His Way Is Through the Sea
The Psalm for today’s sermon, Psalm 77, is a gritty psalm. It dives deep into the distress that we can have from our circumstances in our hearts. Some psalms help our souls find words when they are in the midst of a trial. Other psalms give us guidance to help us out of our trouble. This psalm give us a little of both, but more than that, it gives us a front row seat to how God answers us through his Word.
We can also draw comfort from the fact that God’s Word speaks to our most difficult situations, and gives us guidance through them. Psalm 77 has four sections, each are separated by the word Selah at the end of the section. The first section sets the stage, then the next 3 sections will show us how the psalmist presses through his current circumstances. Psalm 77 has a lesson for us all, and I want to ask the Lord for help as we look at his Word together.
God, we thank you that you have given us psalms like this. That you have given us words and examples for the toughest situations we may face. You haven’t left us to ourselves. You know our frame, you know our days and nights of trouble, and you are there with us. Would you help us to receive your words this morning. Open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things from your word this morning, and meet us in struggles this morning. In Christ’s name we pray, Amen.
Verses 1-3 sets the stage…
The Psalmist’s Current Trouble
There are three pairings here in the first section of the psalm. Here’s two summary words of what is happening here.
In verse 1-2 we see the vigilance of the Psalmist. Vigilance is defined as a state of being watchful or alert. The psalmist is enduring, but more than that, he is watching for help.
Verses 1-2,
“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.”
There is confidence here that God will hear him and there is resolve that he will show up in his day of trouble. His hand is stretched out without growing weary or tired, and his soul refuses to be comforted. It is a little unclear what is meant by this last phrase. It is obvious enough that his soul is not comforted, but it is less clear why is that the case?
We see David talk about his soul almost as a third party that is downcast and he is trying to revive it.
Psalm 42:5,
“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.”
It could be that the psalmist will not let his soul be comforted by anything but God, and so he will wait for an answer from the Lord and continue to stretch out his hand. I think there is an element to this, since theses verses display a zeal and confidence in God. There is some complexity here, and we will see a third component in the next couple verses. This verse could be a stamp of his vigilance, or it could be a transition into the next verses.
In the midst of the psalmist’s vigilance, we see the weariness of the psalmist.
Verse 3,
“When I remember God, I moan;
when I meditate, my spirit faints.” (Selah)
Maybe his hand that is reaching out to God is not weary, but his spirit is. This is an intense description, anguish could be a fitting synonym. His thought of God is not a comforting thought. The thought of God brings him low, makes his audible groan, and his soul is languishing.
Both of these descriptions are active at the same time. He didn’t start with vigilance, and end with weariness, but in the midst of his vigilance his soul is troubled and faints.
If we look one verse farther we learn even more about his trouble.
In verse 4, speaking to God, he says:
“You hold my eyelids open;
I am so troubled that I cannot speak.”
Whether the psalmist refuses to take a lesser comfort or not, we also see that God has not granted rest to him either. We need to appreciate the complexity of our make up here as humans.
He says:
“I cry aloud to you God, and I know you will answer me.”
“I seek you day and night in the time of my trouble, I will not give up.”
“But when I think of you, I moan and groan, my spirit faints.”
“I am so weary, yet you keep me up at night.”
“I am so troubled that I can hardly speak.”
He feels God’s heavy hand on him. The weight keeps him from being raised up, and also keeps him from rest. His spirit faints.
It is not in our common vernacular to use the phrase “my spirit faints”. Yet there is a word that I bet we think or use all the time that captures this experience. We say we are overwhelmed. The psalmist is saying he is overwhelmed.
He feels stuck. He doesn’t feel like he has any more strength to press on. This includes a lack of mental, emotional and spiritual energy to keep going.
What should we do when we are overwhelmed?
This is not where we want to be, yet we all will be there at some point, and many of us may be there right now. We don’t have time this morning to dwell on what we have done when we are overwhelmed, but we will look at what we should do, following the example of the psalmist.
He doesn’t push it to the side or seek to be distracted by temporal things. And from the sounds of it the Lord wouldn’t let him do that even if he tried. He knows the Lord will hear him and he looks for an answer from him. The next three sections show us where he goes.
1) He asks God for strength to discern his heart (verses 4-9)
Verses 5-6,
“I consider the days of old,
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.”
The first thing he does is he asks God to help him remember and meditate in his heart.
Remember the intensity of the circumstances we just laid out. This does not feel like an easy task. The psalmist already said his spirit faints as he seeks to meditate.
He is asking for strength to ponder and meditate on the trouble in his heart. He asks God to give him the strength to look inside to wrestle with his present trouble. He asks for strength to push through the overwhelmed state of his soul for clarity and understanding.
After making his request, the psalmist moves forward in faith and his “spirit makes a diligent search”. This is not a casual pursuit. Other descriptions of this would be: to examine, to turn over every rock, to open every door. Maybe the best way to capture this is to say: he lays his soul bare. He asks for strength from God and then he deeply searched his heart and lays his soul bare.
This is the turning point in the the whole psalm. The whole psalm starts to pivot with verse 6. It is a long road still ahead, but a critical turn happens right here. If he doesn’t ask God for help and then make the effort to interrogate his heart and lay it bare, the rest of the psalm doesn’t happen. None of the insights that follow are found. But when he does ask for strength to meditate, God graciously answers his request for help which reveals several questions that were deep within his heart.
The Psalmist looks in, and finds the questions in his heart that he either did not know were there, or out of fear did not want to admit were there. He unearths the fears and troubles deep within his heart, and vocalizes them. His questions come out of hiding and are brought to God.
He speaks five questions in verses 7-9.
“Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable?
“Has his steadfast love forever ceased?”
“Are his promises at an end for all time?”
“Has God forgotten to be gracious?”
“Has He in anger shut up his compassion?” (Selah)
There may be a chiastic structure to his questions… 1 and 5 are related with an absence of God’s favor and compassion, connected to His anger and spurning of his people. 2 and 4 are related to God’s revealed character as a steadfastly loving God and a gracious God. The middle, number 3, is a question related to God’s word, His promises.
These questions relate to three things about God (that certainly overlap)…
First, questions 1 and 5 relate to what God does. Will you no longer act with favor and be angry forever, cast us off forever?
Second, questions 2 and 4 relate to who God is. Will your steadfast love run out, will you forget to be gracious?
Third, question 3 relates to what God says. Have your promises to us ended, will they no longer be fulfilled?
If there is a chiastic structure here, the tip of the spear is this: Are his promises at an end for all time?
His promises are how his character and his actions come to bear on his people.
And if we are honest, this is most likely where we get hung up as well … God is gracious, but will he be gracious to me? … God is compassionate, forgiving, patient, etc … And that’s why the leading edge of his trouble is a question of God’s promises.
What separates Israel from being one who does not receive grace and one who does receive grace is God’s promise. What separates Israel from being the guilty that God does not clear and those whose transgressions and sin are forgiven is God’s promise.
So the psalmist has some deep questions and fears on his heart. These questions are found out as he lays his soul bear with the help of God. This is where the whole psalm started to pivot, but there is a danger that it could derail at this point.
I think this is the place where the train derails for us most of the time. The second turn is what the psalmist does when he find his questions. Here is the second turn; the psalmist voices his questions and brings them up to God.
This is relevant to all of us. All of us have these types of questions. There is pain or suffering in our lives that we don’t understand, or we don’t know what to do with. There are circumstances that are confusing to us.
We have questions deep down like: God, will you provide for me in this moment? God, do you see and care about what I am going through? God, can you use even this for my good?
It’s not about whether you have questions or not, it’s about whether you will admit them or not. Will you deny them, or will you acknowledge them? Will you hide them, or will you bring them into the light?
Denial seems to be safer. Which is why we can live there, however irrational it might be. We might also hope that our questions or fears will just go away. But then the Lord keeps our eyelids open. Our fears tucked away in the dark won’t be solved. They can’t be buried, the only way to get rid of them is dig them out.
Have you, like the psalmist, laid bare your soul before the Lord? Have you opened every door in your heart to God, or are there some doors you have kept off limits? The doors that hold your fears, the doors that hold your anxieties, the doors that hold your pain, the doors that hold your questions and doubts.
I think there are 2 main reasons we don’t bring these things to God, even though we know they are there, and we know God can already see them…
First, we don’t bring these things to God, because: They reveal where we are, not where we pretend to be.
When we express our questions to God, whether that means we write them down in a journal, or audibly express them in a prayer, we move out of denial. And to move out of denial is uncomfortable. It deals a blow to where we wish to be, or pretend to be; and reveals where we actually are. This is uncomfortable, it takes courage for an overwhelmed heart to unearth its trouble. But to express our honest troubles or questions to God moves us into alignment with reality, with what is currently true about our hearts and souls.
Second, we then become accountable to the answers.
Once our questions or fears or pains or doubts are brought into the light, we can no longer remain where we are. To ask our questions to God is to expose ourselves to answers, and those answers will require something of us. We cannot stay how we are. Once a question is answered, we need to respond to it. And again, that isn’t comfortable for us, but that is the only way out.
God will help us with our questions, if we will bring them to him. We can keep hobbling along and getting by with the wound in our leg, but the only way to move forward healthily is to clean it out. God wants more for us, he wants to meet us in our questions and give us hope and understanding. God will help us with our questions, if we will bring them to him.
As we have seen, the psalmist does not derail where we may be prone to ourselves. The psalmist dove down and found the questions in his heart, but bringing them into the light, he then appeals to God’s past favor for help.
2) He appeals to the years of God’s past favor (verses 10-15)
Verse 10,
“I will appeal to this; to the years of the right hand of the Most High”
He looks intently back to the years of past blessing.
Verses 11–12,
“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.”
Let’s not overlook where he goes for help, where he goes for hope, for answers: He goes to what God has already revealed about himself … He goes to his actions and Words, he goes to the Scriptures. We would be different if we believe God would meet us in his Word. He remembers how God has powerfully acted and who God is.
Verses 13-15,
“Your way, O God, is Holy. What god is great like our God? 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)
What results in this search is that the heart of the psalmist is becoming humble and hopeful. He is wanting to see and remember God faithfulness — that He has and will continue to make good on His promises. He remembers God saving his people with his whole arm. He remembers he made known his power among the peoples. He learns by seeing and pondering the greatness of God.
You can feel the change in the demeanor of the psalmist. He is starting to sound different. The psalmist has gone deep into his soul and deep into the works of God. We could anticipate him coming back to his troubled soul and back to his current distress. But instead of doing this, he keeps going deeper into the wonder of God. It’s almost as if he is so caught up in the majesty of God that his troubles start to shrink and fade in the rear view mirror. They don’t vanish, but his heart is starting to get carried away in the wonder of God.
3. He marvels at the way of God (verses 16-20)
Verses 16-18,
“When the waters saw you, O 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 whirlwind;
your lightnings lighted up the world;
the earth trembled and shook.”
Then we get the closest thing to an answer from God to his questions. The psalmist through his meditation on the past works of God, gets a glimpse of the glory and mystery of God. He writes, verses 19-20,
“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.”
Exodus 14:1–4,
“Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon; you shall encamp facing it, by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the people of Israel, “They are wandering in the land; the wilderness has shut them in.” And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD.’ And they did so.”
Three truths to marvel at…
First — “Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters” means, at a minimum, his way is not the path we would choose. He could have led them around it, but he didn’t. God’s way for his people was not around the sea, but it was going to be through it. “His way was through the sea.”
Second — “Yet your footsteps were unseen.” They have just come out of Egypt, after hundreds of years of hard labor and slavery. God brings them out into the wilderness and they seem to be wandering. God’s path for his people wasn’t always clear to them. He led them according to his plan that was mysterious to them, they didn’t know it or understand it.
Third — “You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.” They were led by God, using the hand of Moses and Aaron. Imagine the scene using this building as an illustration — these walls, 60 feet up, are huge walls of water on either side and you are just walking along on the bottom of the sea. How safe would you feel in that moment?
How safe would you feel?
You may not feel safe, not in the sense we typically use the word… You are not safe in the sense that no danger is around you. We like control. What we think is safe is for a child to be walking on dry sand at a beach, 10 feet from the waters edge… Not a child of Israel walking through the middle of the sea on dry ground, 10 feet from the depths which the Lord had stacked up on either side.
Israel did not have control, but they were safe.
This safety is accompanied by a fear of God, who is not seen as he leads his people through an unlikely path. This Holy God is beyond them, but with his strong hand he is delivering them from all their trouble. That deliverance was “Through the great waters.”
They were not safe because of an absence of a sea or storm, they were safe because of God’s unseen presence and in the midst of a sea or storm. They were safely led by God like a flock of sheep through the great waters that were stacked up right next to them. And because God led them through the sea, they behold more glory and safety than they would have had otherwise.
How different it would have been if he led them around the sea, but he didn’t. The armies of Pharaoh could have followed them around the seas, but they couldn’t go through the sea. God not only led them away from their enemies, but he conquered them and receive glory over them. There are now no horses and chariots left to chase Israel around the sea, because God buried them in the sea.
The psalmist doesn’t directly apply it to his situation, but he is gaining the understanding that he needs. He can see that God’s guidance comes in the midst of the trial. That His way is beyond us and He guides us in an unseen and mysterious way. God led his people to the edge of a sea, and brought them through it. The psalmist finds what his heart needs by looking to what God has already revealed to his people. He meditates on his works, and as he ponders them, it leads him into wonder and to worship.
And the same can be true for us. God will meet us in our questions. He will meet us in His Word. If we ask, he will answer. He will speak to us still today. And we have much more to draw from then the psalmist did. And this leads us to another way of God to marvel at.
The Table
His way was through the sea, and his way was through the cross. He could not go around it, not if he wanted to save us from our sins, not if he wanted to accomplish His Father's will. Jesus’s way was through the cross. That glorious and terrible day of the cross where our sin was defeated and God made good on his promise.
This table reminds us of that day and the sin-paying work of Christ. If you believe this, if you look to Jesus and cling to him for forgiveness and rescue from your sin, then we welcome you to marvel at the cross of Christ with us as we eat and drink together.
