Strong Enough To Bend, Adapting To Life's Surprises

Let's turn in our Bibles to Philippians chapter 4 for the message this morning, shall we? And Dave, I'm going to give you a few things here, Philippians chapter 4. Begin reading in verse number 10, I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I'm not saying this because I'm in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. Whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want, I can do everything through Him who gives me strength. Having just spent two weeks in a van driving 4,000 miles with my family and one other one, I guess it's no surprise that I'm going to be bringing a message today on flexibility. I have to confess that I've weeded through other topics that I considered as well, patience, endurance, character development, poverty, murder, and suicide. But I promise you this morning, I'm not going to tell you a long list of stories about my trip. But I did find out something that I think you would agree, that God's truth works wherever you take it. And if it just works here under this roof, then let's trade it in. The truth of God's word needs to be applied in every arena of life, wherever we go. Family vacation, in the marketplace, in our neighborhoods, next door, wherever we are, we need to learn to live the truth of God's word in every circumstance. Now flexibility is not a word you'll find in scripture per se. The beatitude, blessed are the flexible for they will not be broken, is something I made up. It's not in the scripture or something I heard somewhere else, I guess. But as I will show you in the next several minutes, the attitude of flexibility is absolutely crucial to the living of a strong Christian life. What came forth to me over the last week as I was meditating over this message was the link between flexibility and strength. I didn't see that before. I grew up, many of you did, when strength was considered, for example, in the physical realm as being muscle bound. I didn't have any problem with that. But, you know, we'd see these pictures and even today, you know, the muscular looking people have risen to new heights of visibility in our culture. But I discovered something very interesting, that part of every significant exercise program these days is an ingredient of flexibility training and stretching. After I injured my leg last December, rather seriously, I pulled a muscle, for me it was rather serious. I mean, I was fortunate never to have an injury when I was playing sports and so on. I went to the doctor and said, why did this happen to me? And he said, well, are you stretching? I said, am I doing what? I used to just get out and run, run, run, run. And he recommended this book, which I purchased, called Stretching. And I'm dropping it all over the place, but I'll find it. Here we go. This book, written by a man 10 years ago, in which he says, and I quote, when I wrote this book, I couldn't even get people to listen to the idea of stretching. Now, it's part of every significant exercise program in America. I did a little recent survey on a flight I was taking, where in the airline magazine, it helps you to inventory how physically fit you were. One ingredient was your cardiovascular health. The other was your muscle tone and ability to exercise weight. And the third was what? Stretching and flexibility. It's part of everything. The reason being, folks, if you are all tied up and taut, and you can't move, what good is it? And I discovered it very painfully last December, when even though I was running and my legs were in pretty good shape and all that, one quick move of stress on the basketball court, and pop, the muscle went. And I might as well have not been doing any exercise or any workout. You see, it's true in every arena. Strength and flexibility go hand in hand. Last August, I think it was, or maybe September, there was a fairly violent thunderstorm of the nature we've been having lately. And my next door neighbor had a large tree under which a pickup truck was parked. Well, this windstorm came along, a thunderstorm, and the wind whipped, and the branch of the tree fell off and smashed the top of this pickup truck and part of the bed. Just a huge branch, probably, I'd say, at least 24 inches wide. Interestingly, though the tree was alive, guess what about the branch? It was dead. It was rigid, stiff, and when the wind blew, it didn't have any flexibility to give. And it just snapped, fell right in the truck. When I lived in California, they talked about buildings that were earthquake-proof. You know what that meant? They would sway when the earth would rock. I don't want you to know that's a real secure feeling. I was in an earthquake once when the building started rocking a bit. The really rigid buildings, what happened to them? Well, they cracked. Some of them just crumbled. But the new buildings, the earthquake-proof buildings would rock when the ground would shake. Well, you get the point. Flexibility and strength go hand in hand. And I want to say to you, it's also true in our spiritual lives. And I have to say, this isn't a topic necessarily that's going to get you all excited about the next great vision, but I want you to know something. If you're seeking to be a strong soldier for Christ, if you're seeking to follow God, and I believe most of you are, I want to urge you to listen to what I'm going to say in the next minutes because many of us here are due for a snap, a breaking, if we don't learn flexibility. Did you know that the most intense disciples are the ones that are most susceptible to snapping? Did you know that pastors have the second-highest divorce rate of any professional group and the third-highest dropout rate? Just recently, I encountered a friend who was once a very active, involved member of this church. I hadn't seen him for a long time. I could tell immediately he was very uncomfortable with my just being there talking with him. Finally, we kind of let the walls down a bit and we began to converse and I assured him I wasn't out to punish him for not being in church and all that kind of thing. And he said this, he said, Well, you know, Jay, some things just weren't working out the way that we thought they should. Well, my wife and I decided that we were just getting too busy anyhow to be there every week and we come once in a while. He said, But don't worry. We still love God in everything. You see, those words just kind of echoed in my mind because, folks, we are susceptible. Even when we are intensely involved in the things of God, we are susceptible if we are not flexible to being snapped off. Malcolm Smith would use the word burnout. Burnout. What happens when someone doesn't reach the goal they set or if something interrupts their pursuit of that goal and they are not prepared for it? Because if you are not careful today, listen, it may be that you will find yourself losing your zeal and your love and your passion and your devotion and your desire. Now, I found that these kinds of things happen, these snapping experiences happen in lots of areas. I've identified three this morning that I think we can cover in a few minutes. The first one is in our plans. Are you strong enough to bend in the plans that you have? Can I tell you one vacation story? We had arrived in Chicago on our first day, not really much of a problem, and I had a great desire to show my kids a church there. I thought, man, this would be so inspiring for them to see this church and maybe even visit the youth group that was going on that night. So I hurried them up, and they were dragging into the place we were staying. I said, hurry up, we've got to hurry up and get showered, hurry up and eat, and we're going to go see this church. How many of you know, I feel a lot stronger about churches than my kids probably do at this point. Well, we weren't planning to do that, so in the strict sense of the word, I was in my mind, but I hadn't figured it all out on a map. And I got on the freeway system in Chicago looking for this church. Those of you who are groaning are from Chicago, probably. Well, I couldn't find it. And I couldn't find any place that was open to get a map. And plus the sun was setting, it was getting dark. So finally at about 8.30 or 8.45, it was dark out. I was fuming. I think we'd been an hour or so on the freeway looking to find out where we were going. I found this street. I got off and said, oh, here's this road it's on. It might as well have been the same as getting off at Verona to try to find Verona Road to follow it all the way through Pittsburgh and end up somewhere in the West Hills. You know what I'm saying? It was on the other side of the city. I'll make a long, long story, very, very painfully short here. I gave up. I was really frustrated. And I went to the Lord and I said, Lord, why did this happen? I mean, this would have been so inspiring. I mean, the kids, it would have been great for them. And I went to Carol to see it and meet some people and so on. And he said, listen, put your agenda down. I want to be in charge of this trip. We talked about that. I want you to know, I learned an important lesson the first day. I didn't need to impose my agenda and my plan on the whole family. And I need to let God be in control. He interrupted my plans. I'm sure if God wanted me to see that, He would have found a way to get me there. Even in Chicago. We all kind of want it to be sort of the triptych of life. Here it is, right? We want our life to be mapped out. And here's the next stop. If you're part of AAA, you know what this is? And we want to be from there to there. And we want to be there in two years. We want our business to have a certain, certain volume. Or we want to have our third kid by right here on the triptych. Or whatever it is for your plans. We want our retirement to start just on this side, right there. But I want you to know something. On every triptych, there's these little signs that say, Construction. Construction delays. And God very craftily engineers lots of construction in our lives. Where the detours on the roads of our life get to be just a little bit much. We say, God, is that you? He said, it's me. Our plans are not necessarily that which God has ordained for us. And we need to be willing to say, Lord, you're more important than the plans I've left. Or the blessings that I have even engineered to have along the way. Paul, obviously here in Philippians, had made some plans. And all through his life, his plans were interrupted. I was amazed, and I guess you've read with me 2 Corinthians lately, chapter 4. He says, as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way, through great endurance, afflictions, hardships, calamities. Listen to this. How many think Paul planned for this? Beatings, imprisonments, labors, sufferings, tumults. No, Paul's life plan was to evangelize the known world. How many think God would have blessed that? And yet, every step along the way, it seemed that his plans were interrupted. The ship wrecked. Someone arrested him. He was beaten. But what happened? He clung to his faith in Christ more determinedly than he did to the plan that he had. Dear ones, I've discovered something. If you have a rigid expectation of what you think should happen, and it doesn't happen, and you're not rooted down in the love of God, when that wind blows, you're going to snap. And I have to say, it's a sad moment when you give up the faith because something you thought should happen didn't happen. How many of you know people like that today? Who are no longer following Christ because somehow their faith formula, or their prophecy, or their word from the Lord didn't happen. And they say, well, God must no longer really care. Are you strong enough to bend? Paul said it this way. He said, verse 11, second half, he said, I've learned to be content, whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. But I'm content. Now, how many of you know there's a very high likelihood that everyone in this auditorium today will experience some form of unmet need, unmet expectation, or change of plans, or circumstances, before when? Before you leave here this morning, probably. If not this afternoon, then certainly this week. And when that wind of change, of direction, or plans come, what will you do? Will you be real rigid and say, oh, it's got to be this way? Or will you say, you know, God, I can flow with that. I can bend. And I'm amazed. I'm just consistently amazed with how God will take some people and let them use a terrible upset in a plan, and turn it into a marvelous good. I've told you before here, in morning worship, of a dear friend of mine in Baltimore, who now lives in Colorado Springs, whom we had the chance to visit when we were out there. Their plans on their little triptych of life was to have three normal kids. Does anyone know what that looks like? Well, as God would have it, their third child was born eight years ago, with Down syndrome. And I shared this story of how when that took place, Carol and I left, and Norfolk had just started, and we drove down there to be with them when the baby was born, just to try to assure them of our care and love for them. And we had a chance to see a little guy. His name is Jay. And that's not coincidental. Jay's now eight years old. He goes to a normal public school. He played on a normal public t-ball team. And he brings a lot of love and joy into their family. He rode the Whitewater Rapids the last time they went down with the family. And probably best of all is how the parents have adapted to the place that we're now. The mother not only has done a marvelous job with her son, but she's been invited by the Colorado State education system to teach college-level classes. Unraising retarded children. And she was preparing for the class the day we arrived. She was preparing for the class that was beginning on that Monday. And Carol and I looked at that and said, you know, there's someone whose plans were certainly changed. Where the wind of adversity blew over their life. And they've used it to a marvelous good and a great blessing. Not just in their lives, but now in scores of others who are receiving that training. Are you strong enough to bend? The second arena where I see this being so important is in the area of relationship. Or being with people. If circumstances and plans will be interrupted, then people will invariably test our flexibility. Look down in verse 14 and 15 of Philippians chapter 4. Paul uses a phrase I've only seen it once in the scriptures. He said, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving. Not one. Look, except you only. I think Paul was greatly disappointed by that. Not one church shared in this matter of giving and receiving, except you only. Dear ones, we needn't look very far in the panorama of church life today to see thousands of people who've been broken by a rogue wind of a personality that disappointed them. How many people find themselves leaving a church where the pastor fell into sin? Or where the elders engineered a split? Or where the home group leader dominated his little flock? And their lives are bruised, and their dreams have been shattered, and they're disillusioned. And if they weren't strong enough to bend, they've snapped. It's a sad commentary, but it's very definitely true. It's incredible to me that some of the most hurtful breakings happen in relationships that were once extremely strong. Covenant relationships. High commitment, high energy, high level of loyalty kinds of relationships. And something goes wrong. In many cases, perhaps the relationship became muscle-bound on vision and mission. And didn't allow any flexibility, stretching, time together. And they just snapped. King David talked about this in the book of Psalms. He said it very powerfully. Speaking of his friend, he said this, It is not an enemy who taunts me, that I could bear. It is not an adversary who deals insolently with me, that I could hide from him. But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. We used to hold sweet conversation together. And within God's house, we walked in fellowship. See, the sad thing is, folks, that many times it's the ones that are dearest to us that causes the greatest pain in their disappointments. I suppose the most significant illustration of that that I see in our culture today is in marriage. Marriages are breaking up all over the place because spouses are not strong enough to bend. Recently I talked with a couple, a Christian couple. The wife had an idea of what the husband was to be like as the spiritual head of the home and the father of her children and all the rest. The husband had ideas of what her role was to be as the participant in the provision that was necessary and in the certain setting that was to take place in the home and as a sexual partner. And they were both disappointed. Neither one of them had had their dreams fulfilled. And they couldn't bend. And there is something terribly sad when a couple which once professed to be believers in Christ and deeply in love with each other now can only communicate through attorneys. And need restraining orders to keep one another away. This is very widespread. You know this, don't you? It's a great concern. And here in our church it's a great concern. And I'm happy to say this. Two or three Wednesday nights ago when we made a list of 15 priority intercessory points for this summer the number two concern that many of you agreed to pray about as your focus for this summer was relational restoration. Because you care about people, someone getting the pieces of these relationships. And in God's grace and love putting them back together again. I was driving down the highway the day before yesterday just had gotten home and a couple who had been at terrible odds, wouldn't talk already at the attorney's office came to our church about a year and a half ago and they both hated each other. And relational restoration took place. And they're driving down the road honking their horn and waving at us from the same car smiling, following the Lord together. It can happen. It's interesting to me that what takes place is what the Bible calls being stiff-necked. See, in relationships the really bottom line is pride. We can't bow the head and say, you know, I'm sorry for my part. I'm sorry for my contribution to your disappointment. And many of us have grown up with the idea that being strong means you never say you're sorry. That's not the definition of strength that Jesus gives. Be strong enough to bend, man. For if never giving, never losing, never saying I'm sorry, if that's strength then we'll destroy the fabric of the relationship of marriage as God intended. It's just plain wrong. You see, real strength is the ability to bend and to say maybe I was a little of this and a little of that. Jesus said it this way. If someone asks you for your cloak what? Give him your coat also. If he asks you to walk one mile, do what? Go two. Bend. Bend. Give. The third illustration, the third area where I see this matter of rigidity is in piety. Piety. You know, this is the area where the devil has made his greatest stand. Rigidity in our theology and in our spiritual life, he's taken a good thing and made it a law and thereby crushed the spirits of countless people. This is something that's not just happened recently. How many of you know that the greatest legalists of all time were the Pharisees? The people that lived in Jesus' time. They kept the laws and they read in the Scriptures that keeping the laws pleased God. So they kept the laws. More laws than anyone else did. In fact, they began to create laws to keep. So they could always be ahead of someone else. And in the end, they became so rigid and so judgmental that they became the object of Jesus' greatest and most scathing rebukes. It was only to the Pharisees. It wasn't to the sinners and the adulterers and the publicans and the tax collectors. It was only to the Pharisees that Jesus said, Whoa! Whoa! Woe to you! And in the end, their rigidity and their inflexibility blinded their eyes that when they looked into the eyes of Jesus they could not even see Him as the Messiah. Dear ones, may God spare us from the trap of thinking that our way of experience or our theology or our piety is the way that it has to be. If God's really in it. Our doctrines. God helped the church in its doctrines. I wonder today if there are Christians who would look in the eyes of their brother and sister and not even see Christ. Because all they're worried about is doctrine. I remember when I was on a beach mission. This was about 15 years ago. And we stopped in a little Baptist church in South Carolina to see if they wanted to help us get the beach mission started. The pastor walked out and he had this big guy that walked out and stood beside his desk. So the big guy was standing here and the pastor sat down and said, You want help with this mission? Yeah, we thought it would be a blessing to your community here. And he looked over and he said, I asked you one question. I said, Do you speak in tongues? I looked at this big guy standing there. Why? I said, Sure. Sometimes. I probably won't write here right now. And he went on about a 20 minute tirade as to why that was from the devil and therefore I was probably from the devil and I came to destroy the work of God in that city. You know, this was an established church right there in the area. Doctrine, you see. Dividing saints. Let's let the denominations argue about what an evangelical is and what a charismatic is and what the authority of Scripture is based on what particular verse. Let's let them go for that. But folks, let's love each other according to what Jesus has put in us by His Spirit. And let's not judge each other by our experiences. And if you're not where another one is, as our brother said this morning, let's just be a one-room schoolhouse. We're all growing in the grace of God. Rigid piety has never made it. Listen, if theology and piety were the issues, then the Presbyterians and Methodists would be the most spiritual and the Catholics wouldn't be far behind because they have some of the greatest piety ever. It breaks my heart when people get bound up in these things. People say to me, Well, you know, worship's different in North Way than it was five years ago. I'm leaving now. I'm going somewhere. What's the issue here? What is God really saying to us? How rigid do we need to be? Where is the flexibility that comes in the grace that God's put into our hearts? Someone says, Well, you know, I went to a home group and somebody spoke in tongues in the home group and no one interpreted. It must be not of God. Well, alright. I mean, we're all learning, okay? I fell off my bike the first time I got on it. Make mistakes. Let's give one another room to grow. Let's be charitable and giving. You know, 25 years ago the theology of the Holy Spirit that the denominations have held so dear was absolutely rocketed off of its moorings and God came in and changed everyone who would be changed. The problem was that many resisted. And now today, the Spirit of God has left many of those churches where He was trying to get in. And dear ones, He will do it here as well. We need to be constantly flexible to change. Let me tell you another area where I see things changing in terms of theology and it's in evangelism. We have long seen evangelism as an event. You know, you walk in and you're confronted with the gospel and you repent and you fall down and that's it. I believe that more and more what I'm seeing in our nation right now is theology as a process. Where someone is loved through the process of, first of all, dealing with all their misconceptions because they've heard so much about God. You see, when you've never heard about God and you present Him to somebody, it's likely that they're going to be at that moment getting a clear idea of who God is and what their need is. But when people have heard Jesus and God and they've heard all these strange things on TV, it sometimes takes a while to extricate them from their misunderstandings. Then they come to the point of knowing who God is. Then they're ready to respond to Him. And here in our church, we're making lots of strides to see evangelism as a process, not just an event. You think of piety in terms of Bible study and quiet time and all that. You think of prayer and all. Prayer life. Those things are all important, but dear ones, those are not going... If you make a rigid rule of that and you say, well, if I don't have my hour today, God's not going to bless me, you're in trouble. I want you to know I get up some mornings at 5 o'clock to ride that van. Now, did I set my alarm at 4 to have my quiet time? You say, well, if you didn't, you were probably just stretching God. Maybe so, but I want you to know this. God has a better way than checking in on the time clock. And you all know I'm very committed to disciplines and I'm going to be speaking about that in the fall, but I want you to know God's grace will cover those whose piety even wanes now and then. He loves you. He cares about you. Let me conclude. What do we do? How do we stay flexible in our plans and with people and in our piety? How do we stay flexible? How do we show strength enough to bend when it doesn't go our way? Paul said this in Philippians 4. We have an overhead. Philippians 4.13. Let's put it up, shall we? Let's read it together. Would you read it out loud with me? I have strength for all things in Christ who empowers me. I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses inner strength into me. That is, I am self-sufficient in Christ's sufficiency. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That's the secret to being strong enough to bend. You see, the cliché would be you can't do it. But I want to leave you with something today that will help you to know that you can be strong enough to bend. I was thinking about this and saying, how is it that we grow enough that when the winds blow that we can bend a little bit? When the deal doesn't come through? When the marriage isn't quite as great as it once was? When the kids give us a hard time? When life doesn't go the way we think it should? Let me just leave it up there. How do we get strong enough to do that? And I want to leave you with this illustration. You see, because the bottom line is your church is trusting God. Now, you want to give me that little thing? What I have right here is a teabag. If I take this teabag, put it into a cup of water, what's going to happen? The water is going to become tea. You see, interestingly to me, our walk with Christ is much like that. As we let Jesus soak down into the stuff of who we are, He flows through this channel, this vessel, and the stuff of His life infuses into us. And church, can I say to you, the longer this bag soaks in the water, what? The stronger the tea. Isn't it interesting that tea is in the bag, but when the bag goes into the water, what do we call the water? We call it tea. Now, this hasn't really changed. What has really changed? The water does. When you allow Jesus Christ to soak into your life, you say, well, what do you mean by that? I mean by giving Him time to simply infuse that strength into you. You are transformed from normal human flesh into the nature of God. And I pray today that you'll allow time for that. And let me just give a little word of caution to some of you who've had the teabag in there a while. There's a difference between strong and stale. And maybe your tea hasn't been poured out in a while and being refreshing to someone else. And maybe it's time that you stirred it up and poured it out and let Jesus come down and soak it once again. And if you'll let Him soak into you, you'll find that when the plans are changed and when the people disappoint and when your disciplines don't seem to be making it, you'll be strong enough to bend and He'll be right there. And He'll change you in the midst of it all. How many of you are ready to get soaked in God? Just to get soaked in Him. I want us to stand together, shall we? And as we sing this chorus, Lord, I want to give you all my life, my problems, my sorrows, my future. I'm going to ask the ushers to go ahead and I want to give each of you just a little reminder of God's desire for you. They're going to give you a teabag. You say, oh, I've got them at home. Take this one with you. Put it in your Bible. Let it be a reminder to you as you soak in God, as you soak in Christ. His strength will be sufficient to enable you to bend in the storms of life. Let's sing this together. Lord, I give you all my problems. Let's sing it together. I give all my problems to You. I give all my problems to You. No matter the cost or what others do, I give all my problems to You. I give all my sorrows, I give all my sorrows to You. I give all my sorrows to You. No matter the cost or what others do, I give all my sorrows to You. I give all my future, I give all my future to You. I give all my future to You.