Are You Desperate?

This clip is part of the sermon “Let the Redeemed of the Lord Say So" delivered by Kevin DeYoung at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, NC on June 8, 2025.

He delivered them from destruction.  God can do this in your life, He really can.  He can speak a word; one little word will fell him.  He can give you a word and suddenly things don’t seem so desperate, the clouds part just a little.  Not usually all at once, your life doesn’t usually go from cataclysmic thunderstorms to bright shining rainbows and unicorns, but you can see a cloud just a little bit as God comes, brings His healing mercy, reminds you of His steadfast love. You know who hates your sin more than you do, God does.  You know who’s more willing to forgive you than you are, God is.

And there’s a final scene. The fearful are comforted.  You see verse 23.  Notice now the predicament is not so much our sins are our sins.  Maybe you were listening to these first three scenes, especially number two and number three and you think, “Okay, that’s not me right now.”  I don’t think that I’m suffering because of my sins or because of my folly or my rebellion against God, but it may be, not your sin, but your size, meaning you look out like these men did and you see great waters, mountains to the heavens, and troubles down to the deeps and it’s such a remarkable description of what we feels like sometimes as your problems seem so much more massive than your ability to handle them.  You don’t know where you’re gonna get the hours in the day, you down know if you even have anymore tears to cry, you don’t know how you’re gonna get through next week let alone the next decades and you feel like this.  Verse 26, your courage has melted, you're reeling, you’re staggering like a drunk man.  You’re at your wits’ end.”  You’re saying, “I don’t know what to do.” 

What you have in your life this morning is panic and the deliverance to meet that need as God calms the storm, He brings them into a safe haven.  That moment when you cry out to God and say, “The world is too big, my problems are too big, the loss of this loved one is too big, this diagnosis is too big, the unknown ahead of me is too big, I’m lost at sea, I can’t do this.”  God says, “I can bring you to a safe haven.  I can calm that storm.”