When I was a kid, I enjoyed watching westerns on TV. It seemed that no matter how much trouble the hero got into, he would always be saved by the Cavalry.
Today, as an adult, life sure seems to be full of trouble, too. It seems that no matter what we do, we have trouble of some kind. If it’s not one thing; it’s another. And it applies to everybody. No one is immune.
A wife told her husband that there was trouble with the car. She said it had water in the carburetor. He said that was ridiculous. Nevertheless, she insisted that there was water in the carburetor.
He said she didn’t even know where the carburetor was, but he would check it out. He asked her where the car was, and she said it was in the swimming pool.
Someone once said that we had better get used to trouble, because it will be a mainstay in our life here on this earth.
JOB 5:7 says,
“Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.”
JOB 14:1 says,
“Man, born of woman, is of few days and full of trouble.”
Troubles remind us that we are in a spiritual battle on this earth, and we shall be all the days of our lives. But, as Christians, we sometimes are like golf balls.
When they first invented the golf ball, it was smooth on the outside like a big ping pong ball. But they soon discovered that the more the ball got roughed up on the golf course, the further it would travel.
So they started putting the ball under a great deal of pressure when they were making it. This pressure causes all the dimples you see on them, and those dimples cause the ball to travel much further than a ball that has not been under pressure.
See, as Christians, sometimes we find that we do our best work when put under pressure. It serves to bring us to a higher level of intimacy with the Lord.
Our days seem full of trouble, don’t they? But we aren’t the only ones who seem to be embroiled in problems. The Psalmist, David, knew about how tough life could get.
PSALM 86:1-4 tells us,
‘Hear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. Guard my life, for I am devoted to you. You are my God; save your servant who trusts in You. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I call to You all day long. Bring joy to Your servant, for to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.’
David says; Hear my prayer - Guard my life - Have mercy on me - Increase my joy. Let’s talk about these things.
1. HEAR MY PRAYER
Verse 1 says,
“Hear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.”
A woman was at work when she received a phone call that her daughter was very sick with a fever. She left work and stopped by the pharmacy to get some medication for her daughter. She returned to her car to find that she had locked the keys inside the car when she went into the pharmacy.
She didn’t know what to do, so she called her home and told the baby sitter what had happened and that she did not know what to do. The baby sitter told her to find a coat hanger and see if that would open the door.
The woman looked around and found an old rusty coat hanger that had been thrown down on the ground, possibly by someone else who also had locked their keys in their car. Then she looked at the hanger and said, "I don’t know how to use this." So she bowed her head and asked God to send her some help.
Within five minutes an old rusty car pulled up in the parking space next to her car. An older, rougher, dirtier man got out and asked if he could help her. The woman thought, "This is what you sent to help me, God?"
She told him yes, as she needed to hurry and get home to her sick daughter. He walked over to the car, and in less than one minute the car was opened. She hugged the man and through her tears she said, "Thank you so much! You are such a nice man."
The man replied; "No, I’m not, Lady. I just got out of prison for car theft." The woman hugged the man again and with sobbing tears cried out to God, "You even sent me a professional."
You just never know how God is going to answer your prayer. I always heard it said that God answers prayer in four ways:
- Yes
- No
- Later, and
- You’re kidding, right?
But no matter how He answers them, God hears every prayer that is spoken by His children. His children are those who have made a choice to follow Jesus as their Savior. And when God answers your prayers, He may answer them through people, some of who might even be not-so-nice people.
How do we get God to answer our prayers? It’s simple. We ask Him to answer them.
MATTHEW 7:7-8, tells us,
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."
In JAMES 4:2, we are told,
"You do not have, because you do not ask God."
Many people say they do not deserve to have God answer their prayers so they just don’t pray. How would you feel if you wanted to give somebody you loved something really nice, but they refused to take it unless they could pay you for it. Wouldn’t that hurt you? I think God must take it as an insult when we ignore the blessings of prayer because we insist on working for the blessings God wants us to have.
The next time you’re in a tight spot, why not try asking God for help. Better yet, why not talk to Him every day and get acquainted with Him first? We’re all poor and needy. And that is why we need to be as familiar with God as we can possibly be. The only way to do that, of course, is by praying to Him many times every day, and to put Him at the forefront of your consciousness.
2. GUARD MY LIFE
Verse 2 says,
“Guard my life, for I am devoted to you. You are my God; save your servant who trusts in you.”
Everyone has an occasional ‘bad-hair’ day, and we all get stressed out from time to time. It’s like the old saying, "When I got up this morning, I had one nerve left, and now you are starting to get on it!"
We all deal with a certain amount of stress in life and much of it comes from those who are around us. We need help, for sure, but what we need most of all is divine guidance.
We need God to guard our lives and help us. But to get God’s help, we must be devoted to His Son. That is the problem. How much are we actually devoted to Him and how much do we really trust in Him?
Matthew Henry once said,
“Well armed against the strongest temptation are they who are filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Things will not always continue to be as they are now. God will put an end to all the evil and God’s followers will spend eternity with Him. In the meantime, the only ones who will be guarded are those who have chosen to become servants of Jesus Christ. Nobody else will be guarded by God’s wonderful and merciful hands.
Christians – true washed in the blood Christians will be protected by God. When the day comes where you bow before the throne of God, -your mark of acceptance will be your Holiness. Not your wealth. Not how smart you were, or who you knew, but your faith in Jesus Christ, obeying his Word. This will guard you against the sins of this world.
3. HAVE MERCY ON ME
How many times in our lives have we gotten angry with somebody and have carried that anger around for a while? Perhaps they did something very hurtful to you and you are still carrying that anger around.
When you consider forgiving the people who have hurt you, you must always consider how much Jesus has forgiven you! You don’t deserve His love and you can never earn it. But He forgave you anyway, because He is a merciful, God.
And because you have been forgiven of your sins, you must forgive others by becoming so transparent in Christ that His mercy will be seen in every aspect of your life. You are never to be a giver of condemnation but always a giver of mercy, because that is what God gave you.
God gives you a fresh start each new day, and so you should reach beyond the pain and give to those who have hurt you a fresh start through your forgiveness. Mercy is forgiveness - soaked in the love of God.
Verse 3 says,
“Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I call to you all day long.”
When David prayed for God to have mercy on him, he was essentially asking for God to forgive his sins.
Whether we would admit it or not, we all sin and sometimes we even love it! And as much as we grimace to hear it, we sometimes sin on purpose, don’t we? You say you never have? Let me ask you a question then. Have you ever run a red light down at this mess called an intersection down the road so you won’t have to sit and wait another half hour to go through it? It doesn’t matter how you justify it, if you did it, you did wrong.
ROMANS 3:23 confirms this.
‘… we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God.’
This is so important, it bears repeating. Please listen to this very carefully. Even though we have hurt God, He loves us enough to give us a fresh start each new day, and so we should reach beyond the pain and give to those who have hurt us a fresh start through our forgiveness. Mercy is forgiveness of sin - soaked in the love of God.
Some are convicted by their sin. And that is not a bad thing. Guilt is a good thing if it drives us to do something right. But some even go overboard and fall totally into guilt and stay there. We must remember that when we sin, we are guilty, but when we go to the Father with a repentant heart, we will be forgiven. Once we are forgiven, we are not held under condemnation for the sin any longer.
So, if you are one of those people who fall into your sin and stay there, understand this very clearly. GOD WANTS YOU TO GET UP AND GET OUT!
We are talking about forgiveness found when we pray for it. Speaking of praying, did you know what might be the most powerful prayer in the Bible?
A passage in the book of LUKE talks about a Pharisee and a tax collector praying in the Temple. The Pharisee prays so that everyone will see how righteous he is. But the tax collector prays a different kind of prayer.
It is found in LUKE 18:13.
‘But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.”
That man knew he was a sinner and he yearned for God to have mercy on him and to forgive him. This man’s prayer was 100% sincere. That is why I think of it as one of the most powerful prayers in the Bible.
When is the last time you prayed with such a sincere heart, crying out from your soul for God to forgive you of your sins?
4. INCREASE MY JOY
Verse 4 says,
“Bring joy to your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.”
The second "fruit of the Spirit" that Paul mentions is joy. Let me ask you; "Do you have that joy?" Many people don’t. They’re grumps, gripers, and very negative about everything that happens in life, complaining almost all the time. As a result, people try to not be around them too much.
A man went to the doctor because he had a sore chin. As he walked in, he was met by the grumpy receptionist. Without even so much as looking up at him, she snarled, "Down the hall, first door to the right, take off your clothes off and wait.” Now, he tried several times to explain to her that all he had was a sore on his chin, but she just kept barking the same orders to him.
So he went down the hall, took the first door to the right, and as he walked in, he saw another man already sitting there in his boxer shorts, shivering.
He said to him, "Boy, that receptionist is really something, isn’t she? I just have a little sore on my chin & she told me to come down here, go through this door & take off my clothes and wait." The man in the boxer shorts said, "You think that’s bad? I’m just the mailman."
Let me give you a definition of "joy.”
"Joy is an evidence of the presence of God in your life."
If you are filled with the Spirit of God, then this fruit of the Spirit will be obvious in your life. If not, it won’t be. But even if it is, we will still have those stressful days caused by negative people or situations around us.
If we keep focused on God rather than the world, we can still keep our joy. Someone said: The most joyous of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything they have.
True joy comes from a relationship with the Lord who created us. He alone produces joy in us. And He can update or increase our joy if we continue to trust Him and follow Him.
Will the Victory Singers please come back onstage?
Do you remember back in September a plane flying all around Los Angeles with its landing gear stuck? It finally landed, and they fully expected to have the big plane crash. The plane flew around for 3 hours, trying to get its landing gear down, but it just wouldn’t budge. Meanwhile, there were 140 passengers inside who were watching their own disaster on TV.
The TV said that there many prayers going up that day for their safety. And many of those prayers came from Christians. I would hope so. On the other hand, those who may have prayed, but did not have Jesus as their Savior, had no affect at all. Their prayers didn’t even so much as leave the room. Those prayers were not heard by God.
The reason is that God cannot look upon sin in any way. Without Jesus, we are sinful, therefore, disconnected from God. If it were the prayers that brought that plan down safely, it was only the prayers from the followers of Christ.
That plane in landed without so much as a bump. All 140 people walked off that plane safe and sound.
Sometimes, our lives seem just like that plane. We know something is broken in it, and we know we are in trouble, but there is nothing we can do to fix it. We get all upset and nervous and lose our joy.
It is in these times of great stress we must remember that, just like those cowboys on TV so many years ago, we also have the Calvary coming to our rescue. And the person leading the rescue is none other than Jesus- our Savior. The Cross of Calvary is leading the Cavalry.
If we will just trust in Him, He will rescue us and save us from the troubles of this world. And if that doesn’t increase your joy, I don’t think anything else would be able to either.
Won’t you turn your life over to Him today? Without Jesus, our lives are worthless and miserable. We are stuck out in an arid desert with absolutely no way out.
Won’t you let the Cavalry come to your rescue, too? We are talking about Jesus, and what He did for you on the Cross of Calvary.
INVITATION
