21. “I Shall Again Praise Him pt. 1” (Psalm 42)

Psalm 42

My guess is that pretty much everyone here is familiar with the beloved children’s stories of Winnie the Pooh. There is the main character Pooh, obviously. Pooh is this rotund and lovable bear that is always looking for honey. There is Rabbit, who this persnickety and uptight rabbit. He is always freaking out about his garden. There is Tigger who is just a ball of energy. His top is made of rubber his bottom is made out of spring. 

And then there is Eeyore. A gloomy, pensive, and downcast donkey. 

And as a kid, I thought he was kind of funny. His house falls over and he says things like “probably would’ve happened anyway.” And when someone wishes him a good morning, he says, “If it is a good morning, which I doubt.” And I mean I kind of felt bad for the guy, but he was hilarious. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize that there is a little bit of Eeyore in all of us. We all experience gloom and downcastness from time to time.

There are times and seasons when we are disappointed. We didn’t get the job we were hoping for or the relationship that we were in fizzled out. There are times as parents when we are exhausted. We love our kids, we are grateful for them AND it feels like we are on a hamster wheel. For others, you have might have a sense of gloom or downcastness because of grief and loss. Being downcast is part of the human experience. It is not just a quirk of personality, it is something everyone experiences. The writers of Scripture felt this way at times. Moses, Elijah, and Paul and all record times when they felt deep discouragement and even despair. Jesus himself felt cast down in the garden of Gethsemane and on the cross. 

And so today, we are looking at Psalm 42 because it is a Psalm that is meant to help when we are feeling downcast. At three different times we hear the Psalmist say that he is cast down. Twice in the form of a question, “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” And once as a statement, “My soul is cast down within me.” But far from being a somber sermon about a difficult topic, what we will see is that Psalm 42 is tremendously hopeful. It shows not only downcastness but also hope. It shows us how it is possible to be downcast and hopeful at the same.   

To be both downcast and hopeful, you need to understand your need, you need to know how to persevere in that need, and lastly you need to see how your deepest need is fulfilled in Christ.

Understand Your Need

Psalm 42 is pretty well-known Psalm. In the mid 1980s and into the 90s there was popular worship song titled “As the Deer” which was based on Psalm 42. And if you are familiar with that song, you know that it has a kind of tranquil lullaby feel to it. “Duh, duh, duh…” I loved that song, I grew-up singing that song. But I think that it gives the wrong impression of Psalm 42. In verse 1 when the Psalmist says, “As a deer pants for flowing streams.” That word “pants” is a word that means to deeply yearn. It is referring to dire thirst. The image you should have in your mind is not Bambi prancing toward flowing water; No, the image here is much more severe. It is of a deer that is exhausted and emaciated. It is the image of a deer that has been searching for water for days. 

And the Psalmist is saying that he feels that exact same way. He completes the comparison, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.” He is deeply yearning. And he likely is physically thirsty. Notice that in verse 3 he says that “his tears have been his food day and night.” But what he wants to draw our attention to is not only his physical thirst, but also his spiritual thirst. He is deeply yearning for God. He says so plainly in verse 2, “My soul thirsts for God.” He is exhausted and emaciated as he longs for God, just like that deer longs for water.

Which is kind of a weird comparison for us. I’m not sure if any of us, would instinctively compare our souls’ thirst for God to a deer’s thirst for water. And yet it is an extremely insightful comparison. So what is the Psalmist getting at? 

To answer that question, we need to think about what it means to be a human being. Human beings are embodied creatures, made in the image of God. Which means we have both a physical and spiritual nature. 

Martyn Lloyd Jones was both a physician and a pastor, so he spent his life thinking about both body and soul. One of his greatest observations, from a book he wrote about being downcast, was that sometimes our souls are downcast because of bodily needs, and sometimes our bodies suffer because of spiritual needs. 

As an example of this, one of the greatest Old Testament prophets was Elijah. And there is a moment where he is despairing of life and he goes and lays under a broom tree. His soul is feeling immensely downcast and he falls asleep. And then an angel wakes him up and says, Get up and eat.” Which is awesome! We might expect an angel – a purely spiritual being – to give Elijah a word or a message or something mysterious, something very spiritual. But the angel says, “Get up and eat.” Nap time is over Elijah, you need some food and some water.  

So I think the Psalmist is putting his finger on something that can be very hard for us to keep together. On the one hand we have a physical nature, he says, “I thirst for God.” His physical thirst teaches him about his spiritual thirst. And on the other hand, we have a spiritual nature. “I thirst for God.” For God whom he says at the end of verse 2 is “the living God.” That is the God who gave life to all things. The God who is the creator of heaven and earth. The God who is pure spirit and doesn’t have a body like man. And yet, the God who made embodied creatures like us. In some ways are like animals, but in other ways we are so much more.

We are more because were made for communion with the living God. You think of the answer to the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, “what is the chief end of man?” To glorify God and enjoy Him forever. You were made to enjoy God. You have the spiritual capacity to enjoy the living God. And not in the way that an angel does, as a purely spiritual being, and not in the way that an animal does as purely physical being, but in the way that a human does – as a being that is both physical and spiritual. 

When the Psalmist say that “he thirsts for God” he is acknowledging that he was made for more than material reality, but he is not denying the impact, the importance, of material reality.

Notice how he goes on to talk about what communing with God looks like. In verse 4 he talks about remembering how he would go with the throng to the house of God. Which means that for the Psalmist his thirst for God was not either some individual-emotional thing nor was it a social-material thing – it was both! In the house of God, with the people of God, singing the praises of God – where his needs were met and his thirst was satisfied.    

When I was younger, I didn’t really understand this. I thought that communing with God was something very individual. If I wanted to commune with God what I did was go into my room, close the door, and try to emotionally and spiritually get myself close to Him. I was a little bit intense. But as earnest as I was trying to be in those things, I see now that at times I was misunderstanding my need. There were times when going into my “prayer closet” was absolutely what I needed to do. But there were also times when a youth leader named Terrance took me out for a smoothie and I felt so loved, seen, and worthwhile. But what I didn’t connect the dots with was that was how God was caring for me too. That was one of the ways He was meeting my needs.

When our souls are disquieted within, we need to remember that we are creatures made in the image of God. We have both physical and spiritual needs. And oftentimes those needs overlap and intersect. If you are feeling weighed down maybe you need to pray, or maybe you need someone else to pray for you, maybe you need to go for a walk, maybe you need some time with friends, or maybe it would be good talk with a counselor. We have a tendency to pick one or the other – but we are complex beings. If we are to get our thirst for God met, then we need to understand the complexity of our need.

But what about those times, when you cannot get your needs met? 

There is a world of difference between knowing what you need and being able to reach it. The deer knows that it needs water, that is not the problem. The problem is that it can’t find water. It cannot reach what it needs. And the Psalmist is in the exact same situation. He knows what he needs, but he also knows that he cannot reach it. 

If you look at the question that he asks at the end of verse 2, “when shall I come and appear before God?” Where could you appear before God? An ancient Israel knew that the answer to that question was, the Temple. The Temple in Jerusalem was the place where you could appear before God. That is the place where your thirst could be most deeply met. If you wanted to commune with God and with one another. If you wanted to drink deeply from the streams of living water, the place to do that was in the Temple. 

And the sad reality for the Psalmist is that he knew that he could not get there. At the end of verse 5, the Psalmist talks about remembering the Lord from the land of Jordan and of Hermon from Mount Mizar. This refers to the northern part of Israel, near the source of the Jordan river. We don’t exactly know why the Psalmist can’t make it to the Temple. From Psalm 43, which completes 42, it seems like he might be in some kind of exile, maybe he is even a prisoner of war, or maybe he had simply moved away from his community. But whatever the situation may be, what is clear is that the Temple was beyond his reach.  

But you might still be wondering, “why is the Temple so important?” Why is the Temple the only place where he could get his thirst satisfied? I mean isn’t God everywhere? Couldn’t he just find a couple like-minded people to discuss the Scriptures with?

Well, in many the Temple for him was kind of like church is for us. It was the place where people gathered to worship God. Where community and deep friendships were formed. Where people sang and prayed together. Where children were welcomed and received the sign of belonging to that community. It was a place where people meditated on God’s Word, finding it to be their treasure and their delight. It was the central place where God met and communed with his people.

But for the ancient Israelites the Temple was even more than that. For them, the Temple was a place of hope. It was a sign of something so much larger than itself.  To think of the Temple was to think of the true story of this world. When the living God created the world, he made a garden. And in that garden, he put Adam and Eve. Using the language of Nick’s sermon last Sunday, he placed two stewards in the garden. And that garden was like a temple. It was a place of communion with God and one another. It was a place where no one would ever go thirsty.

Which sounds amazing. Can you imagine what it would be like to be back in the garden?  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be back in that place where God walked with humans in the cool of the day? What would it be like to be that secure. To be that loved. To be that close to God.

Well the Temple was the place where you didn’t have to imagine that. The Temple was the place where humans could commune with God and one another. The Temple was like a little slice of heaven on earth.  It was like a seedling of the Garden of Eden planted at the top of the mountain in Jerusalem. That is what the Psalmist was longing for, and that is what was beyond his reach. That is why his soul was panting for God. Because he was unable to access the physical tangible place where the living God and his people communed together.

Have you ever been in a situation like that before? Maybe you have a child that lives in another part of the country or the world. And FaceTime is fine, but what you really want is to see them face to face. You want to give them a hug. Or maybe there is someone in your life that has died and no picture and no memory can replace them. 

What do you do when the thing that you are longing for, the real thing, is just outside of your reach?

Sometimes we distract ourselves. We watch a couple extra shows or we buy something. Sometimes we pretend that we don’t care as much as we do. We put on this tough guy armor, where we pretend not to be vulnerable. Other times we fixate on it. It kind of overwhelms us. Life outside of the garden is hard. Being an embodied creature outside the garden is hard.  We might not long for the Temple in the same way that the Psalmist did. But we do long for what the Temple pointed toward. The greatest hope of the Temple wasn’t to have one really nice place where people could commune with God. No, the ultimate hope of the Temple was that one day the Temple would expand to the ends of the earth. One day there would be water a plenty for everyone! One day our deepest longings would be fulfilled and never be beyond our reach. 

Which is why this Psalm is so helpful to us. The Psalmist refused to pretend that the longing wasn’t real nor did allow the longing to overwhelm him. Instead, he persevered in hope by remembering, singing, and praying.

He perseveres by remembering. In verse 4, he remembers, he brings to mind, going to the temple with a multitude of people for worship, as we’ve already discussed. And in verse 5, when another wave of downcastness washes over him – he simply says, “I remember you.” He brings the Lord to mind. He remembers God’s character and his steadfast love. Right after he says “I ‘remember’ you” he uses the name of the LORD for the very first time in this psalm. He is reminding himself of the God who made this world and will not give up on it. The LORD who one day will expand the Temple to the ends of the earth. 

He also perseveres by singing and praying. You see that at the end of verse 8, “At night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.”

And what I love about his song and his prayer is that they are deeply honest. In verse 9 he gives us the content of his song and his prayer. He says “‘why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?’” That too is what persevering looks like. At times you are reminding yourself that God is the Lord and he will accomplish his glorious plan of salvation. And at other times, persevering looks like praying your tears. Asking, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go on mourning?” Persevering is taking the ache to God. 

Isn’t that what Jesus did?

When Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane. He says, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.” Which is an allusion to Psalm 42. That word sorrowful comes from the word for being cast down. Jesus prayed like this. Jesus wept like this. Jesus was honest like this. And what is more, Jesus used this Psalm to help him persevere. 

And that brings us to the last thing, for us to learn how to be down cast and yet filled with hope, we need to see how our deepest need is fulfilled in Christ.

There is a refrain that ties Psalm 42 and 43 together. It appears twice in 42 and once in 43. And it is “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 and my God.”

And the first few times I read that I was kind of confused. My initial reaction was, “What kind of question is that? ‘Why are you downcast?’” Isn’t it kind of obvious? He is thirsting for God and yet cannot reach him, he is being taunted enemies, his appetite is basically non-existent – his tears have been his food day and night, and if that weren’t enough, he feels forgotten by God. I think just one of those would be enough reason to feel downcast. And yet, he asks the question, “why are you cast down, O my soul?” 

And the more that I sat with that, the more I was reminded of Ben Sasse. 

A couple weeks back Nick mentioned Ben Sasse. And if you don’t remember, Ben was a senator from Nebraska. More recently he was the president of the University of Florida. And Ben is also a Christian. Back in December of 2025, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The doctors said that he likely only had a few months left to live. But he is still alive as they were able to get him in on some experimental drugs.

And over these past few months, Ben has done a few podcasts and speaking engagements. And there is something that he says almost every single time, which I think mirrors the refrain beautifully.

Ben says, “Death is terrible. We should never sugarcoat it. It is not how things are meant to be. But it is great that death can be called the final enemy. It’s an enemy, but it’s a final enemy, and then there will then be no more tears. I believe in the resurrection, and I believe in a restoration of this world.” I think that is the exact same thing the Psalmist is doing. He is holding together two truths at the same exact time. Yes, being an embodied creature in a fallen world is hard – we get downcast, sometimes we get cancer, we die – AND at the exact same time – there is hope. Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus is victorious. And his victory has everything to do with restoring our communion with God and one another. It has everything to do with expanding the Temple to the ends of the earth. It has everything to do with fulfilling the deepest longings of our souls.

How could the Psalmist say, how could Ben and countless others throughout the ages say both, “Why are you cast down? Hope in God for I shall again praise Him?” Because there was another singer of this Psalm. 

After saying “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.” Jesus went on to pray to his Father in heaven. He knew that there was a thirst that was rapidly approaching him. A thirst which human beings were never meant to know. A thirst which would be the ultimate experience of not being able to reach what he most deeply needed. And he persevered. He entrusted himself to the Father. We could imagine him saying “I shall again praise Him” as surrendered his will to the Father’s. He went to the cross. Where one of the last things he says is, “I thirst.”

The One who promises living water, thirsted.

The One who always enjoyed perfect communion with the Father, thirsted.

And he did this, so that all who thirst for God could finally return back to the garden, back to the Temple!

 Jesus experienced the ultimate in physical and spiritual thirst for you. He persevered through sorrow and downcastness. And through his sacrificial death on the cross your communion with God has been restored forever. He has made you secure. He surrounds you with his love. And He brings you closer to God than you can even imagine. That is why through him you too can say, “Why are you cast down O my soul? Hope in God for I shall again praise him. My salvation and my God!”