Solving Problems Through Prayer - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, February seventh. Have you ever felt like the odds are against you? Today, you'll get help understanding why God allows His children to face lopsided situations. Becoming a Christian doesn't mean that that's the end of your problems.

What it means is that you have a powerful asset in helping you solve the problems. And sometimes there are small issues in our life. Sometimes they get pretty big. And sometimes they seem rather insurmountable and almost impossible. And when they do, how do you respond to that? Well, people respond in different ways, oftentimes the wrong way. And what I want to do in this message is to show you how to respond in the right way to face every single problem that comes your way. Because there'll never be a time when there are no problems.

The issue is, how do I handle them? Well, there is a way to handle them. And it's interesting that God in His Word is so precious to us to give us patterns, that is, solutions and answers to those problems that makes no difference what culture you're from, what language you speak.

If you believe the Word of God and if you're one of His children, you have this awesome asset. To know how to deal with every single problem no matter what it is. You say, well now, you mean all problems?

All problems. So, I want you to listen carefully. And I want to encourage you to write down eight sentences that I want to give you. Because they're a pattern. It's a key. It's one thing to respond to life and just have I feel at the moment. It's something else to have a pattern to go by.

Something that I know that works. Something that I know that involves God in whatever I'm facing in life. So, I want you to turn, if you will, to the twentieth chapter of Second Chronicles. And I think about how awesome God is to give us such clear direction when we face whatever the circumstance may be.

So, let me give you a little background of what's happening. Jehoshaphat is the king of Judah. And he was a godly man. And the reason I know that he was is because in the nineteenth chapter, for example, the Scripture says in verse four, So Jehoshaphat lived in Jerusalem and went again among the people from Beersheba to the hill country of Ephraim, and brought them back to the Lord, the God of their fathers.

Which was awesome for a king. Then notice what else he says. He said in verse six to the judges, Consider what you are doing. For you do not judge for man, but for the Lord who is with you when you render judgment. Now then, let the fear of the Lord be upon you.

Be very careful what you do. For the Lord our God will have no part in unrighteousness or partiality or the taking of a bribe. And then he says, Then he charged them, saying, Thus you shall do in the fear of the Lord, faithfully and wholeheartedly. So, he's a godly king.

And God has blessed him in lots of ways. And so, now he's reigning well and he gets this news. The news is there are three tribes in this twentieth chapter. He said the sons of Moab and Ammon, together with the Munites, came to make war against Jehoshaphat. And so, there are three armies together. So, he's outnumbered and he realizes that at first. And so, there are three armies together. And what this chapter's all about is how Jehoshaphat responds to a problem that is way over his head.

There is no simple solution to it because they are outnumbered three to one, maybe more than that, depending upon the nature and the size of those armies. And so, the issue is, how does he respond? Well, he responds to a problem that is way over his head. And so, what he does is, he responds to a problem that is way over his head. And so, he responds to a problem that is way over his head. And so, there are those who are facing problems, or they're little problems or big problems, insurmountable ones it seems, or things that seem impossible.

Now, listen carefully, because these things are very simple, but every one of them is important. And so, what he does is, he responds to a problem that is way over his head. And so, what he does is, he responds to a problem that is way over his head. Now, listen carefully, because these things are much more unpredictable. God is interested in your problem. When you trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, God personally takes interest in your life, every single aspect of your life, no matter what it may be. And so, what he does is, he responds to a problem that is way over his head.

And so, what he does is, he responds to a problem that is way over his head. And so, what he does is, he promises like this one, Blessed be the Lord," watch this, "'who daily bears our burden, the God who is our salvation.'" God is to us a God of deliverance. And to God the Lord belongs, He escapes from death.

He's a refuge for us. And I think about, He says, Cast all your burdens upon the Lord, and He will sustain you. Those verses just underline the fact that God is interested in every single aspect of our life.

So, whatever my problem may be, however big it may be or small, I can start out with this bottom line premise. God is interested in my problem. And it's very evident here in this particular passage, because what happens is, as soon as this news comes, here's what Jehoshaphat does.

Jehoshaphat was afraid. He turned his attention to seek the Lord and proclaim the fast throughout all Judah. And then he gives us this awesome prayer that we'll come to a little bit later. What I want you to see is, if he did not believe that God was interested in what he was facing, that would not have been the first thing he would have done.

So, think about this. Whatever you're facing at this moment or any moment as the follower of Christ, he is personally interested in your problem and what you're facing no matter what it is. And part of the problem oftentimes, people say, I pray and pray and pray. If you don't believe that God's interested or if you believe God's too busy, your problem is too small, you're too insignificant, therefore, God isn't paying any attention to you. If that's your feeling, then you're not interested in God. If that's your feeling, then you're not going to believe that. And if you don't believe that He's interested, then just mouthing prayers are not going to do any good. Bottom line, He's interested.

The second thing that fits this pattern is this. God is greater than your problem. It doesn't make any difference what it is.

It doesn't make any difference how long it's been in your life. He's greater than that problem no matter what it may be. So, the reason this is so important is because what they were facing, they were facing this innumerable group of tribes that were going to destroy them.

Not just invade them, but destroy them, take everything that they had. And when I come to thinking about God's promises and how He does take care of us, I think about this thirty-second chapter of Jeremiah when he says, Ah, Lord God, behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm, nothing is too difficult for You. Do you believe that? Do you believe that He's interested in your problem? Do you believe that He's bigger than your problem?

Do you think that there's something going on in your life that's bigger than God? If that be true, then God cannot be sovereign. He says He's sovereign. He rules over all things. He can't be the ruler over all things. He can't be sovereign. He can't be the God of heaven and earth if there's something bigger than God. And again, He says, He asks the question, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too difficult for me? And the answer is no.

So, think about it. When I think about how awesome God is and think about the fact that He says, Nothing is too difficult for me. That is, God doesn't wring His hands when you come to Him telling Him that all hell is broken loose in your life and this is the end and God, it's all over and I don't know why you let these things happen to me. He knows all about that. And He doesn't get perturbed about our response.

When you come to Him with doubts and fears and anxieties and all the rest, He doesn't get upset. And He says He sits upon His throne. And think about this, God is so awesome that He not only rules and reigns over the universe, He's so awesome that He can make Himself known to a little child. And that little child receives Jesus Christ as their Savior. And that little child receives Jesus Christ as their Savior.

And that little child receives Jesus Christ as their Savior. And now He indwells the heart, let's just say, of a heart of a seven-year-old and the heart of a ninety-seven-year-old just the same. He's an awesome God. He's interested in whatever's troubling you.

Now, not just that, but we're talking about problems. And the fact that He is greater. He's greater than every single thing in the world, and He's greater than every single thing in the world.

And so, if I'm willing to confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord of my life and trust Him as my personal Savior, I have this assurance. My God is interested in everything that concerns me. He's greater than every single thing that disturbs or bothers me, no matter what it is. And as a pastor, and any pastor would say the same thing, you listen to people pour out their hearts, their souls, their very innermost beings.

Wrenched deep within them, hurt, pain, suffering, loss, fear, anxiety, all the things that go on. And because a person is a believer, you can say to them, God is interested in what you're walking through. In fact, He's greater than what you're walking through, which means He can walk you through it. He's going to get you through it, and I can tell you, it doesn't make any difference what you're facing. God, who loves you unconditionally, will get you through it no matter what.

Mark it down. When the Bible talks about counting the hairs upon our head and all those things, what's He saying? He just simply saying is, I know all about you, and I love you, and I'm going to walk you through this. I don't know what you're facing today or tonight or whenever you're listening. Remember this, He is interested in what's defeating you, discouraging you, depressing you, disheartening you.

He's interested, and He's greater than that. Therefore, you can trust Him to do something about it. And the third thing is this. We're going to respond to these things in certain ways, and our first response certainly should be to seek the Lord. And this is exactly what Jehoshaphat does.

If you'll notice, for example, in this third verse of the twentieth chapter, the Scripture says, Jehoshaphat was afraid, turned his attention to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. The first thing he did was to seek the Lord. Now, the reason I know that that was his habit, that wasn't something that he just did one time, is because he says, There is some good in you, for you have removed the Asheroth from the land, and you have set your heart to seek God. So, let me ask you a question. Have you ever decided in your life, I'm going to make a priority in my life of seeking the Lord? You say, Well, what in the world does that mean? Well, it means coming before Him in all kinds of situations and circumstances, asking for His direction, asking for His peace, asking Him to show you His will, asking Him to reveal things in your life that maybe should not be there.

Ask Him to show you what your real security is. In other words, when you're seeking Him, you, listen, it's not that He can't be found. But when you're seeking the Lord, you're coming to Him because you want Him in your life. You're hungering for Him. You're thirsting for Him.

You want to know Him. And I believe that any believer who's walking in the Spirit has a deep yearning desire to know God better. It isn't enough just to know Him as Savior and Lord. We want to know Him as a practical God who is involved in every single area of our life. And so, when we talk about seeking Him, it was certainly the habit of His life. Now, when He heard about what was happening, the Bible doesn't say that He got all of His generals together and lined them up and said, Okay, we have to decide how we're going to defend Judah.

We're the people of God. He didn't do that. He had a conference with Almighty God. And then He called the people together to fast and to pray and to call upon God to give them direction and how they should respond. And remember this, whenever a problem comes to your life, watch this carefully, you have to take your position.

You see, if you don't have a pattern and you don't have anything specific that'll go by, you just say, Oh God, what am I going to do? You take a position. Here's your position. You trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. You took your position as a child of God. You took your position as a child of God. You became a child of God at that moment. The promises of God and the power of God, now you are accessible to all of that. You take your position as a child of God. Now, He's your heavenly Father. You have the right and the privilege and the position to call upon Him in every single circumstance because of your relationship to Jesus Christ.

You take your position. You have the right and the privilege and the position to call upon Him in every single circumstance because of your relationship to Jesus Christ. And so, what we have is, we have the awesome promise that He is interested and He'll do something about it. Now, watch this, when you can come to the place that you say, God is interested in my problem, He's greater than my problem, and I know that He knows exactly what to do about my problems no matter what you do, He'll do something about it. And so, when you begin to seek the Lord, here's what happens. Your problems get stunted.

They get smaller and smaller and smaller for the simple reason God's becoming larger and larger and larger in your thinking. This awesome, great, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God, you have made a choice to seek Him. And so, when you do that, you have already set a sense of direction of how you're going to deal with this issue. What you're doing is you're inviting Him in.

Now, of course, He already understands all the details. When you say, Father, what you say, you're inviting God with all of His supernatural power and all of His love and everything that He's given you. And so, when you do that, you have already set a sense of direction of how you're going to deal with this issue.

And so, when you say, Father, what you're doing is you're inviting God with all of His supernatural power and all of His love and devotion to you. You're inviting Him into your life to deal with this issue. Now, if you first of all get on the phone and call her or him or them and start talking to them about it, I can tell you what's happening. The more you talk to them, the bigger the problem gets. The more you talk to them about it, the bigger the problem gets. And so, when you say, Father, what you're doing is you're inviting God with all of His supernatural power and all of His love and devotion to you. They're telling you something.

I wouldn't say that they're always wrong, but I'm saying that's a very unhealthy thing for the simple reason nobody has your emotional makeup. Nobody knows the will of God like He does for your life. Nobody knows what His plan is. He may have a plan in this particular problem for you to go to Him and say, Father, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this. And so, don't tell anybody that because you don't know what you would do if you were them in their position, their emotional background, their very background, the way they think, their relationship to God, what's in their life that should not be and what, you don't know that. But what we do, we come to Him and we say, Father, I'm resting in Your presence.

I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this. And so, I'm saying, God is interested. He's interested in everything He did.

Interested? Yes, God is interested. Bigger than the problem?

Yes, He's bigger than the problem. And our first response, therefore, should be to seek Him. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't talk to other people, but they certainly shouldn't be first. He knows who needs to be involved, or if anybody doesn't need to be involved, He knows exactly your makeup and how you will respond to certain things. So therefore, naturally, it is wise to call upon Him first, Father.

Now, let me give you a warning. If you're not a Christian, you cannot tell Him that. Oh, you say, but I do. I talk to the Father all the time. Have you ever trusted Jesus? No.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. You have rejected the Father's Son. And then you're coming to Him, but having rejected Him. Well, I haven't rejected Him. Well, you haven't trusted Him as Savior? No, but I'm still talking to the Father.

Mm-mm-mm. You think you can, but you can't. And I'm not being critical. I'm just saying that's just the way it is.

That's the way it is. The Father who loved you enough to die on the cross through His Son Jesus Christ, and you reject Him, and then you expect Him to just answer your petitions and your prayers no matter what. You cannot reject Jesus Christ and have the blessing of Almighty God.

You cannot. You say, well, I thought God loved everybody. He does. But He doesn't overlook sin. He doesn't overlook rebellion. He doesn't overlook pride.

He doesn't overlook any of that. To reject His Son is to reject help. And I plead with you in Jesus's name, to trust Him as your personal Savior. Thank you for listening to Solving Problems Through Prayer. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.