Mercy for the Desperate – part 2

Psalm 107

How many Charismatics does it take to change a light bulb?
Only one since their hands are already in the air.

How many Calvinists does it take to change a light bulb?
Calvinists don’t change light bulbs. They simply read out the instructions and wait for the light bulb to decide to change itself.

How many TV evangelists does it take to change a light bulb?
One. But send in your donation today so the light can continue.

How many liberals does it take to change a light bulb?
At least ten, as they need to hold a debate on whether or not the light bulb exists. Even if they can agree upon the existence of the light bulb, they still may not change it to keep from alienating those who might use other forms of light.

How many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb?
None. They use candles.

How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb?
Ten. One to call the electrician, and nine to say how much they liked the old one better.

How many Baptists does it take to change a light bulb?
CHANGE???????

How many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb?
Well, it should require about five committees to review the idea. If each is staffed with half a dozen members, that’s what … 30? And then it might be years before the light bulb is actually changed.

How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
One–but the light bulb has to really want to change.

It was this last response, “the light bulb has to really want to change,” that led me to these light bulb jokes.

I preached from the first half of Psalm 107 last week which contains four word pictures of the experience of Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel, when they spent seventy years in exile in Babylon and then returned to Jerusalem.

In each word picture there is a description of the suffering of Judah followed by this verse:
Then you called out to God in your desperate condition;
he got you out in the nick of time.
What follows is a description of how God, in his love and mercy, rescued them, but the key to God’s mercy being seen is crying out in desperation. You really have to want to change.

I titled the first word picture Neglecting God’s Word. Verses 4-9 describe what happens when we have, at best, a cursory devotional life. The reality is that we can go for weeks without opening our Bible except, perhaps, when we are at church. This does not incapacitate us, we can still function, but the reservoir of spiritual strength we need to face the inevitable crises of life goes dry and when a crisis comes, we discover that we do not have the necessary spiritual resources to cope.

The second word picture, verses 10-16, I titled Disobeying God’s Word. When we disobey God’s clear instructions in some form of sinful behavior, that sinful behavior pulls us into an addiction, just as addictive drugs do. The sinful behavior begins to control us. We find ourselves unable to change and so sin has become our master. We are imprisoned by our sin and feel helpless and hopeless that we will ever be able to change.

Each of these word pictures end with triumph as God comes to the rescue. He brings fresh water and food to refresh those who have been wandering in the arid wilderness and he breaks the bars and chains of the prison and sets us free. All we had to do was to cry out for help in desperation.

This morning we will look at the last two word pictures and talk a bit more about what it means to be desperate.

Word picture #3 Consequences of Sin
17–22 Some of you were sick because you’d lived a bad life,
your bodies feeling the effects of your sin;
You couldn’t stand the sight of food,
so miserable you thought you’d be better off dead.
Then you called out to God in your desperate condition;
he got you out in the nick of time.
He spoke the word that healed you,
that pulled you back from the brink of death.
So thank God for his marvelous love,
for his miracle mercy to the children he loves;
Offer thanksgiving sacrifices,
tell the world what he’s done—sing it out!

Does it make sense to complain about having an accident when it is your habit to run through red lights when you drive? Our behavior does carry consequences. Here are some easy applications of this.

If you drink too much alcohol the long-term effects include brain and liver damage. Long-term effects of smoking marijuana can cause infertility, lung cancer and schizophrenia. Smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer.

Overeating, what the Bible calls gluttony, is more deadly than alcoholism. Those who are overweight are more susceptible to organ damage as well as diabetes, heart attack, kidney disease, cancer and strokes.

Other eating disorders, bulimia and anorexia, are also physically destructive.

Sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS have serious physical consequences and millions die each year. Do you realize that STDs and AIDS would cease to be a problem to the world within a generation if people used sex as God intended? Unfortunately, the history of the world and our understanding of human nature tells us these diseases are not going to end anytime soon.

Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, (1 Corinthians 6:19–20)
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

When we do not honor God with our bodies, our bodies suffer. But there are some less obvious applications of this word picture.

The writer of Ecclesiastes asked: (Ecclesiastes 2:22)
What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun?

Paul wrote in Philippians: (Philippians 4:6–7)
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

And Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount: (Matthew 6:25–34)
So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Yet despite the question in Ecclesiastes, Paul’s exhortation in Philippians and Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, we are anxious and we do worry. We do suffer the effects of stress in our lives.

Estimates are that 70% of illness is psychosomatic. 70% of the illness we suffer has its roots in stress in our lives. We worry about our job, about our children, about our future, about what people think of us, about whether or not we will be able to pay our bills. We try to live up to the expectations of our parents, our spouse, and our friends, despite how much stress this adds to our lives.

We work at our careers as if our success in our career is the measure by which Jesus will judge us. But while our careers are important and we need to work hard and do the best we are capable of doing, we need to understand that our career does not have ultimate importance.

We worry. We are anxious about many things and this worry creates stress that is unhealthy. We suffer physically because we do not or are not able to “present our requests to God.”

Sin in our lives, even the sin of not trusting in God and worrying about what we will wear and what we will eat, has negative consequences.

Let me share one more way in which our sin effects us negatively. When I get angry and let my anger out, it may feel good for me to do that but it has a negative effect on those who bear the brunt of my anger. An expression of my anger hurts those around me and damages my relationship with those people. My relationship with those people becomes broken and sick.

If I lie to someone or deceive someone or promise to do something but then do not do what I promised, my sin breaks the relationship. And then just as it does not make any sense for an alcoholic to complain about the unfairness of having a liver problem, so it does not make sense for an angry person or an unreliable person to complain that they have problems with their relationships.

Sin affects us. We suffer the consequences of our sin. This can lead us to despair and to be without hope.

But then, in the middle of this word picture, just as in the middle of the stories of all those who follow Jesus, there is this verse:
Then you called out to God in your desperate condition;
he got you out in the nick of time.

Whether it is a disease caused by addiction or bad sexual choices or anxiety or a lack of self-control, when we call out for help, God is there to rescue us.
He spoke the word that healed you,
that pulled you back from the brink of death.

This is an area where it is more difficult to call out in desperation because we learn to live with our sin. We think it is impossible to change so we accept our sin and think that this is simply our unwanted companion for life and we have to learn to accept it.

But it is never too late for God to work in our lives. We are not stuck with our sinful behaviors for life. The psalmist says
So thank God for his marvelous love,
for his miracle mercy to the children he loves;

God works miracles in our lives. As his children, the Holy Spirit is at work in us, helping us to change. We can be different. We can be better people. God can miraculously heal someone’s liver or cancer but he can also miraculously heal someone’s temperament. He can help us get to the root of our worry and anxiety and lead us into his peace. He can help us to put the demands of life into perspective so we are not ruled by the expectations of our job and family and friends. He can help us to get to the root of our emotions and help us understand why we get so angry or depressed.

God is a miracle worker. Call out to him in desperation and see him work his miracle in your life.

We come now to the fourth word picture.

As I have worked on this psalm, I have begun to think the psalmist had different groups of people in his mind. Judah was taken into exile in Babylon, but not all those who were taken had the same story.

Some had neglected God’s word and drifted away from God. Others had deliberately disobeyed God and worshiped false idols. Still others had made bad choices and were suffering the negative effects of those bad choices.

But others had been faithful to God. They had been devoted to him and tried to be obedient to him. There were some who did not deserve to be taken into exile in Babylon. This fourth word picture applies to them.

Word picture #4 Unpredictability of the World
23–32 Some of you set sail in big ships;
you put to sea to do business in faraway ports.
Out at sea you saw God in action,
saw his breathtaking ways with the ocean:
With a word he called up the wind—
an ocean storm, towering waves!
You shot high in the sky, then the bottom dropped out;
your hearts were stuck in your throats.
You were spun like a top, you reeled like a drunk,
you didn’t know which end was up.
Then you called out to God in your desperate condition;
he got you out in the nick of time.
He quieted the wind down to a whisper,
put a muzzle on all the big waves.
And you were so glad when the storm died down,
and he led you safely back to harbor.
So thank God for his marvelous love,
for his miracle mercy to the children he loves.

Earthquakes, hurricanes and typhoons, fires, tsunamis, tornadoes and other natural disasters are not God’s judgment on evil. Beneath the solid ground of our feet are tectonic plates that are shifting. While I preach, the African plate is building up pressure as it shifts north. I have told those who are trying to make an illegal crossing to Spain that if they are patient, in just fifty million years they will be able to step over the Mediterranean pond into Spain.

The tectonic plates of the world are shifting in geological time and we suffer the consequences. There are, on average, 152 earthquakes greater than magnitude 6.0 per year. These do not happen because God is unhappy with the sin of the world; they happen because tectonic plates move.

The same is true with all natural disasters. God is not unhappy with Japan and Indonesia who suffered from their recent tsunamis. Those countries happen to exist on the Pacific Rim where 75% of the world’s active volcanoes are located and earthquakes are more frequent.

Natural disasters affect the faithful and the unfaithful. They do not discriminate.

The same is true with manmade disasters. There is an African proverb that says, “When the elephants fight, the grass gets trampled.” In most cases, it is those with power and wealth that lead people into war and as the countries fight, innocent people who are just trying to survive get trampled.

Bad decisions are made by business interests and national and world economies move into depression. The policies of Robert Mugabe turned Zimbabwe from one of the most prosperous countries of Africa into one of the poorest. The people of Zimbabwe suffer through no fault of their own.

Wars and economic disasters affect the good and the bad.

The psalmist uses the example of being at sea and getting caught up in a life-threatening storm.

The disciples of Jesus experienced this on the Sea of Galilee when even the experienced fishermen of his disciples feared for their lives. (Matthew 8:24–25)
Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. 25 The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”

Paul experienced this when he was sailing on the Mediterranean Sea on his way to Rome. (Acts 27:18–20)
We took such a violent battering from the storm that the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard. 19 On the third day, they threw the ship’s tackle overboard with their own hands. 20 When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved.

The psalmist wrote:
Out at sea you saw God in action,
saw his breathtaking ways with the ocean:
With a word he called up the wind—
an ocean storm, towering waves!
You shot high in the sky, then the bottom dropped out;
your hearts were stuck in your throats.
You were spun like a top, you reeled like a drunk,
you didn’t know which end was up.

In the absolutely terrifying moments of life, whether it is a typhoon or earthquake, economic disaster or war, we can call out to God.
Then you called out to God in your desperate condition;
he got you out in the nick of time.
He quieted the wind down to a whisper,
put a muzzle on all the big waves.
And you were so glad when the storm died down,
and he led you safely back to harbor.

I don’t have to tell you that not everyone who calls out for help in a storm at sea is led safely back to harbor. The words of the hymn we sang this morning, It Is Well with My Soul, were written by Horatio Spafford in 1873 as he passed over the spot on the Atlantic Ocean where his four daughters had died just a week or two earlier. They cried out for help in desperation but drowned.

So let me remind you that God does not measure safety by the standards of this world. God knows we will all die, sooner or later, and safety is measured by being brought into his eternal kingdom. Don’t get distracted by the limitations of this temporal world and miss the truth of this psalm. And the truth is that when we are caught up in the terrors of a storm at sea or a tsunami or earthquake and we call out to God in desperation, he will bring us to safety. Whether we live or die, he will bring us to safety.

In reflecting on the experience of Judah in captivity, the psalmist realized that our neglect of God’s work leads us into the suffering of being without food and water in the wilderness. For others, it is our deliberate disobedience of God’s Word that causes us to suffer as we are imprisoned by our sin. Others suffer because our sinful choices lead to physical and relational sickness. And still others suffer simply because suffering is part of this world.

You may identify with one or more of these word pictures and if you do, I expect you are not happy and would like things to be different. So pay attention to what needs to happen if you are to be rescued.

If you are stranded on an island and want to be seen by a passing ship or plane, you can create a large fire that can be seen from far off. What does the psalmist say you need to do in order to be rescued, to put your life in order?

First of all, know that God is loving and merciful. Each of the word pictures have this verse:
So thank God for his marvelous love,
for his miracle mercy to the children he loves.

God not only will rescue you but he wants to rescue you. God not only will rescue you, he is waiting to rescue you. God not only will rescue you, he is longing to rescue you.

All that stands in the way of your being rescued is for you to cry out in desperation.
Then, in your desperate condition, you called out to God.
He got you out in the nick of time;

How do you call out in desperation? How do you know if your cry for help is desperate?

A beggar by the side of the road called out for help to Jesus who was passing by. (Mark 10:47–48)
When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
48 Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

The beggar refused to be silent and did not care what people thought of him or what they would do to him. He was desperate for help.

When Peter began walking on water toward Jesus and then lost faith and began to sink into the sea, he cried out to Jesus, “Lord, save me!” Peter was desperate.

Many times people call out for help but not all cries for help are desperate. Some are half-hearted cries for help.

Augustine of Hippo, the great Berber church father, struggled with sexual temptation as a youth. He prayed this well known prayer, “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet” Augustine wanted to change but he also wanted the pleasure of his mistress.

This was not a desperate prayer. Peter did not call out, “Lord, save me but not right away.” Eventually Augustine did pray a more desperate prayer and went on to be one of the greatest leaders and theologians in the history of the church.

Desperate prayer does not have alternatives. Desperate prayer does not have a backup plan. Desperate prayer does not hold back. Desperate prayer is not a life-improvement strategy. Desperate prayer does not have long-term plans. Desperate prayer is not a tool to use to get what you want.

Desperate prayer is calling out without conditions. Desperate prayer is being at the end of your rope, not sure how much longer you can hang on. Desperate prayer is total and unconditional surrender.

When John had his revelation on the Isle of Patmos, he had a vision of the ascended Jesus in all his glory. Do you remember how John responded to Jesus? John knew Jesus well. He had spent three years with Jesus and was one of three disciples in the inner circle with Jesus. So did John cry out, “Jesus, it’s great to see you again!”?

John wrote: (Revelation 1:17)
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.

Desperate prayer does not care if it lives or dies, only that it needs to be rescued.

The psalmist concludes with a summary of Judah’s experience (vs 33-41). I don’t have time to go into this but these verses paint a picture of God’s judgment followed by God’s mercy and blessing. This is a picture for us. Because of our sin and sometimes independent of our sin, we suffer. God sees us in our suffering and has compassion. God does not want our story to end in suffering and waits for us to call out in desperation for help. Then he works to rescue us and bless us. God wants to see us live a blessed life.

Psalm 107 is a call for you to stop living for yourself, seeking the satisfaction of whatever you desire. God created you to live with him for eternity and in these years on earth you are being prepared for that time. Don’t allow your pleasure to be more important than what God is doing in your life. Don’t allow your school or career to become more important to you than the work of God in you. Don’t allow anything to be more important than your relationship with Christ.

Seek first the kingdom of God and work with the Holy Spirit as you are transformed into his righteousness and then everything you need will be given to you as well.

I am not saying you should not study hard and work hard in school or in your job. It is important that you do the best you can do. But it is not of ultimate importance. Your job and all the accomplishments of your life will be left behind when you die. It is what the Holy Spirit and you have done together in your life that will go with you into eternity.

This is deep wisdom and deep truth.

42–43 Good people see this and are glad;
bad people are speechless, stopped in their tracks.
If you are really wise, you’ll think this over—
it’s time you appreciated God’s deep love.