My Times Are In His Hand | Pastor Daniel Batarseh | New Year’s Eve

I want I want to give you a phrase, a sentence in the scripture that you would hold dear to your heart going into 2023, that you would hopefully hold on for the rest of your life with whatever years the Lord and his goodness would give to you. Psalm 31, and let's begin here in verse 11. Here's what David writes. Because of all my adversaries, I have become a reproach, especially to my neighbors and an object of dread to my acquaintances. Those who see me in the street flee from me.

I have been forgotten like one who is dead. I've become like a broken vessel. For I hear the whispering of many, terror on every side as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. If you wanna know the dominant theme in the book of Psalms, it's lament, sorrow. It's not praise.

It's not thanksgiving. It's lament. And that that's the honesty of the Holy Spirit in the Bible to show us what can really occupy the heart of man even for those who are righteous. And this is David lamenting, lamenting and praising at the same time. But here he is experiencing, certain level of suffering that is overwhelming.

He's experiencing the slander, the accusation, the assassination of his character. Even his acquaintances are now betraying him, those who are familiar with him, those who he's probably worked with, talked with, ate with are now also joining with his enemies to try to annihilate him. And so he's overwhelmed. He's overwhelmed. Some of you have known what it can do to you when you even hear somebody who has told you secondhand that so and so said something about you.

You lose sleep. You wonder. You think. You question. You doubt.

This man is not only experiencing the trouble of people scheming against him, they're planning to actually kill him. Now think about what that will do to you. And so he he can only do what he knows what to do, and that's to come to God and to pour out his heart, to spill his soul in the presence of the Lord. And as he's crying out to the Lord, something happens. There are sprinkles of hope and messages of faith in this Psalm, but there's a there's a a monumental statement that he makes and he rehearses over himself and even to us who would read this thousands of years later.

In verse 14, he comforts himself by saying, but but I trust in you, oh Lord. I say you are my God. You're not just the God of the world. You're not just the God of the universe. You're not just the God of Israel.

You're my God. You're a personal God to me. You're a God who sees me, who knows me, and who will do something for me. You are my God. And then this is the phrase that I want you to etch on your heart.

It's in verse 15. My times are in your hand. My times are in your hand. Rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors. So in all of this, what was a balm to his soul was the revelation that in the hand of God were the times of David.

Notice he didn't say, this time is in your hand. He could have said that and that would have been right, but the Holy Spirit is revealing something greater to him. My times, plural. What he means by that is the totality of my life. And with all the seasons that color the timeline of my existence, every chapter of my life is in your hand.

You are the author of it. You are the one who determines every single up, every single down. The moments of prosperity, the moments of persecution. You are the one who is constantly supervising my days. And this is what comforted him in a time where he seemed like he was going to be swallowed up by those who hated him without a cause.

He looks to his God and says, my times are in your hands. Meaning, no one can do anything to me unless you allow it, you determine it, and you are the one who keeps me until you think it's necessary for me to not be kept anymore. You know, the the picture in the bible of a hand speaks of strength, speaks of security, speaks of power. And Jesus, to assure us of the security of our salvation says of us that we are where? In his what?

Hand. And no one can snatch us away from him. No one can pry open his fingers to capture us from his grip. It is settled. It is eternal.

It is set. And the same hand, listen to me very carefully, who holds secure your eternal fate is the same hand who holds together your times on earth. He's the one who determines. Well, what times are we talking about? Well, you know what?

We'll do it. Everything that you can think of under the sun is under his control of your life. And let me just brush over these real quickly. You might feel like you're drinking out of a fire hose, but it's okay. I wanna talk to you about the times of your trials.

He is the determiner. He is the one who writes and etches and creates the curriculum of your sanctification. Can I show that to you in Revelation two? In Revelation two. And I want you to see what he says to this church.

Barrett mentioned the two churches that received no condemnation from Christ, and this is one of them, the church in Smyrna. And he says here in Revelation two nine, I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. This is this is one of the most comforting verses when it comes to trials.

This this verse came into my life when I was enduring a trial that I thought would never end. It just I couldn't catch a breath. It was so intense that I felt like I was drowning, though I was perfectly fine in terms of my breathing and my health and in my everything. God in his providence put this before me, and this is what he revealed. Do not fear what you are about to suffer.

Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison. And here's what blessed me, because that sounds terrifying. Imagine the Lord writing a letter to us, to this church and saying some of you are gonna go to jail and the jails of this time did not look like the jails of today. That you may be tested and for ten days. Ten days.

Who determined that? Satan? Who determined that it would be for ten days? It's God. Jesus himself.

Satan is gonna come. He's gonna snatch some of you away, put you in prison, but it's going to only be for this amount of time. How do I know that this is Jesus? Well, not only is he the one revealing it, but because if we know anything about the character of the evil one, he doesn't wanna stop tormenting you. He doesn't wanna just steal from you.

He doesn't just wanna kill you. Jesus says he wants to destroy you. I mean, you would think that things would stop at kill. No. He wants to destroy you.

And you see that feverish desire in Job's life, and it wasn't for the hedges that God put, Job would have been devoured in a moment. Satan would have been eating him up like a bowl of cereal. And so it is the Lord Jesus who says, this trial will only endure for ten days and then you're coming out. Think about that. Every trial, I don't care what it is.

I don't care how personal it is. I don't care how much you think nobody understands. I don't care how unique it may seem. If you are in the hand of Christ, it has a number. It has an expiration date.

At one point, it will come to an end, and you will come out of it if you are faithful like this church, not just with rewards in this life, but eternal rewards at the end of it all. The timing of our trials are set in stone by our savior. But not just that, the timing of our deliverance, the timing of our provision. I think about that man in Acts chapter three who was brought to the gate called Beautiful at the temple. And he was there daily daily asking for alms.

And yet in Luke 21, I also read that when Jesus was on this earth near the end of his ministry, we are told that every day, not not some, you know, days of the week, every day he was at the temple teaching. He even says that in Matthew's version where he's in court. Right? In his trial, and he goes, I am I was in this temple teaching every single day. So even from his own admonition, he made his way into the temple and he taught.

And yet, that man who was crippled for so many years would never, had never received the healing from the hands of Jesus. Never. I'm sure Jesus walked by him. I'm sure the Lord Jesus heard the voice of that man who sat on a mat and cried for some alms to be given to him. And the Lord would walk by him every single time.

And yet, in acts three, when the Lord ascends into heaven, we see that Peter and John were the vessels that God used to bring this man to his feet, to to see strength come to his legs, for him to leap and praise God in the presence of all. And it says that those who saw him recognized that he was the one who was at the gate asking for provision. And I think to myself, well, hold on. Let me put the pieces together. If the Lord, while on earth, went into the temple every single day, surely, he must have come across this man at least once.

Why didn't the Lord heal him then? Why wasn't it there and then? Wouldn't that been another awesome testimony to prove his messiahship? Wouldn't it have been a great great great testimony for people to realize that this man is unusual? And instead in God's wisdom, he delays this man's deliverance.

And he waits for him to ascend into heaven to empower his disciples and for him to be brought to life at that specific time. Do you know why? Yes. It would have been wonderful for Jesus to be able to heal this man while he was on earth. It would have been a great, great testament of who he was and where he came from and why he came into this world, but he wanted to delay to say something else.

He did enough healing with other people. He had done enough miracles. And yet with this man, he kept them aside and he waited. Why? So that when the disciples would be used to bring healing to this man, people wouldn't just know Jesus was different or that this is surely the son of David.

They would now know this Jesus has raised from the dead. Wow. Because Peter says there in acts three that faith in his name had made this man perfectly well. It was a testament to the fact that putting trust in this name, in Jesus' name, the name who is alive, the name that has power today was to make proof of he did conquer death. Do you see the Lord's wisdom?

The Lord's wisdom in delaying. Abraham wanted a son. God wanted a testimony. Abraham wanted the joy of offspring. God wanted more glory for himself.

And so Romans four, we are told that when Abraham and the author of Hebrews echoes the same phrase, when Abraham was as good as dead, as good as dead, I'm gonna wait until your body is so shriveled up that even the thought of you having a son will be laughable. And it was because they named their son Isaac, and it meant something along the lines of laughing. And so when you have your life in his hand, the timing of your provision is determined. What about the timing of your promotion? This is for those who are serious about serving God and you're eager.

You're eager to serve the Lord. You want to give your life to him and live every moment, as I said earlier, for his pleasure. And if you're a person that really wants to serve God, I'm sure that there is something in that heartbeat that says, Lord, I wanna touch as many lives as possible. Lord, I wanna produce as much fruit as possible. Lord, I'm unashamed.

I'll I'll I'll herald my voice in any platform. Just give me a platform, and I'll I'll make your name known by your grace. And yet what what do you see? Year after year goes by, nobody notices your gift. Year after year goes by, no doors are opening.

Year after year goes by, and there you are still in the same place, ministering to the same people, seeing very little, little results. Does God not wanna answer that prayer? Does God not wanna do something through your life? No. It's just because his timing is different, and the timing of the promotion is also something that he considers for your life.

A lot of this stuff is review, but review is good, especially at the end of the year. And so when I thought about that, the timing of promotion, the timing of God taking you from one level to the next, I can't help but think of David. The first king three kings of Israel were who? Let's bible study now. Who are the first three kings of Israel?

I don't have a prize, but I I heard different names, but I I heard the similar names. Solomon, Saul, and David. Correct. Each reigned for how long? Forty years.

All of them forty years. Each of them forty years. Did they end the same way? No. Two of them ended in apostasy.

Two of them ended in a tragic way. Tragic way. I mean, just horrible. One married a bunch of women and they let him into adultery. One went to a witch and summoned the prophet to get a word about what to do with his army and the war that he was in.

David ended much differently. David's journey was much different than those two. And when you put these three men together who had the same length in the kingdom, who had the same amount of time on the throne, the same nation, the same God, the same scriptures, what was it that made David different? I'm sure there's many things. You can make an in-depth study, especially for leaders of why it was that David was different and why the end was different from him in comparison to Saul and Solomon.

But can I tell you one thing based on my simple reading of the bible that sticks out to me? David was led through so much of the wilderness of trial, of testing before he was promoted. Both Saul and Solomon were given the kingdom on a silver platter. The one thing that stands out about David was that God took his time to make his man. And he ground him and he put him through the fire and he allowed him to taste a little bit of a promotion and pull them right back down and and have some small victories here and there.

And you can just read the rollercoaster of it all through the book of Psalms. And yet it was through that, I believe, that roots were developed so that longevity would be known and greater fruit could be experienced. And you if you think I'm imposing that on the text, it is true. It's a true principle throughout the bible. Romans five tells us that endurance produces character.

And before endurance comes, suffering has to come. Suffering, endurance, character. That's the school of God. He takes those that he's gonna use greatly, and he takes his time with them. And so perhaps you're here coming up to 2023 and you're wondering where is this leading to?

I wanna be used, but I wanna see things happen and nothing seems to be happening. In fact, all I'm experiencing is a sting after sting. Waiting after waiting, suffering after suffering. You're in a good class. You're in a good place when God doesn't dish things off to you immediately.

He takes his time. Believe that as you go into 2023. He might take his time even more before you see something happen. Trust in the Lord. And then there is the timing of our death.

The timing of our death. I love this in John 21. Jesus prophesies how Peter is going to die. And Peter, like many curious Christians, in verse 20 of John 21, Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them. The one who was also leaned back against him during the supper and had said, Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?

When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, Lord, what about this man? What about this man? We always do that as Christians. Right? He's around my age.

Why are you doing it that way for him? She's around my age. Why is she getting married before me? That church started around when we started, why do they have more people than us? We always do that.

We always compare ourselves to others. We're always wondering why God is doing things in different people's lives and and then it caused us to question God's goodness in our lives. So Peter saw him and said, Lord, what about this man? And Jesus said to him, if it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? I love Jesus' answer.

He's like, it's none of your business. It's none of your business. If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me. So the saying spread spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die, yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die.

I love that. Everybody's, oh, he's not gonna die. Misinterpreting the words of Jesus like how people do today. Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but if it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? What is that to you?

Great practical lessons here, but here's the thing that I pull out in terms of understanding my times in his hand. If it is my will that he remain until I come. You know what that means? It's up to Jesus how long I stay. It's up to Jesus how long I'm here.

It's the will of Christ that determines whether or not I stay or I go, and that's true for you if you belong to Christ. And guess what? I wouldn't wanna have it any other way. I wouldn't want to have it any other way. What's the alternative?

You want to give your future up to blind fate? Is that what you want? Oh, no. No. Satan's so powerful, he can determine when you depart.

Right? See people have trouble with this. The sovereignty of Jesus, the sovereignty of God. So so what else would you have? Is man so powerful?

Do you want to give your future to the possibility of man's envy overpowering your will to live? It is a blissful thought to know that it is up to the will of my master that determines whether or not I breathe another breath. And I'm glad that he is the one who determines it all. And what if he does give us 2023? What if all of us here live until 2024?

I'm gonna end here. You know what blesses me? When I read the apostle Paul who was under the impression that he might die very soon, but he didn't. God prolonged his life. But you have the words of him who had this tension between living and dying.

And in Philippians one twenty one, you know this, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Pay attention to that. That's glorious. That's glorious.

For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Meditate on that. What is he saying? He goes, look.

If I am to live, the only reason why I would wanna remain here. The only reason why I would want Christ to preserve my neck from being chopped is fruitful labor. That's the only reason why. You know what that means? Lord, the only reason why I would want 2023 to be lived out so that I can serve you.

Do you think Christians think like that these days? What are you looking forward to in 2023? Vacations? Vacations are good. Updates on your house?

It's nice. What? Making memories with people you love? Wonderful. That's a gift from God too.

Can I tell you what was consuming this man of God? Oh, Lord. I just wanna serve you. Because I wanna tell you something. When you and I go to heaven, we will glorify God for all of eternity.

We will glorify him perfectly. But let me tell you this, going into 2023, you will not be able to glorify him. You will not be able to glorify him in the way that you can while you live on this planet. Because there is no temptation to say no to in heaven. There are no trials to endure and to say I will still serve him even though he slay me.

There is no opportunity to sing to the Lord Jesus even though you've been whipped by sinners and Satan throughout that week, when you crawl into this place on Sunday morning when everything in your body was screaming, stay at home, watch it live, and intermingle with Netflix in the process. You will sing because God will give you the grace to sing and the body to sing and him the voice to sing, and that's a great thing for me. You'll be able to say no to temptation because there won't be temptation. You'll be perfectly holy. You'll be perfectly kind, perfectly loving, perfectly forgiving, because your resurrected body will enable you, and you won't have the option otherwise.

But only in this life, only in this segment of this life can you glorify God in a way that when you enter into eternity's mourning, you won't be able to again. Think about that. That's profound. And so I wanna challenge you. Come tomorrow and God willing, there will be a comforting message coming into 2023.

But I wanna challenge you on the eve of 2022 or 2023. Serve God with everything in you. I'll say this before I end. Our family was together on Wednesday night, and there was a big box filled with pictures. So we opened it and we just had a laugh looking at some of these memories, and we tried our best to organize the pictures until the nieces and nephew came in and rearranged everything.

And so we're going through pictures and we spent an hour or two doing that, and something caught my attention in that ancient box. It's a piece of paper. It was a white piece of paper and I slipped it out and I looked at it and I realized it was my handwriting. And I looked at the back and there were some verses that were repeating. That's how I usually memorize.

I take a piece of white paper, have the verse in front of me, and I just write it over and over again before I repeat it out of my mouth. But on the back of it, there was half of the page written with my handwriting. And I looked at it and I quickly realized what it was. It was a prayer. It was a written prayer.

And after a long drive being exhausted and the emotions of what was why we were in Canada, the loss of our grandfather, all that, seeing our loved ones upset. I looked at that, and my heart started to race. My heart started to beat, and I just kept it to myself until now, obviously. And I looked at that and it here's two things that came to my mind. The first thing was this, you made some vows to God.

That that piece of paper was probably, I'll say, between eight and 10 years old. I don't know how it got there, but it was there. And I take take it to God's providence for how it arrived in my hands. I look at it, and I totally forgot about this. And and here's the thing that came to my mind.

You made some vows to God. Did you keep them? Did you keep them? And, I looked at that, and I realized there is a fervency in those words. There was a fervency in those words.

It was like a personal letter to Jesus. Is that fervency still there? And here's the third thing that ran through my mind. I said two, but here's the third. The third thing was this, God answered your prayer.

God answered your prayer. And it's as though the Lord wanted to put it in my face. You wrote this down, and I can guess where I wrote it. You wrote this down, and I read it. And here you are ten years later, and you're living the very thing that you prayed for.

That's a scary thought. Scary in a good way. I'm telling you, if you are if you have no reservation in your heart tonight, if you're dead serious about fruitful labor for the Lord, he will scare you and how he will answer that prayer. He will. And maybe he will give you the opportunity ten years from now to remind you how he answered it.

Maybe not. But I just had a fresh jolt of faith to see, oh, God, you answered this. You answered. I took it. It's with me.

I brought it back with me. You answered this. God will answer you tonight. But but he's not gonna answer a prayer that ain't that leaves me and you whatever. It's not that's not the kind of prayer he answers.

And so in these next few moments, I am fully aware that there can be some people who will pray for five minutes, and for the rest of the twenty five minutes, we'll talk and catch up with people. If you that's you, do it. Just don't distract other people. I'm talking to the person who no matter how you live up to this point, there's a new year, new mercies. And even if you have to get on your knees, that you would say, Lord, if you're giving me $20.23, make it all about fruitful labor.

He'll answer it. He will answer it. Your times are in his hand. That comforts me, but let me challenge you. What will you do with your time?

Serve the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no greater joy, no greater blessing, no greater delight. Here's what we're gonna do. In this moment, I'm gonna give you the time to seek the Lord on your own. And you can do that in any way you would like as long as it's not distracting.

You can come up to the front. You can kneel here if you want. You can kneel at your pew, put your elbows on the chair. You can pace back and forth on the side if that helps you get just focused. You can do whatever you need to do to seek the Lord.

At a certain point, I will come up and ask you to pray with maybe two or three people, and what you're gonna do is you're gonna pray for this church. And then 2023, we would see a move of the spirit and that God would do incredible things that will just make us feel as though we are dreaming. And so I'm gonna stop here. I can say much more. I'm gonna trust that you know how to pray and you know in your own way how to pour out your heart to God.

But all I ask is again, I'm fully aware that some will not take this seriously. And if you are that person, just please keep to yourself and allow the Holy Spirit to work on the person who might be sitting beside you that needs you not to distract them so that they can do what they need to do with God. And so I invite you to pray. And it's gonna be short as you're by yourself because we're gonna pray in groups, so we're gonna sing, and we're gonna count down, hug each other, love each other, and go back home, and trust that God is gonna start 2023 in amazing ways. So would you do that?

Please find a place to pray. Seek the Lord.