Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Psalm 143
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  March 21, 2021

If you get to know your Bible history a little bit, you’ll hear about the Exodus, the way God freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. And then you’ll hear about their wanderings in the desert, year after year in the hot sun of the Sinai peninsula. Growing up, I never really appreciated just how difficult it must have been to travel through a desert. Shifting sand beneath your feet, winds that blow endless grit into your eyes, sun that scorches your skin, a throat as dry as the ground you walk on—these are things I’ve never experienced. Even as I describe it, I don’t know what it’s like. And it gets worse. Did you know that in the desert, temperatures plummet once the sun sets? Due to the dryness of the air and sand’s inability to retain heat, deserts flip from an average high of 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the day to an average low of 25 degrees Fahrenheit at night. So you’re sweating in the heat of the day without adequate water and you’re shivering at night. Sound bad enough yet? There’s actually one more difficulty about the Sinai deserts that might be the worst.

I had always imagined Israel walking across a sea of sand, where you could see for miles and miles in any direction. And in a few places it was like that. But for the most part, it’s really a desert crisscrossed by rocky ranges and mazed by narrow valleys, many of which are dead ends. It had to be incredibly hard, if not impossible, to maintain your direction, let alone find your way up and down and through its rugged terrain. Many times I’m sure the Israelites would have traveled extremely slowly, especially trying to help the elderly and the young traverse the rocky passes. Shifting sand, winds that blow, sun that scorches, nights that freeze, dehydration, exhaustion—these are bad enough in and of themselves, but if you don’t know if you’re even making progress, well, that might be the worst of them all. 

Many years after the Exodus, while struggling through his own desert, enduring his own difficulties, King David wrote this: “I remember the days of long ago. I meditate on all your works, and I consider what your hands have done. 6 I spread out my hands to you. My soul thirsts for you like a weary land. (Psalm 143:5,6). In the middle of his difficulties, David can’t see in front of him. He doesn’t know what the future holds. So he looks behind. He remembers days long ago when God was with his people powerfully. David remembers God’s great works, likely including the mighty hand of God that brought his people out of Egypt. And David knows that the Lord has delivered him many times as well but, like ancient Israel, after deliverance came the desert. And it even seems that David has his own desert in mind as he says, “my soul thirsts for you like a weary land.” The word for weary in Hebrew relates to being parched or faint with thirst. David’s struggle is in a desert. 

What might a desert look like for you and me today? We don’t have too much sand or sun for that matter. The nights get cold, but we have warm houses and warm beds. We have plenty of food and water, too. (Maybe too much.) And we don’t lose our way, do we? We have google maps and cars that drive 70mph on the highway. No, we may not deal with the physical struggles of a desert, but I think we all understand, what the Israelites and David experienced. We too know what it means to follow our own ways only to find ourselves wandering and lost. We know what it’s like to feel thirsty, unsatisfied, and disillusioned.

If you’re anything like me, you don’t readily ask for help. You figure you should be able to lead yourself through life. And that’s something that we are often encouraged to do, isn’t it? “Follow your heart!” “Don’t let anybody tell you how to live your life!” The hyper-individualism which characterizes our society lets us believe that we are meant to set our own direction, fix our own problems, and defeat every enemy all by ourselves. Maybe you recognize the signs of your own desert. Maybe you tried to fix a problem a while back, but things didn’t get better, in fact, they are getting worse and you don’t know where to turn. Maybe you followed your heart into some gratifying sin, but your conscience is becoming numb and a terrible habit is forming. You don’t see any way out. Perhaps you set your direction, but you didn’t realize that the self-centered emphasis of that choice would strain so many relationships. Maybe, your problem isn’t a direction you chose, but simply the number of directions you could go. You’re paralyzed with fear, and you are exhausted by the pressure you feel to start doing something. Rarely can just circle a distant date on a calendar and just keep plodding forward in that direction because we know that by then things will be better. We don’t know when or if things will turn out. We don’t know how the tests will come back. We don’t know when we’re going to get hired or we don’t know if the job we have is what we actually want. We don’t know if this person is really good for us. We don’t know the perfect path for our children. We don’t know if we will start feeling happy again. The struggle in the desert can leave us wandering away from God and lost.

Did you know that Israel made it from Egypt all the way down to Mt. Sinai and then up to Canaan in approximately two years? It was only when they didn’t trust God to lead them into the new land that he cursed them to wander. Altogether it would be 40 years that they wandered in that desert because they wanted to follow their own way. An entire generation died. There are lives at stake in our deserts too. 

There’s an urgency that we cannot miss in David’s cry to the Lord. He says: “Hurry! Answer me, Lord. My spirit fails. Do not hide your face from me, or I will be like those who go down to the pit. (Psalm 143:7).  We don’t know exactly what prompted this psalm, but David is on the edge. He feels like he is about to die, he is failing, he needs God to hurry! What do you do in the middle of a desert, in the middle of wandering in sin and selfish desire, lost in your own tracks? Do what David did, turn urgently to God.

God, in mercy, provided a pillar of cloud and fire to guide the ancient Israelites in their desert. David, like you and me, didn’t have a pillar to follow through the deserts of his life. But he did have something, something we have too. “Let me hear about your mercy in the morning,  for I trust in you. Teach me the way that I should go, for I lift up my soul to you. (Psalm 143:8). David asks God for assurance of his mercy and he asks him for guidance. These two steps should be our prayer as well. “In the morning” as David says, just as he begins his conscious life each day, “let me hear about your mercy”. Before you take your first step each day, remind yourself of God’s mercy, the love that he has given you in Christ. Lift up your souls to God, because he has purchased you to be his own at the price of his own life and he does have a good plan for your life. Let him guide you in mercy. 

Are you thirsty? Are you unsatisfied? Are you a little turned around, a bit lost?  Lift up your soul to Jesus. He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” Remember, your Savior thirsted on that cross, he was weary and exhausted, he suffered being lost and forsaken in our place. Jesus knows what it’s like to be in the desert because he went through it first. And that’s why he is such a good guide. Jesus Christ guards and guides and lifts us up even if we can’t see over the next hill or know what’s around the next bend. His cross tells us he’s been this way before. He knows all about where you are and he knows the way out. His empty tomb gives you the direction God’s set for your life and your ultimate destination.  I know, that’s not every answer to everything we face. It’s not even going to tell us what’s over the next hill or what to do in every situation. But it is more than enough light to put a halt to our panicked, racing minds, and to take one step in his direction. 

David says it this way, “Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. May your good Spirit lead me on level ground.” (Psalm 143:10).  My friends, stop trying to look so far ahead and instead notice what is right in front of you and what God wants you to do about it. Concentrate on doing his will one step at a time. If it involves keeping just one commandment at this moment, then keep it!  If it’s repenting of some sin, then repent!  If it’s trusting a promise God’s made, then do it. Will one single step in God’s direction immediately extract you from the desert? No, but you can be sure of your footing. It’s a step on level ground. It’s one thing you can be certain was right. It’s one thing you don’t need to doubt. It’s a foundation you can rely on. It might be just one step, but, last time I checked, the only way to walk is one step at a time.

And finally, remember that you are not on your own. When you turn to God and ask for guidance from his Word, he promises that the Holy Spirit is with you. As David said, “May your good Spirit lead me on level ground.” God never wants us ultimately to focus on ourselves when it comes to salvation or Christian living. He tells us to focus on him and he will lead us. The Holy Spirit, through the Word, is not just a tour guide, he is the one who carries you and continually points your eyes and your heart back to Christ. Do you think the Israelites made it to the promised land because they tried hard? Do you think David became Israel’s greatest king because he decided he would? No, God brought Israel kicking and screaming into the promised Land and established them for his glory. And God chose David as his king when he was still a small shepherd in Bethlehem. He was the one who protected David and gifted him the throne. And the same is true for you and me. We should endeavor with all our might to follow Christ all the while knowing that this power and intent is the gift of God’s Spirit, who leads us on level ground.

I think Paul put it so well in his prayer for his congregation in ancient Thessalonica, and it is my prayer for you as well. “We constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him.” (2 Thessalonians 1:11-12)

Amen.