Where You Are Planted
Notes
Transcript
Pit
Pit
James loved to excavate. There was nothing better than seeing unbroken ground give beneath the force of an immortal man-made machine. He worked hard. In fact, he went above and beyond! He was the first to arrive in the mornings and the last to leave. His employer, Bob, noticed his hard work. It wasn’t long before he was promoted to supervisor.
One night, after everyone had left, James was closing down the site. He stumbled and slid into the pit they had been working on that day. How stupid!
His employer, Bob, noticed his hard work. It wasn’t long before he was promoted to supervisor.
He reached for his phone, but his stomach churned as he remembered setting it down in the cab of the excavator. The walls were to steep. It was Friday night. Nobody would be back to save him until Monday morning.
He thought, “When it rains, it pours...” At that very second, it began to rain. And it did not stop raining. Water crept up the soles of his shoes and then crawled up his ankles. And still, the rain did not cease.
It reminded him of the story of Noah. Did it not rain for forty days and forty nights? Could it be? Every hour that passed seemed like a day. And every day seemed like a week.
It reminded James of that he had read in the Bible. It’s the same Psalm that we will be diving into today. We are beginning a series called Songs in the Night. And this is one of those songs that you sing when all seems dark. Would you read it with me this morning?
A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem.
From the depths of despair, O Lord, I call for your help.
Hear my cry, O Lord. Pay attention to my prayer.
Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive?
But you offer forgiveness, that we might learn to fear you.
I am counting on the Lord; yes, I am counting on him. I have put my hope in his word.
I long for the Lord more than sentries long for the dawn, yes, more than sentries long for the dawn.
O Israel, hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is unfailing love. His redemption overflows.
He himself will redeem Israel from every kind of sin.
What do you do in the depths of despair?
I’m in the Pit
I’m in the Pit
When Lightning Strikes
We would all like for life to be hunky dory after we have transferred our citizenship from the nation of darkness to the nation of Jesus, but life isn’t smooth sailing. The waves of life hit pretty hard when you choose to follow Jesus. After all, the one who previously ruled our life is not happy that we are now children of God.
I was not transformed into some god-like person or super hero. Rather, life got messy. Like all boys my age, hormones hit me pretty hard around the age of 12. When my online English teacher told us that we could watch the movie Romeo and Juliet, I secretly watched it without the permission of my parents. Needless to say, some scenes are better left in the bedroom of a married couple and not in the mind of a young teen. To this day, I thank God for parental controls, because when I walked down stairs my Mom confronted me. God used events like this to keep me away from porn.
Though God spared me in this way, I have had my fair share of lustful fantasies. Life was messy and my life did not seem to change. Guilt overwhelmed me and deceived me into thinking that God might strike me with fire.
One Spring night, all hell broke loose outside. Thunder. Lightning. Pounding rain. My window threatened to shatter over my head. I trembled like a drunk weather vane. I dragged my dead weight down the stairs, unable to hold it in any longer. “Dad,” I said with golf ball sized tears, “I think I need to be baptized again.”
“Ryan,” Dad replied, “Jesus died once for all of your sin. You do not need to be baptized again.”
But I insisted and Dad finally gave in. I was embarrassed to tell my church family though so we had a baptism that was witnessed by my Dad and Mom alone. There was no skipping down the sidewalk after my second baptism. I felt the same as before.
You’re in the Pit
You’re in the Pit
When you lose the ones you love...
When you lose your preaching minister...
When you wonder if you did something wrong that would make God take away so many people from you...
When it seems like you’ve lost momentum...
When you are looking for a job and it seems like you will never find one...
When it seems like people are relying on people rather than the power of Jesus to carry them...
When the young people seem to have a different idea of what kingdom of God should look like and don’t have the same commitments to things you hold most dear...
When your children are not everything you thought they would be...
When the solid ground is falling out from underneath your feet
Between the black skies and your red eyes, you can barely see
When you realize that you’ve been sold out by your friends and your family
When your hopes and dreams are far from you
And you are running out of faith
You see the future you picture slowly fade away
When the tears of pain and heartache
Are pouring down your face
When the test comes in and the doctor says
You’ve only got a few months left
It’s like a bitter pill you are swallowing
You can barely take a breath
When addiction steals your baby girl
And there’s nothing you can do
You can feel the rain reminding you
You find your peace in Jesus’ name
Your only hope is to trust
Jesus’ love surrounds you
In the eye of the storm
Y
In the eye of the storm
Jesus’ remains in control
In the middle of the war
He guards your soul
He alone is your anchor when your sails are torn
His love surrounds you
In the eye of the storm
God Reaches In
God Reaches In
It is in moments like these that we cry out to the Lord.
From the depths of despair, O Lord, I call for your help.
Hear my cry, O Lord. Pay attention to my prayer.
But we can take comfort in this fact.
Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive?
But you offer forgiveness, that we might learn to fear you.
Psalm 130:
The LORD does not keep a record of our sins. If He did, we would not be standing here today. The LORD is a holy God. He cannot stand in the presence of sin. Light and darkness do not mix. Your dirt, your sin, your rebellion is not acceptable in the presence of God. But Jesus offers forgiveness of sins. He offers it so that we might learn to fear Him.
The word “fear” is not to be simply defined as “being afraid.” Often times, this word is used in Scripture with a positive note.
In it says...
Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.
And in it says...
“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? He requires only that you fear the Lord your God, and live in a way that pleases him, and love him and serve him with all your heart and soul.
And you must always obey the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good.
So obviously sometimes this word fear is connected with obedience for our own good. But most interestingly, it says in …
Fear of the Lord is a life-giving fountain; it offers escape from the snares of death.
If the word “fear” simply meant to be afraid, God wouldn’t tell us that the “fear of the LORD” is a life-giving fountain. We should instead glean that the word “fear” carries with it a sense of respectful, loving and joyful obedience. A certain awe that we can confidently approach God and ask anything in His name and it will be done for us. Why? Because Jesus offers us forgiveness of sins.
I’ve often seen this illustrated with a chasm. You and I are on one side and God is on the other. This chasm cannot be crossed because we rebelled against what God knew would be best for us. However, God had a plan. He sent His son Jesus to die the most cruel death on the cross. Jesus bridges the chasm.
Now we know that we can confidently approach the throne of grace and ask Him for anything and not be incinerated by his holy glare. His eyes are full of love. He looks at you and He sees the blood of His Son. And this respectful, loving, joy filled, awe filled heart motivates us to obey Him by the power of the Holy Spirit that God gives to those who believe in Him.
When I was in bed during that thunderstorm, I was full of shame. But Jesus says that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We have been set free.
There is no longer any reason to cling onto an identity of sinner. We have been saved. We are children of God.
Be brutally honest with your struggles. Bring them out in the light so that Christ’s light can shine through your weaknesses. But stop asking God for forgiveness.
What?!?!?!?!?!?
I find it interesting that there are two times that Jesus instructed his followers to ask for forgiveness. The first time was before Jesus died on the cross in The Lord’s Prayer. The other time is in the context of making that initial decision to commit your entire life to the LORD. To repenting and being baptized for the forgiveness of your sins.
After that, I see a strange focus in the New Testament on realizing your status as child of God. Just read .
So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.
And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.
The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins.
He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.
Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit.
So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.
For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will.
That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.
But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.)
And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God.
The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.
Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.
For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live.
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”
For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.
And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.
Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.
For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are.
Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope,
the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay.
For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.
We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it.
But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)
And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.
And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.
What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?
Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?
Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself.
Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.
Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?
(As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”)
No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.
No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Jesus’ death and resurrection is the fulfillment of this prayer in . Read the next two verses.
I am counting on the Lord; yes, I am counting on him. I have put my hope in his word.
I long for the Lord more than sentries long for the dawn, yes, more than sentries long for the dawn.
Psalm 130:3
I long for the Lord more than sentries long for the dawn, yes, more than sentries long for the dawn.
O Israel, hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is unfailing love. His redemption overflows.
He himself will redeem Israel from every kind of sin.
Psalm
You know those loading screens that never seem to end. I mean you know there is an end. You can see it, but the bar just isn’t quite there yet. Sometimes they take a few minutes. Sometimes an hour or two, but eventually they do reach their completion. Jesus is the completion of the loading screen. He is the end of the long wait. He is the light that we long to see in the middle of the night.
So what do you do in the depths of despair. When you can’t feel God? When all seems lost?
Bloom Where You are Planted
In the fall of 1938
This would have been on the latter end of the Great Depression. Unemployment rates were still at a high of 19%. Howard Eves had just lost his job at Princeton University and had only recently secured a one year job at Bethany College in Western Virginia. It was an insecure time for many many people.
Before leaving for West Virginia, I decided to make a short nostalgic last visit to Princeton, and while there perhaps briefly to see Dr. Einstein again. I was lucky, for I found the scientist at home. He greeted me warmly and suggested we take a short stroll together. After walking a bit,, he asked me how life had been since I left Princeton. I told him about my difficulty in securing a teaching position, and how I had been spending my time as a surveyor. He asked me if I enjoyed the work, and I told him it had its pleasant features, but that it was in now way as pleasing as my life at Princeton had been. I bemoaned the lack of kindred minds to talk mathematics with. In short, I more or less griped about my situation.
“I understand,” Dr. Einstein said. “Now before we part, there is something I want to show you.”
We had been approaching the end of our little ramble and were walking down Mercer Street to his house. On the final block, when almost at his home, he stopped and pointed downward to the sidewalk. I followed his pointing finger, and there in a crack in the sidewalk was a small wild aster, with the pretty violet petals and a bright yellow center. We stood there silently contemplating the little plant. I wondered how it manged to grow in such an unfavorable place. How did it get enough water? How did it escape being trodden upon?
Dr. Einstein seemed to read the thoughts that were passing through my mind, for, still pointing at the little flower, he gently put a hand on my shoulder and in a soft voice said, “Bloom where you are planted.”
…after leaving
When all seems lost and you are in the depths of despair, bloom where you are planted.
He himself will redeem Israel from every kind of sin.
O Israel, hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is unfailing love. His redemption overflows.
He himself will redeem Israel from every kind of sin.
Keep hoping, keep trusting, His love won’t fail you, He does indeed cover you with His blood. Express your doubts, but cling to your faith in Him. He covers every kind of sin.
In the midst of it all, bloom where you are planted.
We Count on the Lord
We Count on the Lord
When the solid ground is falling out from underneath your feet
Between the black skies and your red eyes, you can barely see
When you realize that you’ve been sold out by your friends and your family
Bloom where you are planted
When your hopes and dreams are far from you
And you are running out of faith
You see the future you picture slowly fade away
When the tears of pain and heartache
Are pouring down your face
Bloom where you are planted
When the test comes in and the doctor says
You’ve only got a few months left
It’s like a bitter pill you are swallowing
You can barely take a breath
When addiction steals your baby girl
And there’s nothing you can do
Bloom where you are planted
You can feel the rain reminding you
You can find your peace in Jesus’ name
Your only hope is to trust in Him
Jesus’ love surrounds you
In the eye of the storm
Bloom where you are planted
In the eye of the storm
Jesus’ remains in control
In the middle of the war
He guards your soul
He alone is your anchor when your sails are torn
His love surrounds you
In the eye of the storm
Bloom where you are planted
When you are in the bottom of the pit like James
When the water begins to crawl up your body
When you feel like you might drown in the waters of this life
Bloom where you are planted