Psalm 107:23-32

Hey guys, this is Josh from Haven City Church.

The following sermon was preached on March 25th, 2018.

This is our inaugural sermon as a church in a new location off of 710 Ann Street.

The text was Psalm 107, verses 23 through 32.

Psalms 107:23–32

For more information about the church, you can visit our website, www.baltimorechurch.com, or you can find us on social media by just searching for Haven City Church.

So Psalm 107, verse 23 through 32, it says this.

Psalms 107:23–32

Some went out on the sea in ships.

They were merchants on the mighty waters.

They saw the works of the Lord, his wonderful deeds in the deep.

For he spoke and stirred up a tempest that lifted high the waves.

They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths.

In their peril their courage melted away.

They reeled and staggered like drunkards.

They were at their wits' end.

Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress.

He stilled the storm to a whisper.

The waves of the sea were hushed.

They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind.

Let them exalt him in the assembly of the people and praise him in the council of elders.

Let's pray.

God, we thank you for this text and how you, God, are faithful in the midst of a storm to guide your people into a desired haven.

And Lord, we believe that you've given us this text for us as a church, that you want to reveal yourself as the God who is that safe harbor, a haven for troubled people.

And so, Lord, as we look into this text and Lord, as we as believers cling to you as our haven, we ask, Lord, that you would afresh speak into our lives by your Holy Spirit.

Thank you so much for your grace, God.

Thank you for how you've revealed yourself to each of us individually.

Speak to us, we pray, through this text in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So did you know when it comes to shipping, that on average one ship is either sunk, foundered, grounded, or otherwise lost almost every other day on an annual basis?

Did you know that almost 90% of the things that you buy come through shipping?

And did you know that every year more than 2,000 sailors die at sea?

And one other fun, interesting fact is that um a third of all shippers, sailors, I guess is what they're called, are Filipino.

That's the that's the number one race that's engaged in um the shipping industry.

Here in Fells Point, we're a historic harbor.

Um until uh the Civil War, our biggest export was, well, there's a number of things that we were exporting, but we were exporting a lot of grain.

And then after the Civil War, um the grain export that was going on out of Fells Point moved up to um, I think over to Locust Point.

And what this harbor became was the second largest immigration point in America, other than Ellis Island.

So thousands and thousands of people on an annual basis were coming right here to um uh migrate into the U.S.

The new Pendry Hotel was originally built in the early um uh 20th century to serve these migrant, uh, these people that had immigrated to the U.S.

as a rec center, kind of as just a place to hang out and enjoy the water.

This whole area is a historic, it's a historic harbor.

It's a um unique location.

And um it was by no coincidence that we have named our church Haven City Church.

A haven is defined as a safe port or a safe harbor.

It's also now used when we talk about finances.

So you have like a tax haven.

On Thursday, um the financial markets crashed, and I I happened to be I think I was watching TV or I was watching some news event, and they were saying that what happened was money was moved into these safe harbors financially, uh, like the bond market and into gold, things that are less volatile.

So we use this word haven't to refer to some location that is safe and secure.

But in scripture it's used three times, and all three times it's used to refer to uh shipping and and kind of the nautical world, and it's referring to a bay or a safe location to park your ship.

And we see the word here in Psalm 107, verse 30, that God guides them to their desired haven.

Psalms 107:30

When I lived in Kauai, we had a um a beach called Lydgate Beach Park, and uh Derek knows about that.

And this this um this park was so popular because they had stuck rocks and created basically a cove, an enclosed cove that would stop the waves from coming in, and it was a calm area.

No matter how hard the waves would beat, this cove stayed really calm and beautiful.

It was a haven that you could uh find rest in.

That's the idea here of God guiding these people to a desired haven.

So back in 2016, my wife and I were um, we already knew we were called to Baltimore to start a church.

We felt like God wanted us to be here in the city, but we were like, where do you want us to be at?

And uh so uh we drove all over the city.

I think we put like 600 miles on a rental car in the course of four days.

And that was in the city pretty much.

I mean, we visited some people out of the city, zigzagging all over the city.

And we came down here on the first day, then we had different dinners with a couple different uh pastors.

I had coffee with one particular pastor, and I was asking, where do you think that where where do you think in Baltimore there's a need for a church?

And two of the guys that we met with said um in the southeast area, in the Cannon and the uh Fells Point area.

And so we came back here on the last day and we looked at some of the uh rentals, uh trying to decide, could we stick a family in a um row house?

And uh kind of started to be open to that idea, and and and just as we were on the way to the last row house that we had actually ended up renting when we got here, we took a wrong turn and ended up on a street called Haven Street on the other side of Target.

I think we were down by Target.

And as we saw that sign, we thought, that's a great name.

And from there it started a conversation.

We thought, what about Haven City Church for the name of a church?

And then uh a couple hours later, we were at the airport and I was looking it up.

Where is that word mentioned in scripture?

And Psalm 107, 30 is is the main reference where it's really kind of making a point.

I thought, yeah, that's that's good, that's right.

That's that's what God wants.

That's how he wants to reveal himself in the city through a church, is that he is a haven to his people.

And so that's that's the origin of our name as a church.

But I want to make three quick points from this text.

Three quick points.

The first is this we see here that he says he guides them.

Do you see that?

It says that God guides them to their desired haven.

These poor sailors were businessmen using ships to gain a profit, they're engaged in their vocation, they're doing their work, and they have a storm.

In the middle of their career, they end up in this turbulent experience.

And how do they respond, right?

The the waves are carrying them up to the heavens and down to the depths, it says, is a mess.

And it says there that their courage melted away.

In other words, their manliness, or maybe they're saying, I'm a dude and I can handle this.

They had a stiff upper upper lip, they had a brave demeanor, all of that disappeared in the face of this storm.

You can maybe you can relate to that kind of experience in your life where just what's normal and you feel like this is my threshold, I can handle this, and then all of a sudden you go through something, it's like, whoa, this just wrecks me, right?

That's where these sailors were at.

God allows us to sometimes go through storms, right?

It's not necessarily because we've sinned or because we've done anything wrong.

God just providentially allows his people to go through storms because he wants to reveal himself in the midst of storms in our life.

Uh nobody kind of comes along and goes, like, I want a storm, you know, so God can be greater in my life.

That's not really how it works.

But the Christian life, you know, we look at Paul, we look at Jesus.

Storms are a part of just doing the Christian life.

And yet God is revealed in Scripture as the one who guides his people.

He's the God who guides.

We look back at Genesis chapter 1, verses 27 through 30.

Genesis 1:27–30

We go back to the very beginning of Scripture.

What do we see?

We see God creates Adam and Eve, and then he gives them instructions, right?

The God of the Bible is the one who is leading and guiding his people.

We get to Abraham.

Abraham in Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

We start the whole story of Abraham with God giving guidance to Abraham.

The Lord said to Abraham, Go from your country, your people, your father's household, to the land I will show you, I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

Go to Moses, right?

God guides Moses.

He's out there in the wilderness in Exodus chapter three.

You have the burning bush experience, and the Lord said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt.

I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.

So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians, to bring them out of the land into a good and a spacious land, flowing with milk and honey, and the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Persites, Hivites, and Jebuzites, and now the cry of Israel has reached me.

He says, So now go.

I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.

God guided Moses through the wilderness, he guided his people through the wilderness.

But ultimately, that leads to this idea, right?

As God is guiding his people, it leads us to the point where we see Jesus, who is the great guider of humanity.

In John 14, 6, Jesus answered and he says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

In fact, the early Christians were called, not Christians, what were they called?

They were called the way, right?

The way.

They were the people who were being led by God in a way, a way of doing life.

They were the followers of God.

The whole concept of being a Christian, being a part of God's family is that we are a people that are led by God, that he is the one who guides us.

So while storms are a reality, God reveals himself to us as the God who guides.

So wherever you're at this morning, know that God not only guided his people in the Old Testament, but Jesus came as the ultimate guide, the one who wants to guide us in life.

In Mark 1.17, right, he says to Peter, Come and follow me.

He says to Levi in Mark chapter 2, verse 14, who's Matthew, follow me.

Mark 2:14

And he arose and he followed him.

Matthew 16, 24, whoever wants to be my disciples must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.

John 8.12, Jesus spoke to his people.

He says, I'm the light of the world.

Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness.

The invitation of Scripture to humans is for us to surrender our own sense of direction.

We can forget about blazing a path or coming up with some new way of doing things, and we get to follow God.

He invites us, he extends an invitation to us to follow his leading.

But then the question comes up: is God's guidance good?

Is God's guidance good?

And that's the second thing that we see in Psalm 107 is that God leads, he guides his people to a haven that is desirable, the desired haven.

One of the common portrayals of Christianity is that Christians are stiff, Christians are a killjoy.

The Simpsons or Saturday Night Live have done a great job of portraying Christians as these people that are just like not cool, right?

Super cheesy.

That's why we're going to get rid of our projectors, because it's super cheesy, by the way.

But popular culture has done such a great job of portraying Christians as just the people have that have bought into just a sour grapes way of living.

And yet here, the God of the Bible is the one who is leading these terrified people into a desirable haven.

A minute ago we read the story of Moses being listening to God.

And God says to Moses, that I'm going to lead you into a land that is beautiful, right?

When God tells his people that the land is going to be beautiful, and they got to the land, they didn't have to look at it sideways to appreciate its beauty.

They didn't have to kind of contort their bodies to appreciate what God was doing.

No, the beauty that God was bringing the people into was a truly good land.

In Psalm 37, 4, it says, Delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

In Psalm 34.8, it says, O taste and see that the Lord is good.

Blessed is the man who trusts in him.

Now the goodness of God is oftentimes, for us, we we get to taste it through experiences.

There are different things where it's just like, man, that's so great.

On um Tuesday night, I had like a pinnacle ministry experience personally.

I was up in New York, and the I got an invitation to go and do a service at the Bowery Mission.

And uh the Bowery Mission is one of the oldest, other than a mission that's in Chicago, the Bowery Mission is one of the oldest missions to homeless men and women in the city.

And their main speaker for their evening chapel had dropped out.

He wasn't going to be there.

And so I was invited to stand in.

And there's 300, mainly dudes, all bundled up because it's the storms coming in the next day.

And it's this long, well, I Instagrammed it, so you can see kind of the picture on my Instagram feed.

But that to me, just being able to do that was for me like just tasting of the goodness of God.

The fact that I could be with those men and preach the gospel, just be invited, like given permission to take the stage and for like 30 days just preach the gospel in that setting was just so epic for me.

So God does reveal himself through circumstances, but the ultimate goodness of God is found in Jesus Christ.

The more the Christian life unfolds, the more beautiful Jesus becomes.

Jesus becomes this the beauty of God.

So when we're told that God leads these people into this desirable haven, we cannot settle for just understanding and applying this text that God makes, gives us good experiences.

Those good experiences foreshadow the very goodness of God.

Last point here is the haven of God, the very haven of God.

What is it?

What is the haven in this story foreshadow?

The true haven that God wants us to come into.

What is it?

Is it the church?

Is it a change in our circumstances?

Is it the fulfillment of our dreams?

All of those things are actually the byproduct, the byproduct of being in the haven.

The haven of God, the true haven of God is Jesus Christ.

Jesus even kind of conveyed this to his disciples in Mark chapter 4, when we see the story of this radical, radical storm that comes on the Sea of Galilee.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

And what are his disciples doing?

They're all freaked out, right?

They turn.

Teacher, don't you care if we drowned?

He got up, he rebuked the wind, he said to the waves, Quiet, be still.

Then the wind died down, and he was completely calm.

He said to his disciples, Why are you so afraid?

Do you still have no faith?

They were terrified and asked each other, Who is this?

Even the wind and the seas obey him.

When the psalmist writes in Psalm 107 that God brings them into the desired haven, the haven of God, the true haven of God, is Jesus Christ.

The storm, the storm that these sailors experienced over only foreshadows and anticipates the turbulence that comes upon the world because of sin.

We experience all kinds of storms in our life, but the true root of turbulence in our life is sin.

And Jesus is the one whom we are invited into to hide in and to find as our haven.

God loved the world.

2,000 years ago, he sent his son Jesus into the world on a mission.

Jesus lived a perfect life and died on the cross for our guilt.

Jesus fulfilled our guilty sentence.

And then he's raised three days later to anticipate, to give us a sense of that victory.

And in Matthew 11, 28 through 30, he says, Come to me, you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, learn of me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

So the psalmist concludes this the thought with this, with this worship, with this worship.

So stand with me, and we're gonna read this.

We're gonna finish off with this Psalm 107, verse 31 through 32.

Psalms 107:31–32

Psalm 107, verse 31 through 32 says this.

Psalms 107:31–32

Let them exalt him in the assembly of the people and praise him in the counsel of the elders.

All of this, all of this story anticipates Jesus, right?

Jesus is the hero of the story.

As the psalmist writes about this storm and these sailors that kind of finally find this beautiful haven, it all points to the fact that Jesus is our haven.

So as a church, as we move forward, what we are doing is we are worshiping our haven, right?

Jesus as the haven.

We're finding our rest in Him.

And then we're inviting others in.

We found it, right?

We have found the haven, right?

The place where we can be safe and secure, and that is peaceful, right?

When you're a terrified sailor out there, this is where you can find peace for your souls.

So here's the thing, church.

We have been given this incredible gift.

God has led us and given us this desired haven, right?

He is He has brought us in.

We have this amazing treasure.

And yet there are, like when we leave this place and we do the rest of this week, the next seven days, we're going to encounter people who are in the midst of this storm.

And I don't know how.

Like I don't know what it's going to look like for God to use us in those people's lives.

I don't know what it's going to look like for new people to get saved, but I know that he wants to use us, right?

We are those those vessels that he wants to work through.

And so let's just, as we close, let's just offer ourselves to the Lord.

Say, Lord, have us.

Lord, take our lives.

Lord, we're so grateful that you are our desired haven.

We're so grateful that you've guided us in our life into you.

Lord, where there's where there is just that turbulence where we're freaking out about life.

God, we pray, we ask that you would continue, lead us back to you.

And Lord, may we find in you just that place of peace and serenity.

Lord, where we would do life just secure in you.

Thank you for the promises, just the treasured peace that we have in you.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.