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What to Do When Your Spirits Sink · Pastor John Piper's answers

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Speaker 1: We've been talking a lot this weekend about the enjoyment
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Speaker 1: of Jesus or enjoying Jesus. And I made the case
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Speaker 1: on Friday that becoming a Christian, or being born again,
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Speaker 1: or coming to saving faith is the awakening of the
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Speaker 1: enjoyment of Jesus. And I pointed out that that is
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Speaker 1: an unsettling fact for many because if you make them
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Speaker 1: so closely related as to be necessarily in each other,
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Speaker 1: if you're saved, you enjoy Jesus. To believe is to
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Speaker 1: enjoy Jesus. It makes our faith feel fragile because our
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Speaker 1: joy goes so up and down. So are you sure
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Speaker 1: you want to do that, Piper? Make them so closely connected,
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Speaker 1: doesn't that tend to undermine people's assurance? And so let
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Speaker 1: me head off at the pass a misunderstanding, namely that
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Speaker 1: Christian salvation is fragile. It's not. It's anything but fragile.
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Speaker 1: Those whom he predestined, he called, and those of me
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Speaker 1: called he justified, and those of he justified he glorified.
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Speaker 1: That's as solid as it can get. From eternity to eternity. Sure,
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Speaker 1: an unbreakable chain from predestination to glorification and all the
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Speaker 1: pieces in between of calling and justification and everything else
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Speaker 1: that belongs to salvation is secure. If you're predestined, if
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Speaker 1: you're called, if you're justified, you're gonna make it. So
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Speaker 1: I have no wobbly view of Christian salvation. I don't
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Speaker 1: think it can be lost, and therefore, when I make
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Speaker 1: it integral to enjoying Jesus, I don't treat it as
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Speaker 1: wobbly or uncertain. You don't solve the problem of the
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Speaker 1: ups and downs of enjoying Jesus as if faith didn't
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Speaker 1: have its ups and downs. It's Oh, joy is in emotion,
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Speaker 1: and therefore fragile faith is something that doesn't go up
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Speaker 1: and down. That's not true. Jesus referred to little faith,
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Speaker 1: big Oh, your faith is great, Paul spoke of growing faith.
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Speaker 1: So faith is not something that also doesn't go up
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Speaker 1: and down in our lives. So if the ups and
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Speaker 1: downs of joy in our life feel threatening, then so
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Speaker 1: will the ups and downs of faith. That's not the
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Speaker 1: way to solve the problem. So we're going to talk
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Speaker 1: about the ups and downs, especially the down of enjoying Jesus.
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Speaker 1: That's where we're going this morning. I don't know what
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Speaker 1: group I asked. I can't remember, but I love to
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Speaker 1: ask groups. I'll ask you, what makes you think that
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Speaker 1: you will wake up a believer tomorrow morning? What makes
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Speaker 1: you think that you'll wake up and be a Christian
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Speaker 1: in the morning. And there's a wrong answer to that question,
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Speaker 1: And the wrong answer would be something like, I know,
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Speaker 1: beyond the shadow of it out that I will use
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Speaker 1: my free will to believe in Jesus tomorrow morning. Well,
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Speaker 1: you know no such thing. Here's what you know now,
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Speaker 1: unto Him who is able to keep you from falling
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Speaker 1: and to present you blameless before the presence of His
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Speaker 1: glory with rejoicing to the only God, our save you
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Speaker 1: through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory and authority and
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Speaker 1: majesty and dominion forever. That's as you know. If you're believer.
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Speaker 1: He keeps his own. Those hecalls he keeps. I will
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Speaker 1: wake up a believer tomorrow morning because God has kept me,
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Speaker 1: or I won't be a believer tomorrow. Man, we trust
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Speaker 1: in God, not ourselves. So the security that we enjoy
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Speaker 1: the assurance that we have that the ups and downs
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Speaker 1: of our joy and the ups and downs of our
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Speaker 1: faith don't destroy us. They won't God has patterns built
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Speaker 1: into the Bible to help us manage the downs. It's
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Speaker 1: not hard to manage the ups. And that's what we're
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Speaker 1: talking about this morning. There is a fight for faith,
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Speaker 1: and the fight for faith is a fight for joy.
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Speaker 1: If I was right on Friday Night that to have
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Speaker 1: saving faith in Jesus is to be awakened to the
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Speaker 1: enjoyment of Jesus. So when Paul speaks to Timothy and
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Speaker 1: says fight the good fight of faith, it's the same
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Speaker 1: as saying fight for joy. I wrote a book called
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Speaker 1: When I Don't Desire God, and the subtitle is how
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Speaker 1: to Fight for Joy. I'm old and Paul was old.
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Speaker 1: He called himself an old man one time in the
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Speaker 1: Book of Phileman, and he was in prison. Great place
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Speaker 1: to end your life, by the way, it goes quicker
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Speaker 1: that way, probably in case you're wondering what to do
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Speaker 1: with your last twenty years. He was in prison and
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Speaker 1: he wrote the last book of the New Testament that
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Speaker 1: he wrote two Timothy, and he said, I have fought
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Speaker 1: the good fight. I have finished the course, I have
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Speaker 1: kept the faith, which I take to mean old men
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Speaker 1: fight to the end, and they better not stop. If
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Speaker 1: you think that you can fight for sixty or eighty
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Speaker 1: years and then stop for a year or two, you're crazy.
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Speaker 1: The devil does not sleep, and his fiery darts shooted
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Speaker 1: old people and young people. We fight to the end,
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Speaker 1: and God has taught us how to do it. And
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Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about, how to fight your way
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Speaker 1: through the slump when you wake up and there's almost
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Speaker 1: no joy in jeez. So if you have a Bible
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Speaker 1: to hope you do least on your phone. Let's go
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Speaker 1: to Oh you just turned your phones off. How do
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Speaker 1: you do with got print bibles around here? That's good.
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Speaker 1: Let's go to go to the Bible, however, you've got
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Speaker 1: it Psalm forty, and we're gonna read verses one to three,
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Speaker 1: which are a pattern of of how David managed his
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Speaker 1: law of spiritual dynamic joy. What did he do? And
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Speaker 1: I think as Christians on this side of the cross,
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Speaker 1: we can embrace these verses as our own Paul said
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Speaker 1: in Galatians. For when the fulness of time had come,
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Speaker 1: God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under
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Speaker 1: the law, that he might redeem those who were under
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Speaker 1: the law, in order that they might be adopted as sons.
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Speaker 1: So we know God today as our Father in a
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Speaker 1: unique and special way unknown in the same detail in
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Speaker 1: the Old Testament. That didn't know how this was gonna work.
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Speaker 1: They didn't know that blood was going to be shed
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Speaker 1: by the incarnate God as the Messiah, who would cover
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Speaker 1: all the sins old in New Testament, and who would
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Speaker 1: bring the saints into a sweet, intimate child adopted relationship
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Speaker 1: with the Father, so that when we call upon God
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Speaker 1: like this text does, we're calling now upon God as
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Speaker 1: a father that we have because of adoption through the
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Speaker 1: blood of Jesus. So I'm reading this text because I
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Speaker 1: read my whole Bible. I understand it as a completed whole,
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Speaker 1: the Old Testament preparing and the New Testament fulfilling. And
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Speaker 1: I think you then did stand back and see all
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Speaker 1: the promises of God bought by Jesus Christ, and you
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Speaker 1: can make the Old Testament your book. And so I'm
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Speaker 1: reading this as my Christian book. Here these three verses
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Speaker 1: in Psalm for I think Jesus bought this text for you,
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Speaker 1: if you are in him, It's yours to the choir master.
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Speaker 1: A Psalm of David. I waited patiently for the Lord
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Speaker 1: he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew
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Speaker 1: me up from the pit of destruction, out of the
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Speaker 1: mirie bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making
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Speaker 1: my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth,
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Speaker 1: a song of praise to our God. Many will see
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Speaker 1: and fear and put their trust in the Lord. Now,
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Speaker 1: I think that's a pattern of life that we live.
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Speaker 1: I'm tempted to say every day, at least regularly. So
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Speaker 1: I'm asking, is it normal to have Christian seasons in
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Speaker 1: the pit with the King? And what do you do
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Speaker 1: when you go there? That's that's what this message is about,
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Speaker 1: and that's what this text I think answers. I see
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Speaker 1: six stages. If I were teaching a class instead of
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Speaker 1: preaching a sermon, I would have you find the stages. First,
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Speaker 1: David is in a muddy pit Verse two, calls it
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Speaker 1: a pit of destruction, myrie bog in the es V. Second,
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Speaker 1: he cries out to God from this pit for help.
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Speaker 1: Verse one he heard my cry. Three he waits how long?
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Speaker 1: I don't know how long. I'm glad he didn't tell
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Speaker 1: me how long he waits for the Lord. Verse one
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Speaker 1: I waited patiently for the Lord. Four God draws him
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Speaker 1: up out of the pit into safety. Verse two, he
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Speaker 1: drew me up out of the pit. Five, God gives
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Speaker 1: David a new song to sing, probably the one we're
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Speaker 1: reading for Psalm forty. Verse three, he put a new
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Speaker 1: song in my mouth. And finally, verse or step six,
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Speaker 1: many see, many others see what happened to David, and
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Speaker 1: they fear, and they put their trust in the Lord.
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Speaker 1: Verse three. Many will see in fear and put their
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Speaker 1: trust in the Lord. So I'll give them names, and
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Speaker 1: then we'll take them one at a time and walk
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Speaker 1: you through them. Because this is where we I want
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Speaker 1: you to. I want you to simply take away from
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Speaker 1: this message. Okay, that's what I'll do. That's what i'll
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Speaker 1: do when my spirits are low and when my joy
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Speaker 1: seems to vanish, this is what I'm going to do.
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Speaker 1: So I want you to just get up a real
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Speaker 1: clear sense of what these six stages are. The king's pit,
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Speaker 1: the king's cry, the king's patience, the king's rescue, the
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Speaker 1: King's song, and the king's influence. And I think you
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Speaker 1: can just put your name on it. If you're a Christian,
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Speaker 1: you just put your name on it and say that
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Speaker 1: was the saint's experience in the Old Testament. I'm in
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Speaker 1: the Messiah, Jesus Christ. That can be my experience today.
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Speaker 1: So let's take them more at a time. First, he's
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Speaker 1: in the pits. What was that? What is that? As
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Speaker 1: a little pit? Is that a picture of something? In ESV.
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Speaker 1: It's the pit of destruction in the King James, it's
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Speaker 1: horrible pit in the RSD. Is a desolate pit in
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Speaker 1: the NIV as a slimy pit. You look up the
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Speaker 1: word and get the most roote definition. He has to
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Speaker 1: do with a roaring and a tumult, which is very
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Speaker 1: odd picture for a pit. You don't think of. I'm
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Speaker 1: in a pit and there's a storm in the pit.
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Speaker 1: That's odd. These are not photographs, right, These are word
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Speaker 1: pictures chosen to help us feel the sole condition that
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Speaker 1: he was, that he was in. And then you got
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Speaker 1: mud Meyer, and they don't seem to go together. This
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Speaker 1: roaring pit like a well, it's thirty forty feet down
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Speaker 1: and you're down there, and there's a storm down there,
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Speaker 1: and there's mud down there. This Meyer, it reminded me
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Speaker 1: of because I'm reading, I suppose through Jeremiah right now
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Speaker 1: in my devotions, what happened to Jeremiah when Zedekiah got
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Speaker 1: so picked at this prophet. Here's what he says in
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Speaker 1: Jeremiah thirty eight six. So they took Jeremiah and cast
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Speaker 1: him into the cistern of Malka, the king's son, which
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Speaker 1: was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down
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Speaker 1: with ropes. That was nice at least, And there was
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Speaker 1: no water in the cistern, but only mire, and Jeremiah
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Speaker 1: sank in the mire. That's scary. Quicksand is scary. I
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Speaker 1: don't like movies that have quickstand. There's horrible. They give
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Speaker 1: me nightmares. They can't stand the thought of thinking in quicksand,
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Speaker 1: and that seems to be something of the picture here.
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Speaker 1: It's helplessness, it's desperation. Air starts to become precious to you.
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Speaker 1: Am I ever gonna get out of here? That's a
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Speaker 1: description of the emotion of your life at times, maybe today.
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Speaker 1: Eventually it will be helpless, desperate, maybe hopeless because you
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Speaker 1: just can't feel anything anymore. A breaking point wait for
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Speaker 1: an overworked businessman, exasperation to the limit of a mom
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Speaker 1: of three kids that are all crying and they're little,
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Speaker 1: and she's just at her wits end. Too many classes
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Speaker 1: for a student. I can't do this, Dad, I can't
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Speaker 1: do this. This college thing a powerful any enemy coming
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Speaker 1: against you, some grinding stress of a long illness. I mean,
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Speaker 1: pick your desperation. Life is hard and God is good.
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Speaker 1: We like to sing that, don't we. So that's the pit.
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Speaker 1: We don't know what it was for David, and I'm
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Speaker 1: glad we don't know, because I think that invites you
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Speaker 1: in to say yours too. The King's pit and then
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Speaker 1: the King's cry number two, Verse one. I waited patiently
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Speaker 1: for the Lord clined to me and heard my cry.
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Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons God calls David a
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Speaker 1: man after his own heart. Why he has such an
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Speaker 1: affection for David, just because he cried so much. He
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Speaker 1: cried out so much. Here's Psalm six. I am weary
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Speaker 1: with my mourning. Every night I flood my bed with tears.
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Speaker 1: I drench my couch with my weeping. That's the man
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Speaker 1: after God's own heart. Psal I'm fifty six. Put my
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Speaker 1: tears in your bottle? Are they not in your book?
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Speaker 1: And of course, Jesus blessed are those who mourn. It
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Speaker 1: is a beautiful thing when a broken man genuinely cries
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Speaker 1: out to God, it is not a beautiful thing. When
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Speaker 1: a macho jock tries to make his way ashore after
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Speaker 1: getting a cramp, hiding the fact that he's about to
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Speaker 1: die and he's not gonna let anybody know about it,
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Speaker 1: that's not beautiful. He thinks it's beautiful. It's not beautiful,
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Speaker 1: not to God. I remember when I was in Daytona
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Speaker 1: Beach on vacation with my parents. It's a little six
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Speaker 1: year old or so, and you wait out just a
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Speaker 1: little too far, and you know how the current works.
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Speaker 1: It can just and the little kids just totally not
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Speaker 1: ready for the power of the undertoe sweeps me off
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Speaker 1: my feet, and my first words are, Daddy. That's what
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Speaker 1: God wants to hear. That's what God wants to hear.
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Speaker 1: None of this fake. I don't need your help. That's ridiculous.
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Speaker 1: You better, you better own the need for help. Women
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Speaker 1: and men, and little children and teenagers, we need help.
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Speaker 1: And so he cries out, and God is very pleased
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Speaker 1: with the cry of his people. Blessed is the man.
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Speaker 1: This is verse four. The next verse, Blessed is the
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Speaker 1: man who has made the Lord his trust and who
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Speaker 1: has not turned to the proud In other words, when
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Speaker 1: you cry out, be sure to cry out to God.
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Speaker 1: I said, a lot of people who are willing to
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Speaker 1: recognize the need for help, and they don't ask God.
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Speaker 1: They ask other people. God. He's kind of maybe a
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Speaker 1: last resort, not a first resort. That's backwards. That's is backwards.
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Speaker 1: God should be our first resort. Do you remember Asa
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Speaker 1: the King? Oh man, every time I read the stories
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Speaker 1: of these kings in the Old test just shake my
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Speaker 1: head and say, oh goodness, won't they ever learn? And
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Speaker 1: of course, won't Piper ever learn to trust the Lord
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Speaker 1: and not be anxious? But Asa relied upon Syria instead
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Speaker 1: of the Lord, and God spanked him for it. Didn't
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Speaker 1: kill him, just spanked him and disciplined him. And then
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Speaker 1: you think, okay, he's got it. And at the end
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Speaker 1: of his life. This is Second Chronicle sixteen twelve. In
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Speaker 1: the thirty ninth year of his reign, Asa was diseased
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Speaker 1: in his feet, and his disease became severe. And even
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Speaker 1: in his disease, he did not seek the Lord, but
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Speaker 1: he sought help from physicians. Now I thank God for physicians.
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Speaker 1: This is not anti physician, This is anti making physicians
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Speaker 1: your God. This is anti defaulting to physicians and oh, yes, later, God,
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Speaker 1: that's what this text is against. When David was in
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Speaker 1: the pit, he cried out to the Lord. And the
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Speaker 1: Lord uses all kinds of means, and medicine is a
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Speaker 1: great gift of common grace that we should all be very,
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Speaker 1: very thankful for. It is better to take rift. This
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Speaker 1: is p. One eighteen. It is better to take refuge
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Speaker 1: in the Lord than to trust in man. It is
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Speaker 1: better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust
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Speaker 1: in princes. So when you're in the pit, you cry
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Speaker 1: out to God. Now he may use a therapist, a
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Speaker 1: Christian counselor may use a pastor, may use the Bible.
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Speaker 1: He has one hundred ways to meet you and rescue you,
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Speaker 1: but you call out to him. That's number two, the
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Speaker 1: king's pit, the King's cry, and now thirdly the King's
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Speaker 1: patient waiting, the King's patience Verse one. I waited patiently
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Speaker 1: for the Lord. The reason that's so important for us
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Speaker 1: to hear is because waiting, I think marshals breakout yesterday
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Speaker 1: was on waiting. Waiting is a huge portion of the
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Speaker 1: Christian life. We could wish that answers came as soon
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Speaker 1: as the request was made and they don't. They don't
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Speaker 1: come that way. Usually God's timing is rarely your timing.
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Speaker 1: I was a pastor for thirty three years, and we
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Speaker 1: were always for something. Something wasn't working. Come to the
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Speaker 1: end of the year. You need a third of your
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Speaker 1: budget in December, very typical, like, oh, my goodness, four
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Speaker 1: weeks left, need a million dollars and God cancels your
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Speaker 1: first service with a snowstorm. It's like Gideon, you got
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Speaker 1: too many Sundays to get a million dollars, Gonna take
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Speaker 1: one of them away. Nobody's showing up today. That's just
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Speaker 1: the way it worked, over and over again. And he
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Speaker 1: came through. He came through. My God will supply all
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Speaker 1: your needs according to His riches in Glory, in Christ Jesus.
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Speaker 1: If you don't get it, you don't need it. That's
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Speaker 1: what I told the elders. If we don't get it,
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Speaker 1: we don't need it. That's what it says in the Bible.
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Speaker 1: He will supply every need, and our timing is seldom his.
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Speaker 1: He knows the time for joy and truly will send
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Speaker 1: it when he sees it meet when he has tried
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Speaker 1: and purged thee Doly and finds thee free from all deceit.
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Speaker 1: He comes to thee all unaware and makes thee own
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Speaker 1: his loving care. I love that song. It's called if
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Speaker 1: Thou but suffer God to guide. Now I learned it
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Speaker 1: in Germany. In German, and now get seven verses and
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Speaker 1: that one right there. A timing of God is simply
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Speaker 1: sovereignly wise, and seldom your timing. God knows what he's doing.
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Speaker 1: We wait. Waiting is a huge part of the Christian life.
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Speaker 1: Evildoers will be cut off, this is Psalm thirty seven.
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Speaker 1: But those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit
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Speaker 1: the land. A great part of waiting is meekness and humility,
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Speaker 1: because a verse two verses later it says the humble
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Speaker 1: will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundance.
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Speaker 1: So the waiters, those who wait, will inherit the land.
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Speaker 1: And then it says the humble will inherit the land.
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Speaker 1: To wait, you've got to be humble. So you're sitting
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Speaker 1: in a doctor's office and he had an emergency, and
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Speaker 1: he's not there, and the appointments are backing up, and
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Speaker 1: this room is full of upset people. Now, who are
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Speaker 1: the people who are making themselves a perfect pain and
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Speaker 1: a rear for these poor receptionists. Proud people, not humble people,
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Speaker 1: people who presume upon their rights. The humble people understand reality.
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Speaker 1: Nobody's planned anything against you here. Somebody's dying somewhere. Cool it.
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Speaker 1: To wait as we ought. To wait requires humility. It
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Speaker 1: also requires hope psal. I'm thirty nine, and now, Lord,
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Speaker 1: what do I wait for? My hope is in you
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Speaker 1: or some one thirty I wait for the Lord. My
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Speaker 1: soul waits, and in his word do I hope? Waiting
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Speaker 1: is not listlessness. That's not the posture. As a deer plants.
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Speaker 1: As a deer pants for the water brooks, so my
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Speaker 1: soul pants for thee Oh God, my soul thirsts for God.
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Speaker 1: There's a leaning in to when will he arrive and
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Speaker 1: what will he do? And how will he bring me
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Speaker 1: out of this? He's coming. I know he's coming. He's
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Speaker 1: going to come at the right time. He's going to
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Speaker 1: bring the right deliverance. And I'm waiting humbly because I
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Speaker 1: don't deserve anything better than this, and I'm waiting hopefully
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Speaker 1: because he's a good father. That's the posture of waiting.
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Speaker 1: The King's pit, the King's cry, the King's patience, and
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Speaker 1: now the King's rescue. Verse two. He drew me up
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Speaker 1: from the pit of destruction, out of the Mirie bog,
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Speaker 1: and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.
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Speaker 1: There's a world of difference between quicksand and rock. It's
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Speaker 1: a beautiful picture. He drew me up by the slime
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Speaker 1: in which I was sinking and sinking and sinking, and
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Speaker 1: he picts me. It puts me on a rock solid
27:56
Speaker 1: that we weren't as Christians. We weren't saying God's not real.
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Speaker 1: We were just admitting my emotions are not fully in
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Speaker 1: sync with the realities I know exist. I feel like
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Speaker 1: I'm sinking. That's reality. And he comes and you were
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Speaker 1: secure in his hand all along, and now he makes
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Speaker 1: you feel it right. What a difference to be sinking
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Speaker 1: and then to be standing on a rock. That's what changes.
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Speaker 1: He ministers to your soul so deeply that you feel
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Speaker 1: like you're on a rock. And I don't know what
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Speaker 1: the rescue was from. Could have been diseased. Maybe he
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Speaker 1: was very sick and about to die Psalm thirty. Oh Lord,
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Speaker 1: my God, I cried to you for help, and you
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Speaker 1: have healed me. That's sickness. That's one way of rescue.
28:58
Speaker 1: Or it may have been from enemy Psal I'm sixty nine,
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Speaker 1: save me, Oh God, more in number are the hairs
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Speaker 1: of mine than the hairs of my head? Are those
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Speaker 1: who cause are are those who want to destroy me?
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Speaker 1: Or it might have been guilt, Very aware of that
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Speaker 1: Psalm Right, So fifty one, be gracious to me, Oh God,
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Speaker 1: wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin.
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Speaker 1: So I'm glad again. It doesn't say not only how
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Speaker 1: long he waited, it doesn't say what he got rescued from.
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Speaker 1: God is so merciful. He will rescue you from anything, anything,
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Speaker 1: if you will call to him like a little child
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Speaker 1: and trust him to come. So the king's pit, the
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Speaker 1: king's cry, the king's patience, the king's rescue, and now
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Speaker 1: the King's song. Verse three. He put an a new
30:00
Speaker 1: song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.
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Speaker 1: What is singing? Signify? If your heart is singing and
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Speaker 1: your mouth is singing, you have felt something is very precious.
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Speaker 1: You are so thankful for something that words are not
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Speaker 1: quite adequate. Adequate they have to be sung. A poem
30:30
Speaker 1: has to be written. A song has to be sung
30:33
Speaker 1: because my heart has been made so glad. Ordinary language
30:37
Speaker 1: is not adequate anymore. That's what singing says. Something is
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Speaker 1: so good, so precious. All of us gravitate towards dulness.
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Speaker 1: No songs. Most people don't sing through the day. It's unusual. Person,
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Speaker 1: Johnny Erickson tada I said Saturday night, She's one of
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Speaker 1: my heroes, and that's what marks her life. In her paralysis,
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Speaker 1: she sings. Anytime I'm with her, she starts a song.
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Speaker 1: You know this song, John. She knows every hymn there exists,
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Speaker 1: things like from memory because she's a thankful person. She
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Speaker 1: has cultivated deeply, deeply thankful heart. She knows the pits.
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Speaker 1: You can't be paralyzed from age seventeen to seventy six.
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Speaker 1: Her birthday was day before yesterday. You can't be paralyzed
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Speaker 1: for that long and not have pits. But oh how
31:45
Speaker 1: she has grown to be thankful and therefore sing. So
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Speaker 1: if you were God and you look down and you
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Speaker 1: saw your people songless, and their hearts were not extatic
32:00
Speaker 1: over the relationship that you have given them forever, what
32:07
Speaker 1: would you do well. One of the things he does
32:12
Speaker 1: is to put you in the pit, then strip from
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Speaker 1: you many blessings for a season, so that when you
32:22
Speaker 1: come up you sing. That's what it says. He put
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Speaker 1: a new song in my mouth. Why did he sing
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Speaker 1: a new song? Because he was in the pit. That's
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Speaker 1: how it works. So I'm fourteen years old. I love
32:38
Speaker 1: to swim. I love to swim underwater, not on top
32:42
Speaker 1: of water. There was a pool in their neighborhood that
32:46
Speaker 1: was forty feet long and twenty feet wide, and I
32:50
Speaker 1: love to see how many lapse I could do underwater, one, two,
32:55
Speaker 1: three four. I love to just, you know, stay underwater
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Speaker 1: as long as I could. I thought that was cool.
33:05
Speaker 1: At the deep end, it's nine feet deep and there's
33:08
Speaker 1: a grate at the bottom that covers the spout the dreamage.
33:12
Speaker 1: And my job was to clean a grate, and one
33:18
Speaker 1: day my finger got stuck in the grate. An air
33:26
Speaker 1: became very precious. You got thirty seconds. You can chew
33:33
Speaker 1: your finger off maybe, or you can drown, or you
33:39
Speaker 1: can cry out to the Lord, which I did. I
33:43
Speaker 1: didn't wait patiently, skip that step, and he let me
33:51
Speaker 1: loose and set my feet upon a concrete deck. Ay
34:00
Speaker 1: loved air. If you'd ask me an hour earlier. You
34:05
Speaker 1: love air, You singing songs to air. I'd look at
34:11
Speaker 1: you funny. Now I'm singing songs to air. That's what
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Speaker 1: he does. If you got a better way for him
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Speaker 1: to do it, then you can counsel him about that.
34:26
Speaker 1: But the Bible says nobody has counseled the Lord. So
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Speaker 1: skip that step and just admit that he's wise and
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Speaker 1: he loves you. He wants you to love him like
34:37
Speaker 1: I loved air. Precious air, sweet air, inestimable air. Give
34:44
Speaker 1: a million dollars for every breath of air. That's how
34:47
Speaker 1: important and precious God is. And if he has to
34:52
Speaker 1: lay us low in order to bring us up to
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Speaker 1: give us a new song, he'll do it. He wants
34:57
Speaker 1: you to sing a new song. And so if you
34:59
Speaker 1: love to him that way, if your enjoyment of Jesus
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Speaker 1: were that constant, then you might not have to endure
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Speaker 1: as many down seasons. So that's number five. Maybe before
35:16
Speaker 1: I turned to number six, I see a reminder here
35:19
Speaker 1: I wrote down yesterday a new song says, put a
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Speaker 1: new song in my mouth, or maybe an old songs
35:29
Speaker 1: sung in a new way. But I do think it
35:33
Speaker 1: would be good to say to you as a church,
35:36
Speaker 1: go ahead and sing a new song. Clearly you do.
35:38
Speaker 1: I don't know any of these songs that you sing.
35:42
Speaker 1: I mean I recognize them sort of. They're all made new.
35:48
Speaker 1: Right that that's got a biblical there's a big a
35:51
Speaker 1: warrant for that. If you wonder why why did they
35:53
Speaker 1: do that? Here, sing a new song to the Lord.
35:58
Speaker 1: So all songs, because new songs are new an old song.
36:04
Speaker 1: The reason I pause here on music is because I
36:07
Speaker 1: think it's true that most rich, deep, beautiful songs historically
36:17
Speaker 1: have come out of the pit. You walk through a pit,
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Speaker 1: you come up out, and a new song is given
36:25
Speaker 1: to you, and you write it down and they sing
36:27
Speaker 1: it for five hundred years. So the old song says,
36:34
Speaker 1: when peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows
36:40
Speaker 1: like cea billows roll, The new song says, blessed be
36:46
Speaker 1: your name, And the land that is plentiful, where the
36:49
Speaker 1: streams of abundance flow, blessed be your name. When I'm
36:53
Speaker 1: found in the desert place, though I walk through the wilderness, billows,
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Speaker 1: desert pit, that's where songs come from. If you'd never
37:07
Speaker 1: walk through any pit, you probably will sing light songs.
37:12
Speaker 1: And we'll never have the feel of blood, pain, suffering,
37:18
Speaker 1: sustaining faithful grace from God. But you walk through pits
37:22
Speaker 1: and then you come out and He puts a new
37:24
Speaker 1: song in your mouth. That song is going to have
37:26
Speaker 1: a flavor that makes it go deep with people and
37:29
Speaker 1: lasts for a long time. Number six, the King's influence.
37:34
Speaker 1: This is so remarkable. We end with this and the
37:38
Speaker 1: surprising thing, and I knows it's what made me love
37:41
Speaker 1: this unit. I preached on this one other time nineteen
37:46
Speaker 1: eighty as a brand new pastor thirty four. We were
37:49
Speaker 1: doing a summer summer songs we call them, and I
37:52
Speaker 1: did this. I called it in the Pits with the
37:54
Speaker 1: King back in those days, and I loved this song,
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Speaker 1: this unit because it ends on evangelism. Many will see
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Speaker 1: and fear. This is verse three. Many will see and
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Speaker 1: fear and put their trust in the Lord. You're just
38:20
Speaker 1: want to laugh, don't you like? Oh, the whole thing
38:22
Speaker 1: was about evangelism. You want to win people to Jesus.
38:27
Speaker 1: Get in a pit. I mean, let him put you
38:30
Speaker 1: in a pit, and don't get angry at him. Many
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Speaker 1: will see and fear. Now what do they see and
38:37
Speaker 1: what do they fear and then trust. That's an interesting
38:42
Speaker 1: way to say it, right, They see they fear the trust. Well,
38:47
Speaker 1: what they see is a Christian who, in humility and
38:54
Speaker 1: patience endoer is a hard thing. Pick your hard thing,
39:00
Speaker 1: very hard thing. They're watching you and you endure it.
39:05
Speaker 1: You wait patiently, you are humble, and you are trusting,
39:10
Speaker 1: and you're calling out to God for help and for deliverance.
39:17
Speaker 1: And after a season, God comes through for you and
39:20
Speaker 1: re establishes your hope and your strength and maybe even
39:24
Speaker 1: puts your feet upon a healed rock, a delivered rock.
39:30
Speaker 1: So they're watching this and they see your unusual, counter
39:36
Speaker 1: intuitive enduring a hardship as you trust and call out
39:42
Speaker 1: to God. And then they see God's faithfulness and he
39:47
Speaker 1: comes through. And then they think, well, if that's real,
39:53
Speaker 1: I'm in trouble. If that's real, If that kind of
40:01
Speaker 1: faith is real, and that kind of God is real,
40:05
Speaker 1: then I don't have it, And I mean I'm afraid.
40:10
Speaker 1: And then God gives them what they need and they
40:14
Speaker 1: trust in the Lord. It's a beautiful it's a beautiful
40:19
Speaker 1: thing to believe. And that certainly is the case. I mean,
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Speaker 1: every suffering person I know who has responded like this
40:26
Speaker 1: is a strengthening to my faith. I've got my heroes.
40:31
Speaker 1: Heroism to me is enduring much hardship for great causes.
40:40
Speaker 1: That's hard. So any anybody can be a hero if
40:45
Speaker 1: they endure hardship for a great purpose in reliance upon
40:51
Speaker 1: the Lord. So it strengthens new believers by bringing them,
40:56
Speaker 1: and it strengthens old believers. So what a surprise. The
41:00
Speaker 1: whole story turns out to be a story of personal evangelism.
41:06
Speaker 1: So how shall we win others to Christ? All end
41:08
Speaker 1: with this. When you are in the pits with the King,
41:13
Speaker 1: which you will be, cry out to the Lord like
41:17
Speaker 1: a helpless child, not a self sufficient person. Then humbly
41:24
Speaker 1: and hopefully wait patiently for the Lord. His timing won't
41:28
Speaker 1: be your timing. It'll be perfect when he comes in
41:33
Speaker 1: his own time and makes you secure. Then sing a
41:40
Speaker 1: new song to the Lord, and sing it out loud
41:44
Speaker 1: and sing it in public, and God may be pleased
41:47
Speaker 1: to cause many to see and fear and put their
41:51
Speaker 1: trust in the Lord. So, Father, I ask that that
41:55
Speaker 1: would be the wonder that we would all experience here
41:59
Speaker 1: at this church, our church, that we would be granted
42:04
Speaker 1: the grace to endure your disciplinary pits, that we would
42:10
Speaker 1: be patient, that we would call upon you, and that
42:14
Speaker 1: you would show up. I pray that you'd show up
42:16
Speaker 1: this morning for people who came in here with their
42:19
Speaker 1: feet sinking in the mire, and that they would be
42:25
Speaker 1: given a rock, that they would walk out of here stable, secure,
42:33
Speaker 1: confident that you care and you have come through for them.
42:38
Speaker 1: May many, many in mid Lothian and all this region
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Speaker 1: see and fear and put their trust in the Lord