Then God Showed Up!
There’s a scene in the movie, Forest Gump, where everything that could go wrong, does go wrong, and Forest says, “Then God showed up.”
In the movie, Lieutenant Dan had both his legs blown off in the Viet Nam war. Bitter, Lt. Dan lives an immoral life, trying to drown his sorrows in drugs, alcohol, and sex. Ready to end his life, Forest convinces Lt. Dan to join him in a new business venture on his shrimp boat.
Forest tries to tell Lt. Dan that God has been at work, but Lt. Dan demands to know where this God has been all his life.
Right then, hurricane-force winds begin to howl. A hurricane destroys every shrimp boat in the area, except the one owned by Forest and Lt. Dan. That’s when Forest says, “Then God showed up.” Forest and Lt. Dan become rich beyond their wildest dreams.
In the next scene, Lt. Dan drops himself, legless and all, into the ocean. At first you don’t know if he is committing suicide or not. Then he begins to peacefully float. And as only Forest could say, “I think that was when Lt. Dan made his peace with God.”
We do tend to notice God the most in the midst of the greatest storms of life… And it is often in the eye of the storm that we finally rest in God…
God Showed Up!
Yesterday, our Sunday worship service at Cornerstone Community Church was a little like that. No, we didn’t face anything as serious as a hurricane. However, humanly speaking, many things that could go wrong before the service did go wrong:
1. Our central computer for our IT crashed, which meant we could not print the words to the songs.
2. That also meant that we could not display the words to the songs. Which meant that no one in the congregation had any words except our worship leader.
3. That also meant that we could not display the PowerPoint presentation that I had prepared for the message on Psalm 23.
4. In God’s sovereignty, the rest of our worship band was all on vacation this Sunday.
5. The sermon title was mistakenly written on the outside sign (on one of the busiest intersections in our county) and left there all week as:
Ending Life in the Shadow of Death.
It should have been:
Finding Life in the Shadow of Death.
6. I had been very sick all week with the flu, and all day Saturday I was dealing with a concern regarding an extended family member—so I was physically weak and emotionally drained.
However…
Or, shall I say…
BUT GOD!
But God showed up in sooooo many ways.
1. Our tech team worked tirelessly to try to get it all fixed. And, they did so with patience, and with the fruit of the Spirit.
2. Our elder chair opened the service beautifully by encouraging us to depend upon the Lord and worship from the heart—setting the perfect tone.
3. Our worship leader, through the Spirit, hit a grand slam! He led us…he Spirit-led us without words for some of the most powerful worship I have ever been a part of.
4. The person sharing announcement provided the ideal Spirit-led lead-in with her focus on the power of Psalm 23 when we are most desperate.
5. By God’s grace, He used the PowerPointless message powerfully. The POWER was not in PowerPoint. It certainly was not in me. But God’s Spirit moved in many hearts through Psalm 23 in spite of this weak vessel, this “cracked pot.”
God Orchestrated It All
Given the point of the message from Psalm 23 was that all we need is Christ our Good Shepherd, we could not have orchestrated a clearer way to illustrate that CCC needs Jesus than all the “calamities” that God orchestrated. In our “technical valley of the shadow of death,” The LORD was our Shepherd, and He was and is all we want and need!
God chose to strip us of everything humanly speaking that we could depend upon, so we had to depend upon HIM. And we did. And He showed up as He always does—because He is our Forever Faithful Good Shepherd!
Sermon Resources
If you would like the resources (sermon audio, sermon PowerPoint, sermon manuscript, sermon outline) for yesterday’s message on Psalm 23, Finding Life in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, you can find them here.
Join the Conversation
How is God stripping you of everything you depend upon so that you will be a more Spirit-dependent person?
Where and how is Christ our Good Shepherd showing up in the midst of your storm, in the midst of your valley of the shadow of death?
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