Latest / Grace Primitive Baptist Church - Houston, TX / Loving God in the Midst of Troubles | Elder Mike Moseley | 10-11-2026

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Loving God in the Midst of Troubles | Elder Mike Moseley | 10-11-2026 · Grace Primitive Baptist Church - Houston, TX

• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: We like to uh look particularly at uh something uh it's a lot.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot going on in in my mind and I pray the Lord will comment.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um few weeks ago, I think, I tried to to talk I don't know how long it's been now, try to talk about uh first John 4.19 and the love of God and our love for God, um, and how even though it's very clear in the scriptures that God's love for us is it's unconditional, has an unconditional love for us.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: That means it's not based on anything in us at all that there's any reason God would love us.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's no reason, there's no because given in Scripture for God's love for us except his own love.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: In 1 John 4.19, as it tells us, we love Him because there is a cause for our love for God, and that first great cause is His love for us.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: We love Him because He first loved us.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if I tried to rehash the entire that verse, it's the whole time.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't we don't have time in our lives to describe the love of God, the first love.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's the but just to suffice that to say, it is the first great cause.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: It is the cause that moved all things that God did for us, for his people.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the love of God is why he said, let there be light.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: The love of God is why he created the heavens and the earth.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's the love of God, not just a generic love, but a focused and pointed love to his people.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: We know from scripture that he loved us with an everlasting love, it says in Jeremiah.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: He says, therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's the cause of his drawing us to him, is his love for his people.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: In Deuteronomy, he tells the Israelites, and us by extension, through the picture of God's chosen people that the Israelites portray, his elect that he knew and loved before the world began, he that were displayed in picture form in the Old Testament in the nation of Israel.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I did not set my love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were the greatest of all people, he says, for ye were the least of all people on the earth.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, when he chose the nation of Israel, they weren't a nation, they were one man, Abraham.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: When he called Abraham out to be to him the father of many nations, but specifically the people that would be Isaac and Jacob, and then known as the nation of Israel, or his chosen people.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I did not set my love upon you because ye.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: I just like to just say, fill in the blank there.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: There is no thing in us that caused God to set his love upon us.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: He goes on to say, but because.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now here's the cause.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: What I already said, there's no cause for God's love.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then in Deuteronomy he says, here's the cause.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I set my love upon you, I chose you because I loved you.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the end, the period, full stop.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: God's love for us in motion, his setting is love on us, is because he loved us.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: That love is the first cause of all things.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: We we know from Romans chapter 8 that for whom he did foreknow, and by the way, if you haven't heard it before, you'll hear it now, and I hope you'll hear it from me till my last breath.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: The word foreknow in Romans chapter 8 is not that he was aware of your existence.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly God knows all things.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Known from the beginning are all his works, he knows everything, but this is a personal and intimate relationship.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: This word knowing in this way, and the foreknowing that Romans 8, chapter 8 describes, is a loving you as his before the world began.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's what that means.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So for whom he did foreknow, it says he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of words to say it, to say this: that because he loved you before the world began, he did everything required for you to be his family.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's what that means in very simple terms.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Predestinate is a beautiful subject.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have time to deal into, but it's not talking about things that happen in this life.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's talking about the people God loves will certainly without fail be with him, before him in love, forevermore in glory.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: You are his family.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he's done everything required for you to be with him in his family.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: That is caused by his love.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: His love is not caused by anything.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: But our love for God is caused by things.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Our love for God is caused first and foremost because he first loved us.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Our love for God, and therefore, by extension, our love for each other is caused by his love for us.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: The love we have as a fruit of the Spirit is produced by the Spirit of God in us.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the only true love there is, is that which is produced by God's Spirit in you.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: That love is something God's placed in you, and then when we love God, it's returning to him what he's given us.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: When we love each other, it's using something that God's given us.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's caused by his love, and then we love because.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: We have a limitation on our love, and that is that we are still in sinful flesh.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now I believe that when we're in heaven with him, made perfect, made like unto him, body, soul, and spirit forevermore, when we are there in perfection, that we will dwell in a pure and perfect love that has no conditions, we will love as God loves.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: But we don't do that now.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: That does not mean the love we have in this life is somehow flawed or wrong.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's that we are flawed.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: So this beautiful thing called love is inside of a broken vessel.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: It does not taint the beauty of the love.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that the broken vessel.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: I am ashamed sometimes at my own inability to love as I ought.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: That does not decrease the value of the fruit of the Spirit that's known as love.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: It is true that my love is conditional.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: I wish it weren't, but it is.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: I love my parents because they're my parents.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: I love my wife, and granted, I chose to love my wife.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's one relationship that it was an action choice, right?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: You make a choice when you get married, and then you make that choice every day.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's a constant condition.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: I forced, I mean, well, let me say I put on myself that I will keep that vow that I made, and not just in word, but in deed, I will love.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's conditional though.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: She's my wife.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: No one else gets that love, right?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: I love my children.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to say that that was unconditional too.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I just I loved my children because they were born.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as they were born, they did nothing to cause my love, except they did, they were mine.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: I love my children in a way I can't love.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: I can't love anyone else that way, right?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I love so many other children.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Here in this room, there are some of you that I've like almost adopted, if you'll let me say it.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: If not child, at least niece or nephew or something.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're just, you're so precious to me.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone in this room is so precious to me.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: There are people not in this room that are not this, it's not the same, right?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: My love is conditional, it's relationship-centered, it's focused on things that cause that cause that love, right?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: But we're commanded to love even as God loved.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's the tall order, right?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: We love Him because He first loved us, He loved us unconditionally.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're even told to love one another as Christ loved us, and that is a high bar.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a high bar that I failed to reach, but it's that doesn't mean I shouldn't reach for it.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we're told to love even our enemies, which certainly is how God loved us, because when we were yet enemies against God, he loved us and he died for us.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing in us to love, and God loved us.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: We have certainly there's there's enemies against us in this world that we are told to love.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it's a that it's so important that we understand that this is not talking about the way we view love in this world, about that's that's so flawed that we say it's a feeling.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: There is a warmth in the heart that comes with this love, but it's a it's a, if you'll allow me to say it, it's like a warmth of a fire that can be stoked, right?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: You want to feel love more, then I recommend you do love more, that you act with love.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: The love that we're talking most about when we talk about love in scripture is action, it's movement.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: God loved us, therefore, he said he set his love on us.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: He moved from that love.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: We are to love as God loves, and that's not just to feel, it's to move to do.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the love that the particular thing that was on my mind this morning is not our love to each other, but that certainly is an outpouring of this, but it's our love back to God.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Our love to God is a feeling.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: I feel that love.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: I feel it like sometimes warm, burning in me that I love God.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm stirred up with the feeling.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm not always so stirred.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't think I'm alone in this.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm alone, you know, you throw the songbooks up, throw them at me.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have stones, thankfully, you'd have to use songbooks, but but I don't think I'm alone in this.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not always so burning hot.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: The coals are sometimes ashed over, right?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the curls need to be stoked.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now I can say, well, if I love like God loved me, if I love God with the love that God gave me, then I should be able to always be on fire, warm and hot for God.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: I love him because he first loved me.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: That cause is never going away, so I should never dwindle in my love.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: But again, we are flawed, we are broken, we the the love, the the fire's hot, but if you've ever seen a fire that has the coals ashed over, those coals are hot, but the ashes make that that heat not come forth, right?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: There is a stirring that we should do.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: We should move in our love toward God.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, uh Psalm 116 is really where I want to start reading.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is another place where we see I love because.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's a cause that stirs up this love in us here in Psalm 116.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: The first verse, the psalmist writes, I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice and my supplication.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: We see the conditionalness of this.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's like God heard my cries, he heard my prayers, so that caused me to love him.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I certainly have felt that.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: I have been there, I've prayed to God, and then that prayer was answered in a miraculous or manifest way, in a way that I'm like, that's what I prayed for, and I got what I prayed for, and then it stirs up my love to God.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: I can readily admit with this psalmist, I love him because he heard my cries, he answered my prayers.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: What about the times then when I'm praying and I don't know that he hears me?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or I'm praying and I think that he doesn't hear me?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or what about the times that I ask for something and I don't get that thing that I ask for?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do I love God?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is where it gets important to understand a few things.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: To understand it with a mature mind.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, not to degrade kids, I've been a kid too.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've been there and sometimes I still am.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is the problem with my childish um personality at times, is I still think sometimes like a child.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says that we don't know, in one place, Paul says we don't know now everything.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: We see things through a glass darkly.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Someday, he says, then we'll see face to face.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: But in that text, he says, When I was a child, I spake as a child, I thought as a child, I understood as a child.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when I became a man, I put away childish things.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I used to think, and this was thinking like a child, I admit, that what he was talking about was you put away your toys and you start doing your responsibilities.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: But he's not just, he's not, that's not, that's true.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: The older you get, the more you have to do things.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh oh my goodness, Brody and I were watching some video, and um, and I said, Brody, you gotta watch this video.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: This guy says, When I was a kid, I said, I can't wait till I'm old enough to do whatever I want.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Guess what, younger ones?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: That never comes.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about doing whatever you want.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's when you can do whatever you can afford or whatever you have time for.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you get older, you stop getting to have free fun.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, you don't have free fun, but you think it's free.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's on our dime, right?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: But um when you get older, it's like, boy, I want to go to Disney World.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't get to go to Disney World because I can't afford to go to Disney World, right?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: As a child, you don't see the whole picture.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: You and and this is true in our spiritual maturity.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because as a child, I think sometimes that I ask for and I get, and therefore that's a sign of love.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: I can remember when I was a child that I'd asked for something, and this is it's shameful to admit, but I don't think I'm alone.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't get it, didn't get a lot of explanation as to why, but I now know the whying, right?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: But then I didn't know the why.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, don't you even care?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: I say this to my parents, don't you even care?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now I realize how offensive that is when I've heard that echoed back at times.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: The disciples, they've had that feeling too.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: There was a time when they were on a ship with the Lord on the ship.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: There were other times that they were on a ship without the Lord on the ship.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: But this one particular time, they were on a ship with the Lord on the ship.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And a storm comes.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: This storm is beating against the ship so much so that these fishermen are afraid.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's a big storm.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this isn't a light drizzle.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And this storm is so fierce that these disciples who had been fishermen in their professional life come to the Lord.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: They find them asleep, peacefully asleep on the ship.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And they awake him and they say, Master, carest thou not that we perish?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think they said it very that calmly either.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: I can imagine the panic in their voice.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: When the Lord awoke, he rebuked the wind and the sea and he put a calmness on the sea.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then he upbraided them for their, he says, Oh yeah, why is it ye have no faith?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think, I don't think, that he was saying, Why don't you believe I can?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because their faith was strong enough to go to him.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: They knew he could.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Their lack of faith was in his care.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Their lack of faith was that they thought he didn't care.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: But see, his love for us has been displayed already in so many ways in our lives, but we get in the storm.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever that storm is, and we can only see the now, and we're we become like little children who might say, Lord, don't you care?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this psalmist says, I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: What I want you to understand from a spiritually mature standpoint is while we can't see everything, we should understand and know in all cases and all times that the Lord who cannot lie has told us that he loves us, that he has loved us with an everlasting love.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's manifest particularly in the person of Jesus Christ.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: John writes in 1 John, he says, Herein is love, not that we love him, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: That he sent Jesus Christ into this world to pay for our sins, so that we would be with him forevermore in heaven, that we would be with him.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that display of love should always be in the forefront of our minds so that when times, circumstances seem dark, we can look up and see the love of God in the person of the risen Savior Jesus Christ, who is seated right now and he hears your cries.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: We might think he does it here, but we should remember, we should be mature enough to understand that he always hears.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord cannot lie, and he's told us that he hears our prayers.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the psalmist writes in this psalm, the next verse says, Sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell got hold upon me.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: I found trouble and sorrow.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Then I called upon the name of the Lord, O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: It goes on to say that gracious is the Lord and righteous, yea, our God is merciful.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord preserveth the simple.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was brought low and he helped me.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we see the psalmist here is describing a deliverance that has occurred.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: He has received what he asked for.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so we can, okay, well then he loves God because God heard his cries.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: But we need to know that he always hears.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't always know that he hears.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we think he can't hear, and that is our childish thoughts.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm 77, the psalmist will portray it this way.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: If I have the right psalm, Psalm 77.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: This psalmist, I think the same psalmist, I think it's David, but he writes, I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice, and he gave ear unto me.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: So this is again writing this as if it's already the end, and he's telling us the story.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now he's going to start to tell us about that day or that night.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to tell us about the trouble he was in and how he felt during that time.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: He says, In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: My sore ran in the night and ceased not.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: My soul refused to be comforted.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: I've been there and I've had children who've been there.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it does not matter what I say.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: They refuse to be comforted.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, it's like, I want a thing.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: The answer is no.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: They're not comforted.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Then I give them the thing and they refuse to be comforted.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been there?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: I've been there.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I understand what this psalmist is writing.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what's going on with the psalmist.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: We don't, we're not told that all the way, but I've been here.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: He's letting us in on the darkness, right?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, I remembered God.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now that sounds like a good thing to do, but it's how you remember God that matters.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Here he says, I remembered God and was troubled.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's not how you would want this to go.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly, I have an opinion of what I think is going on with this psalmist right here in this moment, but I don't know for sure.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: But like I put myself in this place, and how many times have I had nighttime moments in my life where I remembered God and was troubled?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: What would cause that?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it would be remembering me and my sins against God that would cause that trouble.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Remembering God as a righteous and holy judge and thinking of me and my sinfulness makes me not want to approach God.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: It makes me feel troubled.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, that's just one possibility of what's going on here.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: But regardless, let's keep going through his trouble.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, Selah.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, Selah, just it's a pause, it's a rest.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's time to think about and contemplate what you just read.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: So let's do that for a second.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's complaining.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's troubled when he thinks about God.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he's laying here, if you'll allow me to say he's laying at night, because he says in the next verse, Thou holdest my eyes waking.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, he's having a sleepless night.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Thou holdest mine eyes waking.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Reach the point, ever, and who hasn't?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, reach this point where you're praying and you can't even figure out the words.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: I can't string together a sentence.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, that's that's definitely troubled, right?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: For if I can't string together, I can often string together incoherent sentences, at least incoherent sentences, but he says, I can't even speak.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Says, I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient time.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: I call to remembrance my song in the night.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: I commune with my own heart, and my spirit made diligent search.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: He's really contemplating it, but I want you to pull out, like, notice, I commune with my own heart.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's remembering God, but in a way that's troubling.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's communing with his own heart.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: So again, it makes me think he's putting God where he should, but he's putting himself where he is, and he sees the great distance.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: He's remembering God, but he's forgetting something very important about God.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: So then he asks some questions.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm 77, verse 7 says, Will the Lord cast off forever?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Will he be favorable no more?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Is his mercy cling on forever?
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Doth his promise fail forevermore?
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hath God forgotten to be gracious?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Another salah.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it's time to pause and think.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Of these questions, it sounds like, Master, carest thou not?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like asking, do you love me?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do you care?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see what I'm going through?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Have you forgotten your people?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he's asking himself.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I can see that again, from our broken standpoint, from our childish thinking sometimes, we can think that if I'm in the middle of this storm and I'm praying for the day, I'm praying for the light, I'm praying that this thing gets resolved, whatever it is, in the way that I would like it, and it's not, it's delaying or it's not, should we question the love of God?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: That seems to be what he's doing here.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Should we, how can we love God in that state?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: The next verse says, He says, and I said, this is my infirmity.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: So first thing is he realizes why he's thinking this way.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's not God's fault that he's thinking this way.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is, he's maturing here.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's realizing I'm the one who can't see the whole picture.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the one who can't understand everything.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the one who's looking at it from a me standpoint.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's his first stop and step on the way to reaching the conclusion that I would like for us all to be able to reach.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that is one of peace and comfort that God would provide for us.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: But we have to first understand that if we are ever questioning God's love for us, we're, that's our infirmity.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's not God.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: If we're ever questioning if he hears us, that's our infirmity, that's not God.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Then he says, but I remember, I will remember the years at the right hand of the Most High.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, I'm gonna think back and remember God a different way now.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of remembering that God is distant from me because he's holy and I'm not, rather, I'm gonna remember the times in my life that I felt him to be right there.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's I'm gonna think back to times that I knew that I was his and he's mine, and I felt his arms around me and his embrace.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was at the right hand of the Most High.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Have you had those times in your life?
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you have.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: You've all experienced times where God's presence was so real and so near that you felt him physically, as it were, right there with you.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: We've had it in this room, in this building, at times where the Spirit of God was so manifest, so present, that we felt like we weren't even here on this earth anymore, that we had been lifted up into a place above this world.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that for a little while all the storms were calm, all the troubles ceased.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't think about the tears and the pains in our lives, and we thought about rather the glory that our loved ones that we now know are seated at the right hand physically in heaven of God, that they are seeing his presence for real and actuality.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: What we just see through glass darkly, they see face to face.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we felt that though.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: We have been there.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm gonna remember that.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna think about that in the times that I think God doesn't hear me, and I'm gonna remember that if what God does, he doesn't change.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna remember things about God that He has drawn me nearer with His loving kindness.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna remember that God always answered, hears our prayers.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I will remember the works of the Lord.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's the next verse.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: I will remember the works of the Lord.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I'll remember times I prayed and God did answer those prayers.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: Miraculous prayer answers.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um we could go through, I could spend the whole morning talking about our experiences in this congregation of prayers offered up to God, where he showed the answer to that in such a miraculous and manifest way, and we have people literally walking among us as the answered prayers.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen that.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: What gets harder?
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or he goes on to say, I will meditate also of all thy works and talk of thy doing.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: That is important too, to tell one another about the works of God in our lives.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that stokes the fire.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: That stirs up the coals, it makes the love we have toward God burn brighter when we talk about the works of God in our lives.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Where it gets harder for me, and I'm sure I'm not alone, is either while my prayer is not yet fully manifested the answer, or when that answer isn't what I asked for.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: When that comes, did God hear me?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: In a mature mind, I know that the answer is yes, he heard.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he answered that prayer.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: David, the king, in 2 Samuel chapter 12, was facing a situation that as a parent is, it's not one I entertain the imagination on.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: But he was facing the loss of the life of his child.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now we won't go through the backstory of all that led up to it because it's not important to this point.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but he was facing his child's death, imminent death.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: And in some, in that chapter, he prayed.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh as is very obvious that you would imagine he would do.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: He prayed fervently, he prayed diligently for that child's life.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm not gonna read all of it, but you read in 2 Samuel chapter 12.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'll find where because he's told the child will die by a prophet.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: And in verse 16 of 2 Samuel chapter 12, it says, David therefore besought for the child.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: And David fasted, and he went in and he lay all night upon the earth.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this goes on to talk about the people, his servants, his elders of his house, they they try to get him to raise up, but he would not.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: They tried to get him to eat, he would not.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: He's laying just on the ground and fasting and praying.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: He is diligently crying to the Lord.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it came to pass on the seventh day, this is verse 18, that the child died.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: It says the servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: For they said, Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spake to him and he wouldn't hearken to our voice.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: But how he vexed, how will he vex himself now that the child is dead?
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: I can imagine how they felt.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: If he was that torn up praying while the child was sick and dying, what will he be like now?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: They were scared to go tell him.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: But David heard that.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: He heard the whisperings, he understood, he he he f he knew.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it says, David said unto his servants, Is the child dead?
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, Yes, he is dead.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: It says, then David arose from the earth and he washed and anointed himself, he changed his apparel, he came into the house of the Lord and worshipped.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then he came to his own house and he required, and they set down bread for him, and he did eat.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: This confused all the servants.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: So David, who had been fasting and praying and like on the ground and just like inconsolable, um, wouldn't eat.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now that the child is dead, he gets up, he he changes his clothes, he goes into the house of God and he worships.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I wonder what was David's view at that point about his prayers and God's hearing of the prayers.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think he knew God heard his prayers.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think he knew God answered his prayers.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: But David tells us what he wanted, what he prayed for in the next verse.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: When they asked him, why are you like, how are you being like this, David?
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: They said, What thing is this that thou hast done?
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thou didst fast and weep for the child while it was alive, but the child is dead, you rise up and eat bread.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: They're so confused.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: And David said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: For I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me that the child may live?
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we know what David was praying for.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: He says, But now he is dead.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: Wherefore should I fast?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Can I bring him back again?
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, There is no point now in that behavior that I was doing, which had a point at the time in fasting and praying, now there is something he's looking forward to instead.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, he says, I can't bring him back.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: So David understood something I failed to understand, and that is that David knew God heard his prayer.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: David knew God answered the prayer, but David knew that God knew more than he does, and that what he really was praying for, well, what you're really praying for when you're praying for a loved one who's sick, is that they would be delivered from that sickness.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that's in a way that they get to be in your presence again again, and sometimes that's in a way in which you will go to them someday.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: That sometimes is the hard answer for us in our broken frame, but it doesn't make it the wrong answer that God heard that cry, He heard that prayer, He answers those prayers.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have to look at it through the lens that God would have us to look through.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: Paul writes about a thorn in his flesh in 2 Corinthians.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: That um, I don't know what the thorn was, I have an opinion, but that's not the point either in this message.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's they it's his prayer was that the thorn be removed.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: Three times he prayed it.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that was three short prayers, that was three long nights, if you'll let me say it that way.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: Three nights of his eyes being held awake, three nights of his communing, and hopefully not with his own heart, but with God, and asking that that thorn in his flesh be removed.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what God says to Paul, he says to David, and he says to you and to me, he says, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: The grace of God will sustain us through all the trials we have in our lives.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: There are so many.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: But the the it does not matter what the case is, the grace of God is sufficient for that.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: What we need to remember in the middle of those times is the past blessings that show that God is with us.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: So we understand that a God who never changes is always going to be there and hear our prayers.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, David went into the house of God and he worshiped.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: In our psalm that we were starting with, he says, I love him because he heard me.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can always worship God because he always is hearing you.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: Even when that answer is not what we would have.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: We should understand that he has heard us.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore, David says, I will call on him as long as I live.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as we go back to Psalm 116 to close this message this morning, David said, or the psalmist says, Return, verse 7, return unto thy rest, O my soul.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's a rest found in the believing God and His promises.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that rest is something we should return to when we're in the middle of that storm in life, and we think God doesn't hear us, or God, do you care?
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: Return to your rest, he says, O my soul.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: For the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: Then he says this, for thou hast delivered my soul from death.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: And certainly in David's case, he had delivered him from natural death at the hands of his father-in-law, at the hands of his own son, Absalom, at the hands of many enemies.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: But every one of us, God has delivered our soul from death, from eternal death through the work of Jesus Christ and the being born again of his spirit.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's delivered your soul from death.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: He says, mine eyes from tears.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: There have been times in my life that the Lord has delivered my eyes from tears.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: He's delivered me out of sorrows in my lives.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that at this present time.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: He says, and my feet from falling.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now I can tell you from personal experience how many times my feet, as the psalmist in another place says, what nigh well slipped.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was this close to slipping away from following after the Lord, and the Lord delivered my feet from falling.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: I believe I have believed, I believed, therefore I have spoken.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: I said I was going to close with this.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but basically he's saying, here's what I believe, and here's what I'll say about it.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say what I believe.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do what I believe.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: The times that God doesn't give us what we need, we shouldn't act like a child who doubts the love of God, and we shouldn't, therefore, withhold our love and action toward God.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: We should rather remember God always hears, he always loves, he always cares, and therefore we can show our love to God.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: The next verse says, What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think he's hearkening back to his own experience.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think this psalm is at the end of David's life, and he's thinking back to even that moment when he knew God heard him.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: But now he's going to view the death of that child through God's eyes, not his own.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: And he's able to say, I'll go to him.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: He can't come to me because God took him home.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: Precious in the eyes of the Lord of the death of his saints.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I will pay my vows to him.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: I will show my love to him.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: I will go into the house of God and worship.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'll do that in the presence of his people.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: Where you can stoke the fire of my love for God, I can help you, and we can provoke one another in that way.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we have the church to help one another in our love and worship toward God.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the time this morning.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: I pray that the Lord would bless this.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: If there's anything that I said amiss, you lay that at my charge.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: We'll stand and sing a hymn.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: And anyone that wishes to join Grace Church, you have that opportunity now.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: Do we have a number?
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: 291.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: Number 291.