Survival Tools

Hey, man, thank you, John choir and praise team.

If you have your Bible, and I hope you do make your way to

Psalm chapter 5 as we continue in our series in the book of

Psalms 5 · chapter mention

songs that we've just simply titled Songs for Life, Songs for

life. I'm not really sure why, but I

love stories of survival. In fact, one of my favorite ways

right now to listen to them is through a podcast from the

Noiser Network called Real Survivor.

Survivor Stories. Have y'all heard this at all?

Anybody listen to these? Maybe it's just me, I'm weird I

guess. So.

The most recent one spoke of a guy named John Ritchie.

He's the son of missionaries to West Africa who was on a fishing

trip with his father and his uncle in right off Ivory Coast

area in a lake, and they were in some pretty small fishing boats

and having a great time catching some fish.

I don't remember the type fish they were catching there, like

50 to 75 LB fish. These were big fish they were

fishing for out of pretty small boats, having a great time until

their boat was rolled over by hippo.

You're not going to laugh in a second until John Ritchie found

himself in the mouth of that hippo drug to the bottom of that

leg where that hippo stayed with him clamped in his mouth.

I'm not going to tell you how it ends, but he does survive.

You have to go and listen for yourself.

But just absolutely fascinating, right?

Stories of survival. Y'all remember when the show

alone was running? I don't know if it still is.

Lorne and I watched alone for a while, you know, where they had

all these participants and they made them select 10 items, 10

items only from a pre approved list and they dropped them off

alone. It's the name of the show.

Think they gave them five square miles from any other participant

or contestant. And then they had the

psychological battle, not just a physically surviving, but of

mentally trying to remain until they heard they were the last

one standing. One guy that won season 8 was

named Clay Hayes. And they all would publish their

list of 10 things. I think we have there his list

that he put on that you can find online that these are the 10

things that he personally selected to help him survive and

be the last one standing on Season 8 of Alone Y'all, when we

turn to Psalm chapter 5, it's not that we are hopefully we are

Psalms 5 · chapter mention

not involuntarily fighting for physical survival on a daily

basis. I mean, we might find ourselves.

It's pretty unlikely you're going to get in the mouth of a

hippo at the bottom of the lake off the Ivory Coast, but you

might, you might all right, every now and then that might

happen. You might, I might listen to

your story on noise your network one day.

All right, But hopefully on all things normal, we're not

fighting for our physical survival, but all things being

normal, we are fighting for our spiritual survival.

Now when I say that don't, don't be confused.

I'm not talking about we could spiritually die after Jesus has

made us alive. That's not what I'm saying.

Now I'm not saying that we could lose our salvation if we've been

truly born again. That's not what I'm saying.

But what I am saying is that the enemy wants to take us out

spiritually. He wants to render us

ineffective. He wants to render us

inoperable. He wants us to be essentially as

if we were not alive and existing all right.

He doesn't want us growing and walking with Christ.

He wants us to not quote spiritually survive.

Well, I think when we turn to Psalm chapter 5, you can think

Psalms 5 · chapter mention

of this Psalm as giving us a list of five survival actions,

spiritual survival actions that King David gives us by his

instruction that we learned from him that any and every believer

you and I need to know and implement if we're going to

spiritually survive. And so as we read this, I'll

walk us through these one at a time.

Let's take just the first 3 verses of Psalm 5.

To begin with. David writes, give ear to my

words, O Lord, and consider my groaning.

Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for

to you do I pray, O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice.

In the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.

The first survival tactic that we learn, spiritual survival

action, we learn from David and the Psalm, is to maintain a

morning watch. To maintain a morning watch.

Now, anytime someone is in a survival situation or let's just

say a dangerous situation where there are threats around them

and if they have enough bodies and eyes to do this, someone

always stands watch, right? So someone can be not paying

attention while others are paying attention to be aware of

any kind of threat. Maybe they stay awake while

others sleep or maybe they watch they out, you know that

outskirts of the city, while those inside the city can't see

what's coming. And just think about what King

David and others like him living in an ancient city would have

experienced, right? There'd been no radar to

monitor, no radio to check, no text message to see or receive,

all right, no news to turn on, all right.

Somebody had to be on the wall in the towers, keeping watch,

looking at the horizon, noticing it was friendly or unfriendly,

seeing who was coming through the gate.

David says here in verse 3, In the morning, I prepare a

sacrifice for you and watch. This is not a physical watch for

danger. This is a spiritual watch for

his good, looking to God, watching God, waiting for

anything and everything good that God might have in store for

him. David says in the morning, I

prepare my sacrifice and I then stand watch.

Now if you go back to verse one, you're going to see how David

begins this morning. Watch, notice the description.

He says this. He's talking to God.

Listen to how he talks to God. Give ear to my words.

Consider my groaning. Give attention to the sound of

my cry, My king and my God. You can't miss David's boldness

right here, right? I mean, God three times.

He's talking to God in the imperative like he's

instructing, he's telling God, he's boldly asking God.

I don't know if this is how you pray, but I love the Psalms

because David makes me uncomfortable sometimes with the

way he talks to God, which helps give me comfort to talk to God

in a way that I know I should be boldly.

David's not talking down to God. David's talking up to God with

such boldness because of his faith in the bigness and

greatness and goodness of God. He knows he can call and talk to

God this way because of who God is.

So y'all, do you talk to God with such boldness?

Does the way David talked to God sound like the way you talk to

God? I think David's instructing us

to use a boldness with God, to cry out to God, to talk up to

God, if you will, with such faith that we could talk with

God too with the same kind of boldness.

Then we learned not only from David's boldness, y'all, but we

learned from the three different elements of prayer, of his

prayer he mentions here in the text.

Notice he says three things. He says words.

He says give attention to my words.

He says groans. He says give an ear, listen to

my groaning, pay attention. And he says, God hear my cries.

We hear him using words. Y'all words are the most basic

thing that facilitate communication, right?

I mean, most of the time when we think about prayer, we're going

to think about talking to God using words, which is all right,

But then he doesn't stop there. What does he do?

He goes next to groans. What are groans?

Groaning is what you do when you're trying to communicate,

but the pain is too great to put into, and all you can do is

groan before God. But he says, God, I know you

hear that even when it's wordless, and all I can do is

groan before you in pain. Then he says, God, don't just

hear my words or listen to my groaning.

Give attention to my what? My cries.

Wow. What do we cry when there are

times when mere conversation is insufficient to communicate our

desperation? He says listen to when I'm just

speaking words, God, listen to when I'm groaning before you in

pain. And God, would you hear when I'm

pouring my heart and my tears out and cries before you.

Praise God, we see here and are instructed our prayer lives are

to be much bigger than casual conversation of mere words with

God. Aren't you glad God hears you

and doesn't just hear you when you start off as if everything's

great and grand? Our Father who art in heaven.

Listen, by the way, if that's the way you start your prayer

every day, just nice polite conversation with God, you're

probably not praying the way God wants you to pray.

You're probably not groaning before Him.

You're probably not taking your pain to Him when it's too deep

for words. When you cry, do you ever cry

out before Him? Do you ever shed your tears in

His presence as part of your prayer life?

Or is it always nice, polite, casual conversation?

David's prayer life was much bigger, deeper, and wider than

just mere words. Ours ought to be as well.

David then also, is praying in the morning, right?

Christians have noticed by scriptural instruction, by

experience and practice, that there are at least two times

every day that a believer ought to give God their undivided

attention. I'm not talking about the fact

this is the only time we pray, but I am talking about the fact

that believers have typically noticed by the Scripture and by

practice and what works to walk with God effectively.

There's at least two times a day God needs your undivided

attention when you're doing something toward him, when

you're not doing anything else. And they're two times of the

day. One is in the morning when God

should get your undivided attention for at least some span

of time. And the other time is at the end

of the day in the evening, when God again should get some of

your undivided attention again, or you hit hits that pillow and

you close your eyes. Of those two times, though,

Christians and even Scripture seems by pattern to indicate

that one is even better than the other if you're going to choose

one. In fact, some have said one hour

with God in the morning is better than two with him in the

evening. But that's an interesting

statement. Why is that the case?

Well, if to put it in the words of another, the morning is the

key of the day. It's that time that unlocks the

rest of the day. Another way to put it would be

to ask yourself, if you plan to live the day for God, how can

you do so if you don't start the day with God?

Like, I know that I don't live the day for God.

If Kyle doesn't start the day with God, I'll just be honest

Now, some of you, you're like Pastor Kyle, I'm not a morning

person. I get that all right, I get

that. But I'm I'm still saying that

there's got to be a way that we begin today somehow giving our

time and undivided attention to God.

If you hope to truly live that day to the fullest for God.

David says again in the morning, I prepare a sacrifice for you.

That's Old Testament language when animals were involved.

But in the New Testament, praise God, God doesn't say you got to

show up with your animal anymore because the final full ultimate

sacrifice through Jesus his own body life given on the cross has

been given. So Romans 12 verse one puts it

like this. Therefore, I beseech you,

brothers, in view of the mercies of God, to offer yourselves as a

what living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is

your spiritual act of worship. Because Jesus is the final full

sacrifice. Now we can come before him every

day. And he asked us to lay down our

lives, all of our wants, all of our dreams, all of our time,

talent and treasure, all of our energy, all of our ambitions,

and say, Jesus, today, here I am again today, not my will, but

thy will. I want to be a living sacrifice

for you. This is what David is doing even

in the Old Testament, and this is the way God calls us to start

each day. David not only prays though

y'all, he does what he watches. What does he mean by that?

This is a morning watch. It's not just a morning prayer.

It's a morning watching, praying and watching.

What I mean by that, David doesn't just pray with his eyes

closed. I don't even know if he prayed

with his eyes closed or not. But here's what I do know.

The eyes of his heart. We're open gazing on God,

waiting on God not just to hear, but to what to answer, waiting

and watching what was watching again, waiting on anything and

everything good God might have in store for him that day, to

share with him that day, to lead him in that day, to provide him

that day. It's like this.

David says, God, now that I put my request before you, I got

faith enough to know you're going to do something about it.

I'm going to watch. It's been said, we pray like a

ostrich. You know how an ostrich acts, a

Mama ostrich. She well, head in the ground

kinda. Well, I'm going, it's a little

different. She lays her eggs and she does

what? She leaves them never to watch

what happens. Now, I'm not blaming God for

that. He made her that way.

That's all good. I'm just saying that's not all

the way we ought to pray. How often do we lay our prayers

and leave them with no faith, no expectation, no watching to see

what God's going to do? How often do we begin the day,

and we've started it without any weightful expectation on God for

anything good that he might want to provide us before we embark

upon the How often do we not maintain a morning watch and hit

the day like an ostrich? David says I'm going to maintain

a morning watch on God. God ought to be the first

person, first thing you put your eyes on and you speak to every

day with your undivided attention as a living sacrifice.

Maintain. This is a spiritual survival

tactic. If you don't do this, you should

not expect to thrive spiritually.

You've got to do this as a believer #1 listen to verse 4

through 6. For you are not a God who

delights in wickedness. Evil may not dwell with you.

The boastful shall not stand before your eyes.

You hate all evil doers. You destroy those who speak

lies, the Lord of horrors, the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

The second thing we've got to do to spiritually survive and

thrive is to stay sensitive to God's disdain for sin.

To stay sensitive to God's disdain for sin, we tend y'all

to have a nice neat box we put God into, don't we?

You know, with a nice theological framework where God

stays right here, never gets out of that.

Just like a nice folded cardboard box.

And God, all I know and understand, He all fits right

there. I understand it all.

I get it. All part of what Psalm 5 says

does not fit in our God box, if we're being honest.

What do you mean? Well, just follow along a little

closer this time. You ready?

For you are not a God who delights in wickedness.

Now we track with this right God.

You're a God we understand that takes absolutely no delight and

no pleasure in sin. We get that God is holy, holy,

holy. Evil may not dwell with you.

God and sin don't cohabitate. Sin is not under the roof of

God's house. You're not going to find it

there. It's not in his bedroom.

It's not on his night stand. It's not on his computer, it's

not on his phone, it's not on his tongue.

It's not before his eyes. God and sin do not cohabitate.

We get that again, don't we? We, we track with that God is

holy, holy, holy. The boastful shall not stand

before your eyes. God, we get that you oppose the

proud that you give grace to the God is going to cut the knees

out of the prideful one day when their knee bowels and their

tongue confesses that Jesus is is Lord.

We get that what David says next is a little harder for us in our

box. Buckle your seat belt.

Here's what he says. You hate all evil doers.

You destroy those who speak lies.

The Lord of horrors, the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

You ever tried to shove more in a cardboard box and you can fold

in that like overlapping way where it stays shut?

You ever tried to zip more in a suitcase then the zipper wanted

to zip? This is where in our spiritual

suitcase we might find ourselves shoving something in that just

doesn't seem to to fit right. I mean, what do we what do we

say to this right? And in case we think this is

just a one off random biblical statement, I could point you to

others. I'll name 1 Psalm 11 verse 5

Psalms 11:5

just a few Psalms down the road. It says this David writes it

like this. The Lord test the righteous, but

his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.

What do we make of that? Where does that fit in our God

box? You know what we say right?

Hate the sin, but love the and that's exactly right for us.

This is that's exactly way God has called us as his children to

respond, hating sin, having this disdain for sin, but even loving

our enemies and anyone and everyone else in between.

Right. But then you got to ask yourself

the question when you read this Psalm, what about God?

What about God? Does he operate the exact same

way? I'm going to borrow the words of

another just because I want to be very clear.

I just want you to listen closely to this.

I think this, I hope, will bring some clarity on a part of the

word of God that we can't dodge because there it is.

OK. The Bible, which tells us that

God is love, also tells us that God hates.

The very perfection of God expresses itself in love, and

the gift of His own Son on behalf of guilty sinners also

expresses itself in holy hatred against the workers of iniquity

in judgment. From the beginning of Genesis to

the end of the Revelation, the hatred of God against sin is

given equal prominence with the love of God for repentant

sinners. Yes, God loves the Sinner, for

God so loved the that He gave His one and only, that whosoever

should believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting

life. And yet, for those sinners who

refuse to repent of their sin and refuse the offer of His love

and continue in their sin and unbelief to the grave, they

become objects of the hatred of Almighty God.

Believe it or not, God's hatred actually empowers our love.

Here's what I mean. Knowing God is holy and is going

to have the right and righteous response against the unrighteous

who refuse His love allows us to stand and love others no matter

what. Our job not being to show

anything but love even in the most difficult of situations and

in the face of the greatest evil, loving in return if

personally done wrong, knowing God and all vindication and all

judgement and all wrath that is righteous and one day will

reverse all wrong to be made right God will handle and we

don't have to. So our job is to hate sin but

love the and we leave the remaining part should it come to

it, after refusing God's love to God.

The thing I want to remind you of here, brothers and sisters in

Christ, is that these verses remind us to stay sensitive to

God's disdain for sin. If God doesn't take sin lightly,

neither should we. If God doesn't let sin dwell

with him, neither should. If God sees the severity of sin,

so should wait. Do you follow me?

If you're going to survive spiritually, you've got to

remain sensitive to God's disdain for sin.

You got to remember to run from it, to flee temptation, to

resist it, to remember that God's not allowing you to be

tempted any more than what is common to man.

And God will always provide. What a way of escape.

The greater is he who is in you than he was in the world.

By the power of the Holy Spirit you can say no.

Staying sensitive to God, sustained for sin.

Listen to verse 7:00 and 8:00. But I, through the abundance of

your steadfast love, will enter your house.

I will bow down towards your holy temple in the fear of you.

Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my

enemies, and make your way straight before me.

Survival tactic #3 Daily worship and walk with God.

Daily worship and walk with God. You see, unlike evil and

wickedness in the the wicked and the unrighteous and the boastful

that cannot enter the presence of God, David confidently and

boldly says here, I'm going to enter God.

I'm going to enter your house. That's a bold statement right

there. By the way.

I want you to turn to your neighbor and says today I'm

going to enter your house. Turn to your neighbor, look at

him and say today I'm going to enter.

Actually don't do it. Just stop where you are.

They're not going to react well to that.

If you tell me today, Kyle, I'm going to enter your house about

1:30, I'm going to say, no, you're not.

I'm going to be asleep taking a nap.

Don't come to my house. All right, we don't talk to each

other like that. You don't just tell me when

you're going to show up, and I don't just tell you when I'm

going to show up. All right?

Now, there's times we have exceptions to that, but that's

not how we talk to each other. I'm not going to boldly claim to

cross your threshold uninvited. So why in the world is David?

Because he's been invited. Notice he says here through the

abundance of your steadfast love, David's not barging in,

David's not entering in his own righteousness or his own

goodness or his own merit. He's coming at the righteous

loving invitation of God. He knows God loves him and he

loves God says God, I'm not going to neglect your

invitation. I'm not going to not text back.

I'm not going to not return your phone call.

God, I'm coming RSVP me, I'm coming to worship.

And he says here when he's in the presence of God, he says,

lead me in your way. Lead me in your way.

This is so key for our spiritual survival every day.

Can I just kind of stop here and say, if you don't somehow,

someway ask God to lead you in his way every day, You ought to.

You ought to, because if not, you're making the assumption

that you're going to walk in God's way without his help.

And that's a dangerous assumption.

David cries out, God, lead me in your way.

The deal is, David has set aside some time to worship God, and

while he's worshiping God in the presence of God, he's asking for

the guidance of God. That's where we ask God for his

guidance is when we're in his presence worshiping him.

David knows that duty is going to call, right?

David's got to get up and go be king.

David's got to get up and go to school students.

David's got to get up and go go to work adults.

David's got to get up and go be a husband and a father.

David's got to go get up and go slay his enemies.

David's got to go do it, get up and go do life before he gets up

and does life. He sat in the presence of God

and asked for God to lead him according to not his way, but

God's way. And why is that?

Because you know what? There's opposition in our lives

to walking in the ways of God the way David opposes, the way

David names his opposition. He said, God, I've got enemies

because of my enemies. Lead me in your way.

Now we sometimes have enemies the way David has enemies, but

maybe not quite the exact same. But we've got enemies like our

sin nature. We've got enemies like

temptation, like the world that we live in.

We've got enemies like people who might oppose us or stand in

the way, or make life hard for us, especially living life for

the glory of God. We've all got things in our way

that oppose us, and we ought to ask in light, just like David,

God, in light of the things that make living for you hard.

Lead me please, in your way. Let me do life in a way that

would honor you. This too we must ask, are you

starting your days in worship before God and asking God to

lead you in his ways? Listen to verse 9 and 10.

For there is no truth in their mouth.

Their inmost self is destruction.

Their throat isn't open grade. They flatter with their tongue.

Make them bear their guilt. Oh God let them fall by their

own counsels because of the abundance of their

transgressions. Cast them out for they have

rebelled against you. 4th survival tactic is give God your

problems. Give God your problems.

What's happening here is David is being incredibly detailed and

specific about his primary problem, which was enemy, which

were enemies standing against him.

Now, partly you might read what David writes here about his

enemies and the way he's talking to God about them.

And you're like, wow, that's pretty bold.

That's pretty graphic. David, you're pretty, you're

being pretty, you know, pretty forthright about what you're

asking God to do about these people.

Like, can I talk to God about my enemies the way David talks to

God about his enemies? Sometimes we might ask that

question. The answer is honestly, not to

oversimplify, but the answer is yes.

The the problem is we tend in our anger and frustration in

response to talk to other people about problem people and not to

God about our problems or problem people.

And even worse, what we then do is not only talk to other

people, but we try to take our problems and problem people into

our own hands and we make it even bigger, an even bigger

mess, rather than giving those problems, giving those people to

God, no matter what type of problem they may be, a human

being or something else or a situation or an obstacle.

We're learning here, David's instructing us here to give our

problems to God. And when they're people, not to

retaliate, not to attack, not to seek vengeance on our own or

repay evil for evil, not to hate or withhold forgiveness, but to

turn to God and give him our problems.

This is an incredibly, incredibly critical survival

tactic. There's a lie that is in

churches and in our culture that goes something like this.

God will never give you more than you can.

You heard that? That's a lie.

That's a lie. God's in the business of giving

you more than you can handle. In fact, that's just how he

rolls. I mean, like, think about Paul

when Paul had a thorn in the flesh.

So he speaks of and he cries out to God.

God, would you remove it from me?

Go. What does God say?

Hey, Paul, you got this man. I'll never give you more than

you can't handle. What does God say?

My grace is sufficient for Paul. You're not sufficient for Paul,

but I'm sufficient for Paul. When Paul got stoned and got

back up alive and walked right back to the people who threw

rocks at him to preach the gospel to him again, is that

because Paul can handle being stoned without a trip to the ER?

I mean, just just just think about it, right?

Just be logical. Did Paul handle that himself or

did God on his behalf miraculously handle that when he

was shipwrecked and flogged and put in prison and beaten with

rods and on and on it went. Paul was constantly following

God's way and was out of his league.

God wants you to walk out of your league every day.

God wants you to walk by His, by confidence in Him and things

beyond you every day. But if you're not in the habit

of giving your problems to God, you're not going to spiritually

thrive. In fact, what you'll do is

instead of giving God your problems, you'll give God the

blame. You'll give.

You'll be angry at God. You'll get bitter, insecure,

weaken your faith rather than saying God, I can't fix this, I

can't do this. I can't walk through this on my

own. But God, you've put it in my

path and I believe your grace is sufficient.

So I'm going to trust you. You've got I've got we've got to

learn to give our problems to God.

It's a spiritual survival necessity.

Verses 1112 But let all who take refuge and you rejoice.

Let them ever sing for joy and and spread your protection over

them, that those who love your name may exalt in you for you.

Bless the righteous, O Lord, you cover him with favor as with the

Shields spiritual survival tactic #5 is remember God's

favor for the righteous. What I mean by the righteous

there is I'm not talking about a certain class of super Christian

who everybody thinks right has got it all figured out.

The righteous or the people that have trusted in the

righteousness of Christ and been made alive, when they realized

they in their sin were separated from God and they realized that

by the love of God, He sent the Son of God to live a sinless

life for them. And they, realizing the sinless

Savior died on the cross to pay for their sin, called out on

Christ to save them, making a decision by faith to trust Jesus

and to receive His righteousness.

Now they're clothed in that righteousness.

The Bible calls you as a Christian a St. not because

you're perfect, but because a perfect Savior has washed your

sin with His blood, and the Father sees you as righteous in

His sight. That's what the righteous,

that's who the righteous are. Is that you?

Not a perfect person, but a saved person.

Shields of old were typically made large enough to almost

cover from head to toe. David would have the righteous

know that the favor of God is like such a shield for the body

and soul and the life and the living for the believer in him

that that favor of God surrounds us.

In fact, Psalm 30 verse 5 says God's favor last A you know, all

Psalms 30:5

kind of people want to sell you something with a lifetime

guarantee. Most of the time it ain't true.

God's favor, last day, lifetime. Never forget.

God loves, God defends God protects his own.

Christ, even now as I speak, is at the right hand of the Father,

advocating and defending for you if you belong to him.

Even when you sin and you stumble and the devil wants to

accuse you to the Father Jesus claims you as when covered by

his blood, God defends his own. Remember God's favor for the

righteous. Remember God's favor for you.

Now you say Pastor Kyle, those 5 survival things sound wonderful

man. Kyle I would.

I'd really love to start today, but I don't feel like I can

because Pastor Kyle, if I was being honest, I feel like I'm

that missionary kid, John Ritchie, in the mouth of a hippo

at the bottom of a lake in West Africa being held.

I feel like sin has tipped my boat over.

I'm in the jaws of what seems like death, or at least to

living for the glory of God anymore that God could use me or

that I would have hope or that I would sense that I was in the

will of God, living for the ways of God and spiritually thriving.

Kyle I feel a long way from that.

I got to get to the surface where I can do anything to

survive and put into practice anything you've preached.

If that's you, I want to tell you a little story, guys, if you

get the Better Man emails. This was included in Chris

Harper's week in Review. It was about a man that I've

heard about personally, but I learned some new things about

him. It's a man by the name of Robert

Robinson. He was a Baptist pastor in

London, not in London, but in Cambridge for about 30 years in

the 1700s. This is a long time ago, all

right, but the backup Robert story begins unusual.

He He lost his father when he was only a teenager.

His mother, because he was so hard to handle, sent him off to

live with relatives in London. And when in London in the big

city, he soon joined a street gang and they were doing all

sorts of wicked and ungodly things together.

In fact, one day they had a plan to show up at a meeting where

the famous revival and evangelist George Whitfield was

planning to preach. If you know George Whitfield, he

traversed the Atlantic back and forth, preaching in multiple

places around the world. Thousands were led to Christ

through his preaching. The Great Awakenings were

associated with George Whitfield and others and so Robert

Robinson and his buddies are going to show up and Heckle this

preacher and disrupt the crowd and cause a riot and break up

the preaching of George Whitfield.

Only problem was the Holy Spirit did something Robert Robinson

didn't see coming and Robert Robinson heard the gospel and

got got saved. I love you just I mean look at

God right At 22 years of age, Robert Robinson writes the words

of the hymn. Come thou fount 22 years old.

Come thou fount of every blessing tune my heart to sing

thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing

call for songs of loudest praise.

He was 22. But then Robert strayed from the

Lord. He fell into some sin that

entangled him deeply. His boat flipped over, found

himself entangled, pulled to the bottom by temptation and

seemingly held there and really giving up all hope that God

would continue to use him or have hope for his life.

So one day Robert gets in a carriage to take a ride to

somewhere he had to go. He was downtrodden, he was

depressed. He says he was at the bottom of

the barrel and there was an older lady in that carriage that

he sat by and at first she was just humming and then she

started to softly sing the words to a hymn he had written many

years ago. Come thou fount.

He was so physically disturbed and moved that the older lady

looked at him and said, young man, are you are you OK?

He said, no ma'am, I'm not. He said, in fact, Madam, I'm the

poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would

give 1000 worlds if I had them to enjoy the feelings I had.

Then the lady looked at Robert Robinson when he felt like he

was at the bottom of the lake and tangled in sin and put her

hand on his knee and said, Robert, the streams of mercy are

still flowing. And Robert Robinson in that

instant made a decision to run to God and repent and say, God,

if you've saved me from my sin, you can rescue me from this.

And he went on to faithfully preach and pastor for the rest

of his life. What's fascinating to me, if you

listen to stories of survival, you'll hear this certain theme

over and over again. John Ritchie puts it this way.

He says when that hippo clamped onto me and drugged me to the

bottom of the lake and held me there, at first I just basically

embraced it. My body.

I just went limp. I didn't try to even fight.

I knew death was imminent. I might as well not even resist.

Basically, he gave up. This is what happens to a lot of

people when all of a sudden something overwhelms them and

they seem it so. It seems so strong and so

powerful, they can do nothing about it.

But almost always, those that survive say that in that moment,

there's this switch that flips and all of a sudden their drive

to survive kicks in and it's almost like a fire is emblazoned

in them and they're going to do everything within their power to

fight, to live. In fact, for John Ritchie, I

meant kicking that hippo in the mouth and pushing off the nose

of it for the surface once his foot was free from its jaws,

fighting for his life. You know, you may be what you

feel like is it's no hope. It's at the end.

You're entangled in sin. You've been down the road so

far, so long, you feel like God's forgotten about you.

You may be saved, but just on without hope that God could ever

use you or work through you again.

And maybe what God's waiting for you is to see if just by faith

you're willing to just flip that switch and say, you know what,

God, if you've saved me from my sin, you can pick me up when

I've stumbled and fell, even to the depths that I've fallen.

If I trusted you, then why can't I trust you now?

That's what Robert Robinson did. God used him mightily the rest

of his life. I don't know how you need to

respond. John and Praise team are about

to come out. I don't know if one of these

practices or more need to be implemented in your daily

routine. Maybe you just want to come and

ask God. God give me help to do these

things, to put these. These are not the only spiritual

survival practices, but they are five key ones.

Maybe they say, Kyle, I can't do those until I trust Christ as my

Lord and Savior need you to come talk to me and slip out from

where you are and say I need to trust Jesus today.

I need to be saved. I'd love to talk to you or maybe

maybe you just want to come and kneel at this altar and just let

that switch flip to say, you know what?

I've just been passively sitting and where I've been living.

I know God saved me, but I've been acting like I don't have

any hope and I'm just going to trust God today.

I want to repent of where I am. I'm going to place my faith in

Him to pick me up and to use me in ways that I thought maybe

we're too late. I'd love to pray with you.

This altar is open. Our encouragers will be close.

I'm going to pray. Then we're going to stand and

respond. Heavenly Father, I want to, and

I pray right now that You would help each one of us hear from

You. God, I pray, Lord, that You

would allow our hearts to know that it's not.

It's not ever, as long as there's breath in our lungs.

Too late to say yes to Jesus and let You pick us up by Your

power, set us and our feet on the rock and trust You to walk

in the ways Your Word has instructed us for our good and

Your glory. God make adjustments in our

lives to let it be and use us, Father, not just to survive, but

to thrive and make an impact for the Kingdom of God.

We pray in Jesus name, Amen. Would you stand with me?

We're going to sing. We're going to wait for you.

You come, pray, you respond as the Lord leads you this morning.