Psalm 107:1-16 For the Homeless

Psalm 107
Let the redeemed of the Lord speak of his steadfast love.

I. This psalm starts off with a call to praise and worship God.

Why?

Because he is good and his steadfast love endures forever.

How do we know that?

Because he redeems people from trouble. He saves people. He saves all kinds of people. People from all places. He gathered them from the east and west, north and south.

Where are you right now? Wherever you are, God knows what you are dealing with. He can take you from any place.

II. Some of those he redeemed were homeless. They didn't even have a city to live in. They were in a desert where there is nothing. No food. No water. Nada.

What did they do?

They cried to the Lord in their trouble. You know, you can cry to the Lord. You can tell him all about it. He understands you better than anyone. Even better than you do. He made you. Don’t be mad at him for your troubles, he can save you out of them. Maybe that’s why he allowed them to happen to you, so that he can show you how much he cares for you?

He heard their cry. God hears. He knows. Remember, Jesus went through it, too. He was homeless, hungry, thirsty, rejected, tired, betrayed, beaten, murdered. He understands all pain, all betrayal, all mistreatment, all heartache.

God delivered them. He led them on the straight way. He gave them a permanent place to stay. This is why they thank him. He worked when they prayed. Some say, “Prayer works.” Well, God works. He satisfies the longing soul. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” God loves to satisfy those who are in need. This may be one reason why he allows trouble in our lives. Do you feel dissatisfied? Are you hungry for what is right and good in your life? Look to God. He doesn’t have the answer, he is the answer!

They thank him for his “steadfast love.” Love that keeps on keeping on, no matter what. God doesn’t stop loving. He loves those he redeems. There are those that God does not love. Just read Psalm 5 if you don't believe me. God will punish sinners for their sins in Hell. Hell never ends. Israel was God's chosen nation, a people he redeemed out of slavery for himself. he certainly wasn't going to let them starve in the desert, especially when they cried to him for salvation. The soul who seeks him will find him. God never let's anyone down who genuinely wants to be saved. He will redeem everyone that he chose from before the foundation of the world. That's what Ephesians chapter 1 says.

Are you redeemed? that’s the question.

Maybe you think your situation is different. So many say that for them, Hell is here on earth. It's not. Christ went back to heaven to prepare a place there for you if you follow him. Cry to him. Talk to him. Trust in him. He’ll show you.

Let’s move on...

III. Some were criminals. Stuck in prison. They rebelled against his word. They lived their own way. They didn’t listen to God’s counsel, his word, his instructions. You know, God gave us everything we need to know about living his way right here in the Bible. They ignored that. They did their own thing, and paid for it in chains and slave labor. Nobody cared for them.

Then what did they do after that?

It says in verses 13 & 14, “Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and burst their bonds apart.”

That’s why they should thank him. He loved them enough to pardon them. He loved them enough to set them free. It says he burst their bonds apart. He loved them so much he destroyed everything that held them captive.

What is holding you captive? Have you been rebellious against God’s Word? Are you sitting in darkness and bound by the chains of sin? Don’t fear. Don’t be downcast. Don’t be discouraged. You can cry to the Lord in the midst of your distress. He’ll set you free. Jesus said that only the truth will set us free. He is the truth.

Conclusion:
I wish I had more time to expound the rest of this Psalm. I could say a lot more about it. There is something here for everyone. Not all of us have the same problems, come from the same backgrounds, have had the same experiences, felt the same pain, cried the same tears, had the same anger or frustration. But all of us have one thing in common. We have a Creator who loves us enough to save us from our troubles when we call out to him.

Jesus didn’t die for nothing. He died to pay for the sins of his people. Everyone who comes to him will never be cast out. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t know him. How can they come to him? Oh, certainly many people say they believe in him. They say they have a personal relationship with him. But how do they live their lives? Do they live as if their life depended on him? Because it does. Do they see him as their Lord who tells them what to do? Or do they see him as the one they get to tell what to do? See prayer is first about our submission to God, our love, delight and praise to God. We ask him to give us what he knows we need. Sometimes he gives us what we want. Sometimes he doesn’t. Most of the time it is because we ask for the wrong things and we have the wrong motives. But he loves to save. We see that from this Psalm. He loves to redeem people from every walk of life. He loves to help those who recognize they truly have a need for him. See, if you need God, then God is there for you. If you don’t need him, don’t expect to be blessed by him. Many people live as if they don’t need Christ. They live as if they don’t need anyone or anything but themselves. They tell their girlfriends that they need them, until they find another girl. Likewise, many women are just using men to get what they want. True love is not getting as much as you can from others, it is giving yourself away for the sake of the one you love.

God gave everything. He gave his Son. Shouldn’t we gladly give ourselves to him? Our desires, hopes, dreams, aspirations, needs, wants, sins, burdens, troubles, hurts, fears, anxieties, angers, frustrations, complaints, love, affection, obedience, loyalty? He is waiting to hear us cry to him. Pour out your heart to him. You may not feel relief right away. It may take some time. You might not see your full reward until you reach God’s heavenly throne room. Remember, he raised Jesus from the dead. We must die also. We die to our way of life in order to live his way, by his strength and help. If we die physically, he will raise us to eternal life when Christ returns. After death, God's children get to be with him in heaven, waiting for the time when he will make this world new again.

Isn’t that something to cry out to him for? Isn’t it worth our pleas for help to be given what our souls most long for? They long for God. Jesus is God in human flesh, who reconciles us back to the Father. They long for life. Jesus is the life. They long for light. Jesus is the light of the world. They long for freedom. Jesus is the truth that sets us free. They long for satisfaction. Jesus satisfies completely. They long for peace. Jesus is our peace. They long for justification. Christ is our justification, who has taken away our sin, put it upon himself, and has given us his righteousness, making us accepted forever. He delights to save those who cry out to him!

You can apply this message to yourself in a couple of ways. First, if you are living your own way, doing things your way, ignoring God's Word, then you can apply this message by calling out to him for a change in your heart and for a change in your life. You need to be rescued from all the things we just talked about, and the only way for you to be redeemed, like the Israelites spoken of in this Psalm, is by putting your full confidence in Jesus Christ as your righteousness before God. Don't get me wrong. Christ demands repentance. To repent is to recognize your guilt for breaking all of God's righteous Laws and to turn back to him in confession, sorrow, humility, fear and obedience. Nothing less will be accepted. But Jesus also taught that you cannot come to him unless the Father draws you to him. That's why we need God's Holy Spirit to change our hearts and make us new first, before we can surrender and believe. Cry to him in prayer, confessing your waywardness, and trust fully in his power to save. Salvation is the gift of God from start to finish. You need repentance, you need forgiveness, you need a new way of life, you need to live by God's Word, you need to persevere, to keep on keeping on, you need to be faithful and to do what God wants. All of this must come by God's powerful grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Cry out to him in your prayers for this salvation.

Second, if you know you have eternal life and you trust fully in the King of kings, the Savior of sinners, the Judge who has pardoned every last one of your sins forever and has already accepted you as his very own, then you can take courage. You can be fully confident that he cares about every need of yours and hears when you call. By his help, you can live your life in obedience to Scripture. Just keep reading it and learning to do what it says in the power of God's Spirit. If you don't, you can be sure God will discipline you for disobeying, but he will never leave you or forsake you. If you are not disciplined by God as your Father, it is because you are not one of his children. In that case, you ought to examine yourself and seek the Lord for salvation and the assurance of your salvation, which only he can give.

Let us give thanks to him for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to the children of men!

Let's pray.

Grace Abounding: God Answers My Prayers!

"God answers all my prayers." That was the statement I kept hearing from Mark, a homeless man I met on 69th Street this Saturday. He had alcohol on his breath, and must have drank enough to make him just under the influence. He knew the Bible extremely well, and was quoting Scripture to me most of the time we talked. A faithful follower of Harold Camping from "Family Radio", Mark could have talked my ear off all night. He insisted that I give him a prayer request so that he could pray for me about that thing. So I told him that I want to study and learn to understand accurately and communicate the Bible. He wrote it down in his "book of miracles." We argued about a few things, and Mark ended by denouncing me as not working for God (at least not in the correct or true way or something), even after he had begun by commending me. He kept saying that he works for God, and that God answers his prayers and people have been healed from his prayers. He even went as far as to tell me he doesn't even pray anymore because God will just give him what he knows he needs or wants or something like that. Although there were some serious things about Mark's faith and attitude that came up that night, one thing he reminded me of was that God answers my prayers. When I challenged Mark about his hope for heaven, he got upset at me, because he said that you can't know if you're going to heaven... in other words, you might lose it. He asked me what mine was, insisting on it. So I told him, I said, "Mark, you wanna' know what my hope for heaven is?" He answered, "Yeah, I really wanna' know. What is it?" So I said, "It's Christ!"

Which, as I mentioned, reminded me of how God answers my prayers all the time. It does not surprise me anymore that the LORD answers my prayers, but it does still make me in awe of His endless mercies. I will not say that God gives me everything I ask for, but that He is so gracious, as my heavenly Father, to first give me eternal life in His Son and eternal hope through His Holy Spirit. 1 John 5:13-15 says,

"I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him."

It then continues to teach how to pray and how not to pray for a believer who sins.

That verse is one that I love. First, John says, "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life." Then he goes on to say that we have such confidence toward God to ask anything according to His will, knowing that He hears us and will grant that request.

All that simply to say, I am so glad that the LORD has been granting me the desire to read the Bible more. I also have some good books I've picked up again after setting them on the shelf for a while, such as Holiness by J. C. Ryle and a book by John MacArthur on Revelation. I have been reading through Revelation and just been amazed at the revelation of Jesus Christ all throughout as "the Lamb who was slain" and as God in the flesh of a man. Jesus is God, and God became a man, and this man is the eternal Son of God who died on a cross. It is amazing! And the prayer part is that I would continue seeing Christ in the Scriptures, which is happening so much lately, and that I would be praying more, and continue to be sanctified in the Holy Spirit to be useful to the Master. This request is still an ongoing process, but God is faithful, and I just wanted to share the benefit of joy and hope that comes from knowing Christ, my solid hope. :)

What a day... Gimel

I woke up late this morning feeling not so great. I was up late studying Spanish and reading the Scriptures last night. A morning dose of insulin and a glass of water quickly relieved my problem. Before I even had my first cup of coffee I was up and preparing to study Genesis chapter three. I have been listening to MacArthur sermons on Genesis three all week as it was read to me by my mac at work, and I have been listening to Genesis read by Stephen Johnston all week (I listened to all of it twice). All I can say is, "Wow!" and I can say it backwards, too, "woW!" :P

Today, I really looked into the first seven verses of Genesis 3, and was amazed at what I was seeing, and with connections it was making to other verses in the Bible (the picture is me studying last week with cheerios). I will have the study up on my other blog after tomorrow. At around 3 p.m., I helped my sister and mom pick out a good senior class photo for my sister, then I headed off in the pouring rain for Philadelphia. On the way to Philadelphia, I memorized the third stanza in Psalm 119, praying along the way. Since it was raining, the brothers and I decided not to go to our regular spot for street evangelism, so we headed down to the 30th Street Station in center city. We've been there before, and it is always a blessing. Well, I can't go into all the details, but we had a great time and left rejoicing in God's magnificent grace. I spoke to a Spanish Christian man from Puerto Rico, a drug addict from Ocean City (I think that's where he said), a homeless woman from Sierra Leone (W. Africa, her name was Christiana), and also brief interaction with a few other people. We didn't stay as long as usual, but went back to Pastor Mark's house to pray. Our prayer time was filled with rejoicing and requests to God, and we also prayed for souls in the hurricane storm down in the South, as well as for the police who are walking the streets now in Philadelphia (dangerous job). It was really wonderful to have fellowship with a bunch of "ordinary" men, who are fired up for reaching lost people in our cities. One brother, a former drug addict, alcoholic and homeless, is preparing to start Bible college soon (amazing to see the change in his life, as well as the same change in one of his old buddies - amazing). Others are just so much of a blessing to know.

When I left, it wasn't raining and the sky was clear. I came home, and behold, the stars where covering the face of the sky! One of our prayers tonight was a thanksgiving for God's faithfulness to His servant Abraham, that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens and the sand on the seashore. My reason for sharing all this, is for encouragement to any who read, and to give away a little info into my life, showing that I'm not just a "smart kid" (I always despised those kids while growing up, and now I am one, but for a good reason - to help others know the gospel). As one man said to me last Saturday, "I'm a real person," I answered, "I'm a real person, too" (even though I've never been stabbed or been in jail, or joined a muslim cult - I understood the guy's point and wasn't disrespecting him). So my life is richly blessed to be spent with the greatest people in the world, the poor, lowly, downcast and nobodies of this earth, who by the grace of our precious Lord Jesus will one day be numbered with those stars.

Here is where I'm at in Psalm 119, I practiced it again on my way home:

Gimel
Deal bountifully with your servant,
that I may live and keep your word.
Open my eyes, that I may behold
wondrous things out of your law!
I am a sojourner in the earth;
hide not your commandments from me!
My soul is consumed with longing
for your rules at all times.
You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones,
who wander from your commandments.
Take away from me scorn, and contempt,
for I have kept your testimonies.
Even though princes sit and plot against me,
your servant will meditate on your statutes.
Your testimonies are my delight;
they are my counselors.

Rich in Faith

Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?
(James 2:5 KJV).

I thought this verse fit perfectly with the last post I just published. It is an important verse that has been coming to my mind quite often lately. What thinkest thou? :)

The Poor Huckster

A very dearly beloved brother in Christ gave me a pack of tracts entitled Poor Huckster. It isn't that I never read this one before, he was just so excited to have them, and told me, "We gotta' get the Poor Huckster spread around in Philly." My brother in Christ used to be homeless and an alcoholic not too long ago (not the same person as the one here), but now, he is filled with the joy of the Lord as he works in Pittsburgh and is helping to evangelize both of these cities. I thank God for fired up brothers like him. He can relate to what it says, as well as a lot of other poor sinners who now see Christ as everything. Here is what the tract says:

Poor Huckster

There was once a poor man, a huckster, who used to go round the country villages selling little goods. This poor creature, in going round on his journeys heard some old woman singing a little ditty:

"I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all,
But Jesus Christ is my all in all."

Jack recalled that. "Ah!" Said he,"That just suits me." So he began to hum it himself as he went round on his huckstering expeditions and, by God's good grace, that little ditty burnt its way into poor Jack's heart.

After some time he became a converted man, gave up his swearing and drinking, and began regularly to attend the church services. At last he determined that he would join the church; so he went to the minister. The minister said. "Well, friend, what can you say for yourself?"

"I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all,
But Jesus Christ is my all in all."

"Well," said the minister, "you must tell me more than that."

"No," said Jack, "I can't, for that is my confession of faith, and that is all I know."

"Well, friend," said the minister, "I can't refuse you church fellowship, but you will have to come before the church meeting, and the members will have to see you and judge you."

Jack accordingly went to the church meeting, and there sat some good old-fashioned deacons - some of whom began to see whether they could find fault with him. He stood up, and on being requested to state his experience, simply said:

"I'm a poor sinner, and nothing at all,
But Jesus Christ is my all in all."

Some one old deacon said, "Is that all you have to say?"

"Yes," says Jack, "that's all."

The minister said, "You may ask my friend here some questions if you like."

So one says, "Brother Jack, have you not many doubts and fears?"

"No," said Jack, "I never can doubt but that 'I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all,' for I know I am; and I cannot doubt that 'Jesus is my all in all' for He says He is, and how can I doubt that?"

"Well," said another, "but sometimes I lose my evidences and my graces, and then I get very sad."

"Oh," said Jack, "I never lose anything, for in the first place 'I'm a poor sinner, and nothing at all' - and no one can rob me if I am nothing at all - and in the second place, 'Jesus Christ is my all in all,' - and who can rob Him? He is in heaven; I never get richer or poorer, for I am always nothing, but I always have everything."

Then another began to question him thus: "But my dear friend Jack, don't you sometimes doubt whether you are a child of God?"

"Well," said he, "I don't quite understand you; but I can tell you I never doubt but that 'I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all,' and that 'Jesus Christ is my all in all.'"

Always after that in the villages they used to call him "Happy Jack," for he was always happy; and the reason was that you could not drive him from that simple standing point, "There is nothing in me: I believe in Christ; I deserve punishment; I am lost in myself, but I trust in Him who came into the world to save sinners, and I know He will not let me perish."

"My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus' Name:
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand."
-E. Mote

Printed by Chapel Library
www.mountzion.org
A Ministry of Mt. Zion Bible Church

Grace for the Homeless

A dearly beloved brother came back to Philadelphia today (I won't mention his name, but if you read this, brother, just know I'm sharing it with joy). He had been traveling around the country for the past few months visiting various shelters and ministries. He is homeless, but has been taken in by a gracious family. He has been looking to Christ through all of his trials and loves the Word of God. More good news was that today, he received a letter that his late father had left him all his life insurance money. After his father died, his name was not on the will, so he was disheartened, until now. So perhaps this is the end of his long history of homelessness. The believers there were rejoicing with him, but mostly rejoicing to see him again. We had, what I believe to be, a Spirit filled prayer meeting and Bible study. God's grace is powerful.

Note: the ministry I labor with in W. Philly is not a homeless ministry, but an evangelistic ministry. We are not your typical anything, just a few sinners looking to Jesus for everything.

Rejoice in the Sovereign grace of God with me! Grace, grace!