Basket Cases Sermon - Dr. Joel Gregory

0:17 Well, bless the Lord, O my soul, and let all that have been me bless his holy name. Please be seated in the presence of the Lord. What an inestimable and anticipated privilege it is to be here once again with you at Progressive and for my dear friend now of the years, Reverend Dr. Charlie Dates. Go ahead. I'm not reluctant at all to tell you that sometimes it's hard for churches to see the forest for the trees. But there's a lot of things I don't know about, but I do know something about preachers and preaching and its history.

1:11 And you're blessed here to have... not just in this generation, but in the history of our nation and preaching. One of the great voices of the pulpit. Sometimes we can take for granted gifts that are right before us, from coast to coast and border to border. I do not know another pastor more sought after than your pastor, Reverend Dr. Charlie Dates. and it's an honor to stand here. And I also commend you for the maturity to let him rest.

1:55 To do the kind of preaching that Dr. Dates does, takes a toll mentally, emotionally, and physically in the preparation and the delivery of sermons, if there were nothing else for the pastor to do, and there's much more. I commend your maturity in letting him have a sabbatical to unstring the bow as he prepares for the season to come. It's good to be back here. I'd invite your attention this morning to a twin text, Exodus chapter 2, and a couple of verses from Acts chapter 9. If I were to write a title over this message, I would call it God's Basket Cases. Exodus chapter 2 An appendant hanging from that from Acts 9 These words famous the world over Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman A woman conceived and bore a son When she saw that he was a fine baby she hid him three months When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, plastered it with bitumen and pitch.

3:20 She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying and she took pity on him. This must be one of the Hebrews' children, she said. Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you? Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Yes. So the girl went and called the child's mother. Pharaoh's daughter said to her take this child and nurse it for me and I'll give you your wages so the woman took the child and nursed it when the child grew up she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter she took him as her son and named him Moses so she said I drew him out of the water that's one basket case but here's another one In the ninth chapter of the book of Acts, verse 23, the newly converted Saul who became poor.

4:46 After some time had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him. But their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night so they might kill him. and his disciples took him by night and led him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket. Two basket cases. Would you pray with me? Eternal God, our triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we praise your holy names. Now we wait before you to claim that promise. when you said ask and you would answer us. Seek and we would find and knock and it would be open. And then you promised that if we ask you for your Holy Spirit, you'll give it to us.

5:41 We pray that that spirit might make these words leap off of these pages and become your living word for us. In Jesus' name, amen. Would you be seated? I think about baskets. I was trying to remember, church, the first basket I remember. You might be able to think about the same thing.

6:08 See it in an old family movie. My late father had a 16-millimeter camera. We took that and turned it into a DVD. Now these many years later, I see my one-year-old self. with an Easter basket. I was barely standing there. I didn't know what it was for. I didn't know what to put in it. Maybe that's the first basket I remember. My paternal grandfather was a Texas farmer, plowed with a mule, grew everything he ever ate for 90 years. I remember his basket in the garden putting the potatoes he dug up. What do you think of when you remember a basket? basket case came into the English language in 1919 a little more than a century ago it was in the Oxford English Dictionary for the first time it referred to those British soldiers in terrible trench warfare when the screaming artillery shells would fall in the trench there were some of them that lost all four appendages quadruple amputees but were still alive and they would carry them off in baskets and they were called basket cases.

7:36 The story is that King George V the great grandfather of the current King Charles would go and visit some of them the king visiting basket cases. By 1940 the language had changed it would become a metaphor, a figure of speech for anybody who was in an impossible situation. The rock band Green Days actually has a song called Basket Case in which the lead singer says, I'm so anxious, I'm a basket case. I guess today when you say it, you talk about somebody who's incarcerated in their own inertia, dumbfounded by life's difficulties. He, she's just a what? Basket case. you're familiar with. Well, in our two texts today, we have two basket cases. Almost to tell the story, it's to tell you what you already know.

8:32 All of these people without a name yet in this chapter two of Exodus, a mother without a name, a father that shows up later, a sister without a name, this baby so far without a name, Pharaoh. Pharaoh's throwing Hebrew babies into the Nile. There's a back story. Everything has a back story. Centuries before their great great great grandfather Joseph had come to Egypt. When he was down and his brothers were up they'd sold him into slavery. But then when he was up and they were down starving he brought them back 70 of them to Egypt. He didn't put them in a FEMA trailer. He put them in the best land in the country. Land of Goshen. But then a Pharaoh rose up that what? Knew not Joseph. Somebody said he wore a red hat. It said, mega, make Egypt great again. I don't know.

9:24 I'm sorry. But anyway. Y'all forgive me, I'm sorry. But when you're going to make Egypt great again, somebody's going to pay a price. The Hebrews did. In fact, he had three strategies. First, he enslaved them and made them make bricks without straw, but they multiplied. Then he told the Hebrew midwives guild to kill the boy babies, and they obeyed God rather than Pharaoh, which is always a good idea. then finally he told all Egyptians you see a Hebrew baby throw him in the Nile that brings us to this story of this mother without a name incognito she goes down in the warm waters of the Nile imagine up to her knees and pulls up some plants called papyrus that gives us our word paper beats them with a rock until they become paper and then covers it with asphalt and then puts that baby in it and it floats along until it comes to some reeds in the Nile and it's just a basket case until the daughter of Pharaoh wakes up one day and says oh this is a hot day she herself was a goddess worshipped as a goddess she never walked she was carried around in a sedan chair on the shoulders of servants manicured, pedicured every day treated like a goddess and they carry her down and she sees that little basket there.

11:02 A basket case. Flip over to Acts 9. You don't care for Pharaoh and that group. In Acts 9, Saul, the number one Christian hater in the world, had run out of Christians to kill in Jerusalem so he got some warrants to go to the oldest city in the world, Damascus and arrest Christians there and on the way, you know and famous story, a voice out of heaven, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he's blinded by a light brighter than the sun. They lead him by the hand to Straight Street. And a Christian there who's afraid of him trembles and baptizes him. And the next day he becomes a preacher proclaiming Christ. but then but then the Jews angry with him put a dragnet all over the city they watch every gate staked out and he goes to a little Christian safe house where they're afraid of him and at midnight tying sheets together they put him in a basket lower him down the wall and the getaway car takes him to Jerusalem where he gets ordained as an evangelist He was a Rescue I prayed about this message today because I think this morning there's at least one somebody here or beyond here too.

12:32 You'd have to say I am a basket case. I don't know what it is. I've seen enough life to nominate it. Maybe a family or a home that has fallen apart and you are a basket case. I don't know what it could be. Maybe a job disappeared. You went to the same cubicle every day for 20 years. Then one day somebody shows up in a security uniform and in 15 minutes you clean out 20 years of accumulation and they take you out the back door and you're a basket case. Maybe the bank account's fizzled and you're sub-zero or the landlord has his fist permanently on your door. a repo agent sticks to your car like velcro i don't know but you're a basket case basket cases often get lonely people have a way of disappearing when you're a basket case i wanted to come by to say one thing if you don't remember anything else about this message, and that is God specializes in basket cases.

13:44 Yes, he died. Let me hand you this and I'll sit down. When you're a basket case, God can take what is fragile and turn it into what is formidable. He can take a victim and turn it into a victor. He can take the disempowered and empower them. Now think with me about this. This story is so familiar we can lose the edge of it. here's a baby in a basket on the Nile River among other things there were three things in the Nile Egyptian crocodiles now I'm not a crocodile expert but I've read about American crocodiles they're not as aggressive as Egyptian crocodiles to this year to this year 200 people a year are eaten alive by crocodile you think about a baby in a paper basket in the river with crocodiles but not only that, hippopotamus, and not only that, now river snakes.

14:52 Is there anything more fragile, weaker than the weakest, smaller than the smallest, than a baby in a paper basket floating down the mountain? If you were making odds, I think the odds would be Pharaoh one million, Moses one, in terms of anything good happening. all right well crocodiles aren't they're not very think about this here's this apostle Paul you got to have some sympathy with him he's on the road to kill Christians and in 24 hours he's in the synagogue preaching that's enough to make you this he's a PhD in theology from Gamaliel's rabbi school and overnight he loses everything. They take him to a Christian safe house and they jam him in a basket, knees up at his chin, holding on for dear life, this distinguished theologian at midnight lowered in a basket.

15:51 That's fragile. That's vulnerable. God's basket cases. Here's where I wish I could, instead of being in this pulpit, really sit down over a cup of coffee with you at your kitchen table. And ask you, are you a basket case? How's it working for you? It's interesting how God can take the weakest of the weak and reverse everything. I don't have to tell you, it's already been mentioned. Our world right now is on edge. China North Korea Taiwan Putin Ukraine Israel, Gaza Hamas and our nation as divided as I have ever seen it in my lifetime basket case I just want to remind you that sometimes God's babies can be stronger than men's battles just pick a year 1809 now in 1809 the world was in just the kind of shape it's in now Napoleon had turned part of the world red with blood and the lights were going out everywhere a rampant dictator people were afraid not only in the west here what was he going to do next but 1809 some babies were born Lucretia Mott was born And Lucretia Mott, along with her family, started the American Anti-Slavery Society that ultimately led to abolition.

17:38 Oliver Wendell Holmes, a great, fair Supreme Court justice, the greatest of all, was born. William E. Gladstone was born in 1809, a liberal prime minister of England to help all the people. Alfred Lord Tennyson, the great poet, was born. Louis Braille was born and invented those little dots that blind people can use to read. And 1809, down in a cabin on Nolens Creek in Kentucky, a little baby was born named Abraham Lincoln. When the world looked its darkest, God could defeat battles with babies. I want to tell you this. He is able to take basket cases, fragile, vulnerable, helpless, and turn them around.

18:38 When you're a basket case, God can change the fragile into the formidable. But let me take another step about that. When you're a basket case and God seems absent, he's really never been more present somebody walked in here this morning and to you God seems absent you say that's fine for you to fly down here preachers a guest and tell me but God seems to be on another planet to me now here's an interesting thing about Exodus chapter two. It covers 80 years of Moses' life in one chapter. And nobody gets a name and God himself is not named while all this is going on. His mother's unidentified. Father isn't there. His sister's not named. The little baby's not named till the end of the chapter. And it begs the question, where is God?

19:41 If you'd never read this before, you'd read Pharaoh is throwing in an act of infanticide, baby boys in the now. Where is God? Here's one little baby boy in a basket made up. Where is God? He's just floating down the now. Where is God? Here's the daughter of Pharaoh. who's on her way to bathe in the Nile. Where's God? He's not mentioned. Just like God is not mentioned in the book of Esther, he's not mentioned in Exodus 2. But come close to me, just because you can't trace him doesn't mean you can't trust him. In this chapter, Moses grows up. He's a 40-year-old prince.

20:36 He kills an Egyptian, tormenting one of his Hebrew brothers, and there's a price on his head. Where's God? He runs across 300 miles of Saudi Arabia and becomes an assistant shepherd to his father-in-law for 40 years. Where is God? And then finally, a bush burns, and God shows up. Now somebody came here today or listening to me out there sitting on your divan or at the breakfast table or wherever you are and you say that's all well and good but God has disappeared from my life. He's AWOL. When you cannot trace him you can trust him. When you cannot feel him, you can faith him. When you cannot discern him, you can depend on him.

21:37 You say, well, maybe I'm just not good enough. Well, look at Paul. Here's this Christ killer, and he hears Jesus' voice. Paul, stop persecuting me. And he's blinded. But then, where's God? He gets baptized. There's a price on his head. The whole city's staked out. He's in a safe house going down the wall on the basket. Where's God? God, where's that voice that spoke to him at first? Somebody here may be going through the dark night of a soul. Well, let me tell you something. The same psalmist who wrote Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, in Psalm 119, verse 82, said, my eyes are worn out looking for his promise. When will he comfort me? The same God who said he'd leave me beside the still waters in Psalm 23, in Psalm 143, 60, He said, my eyes are growing faint.

22:39 My soul is about to come out of me. Just because he doesn't seem to be present does not mean he's not there in your life. I was amazed this week. If there's a saint in our lifetime, maybe the whole world agrees she was a saint, it was Mother Teresa, that woman in Calcutta who cared for the untouchables, the lower, the lowest, the lepers, and so forth. Look what she wrote in an autobiography in 2007. I call, I cling, I want, and there's no one to answer. No one on whom I can cling. No one alone. The darkness is so dark, and I'm alone. Even Mother Teresa said, God seems absent and far away. He's not. any of y'all remember the original Star Trek William Shatner Captain Kirk Spa you can actually look on Google and see them playing Star Trek Star Trek chess I don't do it right now, Star Trek chess it was not only a horizontal game, it was a vertical game you can still buy a Star Trek chess set, incredibly difficult You're playing it on three levels and horizontally.

24:04 Do you know that's how God works in your life? He's working on more levels than you can ever imagine. And when he seems to be absent, he's prearranging everything in ways you cannot even imagine. I wish I don't have time to tell you my my own autobiography but I'm going to tell you this in the midst of a long ministry I walked out of a mega church I thought I was through I didn't even I thought God had moved to Jupiter or Venus or somewhere and time after time when I had no idea what God was doing he was pre-arranging the rest of my life I ran into the Reverend Dr. E.K. Bailey who said you must preach or a man in this very city Carl Singer an insurance executive that I led to the Lord when I was down and out said you must preach I could give you a list of names of people when I thought God had gone AWOL on me were prearranging my future let me tell you something God if he seems absent to you is about the business of rearranging your future as a basket case.

25:28 Trust him and you'll see. But let me lean into this another way. When you're a basket case, there's a remarkable prearranged divine timing. When you think about this, baby Moses cried when he was weaned and that day she put him in the basket on the Nile. Now he could have cried the day before. he could have cried the day after and the story would have been different because while baby Moses was in that asphalt covered paper basket that same day the princess of Egypt said that same hour I think I'll go bathe in the Nile now just stay with that a minute what if she'd gone at noon instead of 11 o'clock what if that basket had gone the wrong way The Nile is a 4,100 mile river.

26:23 Now think about that. From L.A. to New York is 2,500 miles. From L.A. to Hawaii is 2,500 miles. The Nile River starts bordered Lake Victoria, bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya. It trickles down. God prearranged everything upstream. A crocodile jumped. chasing a fish and it created a ripple and then a rainstorm raked that river. The hippopotamus jumped in and it created a current that took that baby to exactly the rendezvous. God prearranges things in detail. Let me say this about your life.

27:15 Oh, please hear me. Upstream in your life. When you didn't even know it, God was arranging things for the next rendezvous he has for you. Well, you say that. Well, here's the apostle Paul. You visit with him. There's two records of him in a basket. I read the one in Acts. Years later, he was writing the Corinthians. And in 2 Corinthians 11, he puts himself on oath. He says, this story is unbelievable. God is my witness. I had to go over the wall in a basket.

27:56 Prearranged. Listen, it makes Shawshank Redemption look like kindergarten. It makes the great escape look like beginners. At just the right moment, when the guards weren't looking, they lured him in a basket into the getaway car. God is a God of timing. A friend of mine is Tim Dylena. Some of you may have heard Tim. He's the pastor of Times Square Church in New York City. That movement started by David Wilkerson. It's a big church in a Broadway theater right on Times Square. It's really a worldwide congregation. People worship with him all over the world.

28:36 Tim's very charismatic. And during the song service, God told him, get up. There's at least two people here who either last night, Saturday, or Sunday morning, this morning, planned to commit suicide. He stopped the service. Tim's a good friend of mine. I asked him to repeat this to me the other day. he said I got up and said two people at least are here who last night or this morning planned suicide and we're going to stop this service we have prayer warriors here I want you to come pray with them not two came forward 40 people came forward in that big church divine timing.

29:17 You may not have come here planning that, but I do believe in preparing this message for this service. There's somebody here who said, George, you're right. I am a basket case. It's not an accident that I got on a plane yesterday, flew here and showed up. I've seen too many divine prearrangements and divine timing. You know who you are. This message has your thumbprint on it. I'm going to say this and I've got to go. When you're a basket case, you don't know what all else is in that basket with you. Look in that basket with that baby Moses.

30:14 No one could imagine what was in that basket. The Exodus was in that basket. the Passover was in that best. The first five books of your Old Testament were in that best. The manna was in that best.

30:37 The Old Testament was in that best. David and Isaiah and Amos, wait a minute, 3,500 years later, this sermon was in that best. You never know what God put in that basket until it happened. Look at Paul. I mean, this is almost funny. Here's this great theologian in a net basket wondering what's next. What was in that basket with Paul? Thirteen letters in your New Testament were in that basket.

31:14 The churches at Philippi and Berea and Thessalonica, Corinth and everything We're in that basket. Luke is in that basket and Silas and Barnabas and Timothy and Lois and Eunice in that basket. You never know what's in that basket when God takes care of your basket case.

31:34 Somebody here. You look down in your basket and you say, I'm addicted. I'm addicted to alcohol or drugs or porn or something. Look in that basket. If you'll look at what God can do, chains can fall off. And you can be free.

31:58 You look in that basket and say, I'm so lonely. I put on a good. Look in that basket. God either has a great friend for you or a church family or someone to spend your life with in that basket. There's somebody here this morning said preacher I've done things so horrible that I'd be embarrassed to tell my psychiatrist. Look in that basket. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is in that basket. Freedom and forgiveness. A new life.

32:41 I got thinking about back. Some of y'all old enough remember this. The Queen of Jazz. Ella Fitzgerald. 13 Grammys. Anybody remember a Tisket? A brown and yellow. I sent a letter to my wife, mommy, on the way I dropped it. A little way further down, Queen Ella, thing a tisket a tasket. I lost my yellow basket. Will someone help me find it and I'll be happy again?

33:18 That little girl lost the basket, but God never loses a basket case. Listen to me. There was another baby. Moses' sister was named Miriam, which is Mary. Hebrew for Mary. There was another baby. And not Pharaoh, but Herod.

33:46 And that other Mary was looking not in a basket, but in a feed trough. A feed trough in the garage behind the Motel 6. and in that was one greater than Moses isn't it ironic that to save that one he had to go to Egypt and hide and then come back to save his own people live a sinless life die a death as your substitute sin in a dank cold tomb until he was raised on Sunday victor over death, hell, and the grave. And he's the great cure for every basket case. I've got to go now but let me say this you know who you are this balcony around this lower floor if I hadn't gotten your password and read your spiritual emails I couldn't be any closer to where you are and this is your moment the minister is going to come and open this altar and I'm going to ask you to step out and stand back and say well I'll wait you know Satan the enemy of people's souls never says at this moment don't do it he just says later I've thrown out a life preserver for somebody God specializes in basket cases.

35:33 God bless you.