SPEAKER_03: This podcast is brought to you by Grant Parkway Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_03: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit GrandProquay.org.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus, you say to us that everyone who hears these words of mine and obeys them, that's the one whose life is like the one who built his house on the rock.
SPEAKER_02: And no matter what they faced, and they faced all the stuff, it didn't crash down.
SPEAKER_02: And so we we just say we would depend on you for that to be true.
SPEAKER_02: And this morning, Holy Spirit, just peel back a little layer of what you're what that building's like where we understand one more footer, one more anchor where we are safe and secure because of you.
SPEAKER_02: We expect you, we humbly uh uh thank you in advance for it.
SPEAKER_02: Build of our faith.
SPEAKER_02: Show us how you built it.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: And uh this morning, uh, if you brought your Bible, turn to Psalm 77.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna be in this text, and I want to speak to you this morning about the essentials of a biblical fit.
SPEAKER_02: Now, by biblical fit, I don't mean outfit.
SPEAKER_02: I mean what you've probably first thought of just throwing a on just a big wailing, crying, throwing a fit.
SPEAKER_02: But these are the essentials of a biblical fit, because there's two different kinds, and I don't mean biblical proportions like yell the loudest, cause the most damage.
SPEAKER_02: I mean biblical meaning we have God gives us a pattern in scripture of here's a way for you to come to me with your most intense and deepest emotions, and for you to come and and get that out of yourself and onto your mouth and out to me, and it actually becomes the way of freedom for you.
SPEAKER_02: So let me read the text and then we're gonna walk through this together.
SPEAKER_02: Let me first say uh who this is for.
SPEAKER_02: Now it's for everyone in here, but if you've ever slammed a door or if you've ever um yelled at your fellow motorists, uh if you've ever uh just stomped off in anger, if you've ever given someone the silent treatment, if you've ever just closed the door and burst down crying, it's for you.
SPEAKER_02: Listen to these words.
SPEAKER_02: Psalm 77.
SPEAKER_02: I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me.
SPEAKER_02: In the day of my trouble, I seek the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: In the night, my hand is stretched out without wearying.
SPEAKER_02: My soul refuses to be comforted.
SPEAKER_02: When I remember God, I moan.
SPEAKER_02: I meditate, and my spirit faints.
SPEAKER_02: You hold my eyelids open.
SPEAKER_02: I'm so troubled that I cannot speak.
SPEAKER_02: I consider the days of old, the years long ago, and I said, Let me remember my song in the night.
SPEAKER_02: Let me meditate in my heart.
SPEAKER_02: And then my spirit made a diligent search.
SPEAKER_02: Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable?
SPEAKER_02: Has his steadfast love forever ceased?
SPEAKER_02: Are his promises at an end for all time?
SPEAKER_02: Has God forgotten to be gracious?
SPEAKER_02: Has he in his anger shut up his compassion?
SPEAKER_02: Then I said, I'll appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High.
SPEAKER_02: I'll remember the deeds of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I'll remember your wonders of old.
SPEAKER_02: I'll ponder all your work and I'll meditate on your mighty deeds.
SPEAKER_02: Your way, O God, is holy.
SPEAKER_02: For what God is great like our God?
SPEAKER_02: You are the God who works wonders.
SPEAKER_02: You have made known your might among the peoples.
SPEAKER_02: You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph.
SPEAKER_02: So when the water saw you, O God, the waters saw you, and they were afraid.
SPEAKER_02: Indeed, the deep water trembled.
SPEAKER_02: The clouds poured out water, the skies gave forth thunder, and your arrows flashed on every side, and the crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind, and your lightnings lit up, lighted up the squirrel, and earth trembled and shook, for your way is through the sea, and your path through the great waters.
SPEAKER_02: Yet your footprints were unseen.
SPEAKER_02: You lead your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna make some observations of the text today.
SPEAKER_02: And I'll just say, look, if you're visiting, uh, we don't always pick a psalm or a text that is agony.
SPEAKER_02: But we have one today.
SPEAKER_02: So let me start with this.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, point number one is the essentials of a biblical faith is you need to put your heart on your mouth.
SPEAKER_02: Put your heart in your mouth.
SPEAKER_02: What do I mean by that?
SPEAKER_02: I mean what's in you has got to get on your lips and into words that you speak, or in this case, you cry out, you yell to God.
SPEAKER_02: The essentials of a biblical fit is you don't keep things inside.
SPEAKER_02: You don't keep them in your head, you don't keep them in your heart.
SPEAKER_02: They're not unspoken, they're spoken to him.
SPEAKER_02: Now, uh, three-year-olds are great at throwing a fit.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, some of you may have a three-year-old, some of you remember what a three-year-old, maybe you've seen a three-year-old.
SPEAKER_02: I'll just paint a little picture.
SPEAKER_02: So imagine a three-year-old has a uh a popsicle.
SPEAKER_02: It's popsicle season, and you know, they're not the quickest popsicle eaters.
SPEAKER_02: Their tongues aren't that big, uh, they're not that coordinated.
SPEAKER_02: And what happens is this thing melts and it begins to drip down their arm.
SPEAKER_02: And then they start getting agitated, start getting upset, maybe start crying.
SPEAKER_02: And and and it's kind of the little three-year-old crying, they can't get it out.
SPEAKER_02: And what's wrong?
SPEAKER_02: And I'm sticky, I'm sticky.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02: Let me let me let me get that from you.
SPEAKER_02: Give me your hand, we'll get rid of all the sticky.
SPEAKER_02: And then they look at you, and first their their mouth turns down, and then their eyes shut, and they just start bawling.
SPEAKER_02: Like, what is it now?
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're not sticky, and and they they they get out through their choke out.
SPEAKER_02: I I want I want the popsicle.
SPEAKER_02: And so you try, yes, take the popsicle, and they scream back, it's sticky.
SPEAKER_02: And so they're in this dilemma.
SPEAKER_02: I want to eat this, and I don't want to be sticky, and I don't like this.
SPEAKER_02: And and so a three-year-old, from from their heart to their mouth, there's no filter.
SPEAKER_02: There's no obstacle, it's just a direct line, heart to mouth.
SPEAKER_02: Now, we would consider someone who's 33, 73.
SPEAKER_02: If you have a direct line, heart to mouth, you might be on the immaturity side.
SPEAKER_02: So we think we tend to think that uh you're mature, you're you're gonna uh you're gonna have some social filters there.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you're gonna regulate your words, um, you're not gonna let little things destroy you.
SPEAKER_02: But once ends up happening is we translate this in, we may think that being spiritually mature is the same thing.
SPEAKER_02: And it's not.
SPEAKER_02: See, those who are spiritually maturing, it means they have big emotions and they know what to do with them.
SPEAKER_02: They don't uh they don't pretend they don't have them, they don't turn the tap down tighter and say, nope, this goes nowhere.
SPEAKER_02: They have them and they know what to do with them.
SPEAKER_02: See, a three-year-old doesn't necessarily know what to do with this, but those who are maturing, in fact, the psalmist is giving this example of what to do.
SPEAKER_02: How does the psalmist feel?
SPEAKER_02: Let me read verses uh two through five.
SPEAKER_02: In the day of my trouble, I seek the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: In the night, my hand is stretched out without wearying.
SPEAKER_02: It's like I feel my trouble all day long, and at night it gets worse.
SPEAKER_02: At night there's hardly any distractions, and so my trouble that I feel intensifies.
SPEAKER_02: I cannot speak.
SPEAKER_02: Verse three.
SPEAKER_02: I remember God, I moan and I meditate, and my spirit faints.
SPEAKER_02: I I can't dull this pain.
SPEAKER_02: This is like an open wound, and it is making me weak.
SPEAKER_02: This isn't going away.
SPEAKER_02: I there's not I try to take nothing I can take, nothing that someone could say changed any of this.
SPEAKER_02: And then verse 4, you hold my eyelids open.
SPEAKER_02: I'm so troubled I can't speak.
SPEAKER_02: God, you're the only thing I can think of now that's making me not sleep.
SPEAKER_02: You you're the one who's allowing this, you're the one who's ultimately in charge of this.
SPEAKER_02: I ever had where you I can't even describe what's wrong.
SPEAKER_02: It's just so wrong.
SPEAKER_02: This is what the psalmist is feeling.
SPEAKER_02: And so, what do you do with what you feel?
SPEAKER_02: See, we we get a lot of energy from uh either things when our desire is fulfilled, that can energize us.
SPEAKER_02: When our desire is uh put on hold, there's some energy there.
SPEAKER_02: When our desire is denied, there's energy.
SPEAKER_02: So when we have a desire that's fulfilled, uh we are content, we're relaxed, we're happy.
SPEAKER_02: When we have a desire that's gonna be fulfilled, not yet, we're excited, we're buoyant.
SPEAKER_02: It's like there's presence under the tree when we can open the presence.
SPEAKER_02: When you have a desire that is in danger, at risk, uh that's when we get angry.
SPEAKER_02: That's when we get uh our just we're we're we're thin and any little thing we we overfeel, overreact.
SPEAKER_02: It's like being on a little boat and and it's tippy.
SPEAKER_02: And then when a desire is denied, that's when we have despair.
SPEAKER_02: That's when we feel hopeless, that's when we give up.
SPEAKER_02: That's when we think God loves everybody but me.
SPEAKER_02: What do you feel?
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna show you an image.
SPEAKER_02: This thing is called the feeling wheel.
SPEAKER_02: There's a couple different one of these on a podcast that's coming out in a couple weeks.
SPEAKER_02: Neil talks about this.
SPEAKER_02: But the feeling wheel, uh, there's nothing magical here.
SPEAKER_02: It's just a way to have more words than just I feel great, I feel eh, okay, I feel terrible.
SPEAKER_02: It's a little more nuanced.
SPEAKER_02: And so if you're gonna get words, if you're gonna have things you feel and think and put them on your mouth, this helps you get some more words.
SPEAKER_02: So, for example, uh, I'll go to the happy side.
SPEAKER_02: Um, hey, I feel happy.
SPEAKER_02: Well, what what do you mean exactly?
SPEAKER_02: I I feel accepted, happy.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, like what kind of accepted, happy?
SPEAKER_02: Respected or valued?
SPEAKER_02: Actually, I think I feel valued, happy.
SPEAKER_02: I I feel I have a value.
SPEAKER_02: That's a different, different kind of happy.
SPEAKER_02: And so this gives you uh the feelings will this gives you some more nuances, some more texture to be, this gives you words to say to God, other than just thumbs up, thumbs sideways, thumbs down.
SPEAKER_02: Now, the reason why I show you this is this is a tool.
SPEAKER_02: Now, let me show you one more thing in the text.
SPEAKER_02: I skipped over this word, and so uh some Eubereans out there, hey hey, you didn't read the Selah part.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, good, you caught me.
SPEAKER_02: Uh this it's it's after verse 3, after verse 9, and after verse 15.
SPEAKER_02: And this means, this is kind of a direction.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, we're gonna pause, we're gonna, we're gonna meditate on this.
SPEAKER_02: It's like uh, oh I got it here.
SPEAKER_02: I I think it's like saltwater taffy.
SPEAKER_02: So I don't know, I don't know if there's any saltwater taffy lovers in the room.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay, yeah, you can you get one?
SPEAKER_02: Oh, hey, that didn't get that far.
SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
SPEAKER_02: Any other lovers?
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, now we now we got some saltwater taffy.
SPEAKER_02: Anybody over here?
SPEAKER_02: Okay, yes.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, listen.
SPEAKER_02: Now, uh the uh oh yeah out there, okay.
SPEAKER_02: That's so yeah, I'm not gonna be hired by the Sixers anytime.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and so listen, I want to let you know uh the uh our standard policy of our our coverage of your dental work ends the moment you open the wrapper.
SPEAKER_02: But those of you who got one, or maybe you fought your friend, go ahead and put that in your mouth.
SPEAKER_02: Uh say law is like saltwater taffy.
SPEAKER_02: Now, there's two kinds of ways to eat saltwater taffy.
SPEAKER_02: One is you get it in there and you start working it around.
SPEAKER_02: You actually start making some like some chomp noise.
SPEAKER_02: You start working around, you brush it here, and you're trying to like, oh, okay, that's root beer.
SPEAKER_02: You get that flavor.
SPEAKER_02: I'm working through the flavor as fast as I kind of can so I can get to the next piece and get the next flavor.
SPEAKER_02: Say law is the other way to eat taffy.
SPEAKER_02: This is the harder way.
SPEAKER_02: This is where you just put it in your mouth and you just let it sit between your tongue and your palate, and you just let it be there.
SPEAKER_02: You just let it slowly reveal itself.
SPEAKER_02: You don't work it around, you just let it slowly mold.
SPEAKER_02: You don't rush on to the next flavor.
SPEAKER_02: Say it say a lot in this text saying you need to slow down and feel what your life feels like.
SPEAKER_02: And part of the reason why we have destruction is because none of us really want to do that.
SPEAKER_02: I want to get on, especially if it doesn't feel great right now.
SPEAKER_02: I want to get on to the maybe the next flavor is better.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe I got the the the one I don't like, maybe the next one would be the one I really like.
SPEAKER_02: And so what do we do when we know what we feel?
SPEAKER_02: What do we do with that?
SPEAKER_02: What we do is we get those words on our mouth and we speak them.
SPEAKER_02: We speak them to an audience.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, we speak them to the right audience.
SPEAKER_02: This is point two.
SPEAKER_02: Throw your fit to the right audience.
SPEAKER_02: Now, the first uh audience uh you're gonna throw your fit to is you.
SPEAKER_02: Because you're right there, you're like in your head.
SPEAKER_02: You're and so you're always gonna throw your fit to you first, and you're always gonna win every argument, and you're always gonna agree with yourself, uh, but it doesn't change anything, it doesn't do anything.
SPEAKER_02: And then uh sometimes we'll we'll move progress to throw a fit to another person.
SPEAKER_02: And so maybe it's a spouse, or maybe it's a friend, or maybe it's a parent, or or maybe it's just strangers online, just social media.
SPEAKER_02: This restaurant was terrible.
SPEAKER_02: And you you know, you uh you throw your fit out there, and nothing changes because all those entities are not the Lord God of all flesh, they can't all be change.
SPEAKER_02: So the audience that you need to throw your fit to is the Lord God.
SPEAKER_02: You see this in verse one and two.
SPEAKER_02: Let me read these again for us.
SPEAKER_02: Psalm says, I cry aloud.
SPEAKER_02: He's like, I'm shouting.
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, ugh, come on.
SPEAKER_02: Aloud to God, and He'll hear me.
SPEAKER_02: In the day of my trouble, I seek the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: In the night my hand is stretched out without wearing, my soul will be comforted.
SPEAKER_02: When I remember God, I moan.
SPEAKER_02: And so God is the audience to whom we're to throw our fit.
SPEAKER_02: Now, uh man, that's about a month ago now.
SPEAKER_02: I got a call from Jenny, my wife.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I'm at Kroger, and your car won't start.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay, so we go through all the what, you know, did you put your foot on the brake?
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, I did that.
SPEAKER_02: What happens?
SPEAKER_02: Like the engine won't, I drove your car here.
SPEAKER_02: I know how to drive.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, the engine won't turn on, and there's a bunch of like weird messages.
SPEAKER_02: Like, what weird messages?
SPEAKER_02: I don't know, like something about a brake and something else.
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, well, and so I began to throw a fit.
SPEAKER_02: And here's how I started my fit.
SPEAKER_02: You tell me if it's the right audience or not.
SPEAKER_02: My fit started this way.
SPEAKER_02: Well, why'd you drive my car?
SPEAKER_02: Why'd you strand my car there?
SPEAKER_02: Not why did my car strand you?
SPEAKER_02: Why did you strand my car?
SPEAKER_02: And then the fit didn't get any better.
SPEAKER_02: I I I I go to Kroger, and of course, it's already bought groceries.
SPEAKER_02: It's of course it's ice cream and a bunch of other stuff.
SPEAKER_02: And um, and you know, so I get in it, and sure enough, yeah, this won't do anything.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so I call my son.
SPEAKER_02: All right, listen, somehow we're both here with our jumper cables.
SPEAKER_02: Can you bring a jumper?
SPEAKER_02: So I bring jumper cables and she leaves with the ice cream, and he comes, and I'm throwing the fit to myself, and now I'm kind of throwing the fit to him, and with the jumper cables on, and I go to and it won't start.
SPEAKER_02: And I can't really hear him.
SPEAKER_02: And so uh I've I had just enough juice to roll the window down.
SPEAKER_02: And and like, hey, listen, feather the throttle to where it gets up to 2,000 RPMs and we'll wait, won't turn over at all.
SPEAKER_02: And now I'm panicking.
SPEAKER_02: I've rolled this window down.
SPEAKER_02: We gotta leave this thing at Kroger.
SPEAKER_02: It's it's gonna be stolen, it's gonna be stolen, or it's gonna be someone's home in a, you know, by by 11 p.m., someone's living in this car because I I did this.
SPEAKER_02: And then God in his kindness, I didn't throw this, I threw the fit to all the wrong people.
SPEAKER_02: God in his kindness sent some stranger who pulled up in a big SUV.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, your car won't start.
SPEAKER_02: And then I go back to you uh myself.
SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, Copernicus, I don't know what you yes, it won't start, obviously.
SPEAKER_02: You know, maybe you and your and so he comes over, he I got just a thing.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, maybe his car is more powerful.
SPEAKER_02: And he comes and brings this little box.
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, what is this gonna do?
SPEAKER_02: And so, oh, this will jump your car.
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, okay, and so he he he puts it and he plugs into the battery, and it's not very big.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's basically the size of two cell phones.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, I know this is not gonna work, so I get in there and it starts right up.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, it's not quite the Hallelujah chorus, but it's you know, it's like the warm-ups backstage to that.
SPEAKER_02: And so uh I get thank you.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, where'd you get this?
SPEAKER_02: Amazon.
SPEAKER_02: Let me take a picture of that.
SPEAKER_02: I'm ordering one right now.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and so God in his kindness, I didn't throw a fit, I didn't throw a biblical fit.
SPEAKER_02: He in his kindness, he's not stubborn in the way he loves us, he still sent rescue to me.
SPEAKER_02: Now, why am I telling you all this?
SPEAKER_02: Because when the audience matters, and if you become the audience of someone's fit, I just just let them let them get it out and then ask.
SPEAKER_02: Uh has has gotten this out, has this helped?
SPEAKER_02: Has this changed anything?
SPEAKER_02: And if not, I I think you need to think you need to give this God.
SPEAKER_02: Now, uh I don't want you to have already earmarked, oh, this is great.
SPEAKER_02: I now can weaponize this with uh somebody and say, oh, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_02: I think you're talking to the wrong audience here.
SPEAKER_02: I think you need to take you and your problems and all your words and all this energy, and you need to give it to the Lord, not to me.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not giving you license to do that.
SPEAKER_02: This the text isn't giving you license.
SPEAKER_02: This text is saying a biblical fit is one we throw to God.
SPEAKER_02: Now, you now now not everything that goes wrong requires a biblical fit.
SPEAKER_02: Some stuff is just, some stuff's just a Tuesday.
SPEAKER_02: And so you gotta talk it out.
SPEAKER_02: So you're not getting off any kind of relationship, give and take requirements of one another.
SPEAKER_02: But that is not enough.
SPEAKER_02: It has to be that when life gets hard, we take that hardness and we put it into words and we speak them, we cry out to God with them.
SPEAKER_02: Now, the psalmist, we're gonna see it here, that he takes some of God's promises, he goes, Oh yeah, and he chucks them back in God's face.
SPEAKER_02: And some of you, maybe most of you, wouldn't dare to speak to God that way.
SPEAKER_02: You you're like, I'm I might get struck by lightning.
SPEAKER_02: I read some of the Old Testament, people he killed people.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it wasn't messing around.
SPEAKER_02: The Psalms give us words to say to God, they invite us to relate to Him.
SPEAKER_02: Faith doesn't always have to be quite submission, sometimes it shouts to God, and those shouts are heard in heaven.
SPEAKER_02: And so uh we don't get free of ungodly belief until we fully expose it.
SPEAKER_02: Here's our third point this morning that is burn the house down.
SPEAKER_02: Now, again, if you're visiting, uh sometimes we have encouraging sermons and texts, but here's what I mean by burn the house down.
SPEAKER_02: This is what the psalmist does that you take your fit and you through and you just work it out all the way till its end.
SPEAKER_02: And what will happen is it will get more and more ridiculous because it depends on your wisdom and and your ability to think and see.
SPEAKER_02: And it doesn't depend on God's promises.
SPEAKER_02: Let me give you an example.
SPEAKER_02: Uh well, let me read the text first and see.
SPEAKER_02: This is verse five through nine.
SPEAKER_02: This is the psalmist burning the house down.
SPEAKER_02: He says, I consider the days of old, the years long ago.
SPEAKER_02: Let me remember this song in the night.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, then my spirit said, Uh, will the Lord spurn me forever and never again be favorable?
SPEAKER_02: You know you're getting to the end of a fit if you're speaking in um absolutes.
SPEAKER_02: Never again be favorable.
SPEAKER_02: His steadfast love forever has ceased, his promises are at an end for all time.
SPEAKER_02: Has God forgotten to be gracious?
SPEAKER_02: In his anger has he shut up his compassion.
SPEAKER_02: Now, about a year ago, I'll give you an example.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I threw a biblical fit.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't know that's what I was doing.
SPEAKER_02: I I thought I was just suffering and God hated me.
SPEAKER_02: But I was throwing a biblical fit.
SPEAKER_02: And so about a year ago, I broke my arm.
SPEAKER_02: The details of my humanity are not that important.
SPEAKER_02: Just uh the the doctor, the x ray said, Hey, do you play hockey?
SPEAKER_02: No, no, I don't play hockey.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I pretty much only see these breaks in hockey players.
SPEAKER_02: You're telling me you just fell on the ground.
SPEAKER_02: Listen, it's not that important.
SPEAKER_02: So I got this break, and um and uh Jenny's parents were in town, the two older boys were in town, and we're all gonna go see the younger brother, and we're gonna go and see him play, and then we're gonna go out to eat, and it's gonna be a great day.
SPEAKER_02: And they all leave, and I've we've been through the x-ray, and I and I'm in a sling, and I'm on the couch, and my heart just begins to crumple.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not trying to throw a fit, it just comes on me, and it begins to crumple, and intense emotion and words begin to come out, and essentially it is this cry of uh, why did you you let this happen to me, God?
SPEAKER_02: You let this happen.
SPEAKER_02: You could have prevented this.
SPEAKER_02: I've been walking for a long time and never did this.
SPEAKER_02: And today you let this happen.
SPEAKER_02: And and I'm I'm mad and I'm hurt by it.
SPEAKER_02: And I begin, it's about a four-minute hard, angry, pathetic cry.
SPEAKER_02: The kind where, like, you can get a breast, like, you know, goes over a bunch of speed bumps in you, and and I am I'm working this out of all the things that have gone wrong.
SPEAKER_02: That uh I don't get to go with the whole family of this game, and and after the game, they're they're gonna all go and eat at uh uh Tia Juanita's fish camp and it's crawfish season, and I'm not gonna get any of it.
SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna be here with my dumb arm in the sling and my right arm.
SPEAKER_02: I use this right arm for everything.
SPEAKER_02: I like most of my job, I use my right arm.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna be bad at my job.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna be so bad at my job, I'm gonna get fired from my job.
SPEAKER_02: That's what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_02: And then uh I uh, you know, I'm I'm uh a side sleeper, and how am I ever gonna sleep again?
SPEAKER_02: I'm about to become a back sleeper.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna be so I'm gonna be stuck with this sling in my arm, become a back sleeper, and I'm I'm probably gonna choke in my sleep.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna choke and die in my sleep.
SPEAKER_02: Or if I don't choke and die, I'll have to get one of them machines that feels like you're choking and then shove air down my body for the rest of my life.
SPEAKER_02: That's what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_02: And then and then, or I'm probably gonna need surgery and they're not gonna be able to fix it.
SPEAKER_02: I'll be like John McCain, only be able to lift my arm up a little bit, and then what's gonna happen is there'll be grandkids at some point, and I won't be able to lift them up in the air.
SPEAKER_02: They're gonna think I'm no fun.
SPEAKER_02: I won't be able to throw a ball to them, I'm gonna be no fun, they're not gonna want me around, and so my wife will go visit grandkids without me, and I'll be stuck on this couch forever.
SPEAKER_02: And so these are the kind of words and feelings that get out of me.
SPEAKER_02: And so throwing this, burning the house down is is you throw the fit all the way to the end, to where you can now hear how ridiculous you sound.
SPEAKER_02: You can now hear, oh, uh how how how how incredibly uh just foolish this filter I have on my on my eyes is.
SPEAKER_02: If you don't burn it down, you'll think you're right and God's wrong.
SPEAKER_02: You have to get the end of yourself and see that he is the one who's right.
SPEAKER_02: He's the one who's holy, not you.
SPEAKER_02: And I'll just say, you can't burn this down with another person.
SPEAKER_02: They won't let you.
SPEAKER_02: If you say crazy stuff like, I'm I'm a side sleeper, I'm gonna choke and die.
SPEAKER_02: No, you're not gonna choke and die.
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna be they won't let you have to be alone to do this because they'll stop you from burning it down, and and they'll stop you from seeing what's the deep muck in you.
SPEAKER_02: These kind of deep ruts of of kind of wavering belief in God where you're not sure you can trust him, and so you trust you, and that's really sad because you're not enough.
SPEAKER_02: It's just a little cycle.
SPEAKER_02: So you gotta burn the house down, you gotta throw it all the way to the end.
SPEAKER_02: It that's what the psalmist does.
SPEAKER_02: He says verse seven Am I rejected?
SPEAKER_02: Is there a list of people who get help, and I'm not on that list anymore?
SPEAKER_02: Uh have I used up all your love?
SPEAKER_02: Have I somehow squandered it?
SPEAKER_02: I had a bank account of God's love, and somehow I spent it all.
SPEAKER_02: Or are you now punishing me?
SPEAKER_02: Are you too busy to help me?
SPEAKER_02: See, these are the things that we really do feel and think.
SPEAKER_02: The Psalms give us words to say, they help us say what's in us.
SPEAKER_02: When you get it all out, when you exhaust and get to the exaggeration uh view of your life, then something can happen.
SPEAKER_02: Then hope is available to you.
SPEAKER_02: If you burn it down, you get it all out, then you can borrow hope.
SPEAKER_02: And you couldn't have done that before.
SPEAKER_02: This is our last point we see in the text.
SPEAKER_02: That is to borrow hope.
SPEAKER_02: What I mean by that, what I mean what the text means, which is we remember what God has done, we remember who he has proved himself to be in the past, and we borrow that experience, those feelings, and we bring them to where we are right now.
SPEAKER_02: Or we borrow hope from what he has promised will be in the future.
SPEAKER_02: And we borrow that, not having yet experienced it, but so sure where we borrow it and we feel it for right now, where both these things, hope from the past and hope of the future, it becomes manna by which you survive today.
SPEAKER_02: Where do we see this in the text?
SPEAKER_02: Verse 10.
SPEAKER_02: After one of the Selahs.
SPEAKER_02: Then I said, I'll appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High.
SPEAKER_02: I'll remember the deeds of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I'll remember your wonders.
SPEAKER_02: I'll ponder all your work and meditate on your mighty deeds.
SPEAKER_02: Now, not that long ago, uh Wade, he walked us through Psalm 136.
SPEAKER_02: And part of the charge was for you to write your Psalm 136.
SPEAKER_02: It's this give thanks to the Lord whose steadfast love endures forever.
SPEAKER_02: And Psalm 136 is this reaccounting of the grace of God to the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_02: And so I'm gonna I'm gonna read you my Psalm 136 in the hopes this will encourage you, and if you haven't done this, that this will it will stab you and convict you.
SPEAKER_02: Psalm 136 of Blake.
SPEAKER_02: So I give thanks to him who kept me alive in a car crash at five years old, to him who revealed himself and to me and made me believe him, to him who fathered me through my mom's four marriages, to him who provided a Christian family example in Dave and Doris, to him who exchanged my appetite for the world for a hunger for himself, to him who gave me a wife that I didn't deserve, that I adored, and I needed more than I could know.
SPEAKER_02: To him who comforted me when my mom died, to him who protected me from being kicked out of seminary.
SPEAKER_02: That's the way you want to hear.
SPEAKER_02: Let me know when you're having dinner.
SPEAKER_02: I'll bring the entertainment, you you provide the food.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, to him who healed our boys through many injuries, he's always given us enough money to pay our bills, he's promised to give a hope in a future.
SPEAKER_02: He's carried me through numerous worries and troubles and woes and tears.
SPEAKER_02: He is so stubborn in his love for me.
SPEAKER_02: You need to write your Psalm 136.
SPEAKER_02: You need to have some way where you can account of what's happened in the past, where you can borrow from that and bring that, have that be manna, which you survive on for today.
SPEAKER_02: See, God moves toward you when you're in trouble.
SPEAKER_02: I think we tend to think when we're in trouble, hey, where are you, God?
SPEAKER_02: Uh where'd you go?
SPEAKER_02: Where'd I get this from?
SPEAKER_02: Look at Psalm 46, verse 1.
SPEAKER_02: It says, God is a refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
SPEAKER_02: That means when there's trouble, God doesn't get farther away, he gets right up closer where you can feel his breath on you.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't get far away.
SPEAKER_02: Another example is Hosea 11.
SPEAKER_02: Now, this is written to Israel, but this is how how much more true could this be for those who are in a covenant in Christ with God?
SPEAKER_02: God writes to them, How could I give you up, O Ephraim?
SPEAKER_02: How can I hand you over, O Israel?
SPEAKER_02: How can I make you like Edma?
SPEAKER_02: How can I treat you like Zeboyam?
SPEAKER_02: That's what God says about himself.
SPEAKER_02: My heart recoils within me, and my compassion grows warm and tender.
SPEAKER_02: I don't think of God recoiling like we can manipulate him.
SPEAKER_02: He's saying, I'm moved when there's big emotion in you.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not controlled by it, I'm not manipulated by it, I'm engaged with it.
SPEAKER_02: I've made you not for my entertainment, but for a relationship.
SPEAKER_02: He goes on, I will not execute my burning anger, I will not again destroy Ephraim, for I'm God and not a man.
SPEAKER_02: The holy one in your midst.
SPEAKER_02: This is what happens when you throw a biblical fit.
SPEAKER_02: At the end, you get to you are holy, and I've gotten it all out of me, and I don't like it, and I don't know how it will end precisely, but I know I know what you've done and what you've said, and I'll say that you're right, and not that I'm right.
SPEAKER_02: And the last thing, this is verse 19 and 20.
SPEAKER_02: When we borrow hope, this is what happens.
SPEAKER_02: Your way is through the sea, your path is through the great waters, yet your footprints were unseen.
SPEAKER_02: You led your people like a flock in the hand of Moses and Aaron.
SPEAKER_02: You begin to trust him to walk through hard things.
SPEAKER_02: And to walk through hard things, knowing, okay, I'm trusting what you say about yourself is true.
SPEAKER_02: I don't require proof right now, you're doing it.
SPEAKER_02: I don't have to see your footprints.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, yep, there you are.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, there you go.
SPEAKER_02: That's what you're doing.
SPEAKER_02: I don't have to always see what you're doing.
SPEAKER_02: You don't have to always reveal and prove yourself constantly to me.
SPEAKER_02: I can trust in what you've done and wait for what you're gonna do.
SPEAKER_02: So we borrow hope from the past, we borrow hope from the future.
SPEAKER_02: And what is God up to in all this?
SPEAKER_02: I wanna we're gonna be in the close and kind of narrow, narrow this funnel down here to where it's gonna get to just a conversation with you and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Listen to read on the screen and listen to this quote.
SPEAKER_02: This is from a book, The Cry of the Soul.
SPEAKER_02: Authors write, God is cunning, He knows how to get our attention rather than let us wallow in mediocrity and complacency, He lets us experience what it would be like to live without Him.
SPEAKER_02: He abandons us in order to shatter our illusions and then lead us into a deeper relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_02: I'll read that last part again.
SPEAKER_02: He abandons us in order to shatter our illusions and then lead us into a deeper relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_02: He's after this deeper experience, deeper relationship with you.
SPEAKER_02: It'd be like if uh if God said, Look, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna cut the trail in front and you walk where I cut.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Boom, cut.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, all right, yes.
SPEAKER_02: Boom, cut.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I see what we're doing here.
SPEAKER_02: Boom, cut.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, boom, cut.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay, door closes, window opens.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I get it.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, here we go.
SPEAKER_02: Boom, cut.
SPEAKER_02: And then you get to a point where he doesn't seem to cut anything.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, wait, we're cutting anything?
SPEAKER_02: What are we doing today?
SPEAKER_02: We're taking a day off?
SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to follow you, trying to walk and how long do I gotta wait?
SPEAKER_02: And you hear something little like sawing.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay, okay, you're doing something different.
unknown: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: And then you hear this creek, creak, creek, creak, and it's a big crash of a tree.
SPEAKER_02: Boom! Right in the middle of the path.
SPEAKER_02: What am I gonna do with this?
SPEAKER_02: Come on! I'm stuck here forever now.
SPEAKER_02: What God's doing in this is slowing you down.
SPEAKER_02: And he is getting close.
SPEAKER_02: I just want you to turn to me.
SPEAKER_02: I want a deeper relationship.
SPEAKER_02: That's what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not trying to jam you up.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not trying to frustrate you.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not trying to hurt you.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, I'm trying to free you.
SPEAKER_02: You're so easily getting to a life about you.
SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to free you from that.
SPEAKER_02: If you knew exactly what I was doing, you'd say, Oh, why didn't you do this sooner?
SPEAKER_02: Do it twice tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02: That's what we'd say.
SPEAKER_02: When we think God has moved far from us, when we think he's abandoned us, he says, what he's doing is he said, Oh, I'm I'm getting to where we're gonna get close together here.
SPEAKER_02: So cry out to me.
SPEAKER_02: Get it out of get it get it out of you.
SPEAKER_02: You can see that you've begun to build a life apart from me.
SPEAKER_02: So will God spurn forever?
SPEAKER_02: So the psalmist asks, we can say emphatically no.
SPEAKER_02: How can we say that?
SPEAKER_02: Because someone was spurned, someone was rejected, so you wouldn't have to be.
SPEAKER_02: Are his promises at an end?
SPEAKER_02: Is he is he done fulfilling his what he said he'll do?
SPEAKER_02: No, those promises are more sure, they're a lot concrete now.
SPEAKER_02: How can you say that?
SPEAKER_02: Because someone lived and then they died and then they rose again.
SPEAKER_02: So those promises would never fail.
SPEAKER_02: What about I I feel like God's punishing me.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not getting my way, so he must be against me.
SPEAKER_02: And that can't be true either, because someone was punished.
SPEAKER_02: Not for what they did, but for what you did.
SPEAKER_02: All of if you're in Christ, all of the punishment that you ever should get has already happened to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: He's already been punished for you.
SPEAKER_02: And so these things that we begin to feel, God says, yes, throw, I'm not afraid of them, throw them over here.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to see how ridiculous they are, and then I want you to walk in freedom from that.
SPEAKER_02: So here's what I want us to do I want us to just sit in this reality for a few moments.
SPEAKER_02: I want us to let's say la.
SPEAKER_02: Let's hold this truth like taffy in our mouth.
SPEAKER_02: Not work it around hard, just hold it there.
SPEAKER_02: I said, Holy Spirit, what what do you have for me from this?
SPEAKER_02: There'll be some questions on the screen.
SPEAKER_02: Those are to help give you some direction if you need some direction.
SPEAKER_02: But you might not eat any.
SPEAKER_02: You might just let me just fold in here, Holy Spirit, and you you tell me, yes.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to feel this, I want you to know this.
SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna we're gonna pause and I say, Holy Spirit, do what we ask you to do.
SPEAKER_02: We sang before that you'd come down, that we'd be able to feel you.
SPEAKER_02: Not in some weird, weird way where we make a bunch of ourselves, but in some way where we're overwhelmed that you come close.
SPEAKER_02: Some way where we begin to understand you are holy.
SPEAKER_02: We begin to understand we've been thinking crazy things about you.
SPEAKER_02: Do it now, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Father, that is true of you.
SPEAKER_02: All you've ever been is kind, not the kind that is a pushover or what we can manipulate or trick, the kind that is is challenging and risky, the kind that gets more out of us than we ever thought was in there, the kind that takes dead things and makes them live.
SPEAKER_02: And so we just confess we don't see things the perfectly how they are, and yet we we we get these things on our mouths and we say things like we we start a holy wars against you, we shake our hand against you.
SPEAKER_02: We want to get it all out and see what's true about you.
SPEAKER_02: You indeed are kind.
SPEAKER_02: Oh Spirit, sear this in us, free us with it.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: I thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_02: Um, as we conclude our service, two things I want to let you know about.
SPEAKER_02: Um, well, one is as you exit, if this is uh the day you give in person, uh we have boxes at the doors, and you you know that's where you do that.
SPEAKER_02: Um for everybody else, uh I uh well this is yeah, welcome.
SPEAKER_02: If if you're ready to be known, if you're ready to like, okay, I've been here once or twice, okay.
SPEAKER_02: You can talk to me.
SPEAKER_02: Uh text welcome to this number.
SPEAKER_02: And um we we want to get to know you, we want to care for you.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we have a lot of things going on in life for our church, and uh to let you know about those things, we're gonna show a video on the screen.
SPEAKER_02: Give your attention.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what's happening at Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Wendy Perry, and I am the coordinator of the ESL program here at Grway on Tuesday nights.
SPEAKER_00: We touch about 12 different countries and cultures each week.
SPEAKER_00: We have opportunities for people to volunteer as teachers to lead a level, conversation partners, and for subs.
SPEAKER_00: We also have a weekly hospitality team and special quarterly dinners.
SPEAKER_00: People can commit to serving weekly every other week, sub as needed, or for our special events.
SPEAKER_00: You do not have to speak another language to teach.
SPEAKER_00: You just have to love people and have a heart for the ministry.
SPEAKER_00: We would love to have you join us in the Mission Center today to let us know that you're interested and to get some more information.
SPEAKER_05: This is Caleb Miller, the bridge pastor for grades four through sixth.
SPEAKER_05: We are excited to welcome our new fourth graders August 3rd.
SPEAKER_05: Our environment is energetic, educational, and engaging, all for the purposes of teaching the gospel to the students of the bridge.
SPEAKER_05: We meet in the gathering room of the adult building and look forward to seeing you on August 3rd.
SPEAKER_04: Howdy! My name is Ian Webber.
SPEAKER_04: I serve as the student pastor of Grant Parkway.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm Amy Fairley.
SPEAKER_01: I serve as the associate student minister.
SPEAKER_04: We have the privilege of leading the 7th through the 12th grade students.
SPEAKER_04: I wanted to say a big welcome to our incoming 7th graders.
SPEAKER_04: The student ministry is all about helping students look up, growing in their understanding of who God is, look in, growing into the young men and women God wants them to be, and look out, growing in their desire to see others experience and follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_04: We can't wait to see you on August 3rd.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine growing in your spiritual gifts, practicing biblical stewardship with your finances, parenting with grace, gaining confidence in core Christian beliefs, and engaging God's Word with clarity.
SPEAKER_01: That is the kind of church we intend to be, and that is why we are investing 10 weeks in these areas of spiritual formation this fall.
SPEAKER_01: Registration for our fall midweek studies, including our women's Tuesday morning classes, is now open.
SPEAKER_01: Visit our website at grandparkway.org to sign up.
SPEAKER_01: Childcare is available with registration.
SPEAKER_01: With school beginning, it's time to gather to pray for all staff and students.
SPEAKER_01: You can be involved in one of two ways.
SPEAKER_01: On Sunday, August 10th, meet at one of our church's three neighborhood schools to pray: Oyster Creek Elementary, Garcia Middle, or Austin High School.
SPEAKER_01: Or meet at a school in your own neighborhood to pray.
SPEAKER_01: Register to let us know your plans, and you'll receive a list of specific ways to pray.
SPEAKER_01: Let's surround the schools all across our city in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: For more information or to register for these events, please visit our website at grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions or want someone to pray for you, find one of our pastors or elders at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.
SPEAKER_02: All right, lots of things going on.
SPEAKER_02: Let's conclude our service.
SPEAKER_02: Why don't you stand with me?
SPEAKER_02: One of our traditions is to end our time together with a spoken blessing.
SPEAKER_02: And so put your hands out if you're comfortable, like you're going to receive something.
SPEAKER_02: I'll speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_02: God's not put off by you throwing a fit, by just burning it down.
SPEAKER_02: He's not put off by that.
SPEAKER_02: So don't hide from your feelings.
SPEAKER_02: And don't hide your feelings from him.
SPEAKER_02: It's the way to freedom.
SPEAKER_02: So depart now.
SPEAKER_02: Enjoy that freedom.
SPEAKER_02: In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.