Ctrl+Alt+Del

The other evening I was watching Headline News and you know how they have the little scrolling messages across the bottom of the screen?. They’re bits of news that may not be spoken but are just in a ticker format.

On the scrolling message I saw that the man who wrote the code for the computer command “Ctrl+Alt+Del” just retired from IBM

For those of you who don’t use computers or those of you who have a Macintosh, ctrl+alt+del are the three keys you push at the same time on a PC computer keyboard when all else fails.

At one time the command would immediately restart or reboot your computer and today the command gives you some other options.

But at any rate it is a last ditch effort when all else fails.

It’s not just with computers, however, that we need a ctrl+alt+del option

Sometimes in life we just need a restart.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just hit those 3 keys when we get in a jam?

A panic button.
A stress reliever.
A frustration reducer.
A despair destroyer
A start over

Sometime ago I corresponded by e-mail with someone across the country who wanted to remain anonymous about the panic, frustration and despair she was feeling in her life. She suffers from bi-polar disorder sometimes called manic/depressive disorder..
Someone who is bi-polar has extremes of emotions... High Highs (called manic) and Low Lows (called depressive) and she wrote these very descriptive words about her life:
“I am so depressed. I hate this. I hate everything. On manic days I’ve gotten in so much trouble. I’ve humiliated myself over and over. When I’m manic, I hate how stupid, foolish, trusting, and ridiculous I am. I hate how happy I get...way too happy...too loving....too friendly....too trusting.
When I’m manic. I just overflow with love and happiness and can’t stop it...but its not me the real me.
And when I’m depressed, I hate everyone and everything. I have so much rage inside...Then I lose it sometimes and I’m the worst monster you ever saw...so mean. I hate that about me too and that is not the real me either. I’ve become a caricature of myself ridiculous and foolish.
This illness swallows up your personality completely until you are never normal anymore.... just manic or depressive....just a pathetic joke. So part of me died a long time ago and what's left is slowly deteriorating mentally, physically and emotionally. I know it and I can’t stop it and no one understands. My family knows how I’ve changed all for the worse.
It’s true. I really am a completely different person now and I wish I was the person I used to be but I am dying little by little. It just takes longer with this.
Anyway, you don't know me either and neither do I anymore. I’m just a mass of "symptoms". I lost my personality a long time ago. Now I just react to everything around me just raw, primal, emotions. I’m not real anymore.”

I could have cried when I read that.
I wanted to give her a ctrl+alt+del option other than suicide which seemed to be a good answer to her at the time.

Hurting people...

I hear about so much hurt and the temptation to despair...

I feel their hurt when I talk to Jim and Diana when they talk about Eric who is fighting with encephalitis in Walter Reed Hospital.

I hear it in the voices of people who are embroiled in conflict with a loved one

I hear it in the struggles of people enslaved to a chemical and in the voices of the powerless loved ones around them

I hear it in the voices of those who feels misunderstood or attacked

I see it in the eyes of someone vulnerable enough to admit their struggles with a recurring temptation and sin

I experience it myself.

Wouldn’t a ctrl+alt+del command be nice?

Hey... guess what?
I have good news for you....

Centuries ago another man felt the same way... and he wrote these words ... Please read the bold words responsively with me in your worship folder:

Psalm 130
1 Out of the depths I cry to you,
O Lord;
2 O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.
3 If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
6 My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
7 O Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.
8 He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.

It is good to know, that when we are in the depths, when we can do nothing else, when we desperately want to have a ctrl+alt+del option, we can cry to the Lord as the Psalmist did.

It’s good to know that we have a God who hears and is attentive to our cry.

It’s good to know that when we’ve messed up our lives with sin and the complexities of life that we have a God who forgives and gives us a restart.

It’s good to know that when everything around us seems unstable and uncertain that God’s word is trustworthy.

It’s good to know that when all else seems hopeless that God’s love is unfailing.

We may not feel like God is hearing us, but, we know that He is.
We may not feel like there is any escape, but we know that there is because God’s Word has declared it to be so..

Our hope is not founded upon our feelings, but rather in His word.

I love it when I get a call from a young couple looking for a pastor to marry them or give them pre-marriage counseling.

I talked to one couple not long ago and after giving them some tools for better communication and ways to better understand each other, I said, now please let me preach to you for just a minute.

They agreed.

I asked the young couple this question.

If you were to die today and were standing before God and if God were to ask you...”Why should I let you into my kingdom?” What would you say?

The man without hesitation said... I’ve lived a good life, I’ve treated people fairly, I’ve been loving in my relationships and he listed a few other virtues

The woman answered the question in much the same way.

I told them that I respect their answer, but that I would answer the question quite differently.

I told them that if God were to ask me that question my reply would be.

God, You should not let me into your kingdom.

They looked a bit startled by my answer so I explained.

I told them how
God is absolutely HOLY.
God is absolutely PURE.
God is absolutely RIGHTEOUS.
God is absolutely JUST.
God is absolutely PERFECT

And since God is that way, he cannot tolerate anything less than PERFECTION from us.
If God did tolerate imperfection God would cease to be PERFECT.

I haven’t been good enough in any area of my life.
I haven’t loved as I should,
I haven’t given as I should,
I haven’t measured up in my thoughts, in my words or in my deeds.

I don’t have a chance of getting into the Kingdom.
I am up the creek without a paddle
On my own, I am left with nothing but despair with no ctrl+alt+del option..

HOWEVER

My hope is in God’s Word that declares to me the message of redemption.

God sent His son Jesus to be everything I should be.
He lived the perfect life.
As a human being He met all of God’s standards of perfection and then to top it off ..
He satisfied God’s justice by paying for all of my sin and imperfection on the cross.

In faith... in placing my hope in Jesus Christ, I am given all that Jesus was.

And so my passport into God’s Kingdom is Jesus.

He is my ctrl+alt+del button. He gets me out of the jam I’m in.

That couple kinda lit up at that moment and said wow... that’s good.

And you know it really is.
The Gospel is GOOD NEWS!

The Gospel is our restart... our ctrl+alt+del. Amen.