1-27-13 Sermon

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When the unthinkable Happens

Trusting God in Difficult Times – part 4

01-27-13 Sermon

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God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but he shouts in our pains.  It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.--C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain

James 1:2-4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 

Romans 8:28.  And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  

V 37 in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

John 11:1-44  New International Version (NIV)

11 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. ² (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) ³ So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

⁴ When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” ⁵ Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. ⁶ So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, ⁷ and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”  ⁸ “But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”  ⁹ Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. ¹⁰ It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.”
¹¹ After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”  ¹² His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” ¹³ Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.
¹⁴ So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, ¹⁵ and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”  ¹⁶ Then Thomas (also known as Didymus^[a]) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
¹⁷ On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. ¹⁸ Now Bethany was less than two miles^[b] from Jerusalem, ¹⁹ and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. ²⁰ When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
²¹ “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”  ²³ Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” ²⁴ Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” ²⁵ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; ²⁶ and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” ²⁷ “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
²⁸ After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” ²⁹ When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. ³⁰ Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. ³¹ When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
³² When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” ³³ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ³⁴ “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
³⁵ Jesus wept. ³⁶ Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” ³⁷ But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
³⁸ Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ³⁹ “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”  ⁴⁰ Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
⁴¹ So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴² I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
⁴³ When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴ The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

⁴⁵ Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

The only thing worse than disappointment with God is disappointment without God. -- Phil Yancey

Job 13:15 Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him. 

Mark 14:36 Please take this cup of suffering away from me.  Yet I want your will, not mine.’” 

God never promised ____________                                    … but he did promise ___________                        . 

When the unthinkable Happens

Trusting God in Difficult Times – part 4

02-27-13 Sermon

Something big happens.  A Cancer diagnosis.  Divorce.  Infertility.  The death of a child.  The birth of a special needs child.  A heart attack.  The loss of a job.  Suffering a crime against you. An abortion.  Going to jail.  Being sued.  You and a friend go to a movie in Colorado and a crazy person comes in and shoots a bunch of people.  You send your child to the elementary school in Newton, CT and your child is shot and killed at school.  These are times when the unthinkable has happened.  These are Pivotal Circumstances.

Pivotal circumstances can also be positive, like the birth of your first child or grandchild, getting married, going on a mission trip, narrowly escaping a disaster, winning the lottery, or something like that. But oftentimes it is the negative ones that bring us to a point where we know we can’t handle this and God is introduced or reintroduced into the conversation.

And afterwards a testimony like this is heard--In the midst of those negative circumstances that none of us would want to sign up for God did a work in my life and grew my faith.  It was a defining moment. God seemed far away but he drew close.  Suddenly the Bible stories and hymns we sing about God’s faithfulness became personal.  I didn’t talk much about God; now I can’t stop talking about God.  My praying had been routine, read, or memorized, but I was on my knees crying out to God to intervene, and God showed up to intervene, and I invited him in at a completely different level.

C.S. Lewis in his book The Problem of Pain says God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but he shouts in our pains.  It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

There is a relationship between the big bad things that happen to us in this world and our faith.  It is not an accidental relationship.  It is an intentional relationship that God leverages to grow our faith. 

James 1:2-4 says—Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 

Trials, troubles, challenges, painful situations test your faith, strengthen your faith, grow your faith, producing perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work—bringing you to spiritual maturity.  James says that it is not accidental that in the midst of overwhelming circumstances something begins to happen to our faith in God.  It is one of the ways that God grows our faith, though none of us would sign up for this.

Romans 8:28.  You are probably all familiar with that passage.  Paul says And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  Not that all things are good.  Not that everything that happens to us is from God.  But in the midst of all the things that do happen to us, God is at work to bring good to our lives.  So that, v 37 in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

The supreme example of this is the death of Jesus on the cross.  It is not a good thing to torture and kill the Son of God.  But from that God brought about a resurrection and beat our sins and beat death and sickness and the devil and all the big bad things in the world by that death on that cross. 

There are times when God doesn’t seem to act the way we think he should act or do the stuff that we think he should do.  It’s often when we pray and ask God to deal with a specific problem.  When he doesn’t deal with that problem here’s what happens: we assume that he’s changing the script and it makes it more difficult to trust him. 

So that five year old singing, Jesus loves me this I know…fast forward ten years and now he’s fifteen… If Jesus loves me so darn much why did my dad lose his job?  If Jesus loves me so much why did my parents get divorced?  If Jesus loves me so much why does my complexion look like this?  That fifteen year old stands at the mirror every morning saying, Jesus loves me this I think because this zit is the size of a sink! 

Fast forward a few more years.  If God loves me this much why didn’t I get into the college that I’ve been dreaming about?  If God loves me this much why did my fiancé break it off?  If God loves me this much why can’t we have children?  If God loves me this much why did I have to file bankruptcy?  If God loves me this much why did my child or my spouse or my parent die at such a young age?  If God loves me this much….  Fill in your own pain.

But there is a story in the scriptures where Jesus doesn’t just leverage negative circumstances to grow someone’s faith, he actually creates that negative circumstance.  It is the story of Lazarus in John 11.  Jesus had spent a lot of time with Mary and Martha and Lazarus.  John reminds us that it was Mary who poured perfume on Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair.  Lazarus falls ill and Mary and Martha send a messenger with this message—Lord, the one you love is sick.  The one you love.

When he gets the message, Jesus says –“This sickness will not end in death.  No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”  In other words, I am going to leverage this evil for my glory.  And they hung out where they were for another 2 days.  Jesus did not act on this emergency for another 2 days.

You have been there, I guarantee it.   You have found yourself in a negative situation and you pray God help me, God help me, God help me.  And you bargain—I’ll go to church.  I’ll tithe.  I’ll let my kids become missionaries. But nothing happens.  Jesus doesn’t always show up right away in the midst of the emergency.

So Jesus says to the disciples v14,15: Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe [that your faith would grow]. Growing our faith is that big a deal that you would allow your friend to die, for Mary and Martha to suffer watching him die, all to grow our faith?  Yes, it’s that big a deal.  It is that important for you to have big faith.

Martha meets Jesus on his way to her house and says v21 Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Later, when Mary sees Jesus, she says the very same thing v 32.  And WE have all said the same thing!  **Jesus this is your fault.  You healed people you didn’t even know.  You healed Gentiles.  You even healed a Roman Centurion’s servant.  And you wouldn’t even come here and heal your friend?  Jesus, if you had been here, Lazarus would not have died.

And Martha continues v22:  But I know, I trust, I believe, I have faith, that even now God will give you whatever you ask.  That’s amazing!  As broken as I am, as hurting as I am, as angry as I am, here’s what I know—I believe God will give you whatever you ask God for.  That’s why I called for you when Lazarus became sick. 

V 23 Jesus says, Your brother will rise again.  Martha answers v 24 I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.  And Jesus answers back v 25 I am the resurrection and the life.  Martha you are looking at resurrection.  You are looking at life.

V 26 Anyone who believes in me, anyone who trusts in me, anyone who puts big faith in me will live…do you believe this?  This is about your faith Martha! This is about your confidence in me and the length I am willing to go to grow that confidence in you.  I am willing to go even to this length to grow that faith, for you to have big faith, even the death of my friend who I loved, even to hurting my friends who I love.

V 27.  Yes, Lord, I believe---even though you let my brother die.  I believe even though you didn’t come in time.  I believe even when you didn’t answer my prayer.

You know how the story ends.  And v 45 says that many put their faith in him.  Many trusted in him.  Many got big faith.  Jesus didn’t just leverage this painful situation, he created it in order to show the connection between painful pivotal circumstances and the growth and development of our faith. 

Of course, not everyone who suffers a difficult circumstance turns to God.  Some turn bitter and run from God.  The difference between people who lean into God and those who lean away from God in pivotal circumstances, when the unthinkable happens,  is usually to be found in the people who surround them.  In times when God seems like a big disappointment we need people to come around us who will interpret the circumstances in the context of faith.  The same pain that can grow your faith can also destroy your faith. 

Tragedy and pain are part of our story here on earth.  This is earth, not heaven.  Phil Yancey has said The only thing worse than disappointment with God is disappointment without God.  All of us will at some time be disappointed with God.  But you can be disappointed with God in a context where you still trust him.  You can lean into him or you can lean away from him.

There was a young couple, members of my first church.  She was 9 months pregnant with a baby boy.  The pregnancy was uneventful.  She felt labor pains and went to the hospital.  I got the call to come at once.  The doctor could no longer find a heartbeat.  She went through labor and delivered a perfectly formed still born baby boy.  We each held that little boy that never took a breath in this world.  It was a painful tragic time.  You know what that father said to me?  He said, this is why we joined the church.  We knew that there would be a time in our lives when we needed a church. 

They were disappointed with God, but they were not disappointed without God because they were surrounded by a group of people who would say We are not going to try to explain this, we are not going to try to attach meaning or purpose to this, but you can still believe and you can still trust, and maybe in days, or weeks, or months or even years, God will use this tragedy in your life to do something good in you and through you. 

When you feel like God is doing something TO you, you are liable to lose faith.  When you come to understand that God is doing something IN you so he can do something THROUGH you, then you can be one of those who emerges from pivotal circumstances and says, I still believe.  I believe he is the resurrection and the life.  And you will have big faith.

Remember Job in the OT.  No one wants a Job anointing do they?  Talk about pivotal circumstances!  With all the negative stuff that happened to him, Job could declare [13:15] Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.  That’s big faith!  But look how Job got there—through negative pivotal circumstances. 

Faith and trust in God will not be defined when everything goes according to the script.  Faith and trust in God will be defined when the unthinkable happens.

It’s easy to trust God when his script aligns with yours.  But what about when pain happens?  When the ad libs occur?  When you experience hurt?  That’s when faith and trust grows.  That’s when depth increases.  That’s when your faith grows stronger. 

I know that concept is very difficult to hear.  When you hear me say that you will be stronger, you will trust more, you will have deeper faith, you will be a more vibrant follower of Jesus Christ when there’s pain in your life.  You say, Frank, that’s not cool!  For most of us when we wrote our life script we didn’t include pain in it. 

Think about that.  Go back to junior high creative writing class when you had to write out what you want your life to look like.  Chances are it didn’t involve pain.  I’m going to graduate high school and play every sport.  I’m going to go to an incredible college like Oxford or Harvard or DeVry Institute of Nashville.  I’m going to get married.  We’re going to honeymoon in Vegas.  We’re going to get airbrushed T-Shirts.  My kids are going to grow up and be perfect and get straight As and get full scholarships.  I’m going to win American Idol and appear on Oprah and make lots of money and live in Brentwood.

I don’t know what your script was but my guess is it didn’t include a lot of pain.  What I do know is you really won’t know about life, about relationships, about true faith and trusting in God until the unthinkable happens.

But here’s what I want you to understand so badly.  Because for so many, many people when the unthinkable happens here’s what they do.  They turn their back to God.  They stop following the ways and teachings of Jesus.  They leave the church and they abandon this community of believers. 

In my second church we had a family with two teen aged boys who went out West on vacation.   As part of that vacation the family went on a tour to the floor of the Grand Canyon.  While there the oldest son wandered off and disappeared.   They found one of his sneakers but he was never found.  Authorities believed that he got wandered into the river, was swept away and drowned.  The family even hired native American trackers in the area to try to find his body but they were not successful.

I reached out to them and people in the church reached out to them, but that family left the church and turned their backs on God.  They set up something of a shrine to their son in their home but they held the church and God at arm’s length.

Some people walk away from God and the church and it wasn’t because there wasn’t good Bible teaching available.  They turn their back on God not because they struggled with the historical documents of Jesus.  They leave the church not because of some scientific arguments crumbled their faith to their knees.

They walk away because the script changed and they didn’t know what to do.  They thought their life was like that high school musical where everybody sings and dances all the time and conflict is resolved in an hour. 

But you know what?  That script was never promised to us.  As a matter of fact Jesus warned us that we would have difficult times.  I John 16:33 Jesus says “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me.  Here on earth you will [circle “you will”] have many trials and sorrows.  But take heart [underline “but take heart”] because I have overcome the world.” 

The “take heart” means to trust, to hold on, to have faith.  Because in the end Jesus wins.  At the very end Jesus wins.  You and I can’t see the entire script that he’s writing.  But Jesus says, “I can.  So take heart.  Take heart in what’s happening.  Take heart when the unthinkable arrives because I can see the end.” 

What do you put your trust in?  Don’t put your trust in the script that you’re living.  That will lead to pain.  You put your trust in the writer of the script.  Let me be real, real honest with you.  I’m not standing up here pretending that trusting in God is easy.  I know it’s a very, very difficult thing.  Guess what.  For those of us who struggle with this, we’re not alone.  Many of the Bible heroes struggled with doubt and trust. 

I’ll point you towards one and I encourage you to further investigate this later.  His name is John.  He goes by John the Baptist.  Not to be confused with John the Methodist or John the Presbyterian.  This was John the Baptist.  In Matthew 11 it says this “John the Baptist, who was now in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah [Jesus] was doing.  So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, ‘Are you really the Messiah we’ve been waiting for, or should we keep looking for someone else?’”

Pause right there and let me give you a little context.  John is in prison.  He’s about to not only die but he’s going to be killed.  He’s not only going to be killed, he’s going to have his head cut off.  That’s what’s going to happen.  No where in his life script did he write that.  Here he is in prison and all of a sudden he’s saying to his friends, go back to Jesus and find out are you really the Messiah?  Are you really who you said you were?”  Because outside the bowels of the prison, before John went into prison, John knew exactly who Jesus was.  John was the big shot before Jesus came on the scene.  John was the one who paved the way for Jesus to come.  John was the one who said of Jesus,  I can’t even baptize him because he’s too big.  I’m not even worthy enough to untie his sandals. 

But now all of a sudden John’s in jail.  He says, would you go find out if he really is the Messiah?  Back to verse 4.  This is the point you think I’ll bet Jesus tells his friends, “Go back and tell John ‘If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands….’”  No.  Here’s what happens.  “Jesus told them, ‘Go back to John and tell him about what you have seen and heard —the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.  And tell him: “Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”’”

You know what Jesus doesn’t say?  He doesn’t say Go back and tell him, the prisoners are being set free.  Go back and tell him I’ll pull a few strings and get him out of jail.  No.  He says go back and tell him the God who’s writing the script continues to write the script.

I just imagine that when John didn’t hear that he was getting out, in the quietness of his prison cell he had to go, “God!  What is going on?  I’ve served you my entire life.  Oh yeah, great… I’m glad the lame are healed and the crippled are cured and the blind see.  I’m thrilled about that.  But what about me?”  You can almost imagine him going through his script.  It’s like there’s a page missing out of this somewhere. 

We find out a couple chapters later that his head was cut off and put on a platter and paraded around King Herod’s birthday party. 

Here’s one of the great heroes of the faith that struggled with doubt just like you and I do two thousand years later.  You might be thinking, “It’s great to know I’m not alone but help me in my trust.  What do I do?” 

The best advice I can give you to learn to trust during difficult times, when the unthinkable happens, is not my advice.  It’s much better than that.  It comes from God.  It comes from the life of Jesus, the prayer of Jesus.  Jesus is on earth.  He’s a hundred percent human, a hundred percent God.  The unthinkable is going to happen to Jesus tomorrow.  He’s going to die on the cross.  So the night before he dies, he goes to a garden and he prays.  In that prayer we see what you and I can embody. 

Let me just warn you.  You may be discouraged by the simplicity of this.  But if you think about it, you will be challenged for the rest of your life for the difficulty of praying this way, really living it out.  The response is anything but simple.  

So the night before Jesus is crucified it says, “And they came to an olive grove called Gethsemane, and Jesus said, ‘Sit here while I go and pray.’  He took Peter, James, and John with him, and he began to be filled with horror and deep distress.  He told them, ‘My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death.  Stay here and watch with me.’  He went on a little farther and fell face down on the ground.  He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting him might pass him by. ‘Abba, [which is Aramaic for Daddy] Father,’ he said, ‘everything is possible for you.  Please take this cup of suffering away from me.  Yet I want your will, not mine.’”

If you take your notes home and look that up in your Bible and you reread that, maybe it’ll hit you like it hit me.  The God who can do anything with the script refuses to do the one thing that his Son requests.  It’s almost as if Jesus is begging him, “God!  Would you take this unthinkable away from me?”  And he doesn’t.  An innocent man dies a brutal death. 

But here’s the key.  The death of Jesus wasn’t the end of the story that God was writing.  In some ways the unthinkable – the crucifixion – was just the beginning.  And because Jesus trusted in God and faithfully played out his part and didn’t fall away when everything seemed to be falling apart, you and I – two thousand years later – we get to pay a role in God’s supporting cast because of what Jesus did on the cross.  Because of the unthinkable on the cross.

You can imagine in the crowd, his mother and his closest friends, those who had been following him, seeing him on the cross, going, “This is it.  It’s over.  I can’t believe it.  I can’t make sense of it.  I don’t get it.”  But that was just the beginning of the script that God was writing.  Because of what Jesus did on the cross, salvation is available to you and to me.

And Jesus prayed six words.  Six words that are life changing if you can genuinely pray them and live them out every day.  Verse 36 “I want your will not mine.”  That’s it.  That’s what trust is.  I want your will not mine.  It’s ok to say, “God!  I want my script, written the way I want it written.  I’m telling you in my heart I don’t want this unthinkable to happen.  But at the end of the day I know that you’re a better script writer than me.  And you have my good in mind.  So I want your will not mine and I’m going to walk in the direction of obedience to you.”

This is what it looks like today, tomorrow, this week, this year.  “God, I’m so ticked off at that relationship that went sour.  I was so hurt by that.  You know what I want to happen to them?  I want pain to happen in their life.  Actually God, would you please just strike them dead?  That’s what I want in my heart.  But I don’t want to live by my script.  I’m going to trust that you’re a better script writer, and I’m going to walk in the direction of obedience and not seek revenge on them.  Because at the end of every day I want your will not mine.”

          “God, I can’t believe that he has cancer!  I can’t believe it.  I’m crushed.  My soul’s in anguish.  You are the God who can do everything.  I know that you can heal him.  But I don’t see the big script.  I don’t get it right now.  And as difficult as it is I’m just going to walk in obedience and pray this prayer: I want your will not mine.”

Friends, as you do that, let me just leave you with one last thought to think about.  Every day that’s what trust is:  I want your will not mine.  As you pray that prayer, as you step in the direction of obedience I want you to remember this: God never promised us glee, but he did promise glory.  He never promised glee which is this life of superficial happiness where everything is going to go our way and we’re just going to kind of skip through the garden of life.  But he did promise glory.  And glory is when we get his presence, when we get his power, we get salvation, we spend all eternity with him.  That’s glory. 

It really comes down to two prayers.  You pray a prayer of control – “God, I want my will done.  I want my script written.”  Or you pray a prayer of surrender – “God, I want your script written.  I want your will done.” 

Which of those two prayers is going to characterize you?

Prayer:

      God, may we be different people because we were here today.  It is so difficult to trust.  It even feels odd saying that to you, God.  That sometimes it’s just so difficult to trust.  We don’t get it all.  We don’t see the whole script.  God, we pray that we can learn from the example you set.  That we would be men and women who walk out of here every day saying I want your will not mine.  And that then we would walk in the direction of obedience.  God, would you give us the courage to do that.  Bring other people into our life to help us and to guide us.  Thank you that you love us even when we doubt and we struggle.  That your love for us is not based on where we live or what we look like or how we dress.  But you love us because you created us and you’re calling us into a deeper and more intimate relationship with you.  We ask for that in the holy name of Jesus.  Amen. 

1-20-13 Sermon

To listen to today's sermon, click here. A manuscript with outline appears below.

When You Don’t Feel Like Trusting

Trusting God in Difficult Times, Part 3

01-20-13 Sermon

“Trust in God at all times, my people.  Tell him all your troubles, for he is our refuge.” 

Psalm 62:8 (TEV)

1.         Remember that trust is not ________________________________________

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God; trust also in me.”  John 14:1 (NIV)

2.         Set your heart on ________________________________________

“And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him.  May your roots go down deep into the sol of God’s marvelous love.  And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is.”  Ephesians 3:17-18 (NLT)

3.         Set your mind on ________________________________________

“Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits at God’s right hand in the place of honor and power.”  Colossians 3:1 (NLT)

4.         Don’t face it ________________________________________

“Two people can resist an attack that would defeat one personal one.  A rope made of three cords is hard to break.”  Ecclesiastes 4:12 (TEV)

Trusting in the Midst of Emotions

Trust when you are ________________________________________

“Don’t fret or worry.  Instead of worrying, pray.  Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns.  Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down.  It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.” 

Philippians 4:6-7 (Msg)

Trust when you are ________________________________________

What Moses said:  “Don’t be afraid.  Just stand where you are and watch the LORD rescue you.”   Exodus 14:13 (NLT)

What God said:  “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Why are you crying out to me?  Tell the people to get moving!’” Exodus 14:15 (NLT)

Trust when you are ________________________________________

“Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it?  How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!”  2 Kings 5:13 (NIV)

“If you hear God’s voice today, don’t be stubborn!”  Heb. 3:7-8 (CEV)

Trust when you are ________________________________________

“I have given up all hope, and I feel numb all over.”  Psalm 143:4 (CEV)

“Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”  Matthew 11:28 (NLT)

When You Don’t Feel Like Trusting

Trusting God in Difficult Times, Part 3

01-20-13 Sermon

We’re going to be continuing to talk as we have been the last couple of weeks about how do you trust God in difficult times.  How do you trust God no matter what? 

That’s really what the first verse on the outline talks about.  “Trust in God at all times, my people.  Tell him all your troubles for he is our refuge.”  So we’ve been talking about that.  I talked to you about trusting God when things are changing.  I talked to you about trusting God when there’s troubles we’re facing in our lives. 

This week, we’re going to look at the fact that sometimes, whatever the problem, whether it’s good times or bad times, the reason we don’t trust God is we just don’t feel like it.  So how do you trust God when you don’t feel like trusting God?

I can stand here and talk about trusting God in this circumstance or that circumstance, the good and the bad.  That’s great on a Sunday or on a Saturday.  But what do you do on Monday or Tuesday when you know you should trust God, but that day you just don’t feel like it.  You feel too tired.  You feel too worried or you feel too overwhelmed.  It just feels too complicated I don’t feel like trusting God. 

What does God say that you and I can do when we don’t feel like trusting?  We’re all going to feel this way sometimes.  What can I do?

1.  I can remember that trust is not an emotion.

I don’t have to feel like trusting in order to trust.  Because trust is not an emotion.  It’s not like I have to get up this feeling of feeling closer to God, feeling really spiritual, or feeling really sentimental in order to trust God.  It’s not a feeling.  It’s an action.  So however you’re feeling you can still trust. 

Jesus talked to his first followers about this the night before he died.  He knew the next day he was going to be hanging on a cross and they would feel like everything had been lost.  So the night, before he talked to them about the difference between trust and feeling, action and feeling.  John 14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God trust also in me.”  Jesus said you’re going to feel this way but however you feel don’t let that overwhelm you.  Decide to trust whatever the circumstance is.

So you trust God first of all by remembering that trust is not an emotion.  The second thing you do is this…

2.  You set your heart on God’s love for you.

You realize whatever the circumstances you’re having, whatever the feelings you’re having, God loves you. 

I love these verses from the book of Ephesians, Ephesians 3:17-18 “I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him.  May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love.  And may you have the power to understand as all God’s people should how wide, how long, how high and how deep his love really is.”  Don’t miss that. 

Whatever you’re going through, however you might feel, you might feel far from God, feel far from his love.  The truth is he loves you no matter what. 

Some people honestly feel ashamed to trust God.  They feel like they’ve gotten themselves into a mess and they’ve got to get themselves out of the mess before they can trust God again.  No!  You need God’s love now more than ever.  So you recognize he loves me even through this. 

God is not out to blame you.  He’s out to love you.  That’s his heart.  That’s his desire for you.  You recognize whatever I’m going through, whatever the circumstance, however I feel.  Whether I feel like trusting or don’t feel like trusting he loves me. 

Oftentimes I’ve found it takes recognizing that he loves me to understand the circumstances of life.  Because sometimes it seems like the circumstances God throws at me are exactly the opposite of what I would want.  It may even seem scary sometimes. 

So if right now it feels like the circumstances that God is allowing and brought in your life is like a big broom pushing you exactly in the opposite way you need to be – it’s because he knows where the open door is.  You realize that even in these circumstances that I don’t understand, God loves me.  God has a heart of love for me.  Set your heart of love on God.  That’s what you do when you don’t feel like trusting. 

Then there’s third thing that you and I can do. 

3.  Set your mind on things that which will last.

You can set your mind on the immediate circumstance.  You can set your mind on the immediate relationship and that might be good.  That might be bad.  But when we don’t feel like trusting you set your mind on that which you know will last.  God’s love for you, the eternity of heaven, the reality of what he has, the character he’s building in you, the plan he has that stretches all the way into eternity.  You set your mind on what Colossians 3:1 talks about “Since you’ve been raised to a new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven where Christ sits at the right hand of God in the place of honor and power.”  And by the way he sets there praying for you. 

So you set your mind on what’s really real.  And what seems real to us is the present circumstance.  But what is really real is the eternity that God has planned for us. 

The truth of the matter is what you feel isn’t always real.  I might feel this but its just not real at all.  It’s embarrassing to me how often what I feel has nothing to do with reality. 

          You might feel like everybody in your office is talking about you.  When the truth is they haven’t thought about you for months.  But you feel this way. 

          You might feel like the person in the car next to you intentionally cut you off when the truth of the matter is they’re messing around with their cell phone and they don’t even know you’re there or anybody else on the highway – which is a whole different problem.  What you’re feeling doesn’t always match reality.  This happens all the time.  What you feel isn’t always real.

So in order to trust when you don’t feel like trusting you don’t focus on your feelings.  You focus on what’s real.  And what’s real is what’s going to last.  The character that God’s building in you, the plan that he has for you.  What’s real is what God’s doing.  You have to ask yourself am I going to trust what I feel or am I going to trust in what’s real. 

Then there’s a final thing you do when you don’t feel like trusting….

4.  You don’t face it alone.

Don’t face it alone.  You’re not meant to face it alone.  None of us are meant to face it alone.  We go into a situation and we focus on ourselves and we try to make it through all by ourselves and we fall flat on our face and we wonder what’s wrong with me? 

It’s not what’s wrong with you.  It’s the direction you’re going.  We’re meant to not focus on ourselves, we’re meant to focus on God and others.  We’re meant to not just rely on ourselves alone.  We’re meant to rely on others.  So of course we fall flat on our face when we miss out on all of that.  God means for us to not face life alone.  He means for us to find strength from each other.

Ecclesiastes 4:12 says “Two people can resist an attack that would defeat one person alone.  A rope made of three cords is hard to break.”  You look at that and say, “Of course three is better than one.”  But this is true in relationships too. 

Here’s the point.  Maybe all you have left is a thread of faith.  And you wonder how am I going to make it?  If you’ll take your thread of faith and you add it to somebody else’s thread of faith and maybe just one more, you’ll be amazed at the strength that God can give you.  Stop trying to make your thread of faith thicker all by yourself.  Recognize that when we work together God strengthens us.  It’s amazing what God can do with what little you give him when you try to not do it alone.

Don’t face it alone.  That’s one of the keys.  You don’t face it alone.  You set your mind on what will last.  You set your heart on God’s love for you.  Remember that trust is not an emotion. 

Trusting in the midst of emotions.

The truth of the matter is there’s a lot of reasons we don’t feel like trusting.  I may not feel like trusting because I’m just tired.  I may not feel like trusting because I’m anxious.  I may not feel like trusting because I’m afraid. 

What I want to do is spend just a few minutes sort of like we go in and we set down with God and he’s the doctor and he says I want to give you a prescription.  You’re feeling this way, Here’s the prescription.  Here’s what you do in order to trust in that situation.  Just practical, encouraging, strengthening words from God.

Trust when you are anxious.

For instance, how do you trust when you’re anxious?  God has a prescription.  This one is in Philippians 4:6-7 “Don’t fret or worry.  Instead of worrying pray.  [You pray.  That’s his prescription. You might circle that phrase.]  You let petition and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns.  Before you know it a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down.  It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of our lives.”  You pray.

What do you pray about?  You pray about what you’re worried about.  I don’t know why it is, but we beat around the bush with God a lot of times.  We come saying, I’ve got this worry but first I’m going to pray for all the missionaries in every country of the world.  Then finally we get to what we’re worried about.  No.  Talk about what you’re anxious about first.  God here it is.  I’m worried about it.  I have a right to be worried about it.  Here are seventeen reasons why this is a good worry to have.  In fact you might even want to tell God off about your worry.  After you tell him off he might have some things to tell you.  He’s got some encouraging words, some graceful words to tell you, to help you, to strengthen you when you’re anxious. 

The answer when you’re worried is to turn your worries into prayers.  The minute you do that you’ve decided I’m not just going to worry.  I’m going to trust.  I’m going to trust God even with this worry by turning it into a prayer.  That’s what God says to do.  When you’re anxious, when you’re worried, you decide to pray.

Trust when you are afraid.

How about trusting when you’re afraid?  And when I say afraid I’m talking about an actual circumstance.  Worries, anxieties… studies show that ninety, ninety five percent of what you and I worry about is never going to happen.  We worry about things because we are made to worry, I guess. 

But what about genuine circumstances?  Maybe you’re worried about losing your job.  And you may or you may not lose your job.  Or you are afraid you may lose your health.  Or you are afraid something bad will happen to your kids or grandkids.  It’s a fear that you have.

Fear comes when circumstances cause us to feel trapped.  And it feels to us like there’s no way out.  It’s what in the Bible we call the Red Sea experience.  You remember what happened.  Moses was leading the people of Israel out of Egypt out of slavery and they come to the Red Sea and they can’t cross.  They look behind them and they see the Egyptian army coming their way.  They can’t go that way either without being killed.  They’re trapped.  There’s no way out.  As long as you can see a way out you don’t feel afraid.  But once we get into a situation we feel like there’s no way out of this.  We’re trapped.  We find it hard to breathe.  We face fear.

How do you trust when you feel afraid?  There’s an amazing interchange that happens between the people and Moses and God there on the shores of the Red Sea.  I want to walk you through it.  It shows us what God says about how to trust when we feel afraid.

First, the people.  They were afraid.  They come to Moses and say, “Moses, what did you do to us?  We would have rather been slaves in Egypt than been brought out here in the desert to die.  Thanks very much Moses.  You thought you were our savior.  You’ve ruined everything.”

Moses to his credit could have blamed them back.  “You followed me.  It’s your fault.”  But he didn’t do that.  Instead he says in Exodus 14:13 “Don’t be afraid.  Just stand where you are and watch the Lord rescue you.” 

To Moses’ credit he had the humility to point them to God.  That was the good thing.  But it’s interesting that God had a little bit different answer.  Moses comes up with this very spiritual answer: stand where you are and see what God’s going to do.  That sounds very spiritual until a couple verses later.  “Then the Lord said to Moses ‘Why are you crying out to me?  Tell the people to get moving.’”  Moses is saying stay where you are.  God is saying get moving.  Circle those two words: get moving.  That’s the answer when you’re afraid.  Fear paralyzes us.  So you get moving.  You take a step in God’s direction. 

Some of us see get moving and say, “That means it’s all up to me.  If it’s to be it’s up to me.  This is all about my strength and my power.  I’m going to do it now.  God, you put it all on my shoulders.”  Absolutely not.  God told them to get moving in the direction of the Red Sea where they would drown unless he acted. 

What this is saying is you take a step in the direction of what only God can do.  You’ve got a choice when you feel trapped.  You can sit still and stew about what you can’t do.  You can try your hardest to do something that you in your own power can do.  Or you can take a step in the direction of what only God can do.  That’s what you ought to do.  The third one. 

As you head towards what only God can do in your life, that breaks the power of fear.  That breaks the paralysis of fear.  And it’s just the first step.  God’s not going to show you the next twenty years, the next hundred years.  He’s not going to show you the next hundred steps.  He’ll show you the next, the first step.

I don’t know what that is for you.  It might be a step of integrity in your work.    It might be a step of letting go of unforgiveness.  It might be a step of service.  It might be a step of loving somebody that you’ve had a hard time loving.  It could be a thousand things. 

You take one step in the direction of doing that.  Then you ask God for the strength to take the next step.  That’s what breaks you out of fear.  That’s what breaks you out of the paralysis.  Instead of getting stuck on what the Israelites couldn’t do, they moved in the direction of what God could do.  

So here we are sitting with God and he’s given us the diagnosis and prescription.  He says when you’re anxious pray, talk to me about what you’re worried about.  I’ll help you trust.  Even that is trusting.  When you’re afraid, take the next step in the direction of what only I can do. 

What do you do when you have the third feeling? 

Trust when you are stubborn.

How do you trust when you’re stubborn?  I tried to come up with a nicer word.  In the Bible it’s “stiff necked.”  That’s the word they use today we use “hard headed.”  Stubborn! 

I’ll admit it.  I’m stubborn sometimes.  I don’t want to trust because I’m stubborn.  God said do it this way and I wanted to go my own way and I don’t want to admit that he was right.  Even worse than that; my wife agreed with God.  I don’t want to admit she was right.  That would be really bad.  So you just don’t trust because you get stubborn.

We all face this in our lives.  It’s easy for some of us to admit.  For others of us it’s very difficult to admit.  But there is a stubbornness in us that keeps us from doing what we know is right for us, what is best for us.  We see that all through our lives in the way that we diet, the way that we eat, the way we do all kinds of things.  It also comes in the way that we trust.  How do you deal with this one?

There’s a great story in the Bible about a guy by the name of Naaman.  You may have heard this story.  This is a guy who was a high government official in Syria in Old Testament times.  He had leprosy.  So here’s a rich powerful man with an incurable disease.  He couldn’t connect with people, people wouldn’t connect with him.  He had to deal with it every day. 

He had a servant girl who worked in his household who had grown up in Israel.  She said to him one day, “My master there is a prophet by the name of Elisha in Israel.  If you went and talked with him I believe he would pray for you and I believe you might be healed.”  And Naaman listened to her. 

He gets all of his people together, his entourage and this government official goes all the way to Israel and eventually he makes his way to Elisha’s door.  He knocks on the door.  The door opens and it’s one of Elisha’s servants.  Naaman says here I am.  Great government official Naaman to be healed.  To have Elisha pray for me.  The servant says Elisha’s busy right now.  Sorry.  He doesn’t have time for you.  And Naaman says, What should I do?  And the servant says, He says go down and wash in the Jordan river, dip yourself seven times, come up and you’ll be healed.  Thank you very much.  And he closes the door. 

Naaman is furious.  He says, I came all this way and he couldn’t give me the time of day.  He sent a servant out to talk to me.  He starts to stomp off heading back home. 

He had some friends – I wish we all had friends like this – who had this honest moment with him.  They said, “Naaman’s servants went to him and said, ‘My father, if a prophet had told you to do some great thing would you not have done it?  How much more then when he tells you wash and be cleansed?’”

We want to trust God in ways that appeal to our pride.  That seems complicated.  That would impress other people how trusting we really are.  We don’t want to do the simple things. 

Naaman faced that.  Stubbornly he was walking home.  But that day he listened to his servants.  He went down to the Jordan River.  He dipped himself seven times in the river.  He came up the seventh time and he was healed. 

How do you break through this one?  How do you break through our stubbornness?  It doesn’t work to have even me talk to you about this.  When another person talks to you about your stubbornness it makes you more stubborn, doesn’t it?  So how do we break through this one?

There’s a great verse in the book of Hebrews that I think is the answer.  The Bible says in Hebrews 3:7-8 “If you hear God’s voice today don’t be stubborn.”  Circle “hear God’s voice.”  That’s the answer.  Not hearing what some person’s opinion is.  I want to hear God’s voice.  What does God say in his word?  What does God say to his people?  What does God say through my small group?  What does God say through my circumstances?  What does God say through his Spirit in my mind and in my heart?  If you hear God’s voice don’t be stubborn.

You hear God’s voice and you hear your name.  It’s personal.  And it’s a gentle voice.  Like the voice of a Father from above.  He says, “Let it go.”  He says, “Forgive.”  And he say, “Come to me.”  And he says, “Trust me with this one.”  And he says, “I am with you.”  And you know that it’s God’s voice. 

God’s voice is not condemning.  It is inviting.  That condemning voice, that’s somebody else’s voice.  God’s voice is an inviting, loving, drawing voice.  If you hear God’s voice don’t be stubborn.  Because he is drawing you towards the best.  The best life you can have here and all the way into eternity.  The best heart that you can have here, the best character that you can have here.  Because he loves you like no one else loves you.  If you hear God’s voice today, if you’re hearing it right now, don’t be stubborn.  Let it go.  Come to him.

Trust when you are tired.

How do you trust when you’re tired?  When you just feel like I’d like to trust but I don’t have it in me.  I’m just worn out by the circumstances of life.  I’m worn down by what’s been happening to me.  I don’t have it in me to trust one more ounce.  I’ve done it so many times and it hasn’t worked out like I wanted it to work out.  I don’t think I can do it.  I want to.  I just don’t have it in me. 

What do you do then?  What do you do when you feel like Psalm 143:4 “I have given up all hope and I feel numb all over.”  The guy who wrote that was a guy by the name of David, one of the most famous guys of faith of all the Old Testament.  He wrote most of the book of psalms.  David says I don’t have any hope.  I feel numb all over. 

You might be feeling that exact way right now because of something that happened last week.  We’ve all felt this way some times in our lives.  What do you do when you feel that way?  David turned to God.  If you’re feeling numb all over, if you’re feeling without hope, Psalms 143 is a great psalm to read again and again this next week especially the first part of it. 

Listen to what David said after he wrote that psalm “I remembered to think about the many things that you did in years gone by.  Then I lift my hands in prayer because my soul is a desert and thirsty for water from you.  Please hurry Lord and answer my prayer.  I feel hopeless.  Each morning let me learn more about your love because I trust you.  I come to you in prayer asking for your guidance.  You are my God.  Show me what you want me to do and let your gentle Spirit lead me in the right path.” 

These are the things we just talked about.  David prayed that day he felt no hope.  How do you trust when you don’t feel like trusting and you’re just too tired?  Jesus talked about.  He said in Matthew 11:28 “Come to me [circle “come to me.”  That’s what you do.  Come to me, Jesus said] all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens and I will give you rest.”  That’s what you do. 

When you feel tired, what do you want to do?  Usually you want to get away.  I want to get away from the tiredness I have.  I want to escape this thing.  The problem with that is it never works.  One of two things happens.  Either I get away from it but then I come back to it and it’s just as bad or worse than it was.  Or I get away and when I get away I find out the problem is me.  And I took the problem with me and I don’t get away at all.  One of those two things happens. 

Jesus said when you feel worn out, when you feel like you don’t have it in you to trust, don’t get away.  He said come to me, trust in me.  What does that mean?  That means you realize he’s with you right now.  That means you talk to him about what you’re going through.  You tell him I don’t have the strength to trust.  I’m too tired.  You tell him you’re tired.  You come to him.  You realize he’s in it with you.  You are not alone.

As we close I want you to talk to him about whatever difficulty, whatever relationship, whatever feeling you’re needing to trust him with right now.  You may have been thinking about it the whole time or maybe it popped in your mind right now.  I want to give us just a moment to talk to God about it.

Prayer:

      Just say to him, “God here it is.  This is the feeling.  This is the circumstance.  This is the relationship.  This is where I need to trust you.  This is the decision.  This is the habit I’m struggling with.  This is the financial decision I need to make.  Here it is.  God, help me to trust you.”  I invite you to pray this prayer of trust with me today.  Say “Lord, I want to trust in you and not my feelings.  When I’m anxious, give me faith to pray.  When I’m afraid, give me faith to take the next step.  When I’m stubborn, give me faith to hear your voice.  When I’m tired, give me faith to come to you.  I want to trust in you and not my feelings.”  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.