Our Heart’s Hope

Psalm 89

Immanuel – 12/18/22

This is now the second week in a short Christmas sermon series entitled, “The Weary World Rejoices.” I kicked off the series with the sermon “Our Weary Hearts;” where we dove into Psalm 88. Like I said last week, it might not seem like the most Christmassy place to start for a Christmas series.

Psalm 88, is the prayer of Heman the Ezrahite; a man afflicted with depression, frailty, grief, abandonment: pain from without and pain from within. In Psalm 88, Heman throws himself before the Lord and gives expression to the vast and dark anguish brooding within his soul.

Psalm 88 is a psalm for suffers, and it stands alone among all the other Psalms. For when you have traversed its verses you realize that there is no happy ending, no gratifying resolution, no obvious redemption. At its conclusion God is silent and Heman remains in the dark.

Or so it may appear. For through the darkness of Psalm 88, we catch three glories glimmering there.

First, Heman is not swallowed by his own self-pity; but he fixes his eyes firmly upon God. His suffering is deep, but it is holy. And his example of holy suffering is a glimmering glory in the dark.

Second, despite God’s apparent silence during Heman’s prayer, Heman’s words become God’s word – for we are reading them in the Bible. God uses Heman’s words to help countless sufferers through the millennia; thus proving that He works all things together for our good, satisfying our troubled and weary hearts, even if we are not able to see it through the shadows of pain. God will not allow our suffering to be meaningless. He is using it. This truth is a glory in the dark.

Third and finally, in Heman’s words we see glimpses of Christ’s sufferings and we are reminded that every time we experience afflictions – whether from within our without – we are experiencing a taste of what Christ suffered on our behalf. And when God allows us to share in Christ’s sufferings, allowing us to know our Savior that much more, it is a great gift, it is a glory in the dark.

Being able to see glory in the dark is the most Christmassy thing we can do. For just as a star broke the night of Bethlehem, the Messiah broke the darkness of a dying world.

As we read at the beginning of John’s gospel:

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. -John 1:4-5

Today we continue the theme of light breaking into the darkness, of God bringing hope and joy to our weary hearts. Today we look to the very next psalm, Psalm 89, and see – not just glimmers – but hope dawning upon weary hearts.

Purpose

1. Give context to Psalm 89

2. Give you four hopes to sustain weary hearts.

I have been greatly helped in preparing for this sermon, and last weeks, by Ligon Duncan’s book, “When Pain is Real and God Seems Silent.” It’s in our Book Nook and I encourage you all to give it a read.

Read Psalm 89

Psalm 89 is a long Psalm, and – if I’m being honest – one I never deeply studied before preparing for this sermon. Certainly it is a familiar Psalm to me, and likely it is to many of you as well; especially the first verse.

Do any of you remember the upbeat song:

I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever,

I will sing, I will sing.

I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever,

I will sing of the mercies of the Lord.

With my mouth will I make known

Thy faithfulness, thy faithfulness.

With my mouth will I make know,

Thy faithfulness to all generations.1

It’s a chipper song, a handclapper. And it’s appropriate that Psalm 89 was put to music, because the psalm is a song. Ethan the Ezrahite wrote it to be put to music.

But it wasn’t until I looked more closely that I realized this song doesn’t really fit the tenor of Psalm 89. Certainly the words that the song is based upon are joyful words; certainly the majority of the words in Psalm 89 are joyful words. But upon closer examination, we see that Ethan the Ezrahite is not feeling very joyful. Dare I say, Ethan weeps while he sings.

The Backdrop

To understand why Ethan weeps, let’s take a moment to consider the circumstances surrounding this man. Ethan the Ezrahite is named in 1 Kings and 1 Chronicles.

And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore, so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all other men, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol, and his fame was in all the surrounding nations. -1 Kings 4:29-31

Here we learn that Ethan was a contemporary of King Solomon, the heir and son of King David. Ethan was also renown for his wisdom. He is listed first among wise men, as if he were the wisest man in the known world. That is, the wisest next to Solomon.

Though Solomon was given immeasurable wisdom from the Lord, Solomon fell into folly. He worshipped other gods and he built places of worship for them; even including the abominable Molech, to whom the Ammonites sacrifices their children.

For such wicked idolatry, God promised Solomon that He would divide Israel’s kingdom. Solomon’s reign was immediately infected by sedition and scheming. When Solomon died and his son, Rehoboam, took the throne, the united kingdom of Israel was lost. The Promised Land was forever divided: 10 tribes in the north called Israel and 2 tribes in the south called Judah.

To the Jews, this was devastating; not just because the country they so loved had irreparably polarized and fallen into wickedness, but also because it seemed as if the word of the Lord was failing. For God had made a covenant that Israel, all of Israel, would be ruled by a son of David.

The Lord spoke to David, “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom…I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son…And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.” -2 Samuel 7:12,14,16

This is what we commonly refer to as the Davidic Covenant, the covenant where God promised to establish David’s throne forever. More specifically, God was promising that a single King would reign on David’s throne forever.

Ethan the Ezrahite, the writer of Psalm 89, lived past Solomon’s death. From the context of Psalm 89, we can deduce that he likely lived after Solomon had died. Ethan watched as the Promised Land was torn asunder by adversaries and filled with abominable idolatry. David’s line continued to reign in the kingdom of Judah, but the glory of a united Israel was lost. The kingdom had failed.

Imagine being a Jew living through all of this. If the kingdom of Israel failed, does that mean God’s word had failed? Has His favor departed? Are they truly His people? Are they all condemned?

If God’s word failed, then everything that they knew, everything that they were, was lost. If God’s word failed, they were a people stripped of identity and tossed into the cold, silent, dark of separation from God. There is nothing more existentially terrifying and depressing to the human soul than separation from God.

Do you hear that fear, that anguish, in Psalm 89?

Read vs 38-39,46,49

Hopefully now you can see that Psalm 89 is not chipper and upbeat. Ethan the Ezrahite weeps while he sings.

Are you not able to relate to Ethan the Ezrahite? Have you seen a land filled with promise crash into idolatry and division? Have you placed your hopes in something, even if that something was good, and then had those hopes dashed before your eyes? Have you walked through times so hard that you wondered if God’s favor had left; where it felt like God was so far away?

Have you cried out like Ethan the Ezrahite, How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever? For what vanity you have created all the children of man! (Psalm 89:46,47)

But Psalm 89 is not like the one before it. Despite the anguish of Ethan’s prayerful song, it soars with hope. It is saturated in redemptive themes. It is both an expression of deep sorrow and soul sustaining, joyful hope.

Four Sustaining Hopes

In this psalm I see four sustaining hopes, hopes that will sustain sufferers no matter how dreary and how painful their days may become. These four sustaining hopes are woven together. You pull on one and you get the other three.

The first sustaining hope is God’s election. Listen to how Ethan the Ezrahite hopes in the election of God.

Vs 1 – I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord, forever; with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations.

Vs 3 – You have said, “I have made a covenant with my Chosen One; I have sworn to David my servant.”

Vs 29 – “I will establish His offspring forever and His throne as the days of the heavens.”

Embedded within this psalm is a great hope in God’s election. God’s election is God’s electing love, and His love is steadfast – it is eternal.

Here is how Psalm 89 demonstrates this: of all the peoples of the world, God had placed His steadfast love on Israel. Of all the sons of Jesse, God had chosen David. Of all the children of men, God has chosen to eternally love the offspring of David. Generation to generation, God’s electing love will not fail.

Ethan was an Ezrahite, one of God’s chosen people. Through his words we can see that, though the circumstances surrounding him might indicate otherwise, he knew God’s election is not fickle or capricious. God has not changed His mind. This is why, through mournful heart, he worships the Living God for His unchangeable, unshakable, electing love.

And if Ethan could see the electing love of God through the shadows of the old covenant, how much more can we see them in the face of Jesus Christ? For in Jesus, the promised son of David has come.

In the beginning of the gospel of Luke, the angel tells Mary:

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end. -Luke 1:31-33

If you hope in Jesus, and bow your knee before He who is Son of the Most High, the Son of David, you are united to Jesus, you belong to His kingdom, you are chosen by God.

As Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed that you should go and bear fruit.” -John 15:16

If you love Jesus, then God chose you!

Ethan knows, and we should know all the more, that no matter what this life may bring – tribulation, persecution, famine, danger, depression – nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:35,38).

The second sustaining hope is God’s covenant of grace. As Ligon Duncan succinctly puts it, “God’s covenant of grace is the outworking of His salvific promises throughout redemptive history. In the covenant of grace, God enters into relationship with His people.”2

In other words, God’s covenant of grace is where He graciously chooses to enter into relationship with sinners.

Listen to the covenant of grace expressed in Psalm 89.

Vs 3 – You have said, “I have made a covenant with my Chosen One; I have sworn to David my servant.”

Vs 28 – “My steadfast love I will keep for Him forever, and my covenant will stand firm for Him.”

Vs 34 – “I will not violate my covenant or alter the words that went forth from my lips.”

Vs 35 – “Once for all I have sworn by my holiness; I will not lie to David.”

Vs 49 – Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which you swore to David?

The covenant that God made with David is just a part of His covenant of grace. When He made covenant with Abraham, that was another part. From Adam to Noah to Abraham to Moses to David, we see God unfurling His covenant of grace; entering into relationship with sinful humans. And in each one of these covenants, God binds Himself to their fulfillment.

In Psalm 89:35, we read “I have sworn by my holiness.” God secures His covenant of grace with His holiness. Meaning, if the covenant of grace fails, then God’s holiness has failed.

Yes, your sorrows, your pain, might be a consequence of your own sinning. Perhaps it is the consequence of someone else’s sinning. Perhaps both. But all pain, all sorrow and suffering, is a consequence of humanities sin. And when we look around our weary world we can feel it; it permeates our hearts.

But because God’s covenant of grace is upheld by His holiness, and not your sinful attempts at holiness, then may your weary heart find hope. The steadfast love of the Lord will endure forever. God has promised it.

Vs 37 – Like the moon it shall be established forever, a faithful witness in the skies.

How good is our God who gives us grace, rather than what we deserve! It is part of what makes Him holy.

The third sustaining hope is the sovereignty of God.

Read vs 8-13

As these verse say, God is sovereign over the ragings of the sea, He scatters His enemies, He owns the vastness of the universe, and everything within the earth is His.

If God is sovereign over it all, and everything created is guided by His hand, they you can rest assured that He is wielding the entire created order for the good of those who love Him.

Or, as Paul wrote, If God is for us, who can be against us? 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? -Romans 8:31-32

Have your hopes been destroyed? Is there pain that gnaws at your body or sorrow that tears at your heart? Are the tumults of this world too much to bear?

Remember, the Almighty is for us. He chose us. He graciously entered into covenant with us, staking His very holiness upon it. He is bending history to bow before His Son and working it all together for our good (Romans 8:28).

If you are in Christ, then remember that God can do anything, He loves you, and He has covenantally bound Himself to you. Surely, you can cast your cares upon Him. Surely your weary heart will be sustained through suffering as you hope in our Sovereign God.

The fourth sustaining hope is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Read vs 38-45

Ethan gives expression to the ruined hopes of men, as he was grieved by the first fractures of the Davidic line. Some 300 years later, when the Babylonian hordes brought their destructions to Judah, the throne of David was cut off. The hopes of men fell into even darker ruin. There is a whole book of the Bible devoted to that dark time: Lamentations.

From a human perspective, God’s promises looked like they failed. The Old Testament ends with no Davidic king, a portion of Israel entirely lost, and a final word from God that would initiate a 400-year silence.

But again and again, the Bible reveals that just when we might think God’s promises have failed, it is the very way in which He gloriously delivers on them. From the chopped-down tree of David, springs a shoot. After 400-years of silence, the Word of God is heard in a baby’s first cry. From a bloody cross and a dark tomb, rises the Firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth (vs 27).

All the woe of Psalm 89:28-45 is ultimately about Jesus, the truest, mightiest, Son of David. Jesus was cast off and rejected. God’s wrath was poured upon Him on the cross. Jesus took the curse of covenant failure on our behalf and was renounced. He was scorned, shamed, and His days were cut short. If He had a crown, it was cast into the dust.

Read vs 49

God’s resounding answer is that His steadfast love is found in the face of Jesus Christ: a face that was spat upon, beaten, and pierced by thorns! Through His suffering the glory of David’s throne endures forever. The covenant of grace is unfurled and every shadow is cast aside in Jesus, the Light of the World.

Night precedes day, death before resurrection, suffering then glory. It is how God has ordered creation and this is a powerful hope to sustain our weary hearts.

So fear not! When waves of sorrow and pain crash upon you, and your heart sinks into darkness, and all of your hopes seems wrecked upon the rocks of life; know that God is sovereign. He has established a covenant upon His holiness and graciously enters into relationship with sinners. And He has chosen you, His beloved sons and daughters, to give a moment of suffering that will serve to amplify a coming eternal weight of glory.

See Jesus, who has gone before us, the founder and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). The night may be dark, but He lights the way. Your heart may be weary and heavy laden, but He will give you rest. Though your soul might be desperately thirsty, He will satisfy you with living waters.

God has set, in Jesus Christ, an everlasting joy in your path. So you, Christian, can sing even through blinding tears,

I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord, forever; with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations. -Psalm 89:1

1 Fillmore, J. H. (ca. 1860s-1870s) “I Will Sing of the Mercies of the Lord”

2 Duncan, L. (2020). When Pain is Real and God Seems Silent. Pg 45. Crossway