Distress and Confidence in God

Distress and Confidence         Kelly Durant 7-30-17

Psalm 3:4-8 (King James Version)

 4I cried unto the LORD with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. Selah. 5I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustained me.  6I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about. 7Arise, O LORD; save me, O my God: for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly. 8Salvation belongeth unto the LORD: thy blessing is upon thy people. Selah.

2. View commentary related to this pHave you every screamed out, really cried out, to the Lord for help in distress?  One time my wife and I were traveling in the South of Brazil and we were asleep and the driver of the truck fell asleep too. There are many steep cliffs in that area and when we both felt the truck bounce hard I thought for sure we were going off the edge of the mountain! My wife and I both cried out, “Jesus!” Instead of going off the edge of a mountain though, we ended up in a flat plowed field of a farmer! God saved us then and saved us several other times from death!

I think each one of us here have had moments of despair and we can relate to David as in the verse   4I cried unto the LORD with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. Selah.

3. David was in a situation where he was surrounded by trouble and enemies. He cried out to the Lord and the Lord heard him.

David had to live in caves for some time escaping Saul’s desire to kill him, escaping other local enemies too. Caves are muddy and dark. Our problems of rent money and work appear not so bad compared to David’s problem of living in caves for several years!

But God affirms through David that when you cry out with your voice to the Lord, He hears!

4. Sometimes some of our prayers need more desperation! You need to scream and cry and let God know how you feel!

Not a little silent prayer will do when you are under stress and afraid for the future and your life. Use your voice! Let God know how you feel! God wants to hear and answer!

5. At times any one of us may have heavy trials and fears, but the only way to get hope is to lift our voice and speak it all and give it over to God!

After you let out you and vocalize it in prayer, what should you do? You should do as in verse 5.

 5I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustained me.
That seems so contradictory, David is distressed for his life, but then he suddenly is able to go to sleep like nothing is going on!
What do we learn? To take an attitude that after you cry out, after you pray, that you will trust God for the answer to the point you let God stay awake and not you!
6. He gave all his burdens to the Lord and then he went to bed! Have you ever prayed that intensely? Have you felt that intensity peace from God’s Holy Spirit after prayer and then gone to sleep like that? This is true confidence, when a calm trust comes over you!
 6I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about.
Being afraid is also something that grabs you but something God wants us as Christians to reject because we trust in Him! Even though you have multitudes in society against you, do not fear!
7. What is David referring to here? He was at war with the pagan nations around him! They all hated him. Have you ever felt like thousands are hating you as a Christians? We are at war against the world’s evils and the vile haters!
If you are truly righteous, telling your friends about Jesus, you will be hated by those who do evil! I want to tell you something real and shocking. If you really stand up for what is right, it is inevitable to not have enemies! Let’s recall what Jesus said:
8. Matt 5:11-12 "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Also, as Christians, we recognize that our enemies are those who disrespect you and me for being Christian and being different from them! We do not celebrate sin, we reprove and repent from it because it separates us from God and His holiness.  
In King David’s case being a Jew, his war and enemies was against the pagan, murderous, vandalizing, raping, enslaving, unholy, idol-worshipping, tribes in ancient Israel.
9. Amongst Christians though, we must be united to fight those who are evil! Remember the fight is not amongst our selves as Christians (unless someone is obviously violating God’s principles) but our fight is against the principalities of darkness and spiritual wickedness!
10. In our SA Corps, I have attended a few dozen cases of people amongst us that have confessed a debt of 10 to 20K because they have to pay back their sponsor or Coyote back for getting them in this country; and this is from the Korean and Hispanics!
We witness right here in our community amongst all races all wage exploitations: sexual trafficking, immigrant trafficking, drug trafficking, plus gang activities! Our war is to free these victims from oppression with Jesus and a way out.
11. The question is, if God hears the cries of others in distress, are you willing to also hear and show compassion and do something? That is the reason the Salvation Army exists, and why God has blessed us to bless others!
 12.  7Arise, O LORD; save me, O my God: for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.
God will stop them! They do get caught and beat up! Another verse for how God will take care of those who do wrong is in Romans.    Rom 12:19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. That is in part in this life but also in the final judgment!
What do we learn from God’s word in Psalm 3 today?
13. That we should agree this is a right way to handle our distress:
1) To cry out to God in when in pain and distress!   2) To trust God totally and calm down and sleep   3) Trust that God will avenge those who are His enemies, punishment does come for those who do evil to any servant of God!   4) In the end we accept Salvation and blessings for trusting in God!

14:8  “Salvation belongeth unto the LORD: thy blessing is upon thy people.” It seems so simple, but it is true, God bestows to us salvation and blessing by taking these resolves! How many of you feel like you are in a desperate situation right now and you need to cry out to Jesus? Come and let’s pray!

Jesus Humility Changed the World

Jesus’ Humility Changed the World.                              Kelly Durant

When Jesus was born God had given up on the religious people, the proud people who thought they knew it all. Jesus was God’s last chance for saving souls from their destruction.  And Jesus is God’s new opportunity but it in spirit and in truth!

Look how Jesus was born: God chose a humble woman, and women today are usually not respected as they should be either in the church or in society, but Mary was a woman God praised for being humble, from a humble family;

And God chose that Jesus be born in a manger with humble animals of sheep and cows;

And finally God chose as the first to know, the humble poor shepherds watching their sheep.

Do you see it? That is God repeating to you and me 3 times that He only makes His presence known in the humble people.

In the world humility does not exist. Look how quickly people become rude in Miami, driving or in the stores.  People in the world rely on pride. In Jesus time the Jews thought that Jesus would be born in a royal family, and that as a leader He be born with parents of wealth and power, and they thought that all the religious leaders would gather to honor his coming and birth. But “God rejects the proud and gives grace to the humble!”  

When we think about the Latin countries and our community here, so many people you meet boast to you, l am from the upper educated class of blue blood, I am not a whoever, my family has money, I am a leader, even a religious leader in my church and community, but does God care? No God only cares about humility, humility, and humility! That is the main message we see from Jesus’ birth!

God, and those of us who really know Jesus Christ, do not appreciate people who have position, wealth, and royal blood, and even religious leadership and no humility! Pride does not allow people to follow Jesus to do God’s work! Pride brings a curse and humility a blessing!

In the Bible we see that God stop talking to the religious people who were not humble. Remember between the OT and the NT God sends no prophet for 400 years! God simply cannot work through people who are proud and stubborn, unfaithful to His work, un-available to do what is needed, and who think they know it all already.

In Jesus day the religious world, the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and hypocrites were worshipping God how they wanted to, comfortable in their world of getting what they wanted from the church.

But Jesus came along and exposed how comfortable these religious leaders were, how evil they were to not love God and others and attack Him and criticize Him when all he did was love, serve, and heal with humility.

How are humble people different from proud people? Humble people when you see their face you see they reflect Jesus and that that they are just there to serve and to bless and do good. But the proud people are like a negative energy that seems to drain you dead like a dead car battery. In just a few by minutes some people with all their words, problems, and criticisms can take away all of the joy of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration that God wanted you have! You have felt that from some people?

What happens in our churches today? When a new member makes their self faithful, available, and teachable to serve God in the church, the comfortable ones, start with the criticism. They start sending rumors that these new people really are just no-bodies who are just trying to get some personal gain. The pastors should know how bad they are and how good I am and I am doing the pastors a favor to tell them to watch out for them! Do you see the difference between pride and humility?

Who gives us an example of the opposite of Jesus? King Herod. People who have authority and feel threatened by new comers who come to serve like Jesus are like King Herod. Herod acted humble in front of others and said to the other Oriental Kings, “I want to worship baby Jesus too”, but he was a hypocrite and to their backs he was angry and all he wanted to do was kill the completion!

This is what some people do with their tongues, they kill the new spiritual babies who come to the church because they do not want anyone else to have any control. This is selfishness and pride, satan’s qualities, and we see it time and again, so many people allow their tongues, their actions, and their attitudes to be controlled by satan instead of our humble King of Kings, Lord Jesus.

Jesus coming as we know brought Salvation, hope, love, and unity but only for those who were willing to become humble and accept and follow Him like a little child.        

Matt 10:34-36   34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.   35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.    36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

Jesus coming into our communities and hearts creates division and old friends and family become enemies while others become friends! It means there is war! In the Salvation Army we are an Army to make war on the enemy. And not always is the enemy outside our doors, he may also be in our hearts! Humility means killing the evil in your own heart first.

Many people are proud and don’t even know it because as the Word says       

Prov 20:6

6 Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?

Sometimes people forget that the anointed leaders, the Captains, can see more than the surface. It is our job to discern people’s motives and to exalt as leaders the humble people, the ones who are like Jesus.

People expose their selves with their words. People are showing us who they are if they are being faithful or not to the Corps, available or not for the mission, trainable or not to learn how to do what is needed, humble or proud.

Also humility means respecting others and saying “Hi!”! Some people come to church and they don’t even need to say “Hi!” to the Captain or the Mrs. Captain sometimes. We must fight the war within ourselves against our proud with know that God will only accept humility!

We must bring respect to the humble women, and men, who serve from their hearts! We have learned it was in 3 ways and probably more with Jesus birth that God showed humility and attacked pride. If God attacked pride, and exalted the humble, how do you do that in your life?