← ArchiveSunday, July 16, 2017DateJuly 16, 2017Speaker—TextPsalms 46Passages in this sermonDeuteronomy 31:82:21Exodus 14:144:48Exodus 9:165:57Psalms 349:10Psalms 4617:292 Kings 1820:452 Chronicles 3220:452 Kings 19:1927:12TranscriptClick any line to jump there.0:00Good morning. Thank you for asking us to speak this morning. Since our journey began, we've openly said we constantly want to share what God has done for us because he's been so good for us. We are so grateful how he has taken care of us, and I could speak forever, but I'm not going to do that because I have friends in the nursery, so I know what that's like. I'm going to give you a little background and kind of share our story. Some of you know, and some of you may not.0:29In March of 2015, I found a knot that concerned me, and I went to my doctor, and because I was only 34, he said that I had no family history, and they said, you know, if you'll wait until you're 35, insurance will cover a mammogram, so let's do that. So in September, I had a mammogram, and within the course of a few weeks and several different doctors, I finally got a diagnosis at UAB with stage 2 lobular breast cancer with lymph node involvement.0:53The day of my diagnosis was probably the first time in my journey that I felt his presence so strongly. I laid on a table with a sweet nurse. I had no idea that I would be getting a biopsy that day.1:21It all went so fast, and Blaine and my sister-in-law were out in the waiting room, and so I laid there alone with this sweet little nurse named Susan. I'll never forget her, and she held my hand while they did a needle biopsy, and she softly whispered over and over again, God is going to take care of you. I will never forget that. I have relied on the Lord a great deal in my life. We have been through other struggles, having babies and things like that, but until that day, I don't know that I ever begged God to come and lay beside me.1:49I was terrified, and I literally just begged him. I prayed and begged, please, God, come lay beside me. And the fear didn't go away. Fear doesn't just instantly go away like that, but I did feel him. I did not feel alone in that moment. I felt him laying beside me. Deuteronomy 31.8 says,2:21It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear. I clung to that verse over the next few weeks. After you get an initial diagnosis, especially with lymph node involvement, you go through a lot of testing. And so I had bone scans and PET scans and MRIs and CTs and you name it, and I clung to that verse. I constantly repeated to myself that he has already gone before me.2:49I spoke one night with a former pastor friend of mine, and he constantly told me, God wasn't surprised by this. He was never surprised by this. He already knew the plans for me. And so I clung to that, too, thinking, you know, he did. He already knew the plan for me long before I got this diagnosis. So he already knows the outcome. And so I clung to the fact that he knew the plans for my life.3:16During that time, God never left me. He sustained me and what I thought then were the scariest times of our lives. Regardless of what you're going through in this life, never forget that he has already gone before us. He already knows the way, and you just have to follow him.3:44My scans were good, and due to the type of cancer I had, my doctor opted to do six months of hormone-blocking therapy to shrink my tumor first. Six months later, I had a bilateral mastectomy. A few weeks after my surgery, Blaine came to me, and he said he was having a few issues. And he thought maybe the doctor showed her a colonoscopy. And I, being the great supportive wife I am, thought he was crazy.4:11And, you know, I'm sitting here trying to recover, and I'm like, okay, fine. Just go to the doctor. Get your stuff done. Okay, that's fine. So I'm glad that he did what he needed to do instead of what I thought because several weeks later, we sat in a surgeon's office hearing yet another cancer diagnosis with even more lymph node involvement this time. At that point in our lives, I felt like God wasn't just speaking to us. He was screaming at us.4:40And I just couldn't quite figure out what he was saying and what he wanted us to do. That summer, I clung to Exodus 14.14. The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still. So many things in our lives, we think, okay, we've got this. We can control this. I am type A. I am a controller. I want everything to be just like this. And so God will quickly show you that that's not always his plan. And so that summer, I had to endure chemo over 12 weeks while Blaine at the same time was doing a radiation and chemo combination over six weeks.5:10God was definitely fighting our battle for us. I don't think I quite realized that until this summer when I have very few memories of last summer. And so I think he was literally just carrying us through last summer. My sister was pointing out some things at the beach this year, about last year. And I was like, I don't even remember that.5:39And so I think there was a time in our life when God literally just carried us through. And so I look back, and the only way we had enough strength to get through all that was just through him. He gets all the glory always for all of it. Exodus 9.16 says, I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. We may never know why this storm has come in our life, but he does.6:06He sent the storm, and we'll always trust in his plan because we knew if our storm brought him glory, then we would be okay because he would never leave us. This is actually not in my notes, but one of the scariest nights was the night of my PET scan. We waited on the results. There were some weird things that happened that day, and they had to go in and re-scan a couple times, which was very scary because I kept asking,6:33why are you having to re-scan? And they said, we're just needing to re-scan a spot. And so we stood in the kitchen that night, and I was so scared. And I'll never forget Blaine saying, you know, no matter what, God is still God. And he's going to either heal you now or heal you on the other side, and we're going to have to be ready for whatever it is. And, you know, sometimes that's a hard pill to swallow because we want it here, and sometimes it's not here.7:04And so that verse reminded me of that when I was going through this in that, you know, no matter what, he's going to get glory, whether it's through the way we want our plan to go or whether it's his way of the plan he wants to go. As summer ended, I started daily radiation treatments and Blaine faced a surgery that would lead to a permanent change in his life.7:30The surgery went well. However, a few weeks later, he ended up in the hospital with some complications. Those complications led to two more surgeries and 18 very long days in the hospital. During that time, I knew God was with us, but it was very, very hard to feel him every day, especially on one particular day. After the second surgery, the doctor came out and told us that he was going to have to do a much more extensive surgery.7:58And we had prayed and prayed against that surgery. We did not want to do that surgery. It was a very bad recovery, and it was a tough surgery. And he came out and explained to us that that was the only option at this point. And that was probably one of the lowest days in my life because I knew when Blaine woke up that I was going to have to tell him that we had to do the very thing that we had prayed against. And so I spent some time in the courtyard at the hospital.8:28I prayed. I spent some time praying before he got back to the room. And when we got back to the room, I explained to him. And he, of course, was much more positive than me. And he said, you know, it is what it is, and God already knew. And what I thought was going to be the scariest conversation, he said, okay, let's do it. This is God's plan then. This is what we're going to do. And so God had already spoke to him, I guess, while he was asleep, and told him it was going to be okay.8:57And so I was devastated and defeated, and God was already building us back up. Psalms 34, 17 says, When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. That night, we cried out for help. Brad and Josh came to the hospital that night. They prayed with us. It was late, I remember. And they still came, and we prayed, and we went to sleep that night listening to Shane and Shane.9:25And opened up to the windows, probably for the first time in that hospital room, and saw the lights of the city, and fell asleep to that Christian music. And I don't think I've ever felt the Lord's presence like I did that night, just telling us it's going to be okay. And so in the middle of your battle, you cannot give up on God. He is still fighting when you are not, and there are going to be times in your life where you're not going to be able to fight anymore.9:54That day, I couldn't fight anymore, and God was still fighting for us, regardless of the fact that I could not. Over the next few months, Blaine began chemo, and we worked to get a wound healed that he had from his surgery. In February, we got the all-clear on his post-chemo scans, and I underwent reconstruction surgery. They found another abnormal lymph node, and therefore, we had to await another PET scan, another scary six weeks.10:20In April, I got the all-clear from my scan. And so today, we both get to stand cancer-free at the moment, only by the grace of God, and we're very, very thankful. Our journey is not quite over. We still have a wound that we cannot get healed, but Blaine had another surgery a few weeks back, and the doctor is hopeful. He went for a post-op, and they see some improvement, and so we're just going to continue to trust him that he has a plan on how to get that healed, and in his own timing.10:49We know that God is always going to take care of us. He's brought us this far. God worked in a million ways to sustain our family over the last two years. He sent us to the best doctors. I have some really neat stories on how we got to those doctors. It would take me forever to explain, but I will tell you this. It started when my brother fell in love with a girl 14 years ago, and she became my sister-in-law, played a major role in helping us find the doctors that we got to.11:17And so it's amazing that God begins his work long before we ever even know our story. God began a work in our family 14 years ago. He sent all of you to provide us with prayers, with meals, child care, financial assistance. Since our diagnosis, we have not been in need for one thing.11:46We have actually been blessed beyond measure, probably over the last two years more than we ever have in our lives. Every bill has been met. We've gained way too much weight because of all the food. Our playroom is to the max because everybody brings our kids prizes. When Blaine had surgery a few weeks ago, Rhett said, Oh, is somebody going to bring the snack basket? And I mean, he's just spoiled with the snack basket. So we kid all the time that, you know, remission is going to be a real reality check with our kids and our family because we've been so blessed and spoiled in the last two years.12:15God sends people to help you. He sends people to stand in the gap. And that's what our church family, that's what our friends, that's what our family has done for the last two years. And we are so blessed. A couple weeks ago, our community lost a teenager to cancer, and he was a former student at our school.12:40And my nine-year-old, that night when I was praying, we prayed for his family, my nine-year-old looked at me and asked, Mommy, why did God choose to heal you and Daddy but not him? That was a very hard question, and it really spoke to me. And, you know, I explained to him that God did heal him just in a different way.13:08He healed him and took him to heaven, and that's how he healed him. And he asked me, is he going to heal you and Daddy that way one day? And my answer was absolutely yes. He is our Savior, and because we know him, one day we're all going to be there and healed because not everyone is suffering with cancer, but everyone is suffering with something in this life because this life is full of sin. And that's the best way I could explain it to him, and that one day we're all going to be whole again with him.13:37And he said, well, when will that be? And I said, I don't know. I can't tell you for sure when that will be. We try to shelter my four-year-old because he's still so innocent and it scares him. But when my nine-year-old said, will it come back? I had to tell him I don't know. I don't know if Mommy and Daddy's cancer will come back one day. However, I know we're going to be ready if it does, and I know that God's going to take care of us if it does, and that he will carry us through it no matter what.14:05And I told him, the best thing I can tell you is that because we know Christ, no matter what, one day we're all going to be together, and one day we're all going to be healed, and cancer will no longer be a word we know anymore. And I felt good telling him that, and he felt good knowing that. And so we just continue to pray nightly, God, keep cancer away from this house. Keep cancer away from our family. And we will continue to trust him all the days of our life,14:31and we will continue to give him the glory because nothing about our story is about us. It's all about him and how he took care of us in the middle of our storm.14:51God's good, ain't he? She changed that up on me. Kind of took me off guard. I appreciate that. Get all emotional now. But again, I want to thank you guys for all your support, your prayers, the food, of course. But there was never a point in time going through this storm that we felt alone,15:18that we felt, you know, that there wasn't someone constantly reaching out to us, constantly getting text messages saying, hey, we're praying for you guys. You know, and that really meant a lot to us. So I want to thank you all for that. You know, there was a conference that we went to back in January 2016.15:43It was a youth conference in Gatlinburg. The youth go every year. This particular year, Rick Burgess was one of the speakers. And he was speaking on life storms. You know, this was his first trip back to speak at this conference since the last time he was there,16:08which is when his son died in their swimming pool. They had to pull him off stage and send him home. So it was very impactful. And one of the things he said that really stuck with me was, he said, there's three seasons in life. You're either in a storm, you're heading out of a storm, or you're heading towards a storm.16:35Basically saying storms are inevitable in life. If you're living, you're going to encounter storms. All right. So the night Meg spoke of earlier, it was a very low night in the hospital. Like she said, we spent 18 days there. And that trip, it seemed like every time we thought we were kind of heading in the right direction,17:03the bottom would fall back out, and we'd just fall back down. And this was probably the third or fourth time we had fallen back down. And, you know, it was starting to hit hard. We were real low. The song that she spoke of was by Shane and Shane. It was called Psalm 46. And I'd like to read you a little part of that song.17:32It says, Lord of hosts, you're with us, with us in the fire, with us as a shelter, with us in the storm. You will lead us through the fiercest battle. Oh, where else would we go but with the Lord of hosts? The oceans roar. You are the Lord of all. The one who calms the winds and waves and makes my heart be still. Though the earth gives way, the mountains move into the sea, the nations rage, I know my God is in control.17:59That is a song that I played on repeat over and over and over again, in my car, at work. My co-workers probably hate that song because they know it by heart now. But that song really picked me up. And it got me through a lot of tough times. And what that song is, you know, talking about, based on the title, is Psalms 46.18:27And I'd like to read that to you as well. It says, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth gives way. Though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea. Though its waters roar and foam. Though the mountains tremble at its swelling. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God. The holy habitation of the Most High.18:57God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God will help her when morning dawns. The nations rage. The kingdoms totter. He utters his voice. The earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Come behold the works of the Lord. How he has brought desolations upon the earth. He makes war cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear.19:26He burns the chariots with fire. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. You know, there's that one part of that verse that's very familiar to all of us. Be still and know that I am God. And it's a verse that is very impactful, but yet we kind of seem to gloss over it these days.19:51Our Christian society will take something like this verse and put it on coffee mugs and bumper stickers and picture frames. If you're like me in my house, you can't walk through a door without some kind of wooden placard on the back of it that has this kind of verse on it. But we kind of lose the power of it, of what's behind it, when we just see it randomly and so much, right?20:20So what I want to do today is I want to kind of go back and look at the history behind this psalm. Kind of what was happening at the time that caused this to be written. And the story is found in two places in the Bible. It's found in 2 Kings, chapter 18, and 2 Chronicles, chapter 32. I'm not going to read it straight from it.20:51I'm just going to kind of tell you guys the story today just to save time. But this story consists of two main players. You have King Hezekiah, who is the king of Judah at the time. And you have Sennacherib, who is the king of Assyria. And during this time, the Assyrian army was going through Judah and conquering many great cities along its way.21:11It's basically on a war path heading towards Jerusalem, where King Hezekiah is. And so basically, right now, the army is in the next city over, okay? At this point, if there were a warning system for storms in our lives, right, Hezekiah would be in a watch, okay?21:37There's something out there. There's something bad. And it's probably coming your way, okay? So what He does is He does what we all try to do, and try to handle our own storms, our own situations. He reaches out to Sennacherib, and He says,22:04Hey, what will it take for you to go away? What can we do to make you leave us alone? Okay, we know you're out there. We know you're bad. What will it take? What are you after? And so He responds back to them, and He says, It'll take 30 talents of gold, 300 talents of silver, okay? So He's excited. Hey, we got that. Not a problem.22:33He starts going through all His household, His kingdom, His treasury. He even rips the gold out of the temple. He gets everything He wants. Sends it off to Him. Now, like me, when I tend to try and fix my own problems that are bigger than me, I typically wind up digging a bigger hole than I started in. And that's kind of what He's done here.23:02Sennacherib didn't care about the money. He was going to have the money anyway as soon as He took over the city. Right? He wanted the power. He wanted the city. He didn't care about money. And now He also knows that Hezekiah is afraid of Him. So what He does is He takes a couple of His generals and sends them to the city of Jerusalem. And they stand outside the wall, and they begin to speak at the people on the wall, to yell out to them,23:28trying to tell them what's coming. You know, and just to give you an idea of what was coming, the Assyrian army used a military strategy called a siege. And what a siege is, is they would encamp around your city. And they would cut off the water supply. They would cut off food and any other supplies going in and out of your city.23:58They would basically turn your fortified city into a prison cell. And so they would sit outside and just hang out. On the inside, everybody's thirsting to death, starving to death, disease is going through the city. And the army outside would wait until the people inside are too weak to fight back.24:26And then they would attack and destroy the city. And they were known for being very brutal. They were known for skinning their victims alive. So all these things, they were letting the people know. Hey, this is coming. They're also letting them know, your God's not going to save you.24:53Hezekiah was known as a godly king. And so that's the first thing they started telling the people. You know, we know Hezekiah has told you his God will save you. He's not going to. Every other city we've come to has told us the same thing. And here we are. So at this point, sirens are going off, right?25:20If they had a cell phone, they'd be buzzing. They're right smack in the middle of James Van's polygon. It is now full-on warning. The storm is there. It's bad, and it's at the door. Hezekiah finally turns to God this time. He sends some messengers to the prophet Isaiah and says,25:46call out to God for a sign. Call out to God and let us know what to do. So the messengers reach Isaiah. He calls out to God and he gives them a message to send back. And the message was, God has seen and heard what is going on, and he will deliver you. So by the time the messengers get back to Hezekiah, the siege is on.26:13The full force of the army is encamped around the city. It's bad. It's no longer wondering if the storm will hit, how bad it would be, you know, when it might be. It's there. They're in the middle of it, okay? And at this point, there is no hope. Just like the generals told them, they're a prisoner in their own city.26:40There is no hope. They're going to wait them out. They're going to rush in. They're going to kill them. So Hezekiah takes the letters from Isaiah, and he spreads them out on the floor, and he begins to pray over them. And he's praying for God to save him. But I'll give you, read to you the last couple sentences here of his prayer.27:06It's in 2 Kings chapter 19, verse 19. It says, So now, O Lord our God, save us, please, from His hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone. So there's something special about that prayer. It's not just, Lord, save us. Lord, get us out of this mess. Lord, protect us.27:36Lord, heal us. It's, Lord, do this so that your name be known. It's, Lord, do this in a way that all the nations of earth may know that you are the one true God. All right. Back when Meg and I were first diagnosed, Calvary Baptist Church down the road did a prayer meeting for us.27:57And it was your typical, you know, lifting each other up in prayers. They put us in the middle. Family and friends gathered around. And one by one, they began to lift up prayers. And so, it came to be, you know, I felt urged to pray as well.28:21And my prayer was, Lord, whatever happens through this, you're in control. It's your plan. And we want you to be glorified for it. Whatever the outcome, whatever the cost, you be glorified. And I really believe, you know, this is one of the ways he's being glorified in this.28:51I'll tell you this much. Don't ever make God a promise that you'll do whatever he wants. You'll be standing up in front of a church audience giving your testimony when you don't ever speak in front of church audiences. But, back to the story. So, Hezekiah is laid down, prays for God to save him, and prays for his glory to be known.29:17And so, that night, God showed up. In a time when there was zero hope, God showed up. When there was no humanly possible way for them to get out of this mess, for them to survive, God showed up.29:40That night, God sent an angel of death into the camp of the Assyrian army. He went through and killed 185,000 soldiers. Just like that. Drop dead. 185,000 men just left the fight. God showed up.30:13Right when he was needed.30:22The next morning, the rest of the Assyrian army woke up, started shaking their buddies, trying to get them up to, you know, head on out, start to realize what's going on. And they didn't want any part of what's going on here. Hezekiah's God was real. And they were done. They packed up their tent. They packed up their camp. And they headed out. There was no possible way out of that for Hezekiah and his people without God.30:51And it took to the point of Hezekiah giving up, getting down on his hands and knees and giving it over to God. The next morning, it was customary at this time that kings would gather their people.31:13And they would take them out the gates and onto the battlefield so that they could see the victory firsthand, the desolation of the enemy, and to see what God had done. And so, I want to go back and read Psalms 46, 8 through 11 again with this perspective. It says,31:45It says, Come behold the works of the Lord, how He has brought desolations on the earth. He makes war cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns the chariots with fire. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. That one little verse.32:15Be still and know that I am God. It wasn't until Hezekiah gave up. It wasn't until he was still. You know, and to me, there's a reason it says, be still and know that I am God. It's because if you're still digging, if you're still working, if you're still struggling, you don't really know He's God. You're not giving in to His power, to His authority, to His control on the situation in your life.32:42But that's what He's wanting us to do. He's wanting us to give our struggles over to Him. He's wanting us to give it up. And I know in this room, there's many storms. Different kinds, different sizes, different struggles. It don't matter. They're all storms. And my prayer for you today is that you will get to a point where you will give it up.33:11That you will be still. That you will turn it over to God and watch what He does with it. And here's the thing. That struggle, that sickness, that addiction, that sin that you're holding on to, this is the best part of it. Once you let go and you give it to God, your hands are free to raise them up and to praise Him.33:39And to let everybody else know, my God is awesome. To give Him the glory. But that's my prayer for you guys today. That you would give it up. Whatever's hurting you, whatever struggles you have, give it to God. Give Him the glory. And watch what He does. Be still and know that I am God.34:07Thank you.More sermons on Psalms →
