice is being spoken by a mind that is under the pressure of the night.

When we are in the dark, we are not in our right mind.

We are not in our settled, believing, clear-eyed mind.

We are in a mind that the darkness has gotten to.

And so the questions that come out of the dark are not reliable theology.

They are the testimony of a compromised narrator.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones said it plainly — the ultimate cause of all spiritual depression is unbelief.

And by unbelief, he means forgotten truth.

The psalmist had forgotten God. And when we forget God, the night gets louder. The questions get darker. The soul spirals.

The night produces unbelief. And unbelief amplifies the night. One feeds into the other.

And you know what those six questions sound like in your head at 2am?

They sound like — God doesn't care about me.

They sound like — my prayers aren't working.

They sound like — maybe I'm not really saved.

They sound like — if God loved me this wouldn't be happening.

They sound like — he helped other people but he's forgotten about me.

That is the listening soul. That is what it produces.

And I want you to understand — those are not conclusions. Those are symptoms. Symptoms of a mind under the pressure of the night.

Now let me ask you something.

Are you in the listening right now?

Are those the questions keeping you up at night?

Because if they are — I want you to know that what you are hearing is not the truth about God. It is the night talking.

And here is why this matters beyond just your own soul.

Lloyd-Jones made a point about spiritual depression that I have not been able to shake.

He said this condition matters not just for your own health — but for your witness.

When the people around us — our neighbors, our coworkers, our family members who don't yet know Christ — when they look at Christians and all they see is people who are perpetually in the doldrums, people with no joy, people crushed under the weight of questions with no fight in them —

They conclude that this faith isn't worth anything.

That Christianity doesn't actually work.

And they walk away.

Jones Road — how we handle the night matters.

Not just for our own souls.

But for what it says to every person watching us about whether this Jesus is actually worth following.

The listening soul doesn't just hurt you.

It silences your testimony.

Which is why we have to learn to fight back.

Which is why you cannot just wait for the feeling to come back.

And the good news is you can fight back!

And this will be the last point in your notes,

POINT III — You Can Fight Back (vv. 10–20)

Read Psalm 77:10–11.

Psalm 77:10 “Then I said, “I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High.””

Psalm 77:11 “I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old.”

Here is the turn.

"Then I said, I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the deeds of the LORD."

I will remember.

That is not a feeling. That is a decision.

Asaph doesn't feel his way into remembrance.

He chooses it before the feeling follows.

He takes himself in hand.

Lloyd-Jones described it this way — the man was not content just to lie down and commiserate with himself. He stood up and said: "Self, listen for a moment. I will speak to you."

The direction reverses.

Instead of the self speaking to him, he speaks to the self.

That is what the fighting soul does.

It stops listening and starts preaching.

This is the same move the sons of Korah make in Psalm 42 — "Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God."

This is a discipline that we all have to learn. The discipline of preaching the gospel to ourselves.

And this is not something that we only learn to do when we are in the middle of the night.

This is something that every Christian needs to practice. Regularly. Before the night comes.

Because here is the truth about all of us — not just those of us who struggle with depression or anxiety.

We are a forgetful people.

We forget the goodness of God.

We forget the great lengths he has gone to because he loves us.

We forget the gospel.

Not because we stop believing it.

But because we are human. And humans forget.

I once heard a preacher say — I preach the gospel to myself every day because every day I forget it.

That is not a statement about weak faith.

That is a statement about human nature.

And the discipline of preaching the gospel to yourself is the answer to that forgetfulness.

Not just in the dark.

Every day.

So that when the night does come — and it will come — you already have the weapon in your hand.

You are not scrambling to find it in the dark.

You already know how to use it.

And what is it that we preach to ourselves?

Look at verses 11 and 12.

Psalm 77:11 “I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old.”

Psalm 77:12 “I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds.”

He says I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work and meditate on your mighty deeds.

And this leads the Psalmist to worship. He says,

Psalm 77:13 “Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God?”

Psalm 77:14 “You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples.”

Psalm 77:15 “You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph. Selah”

Notice what happens when Asaph remembers.

He doesn't just feel better.

He worships.

Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God?

That is not a man who has found a coping mechanism.

That is a man who has remembered who God actually is — and been undone by it.

And that is the posture underneath the whole discipline.

We don't preach the gospel to ourselves merely because we need relief.

We preach it because it is true. Because God is worthy. Because even in the darkest night, he is still holy and still great.

The fighting soul doesn't just reach for God because God is useful.

It reaches for God because God is God.

And when that is your posture — the remembrance does something that mere coping never could.

It leads you to worship.

And out of that heart of worship from the Spiritually Depressed soul, he starts preaching.

Listen to what he preaches to himself…

Verse 16,

Psalm 77:16 “When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; indeed, the deep trembled.”

Psalm 77:17 “The clouds poured out water; the skies gave forth thunder; your arrows flashed on every side.”

Psalm 77:18 “The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind; your lightnings lighted up the world; the earth trembled and shook.”

Psalm 77:19 “Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen.”

Psalm 77:20 “You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.”

He goes to the Exodus — the waters, the thunder, the lightning, God's path through the sea.

He doesn't remind himself that God is good in some vague sense.

He reminds himself of what God actually did when his people were in bondage in Egypt and how God himself came and fought for them.

God delivers his people from humanly impossible situations.

Just think about the children of Israel being held in captivity in Egypt. That was a hopeless situation. There was no way out.

And even before the Israelites could see God working, he was there in their pain with them.

And when he finally revealed himself to them, he came ready to fight for them. Two of my favorite verses in all the Bible are from Exodus 14:13–14

When God says to them, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.””

That is what is so great about having a fighting soul. Because we really aren’t the ones fighting are we? It’s the Lord that is fighting for you.

Isn’t that what the gospel is? God fighting for you.

Asaph looked back to the exodus…

But we have something even greater than the Exodus to look back on.

We can look back to the Gospel of Christ.

Asaph looked back to the Red Sea.

We look back to the cross and the empty tomb.

You think the Exodus was great, the salvation brought to us by Christ is the greater Exodus.

No greater work than the work of Christ on the cross.

No greater bondage than the bondage of sin.

And no greater rescue than the one that took place on a hill outside Jerusalem when God did not spare his own Son.

And just like with the Exodus when God fought for his people, at the cross, God did the exact same thing.

That is your weapon. This truth. The truth of the gospel.

That is what you preach to yourself in the dark.

Not just that God is good.

But that Christ died for your sins. Was buried. And was raised on the third day.

That is the gospel. And it is the greatest act of past faithfulness in the history of the world.

Remember those six questions from the night?

Will God spurn forever? Has his steadfast love ceased? Has he forgotten to be gracious?

Here is your answer.

Romans 8:32 — "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?"

That is God's answer to every question the night produces.

He gave his Son.

He is not against you.

He has not forgotten you.

He has not shut up his compassion.

The cross says otherwise.

Now let me tell you something important.

This discipline — preaching the gospel to yourself — is not just for people in the middle of a dark night.

Every one of us needs this.

Why? Because again… We are forgetful and that forgetfulness bleeds into unbelief.

We must preach the gospel to ourselves every day because we forget it every day.

And this is a discipline.

Lloyd-Jones wrote his book about this called Spiritual Depression. A pastor named Joe Thorn wrote a whole book practicing it — short, direct, gospel-centered words addressed to his own soul.

It can be learned. It can become a habit.

And here is what I want you to hear most of all.

Learn this before the night comes.

Do not wait until you are in the dark to pick up this weapon.

Practice it now. In the ordinary days. In the quiet seasons.

Because when the night arrives — and it will arrive — you want this already in your hand.

Now look again at how this psalm ends.

Verse 19 — "Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen."

That is not a triumphant ending.

That is an awed one.

What Asaph learned and what I want you to hear this morning is that God was moving through the sea the whole time.

Leaving no footprints.

Unseen.

The fighting soul does not always emerge from the night into sunshine.

Sometimes it emerges into awe and wonder and worship.

The realization that he was there the whole time.

Moving through the darkness you couldn't see him in.

Working in the silence you couldn't hear him through.

And that — that is enough to keep reaching when the night is darkest.

RESPONSE

When I was preparing this sermon, I had one prayer that I kept writing in my sermon notebook. It is this,

Lord, give me grace to teach my people to do this — so that they are equipped to face the dark when it comes.

Some of you are in the night right now.

Your hand is stretched out and you can't feel him.

Your soul is refusing comfort.

The questions are getting louder.

I want you to hear this.

You are not in a place God has never been.

He has been in a darker night than yours.

And he went there on purpose.

He went there for you.

And because he did — your night does not get the final word.

Stand up.

Speak to your soul.

Preach the gospel back to yourself.

He will hear you.

He heard Asaph.

He will hear you. My prayer for you is this:

Give us grace, Lord, to remember your past faithfulness.

Give me grace to remember the gospel.

For my good and for your glory.

Let's stand and pray about it.