Welcome to our Together on Mission Podcast. When we seek to be with and like Jesus, as we begin a conversation with Jesus in the morning, the scripture, prayer and meditation. And then continue that conversation with him throughout your day. Your host, St.
Travis, find the pastor at the Inland Vineyard Church in Corona, California. Good morning, everyone. And welcome to the Together on Mission Podcast. And welcome to the season of the podcast.
This is Travis and it's great to be with all of you this morning. It really is. It's Tuesday, Wednesday. For some reason, I've forgotten what day it is.
It's Tuesday. Happy Tuesday morning and you're going to need a Bible and you're going to need a journal. And I'm going to need a cup of coffee. I already have one, but I'm going to need another one.
But it's so fun to be together. It really is. We're traveling through the Psalms, selecting different Psalms that help us express our emotion before God was really going on. As I've said a number of times, we don't go to prayer to be good.
We don't go to prayer to be good little boys and good little girls in the presence of our parent that expects goodness. We go to prayer to be real. And that is why the Psalms have been the prayer book of the saints, the prayer book of Israel, the prayer book of Jesus, the prayer book of the church. And now our prayer book.
So let's get real before God. The title of the podcast this morning is Forsaken and in this podcast journey through the Psalms these few weeks, we must do Psalm 22. So let's do Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
That's the first line of Psalm 22, which most of us will recognize because it's not only a famous Old Testament Psalm, but as we'll see, it's a famous New Testament saying, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now, this is not a feeling that we like to tap. It's not a feeling that we want to share regularly, feeling forsaken. As I like to say, it's not a feeling that we talk about it parties, but we feel it.
We feel forsaken by God. And you may push back and say, oh, no, I don't feel that at all. And maybe we don't feel it all the time, but we feel it more than we talk about. It's one of those feelings that's there.
It's deep down. It shows up in at least an area of our lives most of the time. In some seasons, it seems to show up in every area of our lives. We'll get to that in a minute, but I guess we could, I guess we could tap it this way.
Does God care? Does he notice what I'm going through? Why won't he fix it? Why won't he heal them?
Why doesn't he provide? Why won't he listen? Why won't he help? Why does he seem to listen to that other person or them?
You know, I tried so hard. I've been so faithful. Why do I have to walk through this? Why do I have to watch a love and walk through this?
Why? Why? Why God? Why?
That's the feeling of forsaken. You know, and some of us have walked through quite a few of these seasons. If we've been journeying with Jesus for a long time and some of us, maybe we haven't entered one of these deep, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Season but we will if we say faithful to Jesus, we will.
There's going to be green pastures and there's going to be dark valleys. So we might as well get prepared for it. And so the question is this, in what way specifically, what area specifically do you feel forsaken by God? In what area?
What way? What relationship? What aspect of your life do you feel forsaken by God? It's like, God, what is going on?
Where are you? Why won't you give me an answer? What's why do I have to watch this? Why do I have to go through this?
What's going on? What area? What relationship? What aspect of your life are we feeling this?
And maybe we felt it for a while. Maybe we've actually grown accustomed to this feeling like this is just the way that it is. And there's some truth to that walking through a broken world. But and this is part of the point.
We must cry out. We must express it. We must go there. And that's why the book of Psalms is such a gift, such a gift to us.
Because as I've said before, if we don't go where we don't want to go, right? Crying out and owning our forsakenness, at least that feeling that we're having. If we don't go where we don't want to go, we'll never get where we want and where we need to get. Which is rest and life and freedoms with question presses and what area specifically and what relationship specifically do you feel forsaken by God?
It might be financially. It might be your marriage. It might be your kids, your grandkids. It might be health.
It might be your purpose in life. It might be there's just this huge question that you can't answer a clarity that you don't have suffering that seems to be unrelenting, whatever it might be. And so Psalm 22, we're going to pop around a little bit because it's a very long Psalm. I'd encourage you to read the whole thing, but I'm just going to read a few excerpts of it.
Verse 1, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far off? Why are you not saving me? Verse 2, my God, I cry out to you day and night, but you won't answer.
I find no rest. Verse 6, I am a worm, not a man, scorned by everyone. Verse 7, all who see me mock me. Verse 11, do not be far from me for trouble is near and there is no one to help me.
Verse 15, my mouth is dried up like a pot shed. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death. There's so much here, but at the end of the Psalm, posterity will serve him.
Future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn that he has done it. He has finished it. And again, there are some things I think I've said before when I was a young Christian, specifically a young preacher, I wouldn't preach these Psalms because I was afraid it was going to cast God in a negative light.
But again, we don't go to the Psalms for theology. We go for relationship to get real and that's important. Many, many times David isn't so much speaking theologically. He's speaking relationally, but even as I say that, honestly, and this might be a home of the podcast, we do need to understand theology in a more relational framework.
So from a certain perspective, David is speaking theologically. Maybe that's a more deep understanding of theology than we've grown accustomed to. Again, that's a topic for another time, but God is relational. Walking with him is relational and we need the Psalms to go there.
So let's let the Psalm pull out of us, out of you, that feeling, that area, that place, that relationship, that decision. Where you feel forsaken by God, where you want to say, God, why have you forsaken me? Why won't you help? Why won't you fix?
Why won't you do that? I don't understand. I understand. Where'd you go?
My mouth is dry. Everyone mocks me. I can't stand this anymore. I'm finding a rest.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And some of us are already ahead of me. We recognize this language. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
This is what Jesus cried out on the cross, at least in the gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Mark. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? and many theologians, pastors, Christians have thought that that actually meant that God foresook Jesus like God left Jesus on the cross. And I don't think that's the case.
And if I'm wrong, I'll turn in my ordination. I think that Jesus was going through the most painful experience of his life and the most painful experience that humanity had ever experienced, the greatest level of suffering ever experienced ever in the history of the world. And Jesus felt like David felt in the Psalm and said how he felt. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
I don't believe that Jesus ontologically or actually forsook Jesus. But I do think that Jesus felt that and he cried out and it was a real feeling. But I don't think God ever left David and I don't think God ever left Jesus and I don't think God ever leaves you and I don't think God ever leaves me. And by the way, notice at the very end of Psalm 22, it says he has done it.
It is accomplished. It is finished. And I'm sure you remember that the last thing that Jesus said on the cross before he gave up his last breath and died was it is finished. So Psalm 22 actually tells the story of the cross, which is a whole other podcast.
But as we get pulled into the feeling of God, God, God, why have you forsaken me? Where did you go? What are you doing? I don't understand.
Jesus knows exactly what we're feeling. But God will never leave us and he'll never forsake us. But we feel that way. He's accomplishing his purpose.
He's the giver of every good and perfect gift and we're discovering that and it may take a few seasons of walking through these kind of times to discover that. But the Psalm helps us get through it. So just a couple of things before we have a time of prayer and just connecting with Jesus, this kind of journey where we're able to cry out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This kind of journey will deepen our relationship with God.
It will give us unbelievable self understanding as we go through this with Jesus. It will help us understand other people when they go through these kind of times. It will allow us to be there for them when they feel forsaken. It will allow us to be there for our kids, you know, for our spouse, for our friends, for those that we love.
It will allow us to be there. If we go there, we'll become the kind of people that are able to take other people there or be there for those that need to go there. And also, and this is something that I'm experiencing. If we're willing to go here to this feeling of forsaken is it will actually take the fear out of Christianity.
I don't know about you, but I'm kind of always afraid of losing that loving feeling and entering into a dark valley of confusion or whatever. But when we understand this psalm, we know that there's going to be seasons of feeling forsaken, even though God will never forsake us. And we don't even longer have to be afraid of entering into that difficult season. We just know it's going to come and we know God is good and we know God will never leave us, nor will he forsake us.
And so it sets us free to actually rest in this moment as opposed to being afraid of the next moment, resting in this moment, no matter how we feel and taking in whatever this moment has to offer as opposed to being afraid of what's going to happen next. And by the way, I need to land this plane so we can get on to praying and meditating, but it also sets us free in our relationship. So we don't have to be afraid of entering into a season of forsakenness. We're going to feel that not all the time, but sometimes.
And it allows us in relationship to rest in this moment and take in the life of this moment instead of being afraid that in the next moment in our relationship with God or other people, we're going to feel forsaken. And so it just entering into the soul and entering into our emotions and being able to cry out to God. God, why have you forsaken me? Even though he never will and never does actually, ironically brings freedom.
So let's just express that to God. That's pinpoint the area of the place, the relationship where we feel that let's express it to God. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And let's make that the beginning of our walk in our talk with Jesus throughout today.
We'll talk tomorrow. Thanks for listening to the Together on Mission podcast. We truly hope that you were blessed and encouraged by you today. If you had any questions about the Inland Vineyard Church, our ministries or our Sunday services, feel free to connect with us on our brand new app, which you can find in the Google Play and the App Store.
And check out our social media pages like Facebook and Instagram. Or even check out our website at inlandvignard.org.