I Will Not Settle!: Confronting the Spirit of Cynicism, Part 1

I was talking to a very, what I have known to be, godly man recently, a man that God has used in the past. And as we began to discuss, he began to talk about, “You know, I’ve just kind of lost my fire. I’ve kind of lost my passion. I look at, you know, what’s happening in the world and the Church and academia and the media and the morals and the shift of cultures and some ideologies. And you know, I’m just going to do the best I can. But I think it’s too far gone.

And as I sat there and talked to him, what I realized, his fire was gone. His real hope was gone.

This is a message about: how do we overcome the spirit of cynicism? And there’s just, I mean, waves of discouragement. And there’s just this, I call it subtle despair like, well, I mean, this is the way it is.

I’ve got news for you. This is not the way it is. And I will tell you this, God is on His throne, God will work, God has promised to work, His promises will not be thwarted, and the issue is not God’s willingness. In every era like this, and this has happened so many times through biblical history, through our history, and in the present day.

And what I want you to know is I would like you to declare with me: We can’t be bold and courageous unless we refuse to settle. And what I want you to know is you have to get a new view of God or a refreshed view of God and remember what He’s like and what He has done.

And my passage here is Psalm 107. There is a call, there is a command to: Don’t be silent. It is not enough to say, “I love Jesus, I have my personal faith, and I’m doing the best I can, I’m trying to be nice, I’m trying to be moral, I even read my Bible, I even give a little money to the Church or help some causes.” That’s not what it means, in the days that we’re living, to be a follower of Jesus. He’s calling out people to be warriors, difference-makers, cutting edge. And you say to yourself, Well, Chip, I just, I just can’t do that.

Let me give you a Word from God. Let me share with you a passage. It’s Psalm 107. And it opens up with a command and it ends with a warning. Listen carefully. And here’s the command, “Give thanks to the Lord,” why? “for He is good, His love endures forever! Let the redeemed of the Lord,” that’s you and me, “say this, those He has redeemed from the hand of the foe, those He gathered from the lands, from east and west and north and south.” In other words, God is calling us, He is commanding us who are redeemed, like the old song says, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.”

You can’t be silent, I can’t be silent, I can’t have coffee shop conversations, I can’t be at work, I can’t be taking my trash out and having a little conversation with my neighbor and they bring up some world event or some situation or how bad this is and just sort of smile and go, “Oh, yeah, it is kind of rough. And, of course, I’m a follower, I’m a silent follower of Jesus.” Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Give thanks to the Lord; He is good. That’s His character. He longs to bless, He longs to come in power, He wants to use you, you can’t be silent.

If you want to jot a little note or put this into your phone, I read a book just a few months ago by Erwin Lutzer, a man who has been around a long time, formerly the pastor of Moody Church, prolific writer, he’s still got unbelievable energy. And I had a chance, I was in North Carolina and I got to sit with him and he’s got this perspective of life. He is passionate, he is focused, and he has all this energy and I realized that he had taught, like, eight or nine sessions in a row in about four days.

And he had all this vitality and I just, it seems like he’s been around a long time. And I said, “Dr. Lutzer, like, if you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?” He goes, “You know, actually, this weekend, celebrated eighty years.” I said, “Really.” He goes, “Yeah, I’ve got a brand-new book coming out, I’ve done all this research on what is happening in the culture,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he started citing things. I got the book, I read it, and I thought, This guy is more current than ninety percent of the pastors I know that are forty and under. Why? Why? He has refused to settle.

And that’s my prayer for you, my prayer for me, because we can be bold and we can be courageous when we give thanks that the Lord is good. When we begin to communicate: This is what He has done for me. And then when we remember: This is who He is, this is what He does. And so, now the psalmist is going to eagerly tell us that He wants us to call for help, He wants other people to call for help, He wants to go into places that we think God would never care, and He wants to rescue and He wants to forgive and He wants to restore and He wants to do it when people are ignorant, He wants to do it when they have willfully rebelled.

He is this loving, powerful God that wants to bring about dynamic, supernatural change, not someday and not in the past, but right now. And the psalmist, it’s a bit of a long psalm, but we are going to go through it fairly quickly where the structure is four specific scenes. The Spirit of God has taken David and He is going to give him four snapshots. And he’s going to talk about four different situations where people get rescued and where they were, how they respond, and then how God responds.

And what I will tell you is you don’t have to settle. God is doing today exactly what is in this passage. Are you ready?

Scene number one: God wants to rescue the wanderers, the people that are lost, the people without purpose. Follow along, “Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle; they were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away.”

In other words, they were desperate. He is describing possibly the wandering of the wilderness, but this particular Hebrew word isn’t so much for that, it’s more a picture of people that find themselves in life that are lost. What is my purpose? My relationships aren’t working out. I mean, why am I here? What is life all about? And in this particular case they find themselves where little by little by little their life is ebbing away. They just come to the point where: What is going on? I’m lost spiritually, I’m lost financially, I’m lost in my world, I don’t have a community, I’m discouraged, I’m depressed, I’m anxious. They are lost. And then they realize it. They realize their life is ebbing away, what do I do?

Notice what they did: “Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress. And He led them by a straight way to a city where they could settle.” In other words, He gives them community, He gives them purpose, He rescues these lost people. And then he says: Here’s the response I’m looking for. “Let them give thanks to the Lord for His unfailing love, and His wonderful deeds for men. For He satisfies the thirsty and He fills the hungry with good things.”

And the thirsty and the hungry here, certainly there’s a lot of physical application, but most of our lostness is spiritual hunger. We are spiritually thirsty. There are just people all around us, like never before. I was reading an article about anxiety and depression and a high percentage either think about or have attempted suicide. And it’s a wave that has happened in the last five to seven years. And this is a secular article; I’ll never forget it. And he says, “The root cause,” and I’m reading this, I said, “Really?” He says, “The root cause is a lack of religion.” And I’m thinking, “Where is this guy coming from?” He says, “Once you remove religion, the higher purpose, the what-is-life-all-about, why you’re here - gets removed.”

And if there’s no true north, you have a whole generation of people, they may not have any religious affiliation, but that doesn’t change the need of: This is true. I want to give my life to this. This matters. Someone cares about me. There’s purpose in life, there’s a life now, there’s a life later. And what God is saying here is that He longs to rescue the lost. He understands the hurt and the key is when they cry out to Him in their desperation and their trouble.

And I want you to know today that God, when you find yourself in trouble, when you find yourself in distress, when you find yourself lost in any way for any reason, lost in your community, lost in relationships, lost in direction, cry out to God and be desperate. Lord, please show me what to do. I will do whatever You want, but please give me direction. And He promises: I’ll do it. And then after you cry out and He does it, He goes: here’s what I want you to do. I want you to give thanks to the Lord. I want you to praise Him, I want you to declare to other people this is what God has done for you.

And, see, what happens is you may not know it, I read some other research, seventy thousand people a day are coming to know Christ, globally. And, now, a lot of it is in southeast Asia, India, Africa. But here! I will tell you, I’ve got relationships with a lot of young pastors. There are churches and God is working in amazing ways even in America. It doesn’t make the news. Are there problems? A lot of problems. But, see, when you find some people that are bold, that are telling, “Hey, Jesus saved me.”

We have a group of friends that we partner with and they go to places that, “Oh, that march against this,” or, “That atheist group,” or, “You know, that museum over there where they are just taking all the things that America used to stand for and they are railing against it,” they go to those places. And if it’s a hot day, they might bring water or they’ll spend time and they’ll ask people about, you know, their lostness. “Are you lonely?” “Oh, yeah.” Everyone is lonely. “What is your purpose in life?” “I don’t know, I don’t have one.” “What have you thought about in terms of relationships? Do you have community?”

They just bring up spiritual conversations. And then they say, “You guys want a meal?” And they befriend them. And they’re not trying to get someone to pray a prayer. They actually care about the people and they invest in their lives. And then they have developed some places here and about a hundred cities around the world where you can come and hang out and have a meal and talk with people and hear their story and you listen to their story and pretty soon, they begin to ask, “What is with you all? Why do you care?” And they begin to share about God coming to this planet, fully man, fully God to love and to forgive and to restore and to find people that are wandering.

So many of them are wandering. You know, it breaks my heart when I hear Christians and I’m sure they are well-meaning. It’s like, “Those people and they believe that and that lifestyle and that’s terrible.” It’s like they are the enemy. No, they are the deceived. Jesus’ heart is would you please care for them the way I care for them? You know, we didn’t clean up our life before Jesus revealed His love to us. God wants us to help, to share, to care for those that are lost.

And then He wants them to give Him thanks and He wants them to say so. We have to be bold and courageous. Are you ready for this? Does it really matter what people at work might say? Does it really matter if one of your neighbors, “Oh, he’s a Christian. Oh! Oh! They actually believe that life in the womb is important, but they’re not political and they’re not angry. They actually believe that the family system was designed by God and actually their marriage seems to work really well. And they’re not down on anybody. In fact, they invite us over for dinner and they care for us and…” People are just longing to meet Christians who – are you ready? Live like Christians.

Scene number two. God longs to rescue those in bondage. “Some sat in dark, in the deepest gloom, prisoners suffering in iron chains,” why? “for they had rebelled against the words of God, and they despised the counsel of the Most High.

So, He subjected them to bitter labor, they stumbled, and there was no one to help.” It says God wants to rescue people in bondage and whether that’s the bondage of an addiction, bondage of, you know, bad decisions, whether it’s the bondage of being oppressed in some way. But he says in this particular case, lots of people are in bondage, because they have rebelled against God, they have rebelled against His Word. You say to live this way, I’m going to live this way. You say do relationships like this, I’m going to do them this way. You say handle your money this way, I’m doing them this way. Forget it. And there’s consequences.

Part of the judgment of God, if you will, the passive judgment of God, is when I live my life or you live your life contrary to His Word, He allows the consequences of that to happen, not to punish us, but to get our attention. And then notice what happens to this group. He says, “They then cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them from their distress.” They got to the point there was no one to help them, they couldn’t fix the relationship, they couldn’t break the addiction, they couldn’t get enough food, they couldn’t get a good job, they found themselves desperate, they said, “I don’t want to do life God’s way,” but in their desperation - and I’ve had this happen a lot in relationships with people, “You know what? I have never believed, I don’t know if there’s a God or not, but because my life is just absolutely imprisoned.”

And they cried out to the Lord in their trouble and He saved them from their distress. “He brought them out of darkness and the deepest gloom and He broke away their chains. Let them give thanks to the Lord,” here’s the response. Why? “for His,” here’s our word again, “unfailing love,” steadfast, loyal, covenant love, “and His wonderful deeds for men. For He breaks down the gates of bronze and He cuts through the bars of iron.” I wish we knew each other better, I wish that we could, okay, I said it again, have coffee. And I wish I could just hear your story. Like, tell me your journey.

Tell me what is going on? Where are you at in life and where are you at with God? And then, I’m sure, because I meet a lot of people, you would probably tell me about some struggles and challenges and a brother or sister or someone with an addiction, a drug issue, a sexual addiction. All kind of different things. And then I hope you would say, “Chip, you seem a little bit older than me,” which is probably going to be true. “Have you ever seen God help people like this?” And I would lean back and I’d get a second cup of coffee and I would start to tell you story after story after story after story after story of the young man or the not-so-young man or the now friend that has been two or three, went two or three marriages. And, I mean, was life a train wreck. And how God, once they got to the point of, “I can’t do this.”

You see, some of those cliches are pretty true. When you hit rock bottom, the only place you can look is up. There’s a lot of truth to that. I have some good friends that work in the addiction arena and they tell me, “You really can’t help people until they come to the end of themselves.” I mean, they will con you, they will lie to you, they will promise anything. But if you get with anyone in a Celebrate Recovery or a Twelve Step or some sort of a counseling program where lives really change, everyone knows until you get to the point where you stop denying, stop lying, stop manipulating and just realize: I am helpless and I am hopeless to change.

If that’s you or if that’s someone you know, there is a God in heaven and there is a Jesus who is a Savior that longs to forgive and to restore and to break the chains and to help you. All you have to do is ask and then find a community of His people and get real and get honest and what you’ll find is He will use the power of His Word and His Spirit to little, by little, by little transform your life.