Three Things You Should Know About Your Troubles - Life of Christ Part 90

Isn't it true that when you don't have all the facts about a situation, it's easy sometimes to react wrong to that situation? Take the true story about Mickey Mantle that he used to tell about his lifelong friend, Billy Martin. I'd like to read it to you.

I cut it out of the paper. But again, having all the facts about a situation is really important. Listen to the story. Mickey Mantle said, When Billy Martin was managing the Texas Rangers, he did such a good job that they gave him a new rifle. He wanted to go hunting right away, and so I said, Well, I'll take you hunting. I know a guy on a ranch outside San Antonio. He's a doctor and a friend, and I think he'll let us hunt on his ranch.

But you'll have to get up at four in the morning because it takes four hours to drive there. Martin said, I don't care. I want to go deer hunting with my new rifle. So we drove down there one morning, and I said to him, You wait in the car, and I'm going to go ask him if it's all right for us to go hunting on his land. So I went and knocked on the door, and the doctor came and said, Hey, Mick, what are you doing here? And he said, Well, I've got Billy Martin in the car, and we were wondering if we could go deer hunting on your ranch.

He said, Sure, anytime you want, Mick. And he said, But by the way, would you do me a favor before you go? He said, You see that old mule standing over there by the barn? He said, Would you shoot that mule for me? And I said, Oh, Doc, I said, We don't want to shoot your mule.

We came here to hunt deer. And the doc said, But you'd be doing me a big favor, Mickey, he said, because he's old. And he said he needs to be shot, and I just don't have the heart to do it. So Mick said, Okay, okay, we'll shoot the mule. As I was walking back to the car, Mickey Mantle said, I thought I'm going to pull a little joke on Billy Martin. So I yanked the car door open and I said in anger, Give me my rifle. And Billy said, What's the matter? Mickey said, We drove four hours down here to go deer hunting, and this guy won't let us. I'm gonna go over there and shoot his mule. So Billy said, Oh, no, no, don't do that. He was trying to grab the rifle back saying we'll get in trouble.

We'll go to jail and everything. And I said, Give me that rifle. And I went over there and I loaded the rifle and I ran out to the barn and pow, I shot the mule right in the neck. And the mule fell over. And then right behind me, I heard three shots, bam, bam, bam. And I turned around and there was Billy Martin with his gun.

And he said, And you see there, I got three of his cows too. Like I said, having all the facts about a situation is real important. Now, you know, this isn't just true when it comes to hunting. This is true when it comes to our troubles in life, isn't it?

I've got a little if then proposition to give you. If we want to respond to our troubles properly, then then we need to make sure we have all the facts about them. And this is what God wants to talk to us today from the Bible about. He wants to talk to us about our problems, about our struggles in life, and God wants to give us some facts about our problems that will help us respond to them in an appropriate and godly way. And it all flows out of something that happened right here in Luke 22. So let's look together and then we'll answer the question, What are three things you and I should each know about our troubles? So we're here in Luke 22.

Let me remind you the background. We're at the Last Supper. Jesus is having this last Passover meal with his disciples.

And they're just about done now. They're just about ready to head out to the Garden of Gethsemane. And just before they go, Jesus has a couple of final words to say to Peter. This is one of the most familiar incidents in the whole Bible as Jesus predicts the denial of Peter. But there's some great spiritual truth in it.

Let's look together. I'm beginning at verse 31. Luke 22, beginning at verse 31. Now, the Greek word that's used here for ask for permission literally means to submit a formal request. And so Jesus said, I want you to know, Peter, that the devil has submitted a formal request to do something. Jesus said, I want you to know, Peter, that the devil has submitted a formal request to do something to you.

And here's what he wants to do. He wants to sift you as wheat. In the ancient Near East, you would take wheat and you would put it in a sifter and it was actually a grinder of sorts.

And you would grind the wheat around and this sifter, this grinder would crack the kernels on the outside of the wheat so that you could get to the inside part of the wheat that was really usable. And so in using this imagery that Peter would have been very familiar with, what Jesus says is, hey, Peter, what Satan is really asking for is for permission to work you over, to nail you, to crush you and grind you the way wheat is ground up in a sifter. That's what he's asked for. Verse 32. But he said, I have prayed for you. I've prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. When you've recovered from this, strengthen your brothers.

Hey, the implication here is very clear, isn't it? That Satan had received permission to do what he had asked to do. And Jesus said, he's going to come at you, Peter, and he's going to come at you with both barrels blazing. But I want you to know something, Peter.

I want you to know that I've prayed for you. And Peter, you're going to survive it. Verse 33. And Peter said, Lord, I'm ready to go with you to prison and even to death. You can count on me, Lord. And Jesus answered and said, Peter, I want to tell you something. Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.

You will deny that you know me three times. Now, did this happen? Yes, it did. You'd say, well, how in the world could Jesus have known this was going to happen exactly the way it happened before it happened? Did he call Dionne Warwick's psychic hotline or something?

No. The reason that Jesus knew that is because he was Almighty God. Colossians chapter 2 verse 9 says that in Christ, all the fullness of the Godhead, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And because he was God wrapped in human flesh, he knew the end from the beginning.

He knew everything that was going to happen. And here we have a marvelous tribute to the Godhood of Jesus Christ that he, this is just one small example of many, that he could stand and look at Peter and say, Peter, I know what's going to happen within the next 24 hours and I can tell you exactly what you're going to do. If you're here this morning and you've never trusted Christ in a real and personal way, may I share with you that this among many of the examples in the Bible is just a testimonial to the fact that Jesus really was what he claimed to be Almighty God wrapped in human flesh. And the reason he came to earth as Almighty God was to die on the cross for your sin and my sin. If you've never embraced that and made that personally yours, then you're resisting the very reason Jesus Christ came to earth. And I want to challenge you this Christmas season to really give some thought to letting Jesus Christ fulfill his plan for the ages in your life. All you have to do to do that is simply open your life and let him become your personal Lord and savior. God himself came to die for you.

That's pretty impressive. Well, that's as far as I want to go in the passage this morning. We're going to come back next week and we're going to talk about Peter's boastfulness. You know, Lord, you can count on me and the fact that he couldn't follow through on that.

That's a whole study in itself. But what I really want to talk about this morning is Jesus's words to Peter about Satan's activity and the insights that this passage gives us into our problems in life. Now I want to do something with you. I want you to close your eyes with me.

I'm not going to throw anything at you. Just you can trust me. Close your eyes just for a second and clear your mind. And I want us to play a tiny little word association game. I'm going to say a little phrase and then I want you to see what pops into your head.

You ready? Okay, get your mind clear. Here we go. Here's the phrase. The biggest problem in your life right now.

Did you get something? Well, I can't say for certain what it is that popped into each one of your minds, but I'll bet that I'm right when I say that something popped into everybody's mind here. And you know the reason for that is because we all have problems. We all have tough circumstances.

Job said man born a woman is a few days and full of trouble. And the older I get, the more I realize that everybody in the world has trouble. Everybody in the world faces circumstances that challenge their endurance, that challenge their patience, and that many times challenge our faith. And there are three truths about our troubles that Jesus' words to Peter tells us right here in this little passage that I want you to take the problem that just came into your mind and I want you to apply these three truths to that problem. And I believe that if you will, it'll transform the way you see that problem and it'll transform your ability to deal with it. So what are these three truths about our troubles that God wants us to know? I want to give them to you.

Here we go. When it comes to our troubles, here's principle or truth number one. Truth number one is that they're inspected. They're inspected. You see, this is one of the great mysteries of heaven that God tells us about in the Bible.

Look right here. Jesus said Satan has asked for permission. Satan has filed a formal request before he could take any action against you, Peter. And this request was submitted to God himself who inspected it, who assayed it, who then set the limits and the boundaries on what Satan was allowed to do to Peter.

And now whatever happens, Peter, I want you to know first it's been inspected. Now, folks, this is not the only place in the Bible that God teaches us this great mystery of heaven. I want you to turn back in the Old Testament to the book of Job. The book of Job, it's just before the Psalms, Job chapter one. And this is another place in the Bible where God teaches us this great mystery that goes on in heaven.

Job chapter one, and I want to read a couple of verses to you beginning at verse six. One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. Verse seven, and the Lord said to Satan, where have you come from? And Satan said from wandering up and down along the earth. Verse eight, and the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job?

I'm really proud of him. There's nobody on earth that follows me like he does. Verse nine, Satan said, well, does Job fear you for nothing? Verse 10, haven't you put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You've blessed the work of his hands so that his flocks and his herds are spread out through the land. Now notice that Satan says, God, you've put a hedge around Job so I can't get to him. You've put a protective electric fence around him, spiritually speaking, and I can't get to him. Verse 11, but you stretch out your hand and you strike everything he has. You let me go do this. You let me sift him like wheat and he'll curse you to your face.

There's the challenge. Verse 12, then the Lord said to Satan, very well, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself, you can't lay a finger. Now here, even though God allowed Satan some activity, some access to Job, would you notice he set definitive limits on what the enemy was and was not allowed to do to this man? If you look over in chapter 2, verse 4, Satan said, skin for skin, let me touch his skin and he'll curse you to his face. Verse 6 of chapter 2, and the Lord said to Satan, very well, he's in your hands, but you must spare his life.

You can tee off on him physically, but you can't kill him. And in both of these cases, friends, God set the limits. Now this same principle holds true with you and me as Christians with every single believer in Jesus Christ today. God has put a spiritual hedge around each one of us and any problem, any trial, any crisis that comes into our life, we can be absolutely sure that it has first been assayed and inspected and limited, delineated by a loving Heavenly Father before it's ever allowed to touch our lives.

Now you know what I really like about this? I really like about this the fact that God doesn't delegate this inspection to some angel. I like the fact that God doesn't delegate this to some GS-5 up in heaven, because I got to tell you, I'm not sure I could trust the decision of some Heavenly employee who is doing this, but I like the fact that God does this inspection personally for every one of us and that that means that I can trust him if God himself is the one who's doing the inspecting. Man, I can trust him.

Friends, the practical impact of this is huge. It allows God to make us a promise about our troubles that when you and I get a hold of it, it will revolutionize our life. And here's the promise. It's back in 1 Corinthians chapter 10.

Would you turn there with me? 1 Corinthians chapter 10. And if you're using our copy of the Bible, it's page 811. 1 Corinthians chapter 10. And here's the promise that God makes. 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 13. The middle of the verse, it says, and God is faithful, who will not let you be tested beyond what you can bear. Now there's no way God could make that promise if there was one single circumstance that might ever come into our life that God had not first inspected to make sure it was within the limits of our endurance. But because there never is anything that comes into our life that God has not inspected, he can make that carte blanche promise. There is nothing that's going to come into our life that we cannot bear.

And so as a Christian, the phrase, I can't, I can't keep going, I can't make it, is simply not one of the above selections because God says, wait a minute, I've inspected it first and oh yes you can. Oh yes you can. I was out in Colorado Springs several years ago and I went to visit this place called the Garden of the Gods. I don't know if you've ever been there, but it's this gorgeous group of rock formations.

They're just outside Colorado Springs. You get on this little tiny narrow road and you weave your way through these gorgeous canyons within this rock formation with these absolutely breathtaking colors. And as you're weaving your way through here in your car, you come around this one little turn and I swear the road disappears into solid rock, into this little tiny crevice you couldn't get a motorcycle through. And you stop your car and you sit there and you say, there is no way, there is no way I can drive this big old car through that little tiny crack.

And you know what? There is a road sign right at that point on the road and you know what that road sign says? Here's what it says. It simply says, oh yes you can.

That's all that's on the sign. Oh yes you can. And friends, I want to say whatever your problem is, God has a road sign right in front of it and his road sign says, oh yes you can.

Oh yes you can. With my help you can because I've made sure of that before I ever allowed it into your life. It's inspected. That's the first truth I want you to master. Truth number two is that not only are our troubles inspected but truth number two, they've got a purpose. Our troubles have a purpose in our lives. We've coined a new phrase in America where we always go around now lamenting senseless violence.

Have you heard that phrase? Senseless violence. And for us as people, anytime something seems senseless, we have a hard time dealing with it. Things need to make sense to us.

That helps us with our problems. And you know when Jesus tells Peter that Satan's going to work him over, when he tells Peter that Peter's going to deny him and disown him, when he tells Peter that Peter's going to have a major crash and burn in the very same breath, he also says, now Peter, God has a purpose in this for you. Because he says to him, when you have turned back, when you've been restored, then Peter you're going to use this experience, you're going to use this crash and burn and your recovery from it, you're going to use it to what? To strengthen your brethren. To minister to other people. To help others, Peter.

This is going to have a purpose in your life. And listen, this is exactly what Peter did. Later on, in the letter that we call 1 Peter, Peter's writing to folks who are suffering, to people that have problems. Listen to what he says to them. He says to them, 1 Peter chapter 5, humble yourselves under God's mighty hand and he will lift you up. Cast all of your problems upon God because he cares for you.

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for somebody to eat up. But resist him and stand firm in your faith because you can be sure, you can be sure, look what he says, that the God of all grace, after you have suffered a little while, he will restore you, he will make you strong and he will make you firm and steadfast. Now where did he get the confidence to say those kind of things to people in problems? Well he got it by going through what he went through and watching what God did for him. He learned it in the aftermath of that night in Jerusalem where he denied the Lord. He learned it from his problems and his pain and his suffering. And my dear Christian friend, there are some things God can only accomplish in our lives through pain and suffering and loss.

Now we don't want to hear that but it's true. I was with a friend the other day having breakfast and he was telling me about this British psychiatrist who's written this fabulous book and that I should get it and read it and how helpful and how great it is. Well I said, what's the title of the book? He said, well the original title of the book was Pain, the gift nobody wants.

He said, but they had to change the title because nobody would buy the book with that title. Now would you go out and buy a book and if you saw it in the supermarket entitled Pain, the gift nobody wants, I don't think that title lends itself to a best seller in America, do you? We don't want pain, we don't want to hear this message, we don't want to have anything to do with pain. All of American society from Advil commercials to modern medicine is set up to eliminate all pain in our life. But you know what folks? The truth is that pain is a gift, dispensed in precise, inspected doses by a loving Heavenly Father to accomplish purposes in our lives.

That's the truth of the Word of God. And prosperity and ease and success and luxury may feel great and they do, but you know those things never bring any maturity, any growth or any development to our lives. You say, oh yeah, Lon? Yeah? Well you just tell me what benefit problems bring to my life. You just tell me what benefit pain brings to my life because I've suffered a lot of pain and I've never seen any of it.

All right? Well I'd like to give you three real quick. Three benefits that pain will bring to your life. Number one, it'll humble your high opinion of yourself and my high opinion of myself. James chapter four says, God is opposed to the proud but he gives help and grace to the humble. And friends, a loving God wants to give you grace and wants to give you every kind of spiritual benefit, but he can only do it to humble people.

And you know what? Success never humbled anybody. In fact, success makes people pretty arrogant, doesn't it? And for God to be able to give you grace, you've got to be humble. And the only way to humble anybody is through suffering and heartache and pain.

I never met anybody that got humble from success and prosperity. Number two, the second purpose that pain has in our life is it teaches us to depend on God instead of ourselves. Proverbs chapter three says, do not lean on your own understanding. Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

Don't lean on your own understanding and your own cleverness. One of the blessed results of problems and heartaches is that they shatter our self-sufficiency and they teach us, they drive us, they force us to depend on the sufficiency of God instead of our own sufficiency. And this is a blessing because this is how we unlock the power of God in our life is by depending on the power of God, the sufficiency of God.

But you know what? I have learned that as a human being, if there's any way I can depend on myself, I will. I mean, if there's even that much left that I can depend on myself, I will. God has to take me to the point where I'm totally out of resources before I depend on him. And that's the purpose of pain in our life sometimes.

Third and finally, a blessing or benefit that pain brings is that it produces mercy and compassion for other people. Jesus said, Peter, after you've been through what you've been through, you're going to be much better able to strengthen and help your brethren. You know, Peter was a pretty arrogant guy.

Peter was the guy who beat on his chest and said, oh, all these other yellow bellies may go off and deny you, but not me. I'm a rock. I'm strong. I'm courageous. I'm not like these other bums. Well now, does that sound like the kind of spirit that could encourage and support anybody in trouble?

I don't think so. But suffering has a way of stripping all that down and making us able to identify with people who are going through tough times. I was down at the Badour Center in Mississippi this past week, you know, was the one I showed you the little video clip on a couple weeks ago, the Center for Adults with Mental Retardation. And it was one of the most moving things I've ever done in my life. I mean, you know, I was driving from Cenotobia, Mississippi back to Memphis where I was staying overnight after being there all day. And I was listening to a little tape of their singing group called The Miracles.

And I was crying so bad after the whole day and the whole experience and listening to this group that I'm trying to wipe one eye at a time and drive out of the other eye, which I just wiped. I mean, it was really the grace of God I survived this drive on the interstate. He said, Well, why don't you just pull off till you pull yourself together? Well, that's too sensible.

I don't do sensible stuff. I, you know, I press God's grace to the limit. But anyway, while I was talking to the director down there, at the end of the day, I said to him, I said, you know, before my little girl who's struggling with seizures and delayed development and possible mental retardation, before my little girl came along, you know, I said, Steve, I might have come down here and been impressed with what you were doing.

But I don't think I ever would have been willing to step up to the plate and try to put myself on the line to try to get a center started up in Northern Virginia like I feel we need to do. But because of what God has done in my life, because of my little girl, you know, in a way I couldn't three years ago, I can feel what those parents of these people are going through. I can feel now what these residents who are living here have faced out in the world their whole life and why this is such a needed place for them. And the only reason I can feel that now is because of the pain God's put me through in my life.

I never would have been able to feel that three years ago. I admit that openly. And friends, I used to have a good friend who said he's in heaven now. That's why he's not my friend anymore. Well, he's still my friend, but he's not here anymore.

But he used to say this. He used to say suffering burns out shallowness. And suffering teaches us how to connect with people in pain that in a way you'll never learn in any college course, you'll never learn in any seminar, you'll never learn in any book and you can't take a pill to get. And why does God sometimes send pain into our life? To teach us how to have compassion and mercy for other human beings. Friends, this being true, these purposes being real about pain, we as Christians, we need to expect that we're going to have some hard times, we're going to have some problems, we're going to have some tough things that come into our life, not because God's mad at us, not because God hates us, not because we've done anything wrong necessarily, but because God is dedicated into making us men and women of God and you don't do that with unbroken success.

Third and last thing I want you to know about your problems is not only are they inspected and not only do they have a purpose, but third and finally, God will turn them into a blessing in your life if you'll just trust him. God will turn him in a blessing in your life if you just trust him. Now, didn't that hold true for Peter?

You say, well, what kind of blessing was this? He denied the Lord and ran away. Yeah, but Galatians chapter one, Paul said, I went up and I met with Peter who is a pillar of the church and to whom God has entrusted the gospel for the Jewish people. Now, isn't that interesting that this is how Peter was perceived as a pillar of the church and the one entrusted more than any other single person with taking the gospel to the Jewish people.

And you know where that came from? Where did that mantle that even Paul recognized, where did that come from? Well, it came from John chapter 21 where after Peter had run away and gone back to fishing because he had denied the Lord, Jesus went and got him and called him and said, feed my sheep, feed my sheep, feed my sheep, Peter.

And everybody knew that Jesus had given Peter that mantle, but you know that never would have happened in Peter's life if he hadn't first gone through the experience of denying the Lord. And so God turned it into good in his life, into a blessing. And friends, there's a verse in the Bible, most of you know it, that says, God works all things together for good. God works all things together for good.

Not just the good stuff and the medium stuff, but the tragic stuff. God works everything together for good. Romans chapter eight, verse 28, to those who will trust him. And if you will take your problem and you will trust your problem to God, God, I promise you will overrule it, he'll override it, he'll flip flop it, and he'll turn it into a blessing in your life by the time it's all over. You say, well, Lon, what's the timetable on that?

One day, two days, a week? Well, it might be years. I don't know, but I'm telling you, God will do it. You say, well, I know God can. I'm not telling you God can.

I'm telling you God promises he will. It was true for so many of the famous people that we all know about. It was true for Joseph. You remember he was hated by his brothers, sold into slavery, framed by his master's wife, unjustly thrown into jail.

He was used by Pharaoh's butler for the butler's own advantage. One adversity, one disaster after another for 13 straight years. And then when God had all the pieces in place, bingo, and before you know it, he's prime minister of Egypt. Did God turn it around for good for this man?

Sure. In fact, he said to his brothers later, you intended harm for me, but you know what? God flip flopped it and turned it into a blessing. And how about Naomi and Ruth? You remember Naomi and Ruth? You know, Naomi lived across the Jordan River with her husband and her two sons, and Ruth married one of those two boys. The two boys' names were Melyon and Chillyon, which means weakly and sickly. That's what she named her kids.

It's true. And anyway, weakly and sickly died, and her husband died. And so here she is, Ruth and Naomi, they're widowed, they're homeless, they're financially destitute.

It looked like an irreparable tragedy. They come back home to their hometown of Bethlehem, and when Naomi arrives, Naomi says to all her friends, hey, don't call me Naomi anymore, call me Marah, which means bitter in Hebrew, because the Lord has dealt bitterly with me. Hey, but what did God do? You remember old Ruth went out in the field one day to glean, and she met a fellow named Boaz? You remember that? And old Boaz, man, he was handsome and he was rich and he was loving and he was God-fearing and he was tender and he was sweet, and the best part about it all was he was available. And before you know it, Boaz and Ruth are married, and all of a sudden, now Naomi and Ruth had security, they had provision, they had a family, and Ruth ends up in the line of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Did God turn it around into a blessing? You bet he did. The Israelites at the Red Sea, I mean, how many more examples do we want?

One more, okay? Pharaoh came out with all his chariots, he's up on the hill there, they got Pharaoh's chariots in front of them, they got the Red Sea behind them, you know the story. Things didn't look real good right then, did they? And Pharaoh pauses up on the hill and he says, you know, the God of Moses is a very poor general, to give him no retreat. You say, how do you know he said that? Well, you know the answer was in the movie, you know, Yul Brynner said it.

And by the time it was over, what happened when the Israelites were safely on the other side and Pharaoh's chariots were all at the bottom of the Red Sea? Didn't God turn it into a blessing? And I could keep going, but the point is, my Christian friend, that to all of these people, God was true to his promise, and God will be true to his promise to you, he's got it all under control, and he doesn't need you to do anything but trust him.

That's all he needs. So these are the three principles about our problems that I want you to remember. About our troubles. All of us here have troubles this morning. Some of us have really tough troubles this morning.

And we're hurting. Now I'm not God and I can't tell you why exactly what's going on in your life is going on, but I can tell you three great truths that'll work for any problem you've got. Number one, you've got to understand, they're inspected. And oh yes you can.

Oh yes you can. Number two, they've got a blessed purpose in your life. God's just not picking on you. God's trying to do something in your life with them. And number three, God's going to turn them into a blessing in your life if you'll just trust him, if you'll just let him. And if you'll take those three principles, my dear friend, and you'll stick them on top of your problem, it'll change the way the binoculars look at your problem.

I tell you, it'll put a different lens in front of them for you. And I hope you'll do that. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we struggle through this life, this is a tough life. This is not an easy life. And the older we get, it seems like the more problems we encounter. Lord Jesus, I thank you that you are a God who is real and practical and that you give us real and practical truth for our daily struggles. And I pray that you would take these three precious truths, that our troubles are all inspected and oh yes, we can. That our troubles have a blessed purpose in our life.

And that if we'll just trust you with them, you will take every one of those problems and you'll turn them into a blessing. Lord, help us take these three truths. Help us to put them between us and our problems and look through the lens of these three truths and our problems so that our problems look different. So that we can react to our problems in an appropriate and godly manner because we're living in light of the truth of the word of God. So Father, for folks here who are struggling, for folks here who are hurting, for folks here who are suffering, I pray that your word would be an encouragement and a source of hope and comfort to them this morning. May it change our lives because we've listened and internalized the word of God this morning. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.