The Storms of Life

What will always breed fear when you're perishing in the circumstance you're in, is forgetting what God said He was going to do. Dr. Tony Evans says we need to remember that God is God, that we are not.

And when he's ready to speak to the circumstances, they will obey. This is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. When we're stuck in difficult circumstances, we can call on God to get us out. But Dr. Evans says, even if the storms of life are getting worse, we may already be right where God wants us.

Let's join him as he explains. 2 Corinthians 1 says in verse 8, For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of the affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despise the even of life. How bad was it, Paul? Verse 9, the first line, Indeed we have the sentence of death written on ourselves. He says it was bad.

I mean, it was really, really bad. He says it was affliction, and then he throws in this phrase, It was beyond our strength. So what I want to do right now is I want to demythologize. I want to remove a myth that we have all quoted, said, felt, repeated to other people and to ourselves. And the myth is, God won't put more on you than you can bear.

I want to remove that myth. It sound good? Sound like something God would say?

Sounds like it works? That God won't put more on us than we can bear. Not true. Paul says it was beyond our strength. In other words, it was beyond our capacity to bear it. We couldn't, you know, we couldn't take anymore. I can't take this.

I can't handle this. I'm dying, he says, and the sentence of death was on us. In other words, the next thing on the agenda was to die rather than live like this, rather than bear this, rather than go through this. He's saying God put more on us than we could bear, because there was only one thing left, to die.

How many of you have been through that? You just want to die? You want to die, you know? Maybe you're too scared of dying, but too afraid to live, too afraid to die, but don't want to live anymore, you know? Dying, since it was all over, and it was more than we could bear.

When God sends us through, and it's getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse, you praying and praying and praying and praying, it's not getting better. That is an invitation to a deeper experience with Him. The fellowship of His sufferings. Fellowship is our sharing of life, being conformed to His death. He wants to change something, remove something.

Something is there. Paul goes on to say in verse 9, indeed we have the sentence of death within ourselves, so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead. Listen to me. When you are dying, the sentence of death, you're dying. That will always have one reality tied to it, and that one reality tied to it, because you know you've hit this place, because you can't fix this.

That's the common denominator. The reason that you want to give up is there is no fixing in sight. You can't fix it, and you don't know anybody who can.

All your human resources have been depleted. Why did He do that to you, Paul? He says so that we would not trust in ourselves. God allows us to get to the point where if this is ever going to be fixed, He is the only one who can do it. Paul said the reason God put me here was to change my focus of trust.

I had to deal with a trust issue. See, Paul is a very talented man. His resume reads to the top of the list, Paul could do it all. So to take Paul deeper in faith, he had to put him in a situation he could not fix, that his resume could not handle, that his abilities could not change, so that he would learn to trust God. So to force him to a deeper faith level, he put him in a situation he couldn't handle, beyond his strength.

He couldn't deal with it, because he was driving him to a deeper level of experience with him. The word we use for this is brokenness. Brokenness is simply when God strips us of our self-sufficiency. When God removes our tendency to depend upon ourselves.

The problem is not using our abilities, or using our gifts, or using our talents, or using our contacts. God puts those things there for us to utilize in His purposes. But when He sees that we have relied on those—you know, we trust in the horses the Old Testament talks about, and the bows and the arrows. We don't just use them. We bank on them, so that even if we don't pray, we know we got this ace in the hole.

Even if we don't look to God, we know we got this thing over here we can go to in case God doesn't work. If God is trying to take us to this deeper experience, then He literally puts you in an I-can't situation. I can't handle it. I can't take it.

I'm gonna crack under this. But in God who raises the dead, God who raises the dead, it takes an awful lot of power to raise something dead. You got to have a little something, so you gotta have some juice to raise the dead, okay? One thing you know, if something was dead that got up, whatever got it up got a little something-something going on, because it takes some juice to raise the dead. One of our problems with God is we've never seen Him raise the dead. We have never seen—so many Christians—have never seen God take a hopeless situation and flip it, because it's in those times when He takes something that's hopeless, and you see no way, no how, and He flips that, that God has now become real to you at a level that He was not before. Like Job, it's easy to say, I've heard about Him with the hearing of the ear. That's easy.

You can do that every Sunday, every Wednesday. Hear about Him with the hearing of the ear. But it's a whole other thing to say, I have seen Him with my own eyes. That's a whole different paradigm when the understanding of the reality of God has now burst on the scene, because you watched the resurrection. That's why God let Lazarus die. He says, I let Lazarus die because I want to show you something. And Amoth and Mary were all upset. They said, you know, if you would have been here, Jesus stayed away on purpose.

Let Him die, because He wanted to show them a resurrection. If God being mean, if He being ornery, it feels that way when you're going through it, but what He's really doing is trying to take you deeper. He's trying to blow your mind, because that's what a resurrection does. It blows your mind. Don't stop God from blowing your mind. Every situation is different.

Every person is different. So I'm not giving a blanket scenario for every circumstance. I'm just dealing with a principle. Why are you killing me? Why is this sentence of death? I'm dying here, God. I'm dying. Paul says, because he wanted us to see a resurrection.

Look at this. Verse 10, who delivered us from so great apparel of death, and will deliver us. He on whom we have set our hope, and He will deliver us. Do you see that? Three times in that verse.

He says, I am delivered, I will be delivered, and I will be delivered. I don't know what grave you're in, and some of us aren't six feet under, we 16 feet under. You know, it's just getting a deeper hole.

The hole is getting deeper, and you have done everything you know to do. It's just one thing if you haven't done what you're supposed to do, what God tells you to do, but you've done that. In fact, you're tired of doing that, and sometimes you feel like you could just get away from God.

Just leave me alone, okay? And you might as well tell God you feel that, because you know you're thinking it. You know, it's amazing to me how people won't be honest with God like God won't know if you don't say it. He know you're mad at Him. He know you feel like He taking too long. He know He feels like you've forgotten Him, and you moved on to somebody else trying to sing Kumbaya, my Lord. He knows all that.

He is well aware, and you might as well tell Him, God, you have disappointed me. Paul says we had the sentence of death on us, and God did it so that God might let us see that He raises the dead and will deliver us. We have set our hope on Him. Dr. Evans will come back with more of our message in just a moment, including a look at a familiar story from Jesus' earthly ministry and what that means for us today. In the meantime, I want to let you know that the teaching you're hearing right now is from Tony's 20-part message compilation called Coming to the Comforter. This collection can help you understand how to deal with problems and pain more effectively, and it perfectly complements the insights found in his brand-new book, Hope for the Hurting.

Together, these two powerful resources will help you see what God wants you to learn during difficult days, how to find treasure in your trials, how to be made whole instead of just better, and how to develop a stronger faith even in the midst of trials. We'll send them to you as our gift, and thanks for your contribution toward supporting Tony's ministry here on this station and other outlets like it around the world. Just visit tonyevans.org to get the details and make all the arrangements. Again, that's tonyevans.org, or let one of our resource team members help you day or night at 1-800-800-3222.

That's 1-800-800-3222. Well, Dr. Evans, we'll come back with part two of today's message right after this. Deep green forests, snow-capped mountains, breathtaking glaciers, eagles soaring overhead, whales breaching the surface of the ocean. It's a place abounding with natural wonders, a magnificent example of what our Creator can do. Few places evidence God's creative power like the stunning wilderness of coastal Alaska. And now you can experience it with us. Join Tony Evans and other friends of the ministry as together we discover the glory of God's spectacular creation on an unforgettable Alaskan cruise. Set sail with us to take in the splendor of God's creation along with the wonders of his word. We'll enjoy great teaching from Dr. Tony Evans and other gifted instructors as well as life-changing worship and special musical performances. This spiritually uplifting cruise will give us time to relax, refresh, and refocus as we take a journey through Scripture while surrounded by the awesome creation that is Alaska. Find out more about the urban alternative Alaskan cruise at tonyevans.org today. I want to go back to an old story.

You know it well. In Mark chapter 4, on that day when evening came, He said to them, let us go to the other side. Jesus saying to the disciples, leaving the crowd, they took him along with them in the boat just as he was, and other boats were with him. And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking out over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up.

Jesus himself was in the stern asleep on the cushion, and they woke him and said to him, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? Why are you killing me? We're dying out here. We're perishing.

It's dying. These gentlemen have a number of problems in this story. Problem number one, a storm on the outside.

But problem number one created problem number two, a storm on the inside. They're scared, because they're perishing. Now you would wonder how Jesus could sleep through this kind of storm that made it look like they were going to die. That means— and these are professional fishermen on this boat, so these are not novices or folk who never been in the water before.

These are professional fishermen, so they're used to this. So this had to be a real bad situation for them to raise the question, do you not care? So they got a problem on the outside, a storm. They've got a storm raging on the inside. In other words, their circumstances out there was creating a mess in here, because they're terrified.

But then they got a theological storm. You don't care, because if you cared, one, we shouldn't be going through this, and if you really cared, you'd at least be up. You'd at least be awake. You'd at least be aware.

You'd at least be here with us. Don't you care? And if the truth be told, when God is letting us go through a lilac, it doesn't feel like He cares. And He sure enough seems to be asleep, because He seems unaware of what we're going through and why He's letting us go through it. They were going through it. They were in deep confusion. Teach here, verse 38, do you not care that we are perishing? We're dying in this thing.

This is killing me. Verse 39, and He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, hush, be still. So Jesus is talking to the circumstances. And He said to them, why are you afraid? How is it you have no faith?

When it seems an unfair question, given the circumstances. Dying. I'm dying. Why should I not be afraid? They have seen His miraculous hand. They have seen the testimony of His Word. They have seen Him heal. They have seen Him—they know that this Jesus is not ordinary.

He's extraordinary. But there's another reason why He condemns their fear, and that reason is back in verse 35. On that day, when evening came, He said to them, let us go to the other side. Translation, gentlemen, get in the boat. Guess where we're going? All the way over to the other side. Their circumstances caused them to forget what He said. He said, we're gonna make it to the other side. What they could see overrode the fulfillment of a word they could not see. We couldn't see the other side because the circumstance said, we're not gonna get there. Circumstance said, we're not gonna make it. Circumstance said, we're gonna drown right out here in the middle of nowhere. We're gonna die. What will always breed fear when you're dying, to perishing in the circumstance you're in, is forgetting what God said He was gonna do. Because the circumstances and the waves are so big and so looming, you say, wow, wow, this is not—this is not—I ain't gonna make it.

I love verse 41. Then they became very much afraid and said, who then is this? Some version says, what manner of man is this?

That even the wind and the sea obey Him. They said, we are very much afraid. Now, a few minutes ago, they were afraid. Their circumstances was dictating their emotion. Now they are very afraid. A few minutes ago, they were afraid of their circumstances. But when Jesus Christ showed who He was, they became of the one they should have been afraid of all the time. See, they were feeling the wrong thing. They had so much focus on their circumstances that their circumstances overruled God. That's being afraid of the wrong thing.

Now they're saying, what manner of man is this? That the circumstances respond to Him. See, what we do is we respond to the circumstances, and then they control our emotions.

When what they said was, now we're gonna respond to Him because He controls the circumstances. So why is God killing me? Why is He putting me in this perishing situation? So that you'll learn to fear Him more than the thing you're fearing right now. So that you'll learn to fear Him more than the thing you're fearing right now. So what is that thing that's causing you to lose your grip, causing you to lose your hope, causing you to lose your joy, and you think there is no solution to this?

I'm stuck. I'm out of my way. I am dying, and God is sleeping on purpose. Because He wants to let you see that He's true to His Word, even when the circumstance is contradicted. And when He's ready to speak to the circumstances, they will obey. Dr. Tony Evans, talking about how we can safely navigate the storms of life when we accept God's peace and comfort. Now if you'd like to get full-length copies of the sermons that went into today's message, including plenty of material we didn't have time to present on the air, it's included as a part of the comprehensive 20-part series, Coming to the Comforter. As I mentioned earlier, it's yours as our gift when you help us keep Tony's teaching on this station with your generous contribution. For a few more days, along with 10 messages on CD and 10 as digital downloads, we'll also include one of the first copies of Tony's brand-new book, Hope for the Hurting. Just visit tonyevans.org to make the arrangements before this special offer runs out. Again, that's tonyevans.org, or reach out to our Resource Center at 1-800-800-3222. Team members are standing by to help you day and night.

Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. The times we need God the most are often the times we trust Him the least. Tomorrow Dr. Evans will explore that peculiar truth as we learn biblical ways to deal with life's struggles. Be sure to join us. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by The Urban Alternative and is made possible by the generous contributions of listeners like you.