Finding Help
Notes
Transcript
Finding Help
Finding Help
-I want you to remember a time when you found yourself all alone when needing help. What are some of the thoughts and emotions you experienced in that moment? Maybe fear, worry, anxiety, troubleshooting... There is something crippling about feeling alone when we need help isn’t there? So what do we do? To whom do we turn? I want to spend our time together today focusing on four key points that Scripture speaks to about how we find help. The Bible reveals that we find help when we: 1) live in light of God’s presence, 2) live in light of God’s power, 3) live a prayer filled life, and 4) meditating on Scripture. This is not an exhaustive list by no means, these are merely four important ways to find help according to God’s Word. Let’s begin first with, we find help when we live in light of God’s presence.*
Live in light of God’s presence
Live in light of God’s presence
-You may have heard it said that “do not be afraid” is one of the most frequent commands in Scripture; and I would agree. But what is often not emphasized is why we do not need to be afraid.*
‘Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’
-Time after time the Scriptures remind us of God’s presence, that He is with us. This changes things doesn’t it? The reality that we are not alone left to ourselves to anxiously look about at our circumstances. Instead, we find help for our souls as we live in light of God’s presence. I will be honest with you, I have been lights out to God’s presence on more than one occasion. There have been times when I felt left to myself, consumed by my difficult circumstances; with fear and worry being my only companions. And I vividly remember how helpless and hopeless I felt in those moments. Thankfully, the Lord blessed me with a wife who lovingly speaks truth in love by asking me, “where is God right now?” Her tone and timing of the question perfectly in line with God’s command to gently restore another with a humble spirit. Those five words stop me in my tracks every time and reorients me Godward, my soul finding help as I begin living in light of God’s presence. Maybe that is the question every one of us should be asking ourselves regularly. Then we would likely come to the same conclusion David did in Psalm 139.*
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
-We are never left alone to fend for ourselves, the Lord is always near, we can neither flee nor hide from His presence, and while in God’s constant presence, He guides and holds us fast with His right hand.
-This simple, yet profound reality, helps us in times of need (which by the way is all the time). We are after all weak, needy, and desperate people who should be fully depending on the Lord to be our source of help.
-Our souls also find help as God’s presence provides pleasure and joy*
You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
-Finally, our souls find help as the Lord’s presence follows us all the days of our lives for all eternity.*
Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
-These verses truly are helpful verse to keep in the forefront of our minds, because acknowledging God’s good and loving presence provides the help we truly need at the level of souls.
-Lets turn now to the importance of living in light of God’s power.*
Live in light of God’s power
Live in light of God’s power
-Finding help requires that we increasingly learn how to live in God’s power.
-We live in God’s power in three main ways:
1. We must accept that we are weak and needy.
2. We pivot from self-reliance to dependence on God.
3. We embrace our weakness in order to experience God’s power.*
We are weak and needy
We are weak and needy
-How many of us truly want to admit that we are weak and needy? If we are honest, the fact is we do everything we can to fight against this reality. In our culture we are expected to be self-sufficient, relying on our skills and abilities to do enough and be enough, in order to be good enough. This is antithetical to God’s plan and purpose found in Scripture
-Accepting that we are weak and needy is essential to us joining the Lord in His work, in His strength, in His power.
-Our metric for being good enough is not based on our own strengths and abilities, but rather on the Holy Spirit’s power at work in and through us*
And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.
For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling.
My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,
so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
-Paul had an accurate view of his weakness and need for the Spirit’s power that was at work in and through him.
-He understood that it was God’s grace given to him through the working of God’s great power that made him competent.*
I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power.
Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ.
-Paul wasn’t swept up by shame and self-doubt when he recognized his weakness, no, he turned his attention to the Spirit’s power over and over again. His life and ministry fully depended upon God’s grace being sufficient to overcome his weakness.
-How do we functionally rely on God’s strength, and deal with our weakness at the same time? We must remember who God is and who we are in regard to His plan and purpose.*
Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,
so that no one may boast before him.
It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.
Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
-God chose us knowing full well that we are foolish, weak, lowly people.
-He chose us weak vessels so that He could work His mighty power in us and through us to bring glory to Himself. So that when people see us weak and needy people living in supernatural ways through loving God and loving others, they recognize God’s amazing grace and are drawn to Him.
-Once we acknowledge and accept that we are finite, then we are able to pivot from self-reliance to dependence on the Lord’s power.*
Depend on the Lord’s power
Depend on the Lord’s power
-By God’s grace our sense of self-sufficiency and self-assuredness comes crashing down when we are brought to the end of ourselves. Our self-reliance is shattered when we are reminded that we are not ultimately in control; that we are not the ones who hold all things together.
-We are a people who are bent toward self-confidence rather than trusting in the Lord. Scripture clearly explains what happens when we live this way.*
This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
That person will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity when it comes. They will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.
-We ultimately end up living in weakness when our hearts turn away from the Lord and turn toward self-sufficiency. So what do we do? What do we do with our weakness? Where do we go when we come up short?*
“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
-We truly find help and are blessed when we trust in the Lord and in His mighty strength. We find that regardless of our deficiencies, our souls can rest in God’s infinite competency.
-Thankfully the Lord is patient and long-suffering as He works with us, and in time gives us the capacity to embrace our weakness so that we may experience His power lived out in our lives.*
Embrace your weakness
Embrace your weakness
-As we accept our weakness, and grow to depend on the Lord’s power, we reach a point when we actually embrace our weakness.
-We come to realize that weakness is actually the doorway to true strength.*
I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord.
I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows.
And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows—
was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.
I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses.
Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say,
or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
-There are three important exchanges happening in this passage:
-First Paul pleaded with the Lord to take his weakness/struggle away.
-Then the Lord responded, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
-Finally Paul’s reaction is, great! I will embrace my weaknesses all the more so that Christ’s power may increase all the more.
-Paul modeled how to live in God’s power, and why it is beneficial to live in this way. He also prayed that we would come to know God’s great power for us who believe.*
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,
and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength
he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.
-I believe this prayer from Paul addresses key points that are helpful to us. First, he desires that they would know the Lord Jesus Christ better. This really needs to be our primary focus if we ever expect our weakness to be a doorway to God’s strength. When we know Christ better, we know ourselves more accurately. Christ is recognized as the infinite One who holds all things together, and we are rightly positioned under Him as a people who are weak and needy. We live as children who are fully dependent on their Father, realizing that we were not created to be self-reliant. Jesus becomes the ultimate authority in our lives, and we step down from the throne of our little kingdom of one. When we know Christ better our identity remains anchored in Him, and our view of self lines up more with who God created us to be.
-We recognize in Paul’s life and ministry, that finding help requires a prayer filled life.*
Live a prayer filled life
Live a prayer filled life
-A prayer filled life provides help for our souls by satisfying our deepest need, a personal intimate relationship with the Lord. Like David in Psalm 63, our souls long for intimate fellowship with the Lord.
A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah.
You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.
I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.
Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.
I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.
Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.
I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.
Those who want to kill me will be destroyed; they will go down to the depths of the earth.
They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals.
But the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by God will glory in him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced.
Psalm 63 reveals particular ways a prayer filled life provides help:
-(Ver 1) He is our God- it’s personal. We earnestly seek Him- it’s urgent. Our soul thirsts for Him- it’s essential. Our body longs for Him- it’s functional.
-(Ver 2) We behold God’s power and glory- healthy fear of the Lord.
-(Ver 3) We recognize God’s love as better than life itself- intimate knowledge.
-(Ver 4) We continually praise and worship Him- full expression.
-(Ver 5) Our soul is satisfied in Him- hearts filled with joy and praise.
-(Ver 6) We remember the Lord always- undistracted attention.
-(Ver 7) We receive His Help- humble dependence.
-(Ver 8) Our soul clings to Him- we experience God’s care.
We find help from a prayer filled life inspired by meditating on Scripture.
Meditating on Scripture
Meditating on Scripture
-I want to share a couple quotes that express the importance of meditating on Scripture far better than I ever could.
“A Christian without meditation is like a soldier without arms, or a workman without tools. Without meditation, the truths of God will not stay with us; the heart is hard, and the memory slippery, and without meditation all is lost.” Thomas Watson
“It is not he that reads most; but he that meditates most, that will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest, and strongest Christian.” Thomas Brooks
-We find help for our lives when we meditate on the Scriptures.*
Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.
-This time of meditation provides an opportunity to meet with the Lord intimately as we reflect on His Word, listen to His truth, and receive help for our every day needs. Our time spent meditating helps us to prayerfully and functionally respond to the Lord through faith and obedience in our everyday lives.*
Finding Help Recap
Finding Help Recap
-We find help as we live in light of God’s presence, and when we encounter feelings of fear, worry, or anxiousness, we ask ourselves the question, “where is God right now?” And when the lights come on and we acknowledge God’s good and loving presence, we will receive the help we truly need at the level of souls.
-Finding help requires that we increasingly learn how to live in God’s power. We live in God’s power in three main ways:
1. We must accept that we are weak and needy.
2. We pivot from self-reliance to dependence on God.
3. We embrace our weakness in order to experience the Holy Spirit’s powerful work in and through us.
-We find help when we live prayer filled lives. A prayer filled life provides help for our souls by addressing our deepest need, which is a close personal relationship with the Lord.
-Meditation provides an opportunity to meet with the Lord intimately as we reflect on His Word, listen to His truth, and receive help for our every day needs. Our time spent meditating helps us to prayerfully and functionally respond to the Lord through faith and obedience in our everyday lives.
Bottom line
Bottom line
-The triune God, The Father, Son- Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit are our help. We receive help from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit.
-Everything I shared with you today was intended to help you draw near to God. Lets care for our souls by incorporating these four spiritual disciplines into our daily rhythms of life.
-Pray...
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