Sustained and Maintained
By M. Roper
Wit and Witticism: A man went to his psychiatrist and he said, “Sometimes I think I’m a tepee and sometimes I think I’m a wigwam.”
The psychiatrist said, “Your problem is you’re too tents.”
Topic: Through Jesus we can learn to handle everyday stress
1. Without a doubt, we will face frustrations and setbacks on a daily basis.
2. God’s people are not without trial — nor without God in time of trial.
DO YOU EVER FELL EMOTIONALY PARALYZED
William H. Hinson tells us why animal trainers carry a stool when they go into a cage of lions. They have their whips, of course, and their pistols are at their sides. But invariably they also carry a stool. Hinson says it is the most important tool of the trainer. He holds the stool by the back and thrusts the legs toward the face of the wild animal.
Those who know maintain that the animal tries to focus on all four legs at once. In the attempt to focus on all four, a kind of paralysis overwhelms the animal, and it becomes tame, weak, and disabled because its attention is fragmented.
When your vision is fragmented or obscured, you walk in darkness and are greatly molested by doubts and haunted with fears
Ps 121 NIV - Lift your eyes upon Jesus
121:1 A song of ascents. I lift up my eyes to the hills — where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot slip — he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord watches over you — the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will keep you from all harm — he will watch over your life;
8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.
God is the Creator of all things, and since all things are His handiwork. The Creator has made everything we can see or touch or imagine; when we cast our hopes on Him, we’re not only coming to a God who cares, but a God who can.
God is not merely the Creator of all things, but He is the Sustainer of all things as well.
In writing to the Colossians, Paul writes: “By Him all things are created.” And he goes on to say, “He is before all things, and in Him all things consist” (Col. 1:16–17). This is very important, for at some times during history God has been characterized by philosophers as a “cosmic watchmaker” who has created the world and then abandoned it to its own devices to tick away the moments until it runs out of time.
That’s not the God of the Bible. After creation, He is intimately involved with the work of His hands, holding it all together. If, even for a moment, He were to remove His hand from this universe, it wouldn’t tick happily away like a watch in the grass; it would all fly apart into oblivion. But our God doesn’t do that. Instead, He continues to sustain us. He creates and He sustains.
On that day when your journey brings you to a bend in the road, you’ll be filled with an unaccustomed sense of helplessness. You’ll cry out, “Lord, I need help!” In your moment of deep anxiety, remember this: The One to whom you are praying is the One who made heaven and earth.
He is the Creator God. I don’t know what kind of problem you may be facing—in the weariness of the journey, I’m certain it can seem all but insurmountable. But take a deep breath and a new look, in the perspective of the One who created and sustains every atom of the universe. He’s up to the challenge, don’t you think? That thought renews our strength to carry on.
Transition: You need God’s power throughout the day.
God gives us 3 promises in Psalm 55.
“Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved” (Psalm 55:22).
Text: Psalm 55:1-23
1. Talk to God, and he will hear you.
Though God doesn’t do everything we ask him to, when we talk to God we know he will listen.
You can return to God again and again throughout the day, talking to him about your problems, and you can be sure that he will listen to you.
2. Cast your cares on him, and he will sustain you.
When the complications of a particular day become too much for you to handle, you can turn them over to God, and he will give you the strength to make it through.
Illustration: Kevin Carter could never escape his continent’s turmoil. For a decade, the photographer captured vivid pictures of repression and strife in his native South Africa. Kevin traveled to famine-racked Sudan and came upon a starving toddler stalked by a vulture. He photographed the scene--an image that won a Pulitzer Prize--then chased the vulture away. As the child resumed her walk to a feeding station, he lit a cigarette and wept. Later, at 33, he killed himself with carbon monoxide pumped into his pickup truck. Explained his father: "Kevin always carried around the horror of the work he did."
3. Trust in God, and he will save you.
We can’t effectively handle the day-to-day complications of life any more than we can save our own soul.
A. Birds and animals are sustained by God’s care.
Matt 6:25-27 NIV
25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
B. We are nourished and sustained by God’s life-giving love
The writer of I John states: "God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God.
We have the power to love as God has loved us
C. We are sustained by God’s promises and power
1. There never yet was an unscarred saint.
Jesus could sleep in the storm. Jesus’ mission could not be destroyed by earth’s wind and waves since His life was sustained by His Father’s promise and power.
Jesus’ disciples had to learn that the storms could not destroy the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. And the Jesus is greater than any storm we may face.
At times we have faced great storms that are more powerful than us. And Jesus will be stronger than any storm we face
2. God will save you from the problems of day-to-day life and give you the power to face them one by one.
D. We are sustained through Prayer
E. We are sustained by God presence
Heb 13:5b-6
5b I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
6 So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
Josh 1:9 NIV
9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."
F. WHAT MATTERS SUPREMELY, is not that I know God, but the larger fact that He knows me. –J.I. Packer
I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me.
I know Him because He first knew me, and continues to know me.
He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when His care falters.
This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort … in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good.
There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion Him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench His determination to bless me.
G. We may greatly help by continually assuring ourselves that God is with us.
1. If we should say to ourselves in our times of difficulty or danger, “God is with me; I am safe,” we would presently come to feel safe no matter what the circumstances.
2. If we should repeat over and over to ourselves in our times of need, “God is with me; God will help me,” it would come to be a reality with us. It is real whether or not we realize it, but it profits us in our consciousness only when we realize it.
We need the sense of God most when we need his help and sustaining grace. It is in the times of storm that we appreciate shelter. So we need to realize the sheltering presence of God in life’s storms.
3. We can do much toward cultivating a state of mind that recognizes God presence in our darkest times. We must not wait for the dark times to begin this development. We should develop it under favorable circumstances, then bring the consciousness of God’s presence into the unfavorable time until it becomes as real in the unfavorable time in the more favorable time.
Conclusion:
A. CERTAINTY OF TRIALS
1. The Christian life is a bed of roses — thorns and all.
2. John Newton: Why should I complain of want or distress, Temptation or pain? He told me no less; the heirs of salvation, I know from his Word, through much tribulation must follow their Lord.
3. If you let them, day-to-day troubles can rob you of experiencing the benefit of God’s presence in your life, but you can count on God to listen, sustain, and save you all day long.
B. PSALM 31:24
All you who put your hope in the LORD be strong and brave.
A legend from India tells about a mouse who was terrified of cats until a magician agreed to transform him into a cat. That resolved his fear … until he met a dog, so the magician changed him into a dog. The mouse-turned-cat-turned-dog was content until he met a tiger—so, once again, the magician changed him into what he feared. But when the tiger came complaining that he had met a hunter, the magician refused to help. “I will make you into a mouse again, for though you have the body of a tiger, you still have the heart of a mouse.”
Sound familiar? How many people do you know who have built a formidable exterior, only to tremble inside with fear? … We face our fears with force … or … we stockpile wealth. We seek security in things. We cultivate fame and seek status.
But do these approaches work?
Courage is an outgrowth of who we are. Exterior supports may temporarily sustain, but only inward character creates courage.
2 CORINTHIANS 4:18
What we see will last only a short time, but what we cannot see will last forever.
For some of you, the journey has been long. Very long and stormy. In no way do I wish to minimize the difficulties that you have had to face along the way. Some of you have shouldered burdens that few of us could ever carry. You have bid farewell to life-long partners. You have been robbed of life-long dreams. You have been given bodies that can’t sustain your spirit. You have spouses who can’t tolerate your faith. You have bills that outnumber the paychecks and challenges that outweigh the strength.
It’s hard for you to see the City in the midst of the storms. The desire to pull over to the side of the road and get out entices you. You want to go on, but some days the road seems so long.…
Let me encourage you.… God never said that the journey would be easy, but he did say that the arrival would be worthwhile.
