August 17, 2008

THE HEART’S CRY

“A Song of Trust”

Psalm 63

One of the victims was a 73-year-old Salt Lake widow who lost her home after Michael Ostler convinced her to trust him in taking care of her and her family.

Last month Ostler pleaded guilty to four felony counts of security fraud. He collected $130,000 from investors with the bogus promise high returns from a European bank.

Ostler must have taken a page from Stanley Anderson, a Presbyterian elder from Colorado. He made a dramatic pledge of $150 million to our denomination at the 2006 General Assembly. The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil fraud charges against him and four partners who also offered up to a 1,000% return through trade notes by European banks. Taking more than $5 million from investors, they lost it all in a Ponzi style scheme where early investors are paid by the money from later investors. Needless to say, the church hasn’t received any money from Anderson’s pledge.

Just this week Westminster College was burned by a similar fraudulent pledge. Warren Kyle Foote would give $3.4 million to launch the college’s new Warren Foote Institute for New Enterprise. Shuffling money among his many failing business ventures, it all fell apart. He faces multiple counts of fraud and bad-check writing involving numerous victims, reported in the Salt Lake Tribune.   

Wow! I mean, who can you trust? We entrust our money to investors, our kids to childcare providers, our education to public and private schools, our city, state and national life to politicians! We trust our friends and family members with our emotions, our relationships, our problems, our needs.   

Let’s face it, at some point they will all disappoint. From the most complex to simple, from distant to the very closest, we human beings with our plans, schemes, and organizations cause hurt, loss and disaster time and time again. Trust is a hard thing to establish and a very hard thing to recover. I don’t think anyone will be doing business with Ostler, Anderson, or Foote for a while.   

Again, as we look at the Psalms, we find many expressions of our human emotions, our joys and sorrows, the heart’s cry to God. We read a song of lament where God want to hear our complaints, problems, and struggles. We read a song of thanks where we expressed our praise to the Lord for who he is and what he’s done. This morning, Psalm 63 we come across a song of trust. You and I can put our trust in Christ.

I first heard Psalm 63 in a song by one of the pioneering contemporary Christian music groups The Second Chapter of Acts. “My soul thirsts for thee/ and my flesh yearns for thee/ in a dry and weary land where there is no water/ Thus have I beheld thee/ in the sanctuary/ to see thy power and thy glory/ God, you are my God/ And I shall seek thee earnestly.” It speaks, it sings of the longing for God; the desire and need for all things to be restored, to be good and right.    

Trusting in Christ begins with this longing. In the Old Testament there were blessings promised for trusting in God and curses warned of for turning away from the Lord. “If you fully obey the Lord your God, he will set you above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you.” Then Deuteronomy 28 lists the many blessings. Or, “Because you did not obey the Lord your God… the Lord will scatter you among the nations… There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart.”    

Job was one who trusted in God yet was tested with some of life’s most severe problems. “Like a slave longing for the evening shadows or a hired laborer to be paid,” complains Job, “so I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me.”   

Whether through our own or through no fault of our own, dissatisfaction or disability, crisis or trouble are meant to propel us toward the only one we can trust for sure – the Lord our God, the Creator and Redeemer of life.   

As David calls out in prayer to God he also confesses his faith and trust. This God is his God. He lives in a personal relationship with him. He expresses his passionate desire for the Lord.   

So I have to ask, “Do you long and thirst for God? In the midst of the wilderness or desert of life in this fallen world, do you yearn for God’s presence, his peace, reconciliation, forgiveness, mercy?” If so, you’re in good company. From Adam and Eve to Abraham and Sarah, from Moses and Miriam to David and Israel, from Mary and Joseph to Jesus’ disciples and Christians ever since, God’s people have always longed for the Savior Messiah Emmanuel God-With-Us.

Longing for God leads us to come to worship. We come to church together to praise and worship the God we trust. The psalm said it in verse 3: “Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.”   

I’ve heard it said many times that one can worship God on the golf course or ski slope, in the mountains or on the beach just as well as in church. And that may be true (but I guess I’ve known only a few people for which that is actually true). So I’m glad that you’re here this morning. I hope that Sunday worship here at 1st Pres enriches your worship of God and helps you express your faith and trust in the Lord. Those who profess faith in God but rarely come to church are missing out. They’re most likely impoverished in their personal worship, relationship and trust in Christ.   

Coming to church expresses my longing for God. When on vacation or on a Saturday or Sunday night, I enjoy going to another church with the expectations and hopes for meaningful worship and biblical message in the presence of my Lord Jesus and with the company of his church. I hope you have the longing that draws you here on Sunday mornings.   

Because then as you go home, you will be like David in the coming days. He sings in verse 6: “On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.”   

Our Lord Jesus affords us strength and care as a result of worship. Worship helps us tap into our memory of what God has done for us. At the Lord’s Table we always hear, “Do this in remembrance of me.” God’s help, God’s protection, God’s authority keeps us safe in the battle we face in the world around us.

For David was in a battle and so are we. Enemies seek his life to destroy it. We too have enemies from within and without that would destroy us given the chance.   

In his book Hard Truths About the Culture War Robert Bork writes this: “We are accustomed to lamentations about American crime rates, the devastation wrought by drugs, rising illegitimacy, the decline of civility, and the increasing vulgarity of popular entertainment… ranging across virtually the entire society… from rap music to literary studies, from pornography to law, from journalism to scholarship… Wherever one looks, the traditional virtues of this culture are being lost, its vices multiplied, its values degraded – in short, the culture itself is unraveling.” Culturally, these are the enemies we face today.   

Both Jesus and Paul list the series of sins that can plague us individually. Here’s Jesus: “For from within, out of your hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile you” (that’s in Mark 7:21-23). I think he covered all of us, you and me at some point! Paul agrees. “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious,” writes Paul in Galatians 5. “Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witch craft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy…” These are the enemies you and I face; enemies that seek to destroy life.

But Trusting in Jesus Christ, longing for the Lord, worshiping God leads us to victory over these enemies.

Who can you trust? “Trust in the Lord with all your heart,” says the wisdom of the Bible (Proverbs 3:5). Use the Psalms for renewal in worship, for renewal in your own self-awareness, to see the display of the absolute mercy of God and a walk of faith and trust in him. Express your longing for the Lord, find comfort in his care and look forward to his completed victory for life.

Let us pray together.