Kerry Shook - God Help
Starting a new series this weekend that's really just a two-word prayer, and even though the prayer is just two words, it's a powerful prayer because it brings all heaven to the rescue. When you pray this two-word prayer, you have all the power of heaven that comes right into your situation. Now, it's probably a prayer that you've prayed before. I know I have. But, really, I have to say, I don't pray it nearly enough. This simple, yet powerful two-word prayer is "God, help". You ever prayed that prayer? Is that emergency 9-1-1 rescue prayer that we usually pray when we've tried everything else, but what's so amazing is that God, in his love and mercy, still comes to the rescue.
In fact, he's just waiting for you to pray today that two-word prayer, "God, help," and all the power of heaven comes to the rescue. Now, I want us to open our Bibles to Psalm 107, because this chapter in the book of Psalms is all about the power of this two-word prayer. So would you stand in honor of God's Word, and we're gonna skip around a little bit in Psalm 107, because there are 43 verses in all, and we're not gonna get to every verse, but I just want you to get the main part of this powerful chapter.
"Some wandered in the wilderness, hungry and thirsty. They nearly died. 'Lord, help,' they cried in their trouble, and he rescued them from their distress. Some sat in darkness and deepest gloom, imprisoned in iron chains and misery. 'Lord, help,' they cried in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He snapped their chains. Some were fools. They rebelled and suffered for their sins. 'Lord, help,' they cried in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He sent out his word and healed them. Some went off to sea in ships. Their ships were tossed to the heavens and plunged again to the depths. The sailors cringed in terror. 'Lord, help,' they cried in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He calmed the storm to a whisper and stilled the waves".
You can be seated. That prayer, that two-word prayer is prayed four times in this chapter, "Lord, help," "Lord, help," "Lord, help," and each time, God sends all of heaven to the rescue. So I want us to study Psalm 107, because there's some amazing truths in here about this two-word prayer. First, I want us to see who this prayer is really for. Who can really pray this prayer and experience God's powerful rescue? Well, first, it's for those who are completely empty. It's for those who are feeling completely empty.
So, if you're feeling empty today, if you're running on fumes, if you feel like you're numb, just going through the motions of life, totally passionless, not really havin' a purpose, you're just, kind of, goin' through the motions, you feel totally empty on the inside, I've got good news for you: You're the perfect candidate for this prayer. If you're feeling empty today, you're right in a place where you could pray this prayer, and God can bring fulfillment, and God can fill you up with passion and purpose again, and God can give you strength and rest and peace. Look at Psalm 107, verse 4. It says, "Some wandered in the wilderness, lost in homeless. Hungry and thirsty, they nearly died. 'Lord, help,' they cried in their trouble, and He rescued them from their distress. For He satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things".
It says some people wandered around in the wilderness, and they had such a thirst and a hunger for fulfillment, but they were empty in the wilderness. In every direction that they went, they didn't find fulfillment to their hunger. They didn't get their thirst quenched. Everywhere they looked, those pools of water were dry. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt like you're wandering in the wilderness? Maybe it's a wilderness of regret, a wilderness of lost opportunities, a wilderness of just emptiness. If you're feeling empty today, like you're runnin' on fumes and you just got nothin' left, that's a gift from God.
God allows me over and over again to have that feeling of emptiness, and it's when I realize, "You know, I've been lookin' to this or lookin' to that to bring fulfillment, and it leaves me empty, and, God, I haven't been lookin' to you the way I should," and that emptiness is a gift, that gnawing emptiness that "there's gotta be more" is a gift because it turns me to the only source of fulfillment.
When you realize you're empty, then you can turn to that source of fulfillment, and he fills you up. He fills you up with his peace. He fills you up with his satisfaction. He fills you up with his peace, and so, if you're feeling empty today, just know, if you're a Christ-follower, God will bring you back to that over and over again, so that emptiness will drive you into his arms, and if you're feeling empty, then you can pray this prayer that brings all heaven to the rescue. The last time Jesus went through Jericho, goin' to the cross, he would never go through that way again.
There was a blind beggar who really knew how empty he was, and when Jesus was walking through the crowd, here's what the blind beggar did. He prayed the prayer. "He heard that Jesus from Nazareth was walking by. So he began shouting, 'Jesus, Son of David, please help me.' Many people criticized the blind men and told him to be quiet. But he shouted more and more, 'Son of David, please help me.'"
See, everyone in the crowd that day needed Jesus to fill their emptiness, but most of the crowd didn't realize how empty they were, and if you don't realize how empty you are, you won't turn to God to bring fulfillment. You've gotta come to the place where you fill that emptiness. You realize that you're so empty. And this blind beggar realized it, and he cried out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me". Everyone in the crowd that day knew that the Messiah was to come from the lineage of David, so everyone knew this blind beggar was saying, "Jesus, I believe you're the Messiah, and you're my only hope for fulfillment. You're our only hope. You are the Savior. You're our only hope".
You see, this blind man saw what people that day with seeing eyes couldn't see, that Jesus is our only source of hope, and that's why Jesus stopped. Those are two words that are in the Scripture right after the passage I read that are beautiful words because, when you pray the two-word prayer, "God, help," then two words happen: God stops. God stops, and he intervenes because he cares about you. He's just waiting for you to come to that place where you stop trying to fix everything, and you say, "God, help," and he stops, and he comes right in and says, "I've been waiting for this, and now I'm gonna bring rescue".
Well, the first group of people this prayer is for is for those who feel completely and utterly empty, but it's also for those who are totally broken. In Psalm 107:10, it says, "Some sat in darkness and deepest gloom, imprisoned in iron chains of misery. They rebelled against the words of God, scorning the counsel of the Most High". He's sayin' some people wanted to be free, to really have freedom and do what they wanna do rather than what God wants them to do. And, by the way, God placed in your heart a desire for freedom, to be truly free, but the problem is, when we break free from God and we say, "I don't really want God to limit me," "I don't really wanna follow all of God's Word because I wanna be free to do what I want; I wanna be free to follow my heart to do what I think is best rather than what God thinks is best," and we look for freedom, that freedom God placed in our heart, but what we find is chains.
You see, you're free to do whatever you wanna do, but once you do it, you're not free of the consequences. I am free to jump off a 20-story building. I'm free to do that, but once I jump, I'm not free anymore. I'm bound by the consequence. I'm bound by the law of gravity. And so we're free to not be limited by God to do what we wanna do and not let God limit us, not let God be in control of us. We wanna be independent, we wanna be free, but once we turn and break free from God, looking for freedom, we end up in chains, enslaved. We ended up in chains to our sins, you know, because, when we break free from God, we disobey him, and we say, "You know what? I'm gonna do this. This feels good".
And what happens is we become addicted many times. We become enslaved, and we can't break free, and that's what happened to the people he's mentioning here. They feel trapped, and they can't break out, but then it says in Psalm 107:12, "That is why He broke them with hard labor. They fell, and no one was there to help them". So God allowed the pain to finally break them. You see, they tried to fix it. They said, "You know, I can break free from this, and I'm gonna have freedom. I'm gonna break free from this".
But they finally realized they were so powerless to break free. They didn't have the power to do it. They realized how weak they were, and it's because God allowed them to be broken, and God will allow pain to come into our lives to break us because he knows that we have to be broken before he can break our chains, because we have to be broken in order to look up to him and pray that two-word powerful prayer, "God, help". Otherwise, we think we can help ourselves, that we can fix it ourselves, that we can break free because we're not that bad. "It's not that bad. I can handle this".
If you haven't handled it by now, you can't handle it. And so, when I am broken and I feel totally powerless to fix myself or to get my act together or to get through a struggle or to overcome a sin, that's a really good place to be because then I can pray, "Lord, help". When I'm broken and I say, "Lord, help," he breaks the chains. That's exactly what he did in this situation.
In Psalm 107:13, it says, "They cried, 'Lord, help,' in their trouble, and He saved them from their distress. He led them from darkness and deepest gloom. He snapped their chains". They prayed, "God, help," and God broke their chains and set them free and brought them out of darkness and gloom, and maybe you feel broken and grief today. Maybe you feel broken in betrayal. Maybe you feel like you have a broken heart today. Maybe you just feel like your whole life is broken. That's a great place to be to receive God's blessing because, before I can get God's blessing, I have to realize that I'm broken.
So this prayer is for the empty, it's for the broken, and it's also for those who are at a dead end. In Psalm 107:19, it talks about some who are at a dead end, and there was no way out, and they were trapped, and then they prayed this two-word prayer. "'Lord, help,' they cried in their trouble, and He saved them from their distress. He sent out His word and healed them, snatching them from the door of death". They were at the door of death, at a dead end, but God brought deliverance after they prayed.
Now, Jonah, in the Old Testament, was at probably the deadest dead end anyone could ever get to. You know the story of Jonah, how God called him to go preach his forgiveness in Nineveh, this huge city that was very evil? And they'd never heard of God's forgiveness, and he said, "Jonah, I want you to go and tell them about My love and My forgiveness, and if they'll turn to Me, I will spare their city". Well, he didn't wanna go. Jonah didn't wanna go because he hated the Ninevites because there were so evil, and, you know, he just detested them because Jonah didn't realize how broken he was. He knew they were broken and needed to be fixed, but he couldn't stand them, so he wanted God to bring judgment on them, and so he didn't wanna go, and so he ran away from God.
God called him to go east to Nineveh, but Jonah gets on a boat goin' the opposite direction. He's goin' west to get as far away from God as he can, and when you're running from God, you can't get away from God. You can run, but you can't hide because God knows you, and he sees you. He's right there. And a huge storm comes up. The boat is about to sink. Jonah gets thrown overboard, and then he's swallowed by a great fish. It's not a whale, by the way. The Bible says it was a "great fish" that swallowed Jonah, and when you're in the belly of a great fish, you know there's only one place that leads, and that's death. I mean, what a dead end: dark, all those gastric juices and acids tearing away at his skin. I mean, he was at a dead end. There was no way out, and what does he do? He prays the prayer.
Jonah 2:1-2, says, "From inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. He said, 'In my distress, I called to the Lord, and He answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and You listened to my cry.'" He said, "God, help. I'm at a dead end. There's no hope," and then God rescued him. He caused the fish to spit Jonah up on the beach, but this time, he was facing east toward Nineveh. You see, sometimes, God allows us to come to a dead end so he can redirect us to our destiny because, when we're goin' the wrong direction, God will allow a door to be slammed in my face so that he can redirect me to his purpose because he doesn't want me to go down that path because he knows how devastating that'll be and how that it will take me further away from God.
And so, sometimes, God allows a dead end to redirect you, and maybe you're at a dead end today because God wants to redirect you into your destiny. Praise God. You're in an amazing place to pray that prayer, and God will send all heaven to the rescue to take you from a dead end to deliverance. God loves to answer that two-word prayer. So the prayers for those who feel completely empty, for those who feel totally broken, it's also for those who are at a dead end, and it's for those who are going under. Maybe you feel like you're going under today, that the waves of the circumstances are just smashing into your boat, and you're bein' dashed upon the rocks. The waves of fear are filling you up because your circumstances look like a tidal wave that's so much greater than anything you can get through.
In Psalm 107:28, it talks about some were sailors, and they went out on ships, and then a huge storm came up, and the waves started smashing in the boat, and the boat started falling apart. They knew they couldn't hold it together anymore. Everything was fallin' apart. And what did they do? They prayed the prayer. "'Lord, help,' they cried in their trouble, and He saved them from their distress. He calmed the storm to a whisper and stilled the waves". And maybe you feel like you're goin' under, and maybe you feel like you're drowning, drowning in debt, drowning in all these problems that keep hitting you, wave after wave, drowning in grief, drowning in fear.
You feel like you're goin' under? You're at the perfect place to pray this prayer so God can rescue you. You remember when the disciples were out in a boat on the Sea of Galilee and this huge storm comes up? And they're really afraid, and then Jesus comes walking on the water, and they thought it was a ghost because they didn't expect to see Jesus coming to them in the middle of a storm. And when we're going through a storm and the storm of life is hitting and the waves are higher than our boat and the waves of fear are crashing in, we don't expect to see Jesus in the storms of life.
We expect to encounter Jesus at church. We expect to encounter Jesus when we're reading our Bible, but in the worst storms of our lives, we're not lookin' for Jesus many times, but he's right there. He shows up in the storm. And he showed up in the storm, and then they recognized him, and Simon Peter said, "Lord, if it's really You, call me to come to You," and Jesus did, and Simon Peter jumped out of the boat. Now, we criticize Simon Peter for sinking, but he's the only one that jumped out of the boat, and I guarantee you, I wouldn't have. I would've been hunkered down. I would've been praying, "Lord, help," but I would've been holdin' on for dear life, but he gets out of the boat, and for a brief moment, he walks on the water.
Can you imagine? But then what does he do? He gets his eyes off Jesus and his love, and he starts looking at the waves all around him. The circumstances and waves of fear hit, and he starts to sink. But in Matthew 14:30, it says, "But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. 'Save me, Lord,' he shouted. Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him". So Simon Peter prayed, "God, help," as he's sinking and about to drown, and Jesus rescues him.
Now, there are two things that all the people who prayed the prayer had in common: First, they all realized they were at the end of their hope. They realized, as they placed their hope in everything else and everyone else, that there was no one else that could help them, and then they also realized the only one who could help them. They realized the only source of hope was God. In Matthew 5:2, Jesus said...or Matthew 5:3, "You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and His rule". He says, you know, "You're really blessed". Isn't that amazing? He's saying, "What a gift if you're at the end of your rope. If you're at the end of your rope and you can't hold on any longer, what an unbelievable thing".
Now, I don't think it feels like an unbelievable thing when I'm at the end of my rope, but he's saying, "When you're at the end of your rope, you're really blessed". That word "blessed" in the Hebrew means "how very happy". You should be really happy when you're at the end of your rope because, when you get so tired and you can't hang on anymore and you let go, he catches you, and you find fulfillment, and you realize how much he loves you, and you have peace in the middle of the storm.
And so he says, "When you're at the end of your rope and you realize it and you let go, then you experience so much more of him, and it's so much less about you and your fears and your problems, and you begin to experience God's healing. When you feel like you're sinking in grief, sinking in doubt, sinking in depression, sinking in despair, sinking in desperation, and all you can do is pray, 'God, help,' and you see God rescue you, you realize a little bit of how much God loves you".
When you're sinking in grief, and you say, "God, help, I can't make it through today," "I can't make it through another hour," "The pain is too great," and you see God gets you through another hour, and you pray it again, he gets you through another hour, he gets you through another day, and you start looking back, and you start seeing the faithful love of God, you just get a little glimpse of how much God loves you. Even when you don't feel like it, you start to realize it. It's his faithful love.
Lamentations 3:20, says, "I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends. His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness. His mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, 'The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in Him.'" He says, "I'll never get over this awful time. I will never forget the pain, the loss, the grief. I will never get over this grief". And some things in this life are so painful you will never get over them, but you will get through them with God's power if you dare to hope, if you just dare to hope.
But, see, what he says is "The reason I can dare to hope is 'cause I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends". But every time that they pray the prayer four times, four groups of people prayed the prayer, those who are broken, those who are empty, those who are at a dead end, those who are going under, every time they prayed that prayer, after they prayed that prayer and God rescues them, then it says this. This verse is mentioned four times: Psalm 107, "Let them praise the Lord for His great love and for the wonderful things He has done for them". He's saying, after God comes through, then praise him for his great love because he rescues you because of his love. He cares about your 9-1-1 prayers because of his love.
Now, he wants you to pray 'em when the problem hits, but even when we don't and we're faithless, the Scripture says he remains faithful because that's his character. His faithful love. It's not just his faithfulness. It's his faithful love. You see, our love is hot sometimes for God. It's cold sometimes. It's all over the place. Our love for others can be great one day, and then we don't really feel it so much one day, but God's love is faithful. He loves you so much. He loves me so much, and, really, it comes down to this: It's not about you need to get your act together. It's not about you need to do better. It's not about you need to love God more. It's all about just getting a little glimpse today of how much God loves you and how faithful his love is.