WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU CAN'T "GET-ER DONE"?

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU CAN’T “GET-ER DONE”

PSALMS 18:4-7

Is it just a man thing?  Do women ever feel this way?  Am I the only one who thinks he is 10 feet tall and bullet proof?

Most of you know of my background.  But let me just put my questions in context for you.

I was a real wimp growing up.  In elementary school and even in high school (There was no such thing as middle school or junior high when I was in school.  You just went right from elementary school with one teacher who was with you all day long….to high school, where you went from class to class) I was not good around people.  I was intimidated by just about everyone. 

I can remember wanting to go out for little league baseball one year.  I wasn’t as big as the other kids but I could pitch pretty well. I remember Dad nailing a vegetable basket up on the porch so I could try to “hit the spot when I was pitching”.   There is no telling how many windows I broke or damage I did in learning to pitch. 

I was good at fielding the ball and although not a power hitter, I could make contact with the ball and was fast enough to get on base. I would have been a pretty good kid to have on your little league team. 

So the day came to sign up.  Everyone was supposed to meet at the practice field right after school.  I made up my mind that I was going to play ball on this little league team.  I got my stuff together and walked down to the field.  But before I got there, while I was still about a half block away, I heard some of the guys already there.  They were laughing and yelling and throwing the ball back and forth.  I recognized several of their voices.  They were a year older than me.  They were a bit bigger than me.  Suddenly, I stopped in my tracks.  I can’t play ball with those guys.  I’m not good enough to be on that team.  I was intimidated. 

So I turned around walked back home and never played little league baseball.  That’s the way I was in school.  That’s just one example.  There were others.  I just couldn’t function around people. I HAD NO SELF CONFIDENCE.

But then I graduated from high school.    There was a little thing called the Viet Nam War going on about that time and if you were healthy and not wealthy and you were not wise enough to go to college and had too much pride to run to Canada or Mexico, you pretty much were going to get a free trip to Viet Nam.   

So instead of accepting that free trip I decided to join the Coast Guard.  To this day I don’t know why.  I never wanted to rescue anyone.  I never wanted to fight fire.  I got sea sick for goodness sake!

But sometime between when I joined and when they sent me to Texas to work with a Search and Rescue team, I gained some self-confidence.  Suddenly I thought I could do anything.  I would jump into the Gulf with nothing on but my cut-off jeans and my knife and rescue folks. 

PAGE 2

I found that I loved to run into dangerous places that others were running out of.  I became a FIX-ER!

If someone was in trouble, I was the one to go get them out of trouble.  If situation was bad, I was the one who would be sent to take care of it.  If something was broken I’d be the one to go and GET-ER DONE.

Honestly I have no idea how that happened, but it did, and I was comfortable in that position. I’m not trying to blow my own horn.  I just want to make the point , that’s the way I saw myself and I guess the way others saw me because they kept putting me in that position. 

ENOUGH ABOUT ME, LET’S TALK ABOUT DAVID FOR A LITTLE WHILE.

Are there people in the Bible that you don’t like?

Oh, I’m not talking about the bad guys, like Goliath or Ahab or Herod or Pilate. I’m talking about guys that are supposed to be the good guys….but somehow you just don’t like them. 

Well, that’s the way I use to feel about David.  I don’t know why.  I think I thought he was a show-off.  I may have thought that God just handed him everything he needed.  But for some reason I just didn’t like David. 

You know the Bible tells us however that David was “a man after God’s own heart”.  And I just couldn’t get that either.  He stole a man’s wife and had the guy killed!  Is that a man after God’s own heart? 

Well, you know the story.  He went from a little shepherd boy to fighting and killing the giant to King of Israel.  David could pretty much ask for what he wanted and pay for what he got.  David was a guy who could GET-ER DONE.  Wouldn’t you agree? 

Although David had lots of high times when things went really well for him, he also had a bunch of bad times.  And I want to take you to one of those times quickly this morning and see if you don’t think it applies to us, today. 

Saul loved David at first.  After all David had killed the giant and given Israel the victory over the Philistines.  David could play the harp and sooth Saul’s restless soul.  But Saul got jealous.  Saul hated David then and Saul tried on many occasions to catch David and kill him. 

In Psalms 18 we find a Psalm of David which according to my Bible are the words or “song” if you will that David sang when God delivered him from the hand of Saul on one of these occasions.    

Let’s look at the kind of situation David was in: 

Chapter 18 verse 4-5:

PAGE 3

“The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.  The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.”

You don’t have to be a Bible scholar to read this and figure out that David was feeling kind of bad.  

If he had been a GET-ER DONE GUY once, he certainly wasn’t feeling it now.  Sure God had blessed him in the past.  Sure things had gone good for him back then. Sure people liked him and cheered for him back in the day…..but now HE WAS IN TROUBLE. 

And that brings me up to today.  That brings me up to the here and now.  That’s where I’m at this morning. 

We’ve had some good times in this church.  We have had some great services and great fellowships and times when things were really looking up.  We have had souls saved and believers sanctified.  Families have been brought together.  Lives have been changed. 

But recently, we have secured a new pastor.  Not just any pastor but a pastor who has a doctor’s degree.     He is educated and has traveled all over the U.S. to speak to various organizations and groups.  He has pastored churches much larger than this one.  And now WE HAVE HIM as our pastor.

BUT before he had been her long enough to learn where the light switches are located…….he loses his “real” job.

And if that isn’t enough, now he is battling this “Bell’s palsy” thing which is affecting his speech. 

But the pastor is not the only one facing tough times.

I can mention one of our members who has diabetic problems.  For a long time he has struggled with infection in his feet and legs.  He has been in the hospital for a while now.   He was supposed to get out of the hospital yesterday but sometime in the middle of Friday night he woke up with his lower extremities swollen and right back in the same or even worse situation than he was before.  Doctors now say that he will most likely lose his leg.

We could probably go around the room and each of you could tell of a situation in your life RIGHT NOW that has you feeling the same way David felt with Saul hot on his trail. 

So what can I do about it?  What can we do about it? If I’m such a “Get-er done” person why don’t I do something?

I CAN’T FIX IT.  I CAN’T GET-ER DONE. 

I can’t find the pastor a job or make his palsy go away.  I can’t heal our brother’s leg and cure his diabetes.  I can’t fix your problem and make the things that are troubling you to disappear. 

What do you do when you can’t GET-ER DONE?

PAGE 4

David had the answer.  Let’s read on a little bit further.

Chapter 18, verse 6:

“In my distress I CALLED UPON THE LORD and CRIED OUT UNTO MY GOD…..and He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry came before Him, even into His ears”

TRUTH NUMBER ONE:   WHEN I CRY OUT TO GOD….HE WILL HEAR ME!

How foolish we are to try to fix things ourselves.  How silly it is to think we can “Get-er done”.

We think we are doing our best, trying to make things work in our lives when in all actuality we are making things worse.

I was told a true story many years ago about a textile mill down in “The Valley” (Shamut, Langdale, Laneyt) In this particular plant there were many, many sewing machines.  The workers sat there and all day long sewed garments.  They had quotas.  They had to work as fast as they could in order to make those quotas. 

But from time to time their thread would get tangled in the machine.  If their thread was tangled they couldn’t sew garments and the tally would go down they couldn’t produce. 

Each person was told when they were given the job, “If your machine gets tangled up DO NOT TRY TO FIX IT YOURSELF, CALL THE FORMAN HE CAN FIX IT QUICKLY AND GET YOU BACK TO WORK”

Well this one little lady was working hard and doing a good job of keeping up with the tally but suddenly her machine got tangled.  She knew about sewing machines and so instead of calling the foreman and making a big deal out of it she decided to do it herself. 

The more she worked the more tangled the thread got in the machine.  When the foreman finally came by and saw her machine not working he grew very angry at the lady. 

“But Mr. Foreman” she said, “I was doing my best”.

“No M’am” the foreman told her, “You were not doing your best.  Your best would have been to call on me first”.

When we get into trouble or best is to STOP RIGHT THERE AND CALL THE BOSS!

“Call on me and I will answer you and show you great and might things that you do not know”. Jer. 33:3

Calling, that’s my part.  But read on.

PSALMS 18: 7-9

PAGE 5

“Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because He was wroth (mad).  I think sometimes when we get “picked on” by the devil it makes God mad.

There went up a smoke out of His nostrils, and fire out of His mouth devoured; coals were kindled by it.

He bowed the heavens also and came down…”

Are you picking up what I’m laying down?  God will bow down the heavens to come to your aid.

TRUTH NUMBER TWO: GOD WILL MOVE HEAVEN AND EARTH TO COME TO OUR RESCUE

That’s a pretty simple plan isn’t it?  We call out; God hears and does all sorts of wild and crazy stuff to GET-ER DONE.

CONCLUSION: You know how I’d like to end this morning’s worship?

1.   I wish there was a great District Superintendent here to come forward and lead us in prayer.  I wish that we could hear him use great words and phrases, that with all his praying experience he could call together heaven and earth and let us touch God.

2.  I wish there were some of the great old saints that I use to hear at camp meeting who could fall on their knees at the altar and grab heaven by the tail and bring it down to earth so God would just walk out on our troubled waters and work a miracle.

3.  I wish we had someone who was able to pray for effect. 

But that’s not what the Word tells us we need.  It simply says if we are in need, CALL OUT.

You may not feel a need this morning.  Everything in your world might be going just fine.  You may not be at a point in your life where you feel like you need to CRY OUT TO GOD. But there are folks here that could use your prayer if you don’t need them.  

I am there.  I’m at that point where I need God to hear me.  I can’t GET-ER DONE and I need Him to do it.  And honestly, that’s a great place to be.  Until you and I get to the place where we can’t get-er done we will continue to try and do it on our own.  But when we get to the place where only a miracle will make it happen…..that’s when we get our miracle. 

What do I do when I can’t get­-er done?  I call on God and He will bow down the heavens to help me.