GOD WILL COME TO YOU WHERE YOU ARE

Psalm 40 is the psalm of David. It’s about a young man who knew struggles and difficulties. He'd had some hard places on his journey, but he'd learned one thing above them all: When you cry out to God, He answers no matter how tough it gets. No matter how deep or dark the place you are in, when you just say the name “Jesus,” He'll come. No door can hold Him back. There's no wall too thick. Christ can walk right through it. There's no sorrow too deep for Jesus to penetrate; He will touch the area of your heart that has been broken and bring healing into your life.

God is coming to you where you are right now. You must open your heart and say, “Jesus, come to me.” Don't make it complicated. In Psalm 40:1, David said, “I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined to me and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps. He has put a new song in my mouth—praise to our God; many will see it and fear and will trust in the Lord.”

David knows he is in a terrible place. He made some tragic mistakes in his life, some when he was younger and one in particular when he was older. However, David learned that God still gave him a song when he prayed. It’s a song that people can see in your confidence when your whole countenance exudes faith. It’s when you know God’s ability to lift you once more and deliver you from your enemies.

In verses 11–15, David says, “​​Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O Lord; let Your lovingkindness and your truth continually preserve me. For innumerable evils have surrounded me; my iniquities have overtaken me so that I cannot look up; they are more than the hairs of my head; therefore, my heart fails me. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me; O Lord, make haste to help me! Let them be ashamed and brought to mutual confusion who seek to destroy my life; let them be driven backward and brought to dishonor who wish me evil. Let them be confounded because of their shame, who say to me, ‘Aha, aha!’”

David said they seek to destroy me, but I'm asking you, God, to drive them backward. I'm asking you to dishonor them and let them be confused. Let them know those who they think they can triumph over you have touched and called yours. Make that your prayer: God, push back my enemies, and don't let any voice that is trying to tell me I'm not going to make it ever overcome me. David says, “Let all those who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; let such as love your salvation say continually, ‘The Lord be magnified!’ But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinks upon me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God.”

Acts chapter 16 tells us of a dark and despairing prison. It was called the inner prison, with no light or windows. The prison keeper had to call for a light even to enter. There's no visible comfort, no birds to watch in trees or flowers to look at on the grass. Everything is dark. All that anybody in that place would be aware of is the depth of their failures, struggles, trials, hopelessness, cruelty of their captors, and the bleakness of their future. It was where only the faint hope of divine help was left. I wonder if some in that place may have even thought about God. You don't know, but somebody there must have said, “God, can you help me?” Does anyone feel that way right now?

Suddenly, in this dark place, they heard His song. What’s amazing is that despite the pain in the song, it broke the power of despair over them. Two guys, Paul and Silas, are thrust into that prison. They've been beaten with rods and lying on cold stone slabs at midnight. That’s when they began to sing and praise God. Could you imagine? I don't know what they were singing; I'd love to hear it. We, too, will share a song today. Just like the people in the inner prison, it has the power to free us from our struggles with family and marriage issues, physical illnesses, and addictions.

People are desperate to get victory over something they have to fight through. Everybody has to battle certain things repeatedly in their lives, yet all the trials of this world lose their power to His song. David said, “God heard me. He took me out of a horrible place, set my feet upon a rock, put a new song in my mouth, and many will see it and fear and trust in the Lord.” We are not here to pretend like we don't have problems. Some people try to, but that's not the truth of life; we all have to go through storms. Paul and Silas weren't shouting in from outside the prison through the window. They were in the prison, beaten up with their hands in chains. They weren't spared the hardship—it’s power was lost on them. They defeated it. God put such power in their song that the whole prison began to shake when they began to sing and pray.

When we choose to live for God and sing for God, Hell begins to shake. Every devil of Hell begins to tremble because every demon knows that one saint of God rising with His song can tear their kingdom to pieces. How many years did it take to build that prison? Do you think forging those iron gates and installing the inner bars was a walk in the park? No. Heavy slabs of stone had to be put down, and an intricate system was created to keep those prisoners captive. What did it take to bring it all to nothing? One song, sung in the midnight hour. Two saints chose to worship God above their struggles and trials because they knew they already had victory in Jesus. Paul and Silas knew Heaven was already their home. They knew no power of Hell could hold them down. They knew they were given a divine commission to take the strength of the almighty God to their generation. Hallelujah!

God brought us here to sing our song and shake everything the Devil built. He says, “You'll never get out. You'll never amount to anything. You'll never be anything. God doesn't love you. God doesn't want you.” All these lies will come crumbling down. You shake, and suddenly, all this noise breaks off—the scripture says the doors opened! Those huge prison doors with big deadbolts in oversized iron steel frames that should stay shut no matter what—don’t.

When Jesus Christ stood in the temple and opened the book of the prophet Isaiah, He said, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me.” He said God sets the captives free by the power of His presence and His Word. God is not about getting the captives to church, dressing up, and looking presentable. No, no. The Lord goes right to you where you are.

Then another thing happened in the prison—the chains fell off the men. Hallelujah! For those who say you're bound to your behaviors and lies, you don’t know the power of God. When the prison doors shook, and the chains fell off, the glory of God went into every cell. The presence of God was sweeter than the whole thought of freedom laid before them. They didn't want to leave the presence of God. It's really that simple. When you have the presence of God, where do you go to get more? What does this world offer that could rival or come close to that?

The jailer sprang to his feet, ran in, and called for a light. He planned to kill himself because losing his prisoners would cost him his life. “Paul said, ‘Do yourself no harm, for we are all here.’” Could you imagine? I think that's part of why he gave his life to Christ that night. These were hardened criminals in this place, and the thought that they would not flee an open cell perplexed him. The only explanation is God’s presence. Every man chose to sit in their cell with the door open and the chains off; they stayed there because the presence of God was there.

Just like God met those prisoners, He will come to you. The Lord will meet you right where you are, no matter how dark. He wants to set you free because He loves you. That's why Christ came to Earth in the first place. That's why He went to the cross—for you. He's not afraid of your situation. He's not ashamed of you. God loves you with an everlasting love. Through the prophet Isaiah, He said, “I can never forget you. I engraved you on the palms of my hands.” When those nails went through the hands of Jesus, your name was on the tip of them. He loves you eternally. He has a future and a plan for your life. God wants to give you more than eternal forgiveness.

The Bible says Jesus took captivity captive. He gives you the gift of eternal salvation by taking your place on the cross and paying the price for everything you have done that separated you from God. He came to you to give you hope and the future to give you a new song. Before you know it, you will sing a song like those in the inner prison. Then you'll publicly sing your song, telling all your friends. “I've got to tell you what God has done for me!” You're going to find yourself praying for them, and you're going to see God doing the same thing for them that He did for you. That's what's going to happen to you, and that's what's happening in this generation. A mighty army is coming to its feet, and you are part of it. Hallelujah!