God Is In Control - Life of Christ Part 100

Well, you know, just the mention of the IRS causes people's hair to kind of stand on edge because we know when these guys get involved in our lives, usually no matter how unfair they're treating us, there's not a thing you can do about it.

True? I want to tell you real quickly about the case of a lady named Mary Stinson. Mary lives in Massachusetts and she got a letter from the IRS not too long ago and she was really shocked because she always pays on time.

She never is late with her return. She opened it up and here's what it informed her. It informed her that the IRS had gone back to 1986 and found that she underpaid her 1986 taxes by 10 cents. This is true.

True story. Got to write the newspaper. And they were sending a letter to let her know that they had assessed her a late penalty of $24, an interest of $30.84, so she owed a total of $58.94 on a dime.

Pretty incredible. I'm glad you didn't know a lot more. I mean, at that rate, you could owe a lot of money real quick if you owed more than a dime. She called the local IRS office. She even talked to somebody called a problem resolution officer.

Who thinks up these names? But anyway, as a result of the whole thing, she said, hey, this is stupid. Why don't you go after the big people that teach you tens of thousands of dollars instead of a dime?

But she had to pay the money. You know, when the IRS has got you around the throat, there's not a thing you can do. Well, I got to thinking when I read this article that you know the IRS is not the only kind of situation in the world where sometimes you feel like somebody's got you around the throat, you know?

Maybe at work. I mean, there are times at work when you feel like the boss has you around the throat. There's not a thing in the world you can do about it. There are times at school when you feel like a teacher just has it in for you and they've got you right around the throat and no matter how hard you try, you cannot get on this teacher's good side.

There are times where it's a coach or maybe with your parents or maybe with some relative or some friend where we feel like we're the victim of unfair things being done to us, but there's not a thing we can do about it to change it. And that's what I want to talk to you about today is about how do we as Christians process it when we feel like we're being treated unfairly and things are happening to us that are just not right, but there's not a thing on the human level we can do about it. I want us to look at an event from the life of Jesus Christ to get some insight as to how to handle all of this and I want you to open a Bible with me to Matthew chapter 27. Now Jesus has been turned over to the soldiers just before being crucified. He's already been condemned by Pilate and here's what happens.

Verse 27. Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and they gathered the whole company of soldiers around him and they stripped him and they put a scarlet robe on him and they began to make fun of him. You know in America when a person's going to be executed we still try to give them some time to preserve their dignity and get ready for this. I mean we move them to a separate section on death row, we give them their last meal that they really like, we let a chaplain come in and visit them.

When they go down actually to be executed they get to say some last words. I mean in spite of how awful their crime might have been we still try to preserve a certain sense of dignity in dying, but these guys didn't do that for Jesus at all. They were getting the cross ready, they were getting the events ready for that grim march through the city of Jerusalem and while they're doing that here they are abusing him, degrading him and making fun of him. They stripped him it says and then they took a scarlet robe, the kind of robe that a Roman officer would have worn and they draped it on him to mock his claim to be a king and have a kingly robe. They twisted together a crown of thorns the Bible says to mock a real crown. They put a stick in his right hand to mock a real ruler's stick or a real ruler's scepter and then it says they knelt in front of him and they made fun of him and they said, Hail King of the Jews, Hail King of the Jews and then they spit on him.

I mean that is the ultimate act of disrespect. I mean they just spit on somebody, they spit on him and then it says they took the stick that he had in his hand and they began to beat him on the head with it over and over again and finally when they finished after making fun of him some more they put his clothes back on him and they led him away to be crucified. Now how do you think Jesus felt going through all of this?

What do you think the feelings were that were going around in his head? You know a few years ago I was in New York City and I was serving as a chaplain with Jews for Jesus for campaign. Campaign is when they get folks together for a month usually 30 or 40 young people from all over the world and for one month they go out four times a day handing out tracts, broadsides, pamphlets in New York City, all over the city. In the course of a month, the month of July, they'll hand out over a million tracts in New York City and so I was there serving as the chaplain for these young people and I thought to be able to really help them I ought to see what they're experiencing.

So two or three times a day, not all four because I'm too old for that, but two or three times a day I would go out there with them with a bag of tracts over my shoulder and stand wherever they were standing in that particular group that I was with and hand out tracts. Well I was down in Wall Street this particular day and I was standing on the corner right outside the New York Stock Exchange and I was handing out pamphlets you know and I had a big red shirt on with Jews for Jesus written in big white letters across it and this guy from the side, I never even saw him coming, came up and before I knew what had happened slapped me right outside the face, I mean right in the face and then before I could really recover I was just in shock for a second, he spit at me and he just stood there then, you'd think he'd run off or something, he just stood there staring right at me as if to say, and what are you going to do about it? Now this guy's about 60 years old, he's a shrimp, he's a runt and part of me said, reach in that guy's mouth, grab that tongue that spit on you and ram it right in his liver, that's a part of me said and then break his arm just for good measure but I want to tell you, God is on the throne, I didn't do that, I didn't know what to do, basically I just smiled at him, what do you do? I didn't know what to do and he went off and he just walked off but you know thinking how I felt, I mean I was humiliated, I was angry, I was insulted, I felt violated, I mean I wanted to hit this guy so hard, I mean it was everything I could do not to just leap on top of this guy, it occurred to me later when I thought about it, you know I'm not a sinless holy being, Jesus was a sinless holy being and he had people treating him like this, people that he created, people whose hearts he kept beating every second that they were alive and they're treating him like this, don't you think that he had in his human nature the tendency, the desire to want to just strike back in some way at these people?

He had to have that, you say well why didn't he? Well the answer is found in John's Gospel, I want you to turn over there, John chapter 19, it's page 767 in our copy of the Bible, page 767 John chapter 19, the Bible tells us that right after this just before he went to the cross, Jesus went back one more time to meet with Pilate and when they met, Pilate tried one more time to release Jesus John 19 tells us and the crowd would have nothing to do with it, the crowd said verse 7 John 19, we have a law and according to that law he must die because he claimed to be the son of God and when Pilate heard this that he claimed to be the son of God, he was even more afraid and he went back inside the palace and he said to Jesus, where do you come from? But Jesus gave him no answer and Pilate said, do you refuse to speak to me? Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?

How dare you not speak to me? Don't you understand the control I have over you? Now look what Jesus said, verse 11, Jesus said, you would have no power over me at all if it were not given you from above.

That's a pretty awesome comment. He says, Pilate, the only power you've got over me is the power God's granted you over me. You don't really have any power that's truly your own. Everything's under control here. I don't need to retaliate.

I don't need to do anything because everything's ticking along right on schedule. Do you understand what Jesus was saying? Folks, with this comment, we find ourselves delving into one of the great mysteries about God's operations of the universe and we'll never get our arms around this. We'll never be able to understand it and yet the Bible consistently claims that in the process of these people trying to obsessively put into practice their own plans, their own will for what happened to Jesus, these people were actually working out the perfect plan of God for Jesus' life and for the ages. Now the Bible says that even though they had their own free will, God was bigger than their free will and God superintended their free will so it went exactly where God wanted it to go. You say, how could God do that?

I don't know. But this is the claim of the Bible, that no one had any power over Jesus except what God had already granted them from above. You don't need to turn there but several times later on, the Bible repeats this notion. For example, Acts chapter 2 verse 23. This man, Peter preaches, was handed over to you, Jesus was, by God's set purpose and foreknowledge and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death and nailed him on a cross.

But you didn't do that out of your own plan. It was God's set plan and purpose that handed Jesus over to you and made him vulnerable to you. Chapter 3 of Acts, listen to this, verse 17.

Now brothers, I know you acted in ignorance as did your leaders, Peter said. You didn't realize that what you were doing but this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets saying his Messiah would suffer. You didn't realize that you were playing directly into the plan of God but you were.

And one more, chapter 4 verse 28. Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against Jesus whom you anointed. Now listen, they did what your power and your will, God, had already decided beforehand should happen.

See Jesus Christ, when he stood in front of Pilate, was looking at his circumstances through the lens of the Bible. That's what we have to understand, through the lens of biblical truth. And biblical truth tells us God is in control. He's in absolute control and total command of every event in the universe. Yet, man has perfect free will. Yet, somehow God super intends even the free will of man in this world, all the free will of man, to make sure that his plans are executed right on schedule.

Not just when it comes to mega events like the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, but when it comes to everyday events of our lives here on earth. You say, now Lon, how can God possibly do that for billions and billions of people and billions and billions of free wills? How can he possibly work that out? And the answer is, I don't have a clue.

Not a clue. But God says he does. That he did it for Jesus Christ. That's how Jesus could stand there and say what he said to Pilate, and that he does it for you and me. Now that's the end of our passage, but it leaves us with the really important question.

What's that question? So what? Yeah, Lon, what difference does this make to my everyday life? I mean, I'm going to go to school tomorrow.

I'm going to go to work tomorrow. I mean, this doesn't make any difference to me. Oh, yes, it does.

Yes, it does. Because Jesus Christ, if you're a Christian, wants you to see your circumstances, whether it's at school or whether it's at work, through the very same lens that he saw his, it'll change the way you react. I want you to take a moment and think of the most unfair thing that's ever happened to you. When I say the word unfair, man, this is what you think of. I got a whole bunch of those things, like the time my aunt would not let me come to my mother's funeral because she didn't like my stand for Jesus Christ.

I thought that was pretty unfair. Like the fact that all of my mother's jewelry and personal effects disappeared after she died, and none of that got passed down to my family or my brother's family. I don't know that my aunt took it for sure, but if I had money to wager, that's where I'd put it. And all of that jewelry, she had some gorgeous things that would be fabulous things to remember my mom by, all disappeared.

I have no clue what happened to him, probably never will. You say, how do you feel about that? I'm angry. I'm angry. That was not fair. I don't care if it was her sister or not.

That was my mother. That was unfair. I'm upset about those things. And I'll bet if you can think of some unfair things that happened to you, you're probably upset about them too because that's what happens when we feel we've been treated unfairly. We get mad.

We don't like it. But what Jesus has taught us from the Bible this morning and when he said to Pilate, Pilate, you have no power over me except what's been granted to you from above. What that means is that even the most unfair circumstance in our life, dear friends, if we look at it through the lens of the Bible has a totally different look. It means that you and I are not just the victims of random events in the universe. It means that you and I are not just straw in the wind.

It means that Macbeth was wrong when he said that life is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. He's wrong. It's not out of control. Rather, that truth that God is in control means that even in the worst of situations when it seems like the whole world is caving around us, when it seems like that the light at the end of the tunnel is a train, when everything that's happening to us looks unfair and cruel, it means that God is declaring he is still in control so that we can look at trouble and unfair treatment and even tragedy, look it right in the face and point our finger at it and say, you would have no power over me at all unless it had been granted to you from on high. You say, but Lon, listen, you're missing the whole point.

You're still not addressing the real issue, son. The real issue is, okay, so maybe God is in control. Okay, so maybe he is in control of my boss treating me unfairly. Okay, so maybe he is in control of me losing my job. Okay, so maybe he is in control of my child having problems or maybe he is in control of me breaking my ankle or needing an operation or totaling my car or missing the promotion that should have been mine. Maybe he is in control of me losing the contract at work or interest rates rising or I can't sell my home or my marriage breaking up. So he's in control. Lon, the point is what good does it do for me to say God is in control if what I'm really saying is God is in control of ruining my life.

That's the point, Lon. God is in control and he's ruining my life. Well, you're right, that is the real question. So let's answer it. You see, God is in control is half of the coin, but there's another half of the coin and it goes together and to get the other half, I want you to turn to 1 Peter chapter four, the very last verse of 1 Peter chapter four. Here's the other side of the coin.

Ready? Last verse, verse 19. So then, those who suffer according to God's will, now that's every one of us, those who suffer according to God's will, watch, should commit themselves, should keep on entrusting their situation to their faithful creator. Oh, those are the two key words, the words faithful creator and continue to do good. See, this is the other side of the coin that the God who is in control is a faithful creator and by saying faithful, we mean that he's dependable, he's trustworthy, he's unfailing, he's loyal, he's devoted and he's committed to you and me as Christians. He's committed to do something in our lives with these unfair things that are happening to us. He says in the book of Jeremiah, he says, I know the plan I have for you, a plan for good and not for evil to give you a future and a hope. This is God's plan and God says, look, I am in control and I have a big plan for your life and it's for your good, it's to give you a future and a hope and all of the circumstances that I'm allowing into that life of yours, I have inspected them, I have certified them and I have designed them to produce the plan for good that I've got for your life. Now folks, God is not saying everything that comes into our life is good.

He didn't say that. Everything that comes into our life is not always good. There's some good, there's some medium and there's some bad. What God is saying is that he's promising to take all of those things, the good, the medium and the bad and to blend them together the way you blend the ingredients in a cake so when it's all done, you can't distinguish the ingredients from one another anymore but when it's all done cooked and out of the oven, man, you love it. You understand? That's what he promises. Romans chapter 8 verse 28, all things work together for good. Isn't that what God said?

I have a plan for your life and it's for good? All things I blend together for good God says to those who love me and are called according to my plan. Let me just say to you if you're here this morning and you've never trusted Christ as your personal savior, that one of the things you get when you trust Christ is not only eternal life and not only a place in heaven but you get promises like Romans 8 28 in your everyday life, promises of God's personal intervention in your life and God's promise that he will work the things in your life to produce good. God doesn't make that promise to people who have never trusted Christ. He makes it to those of us who have and so if you've never trusted Christ in a real and personal way and you think heaven's the only thing at stake, that's not true. Also at stake is God's personal working in our lives, his personal ministry in our lives. I hope you'll think about that because that's a huge part of what it means to know and walk with Jesus Christ but this promise is for those of us who are Christians that God will overrule our circumstances. He will convert them into something different.

He will flip-flop them and blend them into good if we'll just trust him. Now I know for some of you here this is a hard sell. Some of you here are saying, now wait a minute, I was abused as a child, my parents deserted me, my dad ran off on me and you're trying to tell me God was in control of that and that's for my good?

Give me a break. Folks, if you try to examine whether or not God's promise is true by human logic, it'll never stand the test but you see the point is God never asks us to walk by human logic. He asks us to walk by faith and faith means we're willing to believe God because God promised it even if looking at it logically we can't figure out how it works. God says he is in control, not people, and that God will take our circumstances and he will work them into a blessing for us and he will honor himself through what's happened in our lives if we will simply believe God and that's really the bottom line dear friends, either we're going to believe God or we're not.

It's just that simple. I can't sell you this based on logic. This is a faith statement. You're either going to believe God or you aren't. And I've always had such great things happen in my life either but I want to tell you because I was willing to keep entrusting them to God like this verse says, keep entrusting them to a faithful creator, keep saying God here I don't know what you can do with this mess, you deal with it.

I have seen God take even the most painful circumstances in my life and turn them into good. He said but Lon I don't see how he can do that for me. You don't have to. You don't have to. God's not asking you to examine and assay his plan for your life. All God's asking you to do is trust him. That's all.

Trust him. You know one of the greatest living examples of this I've had recently came out of the life of my oldest son Jamie who's at the Naval Academy. But when he was a junior he made the varsity baseball team at his high school. All the seniors started and when you're a junior on the baseball team you're just basically a grunt.

And I said that's okay. I mean I understand how the pecking order works. You know you do your grunt year and then you get your play year. I mean I understand how that works. So he you know had no innings, never got in the game as a junior.

Okay fine no problem. So when his senior year came I thought now you know it's payback time and he'll get some time. Well there was another catcher. He's a catcher. There was another catcher that was ahead of him and this other guy started every game. They didn't put Jamie in and I kept saying Jamie look don't worry about it.

You'll get your moment. You know catchers get hurt. This is true. Catchers get hurt. That is part of being a catcher and I'm not praying this guy's going to get hurt or nothing. You know not really but I'm not. But you're going to get your moment in the sun.

Just you be ready and it'll come. Well wouldn't you know about a third of the way into the season this catcher slides into first base and breaks his hand. And so it was a double header was the third inning of the first game and in goes Jamie. Now you've got to understand he has never caught one inning in his life at the varsity baseball level. This is the first time he's ever been in a game. And he was so nervous I could look at him and tell he's terrified you know being stuck in the middle of a game. No warm up time. No mental preparation.

Just boom in you go. Well he did OK that game. They started him in the next game three innings later the guy throwing in the next game was horrible.

I mean everything was bouncing in the dirt. You know everywhere all of everywhere Jamie is having a hard time controlling the ball. The coach called him out to the mound along with the pitcher and said now look don't worry about it you're doing OK. You know there are just some other people in the game here and he looked at Jamie who I don't think are giving it their all. Well Jamie's had balls bounce off his head his stomach his side of his brain and he pulled him out in the third inning and never put him back in the rest of the season.

So he only got six innings after never playing at all to try to prove that he could do the job. Man I want to tell you this was just not good. I said to Jamie well did he talk to you about why he pulled you out. No. Did he explain what you were doing wrong. No. Did he tell you what you'd have to do to get back in.

No. And I thought you know you put a guy in a situation like that you got to figure you're going to give him two or three or four games just to get his game legs on before you make a decision like this. And they called a sophomore up and started a sophomore. I mean talk about a slap in the face. And I'll tell you folks I used to lay in bed at night thinking what I was going to say to this guy. I mean three o'clock in the morning I'm having a conversation with this coach in my bed.

You understand what I'm saying. And I wanted to go to him so bad and say now you look this has nothing to do with any teenager or my son is between you and me Jack two adults. This is not the way you treat a kid you never go to me never talk to him you never explain to him.

This is wrong. But Jamie wouldn't let me go. I wanted to go and he said Dad you can't do that.

Don't do it. So I didn't go. But I was so upset because I felt it was such unfair treatment and I felt so helpless that I couldn't even go to the games anymore. I stopped going to the games. And I said Jamie I'm sorry.

It's not that I don't support you. I just can't stand it. I mean I sit there on the side and I just stew the whole game and it's not worth it you know. I can't take this much Tylenol I'm going to get liver damage so I can't come.

I just can't do it. So the end of the season comes and they have this big banquet and Brenda kept saying to me you know Lon remember what you preach God's going to turn it into good. And I'm like now you don't tell me that.

God you know how what kind of good is going to come out of this. All right. Well at least I'm being honest with you. So I go to this meeting at the end of the year and they got all the parents there all the players there they're giving out letters you know for the ballplayers. And so he's going down one by one by one the coaches talking about each of the players on the team and I'm just sitting there waiting till he comes to Jamie to hear what he's going to say you know and I'm sitting there like I'm just. He gets to Jamie says now this next kid Jamie Solomon he said my only regret is I wish this kid had had just a little more talent. And I thought what you jerk.

I mean I'm just ready to come off the bleachers at this point. He said but you know he said I've got to say something to all of you here. He said I have watched this young man go through a really tough time this past year. He said and the whole team has watched him. He said and I have to honestly tell you. He said if there were one person on this team who I would want my son to grow up and be like it would be Jamie Solomon. He said Jamie come up here I'm going to give you a letter even though he didn't play enough innings just because of the character you display. And I'm sitting there going well maybe I didn't mean all that stuff I said at three o'clock in the morning. But you should have played him.

I still think you should have played him. And man you talk about coming home with like a dog dragging its tail between its legs and Brendan going well how did it go. And I'm like it went pretty good. Did God take that and turn it around into good. Just like he said. And I was talking with Jamie last night down at the academy and he said we were laughing about this and he said and you know another thing the good that came out of being dumped on all spring is it made me perfectly prepared to come here as a plebe and get dumped on for another year.

But I was used to it. I said oh okay well that's good too. Folks God means what he says. I don't care how illogical it may seem to you God is out for your good if you're a Christian and my good if we're Christians and he has a plan for our life and God will take even the worst looking things in your life no matter how helpless you are about them. And you can look at them and say God is in control. I can trust God. I can keep entrusting this to him.

So tomorrow when you go into work just walk up to your boss and say you could have no power over me at all unless it was granted to you from on high. You might want to say it under your breath but the point is say it under your breath and believe it because it's true. And if you'll learn to see your circumstances the way Jesus saw them if you'll learn to see them through biblical eyes folks God will not only produce great joy in your life but he'll turn those things out for good and he'll reward you. Let's pray together. Father thank you so much for the truth of the word of God that it's real that it's practical and that it addresses the real life needs that every one of us have. And Father there are many times I'm one of the people who need to ask you to forgive me because there's so many times where we look at our circumstances and we look at our suffering and we look at the unfair things and we doubt you and we say God forget it there's no way you're in control there's no way this is going to turn out good.

You lied to me. But Lord you never lied to anybody. Forgive us God and help us to have the faith we need to be able to trust you and know that you are in control. You're a faithful creator and that we can keep laying ourselves in your hands and we'll be safe. Change our lives by what we've heard here today I pray Lord. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen.