A Godly view of Circumstances - Life of Paul Part 38

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:02

Well, good morning. How's everybody.

Speaker 2 0:05

But our Bible today, I hope you brought one too . Uh , acts chapter 16, and we're going to be continuing in our study of the life of the great man, the apostle Paul. Now, you know, when I became a follower of Christ 32 years ago, I really believe that now that I come to Christ, all my problems were going to be over well since then, my dad had three heart attacks and died. My mom and my 26 year old sister-in-law both died of breast cancer. I wasn't allowed to finish my PhD dissertation because I wouldn't compromise on biblical and Aaron . See , my professor threw me out of the program. I have three teenage boys who count them have had six accidents, totally one car and severely hurting a bunch of other cars. And I have a ten-year-old severely disabled little girl. As I stand here. Before you looking at you today, I have a broken rib. I have a leak in my roof. I have a beloved mother-in-law who has cancer. I have a master bedroom shower that's been broken for a month and I have bugs on my azaleas. Now the point of all of this is I've learned in 32 years of walking with Christ that Christians have problems just like everybody else does. But the difference is that as followers of Jesus Christ, God wants us to look at our problems, to react to our problems and respond to our problems differently than people in the world system around us. And that's what we want to talk about today. We want to talk about what I like to call having a godly view of our circumstances. We're going to see the apostle Paul illustrate this in his life. We're going to use his life as a classroom. And we're going to try to talk about how you and I can have a godly view of circumstances in our life. Now, a little bit of background before we dig in, remember the apostle Paul is on his second missionary journey. He's crossed over from Asia minor and he's crossed to Greece, the Northern part of Greece, where he has spent almost a month in the Northern Greek town of Philippa here in Philippi , he's been arrested. He's been beaten with rods till all the flesh was ripped off his back, down to the bone. Then he's been thrown in jail and Philippa , his hands were put above his head. His feet were spread wide in stocks causing his leg muscles to cramp up without there being any way of relieving that. And then in spite of all of this, as the evening wears on, he knows that the next morning he's going to face a trial where he very well might receive a worst penalty in the knees already got . Now that's where we've been. Let's pick up the story. Verse 25, acts 16. The Bible says, and about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. Now, people, if you, if we'd have been in that situation, if we'd have been in that jail, the way the apostle Paul was, our reaction would have been a little bit more like our friend, ER, member , ER, ER,

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Would have said, Oh, woe is me. My back hurts. My legs hurt. My feet hurt man . Or it's everything hurts. Woe is me.

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Well that wasn't the possible no, sir. He was singing. He was praising God. And he wasn't doing it quietly either because the rest of the verse goes on to say, and all the other prisoners were listening to them. This was like a Billy Graham crusade going on in the middle of this jail. And you say, well on how do we explain Paul's reaction Paul's behavior in light of his circumstances. I mean, he has got some nasty circumstances. His back's all torn up. His legs are all cramped up. He's in this old cruddy jail with his arms above his head, chained to the wall. And yet he's calm and he's got joy and he's got peace and he's got confidence. How do you explain them ? We're friends. The answer is that the apostle Paul had a godly view of his circumstances. And we wanted to find that what exactly does it mean to have a godly view of our circumstances? Well, God godly view of circumstances very simply is an outlook on life. It is a way of looking at our circumstances that is based on believing two biblical truths, truth number one, which the apostle Paul believed is that as a follower of Jesus Christ, God was in absolute control of every circumstance that came into Paul's life. Paul wrote first Thessalonians five 17. Give thanks in all things you mean even when you're in jail with your back bleeding and your hands shackled and your legs all cramped up, give thanks in all things. Why? Because this your situation, whatever it might be, this is God's will for you in Messiah. Jesus. See , as he sat there in that jail, Paul said, you know what? It is no accident. I'm in this jail. It is no coincidence. I'm in this jail. It is not a matter of fate that I ended up in this jail with my back, all torn up. Like I am, God is an absolute control of my circumstances. I am right smack dab in the middle of the will of God for my life. Because even the smallest detail of my life is under the utter, absolute and total control of all mighty God. The second truth that Paul believed is that as a follower of Christ, he had a promise from God that God was going to convert every situation that entered his life into good, into a blessing. He was the one who wrote that promise down and reminded us of it. Romans eight 28. We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love him. And as he sat there in that jail, the apostle Paul said, Hey, you know what? I got a promise from God that as bad as things look right now, they're not going to stay this way. Somehow God's going to take these bad looking things and turn them into a blessing for me. And he remembered how God had done this for lots of other people in the Bible. For example, he remembered the story of Esther. Remember Esther's mom died. Her dad died. She was forced to move to the capital , the Persian empire city called Susa and live with an uncle that she didn't even know uncle Mordecai. Now that wasn't a real good-looking situation, but God stepped into that tragic situation and flipped it around for her blessing. She ended up becoming the queen of Persia and using that position to save her Jewish people from being slaughtered Paul, as he sat in the jail, knew the story of Moses and the Israelites down at the red sea. Moses found himself with the red Cedar was back and the charging chariots of Pharaoh in front of him. And yet God stepped in and turned that very unenviable situation into the greatest delivery in all of human history. Paul knew the story of Ruth as he sat there in that jail, Ruth was married to one of the two sons of Naomi. Naomi was a widow and she had two sons. Their name in Hebrew were Malian . And [inaudible] which mean literally in Hebrew, sickly and weekly. Now I don't know why you'd name your boys sickly and weekly , but she did. And the Bible tells us that sickly and weakly both die well. And Ruth became a widow. She and her widowed mother-in-law moved back to Bethlehem and they were so poor that the only way they could eat is go out in the field and pick up the ears of corn that the harvesters accidentally dropped. And yet into that situation, God intervened. And one day, while she was out in the fields , pick it up. Born Ruth met Boaz now. So as was rich in Boaz was handsome and Boaz was godly. And best of all, Boaz was available as he was. And they got married. And before Ruth knew what happened to her, she had security. She had family, she had riches. She had provision and she also became the great grandmother, a fellow named David who went on to become the greatest King of Israel and the progenitor of the Lord. Jesus finally sitting in that jail. One more example. He knew the story of Joseph who'd been in jail himself. Remember the story Joseph sold into slavery by his brothers at age 17, went down to Egypt, sold a part of her and Egyptian military officer and everything was going great until Potiphar's wife got , but we used to call in the South a hankering for Joseph. Well, she tried to convince him to have an affair. He wouldn't do it. So she accused him of trying to rape her. Well, that wasn't true, but her husband believed her, threw him in jail. And he spent 13 years in jail as an innocent man between 17 and 30. He never got out of jail. And yet into that very unpalatable situation, God stepped because one day Pharaoh had a dream. Nobody could interpret it and they took it to Joseph and he interpreted it. And friend, before you can say Yule, Brenner, he was out of jail and on his way into Pharaoh's court to be the prime minister of all of Egypt. And so sitting in this jail, Paul says, I got a promise from God, the same promise he made to Joseph, to Esther , to Ruth , to Moses. And he kept his promise to them. He's going to keep his promise to me. So sitting there in jail, he said, Hey, if I'm right smack dab in the middle of God's will, because there are no accidents. And if I have a promise from God that he's going to turn this whole situation around by his supernatural power, Hey, if I've got those two things go in, then I got something to sing about, not something to Fred about. I don't need to be, or I can be Tigger here in jail. And that's what he was. In other words, the explanation for Paul's behavior was that he had a godly view of circumstances. Now let's summarize what is a godly view of circumstances. Then it means number one, seeing God in absolute control of every circumstance that comes into our lives as followers of Christ. Number two, it means seeing God as bigger than even the worst circumstances that come into our life, that there is no circumstance that God can flip into a blessing and third. And finally it means actively relying on God to keep his promise that he made us in Romans eight, 28, relying on God, to personally intervene in our everyday affairs to overrule even our worst circumstances and turn them into a blessing for us. Just like he did Joseph Ruth, Moses, Esther . And as we're going to see in the weeks to come, just like he's going to do for the apostle Paul. Now that's the end of our passage, but it leads us to ask a very important question. We haven't asked this question a long time. I'm worried. Maybe you forgot my question, but let's see if we can remember it together. Deep breath. Here we go. One, two, three. You didn't forget. That makes me feel good. Well, you know, what is the, so what you say law and the, so what here is that Paul had a godly view of circumstances. Big whoop , no, no friends. The so one here is that a godly view, a circumstances is not for the apostle Paul. God wants every single one of us to practice a godly view of circumstances in our lives. And when we do it will enable us just like it did Paul to face any situation. God sends our way, the good, the bad, or the ugly doesn't matter. And to face that situation would calm with peace and with confidence because we know what God has promised to us and we're relying on it. You say, well, lawn is great. I appreciate what you're saying up there. You're preaching good and everything. But how do I get one of these godly views of circumstances in my life? Well, the answer is you and I get it the exact same way. The apostle Paul got it. How did the apostle Paul get a godly view of circumstances? Real simple. He believed what God told him in the Bible. That's all he did. He believed what God told him in the Bible. He believed God's promise of Romans eight, 28, so thoroughly so deeply, so utterly and so completely, not just in his head, but in his whole being that it radically transformed the way he responded to every circumstance that came in his life. He believed God. Now friends, if we're going to practice a godly view of circumstances, we need to believe God too . So let's take God's promise of Romans eight, 28 apart a little bit. Remember the verse. We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love him. That's our verse. Let's take it apart. Make sure we really understand what God's telling us. There are four things I want to point out to you about this first Romans eight 28. The promise there is an unequivocal and an unquestionable promise. Notice the verse starts off by declaring. We know Paul, doesn't say we hope, or we guess all we wish Paul says, we know something with as much confidence as we know our own name. The second thing I want you to see here is that the promise of Romans eight 28 is made to a limited group of people. This promise is made to those who love God to those who are followers of Jesus Christ, to those who are children of God, by faith in Christ. This promise is not made to every American is not made to every church goer. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, the good news is this promise is your personal possession. This promise is your unique piece of property that God made this promise to you, not to the whole world. And you can claim it as yours. If you're here today and you've never trusted Christ as your real and personal savior, may I point out to you that one of the wonderful things that you get when you give your life to Christ is you get all kinds of promises like this one that suddenly become your personal property, suddenly become your unique possession. Because now you're a child of God. What a great thing to have this as ours, it belongs to me and friends. If you're a follower of Christ, this promise belongs to you. It's yours. Third. I'd like to remind us that Romans eight 28 promises that God will convert all of our circumstances into good. Then he will intervene in the everyday affairs of our life. Supernaturally. He will take an interest in the everyday affairs of our life. And no matter how awful our circumstances may be, no matter how impossible it may look, God promises that he will cause look what it says. God causes all things to work together for good. He actively gets involved and causes this to happen by his own supernatural power and fourth . And finally, and I think this is the best part of all. The Bible says, God causes all things. This promise applies to every single circumstance in life. God causes all things to work together for. Good. Now, what this means is that God just doesn't call some things or most things are all, but the bad things. This is a promise that there is absolutely no circumstance that could ever come into your life for my life. That is beyond the reach of God's flip-flopping power. God's overruling power. This world cannot send a circumstance bad enough that God can flip. It is what this verse is telling us. Now, friends, remember this verse is not telling us God is not telling us here that all things are good. God, didn't say that. Bankruptcy sickness, car accidents, the death of a loved one family problems, leaks in the roof, children with disabilities. These are not good things. What God is promising here is that God will take all things. The good, the bad and the in-between. He will work them together, blend them together, skillfully, combine them with one another. So that by the time God is finished, his overruling power will have turned the end result into a blessing and into good. Now, when I think about this, let me tell you what I think about, I think a lot about baking a cake and we're going to do a little AMRO live here for you, because if you've ever thought about this thing now a little bit about what it's like to bake a cake, think a little bit what it's like, okay? The ingredients that go into a cake, because the ingredients that go into this thing are really not very nice ingredients all by themselves. For example, we have raw eggs. Now, you know what ? My drinking days before I was a follower of Christ, people used to say to me, Hey, if you wake up and you're hung over, take one of these, drink one of these and you'll feel better. I said, no, I'd rather feel bad. I'm not drinking one of these things. And this goes in there. If somebody walked up to on the street and said, I will give you $1,000, if you will drink a raw egg, is there really anybody here raise your hand? Who would honestly do this? Anybody who would honestly do it? You would well here .

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Yeah .

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It's hard that one's hard boiled , but that's a good catch. All right . Now what else goes into a cake? Alright , we got Western oil. Now who in the world in their right mind would drink a cup of Western oil unless your cholesterol was in the negatives and you were trying to get it up. Who would drink this stuff? Well, that goes in there too. All right . What else we got? Well, we got flour. All right . Unbleached flour. Here. We take a cup full of that. Who in the world would eat this stuff? Look at this stuff. I mean, this stuff is terrible. Watch terrible. Absolutely.

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Now , I mean that is bam.

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Sales goes in there. A stick of butter who in their right mind would eat a straight stick of butter. I wouldn't would you? I hope not. And we put all this stuff in there and we mixed it all up. And when we mix it all up, it's still yucky. So we put it in the oven and we cook it. But you know what? If you pull it out of the oven, halfway dumb, it's still yucky. Nobody's going to eat it. But friends, you put all of these ingredients together and you cook them for just the right amount of time and look what you get. Ooh, this is nice. I like this. This is good. Now here's the point. The point is, if we looked at a cake from the point of view of all the individual ingredients, we'd say this thing, can't turn out to be anything but awful. And yet you give it to the right chef. Who knows how to do it. Now you give it to the wrong chef. It can be awful, but to give it to the right chef and they can take all these ingredients as unpalatable as they are and turn it into a beautiful thing. What I'm here to tell you is that the promise of Romans eight 28 is not a promise about the individual events, the individual circumstances that come in your life, their ingredients. And you know, sometimes we get raw eggs and sometimes we get unbleached flour. And then sometimes we get Western oil that comes into our life. The promise of Romans eight 28 is that we have a heavenly chef , a divine supernatural all-powerful God who is a chef, takes all of these things. As unappetizing, as they may be individually, mixes them together, matches them together, churns them together, heats them together. And when he's done, man, the thing that comes out at the end is a beautiful thing. That's the promise. The danger here is that you and I begin evaluate God's truthfulness. God's faithfulness to his promise when the cake's only half baked too soon, you know, many times we jump in and we look at things and we go, God is not keeping his promise to me, but you know what? If Esther had looked at her situations right after her mom and dad had died. If Moses had looked at his situation right there with the chariots come in and the red sea unopened behind him. If Ruth had looked at her situation right after her husband died and she's out there picking up corn off the ground to eat in the field. And if Joseph had looked at his situation, any one of those 13 years in jail, every one of those people would have indicted God and said, God, you lied to me. You did not keep your word to me. Romans eight 28 did not come true for me. My life did not turn out as a blessing. Oh , but wait a minute, friends, the cake was only hanging . Remember what we said? I have fake cake is still yucky, but when God finish the cake for every one of these people, did God not keep his word? Yes he did. You know, many of us here are going through tough times. I know many of us here have really tough circumstances that we're facing. Some of us here have been passed over and neglected in our jobs. Some of us here have children with problems that we're powerless to fix. Some of us here have trouble in our marriages. Some of us here are single and lonely and, and we can't understand why God hasn't led us to Mr. Right. Or Ms. Right? Some of us here have had our spouse walk out on us and leave us with children to raise all by ourselves. Some of us here have aging parents that we're trying to care for. Some of us here have loved ones who are ill and infirmed, and we don't understand why God would let this happen to them. Some of us have teachers or professors or giving us a hard way to go in school or a neighbor. Who's driving us crazy. Some of us here want a child so badly, and we can't seem to have one. Some of us here have cancer or some other disease. And you know, when we're going through things like this friends, it's really , really easy spiritually to indict God. It's true . Really easy to get angry with God and say, God, you lied to me. God, you haven't kept Romans eight 28. God. There is no way under the sun that any of this could possibly turn out for. Good. And we accuse God friends. I'm here to tell you that you're getting upset over a half baked cake. You got it all wrong. The cakes only have done give God time to finish the cake. And when you finish the cake for Esther , when he finished it for Ru , when he finished it for Moses, when he finished it for Joseph, it was beautiful. And friend , when he finishes for you, it'll be beautiful too. You can't judge God's faithfulness. When the cakes only have half done, he can't do that. Hey, I understand this earlier. I have a 10 year old little girl that severely disabled. And you know, in the early years when she came along and things were so awful, I went through this process of struggling the same way in my relationship . God , I accuse God. I did God. I said, God, there is no way under God's green earth. Any of this could ever turn out for good. I cannot see one possible good thing that could ever come out of the pain and the heartache and the suffering that we're going through as a family. How would you ever turn this into good God? Well, I'm here to tell you, 10 years later, I was wrong. I was wrong. No . In the 10 years that my little girl's been around, God has used her to make me into a better man, a better husband, a better father, a better pastor, and a better leader than I ever would have been without her. She's actually doing quite well now. But beyond that friends, God used my little girl to create a ministry. Here, we call access. It's a ministry where we reach out to over 400 families who have children with disabilities. Half of them aren't even followers of Christ yet we're out to get them, but they're not yet. And you know, we never would've had access ministry of McLean Bible church. If God hadn't sent Jill in my life, because I wouldn't have even understood what people dealing with disabilities are going through. I would have had no interest whatsoever in starting a ministry to them. But Hey, because I was in and I understood. And you know, we have churches who come from all around the country to see what we're doing here and access ministry so they can take it back and copy it in their own churches and start ministries to children with disabilities in their own communities. On the five acres, just took it West of here. We're planning to build an overnight respite center and an afterschool therapy center for children with disabilities because did you know, 80% of marriages who have a special needs child that comes into that marriage. 80% of those marriages ends in divorce. That's not my figure. That's the national epilepsy foundation figure. We want to keep those families together. We want to keep those marriages together. And the biggest thing, moms and dads need to stay together. Raising children like this, as they just need a break, they just need a break. So we're going to give them a 36 hour overnight break every single week to try to keep families together. And our goal is to see centers like this all around the beltway. And then in cities, all around America, we want to galvanize churches to start these things everywhere. Through the United States. Jim Dobson has called us three times wanting to know if we'd come on, focus on the family and talk about what we're doing with this center. And I've told him three times, Jim, not yet. And we'll get 50,000 phone calls the next day. And we won't have anything to show anybody, let us build it first. And when we build it, we'll come on because that's our goal is to make a nationwide impact on reaching out to this community of people. None of this would have happened without Jill. And you know, I got a call from the white house last week. Somebody nominated me. I don't even know who to be on the president's commission for mental retardation. And they had a meeting last week. And this lady called to tell me, the president of United States have chosen me to be one of 21 people from across the United States to serve on this commission. I'm going to have the opportunity to sit with the president of the United States and advise him about how to care,

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Advise him

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How to care better in government programming for people in America who have disabilities. And let me tell you why they chose me. The lady said there were two reasons. Number one, we wanted you because you represent a church. That's doing the kind of faith based initiatives that we're trying to get churches to do all across America. You're the perfect example. And the second reason we wanted you, the president wanted you is because he wanted somebody who had lived it, not just somebody who'd been to school and learned about it, but he wanted somebody who had actually lived in the trenches with mental retardation and disability. Now friends without Jill, you really think the present United States would have invited me to be on this thing. If he hadn't, you really think I'd have had anything to contribute. Of course not. This is only 10 years of Jill's life. I don't know what God's going to do with the rest of her life, but if he doesn't do anything else, he's done enough in 10 years. And let me tell you what happened several years into this. I finally turned around one day and said, okay, enough is enough. We're not going to be ER anymore. We're going to force ourselves. We're going to demand from ourselves. A godly view of circumstances. We're going to stop indicting God. We're going to stop accusing God in this family. We are going to stop questioning God in this family. We are going to rise above that. And we are going to have a godly view of circumstances. We are going to assume we're in this because we're right in the center of the will of God. And we're going to assume that somehow some way that we can see that we don't understand God is going to bring good out of this. And we're going to walk by faith. We're just going to believe that. And I said to Brenda, you're going to believe that I'm going to believe it. And we're gonna teach our children to believe it. And let me tell you friends, not only did God do exactly what he said, but it also made our experience a lot better that we demanded a godly view of circumstances from ourselves. Now I'm here to tell you that if you've got some tough things going on in your life, God, hasn't lied to you. And you say, but law . And I look at my circumstances and I can see one single way. God could turn them into good. Well, so what God didn't ask you to be able to see you don't have the perspective to see you don't have the wisdom to see. You don't know what God knows. You have no idea what God's planning to do. You and I are in no to judge God. At this point, when I have baked cake, besides God says, we're not to walk by sight. We're to walk by faith. Faith means we believe what God tells us. Even if we can't figure it out friends. And I'll tell you if you'll demand from yourself, a God view you circumstances. Not only will God keep his promise, but you'll have a lot easier time and a lot more fun in the process than be any . Or some of us here have tough things. I know that having a disabled little girl is a tough thing too, but friends, we can rise above that. If we really believe God and have a godly view of circumstances, may God help you do that? Let's pray, Lord. You know that , um , we're all human. And gosh, when Tufts stuff hits our life, the first the natural, the normal reaction is to just come apart at the scenes to panic, to get angry, to accuse you. We've all done it. But Lord, my prayer is that you would use the apostle Paul as a classroom for us, his attitude. And then we would understand that what you're looking for from us is a godly view of circumstances. You want us to believe what you tell us so utterly and so deeply that we can rise above those human reactions. And we can be calm and confident and peaceful because we know some things we know this is no accident. And we know you're going to convert it into good. And we know that so deeply, we're going to walk by faith and believe it before we ever see it, Lord, that's where you want us to be as a way of creating a platform to people around us, where we can share Christ with them. So change our lives, change the way we react to our circumstances because we were here. And for those of us struggling through some tough things, God give us a whole different way of approaching those tough things. Give us a godly view of our circumstances, help us walk by faith. And we pray these things in Jesus name. God's people said, amen,