"CRYING TO THE LORD"
Third Sunday in Lent
March 19, 2017
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
Attend to my cry, for I am brought very low! Deliver me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me! Bring me out of prison, that I may give thanks to Your name! The righteous will surround me, for You will deal bountifully with me.
Psalm 142:6, 7 (ESV)
One of our biggest problems in life is that we have a pretty high opinion of ourselves--of our strength, our intellect, the purity of our motives. What makes this problem even worse is that we are totally unaware of it. We think that we are quite humble. In fact, we are so convinced of our humility that we would argue against the suggestion that we think too highly of ourselves (just as you right now may be mentally arguing with my suggestion to that effect). What it really boils down to is that we think that the whole world revolves around us--that everything that happens in the world, for good or ill, happens because of us. What's more, we think that we have it in our power to fix what's wrong in our world. We reason that since we have created the problem of pollution, we are able to fix it. Since we have brought about hatred and conflict, we are able to make it right. With all of the many wonderful discoveries that we have made and insights that we have reached, we think that life is so much better because of what we have done or what we might yet do.
This attitude, I'm afraid, spills over into spiritual matters as well. There are a lot of televangelists out there who seem to think that God is so helpless that He can't do anything without our consent. And so they challenge us to let God do something wonderful in our lives, as if He couldn't do anything without our permission. They speak of repentance as though it is something that we initiate, and they talk as if sinners are doing some great and noble thing when they confess their sins to the Lord and choose to let Him forgive them. Something is wrong with that way of looking at our repentance. We don't repent by choice; we repent because the Law of God overcomes and crushes our vain desire to justify ourselves. As we give some thought this morning to the theme of crying to the Lord, let's not forget why we do this--what it is that drives us to cry to the Lord in repentance, seeking His forgiveness, acceptance, and healing.
The first reason why we cry to the Lord is because of our need--need that the Scripture before us describes as our being "brought very low." We cry to the Lord because we are desperate--because we have no other choice. If we were left to our own devices we would not be moved to seek the Lord for anything. Have you ever wondered why the great majority of people in our world see no need whatsoever for the grace that God has revealed to sinners in His Son? It's because man's natural inclination is to have confidence in himself. So when people are confronted with the Law of God, which exposes their sin, their reaction is to deny that there is such a thing as sin or to deny that there is a God to whom they must give account or to argue with the content of God's Law. I don't know if you've been paying much attention to the news lately, but it is obvious that we Christians are being portrayed these days as the "bad guys" because we're (supposedly) trying to force everyone to adopt our religious and moral values. Underlying this mindset is the generally-held belief that there is no God, no absolute morality, and no accountability. What we need to understand in the face of all of this is that what makes you and me different is nothing to our credit: When it comes to repentance, we are different than the rest of the world only because the Holy Spirit has used the Law of God to demolish our self-righteousness and to make us feel uncomfortable with our sin and its consequences, so that we come to see our own sinful nature as the strong enemy that it is, as it militates against our desire to live the New Life in Christ.
Not only are we sinners; we are helpless sinners. That's why the psalmist speaks of his sin (and ours) as a prison. Face it: If we thought for a minute that we could handle the problems created by our sin or that we could somehow extract ourselves from sin, we wouldn't be the least bit interested in crying to the Lord for help, and we would tell anyone who tried to get us to seek the Lord to mind their own business. It's only because God's Holy Spirit has shown us that we are in a helpless and hopeless state that we look to the Lord for relief at all. Don't kid yourself: If Satan could convincingly feed us the lie that we can deal with our sin on our own, that's exactly what we would try to do, rejecting the One who has already done it all for us in His perfect life and His innocent suffering and death.
The other reason why we cry to the Lord is because of His help. It would be pointless for us in our sinful and helpless state to cry out to someone who is not able or willing to help us. In crying out to the Lord, however, we are crying out to the One who can and will--and indeed has--met our every need. He has countered our sin with His forgiveness--purchased and won us from our slavery to sin by His Son Jesus Christ, who in our place offered to His Father the perfect sacrifice for the sin of all humanity when He suffered and died on the cross at Calvary. Our sin has been atoned for--taken away--put to death. For this reason we stand before God acquitted and righteous--not because we aren't guilty, but because the penalty that we deserve has been paid in full for us by our Savior.
Our helplessness and hopelessness have also been dealt with--by the power of God's Holy Spirit, who through the Gospel, given to us in the means of grace (the Word and the Sacraments), creates saving faith in the hearts of sinners and causes that faith to grow. This frees us from the prison of our sin, making it possible for sinners like us to grasp and to benefit from all of the blessings of salvation that Christ has gained for us through His perfect life and His innocent suffering and death. It is this Holy Spirit who empowers us to live the Christian life, to grow in grace, and to come to the Lord in worship and prayer. Above all, He moves us to cry to the Lord, seeking His forgiveness, His acceptance, and His justification--and then He assures us that we have it all in the Gospel of Christ.
The end result of crying to the Lord for the sinner is fellowship with the saints. The psalmist says: "the righteous will surround me." "The righteous" are not people who have not sinned; they are people who are righteous in the sight of God because in Baptism their sin has been put to death and they have been clothed with the perfect righteousness of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The fellowship that the repentant sinner now enjoys with the saints is not due to anything that he has done, but it is instead because of the Lord's goodness toward him. That's the precious fellowship that we enjoy with one another and with all whose trust is in the Lord Jesus, both here on earth and in the glory of heaven. It is the Holy Spirit of God who moves all of us to value that fellowship--value it enough to cry to the Lord daily, confessing our sin and acknowledging our helplessness, and asking and receiving His forgiveness and healing in the name of the One who has gained it all for us through His atoning sacrifice.
Amen.
May the One who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, making us kings and priests before His God and Father, lead you to a life of repentance and trust. May He also be glorified in the lives of you, His people. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.