Praying to Find Strength

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Transcript:

Tonight I want to look at praying to find strength, praying to find strength that only comes from God. If you will recall back to Sunday morning last week, I spoke on Gideon and what God did in the situation of using Gideon to drive the Midianites out of Israel. And I think back on that story, and I told you then that I had preached on that story many times, And that story just has so many applications because I thought of another one tonight.

As I was thinking on this subject of praying to find strength and the strength that we need and the strength that only God can give. You know, there are so many situations in life that only God has the strength to handle. That only God has the strength we need to handle them.

And I thought of Gideon and his 300 soldiers, which granted he started out with a lot more. I should remember it was just last week, but I want to say 32,000 soldiers. And then he had to give some up and give some more up and ended up with 300.

There is no way, there is no way that Gideon was smart enough. I mean, and he may have been a brilliant man, but I just know that by human intelligence, there’s no way that anybody, Gideon included, was smart enough to pull off the victory he did with 300 men. There’s no way that 300 men were strong enough to defeat the Midianites the way they did.

And the reason that God told Gideon to winnow his army down to 300 was so that when the victory was won, people would look on it and say that had to be something God did. And there are some things that only God has the strength to accomplish. I don’t think there’s anyone in here probably who would dispute that because we realize that God is stronger than any of us and God is stronger than all of us.

And yet we forget that sometimes in our lives when we think that we are supposed to carry everything ourselves. I’ve talked to you before about that self-reliance streak that runs through our country that really is a good thing in a great many aspects. And I’m afraid it’s something that our country is losing, learning to take care of yourself and stand on your own two feet.

But when it comes to spiritual things, I think we’ve let that bleed over too much and too many people are trying to do it on their own, whether it’s handle their burdens by themselves without help from God, And quite frankly, far too many, and it’s a sad thing, far too many are trying to get to heaven on their own apart from God. There are some things that we just need to accept we can’t do on our own. And I’ve said many times, I don’t know if I’ve said it here or not, none of you have complained to me about me saying it.

But I’ve said many times over the years that I, you know, even though I have said it in the past, I don’t believe the old saying that God never gives us more than we can handle. I don’t believe that at all. I got in trouble, I’ll tell you why I got in trouble for saying that in Fayetteville.

But I said, I don’t believe that, I don’t believe that’s true at all. Many times I have had more than I could handle, more than I could handle, not only more than I could take care of myself, but more put on my plate than even I could hold on to. And so I don’t buy for a minute the idea that we’re never given more than we can handle, but I also don’t believe God gives us more than he can handle.

Now, the reason I say I got in trouble for saying that, that was part of a message I preached in Fayetteville. And one of the ladies, and I understood where she was coming from, a very sweet lady, came up to me afterwards and said, Brother Jared, I just don’t agree with what you said. I mean, I don’t think it’s biblical. I said, well, show me.

And she starts telling me about the verse in the Bible that says God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can handle. I said, well, that’s talking about temptation. That’s completely different.

So, you know, I’m not going to argue with the Bible. If God says he won’t let us be tempted beyond what we can stand, then I agree with that. But what I’m talking about here are just the trials of life, the difficulty, the circumstances.

Sometimes life throws things at us that are more than we can bear. I’m not talking about temptations at all. But sometimes the trials and circumstances of life are just more than we can deal with.

And we need strength that only God can give because he never gives us more than he can handle. And so we go to Psalm chapter 28 tonight. We’re just going to look at a few verses.

I know I say this and it never works out this way, but I really do think this will be a brief message tonight. But David writes in Psalm chapter 28, and I’m going to start from the beginning of the chapter, and then we’re going to focus in on the last four verses. He says, starting in verse 1, Unto thee will I cry, O Lord my rock, be not silent to me, lest if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.

And what he’s basically saying there, he’s crying out to God in his time of distress and saying, I guess if we were going to put it in our American vernacular, I’ll just die if you don’t talk to me. If I don’t hear from you, I’m just going to die. And so he says in verse 2, Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hand toward the holy oracle.

Now, when he says oracle, we think a lot of times of like the Greek oracles, the oracle of Delphi, if you heard about that at any point, where they would go in and it’s some kind of priestess who would go into a trance and then tell them the future. The Bible uses the word oracles several times, and never ever does it mean that. The word oracle just means a way that God speaks to us.

Now the ancient Greeks called it the oracle at Delphi because they believed that the gods were speaking through that priestess. When the Bible uses the word oracles, when the men who wrote the Bible used the word oracles, a lot of times they are speaking of the Bible itself. Paul wrote about how it was to the Jews that were committed the oracles of God.

What he meant by that was the Old Testament scriptures were a product of the Jewish people, that God had used holy men that he set apart for his purpose, and God had spoken his word through them. And so when it’s talking here about lifting up his hand, I said all that to make sure you understand. When David’s talking about lifting up his hands toward the holy oracle, he’s not talking about going and seeing some magician or some fortune teller.

like the Greeks would think of that word. What he’s really talking about is seeking God and seeking some kind of word from God. He says, draw me not away with the wicked and with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbors, but mischief is in their hearts.

Lord, don’t toss me away with all the wicked people around me. And not that David was saying he was perfect, but David, you know, we can look at David and he didn’t live a blameless life by any stretch of the imagination. And yet the Bible calls him a man after God’s own heart.

Now God’s standard for how we get to heaven is perfection. And none of us live up to it. God’s standard is absolute holiness, absolute sinless perfection.

But God, as far as what he’s looking for from his servants, once we’ve been cleansed, once we’ve been justified, once our sins have been forgiven, God wants us to aim for perfection. But I think God also understands that we’re not going to be there on this side of heaven. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have sent his son.

He understands that we cannot meet up to his standards. But there’s a big difference between saying, I can’t meet up to God’s standards, so I’m just not even going to try. There’s a big difference between that and saying, I’m still going to aim as high as I can, and when I miss, I’m going to get right with God.

And so David contrasts himself here with the wicked around him and says, you know, they’re out there and they’re running amok. And me, here with all my sin, I still try and I still get right with God. There’s a difference because David always came back and confessed his sin.

And so he says, don’t toss me out with them. And he’s referring to people around him who were causing trouble. He said, those who speak peace to their neighbors, but mischief is in their hearts.

Well, we’ve all experienced that probably at some time. Somebody around us who acts like they’re our friend or acts like they have good intentions and turns out they’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing. You can’t always tell.

And he says, but there are those people, those who are working evil, and God, don’t lump me in with them. He said in verse 4, give them according to their deeds and according to the wickedness of their endeavors. Give them after the work of their hands, render them to their desert.

And he’s basically saying just give them what they deserve, which is a hard thing to pray because none of us want what we deserve. There are none of us who should be. We need to be very careful about praying for justice for other people because we don’t want it for ourselves.

I mean, God is just, but thank God he’s also merciful, because I know for a fact I don’t want what I do deserve. And yet he says here what they were doing was so egregious, he was able to say, yes, God, justice for those who are after me. Because they regard not the works of the Lord, nor the operation of his hands, he shall destroy them and not build them up.

And so we come to a point in Psalm 28, whereas he was so many times in his life, and for that reason I’m not sure which point in David’s life he’s at at this point. But he’s at a point where he is conflicted because he trusts God. And even though he’s a sinful, fallen man, he’s trying to serve God and do the best he can as a believer in God.

And yet he is surrounded by trouble. He’s surrounded by difficulties of life. And so many times that gets to be more than we can handle.

And we need look no further than David’s own life. And I’ve given the example so many times. David sinned grievously with Bathsheba and then killing her husband.

And in doing so, even though God forgave him, he still brought consequences on David’s family for the rest of David’s life. You’ve got one of David’s sons attacking one of his daughters. You’ve got another son trying to kill him and steal the throne.

On top of that, you’ve got people in the country who weren’t happy with him in power struggles and you’ve got people from outside trying to invade and overthrow him. David, you know, David was a man after God’s own heart and God loved David, but David, it doesn’t seem like had many moments of peace throughout his life. And so he’s in another situation where, I don’t know about y’all, but I would just be ready to throw in the towel at some points in David’s life.

I’d just be ready to say, okay, God, why don’t you just take me because this is getting to be too much. And we may have been, some of you may have been in places like that before where you think, Why don’t you just stop all this? Lord, just take me home.

We get to those points. We get to those points where it seems like everything that life has dealt us is more than we can handle. And yet, praise God, there’s nothing too big for him to handle.

He never gives us anything bigger than he can handle. David turns in verse 6 and says, Blessed be the Lord, because he hath heard the voice of my supplications. So David recognizes, you know, it’s easy when we’re in difficult times to just sit down and pity ourselves and say, nobody cares about me, God’s not answering my prayers, God’s not doing this, I don’t have this, and think about all the negative things.

But David sits down and realizes that when he has prayed and asked God to do something, God has answered those prayers. Now, we have no reason to think that God always answered David’s prayers exactly the way he prayed them, that God always gave David everything he ever wanted, Because I’m sure David prayed, God, would you let go of this consequence a little bit you’ve given me and straighten my family out? And we don’t see anywhere that God answered that prayer.

And yet God always took care of David. And so God was answering his prayers whether he was getting exactly what he wanted or not. And David resisted this temptation, this urge to sit down and be depressed and whine about God’s treatment of him.

And instead says, blessed be the Lord because he’s heard the voice of my supplications. God, when I look at it, when I think about what he’s done, God really has heard and answered my prayers. Things haven’t turned out the way I wanted or expected, but God has heard and answered.

He says in verse 7, The Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart trusted in him, and I am helped. Therefore, my heart greatly rejoiceth, and with my song will I praise him.

So David’s whole attitude here is one of, I’m still here, and God is the reason for that. that even with all these difficulties that are going on in David’s life, he was still there. And, you know, sometimes I’ll ask people, how are you?

Like when I go to Southgate, how are you? And there are a couple of men who I can predict what they’re going to say because they say the same things every time. There’s one who always tells me when I say, how are you?

He says, I’m finer than frogs here. I thought for a long time, what does that mean? Finally figured out what it means.

There are others who will say, well, I’m upright. Does that mean you’re a good person? Oh, no, it means you’re alive.

They haven’t lowered you into the ground yet. Okay, I get this. And there are people who will say similar things.

How are you? Well, I’m alive and kicking. Stuff like that.

There’s something to that attitude that no matter how dismal things appear, the breath that I just took in and let out was because of God. I’m still here on earth for whatever reason, for whatever reason God has kept me around and he is the one who has kept me around. If I have a heartbeat, if I have breath, no matter how weak or difficult either of them may be, there is still a reason to praise God because he has blessed me with those things.

And David here says, the Lord is my strength and my shield. It was God who gave him the strength in his times of weakness. It was God who had protected him.

It really, for David, it literally was, well, I guess it literally is for all of us, but in a more concrete and visible way, was God who was the reason that David was still alive. At any point, I have never had, As far as I know, I’ve never had anyone out to kill me. Hopefully you never have either.

David, that was just the normal course of his life ever since he was a young man. Somebody, it seems like, was always trying to kill David. And so the reason I say it literally is for all of us, God, the reason we’re still alive, is because every heartbeat, every breath we take is from him.

But for David, it was a little more visible that he had this uncanny knack for cheating death at every turn, And it was God who kept him alive in spite of all the people trying to kill him. And so when David said, the Lord is my strength and my shield, he meant that. He said, my heart trusted in him and I am helped.

And therefore, my heart greatly rejoiceth. And with my song will I praise him. Then he turns and speaking of God’s people, he says in verse 8, the Lord is their strength and he is the saving strength of his anointed.

You know, he was speaking of Israel, I believe, but I think it applies to us as well today. I have every reason to believe it applies to us today as the people of God, as those who trusted in Christ. The Bible talks about us being grafted into Israel. And some, maybe not all, but some of the promises that he gave to Israel, I believe, extend to us.

And that’s one of them, that God is going to preserve us and watch over us. And it says in verse 8, the Lord is their strength, and he is the saving strength of his anointed. He says in verse 9, save thy people and bless thine inheritance.

Feed them also and lift them up forever. So that’s the end of the passage. A few things that we can take from this as far as our reasons for praying for strength.

I mentioned at the beginning that God never gives us more than he can handle. Sometimes our strength will run out. Sometimes the burdens that we seem to have to carry through life are just more than.

. . It’s not even just that I can’t walk all the way down the road, but I need to with it.

I can’t even pick it up to get that far. But when our strength runs out, God is there strong enough to get us through the things that we need to get through. And he waits, just like with David.

David talks about the voice of his supplications. He’s crying out to God and asking for help. That’s prayer.

And God oftentimes is there ready and waiting, ready and waiting to pick up the burden and walk with us if we’ll just ask him to. It says in Isaiah chapter 40, a passage many of you probably know, that he giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youth shall be faint and weary, and the young men shall utterly fail, that they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, and they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.

Now, Isaiah was speaking specifically of the people of Israel, I believe coming back from the time of captivity. But there’s an application to us as well, because the same thing is taught in the New Testament when Jesus said that if any are weary and heavy laden, let him come unto me and I will give him rest, talks about his yoke being easy and his burden light. God gives strength and rest and peace to us when we need it, when the burden is more than we can carry.

And so a few things from this passage. First of all, God can defend his people and deliver them from destruction. When we get into circumstances and situations in life when we don’t have the strength to go on, When we don’t have the strength to carry the burden or to deal with the difficulty that’s faced with us, when we’re threatened with just being wiped out with the burdens that we have to bear, God is able to defend his people and to deliver us from destruction.

He says in verse 9, David calls out to God, save thy people. Now this wasn’t a plea as though God had to be convinced to save his people. David here really, I think, is calling out to God about what he knew God was going to do.

Sometimes I will pray and pray about something and thank God in advance for what we know he’s going to do. Because there are some things that are revealed in God’s word to be his will. And some things that we know he’s going to do.

And sometimes we don’t know the exact way he’s going to do it. But we always know that he’s going to ultimately work things out for our good and his glory. And so we can thank God in advance for the things that he’s going to do.

I believe that’s what David’s doing here when he says saved by people. He’s not twisting God’s arm. I think he’s acknowledging what God has already said he’s going to do.

That word save, we always think of it as salvation. And there’s part of that as well. We think of it as the eternal salvation, the forgiveness of sin, the eternal life in heaven.

But so many times the words save and deliver are used interchangeably in the Bible. And he can be speaking of delivering the people of Israel from the trouble that they’re going to be faced with. Delivering David himself from the trouble that he was going to be faced with.

And folks, our greatest problem is sin. And boy, he delivered us from that, didn’t he? Through the shed blood and the death of Jesus Christ, he once and for all delivered those who will trust in him from that burden of sin.

And if he can deliver us from the burden of sin, there’s no burden he can’t deliver us from. That’s not to say he always will. Sometimes he says, no, you need to carry this a little ways for a reason.

But God can all together take the burden away and deliver us from what threatens to destroy us. So first of all, this evening, God can defend his people and deliver them from destruction. Good reason to pray to God when we need the strength to go on.

Second of all, God can sanctify his people unto himself. Because David prays in verse 9, bless thine inheritance. Now you may wonder what sanctification has to do with the strength to go on.

There is something to be said about this verse for the idea that God sets us apart as his people. It’s taught throughout the Bible, and I know I’ve given this explanation here for what the Bible calls sanctification, that it’s something ongoing through the rest of our lives. God continues to shape us and mold us and conform us to be more like Jesus Christ. Sanctification is an ongoing process, but sanctification is also instant, that at the moment we are converted, at the moment we trust Christ, we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and we are set apart, and God says, He’s mine.

He’s mine now. And for that reason, the Bible says that no man can pluck him out of my head. One of the reasons I believe in eternal security.

I don’t believe in a God who’s so weak that he can sanctify us and say, they’re mine, and then somebody come and snatch us away from him. I don’t believe that’s what the Bible teaches. But he talks here about the people of Israel being God’s inheritance.

Well, when something is your inheritance, you’re going to own it. And the people of Israel belong to God. He had said long ago, you are mine.

Now, what’s that have to do with strength? There are days when you feel that you can’t go on. And I’m not talking about, I’m just saying, you can’t go on carrying this burden.

It gets to be too much. You think, God, what am I going to do? I’m just going to stop.

I’m just going to sit down right here. There are days that we don’t have the strength to go on, and it’s an encouragement that God looks at us and says, you are mine. And you know what?

I think of the, you never know what story I’m going to come up with. I’m sorry. I think of the old, is it Tom and Jerry cartoons, where the cat’s always chasing the mouse.

I seem to remember one with a little bulldog puppy that makes friends with the mouse. Some of you may remember which one I’m talking about. Makes friends with the mouse, and the cat’s trying to catch it, and he’s bullying the little puppy and the mouse.

And he doesn’t see that behind him is the big dog, is the puppy’s dad. And I even thought as a child, you don’t want to mess with that little puppy, because he belongs to him. That’s his daddy.

When you mess with the puppy, you mess with the big dog. And no, I’m not calling God a big dog. But I’m saying there’s only so much the world can do to us because of who we belong to.

There’s only so much the world can do to us because God says they’re mine. That is my inheritance. As much as he had bought Israel through his covenant and paid for Israel through his covenant, how much more did he buy and pay for us with the blood of his son?

I mean, the Bible tells us that we are bought with a price. We are not our own. We belong to him.

And so we go through these times of great difficulty and think, how can I go on? I can’t stand this anymore. And God reminds us, you’re mine.

You belong to me. And not only is there some protection in that, but there’s the knowledge that he’s not going to abandon us in times of difficulty, times of trouble, that we never have to walk through these times alone. Third of all this evening, God can nourish and discipline his people so they will grow.

David prays in verse 9, feed them also. Well, there’s a very simple principle there. You don’t feed something, it doesn’t grow.

You don’t feed it, actually eventually it’s going to die. People tell me after seeing my kids, or after having not seen my kids for a few weeks, oh, they’re getting so big. I said, yeah, we keep feeding them.

I’ve probably said that to some of y’all. Yeah, we keep feeding them and they keep doing that. Well, that’s what happens.

You feed something and it grows stronger. I mean, if you feed it the right things, you feed something, it grows stronger, it grows healthier, it grows bigger. And when we’re without strength, God is able to nourish us.

And he has strength enough and he has exactly what we need. And he has exactly, well, not exactly. He has more than enough to give us so that he can nourish us and nourish us and discipline us so that we can grow stronger in his service.

Now there will always be on this side of heaven burdens that we can’t carry, burdens that we can’t carry without him. But as time goes by, as we rely on him, as we call out to him, he feeds us spiritually and otherwise until we are stronger and stronger and healthier in his service. And so when we’re without strength, we sometimes need to call out to God and ask him to feed his people.

And again, not as though we have to twist his arm to do so because he’s made clear his intentions for that. Finally this evening, God can preserve his people from peril. Now what’s that have to do with running out of strength?

Sometimes I am so out of strength that I just pray, God, would you just keep me out of stuff altogether? And you know what, sometimes I mentioned earlier, sometimes God will make us go through the carrying of the burden for whatever reason, for a lesson or to test us or for whatever reason. But sometimes God is gracious, well, God is always gracious to us.

But sometimes God is gracious in the sense that he realizes we really are afraid, that we really are at the end of our ability to carry anything. And we can call out to him and say, can you just, Lord, if you see something else coming down the road, can you just steer it clear of me? And sometimes he’ll do that.

Sometimes he’ll do that. Ladies and gentlemen, sometimes we don’t even know the things that he’s preserved us from. David says in verse 9 here, lift them up forever.

you know what when trouble is is swirling around here on the on the earth there’s no place we should rather be I don’t know if that’s the right way to say that or not but I think there’s no place that would be preferable to us we should desire no place more than for god to to lift us up in his arms and hold us out of harm’s way to be lifted up by god forever you know what we we don’t even and probably never will see or understand all the trouble all the peril that he’s preserved us from But God knows and God sees the trouble that comes our way. And sometimes he says, I know you can’t handle that, so I’m going to carry the burden for you and with you as you go through this. And sometimes God says, I know you can’t handle that, so I’m going to pick you up out of it altogether.

Folks, we serve a God who is incredibly awesome in power. I mean, the more I think about it, the more I cannot conceive of a power so great that he just spoke everything into existence. I mean, there was nothing before, and suddenly because he spoke, not only the earth is here, but on a grander scale, the whole universe is here, things that the human eye has never seen, even through telescopes, is here, that God made all of it.

And on a minute scale, the atoms and the protons, neutrons, and electrons that make everything up that are so small, nobody saw them until the last hundred years or so. And they’re still discovering whether or not there are smaller things that organize all of that, that God spoke those into existence as well. And God spun all of this into, all of this chaos into order.

That’s an incredible amount of power. There is nothing, hear me on this, there is nothing that he can’t handle. There is so much, there is so much that I can’t handle.

So much that you can’t handle. And yet we think we’re supposed to be self-reliant and take care of it on ourselves and we turn to God as a last resort. When really our daily mode of operation, our daily habit should be to go to God and say, my strength is down here, and I know yours is off the charts, and would you strengthen me for the day?

Would you walk with me? Would you handle the things that I can’t handle? It takes a great amount of faith.

We really don’t have control over that much. It takes a great deal of faith to give up even the idea that we have control. We don’t like to let go of control even though we don’t have it, and say, God, would you handle this?

But honestly, even though that’s hard for me as well, it shouldn’t require that much faith, because we already know the God we serve, and we know He can handle it so much better than we can.