S.o.s.

SOS

April 4, 2010

Psalm 121:1-2 I will lift up my eyes to the hills-- From whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth.

SOS is the title of my sermon and a term we all have heard of. It is the international Morse Code Distress signal. It also became associated with the phrases, “Save our ship, or save our souls”. It is a cry for help. People go a lot of places looking for help.

It's funny how when you need help a lot of times you can't find anyone and when you don't it, you get overwhelmed. For example, I deal with a local furniture store, selling them their office equipment and I can't get two feet in the door without some, usually several, sells people approaching me and asking me if I needed any help.

Then I can go down the road a little at one of the local chain lumber stores and I feel like sometimes laying on the floor, faking a heart attack, to get someone to help me.

People everywhere are looking for help. There is hardly a day that goes by that you don't see or hear of someone looking for help. You see the people hold up signs along the highway looking for help. We have people who contact the church all the time looking for help. Some go from church to church, much to the shame, scaming them. They usually have a sob story to back up the reason they are in the shape they are in, making it hard to determine who really needs the help and who is just wanting.

Often times people look to God for help. They say, that other than church, the hospital emergency room is where Gods name is used the most. People in times of emergencies cry out, “Oh God...Help me!”

The good news is that God wants to help each and every one of us. As our text states, “Our HELP comes from God!” Today I want to tell you how to get the help everyone needs. But to have the peace and joy that Jesus intended for all of us, there is a process. The first and most important thing that you need to do is...

You need to be SAVED!

Now I am not saying that God only helps His own. When I say “His own”, I am talking about those who are Christians, those who have a relationship with Him. But I am saying that if you are not a Christian, you may believe in God but you have no personal relationship with Christ; Then you may ask for a million dollars and God could give that to you. Or you may ask God to help you out in a time of need, and He may do that. You can ask Him for anything and He may give it to you, but without Him, you have nothing.

Mark 8:36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?

What good does it do if God or anyone else helps you if you lose your own soul? What does that mean when it says lose your soul? Christians and church are known to have their own language. I sell copiers for a living and almost all of them now are what we call “connected”. They are you printer, maybe your fax, they are connected with your network. And our company has three what I call “Propeller Heads”. They are the ones who come in and talk to your IT people and connect the two. They may sound like everyday people but get them together with someone who knows IT and they speak a language of their own. “IP, USB's, want to be's”. They understand each other but I sure don't.

Christians often do the same thing.

One of the most well known verses in the Bible is found in John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

But in the verses prier to that, we read about a Pharisee named Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night and when he questions Jesus about all the things that He had done, Jesus responds with John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

Nicodemus probably scratched his head like I do when the propeller heads talk. How can a grown man be born again? Then Jesus tells him in John 3:5-6 Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.