Faith Has Its Seasons II, The Season Of Adversity

While you're turning there, I just want to make mention of how strongly I feel about this leadership retreat that's coming up in about a month, four weeks away. Every one of you who are a leader, small group leader, a ministry leader, if there's any way possible for you to carve out those 20 hours together, it will be a defining moment in our future direction as a church. I'm counting on our elders and deacons and all of our leadership to make this time together as we confirm God's direction. You should have gotten a letter this week. If you didn't get one, call the office or see a pastor and we'll make sure that you get that information. Leadership, friends, is what will guide the church into the future. And those of you who are leaders, we want to encourage you with this time. It will be a very rich and powerful and, I trust, helpful time together. John 16, verse 33, I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. That's pretty blunt, isn't it? But take heart. I have overcome the world. I'd like us all to read this in the amplified version that I put on your North Way teaching outline. Would you read it out loud with me? Let's declare this expression of the word of God, shall we? In the world, you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustrations. But be of good cheer, take courage, be confident, certain, undaunted, for I have overcome the world. I have deprived it of the power to harm, have conquered for you. Well, Jesus said it was coming. Adversity, a condition, Webster says, marked by misfortune, calamity, or distress. It's coming. If you're not presently in it, count on it. If you are in it, it's a season. It may begin by that terrible phone call that you received in the middle of the night, giving you news you hoped you'd never hear. It may come by the somber talk that your boss has with you when you realize that your time with that company is over. It may come when the school counselor calls and says, oh, we found this little bag in your 15-year-old's locker, and there's something in it that's illegal. It may come when the heart specialist has that uneasy look in his eye, or when your spouse says, this is going to be a really hard thing for me to tell you. Or that child that says to you, hey, I'm 18 now, and I don't want to be under the same roof with you anymore. Or that hidden memory or flashback that keeps coming into your mind and holding you in its jaws. Or by that notification from the bank or the insurance company that somehow you've gone over the line, and they can't help you anymore. Jesus says it's coming, and it's going to come to some of us in waves, lots and lots and lots of tribulation, adversity. And for others of us, it's just going to come in little bits. And I don't understand that. Do you understand that? But Jesus says for all of us, we're going to have some of it. And it's, by the way, the great leveler of the human race. It can happen to someone as famous and well-known as Christopher Reeve, or someone as average as Officer John Wilbur of the Pittsburgh Police Force. Hardships, pressures, tragedy, heartbreak, betrayal, things opposed to your happiness, things standing in the way of what you hoped life would be all about. And I wanted to do something. In fact, it's in my notes here to do this right now, but I'm not going to simply because I thought about it and prayed about it early this morning. I got up really early this morning. I wanted you to stand up right now and turn and tell your neighbor what adversity you're going through at the present time. But I believe the Lord just had me check that today, and there's only one reason, and here it is. It's because for some of us, the only thing we could get out would be something that's kind of superficial. And we'd leave the mask on yet another week, and we'd think, well, you know, I got close at church, but not really honest. Friends, the reason why we have groups in this church, the reason why we believe that groups are our future is it's a place where the masks can come down, and you can share your adversities. Now, at the end of this service, you can come and tell any of the people up here exactly what you're going through to the detail if you care to. And they'll simply love you and pray for you, and that'll end the story. But if we're honest today, if we took a real poll here, you'd be amazed at the level of pain, suffering, and hardship that's going on even today, in many lives, not just a few. I'm not talking about your garden variety. You know, I spilled toothpaste on my tie this morning, adversity. I'm talking about stuff that's ripping you up on the inside. Adversity is present with us, and when it comes, we're prone to do a few things. See if this fits into your pattern of response. When you first get the news, I mean, when the bomb first drops, the first thing most of us do is we respond with shock. You're filling in the blanks as the first blank. This can't be happening to me, you think. There's no way. I mean, I read about this in the paper, the news magazines, and watch it on TV, but to me, this can't be happening. And then we move on to blame. This isn't fair, we say. How could this? I mean, I've been a pretty good Christian. How could God let this happen? Why me? Why my wife? Why my family? Why my company? And then we look for someone to blame. And I'll tell you what, here in America, folks, we are becoming masters at the blame game, are we not? I read about the grandmother last week who was arrested for robbing a convenience store, and she, when arrested, blamed her Prozac for throwing her off. They didn't buy it, they still arrested her. I mean, liability attorneys flood the television screens knowing that you're out there, and if something happens to you, you've got to find someone to blame, and they'll get the money for you. And so we blame our spouse, or our boss, or our parents, or the government, or our system, and if all those fail to satisfy us, who do we end up blaming every time? God. Why? Because he's such an easy target. He doesn't respond back, so we'll just keep heaping blame on him. And we're going to talk about that again in a couple of moments. Next phase is normally to shut down. Once we blame, and that doesn't get the job done well, and then you just start to feel sorry for yourself, and you withdraw, and have a pity party that only you can attend, and find a lonely place and just tell people, I don't want to be bothered, let me alone. But after a while, that doesn't satisfy either, and you start to get mad. And you get mad enough to say, you know what, someone's going to pay for this, this thing that happened to me. And you start to take it out on your loved ones, or the people that are your friends. And it gets to be the kind of thing where if they're in your way, they're going to get it whether they want it or not. But sadly, after a while, even anger expressed like that doesn't do anything, and you fall back and realize, what am I doing hurting the people that love me the most? This could take weeks or months at times, and that leads to shame, and shame, if unaddressed, just keeps more problems onto the whole situation, leading to the fifth step, which I'm calling the three Ds. And on your outline, I named them depression, despair, and defeat. Statistics tell us that at least 15 million Americans are depressed all the time. My understanding is that medication for depression is still the most prescribed in America. It is a chronic problem in our nation. Now that's a normal response, those five steps, and that's the normal sequence. But you know what? For some of us, we've been going in and out of adversity so much, we may just jump in at the anger level. You know, something else happens to us, and we don't go through the shock, blame, withdraw, we just get mad, boom, right then. It isn't always this way, but friends, if you're like me, there are times in this journey when I wonder just how much adversity am I going to have to put up with? How difficult can it get? And when it gets really bad, if you're like me, I start to wonder, what are my options in this thing? How long can I keep going like this? What do you think about at those times? What do you do to go through adversity when it hits? Do you just kind of, you know, tighten your belt and, you know, buck up and, you know, be independent, I'm going to make it through on my own, you know, force of will kind of thing? Or do you find yourself slipping into that quiet despair that no one knows about? Or do you find yourself drinking a little more wine and taking a few more prescription drugs? Or do you find yourself maybe, you know, just one way or another eating too much or spending too much, some way escaping from the reality of that adversity, hoping that it'll go away if you just cover it over enough? Or do you do what most Christians I have found who don't know how God would enable them? Most Christians back off into the perimeters of their lives. All of a sudden, they're not there anymore. They don't sit in the chair that was next to you. You don't see them at the small group. And what's really going on with them is they're in the midst of a trial and they don't know what to do. So they just withdraw. They put on a mask and give up. Jesus said it doesn't have to be that way. He said, take courage. I have overcome the world. I've conquered it for you. You don't have to give up. You don't have to throw in the towel. You don't have to cower in defeat. Jesus said, I know that adversity. I've been through it and I've come that you might make it through as well. I want to give you, if I might today, just three simple things that I do to kind of check how to get through adversity. And I say simple. They're simple to know. They're not necessarily simple to do. But they might help you. I want you to write them down with me. Last week, we talked about five general observations of seasons, but I don't have time to review those. You may want to get the tape on that. Let me give you, though, these three things. When adversity hits you like a hammer, the first thing you should do is check what you believe. The second thing you need to do is learn how to grieve. And the third thing you need to do is to know who to receive to help you through it. What to believe, how to grieve, and who to receive. Let me talk about what you believe because that becomes so important when significant, I'm not talking about just, you know, bad heritage, significant adversity strikes. It rocks what you believe about God. I don't care how mature you think you are. I mean, theology is a word that we use but don't know much about. Isn't that true? If I asked you to define theology today, you might be able to give me a different, but do you know what you believe about God, really? All of a sudden, when you get hit with a hammer of adversity, what you believe about God better makes sense, it better help, or you find yourself flat giving up. You won't make it through. When I re-injured my spine about five or six weeks ago, I'll tell you what, after a year of recovery, I didn't just bounce up the next day and say, oh, praise God, you know, another trial. I went through a few days of really wrestling with why this happened. Why didn't God keep me from doing something as dumb as playing golf, which I don't care to do all that much anyhow. Why didn't my doctor tell me don't play golf, and why this, and God help me with that, and are you really, do you really care what's going on with my life? Do you know how far back this goes? This setback's going to take me. Are you really good? Are you really in control? Now, some of you are thinking, hey, you're the pastor, you shouldn't be asking God, but can I tell you something, friends, I'm a pastor, but I'm also just like you. I mean, I'm a person of limitations as well. I mean, some people don't understand that. Just a couple weeks ago, I was doing some work in the yard, and I had like, you know, a regular gray t-shirt on and a pair of shorts, and I ran out of something, and I popped in the car and drove down to Trader Horns on a Saturday afternoon, and I ran into a North Way person there, and they walked up, and they gasped, and they said, Pastor Jay. I said, yeah. They said, we weren't sure it was you. I said, why? They said, because we've never seen you without a suit on. I said, well, you know, I was going to put one on to come down and get this cleaner, but I felt it might be okay to sneak out with my t-shirt on. I mean, I only wear this Sunday morning, and I'm a person of flesh, and blood, and spirit just like each of you, and so when I get hit with adversity just like each of you, I go through those questions. I struggle, and I fight with all that's in me to know what I believe and to hold on to it, and here are four things that I believe. I believe, number one, when adversity hits, God didn't lay it on me. He may allow it, but He did not author it, and He should not be the target of my blame. Friends, I hate to say this, but a lot of us still don't have this one right. We still go back and look at God, and we lift our finger up and say, why did you let this happen to me? As if somehow God doesn't love us enough to only allow to happen to us what can be worked together for our good. I know people today that blame God because someone in their family died prematurely. People that blame God that they lost the job that they really loved. People that blame God that their career never went where they thought it would. People say, if you were a God of love, this, and this, and this, and this, and they just go on and on. Friends, the Bible is very clear. Jesus Himself made it very clear. It's the thief that comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I have come, Jesus said, that they might have life. And so would you please get it very clear in your spirit today that when you get hit in the face with a calamity of some sort, or when your dreams blow up in your face, or when you suffer loss or disappointment, it's not God just pounding on you to see if you hold up. It's the enemy coming to take from you. He's the one that steals, and kills, and destroys. And I have to know that. If I don't know that when it happens, if I think maybe God's getting pleasure out of watching me squirm, friends, I'm in deep trouble. And I don't know a single dad whose eyes are looking at me right now who would do that to your kid, and I sure wouldn't do it to mine. I die inside when ugly things happen to my kids, don't you? Don't you die inside, dads? And the Bible says we have a Father who loves us infinitely more than we love our own. He's not laying this on you. He loves you. Know that it was the evil one. We love and serve and believe in a God of grace, and tenderness, and love, and mercy. A God of the second chance, a God of the new beginning. That's the God that we love and serve. Not a God who's laying calamity upon the people of His calling. Jeremiah 29, 11, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. I just put that on your sheet there. Plans to prosper you, not to harm you. Plans to give you hope in the future. Second thing I need to know when this kind of stuff happens in my life is I need to know it's survivable. Friends, sometimes things hit me that are so hard, I don't know. The first thought is, I don't know if I can get through this. I don't know if I can keep going. But the same God who I know has not laid this on me, on the other hand, has not abdicated His authority over it, and He can monitor the amount of trial that I'm going through. And the Bible says He will not let anything come against me that's greater than I can stand up. And that's very important for me to know. You know, recently Hurricane Fran came up the East Coast, and we were told all week long that it was coming, and the people, first it was in South Carolina, and then eventually North Carolina, needed to prepare for Fran. And was it five or six years previously Hugo came up and really hammered that same area? And as I watched reports as you did, I saw the people taking it very seriously. I saw the people boarding up their homes and covering up their places of business and all that kind of stuff, getting ready for this hurricane to come up. And the Weather Service was saying it's going to be a Category 3, and so they knew exactly how strong it was going to be. And they made decisions based on that information whether or not to stick it out. And they knew that they could based on their experience and based on what they were hearing. And most everyone survived. A few people perished, who knows why. But I have to say this. I trust God to monitor everything that happens in my life, and I need to know when the hurricanes of hardship come into my life, I'm going to make it through. That storm too will pass, and I will come out on the other side. Friends, it's survivable as we trust in Christ. That's why when we sing little choruses like, God is the strength of my life, I mean, my heart and my flesh, many times they fail, but God is the strength of my life. And I hold on to that. That's why we sing those choruses. That's why we hold on to them here, because for many of us, it's life to us in the midst of hardship. Third thing I need to know is that God will make himself completely available to me in the midst of it. Look at Isaiah 43. I think we have an overhead on that, don't we? Isaiah 43. I wanted you to see this. This is what the Lord says, Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have summoned you or called you by name. You are mine. When you pass through the water, say it with me, I will be with you. What waters is he talking about? The waters of adversity. When they come streaming through your life and you've got to walk to them, the Lord says, I'll be with you. When you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned. The flames will not set you ablaze. Friends, does the Lord know your name? You bet he does. And he whispers your name as you go through these adversities, and he reminds you that he loves you. He's right there with you, calling out your name. Sheila Walsh, who was a very much loved and well-recognized co-host of the 700 Club, appeared for a couple of years with Pat on a daily basis, and then one week she was just gone. No one knew what had happened to her. Some time later it came out that she had had a very difficult experience, and in her book called Honestly, which is a very transparent look at her life, she said she came to the realization that things were really upside down in her life and she needed professional help. And she tells the story of how she drove herself, not her husband taking her, she drove herself to a full-time treatment clinic to find professional help to come through some deep, deep depression. And she writes in the book how driving herself and parking her car was the loneliest moment, and she wondered where God was and what had happened. Here she had been on national TV telling the whole world that Christ loved them and God was with them, and here she was, unable to deal with it. But she said as she opened the door of that clinic, took all the courage she could muster, people opened their arms to her, received her, and she said, it was like the Lord's hand reached out to me and I knew He was with me every step of the way. That's why verses like Psalm 34, look at it, verse 18, the Lord is close to the broken hearted. Why don't you circle that word close? Friends, if you're down today, if you're in adversity, the Lord is closer to you now than in your times of great victory and celebration. He saves those who are crushed in spirit. Sometimes you just need to be reminded of that. That's why people gather in groups to remind each other. Sometimes you need external reminders. If you go up to my office right now, you'll see a banner over my desk. Actually, I see a huge pile of papers on my desk which shouldn't be there, but there's a banner behind it, and on it is a beautiful rendition of an eagle soaring, and a favorite scripture of mine which says, I carried him on eagle's wings and brought him to myself out of the book of Exodus. And when I'm going through it, I look at that banner and I remember, Lord, right now I can't get up there on my own, would you please carry me? Maybe for you it's a cross, or maybe for you it's a, you know, some kind of other little symbol that you have that reminds you of God's love. But for most all of us, the main thing is that spirit inside of us, bearing witness that He is our Daddy God that sees us through. He won't fail us or forsake us. Number four, the fourth thing I need to believe is that God can use whatever's happening to me for good in my life. And friends, I don't know about you, but I've had stuff happen in my life that I don't know at that time how God could ever use it. Have you had stuff happen that's so ugly, so hurtful, so painful that you say, there's nothing good that could come out of this? John Perkins is an African-American leader in the body of Christ. I heard him speak at Pittsburgh Seminary a few months ago. He's the leader of a ministry called Voice of Calvary. He tells the story of how in his early years as a Christian he was idealistic and filled with hope that he was going to go out and change the world, that he was going to help the races to learn to love each other. And he was living at the time that Martin Luther King gave his famous I Have a Dream speech. John Perkins shared how that speech so fired him up that he decided he wanted to do something. So he left the confines of his little comfortable parish and went on a peace march, nonviolent peace march, just demonstrating, saying, I want reconciliation. And then he tells the story of how he was pulled out of this march for no reason and placed under arrest because, you see, he lived in Mississippi in the late 1960s, and those kind of things weren't tolerated 30 years ago in Mississippi. John Perkins tells how during his time in jail overnight he was beaten severely by multiple guards, but as a result he spent more than two months in a hospital recovering from his wounds, almost died as a result. When John tells the story, he says, you know, I didn't pop up out of bed and say, oh, praise God for adversity. I didn't stand up and claim God works all these things together for good and just forget about it. He said, it took me years to see good come out of this. He said, but now I do see what God did in my life. I do see three things he shared. He said, number one, I came to appreciate the sufferings of Christ because heretofore I had never understood what it meant to take a beating. And scripture says the Lord was beaten. How many times have I said that up here and you've just kind of yawned and said, yeah, but that hurt. John Perkins said he realized that he would never volunteer to take a beating for anybody, but that Jesus volunteered to take it for us. Then he realized and learned, number two, that he was a man that needed the power of God to walk free from sin. He thought he was a good guy, but once he had been beaten, he knew his heart was filled with hate and that he wanted to get even just like everyone else. And it took that to show him that God alone could redeem the heart and give him love for his fellow mankind. And thirdly, he learned that God had called him to full-time ministry and John left the parish ministry and started this Voice of Calvary, which now for nearly 30 years has served to bring reconciliation to the body of Christ and to those outside the body of Christ. Good can come out of evil, friends, but sometimes it's a process. It may not be the day after tomorrow. How many of you right now have wondered, why did this happen, God? I don't see why yet. Don't give up. You see, God can come back and make good on his promise to you. Look at the quotes I put there. Every affliction comes with a message from the heart of God. And can I say this, just as a little aside, the sooner you learn the message that's coming with your affliction, the sooner you get through it. The very reason why God allowed it could be to teach you something, that until you learn it, that affliction will not be lifted. What do you believe, friends, when affliction strikes? It's so important. And I pray you'll, you know what you should do with this? You should put this somewhere. If you're going through good times right now, I'm grateful, I'm glad for you, but put this somewhere where it hits you, you can pull this out and say, well, wait a minute. In fact, let me just ask you real quickly, circle which one of those four right now you have the greatest difficulty with in your belief system. Do you have difficulty believing God didn't lay this on you? Do you have difficulty believing that this adversity is survivable, or that God makes himself available to you, or that God can work it? Which one is toughest for you to believe? And once you've, go ahead and circle it, would you? Which one is tough for you? All of them? None of them? Be honest. In fact, right now, take a moment and share with somebody, this is the one for me that's really tough. All right? I'm just going to wait a second. Turn to your neighbor, left or right. For me, it's number one, number two, number three, number four. What's really tough for you? When adversity strikes, go ahead, person in the front, person behind. Take a minute. This is where I really have a difficult time. Go ahead. This is where I am put to the test. That's it. Include each other. Go ahead. Thank you for your honesty. I believe there are more, but I thank you for your honesty. How many of you, it's the second one. I don't know if I'm going to make it. Quite a few. How many of you really struggle to really sense God's presence? You think you're alone. Number three. And how many of you wonder how God could ever use it for good? Let me see your hand. Number four. How many had more than one? How many had all four? Well, that's real life. You know what I appreciate about that? The masks can come down for just a moment because we don't have it all figured out. That's why we need each other. Just let me mention the other two in closing. The second thing is how you grieve. Oh, boy, this should be a whole message because so many people are locked up in grief of past disappointments. How many people here today have not gotten over a previous hurt, a loss, a disappointment, and you just can't get it behind you? Some of the most paralyzed and unhappy people I ever meet are folks who have not grieved properly. The Bible is very clear that there is a time to grieve, a time to sob and weep and say, God, why have you let this happen to me? Why have I gone through this? What is this all about? And you just pour out your heart. And if you've never had a weeping session like that, then you really haven't gone through adversity yet. But there's also a time to bring closure to that weeping and to get up and turn the next page in your book of life and keep moving forward. And if you know someone who's still rehearsing the past, still grieving a loss of five, ten years ago, help them to see that's not God's plan. He said, you should not grieve as someone who doesn't have hope. You have hope. Look up the story a little later on by King David, whose son born to Bathsheba with whom he had that affair. The son was born, David, the Bible says, and I won't do this, although I'd like to right now, laid down on the ground and all night long cried out to God, night after night for seven nights saying, God, save this son, save this son, who was afflicted with sickness. After seven days, the servants were scared because they saw David pouring out his heart, crying out to God, and the son died. And the servants said, if we tell him that he died, David's going to do something really unbalanced and he's going to go off a deep edge. And David heard them whispering and he said, what did you just say? And he said, the boy's dead. And to their amazement, King David got up, cleaned himself off, put on a fresh robe, and went in the temple and worshiped the Lord and then ate. And they said, why did you do that? And to paraphrase, David basically said, when he was dying and when he was ill, I cried out to God with the hope that he'd save him. But once he died, what could I do to change it? I must go on with life. Friends look at me. Some of you have had dreams, relationships, hopes, die. Get over it. God has something new for you and will give you the grace to put on a fresh robe, worship the Lord. Finally, you need to know who to receive. Let me just say very quickly on this. The people you have around you will determine many times whether or not you're going to make it through adversity. Jesus, when he went to the Guardian of Gethsemane, who did he take with him? Judas? No. Try another one. Peter, James, and John. He took three. How'd they do, by the way? Just like some of you. You know, oh man, I feel so tired. Jesus said, it's a long night. Who would you take in your moment of adversity? Do you know who you'd call? Some of you are blessed. You could call 15 people and they'd be there for you because you've just invested in their lives. Some of you don't know who you'd call. But who you receive to help you through, that's a big one. I hope you have someone like that. And the amazing thing is when you're willing to share that adversity, you're not weakened by it, even though that's the way we think it would be. You know, most of us want to be in control. We don't want to have to share weakness or struggle. I mean, we don't want to appear vulnerable. But friends, in God's kingdom, up is often down. Strength is often weakness. One of the brothers in my men's Bible study on a Friday morning a few weeks ago used an opportunity to share we had in the morning. He took a significant chunk of time and shared the difficulty he was going through in a particular trial in his life. He shared about the fear and about the discouragement and about the hard time he was having. And the whole group just sat and listened to him. And then kind of dialogued a little bit around his issues. And that became basically the content of the morning. And afterwards, he called me a little bit later and he said, you know, was that okay? I mean, I didn't know if it was okay. And I said, brother, that's what we're here for, to share life together. And he said, well, you know, I've got to tell you, as soon as I shared all that and got it all off, he said, it was like a load was lifted off of me, off of my shoulders, and I knew that I was going to get through it. It was like an inner healing started the moment I opened my mouth. All I know is I'm so glad I could do that there. Friends, that's what we're to do for each other, walk through adversity together. And so today as I close, the question simply is, what do you believe? You know how to grieve, and who will you receive to walk with you? Many of us are going through those fires and trials right now. Maybe we're not, but we all know someone who is. The Lord promises us, Romans 8.37, that we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. And whatever you're going through, Jesus says to you, I didn't create you to be a victim. I created you to be a victor, more than a conqueror. I will see you through. Lord, I sense right now your nearness in this room. I sense you're very close, O God, to many who are bearing up even today under adversity. I pray right now, Lord, that you'd minister in reality. Touch the hearts of those who are open to receive your healing, your deliverance, your release. Lord, we need you right now.