Let me start today with some words from Christopher Columbus who we attribute with finding North America, but not many of us know that apparently he was quite a theologian too. He said, “It was the Lord who put into my mind the fact that it would be possible to sail from here (Spain) to the Indies. All who heard of my project rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me. There is no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit, because He comforted me with rays of marvellous inspiration from the Holy Scriptures…
No one should fear to undertake any task in the name of our Saviour, if it is just and if the intention is purely for his holy service. The working out of all things has been assigned to each person by our Lord, but it all happens according to His sovereign will… Oh what a gracious Lord, who desires that people should perform for Him those things for which he holds Himself responsible. Day and night, moment by moment, everyone should express their most devoted gratitude to Him.”
That sounds inspired to me. I love that one sentence. God allows us to do things for which he holds himself responsible. God trusts us, can you believe that? And he lets us blame him for things that we are responsible for. I wonder if we can be trusted by him, can he be trusted by us? And will we show that trust?
King David clearly shows that he trusts the Lord. When the world, even those who he thought were friends turned against him, he depended on the Lord to intercede. He knows that justice will be done. He says I will call to God, and very simply, the Lord will save me.
Now think about that. These were ruthless times and from even before David was king he had people, even his own people trying to kill him. And these were professional killers. So does he say, “I’ll get my own group of mercenaries together and we will kill them before they get to me”? No, he calls to God to take care of it, and he knows that:
I. God is never off duty (vv 16-19)
Now isn’t that taking trust a little too far? Should we not act sometimes, take matters into our own hands? But I think this is the key. He took action sometimes as directed by God, but what we need to notice in this situation, is that he doesn’t just float up a one time prayer before lunch. He is in agony calling out to the Lord in the evening, in the morning, and at noon. What part of the day is missing there? Nothing. Shouldn’t he be out getting his armies together, sharpening his sword? But there he is in agonizing prayer at all hours of the day and night crying out to the Lord. That just seems so impractical.
This is a Psalm of perseverance and if you read through the whole thing, you see that as he prays, his faith grows as he remembers who God is and what he has done to intercede for David in the past.
Very often prayer first changes us, increases our faith, even before God intervenes to change the situation. And sometimes we even realize that the situation really doesn’t need to be changed, we do.
We’re going to look at David more this fall, but one of the reasons God calls David a man after his own heart in spite of his mistakes and sins, is that he always desired God to show and glorify himself. Ever since he stood courageously in front of Goliath as a boy. Do you think he really thought he was good enough with a slingshot to kill this giant that all the nation’s soldiers were afraid of? I doubt it, but he knew God was stronger, and he knew that God was on his side, and that he was never off duty.
Now in this Psalm, why does David believe God will humble his enemies? Isn’t that kind of arrogant? Well, for one, he has seen it many times, and it says here it’s because they will not change (in other words repent) and they will not fear (or believe in or follow, or respect) God. He has faith that God is just toward those who follow him and he has proof because he has put his faith to the test.
Let’s jump ahead now to verse 22. “Cast your burden on the Lord”. You got a problem, something you don’t know if you can deal with? Don’t try harder, call on God, he wants to take care of it. What we can know from all of this is that:
II. God is in Control even when you’re suffering (v. 22a)
I want to draw a parallel with Peter here. In Acts, Peter, who was actually quite a worrier before Christ’s death and resurrection, picks up on the words of this Psalm in 1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all your anxieties on the Lord because he cares for you”.
By the time Peter wrote this letter he was an expert in relying on God and watching him come though. He had been in prison awaiting execution three times and each time God miraculously bailed him out. Let’s have a look at Acts 12 to see one of these situations in detail.
The king was persecuting Christians, including killing James the brother of John, one of the top leaders of the Jerusalem church, but God sent an angel to rescue Peter who was in prison scheduled for the same fate. There were 16 guards watching him and two were actually chained to him. Now look at this, this blows me away, what is Peter doing as he awaits execution? He was sleeping. How many of us loose sleep over much less concerning issues. His burden was cast on the Lord and he slept like a baby on the eve of his execution. God is in control even at the last minute.
He is in control even when my faith is weak. Nobody believed it when Peter showed up at the house knocking on the door. He’s knocking at the door as an escaped convict and nobody would let him in. “Ah guys lights are starting to go on out here, could you let me in, I’m kind of wanted”.
God does not base his activity on the degree of your faith. He works when people have great faith and when they have little faith. He is not dependent on your faith. Faith is a good thing but sovereignty overrules faith.
Remember too that God is hardly ever early. He often acts at the last minute to show that it is really him. We might think it’s too late, we might think it would be better if he acted a little sooner sometimes, but it’s never too late for God. It’s not over until God says it’s over. What about Lazarus? Did Jesus run to Lazarus when he heard that he was dying? No. He says, “let’s stick around here for a couple more days”. People didn’t get it.
He is also in control even when the wicked prosper. When Herod was glorifying himself several days after Peter’s escape as he vacationed by the ocean, he was struck dead by an angel of the Lord and was eaten by worms. The wicked never get the last laugh with God.
I am mechanically inept and every once in a while I try to do some mechanical thing. Sometimes it’s as simple as trying to put up a light fixture. Inevitably it fights back and doesn’t go easily. I start getting frustrated and forcing the issue, usually making it worse. The main reason is that I want to feel somewhat competent. Now the more I force, the more problems I usually run into, and the more frustrated I get.
Or maybe I’m looking for something and can’t find it. Again I keep looking harder, getting more and more frustrated as I do. Somehow I believe if I look for the tenth time in the same spot, it will magically appear, and I get mad when that logic doesn’t seem to pan out.
Inevitably though, if I stop, take a break, get my mind focussed and let the anger subside, and then just go to God, something good will happen. I will find what I was looking for, I will manage to fix what I was messing up, or someone else will come and take care of it for me. Or at the very least I will calm down and not be such an idiot. But it’s so easy to forget this and get caught in the same crazy cycle again and again.
Now these are very minor issues, what about the big stuff? We think, “well, the more important it is, the more necessary it is for me to take care of it”. Isn’t that true? I’ll take the little stuff to God when it doesn’t really matter, but I better handle the big stuff. But isn’t that also bad logic? If I see God come through with finding my baseball glove, should I not also let give Him have the bigger, more important stuff?
Sometimes you just sit back and let God take care of things, because many things are beyond your control even if you think you may be able to do something about it. Other times God might give you some instruction or insight that will help you get through it. But always, he will sustain you though everything if you let him. But he will also allow you to abandon him and go crazy by yourself if that’s what you choose.
So God is in control whether we see it or feel it. He is on the throne and he is very calmly ruling with his feet up. He is sovereign, completely sovereign. He is not worried when we are.
III. God is with you and will sustain you (v. 22b)
Hebrews 12:4-13 says all God’s kids are gonna get it once in while. If you’re not experiencing some correction from God, you better make sure he’s your dad.
There is no exemption from suffering. Again Peter addresses this in his first letter. He says in chapter 4, “beloved don’t be surprised when fiery trials come your way to test you as if something strange were happening. Don’t be ashamed of suffering for Christ’s sake, as long as it is for Christ. After all, the judgment is going to begin with the house of God (his kids), and if you think this is bad, wait until you see what the other guy’s kids are gonna get.
He will sustain us in all trials, even when he is correcting us. Does this mean we will go peacefully through everything life has to dish out? Not necessarily, but I think the reason we sometimes don’t feel God sustaining us, is because we are not paying attention to Him. We are not giving him the situation, we are not looking to him, crying out to him, so we miss out on the peace that would come from experiencing the situation from his sovereign point of view.
Some Sundays I really don’t want to be up here. It takes a lot for me to overcome my fear and I come kicking and screaming sometimes, like last week. But every week God says to me, “Get dressed and walk over there, I’ll take care of the rest”. Sure enough, every week, once I get here, I’m alright for the most part and afterward I may be exhauasted, but I’m also filled with joy.
Listen to what God says about preaching in 2 Timothy: “All Scripture is breathed out by God… I charge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.”
Wouldn’t that make you want to run? This is not a game. When someone comes for counselling looking to me to help them with some important problem in their life, I feel completely incompetent, but every time I ask God to be my eyes, ears and mouth, and it seems to work out. Some of you who have come to me for counsel may not think God has come through, but I know he has because otherwise I would be running out the door.
If you ask, He will be there and he will sustain you. We also need to remember like David, that:
IV. God is on your side (He will never permit the righteous to be moved vv22c-23)
The world doesn’t need to be fixed right now, maybe we think it does, and it will eventually. But what the world needs is for people to get saved. That’s why God isn’t rushing in to take care of things.
Again it’s Peter, who we know when he was with Jesus was anything but patient, who says in his second letter while talking about the end of times and the second coming of Jesus: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count as slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance…
Therefore beloved, since you are waiting for these things, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation…
Could God fix things? Yes, and He will. But the way he is going to do it means that many are going to perish. So Peter is reminding us that God is patient, not slow, because he wants people to live. So he says, rather than getting impatient and try to fix everything yourselves, or just waiting around for God to do something, work diligently toward lives of holiness and godliness without blemish and at peace with each other. That may actually attract unbelievers.
He’s going to take care of the big picture, but it is up to you and I how we are going to be seen by him in that big picture. You can’t do anything about God’s master plan, but you can focus on what you are becoming, and letting others know what is coming.
The question is not whether God can be trusted or not. If we are not certain that he is on our side after sending his son to die for us, there’s something wrong. The question is whether or not we will trust him. David says unequivocally, in the midst of all this junk he’s going through, “But I will trust in you”. Trust is a choice. Remembering that he will not always act as we want him to on our timetable, but he will always sustain you through everything. In that we trust. He has our well-being as his highest desire. Do you believe that even when he is letting bad stuff happen or correcting you?
A couple days ago I was commuting to the church from Boissevain where we were camping this week, and heard an interview with a young woman named Kristen James Anderson, ironically on the last day of our free satellite radio. She came from a great family, went to church with them but was not yet saved. She was a very happy, popular, hopeful young lady. But in the course of 18 months in her last two years of high school she lost three friends, one to suicide, and she was raped. She never told anybody but she spiralled into depression. Her parents did what they could to get her help because they noticed she had changed, but they just didn’t know what she was going through.
She was at a park one day, being out even though she was grounded. She didn’t want to go home and deal with her parents, and she didn’t really know how she would keep living this life that had turned around so suddenly. She heard a train coming and just in that moment decided she would lay on the tracks, and within seconds she described in great detail what happened as the train ran over her while she remained conscious.
Apparently when a train is going that fast it should suck you up under it and tear you to pieces. I know this is true because I have seen the police taking several garbage bags full of a person who did this at my old train station.
The girl said she felt the sucking initially, but then a force was pushing her down. After the train stopped, she looked around and saw her legs a few yards behind her and then started feeling the pain and sobbing uncontrollably for her mother. Within seconds she felt an amazing peace come over her and heard very vividly the song “Amazing Grace”.
The paramedics finally got there but because of the weather couldn’t get her air lifted out, so the authorities did something they never do by blocking off all the roads from where she was to the hospital. The police report said it took the ambulance 8 minutes on a route that normally would take 45.
When she was recovering in hospital the doctors said she lost 8 pints of blood and that most people would be dead after losing 5. Long story short, this experience humbled her, showed her that she still had a purpose in life, she came to have a relationship with Jesus, and she now has a powerful ministry to teens and their parents. She said that she didn’t think she would ever have come to trust God if this hadn’t happened and so is grateful for all of it.
If only we could see things from God’s perspective in the midst of it all. When we are in a troublesome situation, if we could relax, step back and look at it as an opportunity in the service of the Lord, “Lord, what are you trying to accomplish here, how are you trying to change me?”
Something that he has put in our life for our good or the good of someone else, believing he is there and he is on our side, rather than always fighting to change the circumstances, I wonder what would happen if we did that all the time?
He promises not to give us more than we can handle. But that means more than we can handle with Him at our side and the Holy Spirit living in us. He thinks we can handle a lot more than we do. But we like to run from him in those kind of circumstances and frantically try to fix it or change it ourselves. And I am convinced that if we don’t let God accomplish his purpose through that event, he will probably give us another opportunity down the road. Hence the people who always seem to have something bad happening in their lives. What are they not learning? What are they not allowing God to do?
He says to the abused woman after her fifth abusive relationship, “Hello you dodo (actually he would probably be kinder than us and say “Hello my precious daughter”) do you not see that I allow this in your life because you are trying to fill the hole that only I can occupy, with men who treat you like you believe you deserve. Come to me, let me fill that hole and you will see how I see you, how I created you, what I think you deserve.”
Sometimes God has to get our attention with negative circumstances, and because of his love, he is relentlessly pursuing us, so if we don’t get it this time, he will give us another opportunity. We might wish he didn’t, but he wouldn’t have to if we were not so dense and stubborn sometimes.
Why would we think that people are more on our side than God? Who else has sacrificed a child for us?
Can God be trusted? When you look at David’s life, you see that he was given some pretty big promises, but they sure didn’t come smoothly and without many opportunities for God to mould him. Is your life in danger everyday? Have you been put in a position of ruling over all of God’s people? If anyone had a right to doubt God and his promises, and take things into his own hands, it was David. But even though he often expresses his fear and doubt, and even anger at the Lord, he always comes back to the place of trust and worship.
Can we do that? Don’t ask whether God be trusted. Will we trust him? Can we let God glorify himself through us? Will our story read like David’s or Peter’s? All the people we have mentioned today have gone through far more than most of us will ever go through, and after going through it they all trusted God more.
But notice one thing, they all put themselves in situations where only God could take care of it. Now I wouldn’t recommend doing what the young lady did, that was not a step of faith and she wasn’t a believer, but I believe God wants all of his children to witness to his glory by stepping out in such a way that it will be undeniable that God acted. He does want to show himself to the world, and he wants to do it through you. He wants us all to have a testimony, and I pray that he will not have to use tragedy to bring it about.
