05-01-25 - 'I WILL' THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE - Psalm 9:1-11

Lou Hernández

Jan 416 min read

MESSAGE BY PASTOR ROB INRIG

FROM BETHANY BAPTIST IN RICHMOND, BC.

I invite you to pray with me, Father God hear our prayer, and we humbly cry to you as it is written in your word, Lucas 11:9:” I tell you Keep asking, and it will given to you, Keep seeking, and you will find, Keep knocking, and it will be open to you)” We are requesting healing for our dear members of our family and also dear friends who are suffering from illnesses in their lives fighting and suffering under a lot of pain, You know them by their names; (Gaby P, Vicky O, Nancy R, Tere G, Liz N, Stevie A, Socrates D, Sara's mom H, Margarita G, Fega G, Rosy Ch, Alicia R.) Also, some of them are tired of spiritual struggles, losing their faith in you, Strengthening their trust in you with a miracle in their lives, oh! Father God, hear our prayer, and we also pray for all the people around the world, especially the children who are suffering from wars, devastation, hunger, pain, hate and disbelieving in you also, bless the ones who are reading this message and their families. Heal the Land of those Countries at war; you love them so much, oh Father God, hear our prayer, we ask you in the name of Our Lord of Lords and King of Kings, your beloved son Jesus Christ. AMEN!

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God the Father, we thank you for your answer to our prayers with

The good news, with the recovery of health for some

Strengthen them so that they may regain their faith in you

And that they may be witnesses that you love them and

that you respond when we trust and believe in you

Thank you Father God in the name

of Jesus our Lord of Lords and King of Kings

Praise be to your name

always and forever, AMEN.

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Nic Vujicic is a man that had every reason to be bitter. After all, he hadn’t been dealt a bad hand, he’d been dealt an impossible one. Most like him, born with no arms and no legs aborted before first breath.

And yet listening to him it’s not long before you don’t see what he doesn’t have, you only see what he does - radiant joy and an overflowing heart. When asked, Nic responds, I don’t want arms and legs. I want purpose. I don’t want arms and legs, I want peace. I don’t want arms and legs, I want to be a miracle for someone else.

NIC VUJICIC

He goes on, I love my life. As you can see, I have no arms and no legs. And it’s not like one day I went to school and then kids tease me and told me that I had no arms, no legs. I knew I had no arms and legs, but I didn’t think it was such a big deal until the world told me that I was an alien, that I was ugly, that I wasn’t good enough.

When doctors saw me for the first time, they apologized to my parents that they did not pick it up in the ultrasound and give them an option to abort me. They were absolutely convinced that I’d never have a quality of life.

Vujicic then described how from age 8 - 13, he experienced deep depression even a time when he tried to end his life. But now, Nic’s life is entirely different, a life without limbs to a life without limits. Almost entirely because of his relationship with Jesus Christ but also helped by his parents’ constant encouragement not to see what he couldn’t do but to take hold of what he could.

One other who profoundly impacted him was a high school janitor who told him as a 17 year old, he should be a motivational speaker. To Nic this idea was outrageous, something he couldn’t possibly do but this janitor didn’t just encourage, he booked Nic for his first speaking engagement.

Because that janitor told him a different story than the one he was telling himself, Nic has now spoken to an estimated 6.5M people in live events over 78 countries of the world. Greater than that, an estimated 400 million people have heard his story, more accurately God’s story, through various forms of media. Nic, a motivational speaker, but more importantly, an evangelist who God has used powerfully to share the good news of Jesus Christ.

Think on this, a baby born without limbs, seemingly little to live for; the child of Serbian refugees who fled Yugoslavia, encouraged by a man cleaning toilets and sweeping floors, now appearing before presidents and nations letting them know they can be made new, set free by Jesus.

Kind of miraculous, don’t you think?

Nic’s perspective altered, his vision changed, his choice made. It is those same things of perspective, vision and choice I want to dip into this morning.

This change of perspective essential if we want to understand the life God calls each one of us to. Not as Nic but as you and I. It’s what the Psalmist reminds us of in Psalm 9. Listen how he begins, I will PRAISE You, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will TELL of all Your marvellous works. I will REJOICE and boast about You; I will SING praise to Your name, O Most High. Ps 9:1,2.

Four ‘I will’ declarations - I will praise; I will tell; I will rejoice; I will sing - that if they become the way we do life, will change who we are. Notice these are both intentions and actions – actions not qualifications, actions not reactions. That is to say, they are not something we do IF, they are something we do because – actions chosen before emotions felt.

The 1st I will changing my PERSPECTIVE - I WILL PRAISE YOU O Lord with all of my heart.

As we read that, it’s easy to picture David penning these words as he tends his sheep or sits in the protective comfort of his kingdom. Life is good, kids are well, wife is happy, money is abundant – needs are met, wants fulfilled. Give me these and it’s easy to be filled with praise and thankfulness.

But not so fast, take a look at :13-14 where we are given a very different picture, where life is pressing in on David real hard, where he experiences hatred, where affliction is coming fast and thick. What he is experiencing, so bad that he describes this time as being at the gates of death, a place he can’t get up from, a place he needs someone else to ‘lift him from’.

No pasted on Christian smiles here. These are terrible places to be in but David’s directive, I will praise. Like Nic called to look in different places than what surrounds. To see One greater than the things we face, more powerful than the places we can’t get up from. Where we’re called to praise God for Who He is, enthroning Him as Ps 22 tells us, seated on the praises of His people Ps 22:3. These are declarations of faith not conclusions arrived at by sight. Seeing God as LORD over all that’s coming at us. LORD in Whom I can place my heart. Again, easier said when things are working out as hoped, God answering places, but here calling us to praise in the tough places - when situations threaten to overwhelm, when little energy is left, when little is left in the tank.

Praise redirecting us to see that He is Most High – above what we face. That He is Righteous Judge – who will do what is right. That He will avenge blood The Psalmist reassuring, You are a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble :9. This redirection to praise because You are LORD takes us to a different place where a right view of God leads us to right view of our circumstances.

The authority we stand in is His; the power we walk in is His. His Lordship as He shepherds us, provides for us and brings peace to us in those times that are hard and in times of uncertainty.

Not praise determined by circumstance. Not praise that just acknowledges things about Him but praise we actively give to HIM. And this is the key – that we praise Him first and foremost because of who He IS. To be repetitive, sure, it’s a whole lot easier to praise Him when we experience what He does – when God intervenes and a healing comes or when an answer is given but if we only praise based on that, our faith bounces up and down, good today, terrible tomorrow. But the praise our hearts are to set on needs to look beyond ourselves where He shows us His character, His truth. Because sometimes that is all we have to fall back on. It’s here that we can trust on His promises even when we don’t see those immediately lived out in our lives. When the silence yells at us to believe it’s true for someone else not for me. But God’s tells us something else, even in those times we don’t understand, we are to live in the faithfulness of His presence. Which takes us to our 2nd, I will:

The 2nd I will changes our actions - I WILL TELL of your marvellous works.

Praising is one thing, telling something else again. Praise is directed to God but telling is directed to others. Our telling to bring others with us. Our telling to show others the wonders of who God is - to tell of His marvellous works like evidences of God’s power in the heavens - the glory of a sunset, the power in a waterfall? Or how about the unseen artistry like these captured by high resolution photography 2x of a snowflake - one wonder tucked away in a multitude of wonders. All these marvellous works but I don’t think these are the marvellous works David is talking about here.

I think here David is talking about works God has been doing in our lives, often missed in the small evidences of God we’ve been given. The person who came at just the right time, the song heard when you needed reassurance, the thing read when you were feeling so down. The small, often overlooked like the small told me this week of some students who wanted to start a Christian club at their school. They needed a sponsor teacher and had no idea who to ask but one of the group just ‘happened’ to see a worship song on a teacher’s phone. When they approached her, she saying, I’ve been wanting to have a group like that and I’ve been praying that it needed to be student led.

One of the blessings I had growing up was having some amazing ‘servants of God’ who stayed in our house. For example, I remember Bob Bouman, the founder of Far Eastern Broadcasting Company that broadcasting the gospel from the Philippines into communist Russia. This during a time when Christians were severely persecuted, often killed. Bibles banned, gatherings prohibited, letters opened, read and destroyed. Owning a Bible was illegal, met with violence and cruel imprisonment. And yet, FEBC kept broadcasting the truth about Jesus into Russia, one of their programs reading the Bible at dictation speed so people could have their own handwritten copy. For a very long time, FEBC hearing almost nothing in response, having no idea whether their efforts were making an impact. What they didn’t know was that listeners were writing in response but their letters weren’t making it past government censors.

Occasionally 1 or 2 letters would leak out but nothing of any great amount. Those that did, asking amazing questions in their simplicity and their deep desire to know – why did Jesus have to die? Why a Cross? What had this Jesus done to be so hated? Unbelievable letters all of which received a response from FEBC that usually included a small Bible. The problem was, incoming mail was scrutinized even more, the censors catching almost all. One of the stories during this time involved Brother Andrew, God’s smuggler, who in his luggage would regularly smuggle Bibles into communist countries, God in His providence miraculously making these Bibles undiscoverable as the guards tore through his bags. The guards seeing but in some miraculous way, not seeing. Anyway, one story I well remember was Brother Andrew going for a walk in a Siberian forest. He had already given out all the Bibles he had, his mission done. As he left his room, his eyes fell on a small New Testament he didn’t know he still had and so in last minute reflex, he stuffed it into his coat. As he was out walking in the woods suddenly 2 young girls came running toward him warning, Wolves, wolves! These girls then proceeded to take him to the safety of their home, a small cabin in the remote Russian woods.

Soon Andrew and the girls’ father, got into discussion, the man telling Brother Andrew about the radio broadcasts they’d been listening to, hearing amazing things that were new to them. Time and again, this father had sent letters about what he had heard, his greatest request for one of these Bibles the radio people talked about. But despite repeated letters and many requests, he heard nothing in response. Finally the father in resignation blurted out, I finally told this so called God that if I don’t have a Bible by midnight tonight, I will know it to be all a lie and will listen no more. It was then Andrew remembered the NT he had stuffed into his coat as he placed it into the father’s hands.

And about all those letters sent yet in turn never responded to? Yet another miracle. In 1 of the very few letters Russian censors hadn’t caught, a comment was made that unless an incoming letter could fit in a normal size envelope with no appearance of being anything other than regular mail, it wouldn’t make it past the censors. Hearing that, FEBC created a NT that was printed with microscopic lettering on onion skin thin paper, that with an enclosed flat piece of magnifying plastic, allowed very readable and very thin Bibles to flood into Russia.

Soon the 1 or 2 letters once received by FEBC, now a flood of letters pouring in, each one responded to with a God sent NT gift. And here it was that Joanne and I were sitting in my parents’ living room reading with Bob Bouman just a few of those amazing Russian letters that made it out.

God stories, telling the marvellous works of God, told in the large and small, giving evidence that He does hear, that He does answer in ways He knows are best for us. As I’ve said on previous occasions, it’s why telling our stories of what God has done are so important – first for us to remember, refreshing God’s presence in our lives and then to tell, refreshing that faith in others.

Refreshers needed when our last direction asked for hasn’t come. Stories that remind when we feel there are no stories to tell. That’s why we need stories like the ones just heard and in Nic’s, reminding that we still serve a miracle working God – sometimes those miracles unseen - like what appeared to be the cruelty of no arms and no legs. And yet in this, God doing the unfathomable, His purposes initially hidden from us.

God proven in His deeds. God trusted in His promises. God assured in His presence. Told in your stories that help me hold on when I don’t hear those told stories in mine. The point being, our faith is worked out, deepened and enriched in the community of the family of God. God of Whom the Psalmist will say, For You have maintained my right and my cause; You are seated on Your throne as a righteous judge. You have rebuked the nations, You have destroyed the wicked; You have blotted out their name forever and ever. The enemy has come to eternal ruin; You have uprooted the cities, and the very memory of them has perished :4-6.

Was David seeing all of that in present. Don’t think so but he is holding on to what he has seen because as he goes on to say, Those who know Your NAME - will trust :9.

Difficult in times when we don’t hear? - yes - sometimes really difficult. Excruciatingly hard when answers don’t come or get answers are given in ways far different way than what was asked. In these times, trusting in His Name, He is LORD and as LORD, He knows what we do not. How could Nic possibly know the spectacular that God would do through his life? How could Brother Andrew know when he picked up a Bible he didn’t know he still had.

How could you have possibly known that God placed that colleague alongside your life so he could see something in you that you had no idea was being looked at. How could you have known that person you spoke to in what seemed like such an unimportant way would be what would set them on a path to find Christ? You still having no idea the impact made from the word you said, the gesture you made, the step you took – would be used in God’s eternal plan but one day you’ll know.

The MOST HIGH working even in the times you thought He was nowhere around. The LORD MOST HIGH / GOD of WONDERS / the RIGHTEOUS JUDGE – who protects those under His care and judges those under His judgment / the CONQUERING KING / the MERCIFUL REFUGE / the UNFAILING STRONGHOLD / the REWARDER of those who seek HIM

Those who know Your name – will trust :9. Because when You know His name, You know His nature and that He has never forsaken those He loves.

The natural outflow of the first two I will’s, praising and telling, is what we see next in our :

Our 3rd I will that changes our emotions - I WILL REJOICE and BOAST ABOUT YOU

When we praise, then we tell, the third I will is inevitable – we rejoice. Why? because the focus on the things that oppress are no longer center stage. God is. His greatness. The circumstances as challenging as they may be, not as impossible as we once thought. The voice that God doesn’t care, God doesn’t hear now diminished in volume. And with that vision changed, our spirits lifted to another place boasting in the LORD who is over all. His greatness greater than we’ve seen it to be. His love for us greater than we have understood. The first efforts of our praise and our rejoicing often spoken in whispers but when spoken, those whispers amplified into shouts – first in us then through us.

You upheld my right & cause, You judged righteously, You rebuked, You destroyed. :4-6

His truth affirmed, our vision changed, our emotions engaged which inevitably takes us to what is next, the 4th I will that changes the things we AFFIRM - I WILL SING.

Music is incredibly powerful, God planting music in His creation from the beginning, first in the music of the animals and then in Jubal’s creation of musical instruments told us in Genesis 4.

Few things awaken and energize our emotions more than music. With it we celebrate, with it we mourn, with it we remember and with it, we dance. Song shaping and reinforcing what we believe. Song used to build up or tear down. To elevate or depress. Speaking to us repeatedly.

Our mood changed by what we listen to, by the truth we affirm. Did you know that canaries stop singing every autumn when the brain cells responsible for song generation die, however, the neurons grow back over the winter months, and the birds learn their songs over again in the spring?

What’s true in the natural is far more true in the spiritual. That when we refuse to sing, we allow Autumn to set in, muting the praise, silencing our joy. Is it any wonder that the Psalmist encourages us to sing our praises. It’s not about our voices, it’s about our hearts. I fondly remember a man in our church who repeatedly failed to hit the right note – but oh, how he sang -with gusto, with joy, with exuberance. A song, discordant as it might have been, heard above everyone else and it was wonderful.

Scientists tell us that the things we voice affect our emotions, attitudes and behaviours. That just hearing sentences about elderly people led research subjects to walk more slowly. Individuals who read out loud words of 'loving kindness' showed increases in self-compassion, improved mood, and reduced anxiety. Susan Smiley PhD UCLA Behavioural Sciences.

When our praise is given TO God, we’re given joy in return, scales removed so we better see Him. And when we better see Him, we better praise. You would think that the greater He becomes, the lesser we become. While in some respects that’s true, the effect is actually the opposite - awe and wonder of Him – greater joy in us. What we give voice to, taking us to a very different place.

As I close – come with me to be among those awaiting His coming. Here with the crippled who now walk, the blind who now see, the mude who now speak, the addicted who now live. Here amongst the singing and dance.

Can you feel it? - hope loud and alive. Can you hear it? - the laughter of liberation. Can you taste it? - feasts instead of morsels. Can you smell it? – the air fragrant with joy. And then everything looked for, hoped for, waited for – now here, His arms around you in an embrace that won’t let go.

So Praise Freely,