Sermons from Moorpark Presbyterian Church

Lead Me to a Rock

by Dave Wilkinson

Psalm 61:1-2, 62:1-6

December 5, 1999

A sheepherder in Montana hit it big in a lottery. One of the first things he bought was a Rolls Royce limousine -- the kind usually driven by a chauffeur who sits in front of a glass partition. When the sheepherder brought his splendid car in for service, the mechanic was properly impressed. "What a marvelous machine. What do you like best about it?" "Well," said the sheepherder, "Now I can take my sheep to market now without having them lick my neck."

All success did for this sheepherder was to give him a more convenient way to be what he had always been and to do what he had always done. But sometimes the need for genuine change, for genuine answers, is far greater. We need more than cosmetics. Sometimes the crisis overwhelms us.

Some years ago, the small Ohio town of Shadyside was hit by a wall of water in a flash flood. Nineteen people drowned. I remember one girl who had been plucked from her bathtub by the flood. She held on to pieces of wood as she was swept for miles down the raging creek. At last, her strength almost gone, she

reached safety. Don't you imagine that she prayed? The crisis was about to overwhelm her. She felt her need for safety in a deeply personal way.

In the same way, David prays in Psalm 61 out of a deep sense of personal need. Most Biblical scholars believe that he wrote this psalm while fleeing from the betrayal of his own son, Absalom, who was trying to take his throne. You can read about it in 2 Samuel 15. David feels shipwrecked. He feels at the end of the earth -- estranged even from God. His heart is faint within him. He knows that he is about to be overwhelmed by the crisis.

But David knows that even though he may be at the end of the earth, there must not be an end to devotion. He does not want to pray. He feels cut off. But he knows that if he fails to pray, he will fall into despair. In the words of Charles Spurgeon, "there is an end to a man when he makes and end to prayer." So David resolves to pray. "From the ends of the earth I will cry." And what does David cry? "Lead me to the rock that is higher than I."

David feels shipwrecked. The waves are crashing over him. The salt water blinds his eyes. He feels the undertow pulling him down toward the deep. But he also sees a rock towering above the waves. If he can get atop that rock he will be safe. But how can he get atop the rock? He cannot make it in his own strength. His only hope is to be brought there by the strength of God. "Lead me to the rock that is higher than I."

You know, high rocks are not a blessing if we don't know our need. We pass by them every day. But if we are drowning -- if we are in despair--the rock is the answer to our prayers.

As we approach Christmas, how do we do it? If we have confidence in our own ability to finally save ourselves -- if we have our lives sewn up in a neat package of a secure job, good insurance, and money in the Christmas club -- then Christmas may not mean all that much to us. We will enjoy the music and the lights and the family warmth. But we will not see Christmas for what it is -- the coming into our world -- into our need -- of the rock who is higher than we are -- the rock of our salvation, Jesus Christ.

As we approach Christmas, do we see in Christmas the answer to our prayers for one to come to save us? Do we recognize that without His help, we would certainly drown?

One advantage of being pushed is that it brings you to reality about your need. David knew and freely declared his need for

God's salvation. He was not a wimp. He was the great warrior king of Israel. He was the slayer of Goliath. And he knew enough of human strength to know when human strength could do no more. He was not ashamed to admit his weakness and his need.

You know, there is a tremendous freedom in reaching this kind of maturity -- the kind of maturity that no longer has to pretend. C. S. Lewis, who, like David, knew war from his service on the Western Front in World War I, writes: "When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things -- including the fear of childishness and the desire to be grown up."

In the same way, David is not ashamed of showing his need. In Psalm 62 he pictures himself as a rotten fence or a badly built wall. He is leaning over and the world is trying to push him the rest of the way. It is then he says: "My soul waits in silence for God only. For my hope is from Him. He alone is my rock and salvation. My stronghold; I shall not be shaken. On God my salvation and my glory rest. The rock of my strength, my refuge is in God."

"God alone can keep this rotten wall that is me standing upright. David knows that his salvation and honor are not at the disposal of people but rest on God, in whom he has found his refuge. The emotions that now dominate his life are no longer those of human fears and disappointments. God is the foundation and the goal of his life, and his life is built on confidence and hope, safety and trust, assurance and strength. His stillness before God has become for him the source of new strength.

Do we have anything of David in us? Are we able to be so aware of our own need for God's salvation -- and so open in expressing that need? If we are, then David's prayer will become our prayer. We will ask for safety. We will ask to be led. And God will indeed lead us to the rock who is higher than we are. He will lead us to the son of David-- Jesus Christ.

Some of the most difficult messages to preach each year are the messages leading up to Christmas. This is because so many of us have heard it all so often. We live in the day of quick-action news briefs. If there is anything I don't want to do it is to bore you with old stories and canned repetitions which put you to sleep. I want to stimulate you, and I feel I am playing a losing game when I compare my modest resources to all of the stimulative devices, both legitimate and illegitimate of the mass media world in which we live. And yet it's Advent again. I have thrilling news for you. It is thrilling it is if you can momentarily forget that familiarity breeds boredom and hear the good news as I need to hear it and you need to hear it time after time after time. These words of an old gospel song express our need:

Tell me the old, old story

Of unseen things above,

Of Jesus and His glory,

Of Jesus and His love.

Tell me the story simply,

As to a little child,

For I am weak and weary,

And helpless and defiled.

Tell me the story slowly,

That I may take it in--

That wonderful redemption,

God's remedy for sin.

Tell me the story often,

For I forget so soon;

The "early dew" of morning

Has passed away at noon.

Tell me the old, old story,

Tell me the old, old story,

Tell me the old, old story

Of Jesus and His love.

The old, old story is the story of Christmas grace. This is the gift I need this Christmas and need it every day of the year just past and will need every day of the year to come, the gift of amazing Christmas grace. This grace is God's unmerited favor. This grace is the free gift of God. It doesn't come out of my deserving. Even my own capacity to respond to it is due to God's good pleasure. My very ability to receive this essential gift, I owe to Him. God has given me the freedom to say"no" as well as "yes." It can lay there on the floor beautifully wrapped under the tree while I grab for the ties and C.D.s. and while I rip open the gift certificates. There it is, the gift of Christmas grace, the greatest need in all the world. It is mine for the receiving. Yes, there is the initial reception with all of that fresh excitement and joy. I am also privileged to reopen that gift day after day after day in the awareness that the very God who created me in His image to live a full and meaningful life has seen the mess I’ve made of that life. He has come and continues to come into my life with that grace.

There may be people here this morning who do not actually know the power of Jesus in their lives. If this describes you -- but you have it all together and don't feel any need for a rock -- then don't change a thing. You can't have a Savior until you know you need one. I’ll just pray that God will push you.

But when you hit the wall -- when you get in over your head -- and you will -- remember that there is a rock, Jesus Christ, who is higher than you. Do not measure Christ by yourselves. "As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are His ways higher than your ways and his thoughts than your thoughts." He is higher than your sin -- and the sin of the whole world. He is higher than your greatest hopes. He is higher than your very best opinion of Him. And there is a loving God who is willing to lead you to Him if only you ask.