Talking to Yourself, Not Listening to Yourself - Psalm 42 Meditation by Tim Keller

welcome to gospel in life thank you for joining us we go through this special series of meditations by Tim Keller trusting God and difficult times this new series is meant to encourage you to trust God more deeply and to meditate on his word and what it promises to give you strength and hope in difficult times and now here's today's meditation my title for this reflection is talking to yourself not listening to yourself psalm 42 verses 3 to 6 my tears have been my food day and night while people say to me all day long where is your God these things I remember as I pour out my soul how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the mighty one with shots of joy and praise amongst the festive song why my soul are you downcast why are you so disturbed within me put your hope in God for I will yet praise Him my Savior and my god my soul is downcast within me therefore I will remember you now it's interesting that the condition of this psalmist is downcast as he said my soul is downcast it's the word for despondency or despair and a lot of us are experiencing that especially during this time of the pandemic now what do we do about that and there's three things as lama says that we should do the first thing is you pour out your soul the very first verses talk about I pour out my soul to the Lord and that's a a godly ancient version of what today we call getting in touch with your feelings that is to say you don't take your feelings and say oh no no if I trust God I I don't have these despondent thoughts I don't come not a real upset no he is getting in touch he is pouring out his soul he is actually listening to the the emotions and the feelings of his heart so the first thing is he does get in touch with his feelings and he pours out of soul but the second thing is a self dialog now he speaks to himself have you noticed when he says why are you cast down O my soul and why are you disquieted within me that's the old King James version of it which I remember from my youth he's not praying to God but he's also not speaking to readers he's talking to himself it's a self dialog and this is the very essence of understanding how you yourself can handle anything dr. David Martyn lloyd-jones many years ago wrote a sermon on this or preached a sermon then wrote it down on this text and it had a big impact on me I couldn't say better than him to let me just explain by reading what he says in that sermon he says the first thing we have to learn is what the psalmist learned we must learn to take ourselves in hand he is talking to himself he is addressing himself it is important to see that this is not the same as morbidity and introspection we must talk to ourselves instead of allowing ourselves to talk to us in spiritual depression we allow ourself to talk to us instead of talking to ourself am I being deliberately paradoxical far from it this is the very essence of wisdom in this matter have you realized that so much of your unhappiness in your life is due to the fact you're listening to yourself instead of talking so this man stands up and says self listen for a moment then you must go on to remind yourself of who God is and what God is and what God has done and what God has pledged himself to do and then on this great note defy yourself and defy other people and defy the devil and the whole world and say with the man I shall yet praise him for he is my god you say what lloyd-jones are saying is that when you listen to your heart it means your hearts your heart saying all kinds of panicky things oh my goodness it's never gonna get better oh my word oh no listen this might happen that might happen you turn inside let me talk to you about some things hard this is what I know about God this is what he's planned this is what he's promised here's listening to your heart know you're talking to your heart so first of all there's pouring out your soul secondly there's self dialogue and thirdly reorder your hopes see the psalmist says hope in God I shall praise him he's redirecting what he puts his hope in and of course we have as Christians we have another by the way Psalm Psalm 103 where it says forget not all his benefits why you cast down O my soul forget not all his benefits bless the Lord O my soul and don't forget what he's given us and as Christians we know this when I think about my justification then I won't dwell on the past and guilt when I think about my sanctification then I realize I can change and I won't feel like oh I'll never change when I think of my adoption then I'll remember oh my god God does hear me and he does love me the way a father does a child when I think of my future resurrection I'm not afraid of aging or dying when I think about how much he loves me in Jesus Christ then I have a confidence reorder your hopes talk to yourself pour out your soul and you will praise him your Savior and your God and now here's Tim and Kathy killer for a short time of qat on today's meditation I found that you were saying interesting because modern counseling theory is increasingly leaning towards recommending self-talk therapy to counter the negative self-talk that you get all the time that you are supposed to be doing positive self-talk cognitive behavioral therapy is that what they call it but this is far more ancient and far more nuanced because it's not just a matter of I think badly of myself so I'm going to tell myself I'm great I mean I'm gonna pump up my self-esteem etc this is actually refocusing you in a totally different direction yeah I when we were younger I don't know what it's called now but when we were younger it was called rational emotive therapy and was also called cognitive therapy and the idea which is sound is that your feelings are not the result of what happens to you but they're the result of what you tell yourself about what's happened to you and therefore if something happens to you and you say oh that's hopeless I mean that that shows that I'm a failure then it then you can say that the the circumstance made you depressed and actually it's what you're saying to yourself that's made you depressed and that's the idea behind rational emotive therapy and cognitive therapy I would say only this that even though we can do that too but when you're talking about God in the universe that's not just stoicism stoicism basically says stuff your feelings your bad feelings we're just going to stuff them we're gonna when you're talking about God in the universe you are actually inviting yourself into having an actual encounter with God through prayer so you're not only in some ways in prayer you are yes thinking the right thoughts you're saying God has done this and God has done that but you're speaking in the presence of God who can actually come in and and and say yes to your heart Romans 8:16 says the spirit bears witness with our spirit that we're children of God and the idea there is you can say I'm a child but sometimes the spirit comes in and comes alongside and says yes you are just the way the spirit came down when Jesus was baptized and I said this is my beloved child whom I'm well pleased so cognitive therapy in a sense is a form of stoicism in which you're just talking to yourself and trying to make yourself believe a certain truth but Christianity gives you not just your mind and the truth but the Holy Spirit to actually make that real to your heart and therefore that really does change you from the inside out if you found today's meditation encouraging please subscribe below and be sure to share it with a friend to encourage them as well and if you'd like to hear more teachings by Tim Keller you can listen to new sermons every week at gospel and live.com slash podcast thanks again for watching gospel and life

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Keywords: Redeemer, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Timothy Keller, Tim Keller, Dr. Keller, Sermon, Sermons, Redeemer NYC, City to City, Gospel in Life, Gospel, Trusting God, Difficult Times, Worry, Pandemic, Listening, Psalm 42, Psalms, Meditation, Kathy Keller, Jesus Christ, Christianity, Tim Keller (author), Jesus, God, The Bible, Bible, Scripture

Id: RZQQwAActog

Length: 8min 37sec (517 seconds)

Published: Tue May 05 2020