Kopp Disclosure
(John 3:19-21)
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Not Just Anybody
(Psalm 51)
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“Did I ever tell you about the crazy
Australian
who tried to throw away his boomerang?”
RRK
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While there are many beloved hymns
about prayer, the most popular may be Help! by the Beatles.
BTW, let’s clear up something right
now.
When John Lennon said the Beatles were
more popular than Jesus, he wasn’t boasting.
He was telling the truth! Here’s
the proof! More people still listen
to their music than sing prayer hymns in worship and any connection between most
organized religions about Jesus are usually only coincidental to a relationship
with Jesus by the book.
For example, take a look at America
when it comes to…
Verstehen?
Back to prayer, which we better put back
into our classrooms, courtrooms, living rooms, and, yes, churches before
it’s too late, Help! was written by Lennon on April 11, 1965 and lasted
nearly a month as the #1 song on the charts.
Lennon said
the song was personal, emotional, and desperate; which explains the exclamation
point: “I was aware of myself back then…No acid…No nothing… Well, pot…I mean
it…. It’s real!…It’s just me singing, ‘Help!’…I meant it…I was crying out for
help…It was my fat Elvis period…I am singing about when I was so much younger
and all the rest, looking back at how easy it was…I was fat and I was crying
out for help.”
Sounds like prayer to me:
Help! I need somebody.
Help! Not just anybody.
Help! You know I need someone.
Help!…
When I was younger, so much younger
than today,
I never needed anybody’s help in any
way.
But now these days are gone.
I’m not so self-assured.
Now I find I’ve changed my mind.
I’ve opened up the door.
Help!
And now my life has changed in, oh, so
many ways.
My independence seems to vanish in the
haze.
But every now and then I feel so
insecure.
I know that I just need you like I’ve
never done before.
Help! I need somebody.
Help! Not just anybody.
Help! You know I need someone.
Help!
Yeah, sounds like prayer to me.
It sounds like something in David’s
psalms.
You remember him.
Popular like…
Anyway, he also had his “fat Elvis
period.”
While he remains the greatest king in
Israel’s history, showed it’s about the size of the fight in the dog not the
size of the dog in the fight when he knocked out Goliath for the heavyweight
championship of the world, and proved the prophet’s point that a heart for God
is more effective in the long run than a diploma from…[You pick your favorite
educational idolatry!], he’s also a perfect example of how God forgives and restores
people who admit not hide their infidelities and try to live better lives out
of respect for Him that also helps others.
Say what you want about Lennon,
Hillary, Trump, O’Reilly, Maddow, Matthews, and whoever’s on the latest
popularity poop list; but David could be a real scumbag at times.
While he was writing those prayer
songs for worship, he was also into his day’s porn as a peeping Tom who got off
watching women bathe; and got so hot and bothered about one that he used his
political power position to knock her up while he conspired to knock off her
husband.
Oh, Pastor Bob, that’s too graphic for
our tender religious ears!
Really?
Let’s go to your computer’s browsing
history and cable hook-up.
C’mon, as we’ve quoted Him over and
over and over again, it’s all about admitting before absolution.
David knew the deal.
We sin.
God saves.
What a great deal…with a big part of
the deal being our gratitude for His salvation by grace through faith in Jesus.
Truly, if we get it/Him, we’re so happy
about being saved forever by being forgiven for the “fat Elvis period” things
that we’ve done in time to insult Him and injure others that we try a little
harder to get better about talking and walking like we’re respectfully
grateful.
If we get
it/Him, we lament any missed opportunity to worship Him with lavish and
exuberant and overcoming praise and thanks.
Of course, no matter how good we
become, we’re never good enough not to need Him to fill in the gap between our
humanity and Him.
In other words, we’ll always need
Jesus as Savior even as we’re praying and trying to get better about Him being
Lord of our lives.
It’s those old-fashioned words
justification and sanctification.
We are justified – just as if we’d
never sinned – by grace through faith in Jesus.
We never stop sanctifying ourselves or
praying and trying to get better about Him being Lord of lives in praise and
thanks for Him being Savior of our lives by grace through faith in Jesus.
Sanctification proves gratitude for
justification.
That’s why every day includes
admittance/confession, penitence or trying to get better about Him by the book,
and adoration and thanksgiving because He forgives the gaps even as He says He
will help fill them in if we ask His favor, seek intimacy with Him, and keep
knocking or asking and seeking.
Look at Psalm 51.
Essentially, it’s David admitting He
did bad things – insulted God’s holiness and hurt others – and begging God’s
help to get better with a loud supplication: “Help!”
David knows He’s forgiven – and you
can read more about how we know that feels in Psalm 32 because we’ve been a
part of deal since conversion to Him – but wants to get better and better and
better because he’s so happy about it.
So, in effect, Psalm 51 is David’s big
cry for Help!
19 verses including these synonyms for Help!
that bring Lennon’s confessed struggles to mind:
Have mercy!
Blot out!
Wash me!
Cleanse me!
Purge me!
Make me!
Restore me!
Deliver me!
Create in me a clean heart!
Simply, in short, Help!
BUT NOT JUST ANYBODY!!!
I hope Lennon figured that out.
David did.
Anybody who worships God gets it/Him.
I think of a favorite story from John
Maxwell.
A man fell into a pit and couldn’t get
out.
A subjective person came along and
said, “I feel for you down there.”
An objective person came along and
said, “It’s logical that someone would fall down into that pit.”
A Pharisee said, “Only bad people fall
into a pit.”
Confucius said, “If you would have
listened to me, you wouldn’t be in that pit.”
Buddha said, “Your pit is only a state
of mind.”
I’ll add one. Mohammed said, “You deserve to be in that pit
but if you convert to me, I’ll help you.
If not, die, infidel!”
A realist said, “Now that’s a pit!”
A scientist calculated the pressure
necessary, pound and square inches, to get him out of the pit.
A geologist told him to appreciate and
study the rock strata in the pit.
An evolutionist said, “You will die in
the pit so you can’t produce any more pit-falling offspring.”
The county inspector said, “Did you
have a permit to dig that pit?”
A professor gave him a lecture on the
elementary principles of the pit.
A self-pitying person said, “You
haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen my pit!”
An optimist said, “Things could get
worse.”
A pessimist said, “Things are going to
get worse.”
But Jesus saw the man in the pit, took
him by the hand, and lifted the man out of the pit.
Whether it’s John Lennon or King David
or anyone before or after them like you or me, everybody spends time with Elvis
in the pits of life; and everybody yells collectively, “Help!”
Unlike the crazy Australian who tried
to throw away his boomerang, we look up not around or within for deliverance.
We know we need help but not just
anybody’s will do.
We know there is only one Lord who
lived, died, rose, reigns, and lives forever to help.
Jesus.
Knowing that/Him, we’ll give the last
word to Him because He has it and we’ll repeat it for all of those desperate
people crying out for help in life’s pits: “Keep on asking, and you will
be given what you ask for. Keep on
looking, and you will find. Keep on
knocking, and the door will be opened.
For everyone who asks, receives.
Everyone who seeks, finds. And
the door is opened to everyone who knocks.
You parents – if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them
a stone instead? Or if they ask for a
fish, do you give them a snake? Of
course not! If you sinful people know
how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly
Father give good gifts to those who ask Him.”
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Blessings and Love!
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Shatter the sound of silence!
Wake up! Look up! Stand up! Speak
up! Act up for Jesus!
Salt! Shine! Leavenate!
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2 comments:
like the drunk who jumps down into the pit because he knows the way out...
peace
Profound! Thanks!
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