Legitimate Hope - Psalm 30

Introduction

On October 13, 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 was flying the Old Christian Rugby team to a match in Chile. When the inexperienced co-pilot misjudged their altitude, they crashed into a glacier in the Andes mountains at more than 11,000 feet. 40 of the 45 passengers survived the initial crash, but, over the next two months as they sought to survive, the injuries, an avalanche, the -20 degree cold, and starvation left only 16 survivors, with those having to revert horrifyingly to cannibalism in order to survive.

Realizing that the search for them had been called off and that they were all going to die there if they remained, Nando Parrado, who had a skull fracture himself and had been comatose for three days, and Roberto Canessa were selected to go west in search of Curico, Chile, which they believed was only a few miles away. So, they took insulation out of the tail of the plane and a waterproof sack they found to sew themselves a sleeping bag that would allow them to survive the minus 20 nights. Then, they sought to climb another 5000+ feet up a glacier without any climbing gear and with plastic sacks covering their shoes. They took three days worth of rations with them, believing it would be plenty, but, in fact, they were more than 50 miles from where they thought they were. But, the men made a pact with one another that they would either find help for the group or that they would willingly die in the process. They told themselves that help was just over every ridge or around every corner they saw, and so they kept taking another step and another and another. After hiking through impossible terrain for ten days with no food for 38 miles, they were discovered by some ranchers which led to the rescue of all of the survivors.

God’s Word

How were those men able to go so far and survive so long? It boils down to one word: hope. They lived with the constant hope that rescue was coming tomorrow, that the next mountain would be their final climb, that soon they would be able to rest. And, this is a picture of what every life will look like. Inevitably, you will find yourself crashed on some great glacier in your life — perhaps by your own doing or perhaps not — and the only path to survival, let alone joyful living, will be hope. It will be the hope that God will intervene, the hope that you’ll be rescued, the hope that you’ll find rest. And so, I can think of no better place for us to start this Advent season than to start with hope. But, here’s the thing: hope only helps insofar as it is legitimate and substantial. There is nothing more powerful than legitimate hope, and there is nothing more tragic than false hope. That’s what I want us to see this morning from David — the pathway of legitimate hope (headline).

Legitimate hope is “founded” upon God’s “character”.

v. 4-5 “Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name. For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” So, you’ll notice that David starts where we should always start: the foundation. The integrity of any house begins with its foundation. And, the integrity of hope is no different. Legitimate hope requires a sound foundation. That’s why I want you to see that Legitimate hope is “founded” upon God’s “character”. Apart from a thorough realization of the trustworthiness and dependability of God’s character, there is nothing upon which you can build legitimate hope. God’s character is to the legitimacy of hope what concrete or bedrock is to the legitimacy of your house. Verse five lands on raw, bold, unquestioning hope. He says, “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”

Holy Favor

“...give thanks to his holy name” How? How are we able to be so certain, so hopeful? It’s because our hope has more than words holding it up. It’s because it has God’s character as its underpinning, as its foundation. God’s character is the bedrock, the concrete of a joyful life. That’s why David instructs us to sing praises. That’s what he has in mind when he tells us to ‘give thanks.’ Why? Because his name is ‘holy.’ What does he mean by ‘his holy name?’ God’s holiness is the composite of his moral excellence. His holiness is the full manifestation of his flawless character. He is, in his essence, just, love, merciful, gracious, pure, righteous, and all of them perfectly, fully so. Thus, his name is holy!

And, there’s a specific aspect of his character that David has in mind when he says ‘his holy name’. As he is filled with thankfulness for God character, it is primarily because God’s ‘anger is but for a moment and his favor is for a lifetime.' That is, God’s favor always outlasts his discipline. Now, we’re talking only about those who have been accepted by God his children. Note that he’s addressing ‘saints.’ But, God’s heart is bent more toward grace than anger. It’s more determined to restore than it is to discipline. It’s more resolved to heal than it is to destroy. Now, that’s legitimate hope.

Hope is Already Believing

And, that was David’s experience. I understand this Psalm to be based upon 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21. So, David issues a census of his mighty military. He issues a census so that he can count up how many warriors he has. The number of his soldiers, which were over a million, was to indicate how successful his reign had been, and how secure his people now were. How secure he was as the king. The census was a way for David to call for the celebration of himself among the nation. Not only was Israel prospering, but its prosperity was secure, and David was the king that had led them there. And, God detested David’s self-aggrandizement. So, God does something extraordinary. He gives David a choice over his discipline. This is like when your parents used to tell you to go and pick out your own switch to get a spanking with, right? It was always a trap because you’d come back with a dead twig that would snap easily, and they’d go back and find a limber branch with some whip action, right? Except God’s offer was not a trick. He sent a servant to David saying that David could choose from three different options of judgement: 1) Three years of famine. 2) Three months of being overtaken by his enemies. 3) Three days of a plague among his people. And, do you know what David chooses? He chooses option three, and listen to his reasoning: "Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is very great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.” In other words, David believed on the front end what He was now praising God for on the back end. David had hope that God’s favor would outlast his discipline even before it had played out. David had put himself in the bottom of the well, but he already believed that God would draw him out. He had afflicted himself, but he already believed that God would heal him. He had made the decisions that had brought him down into the pit, but he already believed that God would restore his life. So, ultimately, Psalm 30, is a celebration that God is who David believed He was. It’s a celebration that his hope is legitimate.

David’s hope was God’s character, and your hope is, too. You see, hope is already believing. Hope is already believing God is trustworthy while you’re still suffering. Hope is already being convinced that joy is coming in the morning even while you are in the darkest part of the night. This is even true if you’re suffering because of your own sin like David was. Was your failed marriage mostly your fault? Have you lied so much that now no one takes you seriously? Has your temper driven away everyone that you love and left you lonely? Are you filled with regrets and guilt? Listen, God’s mercy toward you is greater than his anger. God’s grace toward you is greater than your sin. You can count on that already. You can hope on it today, even if you’re in the pit, a pit you dug. In fact, it was from the overflow of his character that Jesus came into this earth to be born of the virgin. It was so that you could see his love and mercy and justice in such a clear way that it legitimized your hope in him. So, ‘sing praises to the LORD, O you, his saints!’ ‘Give thanks to his holy name!”

Legitimate hope is “strengthened” through our “suffering”.

v. 6-7 “As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.” By your favor, O Lord, you made my mountain stand strong; you hid your face; I was dismayed.” If God’s character is the foundation of our hope, then, surprisingly, it’s suffering that are its trusses and floor joists. That is, if it’s God’s character that starts us down the pathway of real hope, then it’s suffering that strengthens and deepens the conviction of that hope. Legitimate hope is “strengthened” through our “suffering”. In the second half of the Psalm, David gives insight into his discipline. He says, “I said in my prosperity, I shall never be moved.” That is, in my ‘self-confidence’ (NET) I thought that I was immovable and indestructible. David took a census because he wanted everyone to know how indestructible and mighty he was. He wanted everyone to acknowledge that he was responsible for Israel’s greatness and prosperity. It was the end of his life, and he just wanted a little recognition, a little credit for all that he had been a part of. But, what David had missed and what he was soon to learn is that his security had nothing to do with the 1 million man army. His prosperity had nothing to do with his brilliance and his effectiveness as king. No, in the background, lost in all of the hype was the favor of God holding David up and holding Israel together.

Not Me, but You

“By your favor, O Lord, you made my mountain strong; you hid your face; I was dismayed.” Notice the shift in pronouns between verse 6 and verse 7. Verse 6 (old David): “As for ME, I said in MY prosperity, I shall never be moved.” Verse 7 (new David): “By YOUR favor, O LORD, YOU made my mountain stand strong; YOU hid YOUR face; I was dismayed.” Now, reflecting back, David realized that he had lost perspective. David had come to convince himself that he was the source of his own hope. He had come to believe that he was the source of his own security. He ceased to recognize that it was God who had blessed him and sustained him and made him who He was. And, when you take over your own hope, you immediately de-legitimize it. Notice what he says happens: He ‘was dismayed’. That is, he was overwhelmed. He was lost. He felt, in an instance, hopeless. He had de-legitimized his hope by placing it in himself. You make your hope insecure. I wonder if that’s why you’re so worried today. You think about all that you have to get done and all that your family needs and all that your job requires, and then, beyond that, all of things you’d actually like to do. And so, day after day, you just put your head down and run as hard as you can, but then every time you look up, doesn’t it just feel like you’re further away that when you started. When you take over your own hope, when you cease to recognize that it’s God who sustains you, it’s like being swept out to see with no sight of the shore.

Last summer, GK and I were playing with body boards in the ocean. And, she was really struggling against the waves. She’d ride it to the shore, but she couldn’t get back to me. Her tiny little body trying to drag that board against the waves, and it was like the harder she worked the further away the current took her. As the waves came in and knocked her down, it would scare her and take her under. So, after realizing that she couldn’t make it to me, I went to her. When I got there, I pulled her up out of the waves, and I carried her to where we were going. And, you know, she held on to me extra tight, and for the rest of the day, she didn’t try to battle the waves again. She just waited on her dad. This was the effect that God’s discipline had on David. This is the effect suffering has on us, too. Suffering allows us to flex all of our muscles against the currents of life only to discover that we’re too weak. The harder we work the more the waves pound us down. But then, our Father pulls us up out of the waves, and we cling to him with everything that we’ve got. We cling to him because He gives us rest from the waves. And, in this way, suffering strengthens our hope. It legitimizes our hope by compelling us to lean into our Father rather than fighting the waves.

Suffering Flows from God’s Character

You see, our suffering isn’t divorced from God’s character. It flows from it. The pain that David felt didn’t mean that God didn’t love him. The pain that David felt meant that God wanted David to know him better. Do you notice what populates David’s praise in verses 1-3? It’s his suffering. Do you notice what compels him to pray in verses 8-10? It’s his suffering. And, that’s the message of your suffering, too. Your suffering is an invitation to further substantiate just how legitimate your joy in Christ is. You suffering doesn’t mean that God’s doesn’t love; it means that He’s inviting you to know him better. Will you accept?

Legitimate hope is “demonstrated” by our “resilience.”

v. 11-12 “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!” And , hope has a right now, today, in the heat-of-the-moment effect. If God’s character and our suffering function in the background, beneath the surface of our hope, then this is the displayed, outer glory of it; it’s the stunning architecture and the brilliant colors that causes people to stop and admire. It’s the display of hope. You see, Legitimate hope is “demonstrated” by our “resilience.” You see, we live in a world of chronic pain. Out of all of the things that I counsel people through, chronic pain is the hardest. And, I use that term in a sweeping sense. You may be like me and have that pain physically in your body, or you may be like others, and it’s a chronic pain in a relationship. Or, it’s persistent anxiety and depression. But, what’s so hard about chronic pain is that it takes you under the water and attempts to hold you there. It’s like a pillow that someone is holding over your face. It drowns you. It smothers you. It’s always there, and you can’t escape it. That is, our enemy seeks to fill our lives with mourning and misery. He seeks to rob us of all joy. This broken world seeks to drain your life of all its hope.

But, it is our God’s character to work through our sufferings so that our mourning turns to dancing. He works in our lowest moments so that we take off the scratchy, miserable sackcloth and put on the light, wonderful garment of gladness. So, your ability to overcome and persevere through the chronic pain is not found within your nature, but his. It’s not found in your strength, but his. That’s how you bounce back. That’s how you recover. Your resilience is the fruit of legitimate hope found in God alone.

Suffering is on Notice

To be a child of God is to be certain that joy is coming in the morning — and to live like it. It makes me think of Lynn. Lynn had terminal cancer and was certain that she was going to die, and I was sent as a young minister to visit her and encourage her. And, maybe to this day, Lynn is the happiest, most at peace person that I’ve ever known. It was my responsibility to care for her, and yet she took responsibility to lift my spirits every time I came. I once asked her how she was so happy and with such peace. She said, “Jesus is waiting on me, and I’m ready for Him.” You see, she knew that even though she was drowning in the darkness of night that joy was coming in the morning. She knew the day was coming soon in which her last tear would be wiped away and only the joyful morning will be left. And, she knew that because Jesus came. You see, when He came, we mourned for him for three days as his body laid in the grave. But, then, joy came on that Sunday morning when He raised from the dead. And, in that moment, hope was eternally legitimized, and suffering was placed on notice. All suffering and sadness now has an expiration date. Jesus has come, and Jesus is coming again. And so, right now, in this world of chronic pain, every time God turns your tears to joy and your mourning to dancing, He’s giving you a preview of your ultimate future — of the joyful morning that will never pass. “O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever!”