Can I Trust God With My Disappointments
1 Samuel 30:1-31 Philippians’ 3:7-14
1 Kings 19:1-9
Is there anybody here who had everything go exactly as they had planned it would go in 2011? Is there anybody here who had to make some unexpected adjustments to make it to 2011? Is there anyone here who is bringing in some disappointments over from 2011 into 2012. Well if you didn’t bring any in, that’s great, but I guarantee you, there will be some disappointments waiting for you in 2012. When they arise, the issue will become, can I trust God with my disappointments.
Most of the time, we do not set our lives on a course in which we plan to be disappointed.
We didn’t set our lives planning to get a felony conviction. We didn’t plan to become a teen mother. We didn’t plan to lose our job. We didn’t plan to fail in school. We didn’t plan to get cut from the team. We didn’t plan to have the person we love die. We didn’t plan for our spouse to leave us. We didn’t plan for the divorce. We didn’t plan for the crisis and the crime that happened to us. We didn’t plan to be betrayed.
We didn’t plan to lose our health. We didn’t plan to have to take care of our kids now that they are adults. We didn’t plan to lose our business or our jobs. We didn’t plan on our family turning out the way that it did. We didn’t plan to look the way we now do. We didn’t plan that addictions would hit us or someone we love. There are just a lot of bad things that happen to us and around us that we did not plan.
Somebody told us that if we just come to Jesus and give our lives to God, everything will be fine and the problems will be gone. Some even told us that God wants us all to be continuously healthy and wealthy, and if you have enough faith, you can name it and claim it and have it. Unfortunately some of us believed that and have discovered that it’s not true. Some have lost faith in God over this.
When Jesus called us to come and follow him, Jesus never said, his goal was to make us rich and to give us everything we wanted as a sign of his appreciation for us joining his team. What Jesus promised us was an opportunity to know God the Father as Jesus knew Him.
Jesus told us up front that following him was not going to be an easy task. He wanted us to know that disappointments were going to happen. As a matter of fact he told us our peace is going to have to be found in Him, because in this world we will experience trials, troubles, and tribulations. Nobody gets an exemption. If you live long enough, you will suffer either because of the sins of others or because of your own sin.
We make plans in our attempt to create a safe space for us. There’s nothing wrong with planning for the future as long as you know that plan is subject to change with our without your approval. Our trust has to remain in God and not in the plan. If I save enough money, I will have a safe space for retirement. If I get that job with that income, I’ll have a safe space for me and my family’s level of comfort. If I marry that person I will have a safe space from loneliness.
If I have kids, I’ll have a safe space for someone to help look after me when I’m old. If I make that team, I’ll have a safe space of acceptance at school. If I can get in with that group, I’ll have a safe space of friends. We’re all looking for some kind of safe space to live our lives.
Elijah was looking for a safe space. Elijah had stood up to two of the most wicked leaders Israel had ever had. They were King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. Jezebel had come in with her own religion and tried to wipe out God’s prophets and priests. She had the people worshipping Baal and the Ashterah. The people were wishy washy. One moment they’d worship God, the next the would worship Baal or the Ashterah.
Elijah challenged the people to put God to the test. He said bring on the 400 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of the Asherah and let’s find out which God will answer. We will build an altar, put out the wood, and put on a bull. Let the God who is God answer by setting the sacrifice on fire. The people said, yes, that’s a good idea. The priests of Asherah were a no show. The priests of Baal got started and nine and cried out to noon. Elijah started talking trash at noon. He told them to call louder he might be asleep. He might be asleep. He might be traveling. He might be using the bathroom. The prophets of Baal, cut themselves with blood dripping and dance and screamed but nothing.
At the time of the evening sacrifice Elijah got started. He rebuilt the altar to the Lord that was in ruins with 12 stones. He had somebody pour water on the sacrifice three times so that the thing was so wet nobody could claim he had thrown in a match. He said a prayer that took less than 20 seconds. Fire came down from heaven, burned the altar, the wood, the stones and the soil as well as dried up all the water.
The people cried out “the Lord, He Is God. The Lord He is God.” Elijah said quick don’t let the false prophets get away. The people grabbed all 400 and had them killed. There was a severe famine going in the land because it had not rained in 3 years. Elijah told King Ahab, get up and go because there is a severe rain about to come. Elijah prayed for the rain and it came. Then God took him and gave him a supernatural strength that he was able to run for 10 straight miles ahead of the king’s chariot. This was to show the king, that he was loyal to the king, and just upset at the idolatry.
Now Elijah has hit a grand slam home run. He won the battle of fire over the offering. He got rid of 400 false prophets. He’s prayed and the drought has ended after 3 years with a massive rain storm. He’s gained the king’s favor by running ahead of his chariot for 10 miles in the strength of the Lord. He was on a roll and as happy as he could be.
Until Jezebel finds out that 400 of her prophets to Baal had been killed. She sent a message to Elijah in secret and said, “may the gods kill me, if I don’t kill you by this time tomorrow.” What would you do if you were Elijah and you got a message like this. You have a choice. You could say, “I’m not afraid of you, God’s got my back.” Or you could do like Elijah and say, “God help me get out of here and run for your life.”
How many of you know that Elijah was discouraged and disappointed. God uses you to do this great miracle, and you become a fugitive with a bounty on your head, wanted dead or alive. Can you trust God with this kind of a situation.
You may be someone who has lost your faith because of something that has happened or something that is threatning you. It could have happened when a relationship failed, or a marriage fell apart. It could have happened when your job fell through, or you were betrayed or lost someone you loved. It may have seemed that no matter how much you prayed, things just fell threw.
Difficult times are not proof that God is not with you. Sometimes we have to open our eyes a little bigger than our situation to recognize that God is with us. Jesus knew the disciples were about to face the biggest trial of their relationship to Him. Some were discouraged because he told them, one of you is going to betray me this very night. But he did not leave them in their discouragement. He said, “let not your heart be troubled, you believe in God, believe also in me.”
Trust is not something that we must up from deep inside of ourselves.
Real trust is based on the character or the nature of what is being trusted. If you grabbed a chair and before you sat in it, the legs were very wobbly, You wouldn’t say, I’ve got so much trust in this chair, I’ll sit in it anyways. No your examination of the chair says that it is not worthy of your trust.
Now Elijah is somewhat strange in that He trusts God with his eternal life, but somehow lacks the trust in God for His present situation. How often are we like that. As sinful as we are, we believe that Jesus has done enough for us, to make it to heaven and we clearly expect to get there, but somehow we do not trust him to get us through our present disappointment.
Elijah ran from Jezebel to preserve his life. He went a day out into the desert, sat down under a broom tree and prayed to die. Well if he had stayed with Jezebel, he would have had that prayer answered without making the trip . He said, “Lord I have had enough. Take my life right now. He then fell asleep. Why is it that we think the best way to die is to fall asleep and have the angels just come take us away to heaven
Just because we think our lives are over because of a disappointment does not mean that God has given up on us. God did send an angel to Elijah to tell him to get up and eat. He woke up and saw some bread cooking and water to drink. He ate it and then tried to lie back down to die again.
The angel came back a second time and said get up and eat, you’ve got a journey ahead of you that you can’t make on your own. God may be saying that to some of us. I’m giving you just enough to get back up and get going. Elijah travelled in the strength of that little food for 40 days and 40 nights until he made it to Mt. Horeb 200 miles away.
When God asked him, what are you doing here Elijah. He said, I have done what was right for the Lord, and I am the only one left and they are trying to kill me too. God says go back the way you came and here’s what I want you to do. God was doing a work in Elijah preparing him to prepare the way for kingdoms to rise and to fall as well as to appoint a successor for his ministry. Then God throws in, by the way Elijah, there are 7000 others who have been faithful and kept their trust in me. You see we may think we are the only ones facing this situation, but that’s not true. Somebody else is facing it and trusting God in the midst of it.
As a Christian, we are to hold lightly to everything that we claim to be our own. Everything that we have, we will either lose or leave it behind, except for our relationship to God. You have to know that first and foremost, you have been called to be a child of God. That is your identity and that you cannot lose.
Your money, your possessions, your friends, your career, your children, your position, your spouse, your family, and everything else you think is yours can be lost or taken away. Sometimes that which you hold closest to your heart, you will lose, and it will hurt. It will hurt badly. But you are still a child of God with access to God’s hope, God’s strength and God’s power.
Why do you think God wants you to be in the kingdom of God? It’s because God wants to be in a relationship with you, and God wants you to want to be in a relationship with Him. Sometimes it is not enough to just have somebody with you. You want the person “to want” to be with you. Otherwise you will say,” if you really don’t want to be here you can leave.” We come to God, to get to know God. God wants to show Himself through all the circumstance of our lives, and not just in the five minute prayer time that we call devotions.
God wants to reveal Himself to us right where we are everyday of the week. That means even when we are in a crisis. Even when we’re having an attitude problem. Even when what we love is taken away. Even when we’re disappointed because we didn’t get what we really wanted to get. God is going to be there with us and God wants us to know He is with us.
The issue is not so much what I’m going through right now, but rather are we open to trusting God in the midst of it. God is asking us , will you Trust me with your life, trust me with your career, trust me with your relationships, trust me with our security, trust me with your resources and trust me with your comfort.
Our problem comes in wanting God to remodel our lives, but God is saying no. God is going to rebuild our lives, and that may mean going all the way back down to the foundation and making sure it is laid properly. That means demolishing a whole lot of stuff. Are you open to being rebuilt today with what you have left?
Our disappointments have the potential to leave us very bitter if we do not seek to be aware of the presence of God in our situation so as to trust God
Often times we think we cannot do the will of God because we have nothing left. Moses was trying to get out of doing God’s will for his life, and God asked him, “what do you have in your hand.” Moses said, “are you talking about this staff, this stick that I picked up to climb up here.”
God was basically asking Moses “what do you have left.” Moses saw a stick. That same stick was going to cause plagues to come on Egypt and bring it to its knees. That same stick was going to split open the Red Sea.
So often coming out of a disapointment we underestimate what we still have left. You may have to start all over again. You may have to lose your home. You may have to let go of something or someone. But if you still have the presence of God, you are no poorer than you were before. If you still trust in God you will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. You don’t have to sit under a tree and just wait to die.
That crisis, that disappointment, that loss that you suffered does not mean that God dropped the ball on you. What you may need to see is that God has been there all along, but you did not welcome his presence because it did not fit your plan? God wants to work something in you through this knock down of a blow you have been given.
Being knocked down is not the same as being knocked out? Having a plan fail, is not the same as being a failure in life. Losing a lot does not mean, there’s nothing left. God loves you just as much on this side of your disappointment as God did on the other side. Jesus prays to the Father on our behalf everyday. The Holy Spirit is the comforter who will lead and guide is into truth.
Are you willing to let go of the past, with all its hurts and disappointments and bitterness and acknowledge your role in the harm that was done? Are you willing to open your hands and let go of that which you call you own so that your identity will be in God and God alone? Are you willing to press on toward the prize of the high calling of getting to know Jesus Christ?
Let us not pray just for a successful life in terms of everything going our way, because we will surely be disappointed. Let us pray for a life in which we are aware of the presence of God no matter what it is we are going through so that our trust in God is never shaken. Let us bring God out of the prayer closet and into the everyday realm of our lives.
Our goal each day should be to trust God as much as possible, through the many ways in which we go about our daily schedule. If we go an hour without thinking about God, ask for forgiveness and get back on the journey. No matter how much you think you have lost, if you still have Jesus left, then you have enough to make it in this life and in the life to come.
Can I Trust God With My Disappointments
1 Samuel 30:1-31 Philippians’ 3:7-14
1 Kings 19:1-9
I. Is There Anybody Here
a. Perfect 2011
b. Adjustments In 2011
c. Bringing Hurts From 2011 To 2012
d. Disappointments Waiting in 2012
II.We Don’t Set Out On A Course Of Disappointment
a. Didn’t Plan Felony Conviction, Teen Mother, Fail School
b. Cut From Team, Lose Job, Spouse to Leave
c. Divorce, Betrayal, Crime, Lose health , Kids Return
d. Plan Addictions
III. Someone Said Jesus Come To Jesus
a. All Will Be Well Problems Gone
b. Healthy, Wealthy, Victory
c. Found It Was Not True
d. Jesus did Not Promise Us Everything
e. Jesus Promise Was A Chance To Know The Father
f. Jesus was upfront about disappointments
g. In Me have peace, in the world tribulation
IV. We Try To Create Safe Space For Ourselves
a. Plan For the Future But Trust In God Not The Plan
b. Save Enough Money—Safe Space For Retirement
c. Have That Salary—Safe Comfort
d. Have That Marriage –Safe Loneliness
e. Kids, Team, Friends,--Safe Space
V. The Prophet Elijah Was Looking For Safe Space
a. King Ahab & Queen Jezebel
b. Baal and Ashterah, Wishy Washy People
c. Challenge to The King, 400 prophets Of Baal 440 Ashterah
d. The Altar Of Baal—9 To Noon
e. Elisha’s Trash Talking, Sleep, Journey, Bathroom
f. Baal’s Prophet Fury Until Evening Sacrifice
VI. Elijah Rebuilds The Lord’s Altar—Broken Down
a. Uses 12 Stones, Places The Offering,
b. 3 Times Douches It With Water
c. 20 Second Prayer---Fire Gets All
d. People Kill The 400 False Prophets
VII. Tells The King Get Ready For Rain-3 year Drought
a. Prays And The Rain Comes
b. Empowered By God To Run 10 Miles Before The King’s Chariot---Subjecting Himself To The King
c. Elijah-s Grand Slam Home Run For God.
d. 1) Battle Fire 2) 400 False Prophets, 3) Rain 3 yr Drought and 4) Ran 10 Miles In Front Of Chariot.
VII. Jezebel Hears The News
a. The Secret Message From Jezebel
b. Death Awaits You In 24 Hours
c. Options, God’s Got My Back Or God Get Me Out Of Here
d. Elijah Runs
e. Can you Trust God In This Situation When All Seems To Have Just Fallen Apart
f. Prayer Just Didn’t Seem To Make A Difference.
g. Difficult Times Not proof God Not There
h. Look With Bigger Eyes
i. Jesus & The Disciples That Last Night
j. Let Not Your Heart Be troubled…
VIII. Trust Does Not Come From Deep Inside
a. Trust—Nature & Character Of What’s Being Trusted
b. A Wobbly Chair
c. Elijah Trusts God For Eternal Life, But Not Life Today
d. We Do The Same As Elijah
e. Elijah ran To Preserve His Life Into The Desert
f. Sat Under Broom Tree—Lord Let Me Die
g. Jezebel Could Have Saved Him A Trip
h. Fell Asleep—Best Way To Die
IX. Our Thinking Our Lives Are Over Doesn’t Make It So
a. God Sends Angel—Cooks Bread & Water Get Up
b. Elijah Wakes Up Eat, Goes Back To Sleep
c. God Sends Second Time—Journey Too Much For Much
d. Goes On One Meal 40 days 40 nights, Travels 200 Miles to Mt. Horeb
e. God Asks What Are You Doing Here.
f. Elijah—I’ve been faithful, trying to kill me, I’m the last one left
g. God, Go Back, Change Nations, Appoint Successor
h. God By The Way, 7000 Others
i. You Are Not Facing This Alone
XII. Christians Are To Hold Everything Lightly
a. All We Have We Will Either Lose, Give, Or leave It
b. Except Our Relationship To God
c. You Cannot Lose That Identity As A Child Of God
d. All Possessions, Friends, Family Will Be Lost & It May Hurt
e. Still Have Access To God’s Hope, Strength & Power
f. God Wants To Be In A Relationship With You
g. God Wants To Show Himself To Us Beyond Devotions
h. God Wants To Show Himself In Our Problems, Out Attitudes, Our Disappointments.
i. Issue—Not Why Am I Going Through This,--How Do I Trust God In This
j. God Calls For Us To trust Him With, Life, Career, Relationships, Security, Resources, Comfort
XIV. God Not Coming To Remodel—Coming To Rebuild
a. God Is Taking Us Back Down To The Foundation
b. Disappointments Have Potential To Leave Bitter
c. You May Think You Have Nothing Left
d. God Asked Moses What Do You Have In Your Hand
e. Moses, Are You Talking About This Staff, This Stick
f. Stick Brought Plagues & Opened The Red Sea
g. Disappointments Cause Us To Underestimate What We Have Left
h. Your Disappointment Does Not Mean God Has Dropped The Ball
i. God Loves You On Both Sides Of The Disappointment,
j. Jesus Is Praying For Each Of Us Every Day
k. Are You Willing To Let Go & Press Toward The Prize
l. 2012, Let Us Not Pray For A Successful Life In Which all Goes Our Way
m. Pray for recognizing The Presence Of God No Matter What
n. Our Goal Is To Trust God As Much As Possible Daily
o. No Matter How Much You Lost, If You Have Jesus, You Still Have Enough To Make It Through.
