The Overwhelmed Heart — David Rubio

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Let us bow for prayer. Oh, we thank you, dear Jesus, that you are that bread of life. And with that bread, Lord, we will never hunger again. We will not have those pangs in our hearts evermore because you are that bread of life.

Oh, we come this morning full, Lord. Full of anticipation as to what you are going to do this morning and what you have already begun, Lord. We are so thankful that we have the privilege of being here together.

Gathered together to lift up the holy name of our Savior. To lift up the infallible Word of God that is everlasting to everlasting. Oh, Lord, we praise you. And we thank you for this time. Clear our hearts, Lord, from any obstruction, any distraction this morning.

Calm the little children here this morning, Lord, that their mommies can hear and listen. Remove the distractions, Lord, of phone calls and other things, Lord, that have happened already this day. And may we focus on you and on you alone, Lord.

For in the end, that is all that is counts, is Jesus. That's all that counts. Help us be faithful. And we thank you. In Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. This is the day which the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

And I pray that's your heart this morning, that you are rejoicing, that you are here. That you can be gathered here with the saints. This is just a small, minuscule fraction of the saints that we'll be with in heaven someday.

And we should be rejoicing. And I know that verse often is used for the return of Christ. But, you know, we don't know when Christ is really going to return, do we? So let's rejoice now. For this is the day that he hath made.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it. There was a verse as I was pondering today that came to my heart. It's a powerful verse and it's found in the book of Habakkuk. And it says this. The Lord is in his holy temple.

Let all the earth keep silence before him. The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him. We acknowledge this is not the temple in Jerusalem. But this is a place where we meet.

And God is here. And it is a holy place. Because wherever God is, it is holy. And this is his holy temple here this morning. He is here. And he says, let all the earth keep silence before him. And why are we usually silent?

We're silent because we are there to listen. And my hope this morning for you, and for you, is that we will listen this morning as to what God has to say from his holy word. The Lord is in his holy temple.

The Missionary’s Suffering and the Power of Prayer

Let all the earth keep silence before him. Being a missionary is never easy. No matter how strong your faith in God, still there are times when you turn to God and ask, why am I here, Lord? Am I really making a difference?

Aside from facing these occasional doubts, and the usual poverty, and the lack of education, found in many third world countries, many missionaries also have to deal with governments and law enforcement officials who are corrupt, and seem determined to make life as difficult and as hard for their country, and the towns, and the cities in which they serve.

Well, one missionary in Brazil, a number of years ago, had exactly this problem. In frustration, he watched as government policies, supposedly aimed at promoting economic growth, did nothing more than rob people of their land, took away their food, brought poverty, and starvation, and death among many.

Unwilling and unable to sit aside and watch all this happen, this missionary prayed, and ended up writing to magazines here in the United States, concerning the serious situation. And in those articles, he criticized Brazil's government for its policies, and for the way it was handling situations there.

Well, he must have known that he was doing a dangerous thing, but his conscience would not allow him to do otherwise. And he did pay the price. You see, one day the police did come, and they did take him away, and they took him to a prison.

And there for four days, he was beaten, and he was tortured by his captors. During that time, he said later, his only hope was prayer. And his only prayer he could rise up was the 23rd Psalm, and he recited it over and over, as he was being beaten, as he was being tortured.

Then, God brought a ray of hope into the midst of that dark situation. One of the torturers came up to him, and mockingly, in a mocking voice, said, Do you know that you have some of your friends in the local village that are meeting at a church praying for you?

And the torturer went on and mockingly said, You know, they're wasting their time. They can't do anything. Their prayers are not going to do anything for you here in prison at this moment. But, you know, unbeknownst to that torturer, that was the encouragement that that missionary needed.

You know, to be there, knowing that he had people that he had been ministering to for a number of years that had risked their lives, their lives were now in danger, as it was known that they were meeting in a local village church praying for this missionary.

And he said, That gave me such hope. It gave me such hope to know that God is a God who answers prayer, and he heard my cry, and he has sent that ray of hope, that encouragement that I've needed at this point in my life.

Well, the missionary said later that during that torture, he also learned something about himself and his own faith in Jesus Christ. And this is what he learned. He said, All things that I had been saying, that I had been preaching about for the past 20 years were true.

And now, after experiencing God's mercy and all of the things that I preached about, I know that it's true. I know that it's true. Intervention by the American embassy later resulted in the missionary's release, and sometime after his return to the United States, he said that he was almost grateful to his captors.

He said, Before the torture, he had been like many Christians, fairly secure in his faith, but harboring a few doubts about how strong his faith would be when it would be tested. Tested by torture, tested by isolation, tested by torment and imprisonment, with the possibility even of martyrdom.

I know I've visited with a number of you men, and we've sometimes asked that question. If persecution came upon our land, how strong would my faith be? Well, this missionary had the privilege of experiencing that, and he came out on the other end saying, Yes, God is faithful, and our faith does stand.

When Life Becomes Overwhelming

Well, I relate this story to you this morning, not necessarily as a call to the foreign mission field, but as a real life example of what reactions, unexpected occurrences, can bring into our lives as Christians, and how these unexpected occurrences or circumstances can at times overwhelm us.

Sometimes they overwhelm us over a short period of time, of maybe a few seconds, a few minutes, maybe an hour or two, and sometimes life circumstances can overwhelm us for longer periods of time, for days, for weeks, for months, and even for some, even for years.

At any rate, God's Word, thank you, Brother Noel, you reminded the children this morning, and it's a reminder to us, but God's Word gives us clear instructions on how we can deal with those times in life when we are stretched and when we are overtaken and often caught off guard by life circumstances.

So this morning, I've entitled today's sermon The Overwhelmed Heart Passing Through Life's Tunnels. The Overwhelmed Heart Passing Through Life's Tunnels. The word overwhelm is defined this way. It means to overpower in mind or feeling to burden excessively.

Overwhelm means to overpower in mind or feeling or to burden excessively. Now, I have learned not to question the Lord. You know, we came off a really charging, exciting message last week with Wes, and it seemed like, wow, Lord, why would we want to hear something this morning about an overwhelmed heart and life's tunnels?

But I have to just trust the Lord this morning that there is someone or some group of people in here, a number of people in here that need to hear this message this morning. For those of you who feel maybe that this isn't for you, listen up, because it might be for you tomorrow.

It might be for you next week. It might be for you next month. But let's trust the Lord that this is for all of us who have an overwhelmed heart this morning. Overwhelmed by life. And life does that to us, does it not?

Catches us off guard. Something comes around that we hadn't anticipated, and we get caught off guard and we get overwhelmed. And many of these circumstances we sometimes wonder and think, I have no control over this, Lord.

David’s Cry in Psalm 61

I have no control over this. Well, if you would this morning, let's turn to a passage of Scripture and we'll start here. And it's a psalm that brings much comfort to my heart. Let's turn to Psalm 61. And I would like to read that this morning to you as we prepare our hearts for this message, the overwhelmed heart.

This psalm was written by King David. At this moment in his life, he had been kicked out of Jerusalem by his own son, and this was David's cry unto the Lord. Psalm 61, we'll read all verses. Hear my cry, O God, attend unto my prayer.

From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee. When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For thou has been a shelter for me and a strong tower from the enemy. I will abide in thy tabernacle forever.

I will trust in the covert of thy wings. Selah. For thou, O God, hast heard my vows. Thou hast given me the heritage of those that fear thy name. Thou wilt prolong the king's life and his years as many generations.

He shall abide before God forever. O prepare mercy and truth, which may preserve him. So will I sing praise unto thy name forever, that I may daily perform my vows. The words of David. The words of David spoken from an overwhelmed heart.

So what did David do first? He did exactly what Brother Noel told the children to do. The first thing he did is he cried unto the Lord in prayer. He cried out to the Lord in prayer. In his distress and in his trouble, he called out.

You notice he didn't call out to some other God. He called out to the God. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He didn't call out as many do today to some self-help program. He did not dial some 1 -800 number to call up some horoscope witchcraft outlet.

He did not call up his psychologist. He did not go to some drug. He did not turn to alcohol. He did not turn to some drug that was going to dull his senses and take the circumstances away. He was not going to start spending money and feeding his flesh with food, with material items to cover the pain and the overwhelming feeling in his heart.

No. He went to God. The God Almighty. And may we do likewise here in this room. When life begins to overwhelm us, let's take David's lesson. And it's a simple one. We know that. But so often, we fail to do these things.

And in the flesh, we run to the idols, to the world around us rather than the Lord God Almighty first of all. So when you feel overwhelmed, run to him first and foremost and cry out to him in prayer. Talk to him.

He is there as he was for King David. And also, if you notice here, he said, Hear my cry, O God. Attend unto my prayer. Attend to here means to pay attention to. You know, David says, Lord, listen to my prayer, but do more than that.

You know, God, you're listening to prayer from all over the world at this very moment. From Christians in many, many places. O Lord, would you pay attention to my prayer? Would you pay attention to my prayer in a personal way?

That's David's plea. And isn't that the way we feel sometimes? We say, Lord, would you please listen to my prayer? Please, Lord, pay attention to my prayer. And David, in faith, says exactly that. He says, Hear my cry, O God.

Attend unto my prayer. And then he goes on in verse two to say, From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee. You see, David had been kicked out of Jerusalem. Jerusalem was David's sanctuary of prayer.

Jerusalem, the city of God. And he was removed from there. He was probably hiding in some cave up in the mountains, hiding from his son, fearing for his life. And yet, David knew that he could call out to God no matter where he was at.

And God would attend, pay attention to his prayer. And the same holds to us today. And we know, you can pray in your kitchen, you can pray on the job site, you can pray when you're out shopping, you can pray when you're fixing someone's roof, or under someone's house fixing some plumbing.

God hears your prayer no matter where you're at. But you know what? God also hears your prayer when it comes from the most remote, the most obscure, and the most distant part of your heart. Do you understand what I mean here?

How many of us here in this room at some time in our life have had something hidden, remotely, distantly, in some obscure part of our heart that we don't want to touch. Because as soon as we touch that thought, as soon as we touch that memory, as soon as we touch whatever is there, it begins to overwhelm us.

And we close it back up. While David here is telling us. We can cry unto the Lord from wherever we're at, not only physically, but we can also cry unto the Lord wherever we are at emotionally. Those little places.

Maybe it was that death. Maybe it was that broken relationship. Maybe it was that really immoral sin that was committed. Maybe it was that argument. Maybe it was that dishonesty, that lie, that gossip that you did, that you hid, and you sewed it up in that heart and you put it in a far corner.

And God is saying, you can deal with that. Open up your heart. And God will attend unto your prayer. When we are overwhelmed, we must pray. And when we call out to him with a broken and contrite heart, he will hear and pay attention to your plea in your time of need no matter where you are, geographically, emotionally, or spiritually.

You know, in America today, over the last 50 years or so, we've developed these laws in our land called the equal access laws. Those are laws that were developed over the years and that's why we have handicapped parking at certain places, handicapped bathrooms, handicapped accessible buildings, so that the handicapped can have equal access into those buildings.

We've done the same thing with the civil rights bill. There are certain parts, government buildings and buildings that have equal access to all, no matter what their race, color, or creed. Well, you know that heaven has equal access?

You know heaven has equal access? Heaven is equally accessible from all places and from everyone. Heaven has equal access. And that's what we're encouraged about here in this psalm is that God is telling us you can access God.

All you have to do is pray with the heart that is seeking him and wants to find him. So, when you're overwhelmed and burdened, pray. Now, whether you weep openly as David said he did here, he cried out with tears, physical tears, tears that wet his face.

I'm not a crying type of man, so I don't cry that much with physical tears. But you know, my heart cries a lot with spiritual tears. So, he will hear him either way. God accepts him either way. He loves a broken and contrite heart.

In James 5 .13, the Lord says this. This is the passage that deals with being anointed by oil, the elders coming to your hospital. The first phrase of that verse in 5 .13 says this. Is any among you afflicted?

Are any among you afflicted? Let him pray is what the verse says. Let him pray. Which answers the question, why does God allow affliction to come into the life of a Christian? One of the reasons is to get us to pray.

To get us to pray. So, if you're sitting here this morning afflicted in some way, maybe you had an argument with your spouse this morning. Maybe you had an argument with one of your teenage children, one of your youth.

Maybe you had an argument on your phone with someone yesterday or last night. I don't know what the situation would be. Maybe you had a bad experience at work this week. And you say, oh Lord, why me? Well, maybe the why me is because God wants you to pray.

God wants you to go to Him in trust and faith and say, yes, I trust you Lord. Please attend unto my prayer. Attend unto my prayer. Look in verse 2. What did God, well, I mean, what did David ask God for in his prayer?

What did he ask? And that's key for us because we get overwhelmed. We have a lot of things bombarding us in our emotional state. So, it's good to follow David's thoughts here. We cry. We ask God to attend to our prayers.

But listen to what he says in his prayer. He asked God to lead him to the rock. It says here in the middle of verse 2, when my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. The rock that is higher than I.

A rock, a rock is a place of safety. It's usually high and lofty and lifted up where the enemies cannot reach it. It's a rock. It's a place of safety. When we're overwhelmed, when we're overwhelmed, that's what we want.

Is it not a place of safety? A place of refuge? A place where the enemies cannot touch us. So, David cries out, lead me to that rock. You notice here, he couldn't get to the rock by himself. He had to be led.

He had to be led. Just like a child has to be led by his parent, taking the hand and carrying them along. We too have to humble ourselves before the Lord when we get in these places in life. And we can't say, I can do it myself.

I don't need any help. The only way we're going to get to the rock, brethren, is by asking God to lead us there. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. By God's leading. And who is that rock? That rock is Christ Jesus.

That rock is Christ Jesus. He said of himself, upon this rock will I build my church. Well, you can let him build his church. He is that rock. He is Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Savior. It's a beautiful thought.

It's a wonderful thought. But it's a saving thought. That Christ is the rock of our salvation. And upon him we are secure. But he's not only the rock of our salvation, but he's also the rock of our preservation.

He will preserve us. He will keep us. He will hold us. Just as you mothers pick up your little children when they fall and get hurt. Hold them dear to your heart. God does the same with us. He wants not only to be a rock of our salvation, but he's also the rock of preservation upon whom we can depend.

The rock that is higher than I is higher than I. Remember, God is not overwhelmed. God is never overwhelmed. And we've heard that often. He's not only overwhelmed, he's never caught off guard. He's never caught by surprise.

He doesn't say, uh-oh, I don't know how to handle this one. God doesn't do that. God is never overwhelmed. He is there for us and he's there with us. Jesus Christ will lift us above whatever adverse circumstances that confront us.

Lift us above He will lift us above. And that means that he will have his way with us. Now, not necessarily maybe the way that we maybe expect, but he will have his best and perfect way with us. I think of the apostle Paul.

He had a thorn in his flesh, did he not? And he prayed unto God to remove that thorn. And God told him this, God said to Paul, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

And Paul's response to God is this, Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. You see, God can take those things in our lives and he can make them glorious in our lives if we but trust him.

And if we say, as Paul did, we'd rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. There's a familiar account of a little girl who had taken a train ride. It's a story maybe that some of you have heard before, but it's a profound and very deep story about a little girl who took her first train ride across the countryside with her parents, with her mommy and her daddy.

The train took off down the track and they came to a tunnel. And the train went into the tunnel and it turned dark. And the little girl who had been sitting by the window scooted over on the bench close to her parents, close to her mommy and daddy and put her arms around them and just hugged them real tight because she was afraid.

It was dark in there. The trip went on and during the trip they passed through a number of tunnels and at first the little girl who was sitting would scoot over to her parents and grab them again. And when they got out of the tunnel she could look out the window and it was daylight and she could see the countryside.

She'd scoot over near the window but then another tunnel and she'd scoot over and grab her parents again. But as the trip went on she didn't scoot over as often to her parents and right as they were approaching the last tunnel she looked over to her mother and she said, Mommy, I like tunnels.

I like tunnels. Well, her mother was kind of surprised because she had known the whole trip the little girl was scooting over and grabbing her or her daddy in fear and she said, I don't understand, I thought that you were afraid of tunnels.

And the little girl replied, Oh, Mommy, I like tunnels. I like tunnels because tunnels have light at both ends because they have light at both ends. And isn't that true about life, brethren? Isn't that true about life?

There are many tunnels we pass through in life. Tunnels of deep hurt. Tunnels of deep disappointment. Tunnels of sorrow, of confusion, of pain, of grief, of fear, of loneliness. And in the middle of these tunnels, when it is the blackest, there are some things that we need to remember.

And David reminds us of them right here in Psalm 61. Call out to the Lord. Trust in Him. He will attend unto our prayers. He will hear us no matter where we're at or where we are calling from, whether it's someplace geographically, the inner part of our hearts.

He is there. He will lead us to the rock that is higher than us. Our Lord Jesus is with us. He's working with us, brethren. He's not working against us. Even when we are not aware of His presence, He is there.

Even when we are not aware of His presence, He is there. God doesn't hang out a big sign on us and says, God the Almighty is working here. I can look across here and I don't see that sign sticking on any of you.

But if you call out to Him, He is working in you. And He is working in your heart. He's working in your life. And He might be doing it quietly, unseen by us, unheard by us, unnoticed by us, but He is working.

You might not think He is, but He is. And He does care for His little children. You might ask me, well, does God really hear my prayer? Does God really hear my prayer? Does He care? You know, so often we get deceived that we think that God didn't hear my prayer because I didn't shout it loud enough.

I didn't shout it loud enough. God didn't hear my prayer because I didn't pray it in the King James. You know, I didn't use these and vows in it. God didn't hear my prayer because it wasn't like, you know, long and eloquent.

You know, the preachers, they get up and they get these long and eloquent prayers. I don't have that kind of vocabulary. So maybe God didn't hear my prayer because I didn't say the right words. Or maybe God doesn't hear prayers in English.

Maybe He hears them better in Hutterish or Spanish or French or Low German or High German. Maybe God, does God really hear my prayer? Yes, He hears your prayers. Yes, He hears your prayers. And does He care?

You might say, but you know, it's something I dealt with 15 years ago and I never did business with God on it. I mean, does He even care anymore? It happened so long ago. Yes, He still cares. He still cares today, just like He did yesterday and just like He will tomorrow.

There's a beautiful quote that I read, and this is what it says regarding the answer to that question. Does God hear my prayers? Does God care? This is the quote. It says this, the softest whisper of prayer never goes unheard.

The breath of prayer is never exhaled in vain. I don't know about you, but I've been caught in situations before in my life where it takes the breath out of me. Something, I hear some news and it just like takes the wind out of me and I can hardly talk.

I can hardly talk. And I know there are those here this morning that know what I'm talking about. Well, you know that whisper. When you can hardly talk, when you feel the wind has been blown out of you through a circumstance, God can still hear that whisper.

He hears that whisper and He cares. It never goes unheard. He listens. You might think, but I've got to shout it for Him to listen. No, you don't have to shout it to listen. You can whisper if that's all you can do.

And if all you can do is just let out a little breath of a prayer, it's not breathed out in vain. God listens to it. God hears the heart. He doesn't hear the vocabulary necessarily. He hears the heart.

And let us not deceive ourselves. We're pretty verbal here in America. We use a lot of words, a lot of vocabulary, but God listens to the heart. He listens to the heart, the man. He does care. He listens.

And He acts in His time and in His way. Psalm 27 6 says this,. And now shall mine head be lifted above mine enemies round about me. Those are the words of David. And now shall mine head be lifted above mine enemies round about me.

King David knew that God was his deliverer. And we must believe that, too. We know that here because I know we hear a lot about that. You read about that in Scripture. But do we know it here? And that's my encouragement to you this morning is to know it here, to know that He will care for us.

We should, by prayer and faith, put ourselves under God's divine guidance and care, that we may have His protection and His deliverance. Now, if your circumstances that are overwhelming you are due to your own sin, your own disobedience, your own rebellion, then you need to do business with God first.

You need to go to the Lord, confess His sin, repent of it as sin. And then God can begin to work in your heart. And His answer might be yes. His answer might be no. His answer might be wait. I'm not ready yet to answer that prayer your way.

But God will answer that prayer and answer it in a way that is best for you and best for you in your circumstance. So David says, first pray, go to the rock and then look at verse three. This is what else we should do when we get overwhelmed by life circumstances.

Verse three says, For thou hast been a shelter for me and a strong tower from the enemy. Thou hast been. The word hast there, that verb, is a past tense verb. And what David is telling us there to do is when we get overwhelmed, we need to remember the past.

And what are we supposed to remember? We are supposed to remember those things and those victories that God did in our life in the past to encourage us in the today. Brother Noel brought up this little story about King David.

I'm sure David at this point in time, when he said this verse, for thou has been a shelter for me. And he started remembering the past when God brought victories in his life. I'm sure he brought up that image in his mind, that memory of standing between these two great armies, the army of the Philistines on this side, the army of Israel on this side with King Saul and David's own brothers standing there, his brethren watching him.

And he walks out into this open space and out walks this giant of a man, Goliath. And David picks up the sling and the stones, and God delivered the victory to him that day and to Israel. What a powerful memory that would be.

Even in the midst of a current situation that seems unbeatable, we can remember back, as David did, to times when we had victory. And if we've walked with the Lord for any length of time at all, we know there have been victories.

And that's what we need to do. For thou has been a shelter for me. A shelter. A shelter. A shelter is a place high lifted up like the rock, a place of safety, a place where you are sheltered away from danger.

And a high tower here is a mighty stone fortress that cannot be penetrated. It's high, and it's way out of reach of the enemy, and it's strong, and it has thick walls. That is the fortress that God is for us.

He can protect us, and he can be our high tower. You see, refuge and high tower, that mighty fortress that God is for us, Christians, is more than adequate to deliver us from what life dishes out to us at any time.

It's more than adequate. So we are told to remember the past times and past victories, and he will be our refuge and our high tower. You know, there's another interesting thing about overwhelming circumstances.

Sometimes those circumstances of our own doing, we do them ourselves. They are of our own doing. Something that we've done. But you know, more often than not, sometimes we are overwhelmed by circumstances that are not of our doing.

Something happens around us that somebody else did, and the outcome overwhelms us. You know, the drunk driver that causes an accident that kills somebody dear to you, or that disables someone dear to you.

You know, that bit of gossip that went out about you that has damaged you. You didn't gossip, but the result of that damaged you. That broken relationship where someone was unfaithful, or someone lied, or someone betrayed you.

That was not your fault. It was someone else's action or sin. But you get caught in it, and you get overwhelmed. Well, let's look at that situation now. Let's turn in the book of Jeremiah, if we would, because Jeremiah was in a similar situation.

He was a prophet at the time to Israel. And turn with me, if you would, to Jeremiah 2, verse 13. Because see, Jeremiah was in that kind of situation that I just described. See, Israel had suffered a severe drought and had experienced various invasions by surrounding enemies.

Why? Because of Israel's disobedience and departure from God. So it was a politically and spiritually very, very difficult time. In the life of Israel. And in Jeremiah 2, verse 13, the prophet describes Israel's condition.

Let me read that verse to you. This is God speaking now to the prophet regarding Israel. For my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

So here we have the sin of Israel at that time. First, they had forsaken. They had rejected. They had ignored the Lord, the fountain of living waters. Basically, they had rejected the Lord Jesus Christ.

Is he not he out of whom flow rivers of living waters? It's Jesus. And see, Israel rejected God. They rejected him and ignored him, the fountain of living waters. Maybe this describes your life where you were at at this point in life.

Maybe you started out and God was working in your life and you committed your life to the Lord and now you've decided to go your own way and you've chosen to reject or ignore his leading to do the things your way and not his way.

And now you are overwhelmed by life's circumstances. The second sin of Israel here was stated that they hewed them out cisterns. Hewed means they hand made them. They made themselves cisterns. Cisterns were big pots and they lived in a desert region and there was not a lot of water there.

So whenever it rained or whenever the rivers were full, they would fill these pots up with water and they would live off that water. But you know what was interesting? It's described here in Jeremiah as those pots were broken.

They could not hold water. And these cisterns were symbolic of the idolatry. They were symbolic of the idolatry of the idols that Israel had made for itself. It had rejected the Almighty God and replaced them with these hand made idols.