An Ancient Prayer for When All Seems Lost

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to the Erickson Covenant Podcast. We are so glad that you've joined us today. We confess that we don't have all the answers, but as a community, we seek to find and follow Jesus and to discover daily the life he has always wanted for us. We hope this message will be encouraging and will inspire you to take the next steps on your spiritual journey. If we can help you in any way, please connect with us. The easiest way is through our website at Erickson Covenant CA let's get started. [00:00:38] Speaker B: We are coming out of a week [00:00:39] Speaker C: of financial insecurity as elbows went up [00:00:44] Speaker B: and talks broke down between Canada and the U.S. and tariff threats are being [00:00:50] Speaker C: lobbed back and forth across the 49th parable parallel. Spoonerism only a preacher would make. [00:01:06] Speaker B: And then, on top of what's been flowing out of the Strait of Hormuz and rampant inflation, people are starting to feel shaky, feeling insecure, worried about what's happening and how this is all going to pan out. And of course, everyone has an opinion [00:01:24] Speaker C: on who's to blame and who's at fault, and whether this politician or that [00:01:29] Speaker B: pundit has it right or has it wrong. But I am not here to share [00:01:33] Speaker C: any opinions with you today. You're welcome very much. [00:01:38] Speaker B: Instead, I want to offer you something [00:01:40] Speaker C: far more solid than opinion. [00:01:44] Speaker B: I want to offer you an ancient prayer that fits this moment of economic insecurity, financial instability perfectly, giving you and I the words that we can pray that will actually affect the way that we experience these days that we're in [00:02:04] Speaker C: and respond faithfully during a troubling time. [00:02:08] Speaker B: Now, I was tempted to title this passage An Ancient Prayer for Tariff Tiffs, or An Ancient Prayer for Dumpster fires, or or even an Ancient prayer to pray when elbows come up and talks break down. But I settled on an ancient prayer [00:02:23] Speaker C: for when all Seems Lost. [00:02:25] Speaker B: Because whether we're feeling shaken by these [00:02:29] Speaker C: last week's headlines of talks and tariffs, [00:02:32] Speaker B: or last week's fires or yesterday's floods or whatever else might be dominating the [00:02:38] Speaker C: doom cycle next week and the week [00:02:40] Speaker B: after, we need a prayer that covers [00:02:45] Speaker C: not only the frantic headlines, but also [00:02:49] Speaker B: combats those swirling fears and the mounting uncertainty that we can feel inside. Whenever it seems like things are going to go off the rails, from the global to the personal, the economic and [00:03:03] Speaker C: otherwise, we need a prayer for when all seems lost. And we've got it right here. It's found in the book of the prophet Habakkuk. Here it is, an ancient prayer for when all seems lost. From the last three verses, I want you to hear it. [00:03:23] Speaker B: Though the fig tree does not bud [00:03:28] Speaker C: and there are no grapes on the vines. [00:03:32] Speaker B: Though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food. Though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. [00:03:44] Speaker C: I will be joyful in God, my Savior. [00:03:48] Speaker B: The sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer. [00:03:52] Speaker C: He enables me to tread on the heights. Now, we're going to unpack this, but [00:03:58] Speaker B: before we do, I want to read [00:04:00] Speaker C: it for you one more time. [00:04:01] Speaker B: And I just invite you to close your eyes and soak in this prayer [00:04:06] Speaker C: for just a moment. [00:04:08] Speaker B: And after I finish reading this prayer [00:04:09] Speaker C: a second time, we'll just sit quiet for just a moment and receive it. Here it is. Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines. Though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food. [00:04:28] Speaker B: Though there are no sheep in the [00:04:30] Speaker C: pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God, my Savior. The sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer. He enables me to tread on the heights. Just take a moment, close your eyes, sit quietly, and receive the those words. My friends, it's as if this prayer was written just for us today. Maybe geared especially to a time when so many people are feeling economically unstable, financially uncertain. [00:05:41] Speaker B: Because whether you're a single mom that's [00:05:43] Speaker C: trying to make ends meet, or an [00:05:44] Speaker B: older couple with only a little bit to retire on, or a young family wondering how in the world you'll ever own a home, or a young adult facing a job market that's in convulsions due to AI. This is a prayer that will reshape [00:05:58] Speaker C: your experience and strengthen your hope regardless of what's going on around you. Did you notice how the prayer played out? [00:06:10] Speaker B: Habakkuk relays all the things that could possibly go wrong. [00:06:15] Speaker C: I mean, in his day, failure of crops and loss of livestock. [00:06:19] Speaker B: And then he affirms that even if [00:06:21] Speaker C: the worst were to happen, he will still rejoice in God, his Savior. [00:06:27] Speaker B: His prayer is not only a profound statement of trusting faith, but it's a [00:06:32] Speaker C: powerful choice to joyfully hope. [00:06:37] Speaker B: And you know, this wasn't just theoretical [00:06:38] Speaker C: mumbo jumbo for Habakkuk. I keep saying habakkuk or habakkuk. I don't know what it is. Potato, potahto, roll with me. I'll try to. I'll try not to be too biased. I'll use Both. [00:06:51] Speaker B: But he is not living under a rock. He is in the nation of Israel, [00:06:56] Speaker C: and it is deeply troubled and is facing a very uncertain future. [00:07:02] Speaker B: Let's take a quick tour for some context. This little book of Habakkuk is only three chapters long. It features a back and forth conversation [00:07:11] Speaker C: between the prophet and Yahweh, the God of Israel. [00:07:16] Speaker B: Habakkuk first cries out to God to do something about the injustice and the violence and the evil that is rampant among these wicked people, his own people, the people of Israel. [00:07:29] Speaker C: Israel was a mess. [00:07:31] Speaker B: Violence was everywhere, and many people were suffering from it. And so Habakkuk opens up with this lament, verse two of chapter one. How long, Lord, must I call for help? But you do not listen or cry out to you violence, but you do not save. Well, Yahweh then answers Habakkuk by telling him that he's in fact going to judge Israel. Oh yes, going to judge her for her sin. And he's going to do that by using the newly emerging Babylonian empire as his tool. And Habakkuk fiercely objects to Yahweh's plan. He says, that ain't right. [00:08:10] Speaker C: Well, not quite. That's my paraphrase. [00:08:12] Speaker B: That ain't right. He argues, how can you use the wicked Babylonians? They're even worse than the Israelites. So you're going to use an even more evil people who you know to judge Israel? Yeah, they're bad, but they're more righteous than those guys. Habakkuk wants God to judge Israel, yes, but not that way, and not with those people. And so he demands that Yahweh answer [00:08:37] Speaker C: his complaint, which Yahweh does. [00:08:40] Speaker B: And what's Yahweh's response? Well, he promises to hold the Babylonians [00:08:44] Speaker C: accountable for their sin too, revealing the [00:08:47] Speaker B: fact that he's actually going to use [00:08:49] Speaker C: the Babylonians to judge Israel. [00:08:51] Speaker B: But nobody's going to be getting away [00:08:53] Speaker C: with murder or idolatry. [00:08:54] Speaker B: What goes around will come around for the Babylonians too. The Babylonians will be judged for their [00:09:00] Speaker C: sin, just as Israel will be. [00:09:02] Speaker B: And through it all, God's power will be revealed over the nations, so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord [00:09:13] Speaker C: as the waters cover the sea. Trust me, Yahweh says to Habakkuk, have faith in me. [00:09:20] Speaker B: That's the only way to live, because [00:09:22] Speaker C: the righteous live by trusting faith in Yahweh. [00:09:26] Speaker B: And so, based on this clear revelation, Habakkuk then finishes his book with what we heard Peter read A vision of Yahweh's sovereign good greatness over all creation and over all the nations, affirming that Yahweh will rescue his people just as he rescued them from the Egyptian enemy. He's going to rescue his people again [00:09:47] Speaker C: in a second exodus. All we need to do is trust Him. He will lead us through. And then that's what leads Habakkuk to his final prayer of profound faith and his choice to rejoice despite how bad things might get. Well, that's a whirlwind journey through this [00:10:06] Speaker B: book, but it's amazing how it maps [00:10:09] Speaker C: onto our time today. Roll with me a little bit. Do some feel that we're being economically crushed by an evil enemy? That we're being threatened by a vastly more powerful. Okay, maybe it doesn't map on perfectly, [00:10:30] Speaker B: but there's a lot of uncertainty going on about how we're going to make it. As Canadians facing down a Goliath to the south, are we getting squeezed financially? And what will happen if we're squeezed even more? What will the Church of Jesus Christ do when we face intensified pressures in our own finances, in our own future? Will we continue to seek the kingdom [00:10:56] Speaker C: of God or will we shrink back in fear? Those are real questions that emerge out of this book. [00:11:04] Speaker B: And does it seem like when we [00:11:07] Speaker C: look around, that there is little justice? [00:11:09] Speaker B: That there's a whole lot of wrong going on, even here at home in Canada? [00:11:15] Speaker C: Could it be that God might use this crisis to get our attention? [00:11:23] Speaker B: I mean, Habakkuk starts his book by [00:11:25] Speaker C: crying out to God to judge his [00:11:27] Speaker B: own people, to overturn the wickedness in [00:11:30] Speaker C: his own nation, Israel? [00:11:33] Speaker B: Well, I ask you, how many times have godly Christ followers cried out to God to judge the wicked, to overturn the evil that runs rampant in our own country of Canada? [00:11:49] Speaker C: Evils that destroy the unborn, exploit the [00:11:53] Speaker B: vulnerable, celebrate immorality, glorify greed, sterilize and mutilate the bodies of young people, crush [00:12:05] Speaker C: the poor, and then simply euthanize those who are too sick and helpless? Now, I know it might seem odd to our ears, but could God's hand [00:12:18] Speaker B: be in these mounting pressures? Even in this latest round of tariff tiffs? [00:12:26] Speaker C: Could it be that God could even use something like this to bring us to repentance before Him? Have we even considered that when we shout at the screen, Are not many [00:12:44] Speaker B: followers of Jesus feeling overwhelmed by troubles [00:12:47] Speaker C: and pressures, economic, but also other ones too? Habakkuk reminds us that the righteous live by faith. Not a blind faith, but an evidence [00:12:57] Speaker B: based Faith that's rooted in the previous actions of God and the good promises of God, the God who is faithful and proved it again through Jesus and is going to follow through in what he said. It's living by faith in the faithfulness of Jesus. Well, what does that look like for us today? Again, if you soak your mind in the world of Habakkuk, you'll see that [00:13:18] Speaker C: his time of uncertainty maps quite nicely onto ours. [00:13:24] Speaker B: And his concluding prayer then offers us words that we can pray as we first reflect on all the what ifs and the worst case scenarios and then [00:13:36] Speaker C: make the choice to rejoice because God is more true and more faithful than any of the troubles we face. Well, how can we do that? Let's explore the prayer a little more deeply. [00:13:50] Speaker B: First, this ancient prayer invites us to itemize all the things that we think might possibly go wrong for us. Some of you are very good at [00:14:00] Speaker C: catastrophizing, and this is now your chance. [00:14:05] Speaker B: Run with it. Do what you do best. Look past all the fig trees and olive crops and sheep pens and, well, [00:14:15] Speaker C: for most of us. [00:14:16] Speaker B: And then make the cultural equivalent of what your version of the worst possible meltdown that you can imagine. What would fig trees not budding and no grapes in the vines mean for you? Like, what does that actually mean for you? The equivalent. What does all of crop failure and unproductive fields look like for your family in your situation? What is the equivalent of empty sheep pens and cattle stalls? When you think of your future, [00:14:55] Speaker C: Maybe it's job losses. Maybe it's the stock market crashing. Maybe it's a medical emergency that forces [00:15:02] Speaker B: you to quit your job or cost you lots. [00:15:05] Speaker C: You have to mortgage the house over it. Maybe it's a failing business venture or [00:15:11] Speaker B: increasing housing prices or government cutbacks or rising interest rates, or frankly, just never quite figuring out how to make enough [00:15:18] Speaker C: money to make ends meet. What's your worst case scenario? Just think about it. What's your worst case scenario? [00:15:30] Speaker B: Because that's what Habakkuk is describing here. He's describing the worst possible financial crisis in ancient culture. If you were a landowner and a householder, you had many mouths to feed. It wasn't mom and 2.4 kids or 1.9 kids or how many other kids [00:15:50] Speaker C: they're supposed to have out there. [00:15:52] Speaker B: You would have had many more extended family servants. Might have been 30 or 40 people depending on you. And with total crop failure and your animals dead, these are crushing losses. And now you're facing total catastrophe. And remember, this is in a world that doesn't have a social net beyond family. This is not a world where there's bankruptcy protection or government bailouts. This is a catastrophe that Habakkuk is describing that likely is facing everyone. Not just a family here, a family there. This is total societal breakdown. [00:16:28] Speaker C: The prophet Habakkuk is describing brutal disaster, and he invites us to go all the way to the bitter end of our dark imaginations and fill in the [00:16:40] Speaker B: blank with our own worst case scenario. [00:16:43] Speaker C: Have you done that yet? What's your worst case scenario? [00:16:48] Speaker B: And then after filling out that blank, [00:16:52] Speaker C: we're supposed to then say, and how are we going to respond now? What? So even though blank what? Well, I do. Even if blank happens, what choice will I make? [00:17:16] Speaker B: Because after naming all the worst things and all the devastating possibilities, crop failure and stock loss, Habakkuk then makes his bold, faithful choice. And this is where the prayer leads [00:17:27] Speaker C: us in trusting faith from disaster to hope. [00:17:31] Speaker B: Even though I'm facing total devastation, yet [00:17:36] Speaker C: I will rejoice in the Lord. [00:17:39] Speaker B: Even though I've lost all my security and all my means, yet I will be joyful in God. Even if my money is gone and my house is repossessed and my kids are hungry and my wife is frantic and I'm facing a future that's grim and foreboding and dark. Even if all that is true, I'll [00:18:03] Speaker C: make the choice to rejoice in the Lord. My friends, that is a powerful choice to make. How does that sit with you? A little challenging. Thank you, John. Yes. [00:18:23] Speaker B: What does that choice represent? What does praying a prayer like this [00:18:31] Speaker C: do to your heart, to your mind, to your life? [00:18:38] Speaker B: Earlier in Habakkuk, we read this famous [00:18:40] Speaker C: verse, the righteous will live by faith or by their faithfulness. [00:18:43] Speaker B: It's a central truth that's picked up. It's quoted three times in the New [00:18:47] Speaker C: Testament, three different letters, in fact. [00:18:49] Speaker B: And why? Because this is the essence of the Christian life, a life that's lived dependent [00:18:56] Speaker C: upon God and his salvation. [00:19:00] Speaker B: As people who have been declared righteous in Jesus Christ through no good work of our own, and have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit so that God now dwells within us, we don't depend on the things that we do to secure our future because we know that there's nothing we really can do to secure our future. Instead, we place our full weight on [00:19:23] Speaker C: Jesus Christ and we trust what he's done for us. Our life, as we read in Colossians [00:19:31] Speaker B: chapter three, is now hidden with Christ in God. And we engage our present and we [00:19:38] Speaker C: view our future as having been secured by God Himself. [00:19:44] Speaker B: Here's the truth. Whatever troubles may loom. [00:19:48] Speaker C: And troubles do loom, don't they? Our futures are not determined by financial forecasts. Our futures are determined by the Father's faithfulness. Whatever happens to the economy, our present [00:20:05] Speaker B: needs are not provided for by our cash. Our present needs are provided by the Father's care. [00:20:13] Speaker C: The One to whom we pray give us this day our daily bread and we trust him for our provision. [00:20:22] Speaker B: So this prayer of Habakkuk invites us to catastrophize. [00:20:24] Speaker C: Yes, it does. [00:20:26] Speaker B: But to do that only so that we can then turn our hearts away from those fears of the future, away from that worst case scenario, and turn [00:20:36] Speaker C: toward trusting faith in the Father. [00:20:39] Speaker B: This turn from worry to trust is the same turn that Jesus told us all to make in His Sermon on the Mount when he said, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Your Heavenly Father knows that you need them, but seek first the kingdom and [00:20:58] Speaker C: his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. [00:21:04] Speaker B: So we're to acknowledge before God our fears about what might happen to us, but then fix our hearts on who [00:21:10] Speaker C: is going to bring us through it all in the end and choose to rejoice in Him. So there's two aspects to this we've already been exploring. The first one, despite how wrong things might go, we make the choice to rejoice in our Savior God. [00:21:27] Speaker B: Instead of just bemoaning the state of [00:21:29] Speaker C: things and worrying about everything, we make [00:21:31] Speaker B: an active, real, physical choice to praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. To rejoice in our Savior, to express to him our worship and our love [00:21:44] Speaker C: and our adoration and our delight for who he is. [00:21:49] Speaker B: And this choice to rejoice, it isn't just a mental exercise. It's not just something that happens behind [00:21:56] Speaker C: kind of a blank face and a still body. [00:22:03] Speaker B: The rejoice here in the Hebrew is the opposite of quiet reflection. In fact, this rejoice listed twice here, [00:22:12] Speaker C: just like Paul in Philippians. [00:22:14] Speaker B: It's a whole body response where our heart and our brain and our limbs and our emotions are all caught up in this rejoicing in the Lord so that we are a moving, vibrating, responding, [00:22:29] Speaker C: rejoicing with our limbs and our lungs. [00:22:32] Speaker B: Think of a hockey crowd at the final Stanley cup game when their team wins. [00:22:39] Speaker C: How much quiet reflection do you see? [00:22:45] Speaker B: You assume the guy died of a heart attack or something, right? If there's quiet reflection going, come on the crowd is surging to their feet. It's a full whole body rejoicing. That's what's going on here. This is the whole body cheer that we give when our kids finally succeed in mastering a difficult skill. Or the surging physical feeling that courses through your body when your lover or your kid finally returns home after a long trip away. [00:23:15] Speaker C: That feeling. [00:23:17] Speaker B: Eugene Peterson, he captures that Hebrew meaning of rejoice when he translated these verses in. In the message translated this way, he says, I'm singing joyful praise to God. I'm turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior, God. Counting on God's rule to prevail. I take heart and gain strength. I run like a deer. [00:23:38] Speaker C: I feel like I'm king of the mountain. [00:23:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Can you feel the physicality of that rejoicing? Cartwheels of joy. [00:23:47] Speaker C: I want to see some right now. Yeah. [00:23:51] Speaker A: No. [00:23:51] Speaker C: Yeah. Paramedics are standing by [00:23:56] Speaker B: this, taking heart and strength. This is a choice to fully rejoice, to fully engage our whole selves in celebration of who God is as our Savior, our redeemer, our friend. And this physical choice to actually get up, to start moving, to raise our hands, it actually has an amplifying effect. Because as we choose to rejoice with full physical engagement, as we cheer and cartwheel or try and laugh and shout, our bodies and our brains act like partners to rewire and reorient us around what is truer than our troubles and greater than our fears. The triune God who is present and providing and promising to keep us and [00:24:38] Speaker C: keep us through to the end. Here's the secret to true happiness. [00:24:45] Speaker B: Knowing that our circumstances are not the [00:24:47] Speaker C: source of our joy. God our Father is. Our circumstances change up and down, here and there. The Father does not. [00:24:59] Speaker B: And our future is not determined by [00:25:01] Speaker C: how things look today or look tomorrow. [00:25:03] Speaker B: It's not determined by men in suits fighting about trades and tariffs. Our future is determined by the sovereign Savior who has promised to work out everything for our good in the end. That's why we can say with Paul, with such confidence, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing. Say it with me. Not worth comparing. One more time. Say it like you mean it. Not worth comparing with the glory that. That will be revealed in us. The glory coming. [00:25:37] Speaker C: Is that great. [00:25:40] Speaker B: But is that only wishful thinking? [00:25:42] Speaker C: You know, positive mumbo jumbo? [00:25:46] Speaker B: Or do these things really work when things go wrong? I mean, is it actually possible to [00:25:52] Speaker C: rejoice when things go super dark? [00:25:55] Speaker B: Well, Timothy Keller, who himself demonstrated this kind of faithful rejoicing when he faced his own death by pancreatic cancer, he told the story of a missionary, Alan Gardner, to show us that, yes, not only is this kind of rejoicing possible, but it's actually preferable to all other options. [00:26:14] Speaker C: And I think you'll find his story inspiring, too. [00:26:17] Speaker B: So, in 1850, Captain Alan Gardner set off from England with six other companions to establish a mission among the indigenous [00:26:25] Speaker C: Ugand people of Tierra del Fuego. It's off the coast of the South America tip. [00:26:32] Speaker B: But the expedition was a disaster from [00:26:34] Speaker C: the very start, and they never got the mission going. [00:26:39] Speaker B: A supply ship from England was delayed, and then they left the massive cache of provisions on a landing beach, and then all their stuff was washed away [00:26:48] Speaker C: in the high tides. [00:26:50] Speaker B: They were stranded on a desolate coastline with dwindling rations, and Gardner and his men slowly starved. Scurvy broke out. The harsh Patagonian winter pummeled what was left of them and their makeshift camp and the remaining small boats. [00:27:08] Speaker C: And one by one, from starvation and exposure, each man died until only Alan Gardner was left. How must he have felt? I ask you, how must he have felt having said yes to Jesus and [00:27:27] Speaker B: left behind everything to serve in his mission, only to have actually failed and [00:27:34] Speaker C: now was soon to die? Well, we know exactly how he felt because he journaled it all, Alan Gardner wrote in his journal, right up to his final moments. And what do we find in that journal? We find a man of profound faith expressing gratitude to God and a peace within, explicitly noting that he did not regret his missionary calling even as he lay dying alone in a cave. [00:28:12] Speaker B: His very last journal entry. You need to listen to this. His very last journal entry, scrawled with a failing hand, was this phrase, I [00:28:21] Speaker C: am overwhelmed with a sense of the goodness of God. I am overwhelmed with a sense of the goodness of God. Might that be what rejoicing in the Lord when all is lost looks like? [00:28:44] Speaker B: That Alan Gardner lived and died by [00:28:46] Speaker C: faith, making the choice to rejoice in [00:28:50] Speaker B: his Savior even when his mission floundered [00:28:53] Speaker C: and his body failed. [00:28:56] Speaker B: Upon reading his journal, it turns out that his concluding words about being overwhelmed [00:29:00] Speaker C: with the sense of the goodness of [00:29:01] Speaker B: God was closely tied to some of his written reflections in just the days before, where he had been reading and reflecting on Psalm 34. 10. [00:29:12] Speaker C: The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing. Wait. They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing. [00:29:33] Speaker B: That's what Gardner was ruminating on as his gums bled from scurvy and his stomach shrunk from starvation and his chattering cold breath breath ebbed away into a lonely death. That [00:29:51] Speaker C: could it be that he knew what many others have known? That even in the face of disaster and death, God is truly good and he is always with us and he's [00:30:04] Speaker B: more than enough for this life and through to the next. [00:30:08] Speaker C: That even though disaster comes, I will still rejoice. When a relief ship finally did arrive in January 1851, just a few weeks too late, they found all seven men dead. [00:30:25] Speaker B: But as they recovered their bodies, they [00:30:27] Speaker C: also recovered their journals detailing their unwavering faith in God through unimaginable suffering and failure. [00:30:34] Speaker B: And those journals served to then catalyze others who read them. And it sparked a massive mass missionary wave and financial support back in Victoria and Britain, which then continued the mission [00:30:48] Speaker C: work that they had set out and died to start. Is that what it looks like to rejoice in the Lord when all seems lost? Well, Alan Gardner, as well as Timothy Keller or Perpetua or John Huss or Hyun Su lim or Ian McPhee or [00:31:06] Speaker B: countless other faithful Christians who have faced disaster and death with faith and joy, they have shown us that it's not [00:31:12] Speaker C: only, but it's positively preferable. [00:31:16] Speaker B: It's the most faithful and life giving way to engage the troubles that we all experience. [00:31:22] Speaker C: God is good. [00:31:24] Speaker B: God is great. He's greater than all our troubles. He's good to the very end. [00:31:29] Speaker C: And you can trust Him. [00:31:32] Speaker B: Well, what's the upshot of all this, practically speaking? [00:31:35] Speaker C: Friends, may I encourage you? Don't let the weekly news determine your daily worship. Make the choice to rejoice not in [00:31:46] Speaker B: your circumstances, but in your Savior. And make your rejoicing physical. Get up if you have to. Shut the blinds for a while. Shut the blinds, but turn the music up and start dancing, man. Sing it out, shout it out, yell it out. Embarrass your kids if you have to. That's one advantage to coming to corporate worship each week is that you're forced to come up and some of you just are forced to stand every once in a while. But you might start moving a limb and you might find another one starts moving and maybe a foot starts tapping and a head starts bopping. [00:32:26] Speaker C: I don't know what the spirit might do for you. [00:32:28] Speaker B: Miracles still exist today. So you could start to physically worship. It's the advantage of corporate worship. But I encourage you to make it so much more than that. To let your body and your brain unite by the spirit as you choose to cheer loud and proud for the God who is your Savior. [00:32:47] Speaker C: Make the choice to rejoice, friends. [00:32:50] Speaker B: But there's one more aspect we need to explore, because it's the grounding truth of why our choice to rejoice makes [00:32:57] Speaker C: a real difference in our lives. [00:33:00] Speaker B: When we make our choice to rejoice in God our Savior, we discover something in real time. The Savior God in whom we rejoice [00:33:08] Speaker C: is the Sovereign God who strengthens us from within. Remember how Peterson put it in his [00:33:15] Speaker B: message, counting on God's rule to prevail. I take heart and gain strength. I run like a deer. [00:33:20] Speaker C: I feel like I'm king of the mountain. Or as the new international version translates it, the sovereign Lord, my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer. He enables me to tread on the heights. [00:33:34] Speaker B: Sovereignty, of course, means that God is [00:33:36] Speaker C: actually the God above all gods. [00:33:38] Speaker B: He's actually the King over all kings. And then he's going to bring every single thing, all of creation, all of history, all people, all nations. He's going to bring it through to his intended goal. [00:33:51] Speaker C: The Sovereign God has got everything under control. [00:33:55] Speaker B: None of these troubles will endure. None of this wickedness will win. And it's important that we remind ourselves constantly of who is at the helm as God's people. [00:34:07] Speaker C: We affirm God's sovereignty, don't we? [00:34:11] Speaker B: Not Donald's, not Carney's, not Parliament, not Congress, not Davos or Soros or Club of Rome or Meta or Apple or Anthropic or Elon or the UN or wherever those dark cabal people are claiming or running things, to quote Psalm 2, 4. And I encourage you to do so. The one enthroned in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them. [00:34:43] Speaker C: And why? [00:34:44] Speaker B: Because Yahweh booms. [00:34:46] Speaker C: I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain. [00:34:52] Speaker B: And this installed king, he reigns because after his death and resurrection, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue proclaim, acknowledge that Jesus Christ [00:35:12] Speaker C: is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Here's the point. We need to hear it. [00:35:17] Speaker B: The sovereign King, risen, exalted and in whom we rejoice. This sovereign Lord is our strength. [00:35:28] Speaker C: I take heart and gain strength. [00:35:30] Speaker B: I run like a deer. He enables me to tread on the heights. [00:35:34] Speaker C: You know, I of course love the mountain running image. Sorry, maybe it's my ultra marathon experiences that makes it such a compelling image for me. [00:35:42] Speaker B: But I Think we can all feel it because it pivots. Picture is a person who's been given the strength to rise above it all with the stability of a sure footed deer empowered to tread on the heights. I love it. This is a person who has power within. Why? Because the sovereign, all powerful Lord is within, empowering them to rise above whatever is happening. This is strength. Get it, get it. This is strength that comes from within, but not from ourselves. This is not some elite specimen of endurance or willpower or positive vibes. This is strength that's. Get this. This is not even strength that's given [00:36:24] Speaker C: as a gift from God, like something [00:36:27] Speaker B: God gives to us by extension. The strength is the sovereign Lord himself, who lives within every believer by the Holy Spirit. If we could just grasp that truth, [00:36:40] Speaker C: it would change us forever. [00:36:42] Speaker B: It really would. The sovereign Lord is our strength. That's the impact of the point. The force of the Hebrew here is that the sovereign Lord is our strength, our vitality, our energy, our power. And if you trust him with your life and trust him with your future, if you confess Jesus as your sovereign Lord and your Savior, God, and you place all your hope in him, he lives within you by His Holy Spirit [00:37:10] Speaker C: and He is your strength. [00:37:13] Speaker B: The sovereign Lord who's also the Savior. God is with us and in us. He will never leave us and forsake us. And even though we walk through the [00:37:21] Speaker C: valley of the shadow of death, even [00:37:25] Speaker B: though we're experiencing disaster or threats of disaster, the Sovereign Lord doesn't just lead us through those dark valleys, but he leads us on to the mountain heights where we're able to rise above the darkness and run with the Spirit's power and see with the Savior's hope and know that all the troubles and all the trials, they're not only just temporary. Not only can they not be compared [00:37:49] Speaker C: with the glory that would be revealed, [00:37:51] Speaker B: but they're also being used by our ever resourceful, all powerful Sovereign God to [00:37:56] Speaker C: accomplish his salvation for the whole world. [00:38:01] Speaker B: Kind of like the way Yahweh used the wicked Babylonians to accomplish his good purposes. And how even through all the mess, the Sovereign Lord was working out his promises that the earth would be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. As the waters cover the sea, we can know in our heart of hearts we can rejoice with our whole bodies that this Sovereign Lord who is in us, he will bring all of us [00:38:24] Speaker C: through to his desired end. [00:38:27] Speaker B: And so our choice to rejoice is grounded in this amazing truth as we actively rejoice in him in the present. [00:38:36] Speaker C: He empowers us to run with him into the future. We live in an unstable world, but the Sovereign Lord is solid. He's ruling. He's reigning over all. He lives within us. And he is our stability and our strength. [00:38:54] Speaker B: When we know that, why would we not rejoice? Why would we not run? When we understand that he's here, why would we not cheer, surge to our feet? He's the one that's got the whole world in his hands. He's the one that's winning it all [00:39:11] Speaker C: back to Himself through Christ. [00:39:12] Speaker B: So whatever happens with these trade wars or this tariff tiff or this retaliatory attack, take heart, my friends. None of that is our source of stability. None of that informs our hope. None of that gives us strength. [00:39:31] Speaker C: The Sovereign Lord is our strength. And it's in him that we make the daily choice to rejoice and find that the one who is in us, he is greater than anyone who's in the world. [00:39:51] Speaker B: So will you pray this ancient prayer? Will you make it your own, especially when you're worried, especially when you're down, Especially when you're feeling shaken or you want to yell at the TV or just yell at somebody? When all seems lost, will you pray this ancient prayer? And let this ancient prayer invite you into this empowering truth that as you prayerfully rejoice the sovereign God who is [00:40:17] Speaker C: in you, he beefs you up, he [00:40:19] Speaker B: makes you bold for the days to [00:40:21] Speaker C: come Be they dark or be they dandy, the Sovereign Lord is your strength. Let's finish today from the easy English translation. I'm kind of liking this translation and I invite you to pray it as I read it one more time. [00:40:39] Speaker B: Actually, you know what? [00:40:41] Speaker C: Let's read it together. Why don't you stand and let's read it together. I mean, get that physical. [00:40:47] Speaker B: At least stand and we'll read it together. It'll be on the screen. Whatever happens, I will continue to thank the Lord. If there are no flowers on the fig trees, if there are no grapes on the vines, if there are no olives on the olive trees, if there are no crops in the fields, if the sheep are dying in the hills, if there are no cows on the farms, I still sing to thank the Lord. I will be happy because God is [00:41:27] Speaker C: the one who makes me safe. [00:41:30] Speaker B: The Lord God causes me to be strong. He makes my feet run safely over [00:41:37] Speaker C: the rocks and hills like a deer's feet. Amen. [00:41:45] Speaker A: Thanks for listening in today. We hope you feel encouraged and challenged. If you know someone who would benefit from what you have heard today. Please share this podcast for more information or if you have questions, you can connect with us through our website, EricksonCovenant CA. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Erickson Covenant Church.