One of the traditional American values is
self-reliance. We’re told we need to do things for ourselves, to stand on
our own two feet. We need to take care of ourselves, look out for number
one. One of the heroes of American
culture is the self-made man.
And that’s fine, up to a point. But only up to a
point. Because it’s really easy for that
attitude of taking care of ourselves, standing on our own--it’s really easy for
that to become prideful. And from there, it’s a pretty short step to
arrogance. Because the truth is that
there’s no such thing as a self-made man, or a self-made woman for that matter. The truth is that any abilities we have, and
any talents we have, come from God. And as we try to develop those
talents and abilities, we need to develop them the way God wants us to. We need to develop them in a way that serves
God and honors God. Our goal should not
be to be a self-made person. Our goal
should be to be a God-made person.
It strikes me that the person who wrote Psalm 118 may have
tried to be a self-made individual. He was standing on his own two feet,
doing things for himself. And for a
while, it probably worked out okay. And then, he gets into trouble. And what does he do? Well, he does what so many of us do when we
get into trouble. He comes running back to God.
It starts out, “When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord”.
No matter how good we think we are, no matter how self-reliant we try to
be, that time is always going to come when we’re hard pressed. That time
when things start to fall apart, when everything is just too much for us to
handle. That time when those things we
did that used to work so well won’t work any more. That time when, by bad
luck or circumstances or our own mistakes or some combination of all those
things, everything collapses around us and we have nowhere else to turn. And so, in desperation, we turn to God.
But you know what’s so cool about this? Even though,
so many times, we wait until we’re desperate to turn to God, God never holds
that against us. God still is there for us. God will still help us and guide us. In fact, sometimes, God will just outright
rescue us. God will show us the way through the situation. Not take us out of it, probably, but help us
cope with and deal with it and get through it.
That’s what God does for the author of the psalm.
Look at what he says: “The Lord is
with me.” Not “The Lord saved me”.
Not “The Lord helped me escape.”
Just “The Lord is with me.” And
because the Lord is with him, he knows he does not have to be afraid. He
knows God will help him. As long as God
is with him, things are going to go the way they’re supposed to go. As long as God is with him, things will work
out. He does not necessarily know how.
But he knows they will. And
that’s all he needs to know.
And then, look at the next two verses. “It is better
to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in humans. It is better to take
refuge in the Lord that to trust in princes.”
How would you know that? How would you know that it’s
better to trust God than humans or princes? Well, the only way you’d
really know that is if you’d tried it, right? The author of this psalm
had probably tried trusting humans. He’d
probably tried trusting princes. And they’d all let him down. The only one he could really trust was God.
Have you ever done that? Have you tried putting your
trust in humans, or in princes, rather than in God? I don’t know, but I
know a lot of people do. How many times,
when there’s a problem--or at least when we think there’s a problem--do we look
to humans rather than to God? We look to the government, we look to
corporations, we look to organizations.
We look to a doctor or a lawyer of a banker. We look to our friends and our family. We look everywhere but to God.
It’s not necessarily wrong to look to some of those other
people or organizations. In fact, sometimes God chooses to work through
people like that. I’m not saying we
should just sit back and do nothing. But human beings are fallible. Even if they’re doing their best, they’re
going to let us down sometimes. Anything
created by human beings is imperfect. The only one who is perfect is
God. And that’s who we should turn
to: God.
And when the author of the psalm turns to God, what
happens? God does not let him down.
God helps him. He says, I will
not die, but live! Everything was going against him, but when he turned
to God, God gave him the confidence to know that he would not just survive what
was going on, he would triumph over it.
And then, here comes what I think is the key to the whole
thing. Once he gets that confidence, and when in fact he does triumph
over his troubles, what does he do? He feels gratitude to God. He gives the credit to God and gives thanks
to God. He does not say “I did this.”
He says, “God did this.” “The
Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!...I will give you thanks, for you
answered me; you have become my salvation...The Lord has done this, and it is
marvelous in our eyes...The Lord is God, and he has made his light shine on
us.”
Now, maybe it seems obvious that in a situation like this
we should give the credit to God. After all, look what happened. We were in trouble, we prayed to God, and God
saw us through it and helped us triumph over it. Of course we should
thank God for that.
And of course we should. But it seems to me there are
a lot of times we don’t. There are times I don’t. Have you ever done this? You get into trouble, into a tight spot, and
you see no way out of it. And so you pray, and you pray, and you ask God
to save you. And God does. And almost immediately you go, “Oh, well,
that’s all right then.” And you move on.
Maybe you’ve never done that, I don’t know. But I
know I have. Sometimes, later--maybe
days later--I’ll realize that I forgot to thank God for what happened.
And then I do give thanks, and I feel kind of embarrassed that I did not
thank God right away. Sometimes I even
ask God for forgiveness for not thanking Him right away. But then, the
next time, it seems like I do the same thing again.
Why do I do that? Well, I think it gets back to what
we talked about at the start of this message. I want to be
self-reliant. When I get out of trouble,
I want to think it was me that got me out of it. That I did not need any
help from anybody. I mean, I sure
willing to ask for the help when I’m in trouble, but after I get out of it I
want to pretend I did it all myself. Me.
No one else. I’m still trying to
be that self-made man, rather than trying to be a God-made man.
It’s arrogance, when you come right down to it. It’s
the sin of arrogance. Thinking we don’t
need God. Thinking we can do it all ourselves. Wanting to do it all ourselves. Trying
to convince ourselves that we’ve done it all ourselves. Arrogance.
The author of the psalm may have felt that in the
beginning. But not by the end. By
the end of the psalm, he is humbling himself before God. In fact, by the
end of the psalm, he says this: “You are
my God, and I will praise you; you are my God, and I will exalt you. Give
thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever.”
When we get into trouble, we can always turn to God.
God will always be there for us.
But the thing is, we don’t have to wait until we get into trouble to
turn to God. We can turn to God at any time. We can turn to God all the time. When things are good, when things are bad,
when things are just going normally. We don’t need to be self-reliant,
self-made people who only turn to God when we get desperate. We can be God-reliant, God-made people all
the time.
So let’s put aside our arrogance. Let’s put aside our
pride. Let’s humble ourselves before
God. Let’s acknowledge that power and love of God. Let’s praise God and exalt God. Let’s
give thanks to God. Because God is,
indeed, good, and God’s love truly does endure forever.
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