The pathway no one knew was there | Psalm 77

Let me tell you about the Sirius Cup disaster of 2008. Sirius Cup Regatta is a weekend-long scout sailing race, and the scout group that I was a part of was very big on sailing. Every year we’d head over to Balmoral Beach and we would take part. Here’s me in 2007. A lot of things going on there. That’s me and one of my scout leaders, Gunner. We’re on his boat and we did pretty well. We came third. Quite a good result in a sailing race. 2007 was a great year. 2008, not so much.

In 2008, I’m 15 years old. I’m now the skipper. I’m in charge of my boat and I’ve got two other teenagers with me, and we’re out on this little blue boat called Margaret. If you’re not familiar with Balmoral Beach, here’s a map to help you get your place. It’s very close to the entrance of Sydney Harbor. And so there we are, sailing that triangular course. That’s usually how they work. On the right, there are the headlands and then there’s the ocean. Sometimes those headlands can act like a bit of a wind funnel. The ocean wind can get together and then be blasted through, and it can happen quite unexpectedly.

There we are. It’s a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky. The weather forecast is all normal. As we’re sailing, we’re looking ahead to another boat that is a part of our scout group, and we just watch as their mast just snaps. Usually, these kinds of boats capsize; they get pushed over, but their mast snaps. Then another boat near them just goes straight over, and then another boat near them straight over. It was like a scene from a horror movie. There’s not a cloud in the sky, relatively calm where we are, and then just up ahead, the chaos is heading our way. Then it hits us and our boat goes straight over. As it goes over, the boom, the big metal pole that holds the sail, clips my head on the way over and our boat turtles. It goes all the way down.

We did not finish the race in 2008. After we finally got the boat back upright, we went straight back to the beach. I was not feeling good. The three of us teenagers were pretty shaken by the whole thing. Our friends did not finish the race. They had to wait for the safety boat to come and help them gather all the pieces of their boat out of the water and then pull them back to shore. We were hit by this unexpected wind, by this storm, and so we had to opt out of the race.

In our lives, we aren’t given the same luxury. When the storm hits, there’s no option to head back to the beach and rest up and try again next year. When life becomes overwhelming, there’s no pause button with an option to decrease the difficulty. When suffering comes, life doesn’t tend to slow down and give us a bit of a breather. When we come face to face with the darkness, our school assignments are still due, our work deadlines still exist, there are still mouths to feed, there are still bills to pay, there are commitments we’ve made and responsibilities we can’t just walk away from. Above all, we want to be faithful followers of Jesus. We want to live lives that honor him even in the darkness.

With all that in mind, here are the questions that we’re going to answer from Psalm 77 this morning. How do we navigate the darkness when it shows up in our lives? What do we do when the moment or the season of darkness threatens to overwhelm? How do we faithfully follow Jesus when those first 10 verses of Psalm 77 start to feel less like an Airbnb that we visit and more like a home where we live?

Or if this doesn’t really describe your life right now, praise the Lord. Here’s a similar question for you. How can you love and encourage and serve and help your brothers and sisters in Christ who are navigating the darkness, who are at threat of being overwhelmed, who are feeling at home in verses 1 to 10? There are lots of them here in this room, in our church family, who need us, let alone also out there. How do we navigate the darkness when it shows up in our lives? How do we help others navigate the darkness when it shows up in their lives? That’s the question.

Here’s the plan. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to start with Satan’s answer, what Satan wants you to do. After we’ve seen that his idea is not a good idea, we’ll look at God’s answer instead from Psalm 77, which is to look in three places. Then, we’ll wrap it up with two quick details at the end of the Psalm. That’s the plan.

Satan’s Answer

Let’s start with Satan’s answer. In a relationship, a red flag is a moment where maybe a word or an action or a pattern makes you realize this could become a serious problem. It’s a bit of a warning sign. But also in relationships, I think you might have heard of this before, there are also beige flags, which are more of just a quirk, a slight annoyance, an eccentricity that’s just a little bit annoying or makes things a little bit less efficient. My wife Morgan, her beige flags are not important right now at this time. You don’t need to know about them. But if you would ask Morgan what my beige flags were, I’m pretty sure she would say the first one is that I am useless at making her a cup of tea. Sometimes she’ll ask me for a cup of tea and I’ll boil the kettle, and that is as far as I get because I’m doing something else now. Twenty minutes later she’ll be like, “How’s the tea going?” I’m like, “Ah.” And I’ll boil the kettle again. Or maybe I’ll boil the kettle and I’ll put the tea bag in, I put the boiling water in, and then 20 minutes later there are now two cold, bitter things in the house.

We all know that when our focus increases somewhere, it often decreases somewhere else. It’s true in photography. It’s true in budgeting. It’s true when I’m making a cup of tea. It’s true in most of life. When we face the darkness, Satan wants you to focus on the same thing that he always wants you to focus on. He wants you to focus on yourself. This is true all the time. When life is good, Satan wants you to focus on you and your health and your bank account and your exam marks and your victory and your comfort. He wants your focus on yourself to increase so that your focus on God will decrease. Your focus on your provider, your sustainer would go down.

It’s the same when life is not good. Satan wants you to focus on you, on your health, on your bank account, on your exam marks, on your failure, on your suffering. This is classic Satan. His classic tactics. In James 4, James encourages Christians to resist Satan by fleeing from pride and by humbly drawing near to God, by shifting the focus from myself and instead shifting the focus back to God. That’s what James says. That’s how you flee from Satan.

In 1 Peter 5, it says a similar thing. Peter’s writing to some suffering Christians and he says, “Watch out for Satan because he is like a roaring lion who wants to devour you. He wants your suffering to overwhelm you.” Satan wants your focus on yourself to increase so that your focus on God will decrease. When the darkness shows up in our life, he wants you to focus on it. He wants you to focus on where you are because the more you focus on where you are, the less you’ll focus on what’s around you and who is with you. If we follow Satan’s advice, we will be devoured and overwhelmed. So, instead, let’s get our answer from Psalm 77.

God’s Answer

How do we navigate the darkness when it shows up in our lives?

Look Upward: Call Out to Our God Who Listens

The first thing we do is we look upward. We call out to our God who listens. You’ve got your Bibles there? Have a look at verses 1 to 3. Asaph is crying out to God. This is a brutal prayer. It’s filled with spiritual and psychological language. Verse 2: “all night long I prayed with hands lifted towards heaven, but my soul was not comforted.” Verse 3: “I think of God and I moan, overwhelmed with longing for his help.”

Asaph’s looking upward. He’s being honest with God. He’s wrestling. He’s arguing. He’s questioning God, which is good. Our God’s not a tyrant who crushes anyone who dares question him. Our God is not like King Xerxes who we’ve been reading about in Esther, who treats all of his subjects as tools to satisfy his own desires. Our God is not distant. He’s not cold. He’s not irritated by our distracted or our irregular prayer. He is warm and welcoming and attentive. He’s compassionate. He’s patient. He longs for us to draw near to him even when we’re in the darkness. Even in the darkness, God is approachable. He’s near. Like a good father who knows how to give good gifts, he responds sometimes with a yes, sometimes with a yes but not yet, sometimes with a wait and see, sometimes with a no, and sometimes with silence.

Asaph just lays into God. Verses 4 to 10. He pours out the depths of his suffering. Have a look. Verse 4: He is sleepless and speechless. Verses 5 and 6: The joy in his soul has been ripped away. Have a look at verses 7 to 9. Look at these unfiltered, reckless questions, and it lands in verse 10: “God has turned his hand against me.”

Asaph looks upward. He cries out. He doesn’t focus on himself like Satan wants him to do. He drags his face up toward God, desperate for an answer. That’s right. That’s what we do. The first step to navigating the darkness is to look upwards, to speak to God, to cry out to God, to question God, to connect with God. Whether it be quietly in your bedroom or loudly as you wait for the traffic lights to change, whether it be through tears of sadness or tears of anger, whether it’s written in a journal or sung along with just the right song, the first step to navigating the darkness is to look up, to speak to and to connect with our God who longs for us to draw near to him. That’s the first place to look.

Look Behind You: Convince Your Head and Your Heart That Our God Really Is Trustworthy

The second place is to look behind you to convince your head and your heart that our God really is trustworthy. This Wednesday, State of Origin, big deal. We know it’s a big deal because there’s a Bluey episode based on it. Imagine you’re at the game. Imagine that you’re cheering for the Blues, which should be easy for most of you. There’s at least one of you in here that I know about. But imagine you’re there, you’re cheering for the Blues and the game’s in Queensland. So most of the stadium is filled with Queensland supporters and so they’re overwhelmingly cheering against your team. Imagine right before halftime, the Blues score a try and as you get ready to jump up and cheer, suddenly the Queenslanders, they all erupt with cheers themselves because the referee has called no try.

In that moment, you might feel just a little bit small. You’re surrounded by the volume and the booing and the jeers, and you might feel a bit rubbish. Like, that’s a shame. I thought it was a try. I thought we got them there. But as you sit down, there’s some drama as the video referee now gets involved. The Queenslanders, they all start muttering and huffing and puffing and booing and all the thing. Then up on the screen, super clear from multiple angles, it’s an obvious try. The referee blows his whistle. It’s all happy. And then the Blues win like 72-nil or something.

In that moment, who do you trust? Do you continue to trust your feeling that, “Oh, this is rubbish and I feel small. This is a shame. I thought we got this time,” or do you trust the multiple-angle video who over decades has corrected loads and loads of wrong calls? Do you trust your feelings in that moment or do you trust the evidence from this proven video referee?

In verse 11, Asaph takes the next step. He recalls what God has done in the past. As he cries out to God, the direction he’s facing changes from upwards to backwards. He looks back. He recalls. He remembers all that God has done in the past for him and for all of God’s people. Because in the present, it feels like God has abandoned him. In verse 8, he’s imagining that God’s promises have failed. In verse 9, he’s imagining that God has slammed the door of compassion in his face. In the present, in the darkness, he’s overwhelmed with doubt and with sorrow. But in this moment, he finds the courage to turn around and look back. I can’t imagine that was an easy thing to do. He finds the courage to look back and he preaches to himself that the evidence for God’s love and commitment is clear. It’s unquestionable. It’s up on the big screen. Multiple angles for all the Queenslanders to see. They all need Jesus up there. We do.

When Asaph draws the courage to look backwards, God speaks to him. Not directly like we often want him to do, but God answers Asaph’s questions in verses 7 to 9. Have a look at them. “Has the Lord rejected me forever?” No, I know he hasn’t because of what he’s done. “Have his promises permanently failed?” No. “Has he forgotten to be gracious?” No. This is such a profound moment for Asaph. You can tell because he stops talking about God as if God is distant somewhere else and he starts talking to God. I wonder if you noticed that. Have a look at verse 11. There’s that little word in there. After asking if the Lord has rejected me and if God has forgotten to be gracious, he says, “I recall all you have done.” He starts talking to God.

The Psalms are songs. I think that in this psalm, maybe more than others, you can really feel the tempo. You can feel the heat building up into verse 10. You can feel the acceleration because it starts in verse 1: “I cry out to God. Yes, I shout, ‘Oh, that God would listen to me.’” Then in verse 4: “You don’t let me sleep. I’m too distressed to pray.” Verse 7: “Has the Lord rejected me forever? Will he never again be kind to me?” Then verse 10: “And I said, ‘This is my fate. The Most High has turned his hand against me.’” We’re at the boiling point here. You can imagine the orchestra is swelling and the drums are pounding. Then suddenly we get to verse 11: “But then I recall all you have done.”

When Asaph looks back, when he’s confronted by the overwhelming evidence that God is good and kind and faithful, his heart and his head find peace and confidence. So much so that he can say out loud in verse 13, “God, your ways are holy.” Your ways which involve what’s happening to me right now are holy. This is a wild transformation to happen in just three verses for Asaph to say this out loud. “Your ways are holy.” He must have seen incredible, glorious certainty when he looked back. How much more is that true for us?

When Asaph looked back, he remembered the Exodus. You might have noticed that from the psalm. God promised that he would rescue his people from Egypt. You might remember there’s Moses and there are the plagues and there’s the Passover. Then it’s time, God’s people are free to go. Except they’re not, right? Pharaoh changes his mind and pursues God’s people right to the edge of the Red Sea. In that moment, it’s really easy to imagine God’s people crying out something similar to Psalm 77:1-10. “Has the Lord rejected me forever? Have his promises permanently failed?” Because here we are, the Egyptian army on one side, the Red Sea on the other. We’re cooked. Then just like Psalm 77:16 and 19 remind us, God does not reject his people forever. His promises didn’t permanently fail. Verse 19: “his road led through the sea, a pathway no one knew was there.”

When Asaph looks back, he remembers the Exodus. He remembers God’s pathway that no one knew was there. He remembered God’s trustworthiness and it brought him peace and it brought him confidence enough to say, “God, your ways are holy.” Yet the Exodus is just a glimmer compared to the birth and life and death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. If looking back to the Exodus can give peace and confidence to Asaph, how much more peace, how much more confidence could we receive looking back to Jesus?

If we compare the Exodus and Jesus in a few different ways: God rescued some of his people in history from a place, from Egypt. Jesus rescues all of God’s people throughout history from slavery to sin. After Egypt, God’s people mess up and they fail to receive and go into the promised land. Through Jesus, even though we constantly mess up, we will reach our heavenly promised land. In Egypt, the blood of lambs is used to smear onto the wooden doorposts. When it comes to Jesus, his blood is shed on the wooden cross. After Egypt, God is present with his people in a little way in the middle of the tabernacle, highly restricted. If you go in there, you’re going to melt. Jesus is God himself. He takes on humanity and walks around with us. Today, he’s present with us through his Spirit.

There’s so much more to say, but can you see if looking back to the Exodus can bring peace and confidence to Asaph, how much more peace, how much more confidence can we receive from Jesus that we might even dare to say his ways are holy? He’s proven himself. He is faithful. He is kind. He does love me. He does keep his promises. He does know what he’s doing. At the time, it didn’t seem like it. When the Egyptian army was on one side and the Red Sea was on the other, it didn’t seem like God knew what he was doing. But then he did. There was a pathway no one knew was there. At the time, it didn’t seem like it. When Jesus was hanging from the cross, it didn’t seem like God knew what he was doing, but he did. He was bringing about salvation in the most profound and unexpected way. At this time here today for you, when it doesn’t seem like God knows what he’s doing, when it doesn’t seem like God is near at all, there is an infinite well of peace and confidence that we can draw from as we look back to the cross, as we look back to the ultimate proof of God’s incredible love and his commitment to us. If only we would have the courage to look back there. Not briefly or shallowly, not just a glance every Sunday and then I’ll just see you again next week, but if we look deeply and frequently and expectantly, expecting to be refreshed and recharged and renewed, we will find peace and confidence within the darkness.

Look Forward: To the Certain Hope of Heaven

But there’s even more to this because there’s a direction that we get to look that Asaph didn’t really have access to. Asaph has no idea what God’s plans are for him. No idea what God’s going to do about the deep trouble he’s in. And from verse 2, if anything at all, but we do. We also get to look forward to the certain hope of heaven.

You might have seen the news this week, a really sad story about the cave divers who got lost diving through the caves in the Maldives and they drowned. The story is nightmare fuel. I will never go cave diving ever. One of the reasons it’s so unpleasant to think about is just imagining that moment of realization that there’s no way out, that there’s no exit, that there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. That feeling is just not the experience for Christians, for followers of Jesus. Because in every moment of darkness or every season of darkness, no matter how dense it is or no matter how much it closes in around you, it can’t block out, it can’t hide the glorious light of our future. It can’t do it. The light at the end of the tunnel that we can see if only we really do look ahead.

How can it be that Paul writes in Romans 8, he says, “What we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.” How can he possibly write that knowing that followers of Jesus who are suffering, who are struggling are going to read it? It’s because the same peace and confidence we can access as we look back to Jesus is also available to us as we look forward to heaven. There are double infinite wells for us to draw from. We’re strengthened from both sides. Peace and confidence are overflowing. If only we would have the courage to look backwards to Jesus and forwards to heaven.

So, how do we navigate the darkness when it shows up in our lives? Satan wants you to focus on yourself. Increase focus on yourself and the darkness so that focus on God decreases. That just leads to being devoured and overwhelmed. Instead, you drag your head upwards. You look up to God and you speak to him and you cry out to him and you connect with him. Then you build up the courage to look behind you to Jesus. You look forwards to heaven. You look deeply and frequently and expectantly. You will be strengthened from both sides. You draw peace and comfort from both infinite wells. That’s the answer that Psalm 77 gives.

Two More Details

Let me draw this to a close by just pointing out two more details from this psalm that tie all this together.

Psalm 77 Is Unresolved

The first detail is just to say out loud: Psalm 77 is unresolved. Asaph’s darkness isn’t removed. Maybe it is later. Maybe it wasn’t. We don’t know. But Asaph doesn’t find peace and confidence because the darkness is removed. He finds peace and confidence within the darkness, alongside the darkness. This peace and confidence is going to help him navigate the darkness. We need to have the right expectations here. Jesus never promises to remove those dark moments and seasons in this life: the suffering and the confusion and the frustration and the brokenness and the sickness. In heaven, yes, of course, all suffering will be removed. What a glorious day that’s going to be. But in this life, there’s no promise of that. But Jesus does promise to be with you as you navigate through the darkness. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because you are with me” (Psalm 23). Jesus doesn’t promise to remove the darkness in this life, to helicopter us out of the valley of the shadow of death. He promises to walk through it with you.

God Has Given Us Each Other

That’s the first detail. The second detail is in verse 20. You might have noticed this. After Asaph praises God for his power over the earth and the sea and the sky and for how he used that power to save his people, he finishes by mentioning Moses and Aaron. Did you notice that? At first, it seems a bit out of place. Why would Asaph end this section which is all about God saving his people by including the names of some of those very people he saved? Here’s why. In God’s infinite kindness and wisdom, it’s not only the Lord Jesus who walks with us through the darkness, he’s also given us each other. He’s also given us the church, our church. In the same way that God used Moses and Aaron to shepherd his people through the Red Sea, God uses us to shepherd each other. In some seasons, I can shepherd you and lead and encourage you. In some seasons, you will shepherd me and lead me and encourage me. Jesus doesn’t promise to remove the darkness in this life. He promises to walk through it with you. In God’s infinite wisdom and kindness, we get to walk through it together as well.

So, how do we navigate the darkness when it shows up? We look up, we look back, we look forward. Jesus is there walking through it with you. In God’s wisdom and kindness, so are we.

The Lord’s Supper: The Pathway He Makes

The Lord’s Supper, the last supper Jesus has with his disciples, is at the Passover where they’re celebrating and remembering the salvation God has given them as they were freed from Egypt. As Miles has already pointed out in the Psalm 77 that we read this morning, we look at that same story of coming out of Egypt, the freedom that happens there. Let me read some of that again. I love the way the psalm says this in verse 16.

"When the Red Sea saw you, oh God,
    its waters looked and trembled.
    The sea quaked to its very depths.
The clouds poured down rain;
    the thunders rumbled in the sky."Psalm 77:16-17

There’s just this great picture of not that when they got to the Red Sea, God hadn’t planned a way of salvation and he didn’t know what to do and he had to come up with something. The way this psalm reads it is the other way round. When Israel got to the Red Sea, the Red Sea trembled in fear of God for what God is going to do with his plan. This is the God who is faithful even in the place and even when we are faced with what seems like impossible opposition, like for Israel the Red Sea holding them back while Egypt chased them down. What seemed impossible for them, the sea itself trembled in fear of what God can do. What a great picture that is.

In one sense, the same thing happens when Jesus comes to earth 2,000 years ago. God’s people thought they knew what the plan was. In some ways, just like coming to the Red Sea and seeing this overwhelming opposition, they thought that’s what was happening with the Roman Empire, that they were going to have a Messiah that was going to come and free them from that. They are in danger of reading this psalm thinking, “This is what the Messiah is going to do.” But what Jesus shows at the last supper really anchors in himself as the suffering servant, the one who’s going to make a way. Even though it’s been prophesied, even though as we look back on the Old Testament, we can see so many ways it points to Jesus in a way that the people didn’t see or understand. Once again in that psalm, I love the way it talks about the path that God made through the Red Sea. It says in verse 19, “Your road led through the sea, your pathway through the mighty waters.” And then it says, “A pathway no one knew was there.”

It doesn’t say there wasn’t a pathway there and God made it. The pathway is there. They just didn’t know it was there. We see the same thing in the story as we’re reminded of the good news of Jesus that he came with the plan that God always had. It was the pathway he always had and it was through Jesus. It was through his suffering that we were going to be made right with God. That is the offer of salvation in Jesus, that he paid the price for us that we might be called children of God. In many ways that pathway was a surprise to people because even now we look to the hope of an eternity, the good news of heaven. But one way Jesus actually points out to us is it’s not just an eternity we long for in the future, but there’s a way through Jesus that heaven is made real for us right now. He promises that his Spirit is going to come. Today on Pentecost Sunday, we remember the day that the Spirit was poured out on God’s people, that we don’t just wait for an eternity that a heaven that we will enjoy the presence of God. His presence is made real in us today through his Spirit.

We think about that as we think about Jesus when he breaks bread and he says, “This is my body given for you. This is the gift, the pathway that he makes so that we might be called children of God.” When he takes the wine, he says, “This is my blood poured out for you.” He is pointing to the way he is going to make a way for us to be friends with God. The psalm finishes with these beautiful words. It says, “You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep.” There’s an intimate relationship that we have with Jesus by accepting this free gift of salvation. As we eat together, let’s remember the precious relationship God has offered us through Jesus’ death on the cross and be thankful. Let’s drink together remembering Christ’s blood poured out for us and be thankful. His name is Jesus. His name is Jesus. His name is Jesus.