P.U.S.H.

July 28, 2013

P.U.S.H.

Luke 18:1-8                           NOTES ARE NOT EDITED

SIS—Persistent prayer makes stuff happen; so, “pray until something happens!”

I don’t think any statement on prayer has been proven more by an extreme preponderance of evidence than this statement.

There are numerous examples of men who were great prayer warriors throughout history, but on that list is a name that stands out as if in bold print. That name is George Mueller.  Mueller, born in 1805, grew up in Prussia, today’s Germany. By age sixteen he was a liar, a thief, a swindler, a drunkard, and in jail. (from Wikepedia). Yet, God worked a miracle in his soul. Mueller became a humble, life-long, (and long life it was, dying at the age of 93), servant of God and the poor.  The following story from Mueller’s journal is an example of how Mueller moved mountains with no shovel but persistent prayer.

The orphan children all had their dinners and were ready for bed. They always felt loved and cared for in the Bristol orphanage; little did they know that the orphanage had no money and there was no food for breakfast the next day. Though he did not know how, George Mueller was confident the Lord would provide for the orphans--after all, wasn't God a "Father to the fatherless" (Psalm 68:5)? Mr. Mueller went to bed, committing the care of the orphans to God. The next morning he went for a walk, praying for God to supply the orphanage's needs. In his walk he met a friend who asked him to accept some money for the orphanage. . . Mr. Mueller thanked him, but did not tell the friend about the pressing need. Instead, he praised God for the answer to prayer and went to the orphanage for breakfast. (Christianity.com). This would be Mueller’s modus operandi for nearly 7 decades of ministry and work with orphans.  Never in all those years of pulpit and charity work would George Mueller ever make a public appeal for money.  In fact, for the nearly seven decades of ministry George Mueller would never accept a salary but simply trust God to provide daily for his needs.

Persistent prayer makes stuff happen, and George Mueller is but one of a myriad of examples throughout history.  Perhaps the greatest quote I’ve ever read on prayer is one that has “Unknown” listed as the source:  “Prayer moves the Hand of the One that moves the universe.”

John Wesley, the Father of the First Great Awakening, said, “God does nothing but by prayer, and everything with it.”

Oswald Chambers, a beloved preacher and author of the perennial best-selling devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, said, “Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.”

Indeed, there is no greater work to be done, than the work of prayer, and no great work ever accomplished, but that which is birthed and nourished with prevailing prayer. I sadly confess that my desire to be effective in prayer far outweighs my commitment to prayer.  I often grow weary and more than I want to admit, I’ve been discouraged with what perceive as an ineffectiveness in my prayer life.

I want more than anything to change this fact in my life.  I want to learn what it means to “come boldly before the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need (Heb. 4:16). Throughout the Bible, we are given many examples on how to “pray until something happens.”  One of those examples will serve as our guide this morning.  She is referred to as the “Persistent Widow.”

READ:  LUKE 18:1-8

In order to learn how to “pray until something happens,” you must realize several truths about prevailing prayer.  First,

1. Persistent prayer requires a measure of DESPERATION (2-4)

Verses 2-4 give the brief outline of a person in desperate circumstances.  First of all, she is a woman.  Women had very little standing in first century society.  They were slightly more than the property of a father or husband.  There is some debate as to the extent women were denied equal rights in both Roman and Jewish societies in the first century, but the inequality was quite evident.  Second, this woman was not just “a woman,” which was desperate enough, but she was a “widow.”  She was without the covering, protection, and financial support of a man in a society already slanted against women.  Third, she had a legal matter and the judge she had to bring her case to was ungodly, unjust, unkind, and from verse 4 and 5, he was unprincipled, acting out of his best interests not that of others. 

In a word, she was “desperate.”  She was, “frantic, anxious, despairing, worried, and distracted,” all synonyms for “desperate.”  her circumstances were not good.  There is an extreme danger that desperate circumstances often lead to paralyzing discouragement.  In fact “desperation, discouragement, and despair” are, as I pointed out, synonyms. 

Jesus taught his disciples, as the Word teaches us today, that “prayer” is the antidote for desperation or discouragement.  Look at verse 1, which gives the context for this parable on persistent prayer:

He then told them a parable on the need for them to pray

always and not become discouraged.

Pray or be discouraged.  These are the choices when circumstances in life become desperate.  Jesus had in mind a very specific time of desperation between His first coming and His second coming.  Notice the little word, “then.”  This is an adverb in English that describes a chronological relationship.  In Greek it is a coordinating conjunction that ties this passage into the passage that goes before.  Here’s what Jesus says about the coming times of desperation (Lk. 17:26-36):

²⁶ “Just as it was in the days of Noah,  so it will be in the days of the Son of Man: ²⁷ People went on eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage  until the day Noah boarded the ark,  and the flood came and destroyed them all. ²⁸ It will be the same as it was in the days of Lot:  People went on eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building. ²⁹ But on the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed  them all. ³⁰ It  will be like that on the day the Son of Man is revealed.  ³¹ On that day, a man on the housetop, whose belongings are in the house, must not come down to get them. Likewise the man who is in the field must not turn back. ³² Remember Lot’s wife!  ³³ Whoever tries to make his life secure will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.  ³⁴ I tell you, on that night  two will be in one bed: One will be taken and the other will be left. ³⁵ Two women will be grinding grain together: One will be taken and the other left. [³⁶ Two will be in a field: One will be taken, and the other will be left.]”³⁷ “Where, Lord?”  they asked Him.He said to them, “Where the corpse is, there also the vultures  will be gathered.”

These verses in chapter 17 describe times of increasing desperation and godlessness as the Second Coming of Jesus draws near.  We are in these “Last Days” in our day.  I see desperate people everywhere I go.  I see an increasing hostility toward Christianity.  I see judges sitting on courts, like the Supreme Court, who “don’t fear God or respect man.” 

In a scene from Shadowlands, a film based on the life of C.S. Lewis, Lewis has returned to Oxford from London, where he has just been married to Joy Gresham, an American woman, in a private Episcopal ceremony performed at her hospital bedside. She is dying from cancer, and, through the struggle with her illness, she and Lewis have been discovering the depth of their love for each other. As Lewis arrives at the college where he teaches, he is met by Harry Harrington, an Episcopal priest, who asks what news there is. Lewis hesitates; then, deciding to speak of the marriage and not the cancer, he says, "Ah, good news, I think, Harry. Yes, good news." Harrington, not aware of the marriage and thinking that Lewis is referring to Joy’s medical situation, replies, "I know how hard you’ve been praying .... Now, God is answering your prayer." "That’s not why I pray, Harry," Lewis responds. "I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God; it changes me."

The first lesson about persistent praying is the most important:  persistent praying always involves a measure of desperation.  It is often said in business, “Things will never change until the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing.”  It is a truth verified by human history:  people won’t persist in prayer until they perceive they are desperate.  As long as a person thinks he or she has some other place to go, they will never go to God in persistent prayer.  Oh, from time to time we may throw up a “hail Mary” prayer hoping to when the celestial lottery, but until we are desperate, until we come to realize we have no place to go BUT to God, we won’t keep “praying until something happens!”  There is a second truth to consider in regard to “persistent prayer.”

2.  It requires a measure of PERSPIRATION (3-5)

³ And a widow  in that town kept coming to him, saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ ⁴ “For a while he was unwilling, but later he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or respect man, ⁵ yet because this widow keeps  pestering me,  I will give her justice, so she doesn’t wear me out  by her persistent coming.’ ”

Have you ever worked at something until you were absolutely “exhausted?”  Notice that this widow not only worked so hard that she was exhausted, but she worked at it so hard that the unjust judge was getting “exhausted.”  He granted her request to get some rest!

I have learned that persistent prayer is one of the hardest activities a person can undertake.  Prayer is far from an “easy fix” for hard circumstances.  Prayer that will lift one out of desperation is prayer that results in perspiration.

I’m not talking simply about physical perspiration, but more so, spiritual perspiration.  Perspiration results from exerting your physical muscles.  Spiritual perspiration results from exerting your faith.  Spiritual exertion is every bit as difficult as physical exertion, perhaps moreso.  The Word of God says (1Tim. 4:8),

the training of the body has a limited benefit, but godliness is beneficial in every way, since it holds promise for the present life

and also for the life to come.

Thomas Alva Edison stands as the most prolific inventor of the modern era.  In fact, without Edison’s work, there would be no “modern industrial era,” or the “information era” we experience today.  His greatest development would arguably be the electric lightbulb.  It is well known that much trial and error went into finding a filament that would be suitable and stand up to the flow of continuous electricity.  But, the filament was only part of the process of developing the light bulb.  Seven separate theories leading to seven necessary systems were needed to make the light bulb a success.  Edison kept trying and never gave up, even after hundreds of failures.

Edison and his assistants worked feverishly and tirelessly on his inventions.  One of his most famous quotes says, “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

It takes hard work to be a success at anything—and this includes prevailing prayer.  Prayer makes stuff happen, but it is not easy.

David Brainerd was a remarkable young man born in 1718.  He became a missionary to native Americans, but died at the young age of 29.  A book about his life became an inspiration for a whole generation of believers, continuing even today. Brainerd notes in his journal, that on one occasion, when he found his soul “exceedingly enlarged” in supplication, he was “in such anguish, and pleaded with so much earnestness and importunity,” that when he rose from his knees he felt “extremely weak and overcome.” “I could scarcely walk straight,” he goes on to say, “my joints were loosed, the sweat ran down my face and body.”

A quote attributed to C.K.Chesterton states, “Prayer has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”

When Paul is summing up his message to the Church at Colossae, he lists several who were stellar champions in the cause of Christ.  One person Paul mentions is the devoted soldier of Christ, Epaphrus. 

^{Col. 4:   12} Epaphras,  who is one of you, a slave of Christ Jesus, greets you. He is always contending for you in his prayers,

The word translated, “contended,” comes from the word meaning, “pain.”  We get the word, “agony,” from this Greek word.  Prayer is referred to as “agony.”  The word can mean, “fighting, racing, or struggling,” among other things.  The KJV describes prayer as “laboring fervently.” 

3.  It requires most of all, INSPIRATION (6-8)

In order to “pray until something happens” you need faith, which only comes from the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in your life (Rom. 8:9).  “Inspiration” literally means, “In the Spirit” or the “Spirit within.”  This is the essence of “faith.”  Look at verses 6-8

⁶ Then the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷ Will not God grant justice  to His elect  who cry out to Him day and night?  Will He delay  to help them?  ⁸ I tell you that He will swiftly grant them justice. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes,  will He find that faith on earth?”

Will the Lord find faith?  How would the Lord recognize we have faith, according to this passage?  The Lord would find faith by finding his disciples involved in “persistent, prevailing, importunate praying.”

Notice that “inspiration” is related to intensity.  Verse 7 says,

⁷ Will not God grant justice to His elect

who cry out to Him day and night?

The word for cry is an intense word, sometimes describing a death cry, or even the loud shrieking of demons as they are forced to exit a human host.  The intensity of the cry is compounded by the words, “day and night.” Persistent prayer is intense in quality and duration.

The Apostle Paul describes the deepest level to which one can press  into the valley of prayer.  Romans 8:26:

²⁶ In the same way the Spirit also joins to help in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should,  but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us  ^e with unspoken groanings.

There are those times, and those matters, that are so urgent, and so pressing, that words fail us in our time of prayer.  In all times we need the Spirit’s guidance in our prayer, but in these moments of such intensity and urgency, the Spirit actually prays for us in “groanings too wonderful for words.”  It’s this type of “Spirit-inspired” prayer that “makes stuff happens.” 

In these times of deep need and desperate urgency our prayers are like the woman with an issue of blood (Lk. 8:43).  When she touched the hem of the Lord’s, virtue, or power, flowed from His life into hers.  That’s what happens when a saint gets ahold of God through prayer—power begins to flow and stuff begins to happen.

There is a big difference that must be noted between God in heaven, and this unjust judge.  God’s character is perfect and His ways are always just, but beyond that, God is infinitely compassionate and eternally gracious.  Unlike the unjust judge in this story, God delights in granting justice and giving great gifts.  At a point when the prophet Jeremiah faced bitter disappointment and discouraging circumstances because of the disaster into which his people were about to fall, Jeremiah concludes:

^{Lam. 3   22} Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish,

for His mercies never end. ²³ They are new every morning;

great is Your faithfulness!

Above all else, persistent prayer, requires faith which comes only from the Spirit of God taking up residence in the human heart.  Only when God’s Spirit has filled a person, can that person truly experience prayer that makes stuff happen.

Without true, transforming faith through a relationship with God, provided by Jesus Christ on the cross, and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise (Eph. 1:13), any real power through prayer is an illusion. The only true prayer that “makes stuff happen” must be Spirit inspired

Prevailing, persistent prayer requires a measure of desperation, a measure of perspiration, and mostly a large measure of inspiration.

This week I came across a fascinating lesson from God’s creation, on perseverance.  The Moso Bamboo Tree teaches this lesson.  The story of the Moso Bamboo begins when a farmer plants a tiny shoot completely in the ground.  Then, every day that tiny shoot must be watered—365 days of the year.  If you miss a day, nothing will happen.  Then after carefully watering the tiny shoot for 365 days, suddenly—nothing happens.  You must water it, fertilize it, and weed it for another 365 days.  Then . . . nothing happens.  You can inspect the spot from every angle and you will see no evidence of any growth.  You must water, weed, and fertilize it for another 365 days.  That’s a total of 1095 days.  Then you will see that . . . nothing happens!  Another 365 days of weeding, watering, and fertilizing must be given.  Then, after the fourth year . . . nothing happens.  By now, it would be quite easy to give up, as there is absolutely no evidence that your efforts are producing anything, but personal frustration and disappointment.  But, you press on another year.  Another 365 days of watering, weeding and fertilizing and then, after about 1825 days, something happens.  The Moso Bamboo shoot sneaks up above ground.  That tiny shoot will grow two to three feet every 24 hours, until it grows to a height of 90 feet in about six weeks.  So, how long does it take a Moso to grow to 90 feet?  Some would say, six weeks.  But, it really takes five years.  All those times that it looked like the farmer’s efforts were wasted—even foolish—the tree was putting down roots that would allow it to grow tall and majestic.

The Moso Tree Farmer persisted and something happened—and when it happened, it was marvelous, almost miraculous.

The key to success for a Moso Bamboo farmer is “persistence.”  This is the key to real success in any venture, but most certainly it is true of spiritual success.  Like the story of the Moso Tree, the story of the “persistent widow” shows us that the key to spiritual victory is summed up by the word, P.U.S.H.  This is not my term but a familiar term in regard to prayer:  “Pray Until Something Happens!” All great men and women of faith throughout history, whether the great benefactor of children, George Mueller, or Susannah Wesley, the mother of the great preacher, John Wesley, or missionaries like David Brainerd, the key to spiritual victory is “persistent prayer.”

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Joy Comes in the Morning

July 21, 2013                              These Notes are not Edited

Joy Comes in the Morning

Psalm 30, esp. verse 5

SIS—We should never surrender our joy to tough circumstances or any other “joy strealer.”

This week, the kids in VBS enjoyed activities based upon the theme of an amusement park.  They have learned how to trust God as they zip along through the twists and turns of life. 

Most people live a life much like a roller coaster, that is some mixture of fun and frustration, highs and lows, ups and downs, delight and despair. If you ask most people, “are you happy,” many would answer, “yes,” in spite of the mixed circumstances of life. That is what “happiness” is all about: some good times, some bad times, a few ups, a few downs. Happiness is based upon circumstances and pursuing happiness will likely leave you as exhausted as spending a day riding rollercoasters at an amusement park. The thrill quickly becomes exhaustion. The thrill just doesn’t last, and a person is left to seek even a greater thrill in the elusive quest for happiness. Happiness is like a wave in the ocean:  it comes and goes.  “Joy,” on the other hand, is a gift from God that gives us a deep sense of well-being, regardless of our circumstances. If you have lost your joy, or you never really had it, then it’s time to connect with Jesus, the One Who gives us “joy unspeakable” (1Pet. 1:8)

READING:  Psalm 30

1.  Joy is Part of Our Inheritance (v 1, 5, 7)

“Joy” is a tough concept to understand in the O.T.  In English, joy refers to “feeling of great pleasure and happiness.” The Hebrew captures this same idea but uses about 21 different words all related to the idea of “pleasure, mirth, singing, a battle cry, and rejoicing” to name a few.  It is often associated with a sound, like singing or a battle cry.  Joy is a deep sense of gladness and well-being that is demonstrated in some outward way.

The key issue in regard to joy rests upon the “source” of the feeling of gladness, mirth, or good-will.  Look at verse 5a:

⁵ For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favor, a lifetime.

Joy flows up from a fountain of grace deep within one’s soul, much like a geyser at Yellowstone Park.  Joy is the fruit of grace, which is God’s favor upon men.  We see this in Galatians 5:22:

²² But the fruit of the Spirit  is . . . joy.

The word “joy” is built upon the same root as the word, “grace, or favor.”  Take a quick look at verse 7 to see the importance of making sure our lives are deeply rooted in God’s favor.

⁷ Lord, when You showed Your favor,

You made me stand like a strong mountain;

Happiness comes and goes because it lacks roots.  It’s like a tumbleweed that has shallow roots and is easily blown away when a wind sweeps the prairie.  Joy is more like an acorn attached to a mighty oak.  The roots of the oak go deep into the soil and an oak tree stands even in the face of fierce winds.  Joy is our inheritance as Christians because of God’s favor that rests upon our lives.  Joy remains regardless of how circumstances change.

For over 100 years, mineral rights from my great-grandfather have been in the possession of my family. My Mom inherited them from her Mom who inherited them and when my Mom and Dad died, I inherited my share of them, as did my siblings. I'm a "Beverly Hillbilly" of sorts. I'm a hillbilly that lives right up the road about an hour from Beverly Hills. Well, I said "of sorts." The point is that all the years and all the circumstances and all the changes in culture over a century, did not keep me from getting my share of an inheritance. Every month or so I get a check from people I don't know because of a forefather I'd never met. Our text talks about an "eternal inheritance." "Joy" is part of the inheritance that is mine because I am a child of God because I've accepted the free gift of salvation that Jesus provides for us through His death on the cross. Joy is a fruit that grows on the tree of salvation planted by grace in my life when I accepted Him as my Lord.  Jesus died, and now the inheritance is mine, and part of that inheritance is "joy."

2.  Trials and Tribulations Do Not Extinguish Our Joy (5, 1-3)

Verse 5 is the heart of the Psalm:  Weeping may spend the night,

but there is joy in the morning.  No roller coaster, including life, goes up forever—sooner or later, as the old saying goes, “what goes up must come down.

It takes both “ups and downs” to create a roller coaster.  You can bet that life will bring you ups and downs, twists and turns, moments of great exhilaration and moments of deep despair.  Do not let trials and tribulations steal your joy.  This Psalmist in our text understood this.  Life will have periods of darkness.  Happiness becomes despair.  Luck changes.  Difficult times are not a matter of “if,” but when.  Yet, when life’s difficulties come, you joy does not have to go.

Someone counted and the word “joy” is used over three hundred (300) times in the Bible.  Some people like counting these things.  The word for “happiness” is found a little over thirty (30) times.  The point, irrespective of the particular numbers, is that the Bible places much more emphasis on “joy,” than happiness.

The reason is pretty easy to establish as we have already seen.  “Joy” is not dependent upon circumstances and “happiness” is dependent upon circumstances.  The word happiness actually comes from the Old English (about 14^th century) word, “hap,” meaning “luck, fortune, or chance.”  In other words, happiness is just a matter of the “luck of the draw” as they say in poker.

The Psalmist in our text is well-acquainted with grief and struggle.  This experience of grief and struggle has been referred to in literature as a “dark night of the soul” (St. John of the Cross).  In darkness, we cannot see anything, even though everything is still there.  This is true of spiritual darkness.  We cannot see God, but He is still there.

Modern man does not cope well with “darkness.” We cope with it best by “sleeping through it.”  I’m sure many of you have had the uncomfortable experience of waking up in the middle of the night. For some, this is almost a time of panic. 

Modern man has come to believe that the best thing to do with “darkness” is to “sleep through it until dawn.”  We consider a “broken night of sleep” to be something unnatural, and something to be avoided.  Not so our ancient, pre light bulb forebears.  A broken night of sleep was common.  In fact, they even had a name for it.  They called it “first sleep and second sleep.”  It was not uncommon for our forefathers and foremothers to awake in the middle of the night to stoke the fire, have a smoke, read a book, and often pray.  There was no sense of panic in the night. Waking in the middle of the night was simply a part of the cycle of life.  Darkness was embraced as a time to reflect upon life.

Scientists are learning that this ancient pattern of first and second sleep, with a period of sacred wakefulness in between, is actually a more natural human rhythm of rest than the eight continuous hours of sleep that doctors routinely recommend. A study in the 1990s plunged subjects into 14 hours of darkness every night for a month and the subjects eventually adopted a pattern of four hours of sleep, waking for one or two hours, then resuming with four more hours of sleep. Researchers are beginning to realize that this is really a more natural human sleep pattern that has been disrupted by the advent of artificial light and the post-industrial desire for maximum efficiency that causes us to fall into bed exhausted too late for our own good. When we wake in the middle of the night, we panic. What's really happening, according to researchers, is that our bodies are trying to recapture their normal sleep pattern.

Metaphorically speaking, the psalmist is addressing a “panic in the night in this Psalm.”  Verses 1-3 address the darkness of grief and struggle that circumstances bring upon our lives:

I will exalt You, Lord, because You have lifted me up and have not allowed my enemies to triumph over me. ² Lord my God, I cried to You for help, and You healed me. ³ Lord, You brought me up from Sheol; You spared me from among those going down to the Pit.

These verses describe a “spiritual first sleep.”  The Psalmist finds himself in a period of darkness.  Verse 5 gives us the solution to avoiding panic and losing our joy during times of darkness.

⁵ For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favor, a lifetime.

Weeping may spend the night, but there is joy in the morning.

Notice that in the first part of this verse the darkness in the circumstances of the Psalmist is the result of “God’s anger.”  The Jews attributed everything to God as the Supreme Sovereign of the Universe—both good and bad were under His complete control.  God uses difficult circumstances to correct us and to complete our training in righteousness.

The Psalmist awakes spiritually to find that there is darkness all around him, but he does not panic because he knows—as we all need to know—that Yahweh is the God of the valley as well as the God of the mountain.  This brings us a sense of great “joy.”

Now, this brings us to an important application of this Psalm as it relates to living a joyful life.  What if we lose our joy?

3.  If we have lost it, we can get it back  (1b, 2; 6-12).

We can live victorious lives characterized by an enduring sense of joy.  We can get our joy back by understanding how we lose it.

We can lose our joy.  It can happen for a number of reasons.  Verse 1 shows us that one way we can lose our joy is by focusing on our circumstances instead of focusing on Our Lord.  We have already seen that circumstances can cause us to lose our joy by causing us to lose our focus on God.  In the last half of verse 1 David mentions “his enemies,” a common theme in the Psalms:

¹ I will exalt You, Lord, because You have lifted me up and have not allowed my enemies to triumph over me.

Certainly, as we go through life we will have to deal with many people who distract us in life, from the person that cuts us off on the freeway to co-workers or bosses that make our life difficult at work.  We sometimes have to deal with neighbors who may be difficult for one reason or another.  And . . . of course, we all have to deal sooner or later with the DMV which certainly taxes our patience and resolve.

We will lose our joy if we allow challenging circumstances or difficult people to become our focus, instead of the Lord Who Saved Us.  In this verse the Psalmist uses the very special title for God, Yahweh.  This is referred to as the “covenant name” of God.  It is not the general term for God, but the very name God disclosed to Moses when He called Moses to deliver His people from bondage to the heavy-handed, oppressive Egyptians.

Joy demands we stay focused upon Yahweh, Our Deliverer.

Another culprit that may cause us to lose our joy is the decline in our health.  David experienced this in his life (he mentions it in other places such as Psalm 51).  David declares here in our text (v2):

² Lord my God, I cried to You for help, and You healed me.

Verse 3 points out the seriousness of David’s situation:

³ Lord, You brought me up from Sheol;
You spared me from among those going down  to the Pit.

“Sheol” and “the Pit” here refer to the depths to which the Psalmist’s illness has come.  Sheol and the Pit refer to “death and the grave.”  Many equate Sheol with the Christian idea of final punishment in hell, but it need not refer to anything more than being, “sick and near death.”

Sickness, and even death, can cause us to focus on the here and now and our joy will diminish. It’s hard NOT to focus on our bodies when they are racked with sickness or injury.   Health issues are a key “joy stealer” if we allow it.  All of us will have to deal with declining health sooner or later.  You need to establish the resolve NOW that you will stay focused on the Savior and not on the sickness.  Paul suffered from several health issues, particularly with his eyes.  Here is some solid advice in how to avoid letting sickness steal our joy:

^{2Cor. 4   16} Therefore we do not give up.  Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person  is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our momentary light affliction  ^d is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.  ¹⁸ So we do not focus on what is seen,  but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Focus on the eternal—always.  This world is “weeping and darkness” but eternity is “joy and dawning.” 

So, difficult circumstances including difficult people can be a “joy stealer.”  Sickness, and our approaching death, can be a “joy stealer.” 

In this Psalm, David focuses on a “joy stealer” that many of us overlook:  “pride.”  In verses 6-7 David confesses:

⁶ When I was secure, I said, “I will never be shaken.” ⁷ Lord, when You showed Your favor, You made me stand like a strong mountain; when You hid Your face, I was terrified.

David had become a phenomenal success rising from a lowly shepherd to the King of Israel.  He had it all: fame, fortune, and women.  The Hebrew title for this Psalm tell us it was a

“a psalm for the dedication for the house.”  This is probably a reference to the dedication of the threshing floor of Araunah (2Sam. 24:18ff) which would become the glorious temple built and named in David’s honor.  David was a rich, powerful, and prideful man.

Like many people who rise to prominence, they begin believing their own press and act as if “they did it all on their own.”  Many cannot handle success.  Many take pride in saying, “I am a self-made man.”  In reality, if one is a self-made man, one has been built by a questionable architect upon a flimsy foundation.

David forgot that his prominence was, according to his own words in verse 7, the result of “God’s favor” (v7).  Pride gets us to focus on our selves instead of the Lord, and joy begins to evaporate.

Pride causes us to trust in our own devices and believe in our own power.  The Bible says that “pride goes before a fall” (Prv. 16:18). When we trust in our own devices, designs and decrees as a source for joy, our joy quickly evaporates.  Sooner or later a “house of cards” build by the hand of flesh will come crashing down.

One scholar commenting on this psalm pointed out that “[David] had become intoxicated with his own success.”  Like many a drunk, David stumbled into destruction and despair.  When we are intoxicated with pride we cannot focus on the Lord and we lose our joy.

Tough circumstances can steal your joy.  Difficult people can steal your joy.  Declining health can steal your joy.  Pride will steal your joy.  If you have lost your joy, you can get it back just like David.

Verse 8 is the key to getting your joy back—or getting it in the first place if you have never had it:

⁸ Lord, I called to You; I sought favor from my Lord:

David cried out to God to get his joy back.  If you want joy in your life, you need to cry out to God and seek His favor, or grace.  Paul echoed David’s plan to find joy unspeakable.  Paul declared:

^{Rom 10:13}  Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

And, when you are saved and become a child of the King, joy is part of your inheritance.  It is your inheritance to keep, or your inheritance to get back if you lose it, but joy should be a permanent fixture in the life of every believer.  If it isn’t, something is wrong.  Something else besides the Lord God, Yahweh, has become your focus.

Life is like a roller coaster full of ups and downs, twists and turns.  It will wear you down if you let it—but you don’t have to let life wear you out.  Happiness may come and go like night and day, but joy can remain constant.  Never forget what this Psalmist declares:

⁵ weeping may endure for a night,
but joy cometh in the morning (KJV).

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