Lord, Please
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Rebecca Pippert relates a story about a famous physicist who confided in her and said: I'm a scientist, you know, a rational person. I've never seen much need for God. All my life I've felt in charge and in control. I've been extremely successful and made it to the top. If there's a problem at work, I call a meeting or write a note to my secretary, and it is quickly resolved. Yet nothing is simple or easily resolved at home. My children don't relate to me easily …. They accuse me of trying to control their lives. When I walk into the same room as my son, he starts to stammer. What hurts is that they can't seem to appreciate how much I care and that I'm doing all of this for them. But I'll tell you one lesson I've learned. I always said that since I had my children's best interests at heart, they'd be glad for my direction …. My children have taught me the hardest lesson of my life—that I'm not in control over what matters to me most. It's funny, but it's now when I see I'm not God that I see I need some help. The question of whether there is a God has finally started to matter.
It is somewhat interesting to reminisce over times of pastoral counseling and see the transformation of a person who is content and comfortable with life without God to one-day turning to say that they cannot go on without Him. It is always at the times when we figure out that we no longer have any control. It is aways the times when we come to find that we no longer have control that we remember the Twyla Paris song… God is in control and we sing it non-stop. For many of us, there is a kind of functional Atheism that we have grown accustomed to. This is why we struggle in prayer. We may pray to the Lord for His help, but in the end we believe in our hearts that we gotta work hard and do it ourselves.
Many in modern evangelicalism may live life this way. We try and try and try and if it works out… great. If not we lament. Or if it is looking like we have done all we can, we now resort to our last resort. Prayer. We ask the Lord for help. We do not have control anymore… I need the Lord to get control of the chaos. Some even communicate a pompous mentality that we don’t need God until we need Him. This is in effect what is called evangelical deism. God did His thing and now He leaves us alone to do our thing and tells us… well there ya go, call me if you need me and if I can swing it, I’ll help. But for most of life, we believe we don’t need HIm. Many of us like the arrangement. I do my thing, and if I need you I’ll call you. But then we get upset when he is not answering out call, when he does not return my text message even though I know He read it. I did my thing. I did my part now its Your turn Lord.
Do we cry out help us Lord because we just cant do it anymore? Or are we crying out help me Lord because we know that His presence is one we cannot escape, His sovereignty is a reality and has been and always will be the one in control? As the puritan prayed, I cannot escape your presence nor your control, but nor would I want to. So it remains… We continue to give the advice, let go and let God. Let it go. How to let it go. Let go of it all and give it to God. We don’t need to let go because we should have never taken it in the first place. Let check it out today. Our last letter Taw. The end of Psalm 119.
Let my cry come before you, O Lord;
give me understanding according to your word!
Let my plea come before you;
deliver me according to your word.
My lips will pour forth praise,
for you teach me your statutes.
My tongue will sing of your word,
for all your commandments are right.
Let your hand be ready to help me,
for I have chosen your precepts.
I long for your salvation, O Lord,
and your law is my delight.
Let my soul live and praise you,
and let your rules help me.
I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant,
for I do not forget your commandments.
The grass withers the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever.
Lord, Please Give
Lord, Please Help
Lord, Please Save
The first thing we will look at today is how in real crisis our psalmist seeks the understanding from the scriptures. Second, the psalmist cries out to the Lord for help through this time. Finally, we will see the earnest desire of the psalmist for salvation.
Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of this world causes us to see the scriptures as not essential in suffering, it is the power of God through the Holy Spirit and the truth of the scriptures that will show us the beauty of Biblical understanding and the salvation that comes from the Lord.
I. Lord, Please Give
- Understanding according to the Word of God.
A. Our psalmist is pleading for understanding. The understanding that is promised in His Word or a general understanding in accordance to the Word of God. It is both and in its fullness. Spurgeon writes,
“He desires spiritual light and understanding, as it is promised in God’s Word, as it proceeds from God’s Word, and as it produces obedience to God’s Word. He pleads as though he had no understanding whatsoever of his own, and he asks to have it given to him.”
B. He desires understanding and the understanding is that which comes from the Word of the living God. For many of us we do indeed seek understanding, but our psalmist is pleading for an understanding that comes from God himself. Understanding is good, but the understanding that comes from the scriptures is the only understanding that matters. This is what our psalmist is pleading for.
C. I mean… what good is it to have all the knowledge of the world that is the envy of all men, yet in the understanding of God you are a fool? In other words, many of us who are considered wise by this world’s standards are fools according to the Word of the Lord. Yes, because in order to understand the spiritual things of God you need to be given the gift from God. To have enlightenment of the heavenly things of the Scriptures come not from discovery but from the very grace of God. Understanding from and of the Word of the living God is what our psalmist desired more that all others. I am reminded of a Luther quote.
“From the beginning of my Reformation I have asked God to send me neither dreams, nor visions, nor angels, but to give me the right understanding of His Word, the Holy Scriptures; for as long as I have God's Word, I know that I am walking in His way and that I shall not fall into any error or delusion.”
D. He ultimately sought out understanding from the Word of the Lord in the same light as Solomon asking for wisdom. Sure a personal revelation from God would be a great experience, but understanding from the scriptures is a life time of experiences that will not lead on astray into potential error or delusion. And yet today we still yearn for the personal revelations. We still pine for it. We still obsess over it. We seek for it, looking for something more than what has been shown to be more than enough. The scriptures. It is here, will be here, will always be here. Will keep us on the path. And Keep us from being lead astray.
JI Packer summarizing John Owen writes, “If private revelations agree with Scripture, they are needless, and if they disagree, they are false.”
E. You don’t need private revelations… we already have all that we need for life and godliness in the scriptures. When in suffering we go to the Bible, but not just the Bible we go to the Bible with super natural understanding.
F. Many tell me that the Bible is the last thing they wanna read when dealing with tremendous suffering. I totally get that if the Lord does not give you understanding. I was 16 years old when the Bible finally came alive to me and it was when I was going through tremendous teenage suffering. God gave me understanding. I could see the who what where when why of it. Not perfectly, but enough to know that God wanted to show me. Wait a minute, the Bible does help me during times of struggle.
G. Most importantly, the Bible shows me that suffering is a part of the normal Christian life. Attention Christian, you should be concerned if suffering is not happening to you. Understanding shows us this.
Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you.
II. Lord, Please Help
- Sometimes that’s all we can say.
A. Sometimes in life we are sooo tormented, bogged down, distressed, beaten, weak, impoverished, persecuted, pummeled, and pounded. Our minds are so chaotic in thought and think that we can’t even speak in complete coherent sentences. Especially, in prayer. Sometimes in prayer I am so over whelmed in thought and anguish that all I can get out is … Lord please help. Understanding does not help because we cannot order our thoughts.
B. In the context of our psalmist, the idea is that If I don’t have it, I will surely fall. It is wonderfully illustrated in Peter’s stepping out of the boat.
“Yes, come,” Jesus said.
So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. “Save me, Lord!” he shouted.
C. There was no figuring it out. There was no trying to make sense of why Peter was sinking. There was no theological discourse of how this was even possible to happen in the presence of Christ. There was no negotiating. There was no communication rehearsals. It was a plea for His help. Sometimes all we can get out is Lord help.
D. This is how it is. I know that it is hard for us all at times, but in the ministry this is soooo common. I was going through a time of real burnout and it was at the time when we brought Jason Myer and Greg Gilbert out to Hawaii for a conference. We went to get some coffee and I talked with Jason for a bit and he told me about the real burnout and chaos that was happen with all the pastoral staff at Bethlehem Baptist Church. I told him that ministry feels so impossible because Christ just asks us to do the impossible. And he told me as a young Pastor that God always asks us to do the impossible, like loving your enemy, because He never intended us to do it in our own power. We don’t let go, because we are never supposed to take it. Don’t want to be out of control, don’t take it from God in the first place. But Shane I gotta know. No you don’t. It is unwise.
The Lord directs our steps,
so why try to understand everything along the way?
We can make our plans,
but the Lord determines our steps.
E. God is in control. And when we are running with control it is the illusion that we are under control but all it is, is rebellion in its most purest form. But Shane he’s not working fast enough, He’s not doing what He is supposed to do, He is not doing what He promised. Fine if He ain’t gonna do it, I will. There is no let go and let God, we just Let God. Stop saying Lord your will be done, if ya really dont mean it. Hello?
F. Modern evangelicalism is Let my will be done and Lord help me make it happen. I am the pilot, you are my pilot. He is here to make my dreams come true. God is not gonna make our dreams come true, he is gonna give us nightmares so that we WAKE UP. Wake up to the fact that our purpose in life is to glorify the Lord and we will need and always will need Him to make that happen. Especially since we all needed to be rescued.
III. Please, Lord Save Me
- Salvation belongs to our God.
A. And yet it remains… the problems we face in life are the the real problems we have. Sure, inflation, gas prices, to much month at the end of the money, our children, spouse, people at work, our family members, our actual jobs, government, our neighbor, car, health problems, not enough followers on my social media page are frustrations and make life miserable.
B. The real problem though… sin. The wages of sin is death. The Lord preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant, and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless. “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
C. But that does not concern me… oh no? All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is no one righteous no not one. There is no one on earth who always does good and never sins. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins. We are all by nature children of wrath.
D. So like the psalmist, will we cry out for salvation? Hope you will. Hope you did.
Salvation is here. Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. He came to lay His life down for the sheep. Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures and he was buried and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners. He became sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. By His wounds we are healed.
E. And the salvation continues. All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your hearts that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved. Believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God and you will have life in his name. Life and life more abundantly.
F. Its ok… cry out to the Lord. Lord, please… For you need him. Will always need Him. Forever and ever.
