Jesus Was Forsaken So That We Can Worship
Psalm 22
One of the common feelings of the Christian is that God is distant from us. This is especially true in light of recent circumstances. Not only has the pandemic disrupted our lifestyle, but the recent injustices to the black community and even our own personal struggles have led many of us feeling like God has forsaken us.
Of course, as Christians, we know that God is nonetheless near us and that we should not succumb to these discouraging thoughts. Nevertheless, it can be very difficult for us to struggle through this tension when everything around us and within us is trying to convince us that God has abandoned us.
In this sermon on Psalm 22, we see that even David, one of the greatest heroes of our faith, was not immune to these feelings of being forsaken. Moreover, I share about my own recent struggles, partly to comfort those who are experiencing similar struggles are not alone. In fact, God's Word and my own life experiences affirm that it is through these discouraging seasons where God is most near and intimate. God delivers us from these difficult seasons.
However, the focus of the sermon is not how faithful God has been to David, to me, or to any one of us. As all of the psalms are ultimately fulfilled by Jesus Christ, we see that Jesus prayed this particular psalm as he was approaching his death. But unlike David, God did not deliver Jesus from his difficulty. Instead, Jesus was forsaken and abandoned by God. This occurred so that Jesus he could take away our sins and thereby guarantee us that we ourselves will never be forsaken or abandoned by God.
Not only has the death of Jesus taken away our abandonment, but his resurrection guarantees that we can live with a new mentality that can overcome any and all discouragement. Psalm 22 ends with the desire to see God glorified in all the earth and in all generations, even though the psalmist and Jesus have not experienced God's deliverance. Because Jesus's Spirit lives in us, we too can have this new mentality—that regardless of what we go through, our greatest desire is for God to receive all glory and praise!
