The God Who Redeems

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0:00Every bit of this word is true, friends, and God uses it to teach us. Psalm 107, 1-32. O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble, and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west and from the north and from the south. Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their souls fainted within them.

0:38Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things. Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons, for they had rebelled against the words of God and spurned the counsel of the Most High.

1:14So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor. They fell down with none to help. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He brought them out of the darkness and the shadow of death, and he burst their bonds apart. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. For he shatters the doors of bronze, and he cuts in two the bars of iron. Some were fools through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities, suffered affliction.

1:50They loathed any kind of food, and they drew near to the gates of death. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He sent out his word, and he healed them, and he delivered them from their destruction. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. Let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, and tell of his deeds and songs of joy. And some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters.

2:25They saw the deeds of the Lord, his wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded, and he raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. And they mounted up to heaven, and they went down to the depths. And their courage melted away in their evil plight. They reeled, and they staggered like drunken men, and they were at their wit's end. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.

2:57Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. Then let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. Let them extol him in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Pray with me. God, you are the great rescuer who answers the cries of those who are in need. Thank you, God, for your word.

3:27Our prayer is that you would use it to teach our hearts, Father. Father, we want to see you more clearly. We want to know you more deeply, Lord. This is our prayer. And the church says, amen. All right, so our text this morning, friends, if you didn't pick it up while we were reading, it gives us four pictures of humanity, and it shows you and I that God redeems people just like us. And in the first three verses of the text, we're given some assurances before we dive in to seeing ourselves in these, let's just be honest, not so flattering biblical examples.

4:03So in verses one through three, we're reminded, number one, that our God is a good God. He says, oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. In verse one, it goes on to evidence the goodness of God and that he has for you and I, as we well know, after being in Ruth for weeks, he has a steadfast love for us. Amen, church? And the Hebrew word for steadfast love is hesed. It's used over and over again to describe God's love for his people. And like I said, we just saw this Sunday by Sunday in the book of Ruth.

4:36But it's actually, if you didn't know, it's actually a really difficult word to translate. Michael Card, writing about hesed, he says this, a single word is rarely enough in a given context to express all that hesed means. And so translators, they're forced to pile on adjectives. And he says, in the end, hesed is as much a world as it is just a word. Friends, steadfast love means that the love God has for us, it's deep and it's wide and complex and it's overflowing.

5:11It's hard to capture in thought or word. It's a God-sized love. And our text reminds us in the beginning that this is the love that he has for you and I. And the third assurance our text gives us is that the steadfast love God has for his people, friends, it never, ever ends. It endures, God says. God's love for his people never runs out. It's limitless. And so now as we turn to look at the different kind of people that God redeems, my prayer for us is that we would honestly see ourselves in these pictures and that we would remember that our God is good and that he loves us with an enduring, steadfast love.

5:56First picture. The first picture of humanity our text gives us shows us that God redeems those who have lost their way. Psalm 107, 4 and 5 says, See, church, cities in the ancient world, they meant safety and community and shared resources. Cities were a refuge from the wilderness where danger and exposure was always a threat. And God's word here in our text, it paints a picture of people who desire a city, right? They desire a refuge and a safety for themselves.

6:43They desire community and support that a city provides. But instead, they find themselves in a desert waste. And it's this picture of an inhospitable, barren place where things don't survive. A place of hardship and loneliness. And God's word says they were searching for the city. They wanted it, but they couldn't find a way. I want to ask you this morning, can you relate to that feeling? Most of us probably haven't actually, literally been lost in a desert, searching for a city.

7:19If you have, I want to hear that story. But I'd wager we've all felt a sense of lostness somewhere in our lives. Maybe you're desperately searching for community. You feel lonely. You feel like you're in a desolate place. You're surrounded by this never-ending stream of digital social apps. And you're surrounded by people, maybe at work, maybe even at home, and you just never felt lonelier. Maybe that's why you're here today. I'm glad you're here if you are.

7:53Or, listen, maybe your life has been dotted with hardships and you long for the safety of friendship. Someone you can share your hurt with. A people who can care about you and what you're going through. Maybe that's you. Or maybe I haven't described how your lostness feels or what it looks like in your life. But you know, you can feel in your heart that you're wandering in a desert waste. And you are longing for a city to dwell in. Like the people in our text, you feel that your soul is hungry and it's thirsty.

8:27If that's you or if that's someone you know, please pay close attention. Because what comes next, God tells us what to do when we feel like we're in that space. Verse 6 says, Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. Friends, what does Scripture exhort lost people to do? To cry out to God. That hunger and that thirst that we feel, that emptiness in our soul, however it manifests, it's meant to point us to our greater need for a great God.

9:03See, in our text, God lovingly, even maybe counterintuitively to how we feel, uses hardships to make us aware of our great need. Of our great need for him. The people in this text, they've come to the end of themselves. They cannot find a way to the city. And so they cry out to God. And this is highly encouraging, friends, because in our text, God is to be found. He can be found. Verse 6 doesn't just say they cried out, but it finishes with, He delivered them from their distress.

9:41And it continues in verse 7. And He led them by a straight way until they reached a city to dwell in. See, God hears and He answers the prayers of His people. This passage reminds us that we can pray about what's actually happening in our lives. And that there is a God who hears and answers our prayers, because He is a God who loves His people steadfastly. The truth leads the psalmist to remind you and I to praise God and to thank Him. Verse 8, let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man.

10:20Because God is the one who satisfies the longing of our souls. He is the one who fills our hungry souls with good things, our text says. So, God redeems the lost. But our next picture shows us that God redeems prisoners. Look at verses 10 and 11 with me. It says, Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons, for they had rebelled against the words of God and spurned the counsel of the Most High. And friends, while God certainly cares about those who are in physical prisons, our text here speaks to a prison that comes as a result of rebellion against the wisdom and the counsel of God.

11:07The text says they spurned the counsel of the Most High. That is, they didn't value it. They devalued His word. They knew it was there, but they didn't go to it as a source of wisdom and guidance for their lives. Psalm 119, 105 says, Your word is a lamp to my feet. It's a light for my path. But the people here in this picture, they put their faith in other places. And the text says, As a result, they're in darkness. The result is the shadow of death.

11:39That spiritual death is looming over them. Their rebellion has resulted in unnecessary affliction and bondage. Life is just harder than it has to be. It's like playing soccer with a stone ball, right? Everything's harder and it hurts a lot, right? Or it's like driving a car with no power steering fluid. Have you ever had to do that? Yeah, you can drive it. It takes all the power you've got and you're exhausted at the end, right? Have you ever felt like that?

12:11Has life felt like that for you? Friends, maybe it feels like that right now. Let me ask you a riskier question. Are there areas of your life that are just not submitted to God's wise counsel? Let me speak without judgment, friends. As one with experience, I can tell you that any area of our lives that is not governed by the wise counsel of our good God is harder than it has to be. There are real consequences, the Bible tells us, the following other worldly philosophies.

12:50And that's what we see in verse 12. Verse 12, it says, So he, God, bowed their hearts down with hard labor. They fell down with none to help. God lovingly gives them the consequences of their actions so they will see their great need for him. Can you see yourself in this picture? Maybe like the people we see in this picture, you feel your heart is bowed down and your life is full of hard labor as you've sought to live your life outside the counsel of the Most High God.

13:22When you find yourself surrounded by the consequences of your decisions and actions, what do you do? Psalm 107, 13. They cried out to the Lord in their trouble. He delivered them from their distress. Cry out to God, friends. And if we're in a place where we know that we're sinning, we repent of our sin and we go to the good counsel of God and he will deliver us from that prison, the rebellion has formed around us. The good news of our text is that God frees prisoners from all kinds of bondage because he is a good God full of steadfast love for his people.

14:04And because of this, we can proclaim the truth of verse 15. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. Why? 16. He shatters the doors of bronze and he cuts into the bars of iron. He is a God of freedom for those who seek him. So God redeems the lost. He redeems prisoners. Our text also tells us this. God redeems fools. If your significant other is poking you right now, that's not a good sign.

14:41Verses 17 and 18 say this. Some were fools through their sinful ways. And because of their iniquities, suffered affliction. They loathed any kind of food and they drew near to the gates of death. At first here, this sounds a lot like the picture we just saw. Death is mentioned both in reference to the prisoner and to the fool in this text. But there's a key difference here. For the prisoner, their inattention to God's word puts them in the shadow of death over them.

15:15It puts them in a space they don't really want to be in. But the fool in this picture is willingly drawing near to the gates of death. This is a person who knows that what they are doing is wrong, and yet they're pursuing it anyway. They know that they suffer. They can feel that, but they pursue it anyway. In our text, it says they loathed any kind of food. And the imagery is kind of this picture of natural desires being reversed. It's the picture of someone starving and then also being disgusted by the thing that would save them.

15:48It's a picture of a person who knows that their desires are disordered. This person lives practically as if there's no God and there's no judgment after death. In the Bible, friends, it unapologetically calls this kind of person a fool. Psalm 14.1 says, The fool says in his heart there's no God. And when we find ourselves in a situation like this, it can be really hard to cry out to God for deliverance. Because we believe in our hearts sometimes that God is like us.

16:26One of my sons bought a ring, like a mountain ring made out of some kind of mountain rock when we were camping. And a couple days later, they weren't happy about something. And they started kind of sinfully acting out in anger and throwing the ring on the floor. And while they were doing that, I started to warn them that they were going to lose their ring that way. And I knew, what I knew is that the ring could easily just roll across the floor. And it could roll under something and it could be lost, right?

16:58And sure enough, that's exactly what happened. As I was trying to warn them, that's the very thing that happened. And if I had been a better father in that moment, I would have lamented the loss of the ring with my child. I would have taught them a lesson later about the consequences of anger. But what do you think I did? What do you think came out of my mouth when that ring rolled under a big piece of industrial equipment and was lost? What do you think I said?

17:25I told you so. I told you so. That's what you get. That's what you get for acting like that. Those are your consequences. Friends, hear me though. God is not like me. God is not like us. He does not have a that's what you get mentality with his people when it comes to their sin. The cross of Jesus Christ shows us the steadfast, powerful, compassionate love God has for us. Second Corinthians 5 21 says, for our sake, he made him Jesus who knew no sin to be sin so that in him we could become the righteousness of God.

18:08He doesn't say, I told you so. He says, look what I did. If you're in a place in your life where you're embracing sin and you're drawing near to the gates of death, run to God with open arms. He's waiting for you. He's waiting for you. He's not going to tell you I told you so. Psalm 19 and 20, 107, 19 and 20 says, they cried out to the Lord in their trouble. These sinful people. He delivered them from their distress. He sent out his word and healed them and delivered them from their destruction.

18:54He does not give his redeemed what their sin deserves because it was already given to Christ and Christ has paid for it. It's good news. Because of that, we can rejoice. We can also say, let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. See, God redeems the lost. He redeems prisoners. He redeems fools. In our last picture, I believe this shows us that God redeems the self-reliant. Verse 23 says this. Some went down to the sea in ships doing business on the great waters.

19:39At first glance, this picture looks different than the others. This picture isn't of lost people or of prisoners or of those who are living in their sin and know it. These are just people going about life and business, it seems. They're merchants who find themselves in a great storm on the sea. And friends, God definitely rescues people when they find themselves in a sudden disaster. He is a God who does that. But I don't think that's what we're warned about here in this picture.

20:12Verse 32 gives us a clue as to what we're looking at in verses 23 and 32. Because the structure of our text over and over again is this. It presents a human problem, and then people cry out to their God, and he delivers them. And then we see a reversal of their behavior or their heart attitude after they're rescued. That's what we see in all four of these pictures. So the lost have empty souls, and afterward their souls are filled. The prisoners are in bondage and darkness, and afterward they are in the light and they're free.

20:46The sin-embracing fool is drawing close to death and is sick with sin. And afterward they're healed and delivered from death. So the end state of the people in these pictures after God's redemption clues you and I into the state they were in before he redeemed them. Do we see that? So verses 30 and 32 shows us the reversal of these people, and it gives us a clue as to what's happening in their hearts for those who went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters.

21:19Psalm 107.30 says, Then they were glad that the waters were quiet and brought them to their desired haven. Let them extol him in the congregation of the people and praise him in the assembly of the elders. So after God puts them in the storm and rescues them, now the reversal is they're praising him. See, the reversal of these people's behavior is they're extolling him in the congregation, praising him in the assembly of the elders. I believe what we see here, friends, is a picture of people whose lives are going relatively well.

21:54They don't really have a lot of felt needs. They're reliant on themselves. And God redeems them from this self-reliance. And to you and I, maybe that doesn't even sound like a bad thing, right? We live in America, right? This is our heritage. We pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. We get things done, and if we have to talk to God about it, we will. But that's not what the Bible tells us. Acts 17, 28 says, In him we live and move and have our being.

22:28Friends, even when we are well-to-do, when the sailing is clear and business is good, you and I are in great need of our great God. There's nothing we can do without him. It's ironic that in good times of great blessings, a lot of times our prayer and our praise to our good God dries up. But this is what we're being warned about here. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that you are self-sufficient. Don't fall into the trap of relying on yourself when in reality you are completely dependent on God for every breath.

23:07When the peace of our life, friends, is dependent on what you and I can provide, there will come a time in your lives where your peace will fail. As soon as a storm comes and takes away your ability to rely on yourself, you will have no peace to draw on. But for these people in our picture, God gives them and us a loving reminder of where confidence should lie. He brings a great storm that they cannot overcome by self-reliance. So what do you and I do when we have built our peace on ourselves and what we can do for ourselves and our loved ones, friends?

23:46We cry out to him. We cry out to God. It says they cried out to the Lord in their trouble. He delivered them from their distress. We ask God to remind us of his great kindness and we praise him for his steadfast love toward us. In all of these pictures, all four of these pictures, God lovingly shows his people that their greatest need is actually him. Their greatest treasure is him. That peace isn't found in what we provide for ourselves, but what God has provided for us.

24:23And there is no picture more evident of this grace from God for us than in the life of Jesus Christ, friends. All examples of God's love to us in the Bible point to God's love for us displayed in Jesus. Jesus is the one who satisfies the hunger and the thirst of our souls. Only in Jesus will you be filled with good things. Jesus is the light that chases away the shadow of death that looms over us. He is the one who breaks the chains and snaps the bonds that bind us.

25:02Only in him can we experience actual freedom. Jesus is the one who heals us from the death that our sin brings us. Jesus says of himself in John 14, 6, I am the way and I am the truth and I am the life and nobody can come to the Father except through me. He is our greatest treasure. Jesus is our only true source of peace. Only. And I want to tell you this morning, if you've never placed your faith in Jesus, I pray that you hear God calling you to come and find your redemption in him.

25:41He's waiting for you with open arms. He wants to receive you as a son and a daughter. He wants to redeem your life. And anybody here would love to talk to you about that. If your faith is rooted in Christ, if you've been following Christ and you have placed your faith in him, he is your savior. But today this text has revealed some area of your life that needs attention. Be encouraged. Because God delights to hear the cry of his children calling out to him.

26:15He delights to deliver them, our text has shown us. Your God is not disappointed in you, but loves you and is leading you back to himself. Friends, the goodness of God's love towards us allows us to say what verse 8 says. Say it with me. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. Pray with me. Lord, indeed, you are mighty and glorious. You are powerful. Everything moves through you. You are the sovereign king of the entire universe.

26:59And we might expect that someone with such a lofty title, someone with so much power, wouldn't care about us. But you do. You love us so deeply. You've provided your son as a rescue for us. By his righteous life in our place, by his death in our place, we can be saved and redeemed and be in the family of God. Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you. We love you, Lord. It's in your name we pray.