If The Lord Had Not Helped

Y'all can be seated. I um you can go ahead and come on up, Ronnie. I'm collecting my thoughts here, collecting my words. Um so I [clears throat] I was surprised today. um and and probably emotional just because my parents didn't tell me they were coming. Um and also my youth pastor um from when I was 14 years old showed up today.

And so um the people in the room for the last 26 years of my life that have just shown me Jesus are here today. And and what I love about Pastor Ashley um is he just throws you in the deep end. So I remember being 14 years old walking into the church for the first time and um which I've said the story before about the 9/11 and us driving down the road and my dad saying this world's going to hell in a hand basket and we need to go to a church. Well, this is the man who said that. So he's over here as well. Um, but I remember one of those first Sundays walking into church and Pastor Ashley came up to me and he said, "You know, I can tell you're new here.

How much do you know about Jesus?" He's like, "Let's start meeting." And we started meeting on Mondays after school whenever I'd get out. And I'm a brand new Christian. And his idea was, "Let's walk through Wayne Grudam Systematic theology, which is a book about this thick. And here we are 26 years later, which makes me feel old a little bit.

But then at the same time, as our does know, we also have Chris Kellermire who's in the room. And about 12 years ago, while Kelsey and I were down in Miami, Florida, helping plant a church there, we started praying about where God would send us to plant another church. And we reached out to Chris here in Indianapolis, and um I think we even left Miami and it was 88 degrees, and we got here and it was 8°. So, congratulations. That's a hard sale. But you pulled it off and we ended up moving here to start a church.

And that was 11 years ago when we actually made the move and then started the church officially 10 years ago on this Sunday. But we didn't start the church alone. Our church has always been a part of church planting networks. And honestly, one of the reasons why many of our other pastoral friends, church planting friends, they never made it to 10 years was because they didn't lean on the help and the support of their networks and the pastors and the friends and the camaraderie that comes with that. And so that's why it was so important for me to also invite Ronnie and Melissa Martin to be able to come and be with us today because of just things that we've walked through as a couple, things we've walked through as a church over the last decade. And being a part of Harbor Network has just been such a refreshing resource to renew our souls, especially in the years that were hard and difficult, but also there in the years that were beautiful and celebratory.

And I'm so thankful for you guys to be able to join us today and to be able to lead us in the word this morning because again, the only reason why the district has been here for this long is because we stand on the word of God. and we preach the word of God and we share the good news that it points us to. And so Ronnie, would you open us up the word of God this morning? Thank you so much. And there's always a fun fact about Ronnie that we always love to share. Um, he was a professional dirt bike guy.

Is that the way you say it? Motocross. That's the word I was looking for. Not professional. Yeah, professional. But you can see you can tell everybody that if you want.

So incredibly gifted at the back flips and all that good stuff. So thank you for joining us this morning. Thank you, man. Do you need one of these guys? Yeah, I'm not good enough where I don't need a pull pit. So I I need something.

Thank you, brother. All right, brother. Well, gosh, thanks so much, Dwayne. And Dwayne described himself earlier as he was going to be blubbering all morning. His words, not mine. And I'm like, I I like thinking of you as a blubber, to be honest.

I like that. I like that image of you. Um well, gosh, thanks so much for having us. And what an honor it is to be here uh with you all on your on your 10 year birthday. Um gosh, it was it would have been we planted a church in Ohio 13 years ago. We recently in the last two years moved to Bloomington, Indiana, but it was it would have been three years ago we celebrated our 10y year anniversary.

So, it's still so close that uh that I I remember it and um it's just such a a massive milestone. So, um it's it's really a a privilege to be here and and to think of uh you know, when you look around the room and you think of church planting and you think of uh gosh, just all the stories and all of the um all of the major developments and the people the people that were here 10 years ago that aren't here anymore, the people that are here today and all of the things you guys have shared and experienced together. It's just uh it's crazy. It's it's literally crazy. It's hard to even add it all up and um there's so much of that emotion and those things that that go through our mind when all this is going on. So to be here and to be a part of that is is really cool.

And uh I if you want to turn your Bibles to Psalm 124. Hopefully this will be encouraging passage. Dwayne, does this help me out here? Does this thing flatten out a little bit or or no? Does it use some muscle? Oh, you gota use some Well, that's my problem then.

Hey, Ronnie, here's an idea. How about using some muscle? Gotcha, brother. Gotcha. I heard I heard what you were saying there. Um, well, like I said about about almost two years, we moved to moved to Bloomington, Indiana from Ohio.

Uh, I like to tell people the biggest difference between Indiana and Ohio is literally there is no difference. Um, they're interchangeable. I know some of you guys are like, "Dude, never say that. You know, our football team is different." It's like, "Yeah, but I don't watch sports, so that doesn't mean anything to me." Um the uh when you cross the Indiana line into Ohio, Indiana, nothing changes.

Like, it's literally the same landscape. Um so, moving to uh to Bloomington was it's been great. It's been great to become a would I say an Indiana in or a Hooer? I don't know. Lingo me here up a little bit, you know. Um, but one of the things that happened when we moved to Bloomington was uh we we needed somebody to help us, you know, kind of unload the truck when when we got there.

And u man, it is so humbling if you've ever moved and everybody here has moved. Um it's so humbling to ask for help when you move. It's a horrible thing, right? Um because there's things I don't want people to see that we're moving. you know, I I you know, like the the cushions are not on the couch and uh you know, I don't want people to see what's lying underneath those. I don't even want to see what's under those cushions.

And so, people are just kind of getting their fingers into all your stuff. Um and it's humbling and it's vulnerable. Um but at the same time, you know, here we are moving into a strange town, you know, coming into a new church community and we just think, you know, gosh, where would be where would we be though if if without their help? And so, you know, we this this song of ascent in Psalm 124, um, it does something similar in that it calls us to reflect on where we would be today without the help of the Lord, without and and again, the way we experience that help through everybody that that that's sitting here today and joining us from really all over the place, you know, and it calls us to reflect on where we are today because the Lord has been on our side. And this is a really appropriate morning to think about where you all would have been and are and have been as the district church because the Lord has been on your side.

And here's the thing then all of us need that help. You know, all of us need some help. Um some of us hate to ask for help. You know, um some of us feel fearful and ashamed to admit that we need help, right? Um Psalm 124 reminds us that um a humble heart is the kind of heart that receives help. And and a wise mind um is one that imagines where you might be if you hadn't asked for it and hadn't received it.

Right? And this is what the Israelites would remind themselves of as they ascended to Jerusalem to worship God at one of their yearly feasts and festivals. That's why this psalm is one of the psalms that's part of what's called the song of asense. And so I think this is really good for us to to to listen and to to learn from and to hear from the Lord from this morning as you guys are celebrating your 10 years. So I'm just going to read Psalm 124. It's short and I'm going to pick up with verse one.

And it says this. If the Lord had not been on our side, let Israel say, if the Lord had not been on our side when people attacked us, then they would have swallowed us alive in their burning anger against us. Then the water would have engulfed us. The torrent would have swept over us. The raging water would have swept over us. Blessed be the Lord who has not let us be ripped apart by their teeth.

We have escaped like a bird from the hunter's net. The net is torn and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. And this is the word of the Lord for us today. Well, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to frame our message really simply this morning with an observation uh of the text and then kind of close with an encouragement that I hope will just help us see God's hand with with greater clarity so that we might ask for his help um with greater frequency and greater humility because as a church and as a church community and family that's something we all need to grow in, right? is is to be looking to the people on our right and looking to the people on our left as we are looking up and focusing on the Lord, but also understanding that that is the way that we receive the Lord's help in the most tangible way.

It's from one another, right? It's from our brothers and sisters. As we serve them, they serve us. We grow in that sense of humility, right, before one another. we grow in that sense of dep uh you know depend dependability before the Lord you know knowing how much we need him and knowing how much as we look around we're going to receive that help from the brothers and sisters that we're growing with it's so important and so I want to just take a minute to uh think about this uh this first point which is imagine if the Lord had not helped right we see here if the Lord had not been on our side let Israel say so the the the psalm is calling the Israelites to just use their imagination. And I think it would be really great for you all to use your imagination this morning, thinking about yourselves as a church community whenever you have come into this church community.

It doesn't matter. Some of you have been all here for a few months. Some of you have been here for 10 years, but to just use your imagination to in a sense pause on the journey to take a redemptive look into your past as the Israelites as they sang this song were taking a redemptive look into their past to acknowledge the enemies that they faced and then imagine where they would be if the Lord had not intervened. And you guys can do that this morning as well to imagine if the Lord had not helped. Now the opening words they kind of repeat here for us kind of like a chorus again. If the Lord had not been on our side and then they sort of imagine what life would have been like.

They said look we would have been swallowed alive in the flood of our enemy's wrath. Wow. And it feels like we're talking about kind of a narrow escape here. Like man we just barely made it. But the Lord was on our side. I remember there was a time I I used to drive trucks for a living way back in the day.

My dad owned a trucking company and um I remember I was in one of our big bobtail trucks and it was raining. It was in Southern California. When it rains in Southern California, this crazy thing happens where all the oil kind of comes up through the road and it gets really slick. So because it only rains like once a year in Southern California, which is why they're in this eternal drought. The problem is when it rains, everybody kind of stays home. It's kind of like the way you all do snow days here.

That's a rain day in California. It's like, oh my gosh, we can't we can't drive because we're all going to get into accidents. And everybody that drives, which is most people, they all get into accidents. So anyway, it was one of those days where it was raining, the road is slick, and here I am in this bobtail and I'm coming up to a stop signal and uh I hit the brakes and it is not stopping. And there is this tiny little compact car already stopped in front of the signal. And I'm like, today I become a murderer.

You know, it's happening before my very eyes. And I hit the brakes and it's these air brakes, right? So the thing locks up and it's just sliding. And I remember, you know, every, you know, in in the in a matter of five seconds when your life passes before your eyes or somebody else's life is passing before your eyes that you've never met in front of you stopped. Um it's like, what's going on? what's going to happen?

You don't know what you're thinking. And right at the last second, um, my car f my truck finally got some traction and it and it and it stopped sliding and it kind of twisted me over to the left. I went over the meridian to the other side of the highway now where I'm driving opposite with other cars coming towards me. I'm like, this thing just keeps getting worse, you know? And somehow I stopped just in the nick of time where all the other cars avoided me. I didn't hit anybody.

I didn't smash the car in front of me and all I could think was imagine and I was doing a lot of imagining at that time. Imagine if the Lord had not helped. Imagine if the Lord had not been on our side. Things would have been swallowed up whole. People would have been swallowed up whole by my big bobtail truck. Right?

Imagine if I had not I needed help. I had no control over this truck. I had my foot on a brake. I had no control over the brakes. Right? But imagine if the Lord had not helped.

But he did. But he did help. I was saved. People were saved. And you notice here as we read Psalm 124, there's no alternate solution for deliverance suggested. It's not imagine if the Lord had not been on our side, but hey, we had these other options.

We did. We still had plan B and C. There's no other alternative, right? If the Lord had not been on our side, all the credit goes to the Lord because it was the Lord who knew their enemies. It was the Lord who was against their enemies. It was the Lord who delivered them from being destroyed by their enemies.

Very specifically here. And by the way, the Lord is very aware of who and what is against us, what is facing us. Even if it's not physical enemies, the things in life that just tend to come against us and make things very difficult and put us in really, really horrible situ situations. Um, but the Lord is always aware. The Lord is never unaware, right? Sometimes the people around us seem unaware.

We're unaware all the time. Remember in Luke 22, remember when Jesus spoke some insanely scary words to the Apostle Peter? Remember when he said this? He goes, "Simon, Simon, look out. Satan has asked to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers."

What does this remind us of? It will remind us that only the Lord could see this unseen threat in Peter's life. And he sees the things the the threats in your life, the enemies in your life, the things that are coming against you. But again, as it was with the Israelites, as it is with us, the Lord was on Peter's side, which is why he prayed for him. And you can just hear Peter retelling that story over the years, right? Saying, "Imagine if the Lord had not helped me.

Imagine if the Lord had not prayed for me in that moment, but he did." You can even think that now as the district church. Imagine if the Lord had not helped us during some of the, you know, Dwayne described it a little bit, man. some of the hard years. Imagine if the Lord had not helped. But he did.

But he did. Right? And you all have those stories, not just Pastor Dwayne, but you all have those stories that you can say, "Imagine if the Lord had not helped." And you probably shudder when you think about some of them. I know. I know I do.

Right? It might be a moment when the Lord healed you after the doctors had done everything they could do. Right? It might have been a time when the Lord provided you with the answer that you needed after you exhausted all of your other options, right? It may have been that time when you maybe received some money, when you were down to your last penny. It may have been when your world was imploding in a variety of different ways and a friend showed up at just the right moment and said, "Hey, how can I help you?

What do you need?" Imagine if the Lord had not helped. But he did. But he did, right? And what's interesting is that these words these the these these words that we embrace understanding what the Lord is doing in our lives. Um he he addresses these these issues.

He addresses these things all the time, right? And it's not just the clutch moments that we're kind of seeing described here by the Israelites. Um it's not just those clutch moments that that tend to stick out and stay etched in our memories. You think about all the mundane and the ordinary things that the Lord provided for you. Think about it even just this week alone. Think about all the different ways you've been provided for.

Like just things we don't even think about. We don't even consider, right? Whether it was food or finances, a friend, maybe you received some good counsel. Maybe you received a word of encouragement. Maybe some random act of kindness. Maybe you had a surprise success that you just were not expecting.

So, we do well as the church to imagine all the time what it would be like if the Lord had not helped. And again, listen, not to experience unhelpful flashbacks or triggers or horrendous or terrifying moments, but to remember that in those moments, God was for you. And because God was for you, it means God is for you. He was for you and he is for you. David wrote in Psalm 56, he said, "You yourself have recorded my wanderings. You've put my tears in your bottle."

He said, "Are they not in your book?" In other words, you don't you is there anything you don't know? Is there anything that escapes your eyes? And then he says this. He says, "Then my enemies will retreat on the day when I call. This I know.

God is for me. In God whose word I praise, in the Lord whose word I praise, in God I trust. And I will not be afraid because what can mere humans do to me? You see, the perspective that David has that mimics the perspective that the Israelites have here in Psalm 124. Now listen, this does not mean that your circumstances always change immediately or that help will come, listen, in exactly the way that you want it. Right?

So, we don't just order the Lord around, right? He's not our genie that we say, "Hey, do this and do it exactly how I'm asking you to do it." That's called a spoiled child, right? We don't get to we don't get to order God around and tell him how he's going to supply or provide his help for us. But here's what we're talking about is that knowing that God is for you, what that means is that you can deal with dark realities without despairing in them. Right?

It means that you know that God is never idle. It means that you know that God is always lovingly at work and he's reconditioning your heart. He's refining your faith. He's sanctifying you so that your imagination begins to play the chorus of this psalm over and over and over again. And as that happens, you begin to develop long-term memories of his faithfulness. Right?

Man, if only our kids had long-term memories. If only our kids had memories. Maybe they don't have I don't know what age you get a memory. Maybe maybe you need to live a little life, but our kids have such shortterm memories of our faithfulness to them, right? I mean, it happens every time they wake up in the morning and they act like they've never been cared for before in their lives. And you're going, I literally live to do this.

I literally my whole life is about working to care for you and and love you. such short-term memories. Um, it's amazing that we are like little kids before the Lord and that we forget the help that he gives us daily. But our help, the psalmist writes, is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. In other words, the guy that said light and light appeared, that's the one who's helping you. That's the one who's going, "No, I you got to understand, I got this."

You got to understand you don't got this. That's probably not proper English, but that's kind of what he's saying. But he gots it, right? The maker of heaven and earth. When life feels like jagged wolflike teeth are ripping us apart, the Lord helps us fly away like a bird escaping a hunter's net. That's the kind of control that he has over the district church, right?

He sets us free. He brings an indescribable peace that surpasses the limitations of our understanding of what peace is. Right? The name of the Lord is more powerful than the net of the hunter is what the psalmist is trying to tell us right here. The hunters of your life, my life always are going to be subject to the maker of our life. Right?

Imagine if the Lord had not helped. But he did. But he did. All right. I want to I want to shift. That was a little bit of an observation of the text this morning, but I want to shift over to an encouragement because our imagination should lead to something, right?

And it should lead to an invitation. So we want to imagine in our lives and as a church if the Lord had not helped. But we also want to invite the Lord to be our helper. Right? So that's something that we need to practice as a church coming before the Lord in neediness. Understanding that neediness is godliness.

Right? The Lord wants us to come to him like a parent wants their child to come to them. One of the one of the greatest things in my life I have an adult daughter is when she comes and asks for help. I don't know why I love it when she comes and asks for help because I love her and I want to help her. It's not complicated. But I just love it.

I don't look at her any differently. I don't look at her as being like, "Man, you're 30 years old. You'd think you would have developed a little more competency by now, girl." It's like, "No, no, no, no. Just ask me. Ask me anything, anytime, whatever you need.

I'll do everything I can to help you. We'll figure out a way to figure out whatever is going on in your life. Um, but man, I just love to help you because I love you." And how much more? How much more the Lord? How much more?

Right? But we want to invite the Lord to be our helper. The psalmist writes, "Blessed be the Lord." In verse six, this is an invitation for us to not simply imagine, but to invite to put all of our trust in the maker of heaven and earth. to be renewed in the favor of the Lord, the blessing of the Lord, and put all of our hope, our fear, our anger, our trauma, our pain, our lost years, our loneliest hours, our most devastating memories upon the Lord's blessedness. It's an invitation for him to be our faithful helper.

Because you might be thinking of all the times it seemed like God has not helped and that it feels like you're still suffering some of the aftermaths of not receiving that help the way you asked for it, the way you thought you needed it. The aftermath of some of that grief and some of that loss, some of those physical injuries or maybe even a ruined reputation. You might ask, "Hey, brother, where was God's help in all of that?" And listen, I you know, I don't want to give you a Sunday school answer. Pastors have lots of very trit Sunday school answers on tap, right? Like band-aids.

Just throw a box of spiritual band-aids out there for you. That's no good, right? We have a few of those, but I think we have more here in this text to help us even when it comes to things we can't explain so easily, right? Uh Eugene Peterson, he he has this quote. He said, "God doesn't need me to defend him or be his press secretary." Um and that's that's good to remember, right?

Um I'm not here to defend God um or be his press secretary. Um and neither neither are you, right? Um, there's some things that when we think about the way the Lord has helped us, the way the Lord has not helped us, and some of the things that have happened in the aftermath of those those ways that we don't feel like we've been helped, those are painful things that we don't have quick and easy answers for, right? We live in the tension of those things in a fallen world, right? And we we should acknowledge that. We should name that.

That's that's good for us to do, right? But I would I would rather have us consider here two thoughts. Um, in regards to that, the first one is this, and it's that we live an unsafe life. That's what this psalm reminds us of, right? We live an unsafe life. We have escaped, verse 7, like a bird from the hunter's net.

The net is torn and we have escaped. Great, but that's not safe. We live an unsafe life. And I think it's important for us to notice that these words in Psalm 124 meant they don't qualify anything. It doesn't say that God helps, but it just states that without fail, God has been on our side. We don't always know how the help is coming.

We don't always know the rate or the pace of that help. We don't always have the tangibleness of that help. We don't, right? But this tells us something about the heart of God for us in all circumstances. It also tells us something about the presence of God in all circumstances. It also implies that God allows us to be put into situations in which we need this help and that those situations won't be super pleasant or otherwise why would we need him on our side?

If you're somebody that never needs any help, then you're not somebody that ever needs to ask for help or needs somebody on your side that can provide you with that help. Right? We live an unsafe life which is why we need the Lord on our side. Eugene Peterson goes on to say makes another quote. He said, 'I don't know what the future holds for me or for those I love, for my nation or for this world. And he says this.

He says, "Still, despite my ignorance, I say that God will accomplish his will." And then he says this, "Listen, I cheerfully persist in living in the hope that nothing will separate me from Christ's love." Do you hear that? like that that starts making more sense to me now in my lack of understanding in my in in in my ignorance in in the ways in which God works. I just don't grasp and I don't understand. Right?

I cheerfully persist in living in the hope that nothing will separate me from Christ's love. We cheerfully persist in hope. Why? Because our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. The guy who said light and light appeared. This means the one who spoke the world into existence and sent Jesus to us so that we might have an eternal existence with him.

Is why an unsafe life can still be a secure life. And in fact, it's the only safe life that we have any promise of life with Jesus. Right? You've probably heard the phrase, very churchy phrase, uh, the Lord will never give you more than you can handle, right? It's a phrase that probably a lot of us grew up maybe hearing. And it would be awesome if you could actually find it anywhere in the Bible.

Um, the reality is that God gives you more than you can handle all the time. All the time. Right? In fact, the language used in verses 6-7, ripped apart by their enemy's teeth like a bird in a hunter's net. Clearly more than they could handle. Not complicated there, right?

I didn't need my seminary degree to lay that one out to you. But they escaped not because they were able to somehow pry themselves from their enemy's teeth, but because the Lord delivered them. God will give you more than you can handle so that you seek his helping hand and receive his heart along with it. Peterson goes on to say, "It is the help we experience, listen, not the hazards we risk that shapes our days." What the Lord doesn't do is allow us to be tempted beyond what we can withstand, which is another way that he helps us. Paul writes about this in 1 Corinthians 10.

He says, "Whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall." Right? No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. Don't be surprised. In other words, then he says this. Paul says, "But God is faithful.

He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. But with the temptation, he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to bear it." So that kind of reigns us in a little bit, right? And it reminds us that yes, we do live an unsafe life. We do, right? We live an unsafe life.

And sometimes God allows things to happen in our lives and he gives us more than we can handle so that we loosen our grip on the things we think we have control over, which is nothing. which also gives us hope because it means that we can go before the foot of the cross and seek the help that God is calling us to seek which is Jesus Christ. Right? So yes, y'all live an unsafe life. More importantly, we live with a sympathetic savior. We live an unsafe life, but we live it with a sympathetic savior.

And listen, I want to sympathize with you this morning. And I want to tell you that I don't understand many of the ways that God helps us and some of the ways where we can we are perceiving that he is not helping us. Right? I know that I don't know. His timing seems strange to me. Let me just be honest with you.

It feels off sometimes, right? It doesn't seem like the best way. I also remember that there were numerable times in my childhood when I didn't understand some of the decisions that were being made for me by my parents. But later I was finally mature enough at some point to see in hindsight how well I was served. I just couldn't see it at the time. I wasn't there yet.

I didn't have the kind of understanding when they would withhold certain things, when they would provide certain things, when we they would remove me from places of comfort, when they would make me in some ways to me suffer without something that I thought was good for me. And they said, "No, not today. Not now." Didn't make any sense to me. How can it make any sense to an eight-year-old? But later I understood.

Later when I had my own child, I understood, right? So knowing what we don't know is important. It's not a copout either. It also doesn't mean we don't take responsibility for our actions. Does doesn't mean we don't take responsibility for a lack of discernment when we when we need to have discernment. Rather, it's an acknowledgment of our limitations.

See the song the the children of Israel here in this in these songs of asense as they're traveling to Jerusalem, they can only see as far as they can see in front of them. And they're singing these songs to be reminded that with God there's no limitations of vision. But we have limitations, right? We need to be humble about the good that we are not able to yet grasp. But trusting that it's there's good because we believe in a good God. So I can sympathize with you as a pastor.

I can weep with you because I know how it feels when it feels like God is not helping you. But a million more times than that, Jesus sympathizes with you this morning. Hebrews 4:15, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to what? To sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us approach. Let us come forward.

Let's take a step. Let's not step back and go, "Well, he must not be for us." Because we know that's not true. But let's step forward. Let's approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we might receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need is what Hebrews tells us. So listen, let me close with this.

If if the only help you ever received in this life was salvation through Jesus Christ, it would be the help you needed the most and received. Man, that can feel a little cold sometimes, but oh my gosh, the truth, the transcendent truth of that, right? And with that help comes not only salvation as a main course but extra helpings of things like faith, hope, love, forgiveness and assurance that you need to walk through the valleys of the shadow of death. Right? Because listen, the one who says I am with you always until the end of the age is a person who entered our age to be near to us. to be near to you, to be near to me.

That's what his name is. His name is Emanuel. His name means God with us. Even if the help didn't come in the way you hoped or prayed, you still have the assurance that God is on your side. How? Because of Jesus.

Jesus proves it. Because Jesus didn't get the answer that he prayed for on the night before his death. But he entrusted himself to the just judge who was his father. The apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 8, he said, "What then are we to say about these things? All these things that happen to us, all these adversities, all these things that are coming against us, all the things threatening our existence, all the different levels and types and of enemies that we have in our lives. He said, what are we to say about these things?

He said, if God is for us logically, tangibly, realistically, I'm adding those words, who is against us? If God, the guy who says light and light comes into being, if God, the one who sent his son to bear his wrath on the cross so that we might have peace with him, for a guy that went to those lengths, who can be against us, logically speaking, he who did not even spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him grant us everything? Now, what is everything? Everything is all the good that God never withholds from you that but that we are not able to understand because our limitations of knowing what good is are all over the map. When we can't trace the hand of God we trust his heart. Charles Spurgeon.

That's what we do in these moments. Right? This is what Paul is telling us. This is what the psalmists are saying as they were singing this song. So, let me encourage you today on your 10y year anniversary, as you scatter today, as you guys go to lunch, as you gather again later, um as you have conversations, as you reflect on 10 years, um spend some time recounting the ways that God has been your help in the past and in the present. Think about yourselves as a as a as a corporate body this morning.

We're not just individuals and we're part of a church. We're part of the district. What are some of the ways that you could reflect and recount and encourage one another? It it'll be a humbling exercise because your list will get longer and longer the more time you spend on it. But the hope is that it will help you see that this psalm is the song of the humble heart, right? Which is the kind of heart that God helps.

That's the kind of heart that God helps, right? It's the kind of heart that God heals. It's the kind of heart that God forgives and loves. We may live an unsafe life, but we live it with a sympathetic savior, right? Who helps his humblehearted saints and sometimes is not so humblehearted saints. The grace of God means when we're at our least humble, God, all right, come on.

Come on. Imagine if the Lord had not helped the district church. But he did and he does and he will continue. Let's pray. Lord, I thank you for the district. I thank you for Dwayne and Kelsey.

I thank you for uh all these just beautiful church members who are beloved in your sight. And Lord, we pray Lord all the people that have served this church faithfully, all the people that have invested, all the people that have supported the pastor, the pastors and the elders. Lord, we just pray that you'd bless them today. You'd help them to rejoice and celebrate. You'd help them to be reminded of your faithfulness. And Lord, that they would spend today recounting your wondrous deeds.

and that they would encourage one another in this hope, being reminded that you have helped and that you continue to help. And Lord, even when we don't see uh the way in which this help is coming, we trust that you are a a savior who loves us and is for us and is never idle and is never sleeping, but is always working on our behalf, never withholding what is good. And so in those blurry and obscure times where we just can't see it, Lord, we pray that you would increase our faith, increase our hope, increase our love for you. Um, and we pray that you would do that in Jesus name. Amen.