Rescue Story

It’s so awesome to be worshipping with everyone today as our two churches become one worshipping body on this Super Day. New Day is doing something this year that I hope strengthens your walk with Jesus today.

Our worship music is meant to sing but it is meant for more than that. It is meant as a way to give praise to God by saying how awesome He is. Sometimes though we can get lost in a performance and forget the power in what we are saying. How it helps us to remember the truths of the Bible and how God is active in our daily lives. So today on this Super Sunday I want to share with you

what we learn about God through our music.

But before we get there I need to share with you a cruel reality of this day as well.

Somebody, today is going to be a loser.

It is not one of you here in this room. There will be people on one team that will lose today. But there, in Vegas, two teams are going to go at it and one of them, by the end of today will be losers.

Many of you might say, oh, oh, now Bill they are still great players. They aren’t losers. I will say yes and no. They are great and can do things that most people in the world could never do but there best, as a team, will not be good enough. They will not be winners. There will be a team of losers.

But what about being losers as people because of today. No, I agree, They will only lose a game.

But do you know a loser as a person. I will define that as someone who has brought disrespect on themselves, their families, their friends, and a person who has acted without love. A person who has been selfish, mean, did wrong when they should’ve done right. A person who did what everyone else did when they should’ve been the person to stand up. Or the person to shut up when they should’ve just listened. A person who acted like they were helping but helped the wrong person in the wrong way. A person who has lied to cover up. Cheats, failures, greedy, ignorant, stretchers of truth, and lazy. That’s a loser. Know anyone like that?

The Bible said it this way.

Romans 3:23 NLT

23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.

Yes, all of us, as we sit in comparison to what God has for us. We are all losers and it has more consequences than anything today.

Maybe you’ve lost not a game but maybe at one time you lost people. Friendships. Maybe, even yourself.

You’ve lost, I’ve lost, we are losers.

The song we sang, Rescue Story, just a few minutes ago, talked about this exact reality.

There I was empty handed / Crying out from the pit of my de - spair

I know so many who don’t want anything to do with Jesus. They are too busy. They aren’t anti-Jesus. They just got too much stuff to get to, to many things to go after. Jesus is too awkward like talking about life insurance. They are “Trying to seize all that life has to offer.” No time for religion.

Jesus told us,

Matthew 19:23–26 CSB

23 Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” 25 When the disciples heard this, they were utterly astonished and asked, “Then who can be saved?” 26 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Thank God there is the impossible. Why? Because you are way richer than any rich person who initially heard Jesus say those words. We have riches beyond any of our great-great grandparents imaginations. Not only do you have electricity, and you can watch a game played in another far off land, while eating food brought to you from lands so far away that you don’t even know where, and then you can use gas brought inside your house and charcoal you didn’t make, to cook to eat meats that your great great grandparents would have had to raise themselves! That is just the stuff you take for granted.

We have a lot of stuff but forget what is essential, the meaning of life, God himself. Sometimes it is impossible to take our eyes of stuff,

But when you realize a loss, when you realize a failure, when you realize a hopelessness. All that stuff drops or gets taken away. Your hands become empty and its possible no your ready.

Because empty hands puts you in a perfect position.

There you were in the shadows / Holding out Your hand, You met me there

When you think there is no one else, no other reason, nothing makes sense. Cry out to God and realize God is there all along.

The Bible says it like this:

I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry (Ps. 40:1).

When we cry and realize that God is actually listening. No matter what it is that caused you to cry out to the Lord, God is listening.

An author I read wrote it like this “Jesus’ willingness to leave his throne and die like a criminal on the cross proves that he inclines himself to our needs. Through his resurrection, Christ overcame the power of sin. Since the Lord drew near to us through this sacrifice, we can draw near to him at every time of need.

Hebrews 4:16 NLT

16 So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

A first step in following Jesus is to believe what God says in the Bible,

Micah 7:7 CSB

7 But I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.

Charles Spurgeon says we are remembering that the Lord listens perfectly to the cries of his beloved.

Because God is the living God, he can hear. Because he is a loving God, he will hear. Because he is our covenant God, he has bound himself to hear us. If we can each one speak of him as “my God”, we may with absolute certainty say, “My God will hear me.” [1]

Today and everyday with the faith of a believer you know, God hears your cry. Your God hears you.

You might be saying to yourself, but I am not that bad. You kept saying loser, loser, loser and I know people who are worse than me. Or you might be thinking, You don’t know how a big a loser I actually am and if you did you would know God wouldn’t want me.

I say to you, God isn’t ranking your stories. Each of our pits of despair are very different. Look to the person to the left, their despair different, the person on the right, different, but for all these people if they cry out to God. God hears. God changes. God moves us to the right direction and any time of walking with him brings us to a new way. So we can sing.

And now where would I be without You?/ Where would I be, Jesus?

In that movie, It’s a wonderful life, An angel shows a man George Bailey what the life of others would be like if he wasn’t in it.

That’s the kind of question being asked here. No Jesus, the where is my life at today? I can promise you that the friendships hear today unite around Jesus and that’s just the beginning. God motivates love, peace, kindness, goodness, self-control.

Jesus keeps my marriage going. Jesus brings peace sometimes by giving us great acts of sharing and other times wisdom.

God helps us in loving others.

“The Face when Someone says something so ignorant to you but the Holy Spirit pulls on you so you don’t slap them.”

God helps us!

So many of us could sit here, if we opened up and were honest about all the ways Jesus delivers in our life as His forgiveness and purpose guides our life.

Those of you who know that God came, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of Mary, lived a perfect life, died on the cross for your sins, Rose from the dead and call on us to follow Him. I need you to remember.

Remember when, Seriously remember, all these times I’m talking about when God heard your cry.

Name them. Remember them. Write them down. Just like the artist does in the song:

You were the voice in the desert / Calling me out in the dead of night

This line works on a few different levels. I feel so hippy professory saying that, This song, It’s layered man.

You were the voice in the darkness, for those of you who have been reading your Bible might remember from Isaiah,

Isaiah 40:3 NIV84

3 A voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.

It’s quoted again in the Gospel of Mark

Mark 1:2–3 NIV84

2 It is written in Isaiah the prophet: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way”— 3 “a voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’ ”

BUT interestingly .. that voice is given not to God, but to the prophet, John the Baptist.

Yet in our song, it is working for a couple of reasons. First, who gave the prophet the voice in the first place but God. On another level we only need to look at where the Super Bowl is being played today.

Las Vegas. A place in the middle of the desert which will do anything legal, no matter how immoral, to get your money. Las Vegas isn’t evil itself, no more than Stockton, Dallas, or any other place. But it isn’t hard to imagine a person, like the Prodigal Son of Jesus’ story running off to Vegas and losing all their money, only to cry out and realizing that God is speaking back.

The layer of the song is that the desert is a metaphorical place where no help is at. All stuff is gone and no one can be seen.

God is there. God is the one who calls on us even when everyone else has given up.

But the song writer, Zach Williams, didn’t just say calling in the desert

He said,

Calling me out in the dead of night

Ohh layers!

Remember that first we called out to him. That’s what we were talking about and we do call out to Him but remember He calls back to us. He reaches out his hand to us. And we recognize God’s call.

In fact this allegory is what Jesus uses when he talks about himself as a good shepherd.

John 10:3–5 CSB

3 The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought all his own outside, he goes ahead of them. The sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 They will never follow a stranger; instead they will run away from him, because they don’t know the voice of strangers.”

Here Jesus is calling himself the Good Shepherd. We can recognize through God’s word, through prayer, through the church, and directly from God what Jesus is saying.

In the dead of night, no one wants to get a call. 3 AM calls are always bad. Yet in the dead of night, when we are alone with our shame, We are not alone, Jesus voice, God will meet us there.

And when we answer back, we start to realize, God will fix it. Jesus works for His glory.

The song goes on,

Fighting my battles for me / You are my rescue story

Romans 8:28 CSB

28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

For me this year was hard. My mom went home to be with the Lord.

I really didn’t know how I was going to make it through. Beginning this past October I have been in ministry for 25 years. In fact this last year I have been the most tired, ever.

I didn’t know how I could keep going on.

But God is fighting our battles for us. In the fall of 2023 you, the body of Christ, is what God used to fight for my family and for this whole church. You came together, no matter if you are in Hmong Baptist Fellowship Church or New Day, you came together to share Jesus with more than ever at Halloween in our first ever combined festival. We showed the Love and Generosity of Jesus! We gave out around $700 worth of Candy! Then Christmas. We as a church committed to put up Christmas lights and tell the Gospel of Jesus to the world.

The night when my family prayed over the body of my mother, and we went back out the next day, I didn’t know if anyone would be there but I knew my mom wanted us to do it. The church showed up, You showed up. Then in January, when the overwhelming grief and exhaustion was really setting in, what a joy it was for both of our churches to come together on the coldest most miserable day and we came together and put it all away in the fastest and cleanest way ever!

I was exhausted and done but God is fighting our battles for us.

That is my own testimony but it is only the beginning. God is fighting for you. Never forget that. This week I was asked by others to pray for sons who are hurting, relationships that are in trouble, what’s wild is these are friends of friends. We are praying for people and they don’t even know we are praying for them. The God who hears our prayers is fighting for them as well and they may never know our prayers.

Today, you can trust and put your faith in a God who makes a way there is no way. Who sets up his victories. Who brings Himself glory and loves to do it.

Remember what Jesus told us, God can save what is impossible.

Matthew 19:25–26 CSB

25 When the disciples heard this, they were utterly astonished and asked, “Then who can be saved?” 26 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Walking on water is impossible yet Jesus did it.

Resurrection is impossible yet Jesus did it.

You a loser are made a winner Jesus does it.

The song writer writes it this way, That Jesus

Lifted me up from the ashes / You carried my soul from death to life / Bringing me from glory to glory / You are my rescue story

When a childless mother reached out to God, she knew she could call on God, who can do the impossible and she went straight for the most impossible reflections on what God can do.

1 Samuel 2:8a (CSB)

8 He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the trash heap. He seats them with noblemen and gives them a throne of honor.

God can take you from wherever you are, Give yourself totally to him.

Because remember when I pointed out that we are losers. Jesus changed that title. He won the game and made us champions.

Romans 6:23 CSB

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The gift of God is eternal life

John 1:12–13 NLT

12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. 13 They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.

Seems kind of easy doesn’t it?

I started this whole sermon with the biggest downer. Talking about losing and horrible actions and I wrap it up by just saying believe in His name.

Don’t get it wrong though. Belief is not the same as liking or rooting for. I root for the 49ers. I really like them. I have clothes, banners, watch all the games, but not one player knows me. I would not die for the 49ers and the team owner can’t give me salvation. Jesus did. Jesus is my rescue story.

I need Jesus. If I do what Jesus says, my life burden is light. Jesus shows me how to be kind, compassionate, loving of God and others. Hope in the dead of night. An ear that always hears and also calls back.

God knows all about you. As the singer says,

You were writing the pages before I had a name / Before I needed grace, oh / You're singing songs of re - demption, 'cause every time I ran away /You were louder than my shame

Jesus knows your shame but his love is louder than anything you ever did. In the Bible we have examples of loser after loser being saved by Jesus knowing full well what they were like. Jesus knows you and loves you. Take in God’s word.

Romans 5:8–11 CSB

8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 How much more then, since we have now been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath. 10 For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11 And not only that, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.

Reconciled, made right by God, while we were still sinners he died for us, not because we got cleaned up, but because He loves us. He knows you and He loves you, and He won’t ever leave you. These are the last words of the song.

You never gave up on me, You never gave up on me

You are my testimony, oh/ Yeah, You are my rescue story

Church on this day, as we gather every Sunday, to remember the resurrection when we were rescued from death to life. Today, dedicate yourself to praising the God who is your rescue story.