God Will Redeem Your Broken Situation

I spent the last week at camp with my wife. We were tasked to serve as cabin counselors during the week, Monday through Friday. Let’s just say we had a very interesting week.

The experience was so brutal and difficult that we both left feeling defeated and upset. Chelsey and I aren’t parents, we aren’t terribly gifted with children, though we’re learning. Neither of us had ever been counselors before.

But God was present at the camp. He was with us. But there were many challenges. There was so much pressure. And we were so new. I became so overwhelmed with the experience that I actually had a mental breakdown, and had to leave the cabin.

And I was no longer a counselor for the rest of the week. I failed. I missed the mark. I did not complete something I had been assigned to. That was shockingly difficult for me.

It was late at night, and there had just been a thunderstorm, it was pitch black and I was carrying my suitcase, my bag and my bedding through the dark night, the rain and the mud, toward the lodge. And I stopped under a street light in the middle of the camp.

And I just looked up. And thought to myself: What went wrong? I don’t quit things. I don’t get overwhelmed and give up.

But I came to the lodge. And I came into my room there. And on the wall it said, “redeemed.” I didn’t sense any conviction from the Holy Spirit that I had done something wrong. I simply sensed God’s mercy and love toward me.

For the rest of the week I had to sit around the tables and deal with the glances of those who now saw me as the officer who couldn’t handle it. The guilt and shame was intense. But in the end, we finished out the week, and then we came back.

And I knew God was calling me to speak today about what it means to be redeemed. And in particular, when we confront failure in our lives. When we fail in our eyes, in the eyes of others even, God doesn’t see failure. He sees redemption.

First point today, God redeems broken situations.

It reminds me of a scripture from 2nd Cor 1:8-10 which says, “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us,”

Have you ever been in a situation in your life when you were under such intense pressure you despaired of life itself?

I’ll tell you this, Paul learned through his pressure, to rely on God, not on himself. Believe me, in those moments at camp, I had to rely on God completely. Sometimes we feel so locked into difficult circumstances that we feel it’s like a death sentence. It feels that way at the time, have you been there in life?

But, God raises the dead. He takes that situation that seems like a death sentence, and he brings you back to life through it.

God delivered Paul, and so God also delivered me, not from the situation, but through the situation.

We human beings naturally want to rely on ourselves. We want to do things our own way. We want to access our own strength and use that strength. That’s why this world is so messed up, because we refuse to rely on God.

That’s why we don’t pray in the morning before we leave the house. That’s why we forget to read our Bible, that’s why we don’t pray at night. That’s why we don’t ask God the next right thing to do throughout the day. We try to run our own lives. And then things don’t go right.

That’s our second point today, require yourself to rely on God. Pray when you don’t feel like it. Simply remind yourself, “No I need this!” I argue with myself you guys, when I’m tempted to roll over and go to bed, I’m tired. I stop myself and say "Justin, you get over there and get on your knees right now. You know what happens in your life when you don’t. Let’s go, now!"

Command yourself to pray. Command yourself to read the word. You say to yourself, self, in the name of Jesus, keep God first. Command your soul to turn to Jesus. Your soul is going to want to do it’s own thing. But you take over and say no, I know what to do, I need to pray.