Surviving the Storms of Life III, Lessons Learned In the Storms of Life

Let's be turning in our Bibles right now to Romans chapter 5. If you would very quickly turn there, Romans 5. Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. There are so many stories of the storms of life that people are going through. I do notice that many of you are prone to keep them close to your vest, for fear that somehow you'll be spotted as being weak, or perhaps somehow less than capable. But storms are coming all the time in people's lives. We hear a report this week, this is something we'll be praying about in the second service, about one couple in our church, fairly new to our church. I want to give you an idea, folks, of the gravity of things that will come our way. Now, here's a situation with parents, and I believe they already have some children, one child, and the mother is pregnant with twins. That's good news. The difficulty is that the twins now are in trouble, and one is way behind the other in development, and the doctors are fearful that perhaps, in fact, they've given them a 0% chance of normal babies if they wait full term. And the closer back they bring it to delivering the babies now, which is about, I think it's about the six-month territory or so for the babies, the more likely their survival. But even at that, it's not very good. It's in the 50% to 70% range. And the parents have to make the decision as to when they will have the babies delivered. The longer they wait, the more the babies would have some time to gain strength because they're obviously premature and very small anyhow because they're twins. And yet they know that if they bring the babies right now today, that there's something in the neighborhood of a 50% chance, a 70% chance of one or the other surviving. You see, these kinds of things happen. And you could write your own story, I'm sure, and the bottom line comes down to this. Will you allow the sufferings, the storms of your life, to produce bitterness or blessing, to produce gall or glory in your life? Over these last weeks, we've looked at how God, even in the midst of our own participation in the creation of storms, how God, even when Satan would seek to rush in and pour out His wrath and fear upon us, we've seen how God can take the vilest of situations. And today, we're going to see how He can take that situation and make something good. Come out of it. Something good for you, something good for others, and something for His glory. You see, even in the world, there's a certain admiration for people who endure adversity and prevail. How many of you were touched by that baseball player with one hand? Did you see that in the Olympics? A one-handed baseball player held his glove on the appendage without a hand while he pitched and then slipped it on after he pitched, and they won the Olympic gold medal. Just a tremendous story of prevailing under adversity. And yet, I'm talking about something much deeper than that here today. I'm talking about something that has to do with growing in godliness and godlikeness in the midst of storms. And I pray today that if you're here and you're just about ready to tune out because this is another sermon, you'd realize that, my friend, someday this storm is going to strike your life. Tell your neighbor that right there. Tell him. Go ahead. Tell him the storm's going to strike your life sometime. Jesus said, not whether or not. He said it would. And what I'm going to say today may make the difference between you getting bitter toward God or blessed in the midst of it. Now, I'm not desirous of trying to think and make you think that somehow storms are fun. J.B. Phillips says in his version, when all kinds of trials enter your life, welcome them as friends. How many of you ever say to sickness, oh, welcome to me? Or when you're fired, oh, thank you. I've been waiting for this good news. I'm not even suggesting that God sends these things to teach us a lesson. Remember week number one I said God is good. He doesn't send you things to hurt you. But God will take the things that would hurt you and turn them into good if you let him do it. The key, you see, dear ones, is our response to the storms that come. And if we would learn to respond effectively, we're going to grow. And I've identified four. I'm sure there's 35 or 40. But I wanted us to look today briefly at four specific qualities of God-likeness that will grow in our life if we respond positively to the storms of life. We will grow in comfort. We will grow in character. We will grow in courage. Because God will fill us with strength and courage in the midst of those kinds of things. And we will grow in confidence in who he is. Let me look at just each one of these for a moment. You may want to flip here and underline these verses because you're going to want to go back and look at them. First of all, look at 2 Corinthians, would you? Chapter 1, verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. Now, there's four times the word comfort comes up. And although we may not want to hear it this way, listen church, God uses people who have been afflicted to help other people go through their afflictions. I have heard this before, I'm sure it's familiar to many of you, but listen to this. Those of you who want to serve God in your life, when God wants to drill a man and thrill a man and skill a man, to play the noblest part, when he yearns with all his heart to create so great and bold a man, that all the world shall be amazed, then watch his methods, watch his ways. How he ruthlessly perfects whom he royally elects. How he hammers him and hurts him, and with mighty blows converts him into trowel shapes of clay which only God understands. While his tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands, how he bends but never breaks when his good he undertakes. How he uses whom he chooses, and with every purpose fuses him, by every act induces him to try his splendor out, God knows what he's about. Here in our church and throughout the larger body of Christ, if you show me people who are tender, merciful, compassionate, comforting, sensitive, I'll show you people who've endured times of personal trial and struggle and storm. I'll show you people who've walked there, because the only way that you really get in touch with the comfort of God to give to someone else is by receiving it yourself. It's amazing to me how the storms will come and level everyone out. How the most invincible businessman, strong stalwart can suddenly become vulnerable and open following his heart attack. It's amazing to me how the loss of position and career make the most independent person willing to share their needs and a little bit more dependent. How the collapse of a dream, an empire, makes the most arrogant and proud and self-sufficient one willing to talk about it a little more humble. How the loss of friends and family sometimes can make even the hardest heart soft and pliable. You see, when we experience the kind of pain that doesn't go away when we hit the pillow, the kind of pain that we carry with us all night long and when we wake up in the morning it slaps us again in the face. That kind of pain opens us to the pain of others and makes us ever so sensitive to what they may be going through. It makes us more naturally able to bear with the struggles and infirmities of others. In my experience, the people who've gone through the deepest trials are the ones who can come through with the greatest care. I want to submit to you one idea. One pastor suggested this possibility. In the story of the Good Samaritan, who were the other people that were involved in the story? Well, there was the priest and the Levite and then, of course, the poor person that had been beaten up and robbed. Now, there's no way to prove this theory, but just think about it for a moment. Back then, the most hated, despised, mocked, rejected people of that culture were the Samaritans. The Jews hated them as rebels in turncoats. The Jews despised them, drove them out, wouldn't talk to them. And when they had occasion, they would persecute them. And could it possibly be that the reason why the Jew, the priest rather, and the Levite hurried on by and kept on their business, and the reason why the Samaritans stopped and identified with that broken man in the ditch, could it possibly be because he himself felt the hurt and the pain of being beaten and rejected? You see, it just makes you sensitive. It just opens your heart to be a little less judgmental, a little less callous toward the needs around you. Many of you here today, I want to say this loud and clear, many of you here today have an incredible capacity to help someone else because of the things you've been through. It's not uncommon for people to come up to me and say, Jay, if you know somebody, and all the people that you meet and the pastoral staff, if you know somebody that's been through a divorce, send them to me because I'll help them. I've been there. If you know someone who's a teenager, ran away from home, immersed themselves in all kinds of trouble, and they're despairing, and they feel like a total failure as a parent, send them to me because I've been there. I have people come up and slip me notes and say, if you know someone that just lost their job and feels at the end of their rope, send them to me because I've been there. And I want each one of you to know that you've been equipped by God somehow to stand alongside of someone else, to comfort them with the comfort with which you've been comforted. One way to keep bitterness from forming in your own heart, even if this is a recent experience, is for you to give away what God has given to you. Not to hold it to yourself, but to give it away to those in need around you. That's why one man called such people wounded healers. People who give, even in the process of healing in their own wounds, they give to another. And so I trust that in a spirit of care and compassion and understanding, many of you will rise up and move in that giftedness from the Lord. Number two, storms produce in us not just the ability to comfort, but character. It's interesting in this presidential election that character finally became an issue. I mean, there was enough corruption in Congress and the White House and all these different things locally and all the rest. You're hearing about it. But most of the stuff that you'll pick up and read in the newsstand, that you'll watch on TVs, the TV programs rather, you don't see stories about great heroes of the American tradition. You don't find stories about people laying down wealth. In fact, what you find is the opposite. Lifestyles of the rich and famous. That's what gets glamorized. The books and all the rest. You can pick up any book. You can imagine on growing rich, being successful, exercise, diet, being number one, power this and that. But somehow, those things do not make it when the storm strikes. What you need when the storm hits your life, dear ones, is character. When that phone call comes that has the worst news imaginable, as one lady wrote this week and shared, her whole life was changed by one phone call. When the company you've worked for for 30 years is sold and you don't have a job. When your boss walks in and says, you know, we just don't know how to use you anymore, I'm sorry. When the report comes to you from the principle that your child was caught with drugs. When the doctor's office calls and asks for a personal consultation, to share the results of the test that came in. You see, what we need at those times, dear ones, isn't get rich, books, self-help books. What we need at that time is character that God has put into us. The qualities of deep inner strength and security that come out because the storm has hit. The qualities of faith and integrity and trust. James says that these testings that come develop that faith. It's like working out, and I've used this analogy dozens of times. You cannot possibly get out and run a marathon if you've not been running and working out. You just won't make it. And one of the things I've observed is sometimes folks who say they know God will experience a disaster of some kind, a trial of immense proportions, and you know what it does to them? It drives them away from God. They say, how could God allow this? And the reason is they have not been working out their faith muscles. And so the only muscle of faith they have is a flabby little puny thing that doesn't work when they need to stand in the storm. And so when these little squalls come, most of you here today aren't going through any big, hairy storm, but there are little things that will come up this week that God's going to show you. That's a little storm. That's a little squall. If you'll handle it, if you'll address it, it'll build faith. One of the greatest perversions I can think of in our church right here at North Way would be the idea that we're all at one level of grace and faith. God wants us to be growing. Are you, sir, five months, six months down the road, will you be further than you are right now? Will you know more how to get a hold of God? That's what the Lord wants us to do. And the storms come and build this kind of character in us like nothing else I can know. Remember this. When a storm strikes, the great goal of God in the storm, the great goal of God in your whole life, if I can say it, is to form Christ in you. Think about it for a minute. Let's put that up. You see, what we lose sight of is we think that the goal is for us to be successful, or the goal is for us to be a fruitful evangelist, or the goal is for us to make an impact on the city. No, the goal is for you to end up just like Christ. And can I say to you, that isn't always the most pleasant, fun experience I can think of. But if you let that be the thing that predominates in your response, Lord, I just don't need to be successful or fruitful. God's not against any of those things. He wants you to be all those things. But more than that, He wants you to be like Christ. How many would rather be less than successful and like Christ? I mean, in the world's eyes, you can have that success because it's all passing away. I mean, I have to say, my heart goes out right now to the Steelers. I mean, ten years ago, riding the crest of the wave, you know, and now they're struggling. It's just ironic that at this time in our life as a church, we have some of those team players here at the church. And they've gone from the pinnacle to the pit. I heard one of them say on TV the other day, he said, My life's not football. My life's to be like God. And that's what God's using to serve His purposes in me. You see, storms come. And whether or not we respond the way God would have us will determine whether our character will be formed or crisis will be perpetuated and bitterness will begin to emerge. So when you face these storms, when they come, ask yourself the character question. What is God trying to teach me? What do I need to change in my life in order to see this thing go a different course? How can I change? What can I do to be more tolerant, more giving, more understanding? What do I need to do to be a better parent or spouse? What wisdom and insight and what kind of security is God trying to bring out in me in the midst of these things? I do need to say, for those of you who've been through very violent storms, that some of them do leave scars. I got a picture in the mail this week from Jamaica. It showed the ravaging destruction of Hurricane Gilbert. Buildings leveled, many of them with the roofs, of course, blown off and windows blown out. Trees laying over on the side, power lines down. And you look out there, and as the letter said, some things will never be the same. They can't be totally rebuilt to be the same. But they can start over again and build them better than they were before. And so if you've been scarred by a storm, if a relationship has left you hurt, then, dear ones, trust God that He can take even that scar tissue and gently massage it away and make you a stronger and better person because of it. It's up to you and your response. He can bring new hope and new virtue and new strength out of the scars if you let Him. Number three, when the storms strike, we can grow in confidence in who God is. We can grow in confidence that God is faithful as He said He was. Listen to 1 Peter 5 and verse 10. After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, establish, and strengthen you. You know, the disciples striked me as ones who watched Jesus do all these things and they saw Him still the storm and heal and deliver. They saw Him move in power. They saw Him take care of all these situations. And they had to go all the way to the bottom to where they realized their own faithlessness. And that's when they gathered in the upper room after Jesus' death. And it's then that the Holy Spirit, as Jesus appeared to them, He breathed in the Holy Spirit upon them and they began to be inspired with new confidence. And on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came and filled them. And I love what the Bible says in Acts 4.13. Listen to this. Now, when they saw the courage of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated common men, they wondered, or they were perplexed. And they recognized that they'd been with Jesus. You see, as you go through the storms, you'll discover something. That God is faithful. God is faithful. And you may come into this thing as a raw recruit Christian and you may want to believe that He's faithful. But it's not until you personally go through it that that theology out there, what you think about God, becomes your biography. It's not until you navigate the storm that that theology, the things that you've always hoped God was and heard that He was, then it becomes your own. It becomes your biography. You can trust Jesus because you know He's faithful. And each storm you navigate, you get a little stronger. About four years ago, Blaine Workman was our youth pastor and he took me out to a junior high retreat out in Raccoon State Park area at the YGI campground. Well, as part of that day, we had to participate in this woods survival course that they had there. And Blaine, of course, loved this. And they had all these things you had to climb over and stuff, you know, where you had to get your whole team over this eight-foot wall. And you had to figure out a way to get the last person over. And the last thing, and Lisa Anderson, I see you here, you built these things down in Mexico at your camp, was this enormous high wire that hung. It was about 500 feet long that hung between two trees. And to get to the jump-off point, you had to climb a tree. It was about 45 feet, about three times the size of this ceiling. It was way up there. Well, of course, being there with the junior highers, and they were climbing up like little squirrels, going up the tree and jumping off. I had to do this. And it didn't, you know, at first I didn't think a whole lot about it because I saw these kids doing it. But then they put this puny little harness on, you know. I weigh about four times as much as most of these junior highers. And I had to climb up the tree 45 feet to go on this platform, where then you jump off and this thing grabs you, and then you go down this long run. Well, I'm watching all these little squirrels going down, and they're having a great time, you know. And when I got it to be my turn to climb the tree, first of all, it was a miracle of God that I got up to 45 feet. It was straight up. And I stood up on the platform. And then there's that moment, see, when there's no support, there's some slack there. And you jump off, and you go down a few feet, and then the thing grabs you, and whoosh, off you go. Well, look at this harness. And nobody fitted on you. You put it on yourself. I wonder if one of these buckles was wrong. And I had that moment up there on that platform. When I'd seen all the rest of them doing it, and not one kid had fallen down and smashed themselves. I mean, everyone had been doing it. It was at that point that I had to decide, was that thing going to work for me or not? Well, you know, with a fairly substantial shout of glory, off the tree I went, and down we went. And it was great. It was fun. It was more fun when I was 17 than it was when I was another 40. But dear ones, you see, we can watch other people go through their storms. We can hear them say that Jesus is faithful. But when you go through yours is when you take the step, and you know. And I want to say one thing to all of you who wonder. You'll not be the first person that God fails. Did you hear that? You're not going to be the first person God fails. Because our Bible says He will never fail you. He'll never fail you. You can trust Him. Isn't He good? Now, you can allow the storm to so overwhelm you that the result is bitterness and hurt. But that's not God. He'll be there. And that's the fourth point really that leads us. As you go through in confidence, as you grow, courage, courage is going to grow in your life. Peter and John, they had such boldness that the great religious leaders of the day couldn't understand it. They couldn't figure it out. How could these people with no education, no religious training, how could they be so bold? Where do they get this kind of courage? Where does it come from? David Wilkerson was a man, and if you're not familiar with David Wilkerson, he wrote the book, The Cross and the Switchblade, started a ministry to drug addicts in New York City. Tremendous story of a person who left the conventional securities and went off and trusted God. In his own life, he reached a point where he could no longer just stand the way things were going. And he knew that his message to those drug addicts and those people who had lost everything, who were absolutely at the bottom of the pit, would do anything for a fix, lie, cheat, steal, who were caught up in the demonic strongholds that just lay over many of our major cities. He said this, he said, If a man is really going to stand up in this society and preach truth, his own ministry and personal life will be tested and tested and tested again so that what he shares will be more than just theology, but practical lessons that he has learned in the fire. And here's what he said, And when you go through the trials, you won't stand in the pulpit and chastise. You stand there with compassion because of your own need for the Lord's mercy, grace, and reconciling love. If any of you know David Wilkerson, that was not always his message. You see, having endured the storms, all the other things that you don't understand don't matter as much. Remember the blind man in John 9? The Pharisee said, How did he do this? Where did he come from? Who is this Jesus? And I love the blind man's response. He said, I don't know. All I know is this, Once I was, and now I can. And they looked at him and, You get out of here. Who are you to tell us? That was courage. And the more you learn to trust Jesus through the storms, the more courage you're going to have. Dear ones, Jesus said it this way, He said, In the world you will have tribulation. You're going to have storms. Count on it. But be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world. He can take our mistakes. He can take Satan's devices. He can take all the things that would come upon us, the confusing, difficult, disappointing hurts, and turn them into good. Shape in us comfort and character and confidence and courage. We don't want to give up when those things come. We want to stand firm. Because God alone is able to take the broken pieces of our lives and fashion them back together and make us even stronger than we were before. Do you know Him that way? Let me ask you just as we conclude this morning. Do you know Jesus Christ as the God who's seen you through the storms? And if you do know Him that way, are you willing to share Him with someone else who's going that way too? I think that's what North Way is about. I think that's what this group of people at 8.30 in the morning need to hear. All of you, I look out there, and I know many of your biographies. God's been faithful. Do you know what it would be like to go through some of these storms and not have God? Can you imagine going through divorce and separation and rebellion of teenagers and loss of job and not know that Jesus Christ is behind the scenes working everything together for good to those who love Him? I can't imagine it, but I know this. You have the message to take out there. I want to charge you to do it. You can make the greatest difference in someone's life. Let's stand together. Lord, as we bow our heads right now, it's in reverence to the God of the storms, the God who is sovereignly in control, the God who would want to work in us compassion and character, confidence and courage. And so, Lord, I'm not at the point yet where I say thank You for the storms when they come. I want to be there, Lord. But I am at the place today where I can say, Lord, take me on now. So that when the storms of life come my way, Lord, that the first thing out of my mouth are words of faith and trust that let what would be bitterness to many be a blessing to me and what would cause gall to become my glory. And I pray that for each of my brothers and sisters today. In Jesus' name. Amen. Love one another. You're dismissed. God bless you. Don't forget Sweet Talk today. It's going to be up one room. And those of you who are visiting, if you'll visit us at the video, go ahead and put that up, Nancy, please. Visitors, check this video today. You can be there. You can be there.