"A Godly View of Circumstances"

Hi there, this is Lon Solomon and I'd like to welcome you to our program today. You know it's a tremendous honor that God has given us to be on stations all around the nation bringing the truth of God's word as it is uncompromising and straightforward. And I'm so glad you've tuned in to listen and be part of that.

Thanks again for your support and your generosity that keeps us on the radio. And now let's get to the word of God. You know when I became a follower of Christ 32 years ago I really believed that now that I had 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 inerrancy and my professor threw me out of the program. I have three teenage boys who count them have had six accidents totaling one car and severely hurting a bunch of other cars. And I have a 10 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.

Let's show you a map. He's crossed over from Asia Minor here and he's crossed to Greece, the northern part of Greece where he has spent almost a month in the northern Greek town of Philippi. 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 in Philippi and been fastened to the rugged, the jagged rock wall of this jail. Here's a picture of the jail. And you can't see the inside too well.

It's a little dark but you can clearly see the kind of rock that's there. He was fastened with his bleeding back to that wall. 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 worse penalty than he's already got. Now that's where we've been.

Let's pick up the story. Verse 25, Acts 16. Paul, the Bible says in about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. Now most people, 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 Eeyore. Remember Eeyore? Eeyore would have said, oh woe is me, my back hurts, my legs hurt, my feet hurt, my head hurts, everything hurts, woe is me. Well, that wasn't the Apostle Paul.

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, Lon, 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 that? Well, friends, the answer is that the Apostle Paul had a godly view of his circumstances. And we want to define that. What exactly does it mean to have a godly view of our circumstances? Well, a 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 1 Thessalonians 5 17, give thanks in all things. You mean even when you're in jail with your back bleeding and your hand 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 in 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 Almighty 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 8 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 of the Persian Empire, a 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 Sea to his 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 Melyon and Hilyon, which mean literally in Hebrew, sickly and weakly.

Now, I don't know why you'd name your boys sickly and weakly, but she did. And the Bible tells us that sickly and weakly both died. Well, and Ruth became a widow. And 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 fields 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 picking up corn, Ruth met Boaz. Now, Boaz was rich, and Boaz was handsome, and Boaz was godly, and best of all, Boaz was available.

Yes, 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 of 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 Potiphar, an Egyptian military officer, and everything was going great until Potiphar's wife got what 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, Eulbrenner, 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 going, then I got something to sing about, not something to fret about.

I don't need to be he 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't flip into a blessing.

And third and finally, it means actively relying on God to keep his promise that he made us in Romans 8 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. But let's see if we can remember it together. Deep breath. Here we go.

One, two, three. So what? You didn't forget.

That makes me feel good. Well, you know, what is the so what? You say, Lon, the so what here is that Paul had a godly view of circumstances. Big whoop.

No, no, friends. The so what here is that a godly view of circumstances is not just 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 with calm, with peace and with confidence, because we know what God has promised us and we're relying on it. You say, well, Lon, that's 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 828 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 28 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. Four things I want to point out to you about this. First, Romans 8 28. The promise there is an unequivocal, an unquestionable promise. Notice the verse starts off by declaring we know. Paul doesn't say we hope or we guess or we wish.

Paul says we know something as much 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 8 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.

It's not made to every churchgoer. 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 8 28 promises that God will convert all of our circumstances into good, that 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 cause some things or most things or all but the bad things.

This is a promise that there is absolutely no circumstance that could ever come into your life or 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't 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. 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, 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 8 28 did not come true for me.

My life did not turn out as a blessing. But wait a minute. Remember what we said? A half baked cake is still yucky. But when God finished the cake for every one of these people, did God not keep his word to them?

Yes, he did. And I 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 were powerless to fix. Some of us here have trouble in our marriages. Some of us here are single and lonely. 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 who are 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 easy spiritually to indict God. It's really easy to get angry at God and say, God, you lied to me. God, you haven't kept Romans 8 28. God, there is no way under the sun that any of this could possibly turn out for good. Hey, I understand this.

I told you earlier, I have a 10-year-old little girl that's 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 with God. I accused God. I indicted 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. You know, 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 have had Access ministry at 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 it, I understood. And you know, we have churches who come from all around the country to see what we're doing here in 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 to the west of here, we're planning to build an overnight respite center and an after-school 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. We want to keep those families together. And the biggest thing moms and dads need to stay together raising children like this is 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. None of this would have happened without Jill. 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 Lon, I look at my circumstances and I can't 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 position to judge God at this point with a half-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 godly view of 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 being Eeyore. 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 we're all human and, gosh, when tough stuff hits our life, the first, the natural, the normal reaction is to just come apart at the seams, 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 that 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. You've been listening to So What with Dr. Lon Solomon. So What is an outreach of Lon Solomon Ministries. To listen to today's message or for more information, visit our website, lonsolomonministries.org. Thank you for your support. If you would like to contact us, please visit our website or call us at 866-788-7770. We hope you will join us next time when Lon seeks to answer one of life's most important questions, So What.