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[ Silence ] [ Music ] I need Thee every hour, Most gracious Lord.

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♪ No lender was like mine ♪ ♪ And he ♪ (alarm blaring) ♪ O Lord ♪

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♪ I need thee oh ♪ ♪ I need thee ♪ ♪ I need thee oh ♪ ♪ I need thee ♪

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[MUSIC] [MUSIC] ♪ Oh, bless me now ♪ ♪ Oh, bless me now ♪

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♪ My Savior, I come, I come, I come ♪ ♪ I come to thee ♪ ♪ Oh, I come, I come to thee ♪ ♪ Oh, bless me now ♪

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♪ Oh bless me now ♪ ♪ Oh bless me now ♪ ♪ Bless me now ♪ ♪ For I say I come to thee ♪

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♪ To thee ♪ ♪ Oh, bless me now ♪ ♪ Bless me now ♪ ♪ Oh, bless me now ♪

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♪ Oh, bless me now ♪ ♪ My Savior, I come ♪ ♪ My Savior, I come ♪ ♪ My Savior, I come ♪

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I come to Thee [applause] I waited. He brought me up also

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out of a horrible pit. out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. Many shall see it and fear and shall trust in the Lord.

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patiently, waiting patiently. Our lives are lived in waiting, waiting to be born, waiting to grow up, waiting to go to school, waiting to graduate, waiting to get a job, waiting to marry.

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And on and on it goes, and we wait for death. The psalmist here has been waiting on the Lord. Much of what we wait for we never get. And sometimes the persons we wait for never arrive.

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Some time ago there was a play on Broadway waiting for Godot, who never came. But the psalmist here gives testimony to the fact that he had marvelous results when he waited on the Lord.

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I waited on the Lord. One translation of this is, "I waited and I waited. I waited and I waited on the Lord." The Psalms have an arrangement in which we have disorientation, and then after that comes orientation, then comes celebration.

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Disorientation, orientation, and celebration. We know what it means to be disoriented. We know what it means when our lives are shattered, torn apart. we have a way of putting it when we don't have ourselves together.

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When we seem to fall apart at the seams. Disorientation. And life has those moments. Life has those experiences.

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If you haven't had any of them, keep living. Because life has them all along the way. At every stage of our existence, we have those experiences. I waited, and I waited. This is the plight of the psalmist. He's been down in the dumps, and so he is lamenting his situation.

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He's been feeling sorry for himself. He's given himself a number of pity parties. He's been confused about who he is and what he is to do. That's what it means to be disoriented, to be maladjusted, to be unable to shift gears in keeping up with the demands of human existence.

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Then there is a movement toward orientation. The psalmist experiences a radical change. Where he was confused, he has clarity of thought. He becomes oriented.

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He gets himself together. He gets an authentic grip on himself. He realizes who he is and his mission in life. And he moves from disorientation to orientation. Listen to the descriptive language of the psalmist as he moves from one stage to the other. He's in distress. He's disoriented. He cries unto the Lord.

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He asks the Lord to consider his situation. He's in a horrible pit. He's bogged down in miry clay. He's held fast in the clutches of despair.

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He cries unto the Lord. So the psalmist in the midst of his despair waits for the Lord. He waits for hope.

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He waits. And as he waits, he cries while he's waiting. In this state of brokenness, he says,

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"I waited, And I waited. He says I waited in such a way that His wait is prolonged so that time after time

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He just keeps on waiting I remember when I was a teenager I had a Prize that I was to receive for having written an essay in the class And the one who was to give me the prize

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Didn't have the prize And being anxious to receive the prize I Went to him and then finally the last day of school came And he still didn't have the prize

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And so he had me to come back and he gave me the address where he would be during the summer recess and I waited. And I waited. I came back to the place time and time again and finally he had the prize. I guess he got tired of waiting.

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I kept coming back. So even when you get tired of waiting, to keep coming back. That's what the psalmist does here. I waited and I waited.

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The wait, I think, is accentuated when you have a crisis situation. And the Psalmist says a crisis. I don't need to rehearse before you what we've all witnessed in the last few hours of those who were waiting in Houston and in New Orleans and other places, waiting for needed resources

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to be delivered. They waited and waited and some met the end of their existence waiting on supplies and resources that they hoped would come. The expectation was there, but that for which we waited did not show itself in time to save the lives of many. So this is an anthem of praise. This is a story and song of one who waited, who came through the experience of the agony of waiting.

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And there certainly is an agony of waiting. You expect it to happen every moment, and this moment comes and it doesn't happen, happen and on and on it goes and you cry out and as it is expressed in Cicero's orations to Catiline, "How long, oh Catiline, will you abuse our patience?" Our patience is abused when we don't get what we wait for, but the psalmist here

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has good news to report. I waited and I waited. Some of us can identify with this experience in our lives over and over again. I waited and I waited. So the thing for which he waits happens. Psalmist goes to the tabernacle and and gives his testimony concerning

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the great things God has done in his life. He has rescued him from the roaring waters of destruction. He has delivered him

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from the pit of depression. He has saved him from the dungeon of despair. God has reached down with his long arms of mercy and found him in the state of disappointment and grief. He's found him and taken him from the depths of degradation

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and delivered him from the prison of faith. His waiting pays off. It's expressed in the language of a song that we often sing. Serving the Lord will pay off.

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Be patient. Be willing to wait. You see, really, what life is all about, as is expressed in one poet's message to us, is learning to labor and to wait.

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If we can somehow balance those two, working and waiting on God, we can somehow pass through the shifting scenes of this life when we learn how to labor and to wait. We come to a traffic signal and it has in some places,

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walk, others, and then you wait a while, it says wait. Walk or wait. And you don't walk on the wait. You wait and then walk.

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That's the rhythm of life. That's the mystery of our history of how to work and wait. So we can identify with the psalmist what God does. We wait on Him.

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Many times we wait much longer than we think, but you see, God's time is not our time. We must wait on Him. And God comes in His own time, in His own way, God comes and rescues the psalmist

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from the pit of destruction. God comes and He goes. Sometimes people are delivered and they forget from whence they have been delivered and they forget the person who delivers them. But the psalmist doesn't do that. When he's delivered,

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he goes to the temple. And there he expresses thanksgiving to God. And he says, "I love the Lord,

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He heard my cry. "Tid it ever groan, long as I live, and troubles rise, I'll hasten to His throne." We express our gratitude to God in that old hymn when we've waited, and He has rewarded our waiting. So His comrades know what has happened. When God has delivered you, it ought not be kept a secret.

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We should give testimony to his goodness and his grace. I waited patiently, he says, for the Lord. I waited and I waited. Some years ago there was a girl out in West Texas who fell in a well.

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And she waited for rescue workers to deliver her. She could not deliver herself. So there is a miracle in waiting because God works while we wait. He works.

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The poor John Milton is talking about the blessing in waiting when he says, "They also serve who stand and wait." They witness God's miracles. I'm talking about the pilgrims of faith

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who are willing to wait through the long and lonely hours of the night to wait for the morning. That's what God wants us to do, to wait for the morning. It gets really dark many times.

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We can't see our way, But there is a word that comes to cheer us and to strengthen us for the day. Wait for the morning. And you know the wonderful thing about waiting for the morning

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is that nobody, no human being can keep the morning from coming. Wait for the morning. God, the creator of this universe, brings the morning, no matter how dark it may be, how dark it is at midnight, blacker than a hundred midnights it may be, but God brings

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the morning. The time will come when gray streaks of dawn will pierce the horizon, push back the darkness, for the morning. Wait for the morning, for the morning will come. The morning will come, oh the darkness comes, yes, but the morning will come and the morning will

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assure us into that bright new day that God has prepared for us. And we can join the psalmist in going to the house of God and saying I waited and I waited God is all right I have my testimony to give God delivers in his own time wait I say on the Lord be of good courage and he will strengthen your heart even in the

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midst of your waiting God gives strength so wait I'll say it for the morning we come now to extend invitation to accept this God who comes to us in Jesus Christ as we sing together to him room at the cross there's room there's always room for those who would join that group of waiters.

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The door of the church is open, may come by letter, by Christian experience, on profession of faith. Wait on the Lord. Let Him direct your life. Let Him guide you in the way that you should go. [MUSIC] ♪ A labyrinth which we may hide ♪

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♪ And His grace for me ♪ ♪ Is sufficient for me ♪ ♪ That He could lift me up ♪ ♪ And floodeth the sea ♪

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♪ There's room at the cross for you ♪ [music] [The End] [ Silence ]

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[Music] ♪ There's room at the cross for you ♪ ♪ There's room at the cross for you ♪ ♪ Though millions have come ♪

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♪ There's still room for one ♪ ♪ Yes, there's room at the cross ♪ ♪ For you ♪ - Attention to the fact that our Liberty picnic

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is tomorrow. There it is. Oh how he loves you and me. Oh how he loves you and me.

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Oh how he loves you, oh how he loves me. Oh how he loves you. He gave his life. What more could he give?

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Oh how he loves you. Oh how he loves me. Oh how he loves you. Let's move about, shaking hands, giving a holy handshake, giving a holy kiss, a holy

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hug. Don't stand still. Let's move. Would you stand now?

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Singing. You stand there. Yeah. Singing.

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[MUSIC PLAYING] You think? [BLANK_AUDIO]