3. Crying Out To God - A Key to Your Rescue

Psalm 107 provides an amazing template for expressing our needs and pain to God. Learn four life situations that God expressly says he rescues in. 

"Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. "

Transcript

Hey, I'm Josh Hallmark. And I want to thank you for listening to one of the Oaks podcast. Remember this message from Isaiah chapter 61. God takes the seeds of brokenness and turns them in the Oaks of righteousness, and that you are talking about the heart, the heart, and you guys might remember the verse, I think I might even have it here. Last week, we talked about how to have an honest heart, I gave you three easy steps, and having an honest heart. And this is kind of in our key verse that we've been looking at Psalm 51 six says, Behold, you delight and truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. And, and what this stems from is the idea of us having truth on the inside of us, and not just appearing to have truth on the outside of us, you would call this integrity for us to be the same on the outside and on the inside. And so would it be nice to just be who you are? Well, that's what the Lord ultimately wants from us. He wants us to be who we are, he wants us to be like him on the inside. And like He created us to be on the outside. And so the three things that we talked about, and I'm basically I'm gonna pick up on point number three this week. But just a little review, let me say this one more thing real quick about the heart. So Rob, share this Word with us this morning about Sanyo. assan, that is, lift up your head, Psalm 24. Oh, you gate so that the kingdom of King of glory may come in. And it's his idea, this word that Rob is sharing about opening up your eyes looking up and seeing the Lord and one thing that thought about while he was sharing that is the verse in Revelation where Jesus said, Behold, I stand the door, knock, and if any man will hear my voice and open up, then I will come in and I will sup with him. Say Sup? That actually means to eat to fellowships like supper, it means it's a relational term. And I was just, I just couldn't get past the thought of this. And, you know, Paul said, Sometimes these are the words, lords. And sometimes he said, these are my words. Well, this is just my opinion. Okay. So this is just a thought I had, I think that the human spirit that what we're made up is far more sophisticated than what we realize. And I honestly believe the kingdom of God is this thing that's out in a dimension somewhere, there's, you know, there's like, it's in the ninth dimension, let's say, or the 10th, dimension, whatever, that the heaven is a real place. They're angels, there's demons, there's a spirit world, if you will. And but I also I saw believe the kingdom of heaven is somewhere and we're supposed to bring the kingdom on earth isn't heaven. But I believe there's a dimension of the kingdom, Jesus said, The kingdom is within you. And I believe that there is a there's a dimension of the kingdom that is inside of us, where our heart lives. And just like Jesus sits upon the throne in heaven, I believe there's a place in us in our heart, where he sits upon the throne of our lives and our hearts. And this is why the heart is so important. It is the heart that Jesus died for, he wants, not just our lip service, right? He doesn't want and he doesn't want us to conform to a set of rules or these ideas. He's not trying to teach us a principle about how to be a better person. But Jesus is actually interested in winning the very deepest of us, our hearts, and that's where he wants to rule and reign from and I was just thinking about what Rob shared about, lift up your his open up your gates, so that the King of glory may come in, think of that as a metaphor for your heart. And you're the one saying self open up to him. Let let the King of glory come in. And what this made me think of is that we've been dealing with the heart and we're talking about having been honest with ourselves, about where we are dealing with our pain, dealing with our hurt, then with our sadness, our loneliness, all these things. But the end result is not just so that our hearts healed, but so that our heart is open to receive the King of glory. Amen. That's good stuff. That's the that's what we're doing. We're trying to make room for Jesus. It's like he doesn't cohabitate with sin or pain or all that stuff. So we're trying to deal so that he can have a place to see it and where we can actually experience with so in sup with him, right so we can enjoy him. So the hearts an important thing and that's the first thing we talked about last week was that first of all we have to care about our heart, we have to see that our heart really is worth caring for. And proverbs 423 says, above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. So if you want to ask why you're doing what you're doing, I would say there's something in your heart that's going on specially repeated behavior. And so we want to see our heart with great value, our heart is worth a lot. Now, part number two was to feel your heart. The mistake that we make so much is that we feel pain or we feel something in our heart. And our first reaction is to try to make it stop. Actually, we don't necessarily want to make it stop. We want to make it shut up. Right? We are the ibuprofen generation army. What do you do you have headaches, kratom, ibuprofen, and suffer through it? Do you feel better? Right? Well, you can't do that for your heart. Especially Let me tell you guys, this metaphor I heard this week, you know, you if you ever heard the term is water under the bridge. And that's something that sometimes we use little words to help ourselves not quite embrace the gravity of what we're dealing with and let it go. Of course, we want to forgive things right? We will. So you could say that being gracious to someone. But I heard somebody say this is actually from this book, voice of the heart, he said water under the bridge is going somewhere. And if you don't deal with the water under the bridge, it's all moving towards a dam. And at some point, if you don't deal with the water under the bridge, that dam is gonna break and your life's gonna be what comes apart when the dam breaks. And so it's very, very important for us to let the Lord get to our hearts, and not just sighs we're on the bridge, but that's actually water that's going through heavens filtration plant, right, we're letting we're letting the Lord deal with that. And so you want to feel your pain. You don't want to just numb your pain, what blocks us from feeling our heart. It's the things that we medicate it with, right. buisiness that's one of the biggest things that Americans medicate their pain with. I would say emerging generation is video games. Work religion, right? Some of us use religion, to dull the pain of our heart. Religion is not the same as relationship with Jesus, right? Music, TV, social media, some of us throw ourselves into our kids. And we don't have time to think about anything else. Because we're just thinking about our kids or the next ballgame or the next, this or recital or that or that. And we totally in not those aren't bad things, right. But we we miss feeling our hearts because of business on social media. You guys, I want to tell you something. I watched this thing on Netflix this past week. And or not this past week, but recently, it's a new documentary, but it talks about the psychology of social media. And like this right here. They actually have all kinds of artificial intelligence, that's tracking what you're doing, and they're trying to come up with something that's gonna keep your keep scrolling, right. It's all built around advertising. It's all built around money. So it's a it's a it's a, is it a it's a capital capital listing? venture? Gone? Crazy. And so you just keep scrolling my phone's dead right now. But you just keep scrolling, right? Because the but what if there's a psychology to it, that your brain desires something new. And so it's continually there's always the promise of something new coming up. And it's really just a hook you so you can see those ads. And but what that does, is that dulls the pain of your heart is what I'm trying to tell you. When you stop doing that stuff and you start feeling pain. That's a good moment. Okay. When you start feeling pain, it's a good moment. We talked last week about going to the doctor doctor telling you where it hurts. That's a big deal to be able to say or it hurts to talk about latia breaking his collarbone. And the reason he knew is broken is because it hurt. And that's what helps and that's why we need our feelings. We need to be able to be self aware enough to know how we feel. If we feel hurt. I want to tell you something. I've been practicing this now the first half of the week. I did pretty good second half of the week. I didn't do very good, but I will tell you something the first half of the week. I was crying Every day, you know what I would do? I would get this thing out. And I was writing down how I feel. And when I start becoming a how I feel angry about this, I feel sad about this. It's weird last night I was practicing this. And first I had stuff going, and I stopped everything. So that couldn't hear anything. And because I was just thinking, anyway, when I got steel, and started thinking, How do I feel right now, my mind immediately started going back to when I was 13, I moved in with my dad for my mom, when I was 13. I moved from Gainesville, Georgia, over to Boaz, Alabama, two completely different worlds. And for some reason, my mind was going into that, and I have I talked about last year, when he broke his collarbone, he's turning 13. Next week, for some reason, seeing his age. And thinking about that to the point where I made a big transition, my life moved from Little my mom and my dad. And for some reason, I just started feeling vulnerable. But all of a sudden, I'm there. But you can't do that. So that helps me. All I'm saying is, I was sniffing something that the Lord may be wanting to deal with. Right. But you can't do that if your brain is always go. And that's why solitude is so vital for us to be able to hear ourselves think that's not all, right? You don't want, you don't want to just do it all on your own. Okay. I had a dream. I've had a couple dreams in my lifetime, where I was doing surgery, but I had a dream A few months ago, where I was trying to get to something. And I was literally on this operating table out in this courtyard. And I started like cutting myself putting body parts around the table. And then I cut my heart out. And I put it over here and said it. And I was trying to get to something inside me. And then I realized, oh, man, I should have done this. I got the doctor. And I tried to call ginger and our phone went to voicemail. And then I thought, you know, I'm notorious for like, opening up a machine or something, you know, or a tractor or something to try to fix it. And sometimes I've got a golf cart that's been sitting there for about a year, I changed the, the, the what's called the piston rings, or is that what you got? Michael, I changed the piston rings, but I hadn't been able to get it back together yet. So I got to the middle of it. Just like I did in that dream. I my heart was out. And I remember thinking, my heart. I can't last very long without it. And then I started getting real weak, and I got weak faster than what I realized. And whole points. So this is not just a journey for you to take on your own. Okay, I think that might be the point of the Lord. But we have we have a vital role in it. But we need the doctor, we need Jesus, okay, we need him. And we also need other people to help us with this. And so this gives to the next part is that we want to express our heart. And so you gotta you got to feel the pain First of all, but once you feel the pain, then you've got to do something with it. This is where you're actually aiming at God. And so here's three different people that you need to talk to, you need to talk to yourself, this has got you got to be involved with it, okay. But you've got to include God in on this. And you've got to include others in this whole process. So anyway, what today I want to talk to you more about is getting your pain to God. Okay? Being able to feel where you are, and get it to God. And so the title of my talk today is crying out. I'm gonna try to do this quickly. Okay. crying out to God. This is the first question that God asked abney once they made a mistake, is where are you when they sin? Yes. Where are you? This is the question I'll ask you today. This is a question I want you to ask yourself. If you don't know where you are, then that means you're lost. And the only thing worse than being lost is being lost and not knowing you're lost. That's even worse, right? So you need to if you're lost, you need to at least be self aware that you're lost. But if you don't know where you are, so you need to find yourself okay? So real quick for places that you want to crap the God from Okay, this is where you need to know your there's four different places. And I'm using Psalm 107 today as a template for for how to cry out so crying out to God means you're like hell, right? That's what crying out to God is crying out to God is not. It now it is if you're barely you know, if your wick is not on fire, it's just barely smoke and that that might work. Look, if you're in turmoil, you've got a crowd that God you've got to communicate to him your need. And here's the greatest thing and this is what I'm going to show you today is that the Lord will actually respond to your cry, even if you're crying out in pain, okay? So this is if you have your Bibles in Psalm 107, okay? And I'm going to tell you four places and this Psalm is going to guide us for places to cry out from Okay, the first place is the cry of our own need. And this is um, this is Psalm one, oh said I'm gonna repeat the whole song, I'm going to go fast. Okay. It says, Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good is loving, there's forever let the redeemed of the Lord say this, those he redeemed from the hand of the fo. Those he gathered in from the lands from the east, the West, the north and the south. And I'm going to say that you guys are included in the ones that he has gathered in from East, North and West. Okay, so let the redeemed Lord say so. And now he breaks off through this whole conglomerate of peoples gathered in. It says some of them wondered in the wastelands. Finding no way into the city where they could settle. They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives Abdoulaye. This is a category. This is a situation you find yourself in where you're in need, you're in the desert, you got to know Oh, I'm in a place where some of my needs have not been met. And I've got to be able to call especially hunger and thirst. This is a good thing. How do you feel? I feel thirsty. I feel hungry. Did you know your longings actually can help communicate where you are in life? It says that some they they wandered in the desert wasteland finding no way to the city where they could settle they were hungry and thirsty, their lives egged away. But guess what, when they cried out to the Lord, in trouble, he delivered them from their distress Can you say cried out? When they cried out, he delivered them from their distress, he led them straightaway to a city where they could settle. It goes on to say let them thank him for this. He led them straightaway. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love because he satisfies, say satisfies, he satisfies the thirsty and feels the hungry with good things. So this is a representation of God's character. When we cry out to the next part, this is a psalm that we're looking through. So David's saying there's lots of people who rescued north, south, east and west, some of them were in the desert. The next thing he says is, some of them were in addiction. By the way, let me say this real quick, crying out. It requires you getting in touch with your pain. If your pain is just numb, you don't feel the need to cry. And so, apathy. This is another slide I have later, but I'm going to tell you what it says, apathy is an enemy to your heart. apathy is that place in you where you say, there's no reason to really try anymore. I'm afraid that if I try, I'm gonna be disappointed. And so apathy is not is being afraid to hope. But crying out is not apathy, maybe I should have said this first crying out and apathy are on the polar opposites, okay? Crying out means you're deeply aware of your need. apathy means you're aware of your knee, but you just don't really want to do anything, you're just going to kind of just hang with it. And I would say it's usually because you're afraid to hope. So some were in the wilderness, and this is what it says some sad and darkness, and utter darkness, prisoners suffering in iron chains, because they rebelled against God's commands, and despise the plans of the Most High. So he subjected them to bitter labor. they stumbled and there was no one to help. Sometimes we end up in prison, because of our own bad choices. And I would say, the addictions that we land ourselves in are our choices to do something to numb our pain over and over until the thing that was actually providing us relief. Now is the actual thing that's got the hook in our mouth. And so instead of providing us relief anymore, it's holding us in darkness. And so prison is a so need is one place, right? This is a destination destination need. Where I don't, I'm hungry, I'm thirsty. I don't have what I need. That's a place to crowd to golf from. But another place to crowd the golf from is the place where you are actually you've got the hook in your mouth and you have behavior that you do over and over that you know is wrong. But somehow in your brain, you're telling you this relieves you, this helps you, but what it actually do is it's put you in prison. And then I want you guys to understand that prison life is not the best life for you. Okay? Where the Spirit of the Lord is there's freedom, there's liberty, this is actually what God wants to bring us to, is a place of liberty. So what do you do? If you realize I'm in a bad place? What's the first step for an alcoholic? I don't even know the 12 steps. But I get to know the first step. You have to admit that you have a problem. But it's not just with alcohol. It's with any kind of thing that you're using to dumb your pain down. You got to admit where you are. You've got to know where your goes back to that question that God asked Adam and Eve, where are you? But let me give you some great news. If you can admit where you are, like they did guess what they did? They cried out to the Lord and their trouble. You guys only understand troubles not always bad. It shows you where you are pain, sadness, loneliness. What is loneliness tell you, loneliness tells you that you're made to connect with people. And loneliness can actually move you to connect with people, unless you dumb it down with something that's less than you see what I'm saying. So you see how the way you feel can actually move you in the right direction. If you let it. Don't cheat the process is what I'm saying. Now these people end up in addiction because of their own choices. Or I say in prison, rather, they end up in prison. It could have been other things that had it could have been bitterness or unforgiveness that put them in prison, but they were in prison, but they cried out to the Lord and their trouble. And he saved them from their distress. Can you say a man? Listen, we need saving from our distress. He brought them out of darkness, outer darkness, and broke away. I'm sorry. Let me read this. I don't know if I copied this might be a different translation. I'm listening for my, my, my paper Bible here it says he brought them out of darkness and the deepest gloom and broke away their chains. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and His wonderful deeds for man, because he breaks down gates of bronze and cuts through bars of iron. Amen. So we ready for the next song. By the way, apathy sometimes for us, if we have an addiction, apathy is being ashamed hope, I feel too ashamed to hope for I don't want to give you hope today. Hope is, is it things can get better. That's what hope says, hope says don't quit, because things can get better. And the Lord wants you to hope. apathy says there's no reason to hope because my needs aren't gonna be fulfilled. There's no reason to hope I'm never gonna get out of this addiction. I'm never gonna guys, we all have things that we don't like about ourselves. It might not be an addiction, it might just be parts of us that we don't like. And something maybe you've struggled with your whole life and it might not necessarily be a moral issue, but it's something that you dub that you're ashamed of about yourself. And what if I say the Lord can help you with that? apathy says I'm done hoping this is what I said sometimes young people are okay at winging it for a while, but then when you get to middle aged and older, you're, you're like, I've been there done that. But what David is saying today is hope cry out to God, what have you cried out to God? right where you are. Okay, so we got need, we got prison. The next one is from a place of affliction. And this is um, this is what it says some so you guys see what David's doing. He said, some were in the desert. And he's just some were in prison is what the next Some are. Some became fools through their rebellious ways, and suffered affliction. Because of their iniquity. They load all food and drew near the gates of death. So these people are afflicted with something, I think it was probably some kind of sickness, or something else that had overwhelmed them. I think there's afflictions of the mind there, you know, actually, they say whoever they are, that like 99% and I could be 99% wrong. And my statistics say that they say that like 90% of illness is psychosomatic. So, affliction can be without or within. And, you know, sometimes when we go too long down the addiction route, we get to the afflicted route or the afflicted place and And so the way the Lord sees this if you get to a place where your flick that he's just done with you and he cuts you off now that's not what this says, is amazing. Some became fools to their rebellious ways, and they suffered affliction. Because of their iniquities. They load all food. And during year they get you to do you see somebody, there's some people that don't their needs aren't met. They don't have food. They're not thirsty. I mean, they are. They're not food, they are thirsty. They're hungry. That was one category. But this category, is they low food, there's something else that's missing. There's something else that's afflicting them, as some of you guys might find your place in a place of affliction. And it's not prison, and it's not. It's not your food. But guess what David said about the people that found himself in that place. You want to guess you can just read it, like cried out to the Lord. Can you say this, when they say they cried out, I cried out to the Lord in their trouble. And I save them from their distress. He sent out his word. And he healed them and rescued them from the gray. Isn't that great news? Listen, apathy is to say, I'm gonna cry out to God. I'm not gonna cry out to God about my sickness or my affliction. I'm not gonna cry out to Him. Because I'm afraid. You do you see how crying out and apathy that they're at odds with each other. And I would say one thing that plagues us, in our day and time is apathy, we have so many things that that rocked us to sleep, just like the things I was talking about already. But if we'll cry a lot, you can be too low, you might and chances are, most of us are not in a place of high distress some of us might be, but let me just throw this out. Some of us are not in a place of high distress, because we're just not in touch with our real pain, because we're so dumbed down, we hadn't gotten to the end of it is better to cry out before you get to the end of it. You don't want to be in the desert, or in the prison, or an affliction when you cry out, it'd be better just to cry out beforehand, right? We have to be aware of our need, though. This is where being poor in spirit is being aware of our need. So just remember this apathy is the enemy of heart. That's real. That's a heart that feels apathy is the enemy of a heart that is alive. Okay, you ready for the fourth one? This is the last one. This is a place of a storm. Okay? This might be how we could characterize COVID or we could have sometimes this storms in our life happen. Have you ever woken up and like, five things go wrong before 10am or five different people are mad at you? Or just things are not going right? You know, I'm saying you stub your toe on your way to your car, you get in your car, it has a flat tire, you get that fix and then somebody rear engine before you get to work and then you get to work and your boss is mad at you because something was late. And then on and on and on. This is all before 10am storms come in various ways, right? Some of those people from the north south east and west says someone December 19 says some went out on the sea and ships. They were merchants on the mighty waters. The speaks of business they were merchants on the muddy waters. They saw the works of the Lord has wonderful deeds in the deep for he spoke and stirred up a tempest that lifted the highway. So these people It sounds like they're in all the Lord's work. And then the there is a storm that comes. And I know the Lord makes some storms, the devil makes storms, our own choices make storms. These people says they mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths. I mean, look at this. This is a metaphor, okay. So imagine them in their ship, right. And the tempest, the storm is so bad, that, that they're rising up to the heavens. And then the wave comes down and they're going down to the depths. I don't know if if you guys have ever felt this way. I did a whole series on anchoring yourself in the midst of the storm. And it had to do with all these waves back and forth. This would have been a great test for that series. I'm going up and down is that unstable life being unstable things being just World back in. So these people they mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths in their peril, their courage melted away. They reeled and staggered, like drunkards, they were at their wit's end, just imagine these guys on the ship, going to and fro, and losing their courage. The storm seems so big you guys have ever been deep sea fishing. You go far out, you lose sight of land, and you realize just how vast The ocean is, that their bodies of water, you just kind of come in contact with your humanity, that life is greater than just you that life is big. And sometimes storms happen in the midst of the bigness of life. And sometimes we look at that and we lose our courage to move on to fight and we lose our whole life. When Paul was on that ship going towards Malta, they were in the Mediterranean Sea. But the storm was so bad that he said they lost all hope that they were going to be rescued. They lost their courage melted away. And this is what it says about these people. They staggered like drunkards, it was so unstable, that they lost all equilibria. They were at a point like they're drunk, like they couldn't stand up straight. And some of us feel that way. It's like, life pulls us this way. And then it pulls us this way, and we lose our equilibrium things. It's just hard to stand straight. But guess what they did, you might want to give a shout out to the Lord and their travel. And he brought them out of their distress. He still the storm to whisper and the waves of the sea were crushed. They were glad then when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven. They got to where they were trying to go. Wow. After that, it says let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and His wonderful deeds for me. Let them exalt Him in the assembly of the people and praise Him and the council of elders. Got a great song. That is so good. I think what the Lord would like to say to us is that from our place of distress, whether it's our place of hunger, a place of addiction, a place of affliction, or the place of a storm, that in every scenario, there is one thing that is constant and it is his unfailing love. And in each one of these scenarios, he is but looking for us. It's funny, because he was quite honest about the rebellion. He was quite honest about their iniquity. But in spite of that, they cried out to God, and when they did, he responded. And so my thought for you guys, is that if you will cry out to God, He will respond to you. The question lies right here is that willing to Whoa, are you willing to hope for that model? Would you mind grabbing your guitar real quick? We're landing the plane here. We understand that apathy is the opposite of crying out. Some of us I don't cry that because that's just not my personality. But it could be just that you're not in touch with your need. No crying out is not about volume right. But it does kind of imply volume right. actually looked up the word crack. This is not great. This is English. Let's not cry is to utter inarticulate sounds, especially of lamentation or grief or suffering. Usually with tears, to wheat to shed tears, with or without sound to cry to utter or pronounce loudly. Call out. announced publicly yes for sale advertise. To Cry wins Where's a noun? The act or sound of crying? Any loud utterance or exclamation a shout or scream or a whale? Okay, I guess there's a volume Can we stay in this, I want to give you Just a moment here, and we're gonna take 60 seconds we'll be done. Okay, I know you're a little long today. I just want to give you an opportunity to crop the God. For some of you guys, it might be yelling out like I didn't worship this morning. But that's not it doesn't have to be like that. Some of you guys might, might be like, Okay, I'm going into my closet. That's okay. Jesus said that, would you go into your closet? He knows your knees before you have them. You don't have to talk that much. You don't have to go on and on. He says, God knows what you need before you ask. But you got to ask. You got to cry out. If you want relief. If you want to get out of the situation. We've got to go to the one that can help us. And look, you can help you. Your neighbors can help you. But nobody can help you. Like God can help you. So here's the first place that we must go. For more information about the visit the dot o RG thanks for listening