Speaker: LeBron James is back in the news again.
He is a- approaching, I assume, the Decision part two, or maybe it's
part three by now, I don't know.
But back in 2010 was the Decision part one.
If you remember, uh, what was going on around that time, it
was hard to, uh, avoid it, uh, even if you're not a sports fan.
Everybody was wondering, "Where is LeBron gonna go?"
See, LeBron was a, a generational talent, a true generational talent, and LeBron
James coming out of high school and ju- dominating in the NBA in a way that
nobody had really seen in, in decades.
Now, before you get upset with me, I still think m- Michael Jordan was better.
Uh, but LeBron James, he was, uh, uh, a heroic story.
He was from the Cleveland area.
He grew up there.
He went to high school there, and then his hometown team drafted him, and he
got to play with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and he was a, a great player for them.
But when his contract ran out, it came to the Decision, and everybody was hoping in
Cleveland and pleading and begging that their hometown guy would stay with them,
would defy the odds and stay with the small market, that the, the Mistake by the
Lake wouldn't be that anymore, that this would be a new era for Cleveland sports.
And then LeBron sat down on national TV and completely humiliated the c- the city
of Cleveland when he announced in front of millions and millions of viewers,
"I'm taking my talents to South Beach."
LeBron left Cleveland and went to Miami, and just like that,
the hero became the villain.
The, the, the hometown guy that they had watched, that they had seen, that
they felt like, "We raised LeBron to be who he is," he was now persona non
grata in Cleveland, and every time he came back to Cleveland in the years that
followed, people were booing him who had once cheered him, and people were
taking his jerseys that they had once worn proudly, and they were burning them
in the streets because LeBron had dared to defy Cleveland and choose instead
to take his talents to South Beach.
LeBron James quickly learned what it means to be with odd- at odds with someone,
and not only at odds with someone, but with a whole city of someones.
This morning, if you're a Christian, if you're here and you're a
follower of Christ, you know what it's like to be at odds as well.
Not just with a person, not just with a city of people, but you know this morning
what it is to be at odds with the world.
That's what God does in and through us when He saves us.
James 4:4 says, "You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with
the world is actually enmity with God?"
It's hostility with God.
Or in 1 John 2:15, John says there, "Do not love the world
or the things in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."
John goes on to define the world in case maybe you're wondering, "Well, what does
it mean that I'm at odds with the world?
Aren't we supposed to love the lost, and don't the lost make up the world?"
And John defines, when he says world, he's not necessarily talking
about people, but the, rather the, the system of the evil one.
For he says this, he says, "All that is in the world," 1 John 2:16, "the
desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not from
the Father, but it's from the world."
So you think about it, the, the desires of the eyes, the desires of the flesh,
the, the pride of life, the world's system, the things that the world appeals
to us that, that says, "Come after this.
This will satisfy.
This will make you happy."
Once we follow Christ, now we're at odds with the world's system.
In fact, Paul puts it rather strongly in Galatians 6:14.
He says, "Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."
See, what put odd, uh, LeBron James at odds with the city of Cleveland
was deciding to leave Cleveland and go play basketball for Miami.
But for you and me, what puts us at odds with the world is our relationship
with God and the Word of God.
Put it another way, you can write it down this way.
The, the Word of God doing the work of God is going to put
you at odds with the world.
The Word of God doing the work of God in your life, in my life, is
gonna put us at odds with the world.
See, the Spirit is gonna take God's Word and begin to use it in our lives.
The Spirit of God is going to begin to take the Word of God and see that we are
washed and that we are sanctified and that we are trained, as he says, Paul
does in Titus, to renounce ungodliness and worldliness and to live self-controlled,
upright, godly lives in this present age.
See, as a Christian, your allegiance has shifted now.
You, you have a new family.
You are no longer of the world, but now you are in Christ.
And so the Word of God doing the work of God is going to put you at odds with this
world And there's gonna be three evidences that God's Word is doing that work in your
life that I want us to see this morning.
There's gonna be three evidences that God's Word is doing that
work in your life that we're gonna look at from Psalm 119:81-88.
Psalm 119:81-88.
Let's pick up with just the first three verses, four verses.
Three verses.
Math is difficult for me sometimes.
Uh, Psalm 119:81, "My soul longs for your salvation.
I hope in your word.
My eyes long for your promise.
I ask: When will you comfort me?
For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke, yet I have not
forgotten your statutes."
What we're gonna see right off the bat is one of the ways that, that God's word
transforms us is found in the way that God's word transforms our base desires.
That is the things that we want, the things that we crave, the things
that we long for, that we desire more than anything else in the world.
As the word of God does the work of God in our lives, we're gonna find
that these base desires shift from the things of Earth to being with Jesus.
Our first point this morning, one of the evidences that God's work is
doing, or God's word is doing God's work in your life is this: That you
desire heaven while faithful here.
That you desire heaven while faithful here.
Our desires change as we physically mature, don't they?
I remember being little and eating candy, and I thought to myself,
"When I get older, I'm gonna let my kids have candy all the time.
They can have candy whenever they want."
My kids are here this morning to testify that my desires
have changed on that front.
Why?
Well, because as we mature, we realize that the things that we initially
wanted aren't necessarily good for us.
Or think about staying up late to watch movies.
I was getting my hair cut yesterday, and the person cutting my hair, I was just,
you know, making small talk, and she said, "Well, what are you doing after this?"
And I said, "Well, I'm gonna go home and spend the evening with my family."
And she's like, "Oh, well, my coworker said there's a rave
that starts at 10:00 PM."
I th- I said, "10:00 PM?
What in the world are you thinking?
It's dark out at that time.
You should be asleep."
But when we're younger, it's like, "How can I stay up as late as I
possibly can and watch movies?"
That's where my middle son is at right now.
He's like, "Dad, can I stay up?
Can I stay up?"
I'm like, "Can I go to bed?"
I'm like, "We'll just trade," right?
You, you lock up the house, set the alarm.
Uh, yeah.
Or how about going on roller coasters?
Yeah, you remember wh- when there was a time when you could do that without
feeling like you just went through, uh, you know, re-orbit entry in, in
a space shuttle coming back to Earth?
I remember I, I was in California and went on, uh, some roller coaster with
some of our college students, and afterwards I j- I thought I was dying.
I said, "This didn't used to feel this way."
See, as we physically mature, our desires change because we get to a
place where we realize that once we…
what we once thought was good, we realize that's not really what's good anymore.
Spiritually, our desires need to change as well as we get older in Christ.
As we mature spiritually, we should see things changing in our lives.
Sin should become less appealing to us.
W- we should all of a sudden have a willingness that says, "You know what?
I'm going to sacrifice my evenings for a whole week to show up at Vacation
Bible School at my church to serve these little ones You should see that, that
your appetite for the Word begins to increase, that you think to yourself,
"Man, I want to be in God's Word."
You should see as you s- spiritually mature that y- your affections for God's
church and God's people increase as well.
A- and it's a, a change because you realize that what you once thought was
good, that the world said, "This is what life is all about," now you're
realizing in Christ that, "You know what?
My desires have shifted.
I desire Jesus more now.
I desire to be with Him.
I want Him over the things of the world."
It's like the old hymn, "The things of earth, they grow strangely dim
in the light of His glorious grace."
Over time, we need to find that our love for the world lessens
as our love for Christ increases.
And God's Word is a catalyst for that type of growth, and the reason is, is because
the Word of God doing the work of God in your life is going to transform you.
It's gonna transform you.
The truths of God's Word in your life, the more you're in the Word of God,
the more it will expose the lies of the world, the more it will show you
how empty and bankrupt living for the things that you once loved really is.
The commands of God's Word, they're gonna illuminate the path of what
it means to walk on the narrow road and to follow the straight
way that God has called us to walk.
The promises of God's Word are gonna give you a confidence in your future
with Jesus that is going to transform the way that you endure trials here,
knowing what's coming in the future.
And the good wor- news of God's Word, that's gonna stir in you an affection
and a love for Him and for Christ because you are gonna be constantly reminded
of what God has done for you in Jesus.
See, God's Word doing God's work in your life is gonna transform your desires.
It's going to change you from the inside out.
Look at what David says in our text.
He says in verse 81, "My soul longs for your salvation."
Verse 82, "My eyes long for your promise, and I ask, 'When will you comfort me?'"
Now, he's writing from a trial.
He's writing from a, a p- position of suffering and, and he's writing
this, and he's saying, "I, I, God, I, I l- I long for your salvation.
I long for your promise," that is, for you to fulfill the things
that you've said you would do.
We don't really talk in that terminology anymore, longing.
Longing is a good word to describe what the, the author is, is driving
at here, but it's, it's more than what we typically talk about.
W- we'll say I, "I want this."
We might say, "You know what?
I have a craving for this thing over here."
But a longing is deeper than even a craving.
A, a, a longing is from a, a word in Hebrew that means to be consumed with it.
In fact, if you'll look down the text here, look at verse 87 in your Bibles.
It says, "They've almost made an end of me on earth."
That phrase, "made an end of me," it's the same Hebrew word as longing.
I- it's…
The, the word longing, it means I'm, I'm consumed with a desire.
If I don't get this, I'm undone.
And so the author is saying, "God, I, I, I am desperately longing
and desirous of your salvation."
When David was estranged from his son Absalom in 2 Samuel 13,
the text says, "The spirit of the king longed to go out to Absalom."
Uh, so maybe you're a mom or a dad in the room.
You can think of being estranged from your child and the intense
desire that you would have for reconciliation with that child.
Or Psalm 84:2, there it says, "My soul longs and even
faints for the courts of God."
That's the imagery there.
That you are so desperate for something that you are at the end, you're almost
consumed completely with that desire.
It's a desire that's not gonna be satisfied by anything other than
that which, for which you long.
And in this case, it's the salvation of the Lord.
Now, the author of Psalm 119, what did he really know of the salvation of God?
Well, the word salvation in the Hebrew can also mean deliverance.
And so as he's facing a tough time and a trial, he's probably temporarily
speaking about, "I just wanna be delivered from what I'm going through.
I don't wanna suffer anymore.
I don't wanna be in the pain that, that I'm in anymore."
But I think it's right and appropriate for us to understand that through
progressive revelation, the res- rest of scripture, that we can look
at this and say, "You know what?
We need to long to be with Jesus because that's our ultimate salvation."
Whatever trial that you're going through right now, it's, it's good
and it's right and it's fine for you to long to be delivered from
that from a temporal perspective.
But we also need to understand that after that trial, there's just gonna come
another one down the road because why?
Because we're aliens and strangers walking through this earth.
And so the ultimate salvation, the ultimate deliverance, the ultimate
de- freedom from, from suffering that we long for as Christians
should be a longing to be with Jesus.
And this is one of the greatest transformative impacts the word
has on the life of a Christian.
We no longer long for life here, we long for life there.
We wanna be with Jesus.
Have you ever found yourself waiting on something that you
desire that's out for delivery?
It, it's, it's painful at times, isn't it?
You wish that the, the mailman had a GPS tracker on him.
In fact, Amazon, sometimes they'll be like, "Your package is eight stops away."
And, and sometimes I'm, I'm just stalking that guy, just like,
"Okay, when is it seven stops away?
How, what are you delivering at that house?
Why is it taking you 40 minutes at the h- stop number five?"
Uh, you sit there and you, you crave what that is and you, you're desperate for it.
You, you want to get it.
Now, imagine waiting, but waiting on something with no estimated delivery date.
A- a- and imagine it's something that, that you know it's not just
that you want, that, that you need
Imagine, for example, I know this is ridiculous, but, but what if we
were in a situation where all of a sudden our, our drinking water, you
couldn't, you couldn't open up the tap and get fresh water out anymore.
There's a, a warning put on there, uh, boiling warning, everything else.
But they were like, "You, you really should just drink bottled water."
And because of what we saw with toilet paper during qu- during COVID, all the,
the sh- the stores around here, they're, they're all sold out of, of bottled water.
You can't go get any.
But you can still order some online.
But the problem is y- y- you go and you place your order and it says, uh,
"Delivery to be determined," because they need to be restocked with it.
But this is water, and you're sitting there and you're looking at your
family, and you're, you're thinking about yourself and y- you're thinking,
"I, I desperately need that water.
When is it going to be out for delivery?
When am I gonna get it?
When is it gonna arrive?"
That's scratching the surface of a longing to be with Jesus that we should have.
Man, I, I want Christ.
Verse 83, he says this.
He says, "I've become like a wineskin in the smoke."
Y- that is, he's, he's wasting away.
It's a vivid image that for us is a little strange 'cause we don't have wineskins,
but back then this was an animal skin that would've held wine or other liquid
and, and it needed to be pliable.
And yet a wineskin that was hung near smoke would dry out.
It would blacken, it would shrivel, and it would begin to crack.
And David says, or the, the psalmist…
I'm just gonna start saying David.
I, I'm tired of correcting myself.
I think it's David.
He's saying here, "Man, my internal state, the way I feel right now with everything
going on in my life is I feel like a wineskin that's hanging in the smoke."
That's where he is, longing for the salvation and the deliverance
that only God could provide.
Saying, "God, I, I need this.
When is it gonna come?
When is it gonna arrive?
When is it going to get here?
I don't want deliverance from any other source but you.
When will I get the comfort," as he asks in our text.
"When are you gonna comfort me that I so desperately desire
and I desperately need?"
He was exhausted, worn out, at an end of himself because of his desire
for deliverance, and it was the word of God that informed that desire.
That's why he says, "I hope in your promise."
He says, "Your word has informed me what you're gonna do, and so that's
why I'm in the position that I'm in.
That's why my desire is to be with you because you've said I will be with you."
And so the word of God doing the work of God in the life of the psalmist
was saying, "Hey, trust in me.
Deliverance will come."
And he's saying, "When?"
When is it gonna come?
And that should be some of, of the questions that we have.
We should be able to resonate a little bit with him this morning.
If the Word of God has done the work of God in your life, that you would be
sitting here this morning with transformed desires saying, "Jesus, come quickly.
When will you arrive?
When will you be here?"
Now, there's different seasons in our life when that happens.
There's times where it's easier for us to pray that than there are when
it's, it's harder for us to pray that.
You know, coming off of a great week of VBS, it's like, "Lord, we wanna keep doing
good, fruitful ministry for you here.
This is awesome.
Let's keep going."
But then when you're going through a trial, when you've got the disease,
when you've got a sickness, when you've got strained relationships, when you
open up the news and you hear about war, and you hear about earthquakes
and famine and death everywhere, that's when maybe it's a little bit easier
for us to say, "Lord, come quickly.
My desire is to be with you."
And I'm just saying, I, I think the more time we spend with the Word of God,
and the more it does the work of God in our lives, I think the more we will
resonate with the Apostle Paul when he says, "I'm hard-pressed between the two.
To stay is probably necessary for you," but what does Paul say?
"But I dep- desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better."
That's far better to be with Jesus.
The Word of God is gonna get us to the place where we would be
able to say yes and amen to that.
But notice here, it's not only that we should desire heaven, but what
does the point continue to say?
But that we should be faithful while here.
H- have you ever heard the phrase, "Too heavenly-minded to be any earthly good"?
Okay.
Uh, uh, the psalmist w- was not there.
He was at odds with the world and, and he was desiring the deliverance,
but he was not gonna sit idle while he waited for that deliverance.
Look at verse 81 again, "My soul longs for your salvation.
I hope in your word."
And so as he's waiting and longing, he's still hoping in God's word to come
through and, and to be faithful to it.
Verse 83, "I've become like a wineskin in the smoke, yet I have
not forgotten your statutes."
Uh, this is the complement to the waiting.
I've not forgotten what you've commanded.
I've not com- forgotten what you have called me to do.
And so while I wait, I'm still going to be faithful.
God has given him his marching orders.
He'd given us our marching orders, and that is through the word of God.
So, uh, he's called us to, yes, wait for deliverance, but also as we wait,
to be faithful while we wait to what he's doing and what he wants us to do.
Desiring heaven, in other words, is not a ticket to passive Christianity.
I talked about this last week a little bit.
It's not that, that we just get in our holy huddle and say, "Okay, we'll just
wait here for the Lord to come back."
Instead, what desiring heaven should do for us, it should free
us to pursue with fidelity the mission that God has called us to.
Because we may not know when deliverance is gonna come, but we
do know that it is going to come.
And so because we know that it's going to come, in the meantime, we should
say, "Okay, what do you want us to be doing, Lord, as we wait for you?
As I desire to be with you, Lord, what do you want me to do right now?
What do you want my life to look like right now?"
And the Word of God is gonna inform that for us.
I don't know for us as a church of anything greater for us to be
pursuing than the Great Commission.
The Great Commission, when Jesus, after his resurrection, gathered his
followers and said, uh, uh, "This is, is, is my mission for you, that you go
and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you."
We put that this way as our church mission, that we wanna be reaching
people for Christ, teaching people for Christ to be like Christ, and
training people to serve Christ.
Reaching, teaching, training.
A- a- and so for us, as we desire heaven, as we desire to be with Jesus, we also at
the same time, we wanna be faithful to the Great Commission that God has given to us.
I was listening to a sermon recently when the, the pastor said this: "If you're
not on mission, you're the opposition."
Man, that, that hits, and that hurts.
I- if I'm not faithfully on mission, in other words, then I'm opposing what
God has me still on this earth to do.
There's nothing that I can do better here besides reach the lost that I'm not
gonna be able to do better in heaven.
My worship is gonna be better in heaven because I'm gonna be
free from my sinfulness, right?
M- my, my devotion, my, my, my joy is gonna be greater
in heaven than it is here.
Whatever it is that you might be thinking of right now that you're
like, "Yeah, but, but I, I, I know you're telling me to desire heaven,
but I wanna see my kids grow up."
Listen, being with Jesus is gonna be better than seeing your kids grow up.
I'm not saying watching your kids grow up isn't good.
I'm saying being with Jesus is better.
Or maybe you're younger and you're thinking, "I, okay, I wanna be
with Jesus, but first I wanna, I wanna graduate high school.
I wanna get married.
I wanna go to college.
I wanna have a family."
Uh, being with Jesus is better than all of that, and I'm
not saying that stuff is bad.
That stuff is good, but Jesus is better And so if we believe that to be true,
then man, we wanna get out there and tell other people that Jesus is better.
In that same sermon, he, he suggested something.
He said, "You know what's been a really useful question for me in
my evangelism, is the question to ask people, 'Do you have a faith?
Do you have a faith?'"
And he uses that as an on-ramp to, to get into the gospel, and
that's so good, and it, it's, it's, it's not a threatening question.
It's not, "Do you believe in, in God?
Do you believe in Christianity?
Do you believe in Jesus?
Let me share the four spiritual laws with you."
I mean, we wanna get to the point of getting them to believe in God and
believe in Jesus and surrender to Christ, but it's a good on-ramp, y'all.
In fact, I was able to do this just yesterday as I was getting my
hair cut from the same lady that was going to the rave at 10:00 PM.
Um, we were talking together, and as usually happens, i- they'll ask me the
question, "What do you do for a living?"
And I'm like, "Yes, thank you for asking me that question."
And so I'll say, "Well, I'm, I'm a pastor."
And so we were talking a little bit and a- a- following up I
said, "Do you have a faith?"
And she said, "Yes."
And then we got into a conversation about faith.
I- it was an on-ramp to get to doing what we're called to do as we desire heaven.
And you might say, "Well, I'm not a pastor."
Okay.
Well, maybe you're talking to your neighbor this week, or you're
talking to your coworker this week and, and they're gonna ask
you, "Hey, how was your weekend?"
Do you talk about church?
"It was great.
Got to go to church and be around my church family.
Um, by the way, I know I've never asked you this question,
but do, do you have a faith?"
Or maybe you're in the cul-de-sac and, and your kids are out playing o- on Sunday
afternoon, and your neighbor comes out and says, "Hey, how was your week last week?"
"Man, it was great.
Actually, let me, let me tell you about it.
I was at my church.
I was at…
We had a VBS for our kids, so I was there in the evening and, and I
was, uh, I was serving at the VBS.
And by the way, you know, I…
We've lived next to each other for a few years now.
We…
I've never asked you the question, do you have a faith?"
All I'm saying, y'all, is, is as we're here, we need to not just wanna be in
heaven and be with Jesus, we need to wanna be in heaven and wanna be with Jesus, and
also want other people to be there too.
And so we need to be faithful while we're here.
Desire heaven while faithful here.
God's work, doing God's wor- God's work, doing God's work in your life
is going to transform your desires.
You're gonna desire heaven, and you're also gonna desire more people to be
there with us, which means that we desire heaven while faithful here.
But that is often really, really hard.
And that's where I love the honesty of scripture.
Look at the next passage here in verse 84 through 86.
He says, "How long must your servant endure?
When will you judge those who persecute me?
The insolent have dug pitfalls for me; they do not live according to your law.
All your commandments are sure.
They persecute me with falsehood.
Help me."
Help me
Another evidence of God's Word doing God's work in our lives is gonna be found
in our surrendered dependence on Him.
Put it this way for point number two, be honest with God and seek His help.
Be honest with the Lord and seek His help.
Again, to wait for the Lord, to desire heaven while faithful here is not easy.
As the psalmist was desiring the deliverance of God, it was
not easy for him to do that.
Our text is, is pretty clear there as he says, "How long must your servant endure?"
Literally, it's, "How many days do I have to keep living this way?"
Remember he said, "I'm, I'm like the wineskin in the smoke."
And he's in the valley.
He's in the sh- the valley of the shadow of death, like we just talked about
this last week with our little ones.
A- and he says, "The insolent, they've dug pitfalls for me.
W- when are you gonna judge them?
When are you gonna bring justice?"
Like our, our students are gonna learn about this next week.
When are you gonna show up?
God, what, what are you doing?
He's indignant over the evil that he sees all around him.
Remember when we talked about it last week, how long do I have to keep going?
When will judgment arrive?
W- when we talked about having hot indignation that seizes me because
of the evil, because of the wicked.
The insolent, they've dug pitfalls.
A, a pitfall is, is what it sounds like.
It's a deep pit, a deep hole in the ground, and it was covered over,
and it was a trap for animals.
A- and when the animal would cross over what they thought was solid
ground, that solid ground would give way, and they would fall into
the trap, and they'd be captured.
Well, he says, "The insolent, the evil, the wicked, the rude,
the, the enemies, the sinners, they have dug pitfalls for me.
They do not live according to your law."
Again, the Word of God, doing the work of God in your life is gonna
put you at odds with this world.
And you might think, "Well, I don't have anyone digging pitfalls for me."
No, but we can see the evil and the wickedness in the world, can't we?
A- and I'm sure you've been impacted by it.
You remember the Book of Job, one of the things that his, you know,
friends were telling him is, "Job, the wicked suffer and the innocent don't.
So clearly you did something.
Come on, out with it, Job."
And Job said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, not so fast."
Job 21, Job 24, he said, "Sometimes the wicked do prosper, don't they?"
And it's like our psalmist is saying, "Amen, Job."
And that's where he's at right now.
He's saying, "I don't get this.
The insolent, they're dugging the pitfalls.
God, I, I trust you.
I trust your promise, and I'm hoping in it, but how much longer?
How many more days do I have to live this way?
How many more days until you deliver me?"
I, I think one of the reason why people love the Psalms so much is
because of how honest and transparent and r- and relatable they are.
In 2025, the Book of Psalms was found to be the most popular book on the,
uh, the, um, Bible Gateway website.
Back in 2016, Lifeway did a study that found that the Book of
Psalms was the most popular book searched in all of their materials.
Currently, in the YouVersion app, Psalm 139 and Psalm 23 are two of the
top searches in the, the YouVersion app that, that people look for.
And I think the reason why we gravitate towards the Psalms so
much is because of things like this, where we read David's words here.
"How long must I endure?
When are you gonna judge those?
The insolent, they've dug pitfalls for me.
They don't lift…"
He- just the transparency, the vulnerability, the honesty,
and I think we just love that.
We gravitate towards that because we can relate to it.
I wonder if you've ever felt like the psalmist here.
I wonder if you've ever felt like, "Lord, how long until you're gonna bring
justice to a circumstance that I'm going through, a trial that I'm going through?"
And again, maybe you don't have literal enemies, but all of us in
this room have spiritual enemies.
That's one of the areas that I feel this.
Lord, I, I hate how persistent and active the enemy is when he's
coming after me, the deceitful pitfalls that he digs for me.
I long for the day when I don't have to wage spiritual warfare
anymore because I'm with you
How long, oh Lord, until you finally judge the enemy and bring me home?
These are the moments that we have to go to the Word of God, and that's
what the psalmist does here, and it's a perspective shift that's needed.
Look at verse 86.
He says this, "All your commandments are sure."
So he's saying, "How long, Lord?
The dug in pitfalls, the, the, the insolent are out there.
Hot indignation has seized me."
All your commandments, all of your rules, all of your precepts, all of
your testimonies are sure, are sure.
They, by contrast, persecute me with falsehood.
Lord, your Word is trustworthy, it's reliable, it's sure.
There's no pitfalls, in other words, waiting for us in the Word of God.
You're never gonna step foot on a promise of God only to have
it give way underneath you.
God's Word is sure.
And so when you go to see things like the love of God in Romans 8 or you go
to the certainty of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 or you go to the,
the promise in James that if you draw near to Him, He will draw near to
you, you can rely on those things.
Lord, your commandments are true.
And you contrast that with the enemy.
The enemy loves falsehood.
They persecute me with falsehood.
The lies, the deception of the enemy.
And so the author, he, he gets himself grounded in theology, but I want you
to notice that it's not just that he says, "Here's what I know to be true
about God, and here's my theology.
All right, I'm good.
Now let me go about the rest of my life."
His theology drives him to petition.
In fact, not just petition, pleading, begging.
Look at the next two words.
What does he say?
"Help me.
Help me."
It's simple.
It's not a theological treatise.
It's bare, it's raw, it's vulnerable, and it's good.
He says, "This is where I am.
This is who I know you to be, and yet I'm going to say, 'Lord, help me.'"
And this is where, church, we need to get.
We need to let the Word get us to the place where we acknowledge our
desperate need for the Lord to help us, and it's good to get there.
And so don't…
When you're going through the trial, the Word of God doing the work of God
in your life doesn't just mean that your theology is there, but that your
theology drives you in relationship to Him to say, "Lord, help me.
Help me.
I need you.
I can't do this on my own."
I'm finding it difficult to trust you right now because I can't see
the light at the end of the valley.
I know it's there, but I don't see it.
Help me.
Lord, I'm, I'm scared because I feel like things are out of my control
right now, and I, I don't, I can't figure out what's happening right now.
Help me.
Lord, I'm, I'm discouraged because I feel like I'm just running into roadblock
after roadblock after roadblock.
Help me to trust you.
Two of the simplest words and yet two of the sweetest words
in the whole of the Psalm.
When we were back in California and the, the twins were, were barely able
to, to walk, just toddling, we would go to this park not far away from our
home, and it had a play structure there.
A- and we would sit down and, and they would go to the play structure,
and they would kind of toddle over to it, and they'd kind of evaluate
the ledge that was probably about the, uh, height of this stage here.
And they'd look at it, and they'd kind of look around, and
then they'd look back at us.
And I remember their tiny little voices looking back and holding up
their hand and saying, "Help me.
Help.
Help."
They didn't ask anyone else on the playground.
There were other people there.
They didn't ask each other either.
They didn't turn to their twin and be like, "Help me get up this thing."
Because they turned to dad or they turned to mom because they knew that
we would help and that we could help
That childlikeness before the Lord is where we find David, and
that's where we need to be too.
When you're going through the difficulty, that desperation, that, that's, that's
not a desperation that fears that He's not gonna respond, but just like my kids
knew that dad could help him, you know that your heavenly Father can help you.
There's nothing that He won't do.
He who gave His own Son for us, how will He not also with
Him freely give us all things?
Your Father is able to help you.
He knows where you are and what you're going through, and He can help you.
Sometimes that's gonna come through the, the deliverance.
Sometimes that's gonna come through Him removing the, the
temporal suffering for your life.
Other times, that help is gonna come in a peace that surpasses understanding
Remember Shadrach, Meshach, and Benny.
God helped them, didn't he?
North, South on that one.
Yep, he did.
But he still put them through the furnace.
So God's help doesn't mean that he's necessarily gonna mean that
m- make sure that, that your life is easy, that your life is smooth.
Sometimes you will go through the furnace, and yet his help is still gonna
be there with you through the trial.
He's still going to be delivering you through it all, and that's why
I love what they say to the king before they get in the furnace.
They say, "King, know this.
Our God can deliver us from the furn- fur- fiery furnace back there,
and he will deliver us from you.
Even if we burn up, even if we die from the heat that's coming out
of the thing, like the people that carried them into the furnace, even
if that happens, you didn't win.
God did, 'cause he helped me
Help me.
Be honest with the Lord.
Lord, here I am, just like the psalmist.
Ground yourself in the right theology, but then petition Him.
Ask Him.
Plead with Him.
Lord, help me.
Help me
No one wants to suffer
We want the temporal deliverance, and I get that, and that's good,
and sometimes God does that.
But even as we wait for that deliverance, or maybe the temporal deliverance
doesn't come, one of the blessings of following Christ is that your
suffering is never without purpose.
Look at our last section here together, verse 87 through 88.
He says this, "They have almost made an end of me on earth, but I
have not forsaken your precepts.
In your steadfast love, give me life that I may keep the testimonies of your mouth
They have almost made an end of me on earth.
This third and final evidence of God's Word doing God's work in your life
shows up in the, the reason that the author here is seeking deliverance
in the first place, which is what?
That I might keep the testimonies of your mouth.
In other words, the author's whole purpose for wanting to be delivered
by God from where he was suffering was so that he might be more useful
to God in a different context.
But sometimes that usefulness comes in the suffering, during the
suffering, and through the suffering.
Our final point this morning, the final evidence of God's Word doing
God's work in your life is this, it's gonna mean you-- that you keep
asking and looking for God to use you.
That you keep asking and looking for God to use you
He says, "They've almost made an end of me on earth."
Remember, that's the word for consumed that we talked about with longing.
I was consumed with longing.
Here he's saying, "They've almost consumed me.
I'm almost gone.
I, I, I'm almost done here.
But I have not forsaken your precepts.
I've not forsaken them.
I haven't left behind your word, Lord.
I haven't left behind what I know to be true.
I haven't abandoned you.
I haven't said, 'Well, forget this, because this isn't working out.'
I, I haven't done that."
The opposite is implied.
I've, I've clung to them.
In other words, the author wasn't sidelining himself from what
God was doing in and through him just because things got hard.
One of the great blessings of being a Christian is that God will often use
the testimony and the faithfulness of suffering saints to glorify himself
in ways that he doesn't for somebody whose life is just easy street.
Think about the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians Chapter 11.
He says, "Hey, hey, bear with me for a little foolishness for a second.
Let me tell you what I've gone through."
And then he lists some things.
He says this.
He says, uh, uh, "Far greater labors, more imprisonments,
countless beatings, often near death.
Five times I received at the hands of the Jews 40 lashes less one."
Sometimes even one of those would, would kill a person.
"Three times I was beaten with rods.
Once I was stoned.
Three times I was shipwrecked.
A night and a day I was adrift at sea.
I was on frequent journeys.
In danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people,
danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness,
danger at sea, danger from false brothers," Danger Will Robinson.
"In toil," hard work, "in hardship, through sleepless
nights, in hunger and thirst and without food, cold and exposure."
Oh, and by the way, "There's the daily pressure on me of the
anxiety for all the churches."
What if Paul had tapped out and sidelined himself because he was
like, "Man, it's just too hard.
I, I'm suffering so ret- much right now.
God, will you please use somebody else?"
One of my favorites is, uh, George Whitefield.
George Whitefield.
He knew suffering to a, an extreme measure, maybe not to the degree
that the Apostle Paul did, but still to an extreme measure.
He, it's estimated, preached over 18,000 sermons in 34 years of life.
Okay, let me break down that number to make it something that, that's tangible.
That's 529 times a year preaching.
That works out to about a sermon and a half every single day.
That's crazy.
The labors that went into that.
On top of that, by the way, he had asthma in a time before, you
know, inhalers like my son has.
He had severe edema later in life that made it so bad that his swelling as he
was standing to preach would get so bad that at the end of the day they would
have to cut his stockings off of his legs.
He crossed the Atlantic Ocean 13 times, exposed himself to all kinds of
seasickness, poor nutrition, storms, disease, Taco Bell shredded lettuce.
I'm sure that was there too
While preaching, this is the one that gets me, he would often be pelted with
stones, rotten eggs, and dead animals.
Thank you, church.
Can I just say thank you for not ever having done any of that?
He lost the only son that he had in infancy
What if George Whitfield had tapped out?
Or, or think about Elisabeth Elliot.
Her son, her son, her husband, Jim, and his, his co-laborers for Christ were,
were murdered by an Indian tribe as they were trying to reach them with the gospel.
And Elisabeth Elliot, what if in the wake of that suffering
she had thought, "You know what?
It's too much.
I can't do this.
I'm a young widow now.
I, I, I'm just gonna go back home."
But she went into the tribe that killed her husband and shared the gospel with
them and saw them come to faith in Christ.
She shared the gospel with the man who speared her husband to death
See, these men and, and, and women, whether they realized it
or not, persevered much like our author here in Psalm 119 does.
In your steadfast love, give me life.
I- i- in your covenant love, in other words.
Lord, I, I, in your grace and your mercy, revive me so that
I might keep obeying you.
Revive me so that I can continue to be useful to me, to you.
Revive me so that I might keep the testimonies of your mouth, of … Re-
revive me so that I might be a walking billboard for your glory.
See, when God's Word does God work in our lives, we realize that we need to
keep going because at the end of the day, y'all, this life is not about us.
It's not about us.
Your goal in life is not to be happy.
God's goal for you in life is not to make you happy, but holy, and
to make you a servant of His glory
And then He's gonna bring you into the presence of the fullness
of joy at His right hand where there's pleasures forevermore.
But right now, right now, He's got work for us.
Right now, we're here to serve Him.
Right now, we're here to labor for Him.
Right now, we're here to say, "Lord, I want you to revive my soul right
now because I'm at my wit's end.
I feel like I'm at the end of it.
Lord, give me life so that I can keep serving you.
And in the midst of it, while I'm waiting, use me however
you wanna use me right now."
If I can comfort others in my, my affliction with the comfort whi- with
which I myself have been comforted, then praise God, let me do it.
If I can be a blessing to somebody else, then let me do it
We're gonna keep asking and keep looking for God to use us.
And that should encourage you because like I said, Christianity
holds out the blessing that says your suffering is never for nothing.
By the way, that's a book written by Elizabeth Elliot.
Your suffering is always on purpose.
There's always something that God can do in and through you.
I- I've heard so many stories about people who have gotten cancer, and they're in
the cancer ward, and they're like, "God, praise God that I'm in here because
I'm sharing the gospel with people that need to hear about Jesus right now."
Man, that's somebody that's suffering for the Lord saying, "I'm gonna keep
asking and expecting God to use me
When God's word does God's work in our life, it makes you stick out
like a sore thumb in this world.
Man, take advantage of that.
Take advantage of that.
Th- there are, uh, uh, billboards aplenty in the world, and especially
in our area, and yet sometimes you'll drive by and you'll see one billboard
that jumps out at you for whatever reason, and you're going, "That's…
Wow, I see that billboard there."
Uh, for me, I'm a sucker for the ones that, like, are like, "Your ad here."
I don't know why.
And then I think, "I wonder how much it costs to get a billboard?"
But those ones grab my attention.
I think they're meant to.
Why?
Because they want you to, to put your ad up there.
When you suffer as a Christian, you're the billboard that
catches everybody's attention.
What is your billboard saying?
Are you glorifying God in the midst of the trial that you're going through?
That's a, an evidence that God's word is doing God's work in your
life is when you're doing that
When people can see Christ in you.
W- when you go through it and somebody says, "Why, why
are you the way that you are?
What is the hope that you have?"
And that's like, "Okay, Lord, here we go.
Let's go."
This fits with, with point number one, doesn't it, about desiring
heaven while faithful here?
Church, don't sideline yourself.
If you're going through it right now, okay.
This feeds into point number two as well.
Seek God's help to say, "Lord, I want you to help me be useful to you right now.
I want you to help me glorify Christ with what I'm going through right now."
The Word of God doing the work of God in your life is gonna
put you at odds with the world.
It's inevitable.
But it's not something to be feared.
You don't have to be afraid.
It's a sign instead that He belongs to you.
You belong to Him.
You're His.
He cares for His own.
So God's Word doing God's work in your life is going to sustain
you through the opposition until He brings you to be with Him.
Desire heaven while faithful here.
Be honest with God and seek His help, and keep asking and
looking for God to use you.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, I'm reminded afresh that your word is unique.
There's nothing else in all of the world that offers us such tangible, tactile
hope, purpose, and meaning to everything that we go through in this life, whether
it's a mountaintop where we can give you praise and thank you, and just celebrate
your goodness and testify to your goodness, or whether it be the valley of
the shadow of death, where we can still give you praise, where we can be faithful,
where we can let our hope be seen from a watching world, where we can shine
the light of Christ to those around us.
Lord, we are not wandering aimlessly in this life, but your word has given
us guidance and direction and hope and clarity, motivation, and a drive.
And so, Lord, I, I thank you that we have it, and that we have it with us, and that
you will be faithful to use it to sustain us until you call us home to be with you.
We long for that day.
Lord, we do desire to be with Jesus.
But in the meantime, help us be faithful here.
We pray this all in Christ's name.
Amen.