Our unique circumstances this morning has inspired me to break from 1st John this morning to speak on another topic. If we had stayed true to the path the passages that we would have considered together would have been 1 John 2:12-14 where John speaks about levels of spiritual maturity. He addresses little children, father’s and young men, all being symbolic of different levels of spiritual maturity, But today the text that I’m going to use to introduce the topic I believe that the Lord would have me introduce is from…John 16, just two verses….
John 16: 32 “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.
33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” - NIV
Let’ Pray….
The statement that I want to focus on, is the one we spend a lifetime trying to avoid, this short statement in verse 33… In this world you will have trouble….and the word trouble, in scripture is a multi-facted, expansive word, I can mean--- afflictions, hardships, and pain, and sufferings, and test, and trails, and grief, and sickness, distresses and disturbances, and anything else negative that you can think of, if you’d like!
The Webster defines it as… problems · difficulties· issues · inconveniences · worries · anxietiese · distresses · concerns · irritations · vexations · annoyances · stresses · agitations · hassles · misfortunes · tests· trials · tribulation · trauma · adversity · hardship · burdens· pain · suffering · affliction · torment · woes · griefs · unhappiness · sadness · heartache · misery · messes · predicaments · dire straits · disasters · jams- pickles!
Jesus said in this world, we would have those things! So today, I feel led to bring to us a message that I’ve entitled…
The Truth about Trouble!
The Truth about Trouble, Truth being that which is in accord with facts or reality!
And so I want us to use the Word of Truth, to take a little journey with you this morning for us the see trouble, or whatever sort it is, for what it actually is, not what we hypothetically think that it is but what it truly is….
Let’s start out by making peace with the statement that Jesus made regarding it…that implies…
I. Trouble is Promised!
Therefore it is inevitable! unavoidable · inescapable · and in many ways, unpreventable!
A) Promised?
John 16:33b In this world you will have trouble
Clarence L. Haynes Jr. - Within the pages of Scripture Jesus makes a statement that very few people see or view as a promise from God. In the middle of John 16:33 Jesus said, “…In this world you will have trouble.” There it is. I know it doesn’t feel like it and you are probably not jumping up and down shouting right now, but that is a promise… Jesus is warning or foreshadowing that at some point in this life you will face trouble. Just like every other promise God has made this one will come true for you as well.
Chuck Swindoll in his book living on the ragged edge illustrates this well….
Living on the Ragged Edge by Charles Swindoll- Imagine for a moment that your world is dark, safe, secure. You are bathed in warm liquid, cushioned from shock. You do nothing for yourself; you are fed automatically, and a murmuring heartbeat assures you that someone larger than you fills all your needs. Your life consists of simple waiting—you’re not sure what
to wait for, but any change seems far away and scary. You meet no sharp objects, no pain, no threatening adventures. A fine existence…. One day you feel a tug. The walls are falling in on you. Those soft cushions are now pulsing and beating against you, crushing you ownwards. Your body is bent double, your limbs twisted and wrenched. You’re falling, upside down. For the first time in your life, you feel pain. You’re in a sea of rolling matter. There is more pressure, almost too intense to bear. Your head is squeezed flat, and you are
pushed harder, harder into a dark tunnel. Oh, the pain. Noise. More pressure. You hurt all over. You hear a groaning sound and an awful, sudden fear rushes in on you. It is happening—your world is collapsing. You’re sure it’s the end. You see a piercing, blinding light. Cold, rough hands pull at you. A painful slap. Waaaahhhhh! Congratulations! You’ve just been born.
B) Point?
1. Trouble begins from the moment that we are born!
a) In fact Job said…
Job 5:7 Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.
b) He says in…
Job 14:1 “Mortals, born of woman, are of few days and full of trouble.
c) It is no wonder then that Job said to his wife in the midst of his trail:
Job 2: 9 His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”
10 He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.
d) Or Peter writing…
1 Peter 4: 12 Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; _NKJV
e) Moses’s writing in Psalm 90 is this…
Psalm 90:10 Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
C) Perspective?
1. As I thought about what Moses said, it dawned on me that life is simply an experience in which we trade on set of problems for another as we go through the experience of life!
a) As one author put it…
Mark Manson -“Life is essentially an endless series of problems. The solution to one problem is merely the creation of another.”
And so trouble is promised and the words that Peter us in 1 Peter 4:12 fiery trail implies that
II. Trouble is Painful!
1 Peter 1:6b you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.
A) Painful?
A.W. Tozer- Pain is pain from whatever source it comes. Jonah in flight from the will of God suffered no worse storm than did Paul in the center of God’s will; the same wild sea threatened the life of both. And Daniel in the lion’s den was in trouble as deep as was Jonah in the whale’s belly. The nails bit as deep into the hands of Christ dying for the sins of the world as into the hands of the two thieves dying for their own sins.
III. Trouble is Puzzling!
A) Puzzling?
1. Although Job did not sin in what he said in chapter 2, in chapter 3.
Job 3:1 Afterward Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2 And Job said, 3 “May the day on which I was to be born perish, As well as the night which said, ‘A boy is conceived.’
Job 3: 11 “Why did I not die at birth, Come out of the womb and pass away? 12 Why were the knees there in front of me, And why the breasts, that I would nurse?
Job 3:16 Or why was I not hidden away in the ground like a stillborn child, like an infant who never saw the light of day?
B) Perspective?
Job 6:4 The arrows of the Almighty are in me, my spirit drinks in their poison; God’s terrors are marshaled against me.
Job 16:9 God assails me and tears me in his anger and gnashes his teeth at me; my opponent fastens on me his piercing eyes.
Job 19:11 His anger burns against me; he counts me among his enemies.
C) Point?
1. Christians sometimes say “I have been doing everything right, as far as I know. I have been serving and praying, giving, loving my neighbor, obeying the Lord, reading Scripture daily, and walking faithfully with the Lord.
2. What did I do wrong? Why has God allowed me to go through such hard times? Does He not care about me?
D) Poem
Pain knocked upon my door and said That she had come to stay,
And though I would not welcome her
But bade her go away,
She entered in.
Like my own shade
She followed after me,
And from her stabbing, stinging sword
No moment was I free.
And then one day another knocked
Most gently at my door.
I cried, "No, Pain is living here,
There is not room for more."
—Martha Snell Nicholson
E) Piercing
John 16: 32 “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home.
1. Scattered - s???p??? -skorpizo
a) Routed or terror stricken or driven by some other impulses, fly in every direction
b) It gives us our word “scorpion.” And what does a scorpion do? It stings by piercing its victim.
c) The word Jesus used here has a fuller definition. It means “to cut into pieces and scatter the parts.”
i. It can feel this way!
IV. Trouble is Purposeful!
A) Purposeful?
1. There is a divine purpose to it all!
a) I think thar could be part of the reason why Jesus said:
John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
B) Purposes?
“As a gem cannot be polished without friction, so a man cannot be perfected without trails!”
1. Perfect us!
James 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.-NKJV
William Barclay – Just as we prune a shrub or tree to force it to grow into a more perfect form, so God does with us. Test and trials are not meant to make us fall, rather they are meant to make us soar. They are not meant to defeat us; they are meant to be defeated. They are not meant to make us weaker; they are meant to make us stronger. Therefore we should not bemoan them; we should rejoice in them.
a) Knowing…
Romans 8: 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
a) Romans 8:28 promises that nothing will touch our lives that is not under the control and direction of our loving heavenly Father. Everything we do and say, everything people do to us or say about us, every experience we will ever have — all are sovereignly used by God for our good.
b) We will not always understand how the things we experience work to good, and we certainly will not always enjoy them. But we do know that nothing comes into our lives that God does not allow and use for his own beneficent purposes.
b) So we should literally Paul says…
Romans 5:3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;
2. Projects us
a) Develop perseverance in us!
John Piper - If something happens in your life that is hard and painful and frustrating and disappointing, and, by grace, your faith looks to Christ and to his power and his sufficiency and his fellowship and his wisdom and his love, and you don't give in to bitterness and resentment and complaining, (Result) then your faith endures and perseveres. It becomes stronger. How is it stronger? It's stronger the way tempered steel is stronger: it takes more to break it. Tribulation is like the fire that tempers the steel of faith. So when Paul says, "Tribulation brings about perseverance," he means that the fiery tests of trouble are meant by God to make your faith unbreakable.
i. Trials can tear up our faith or temper it!
Ii, The choice is up to us!
The difficulties in our lives,
The obstacles we face,
Give God the opportunity
To show His power and grace.
Wayne Barber –Suffering is a part of every believer’s life, just like it’s a part of anybody else in this world…the difference is we have the ability to endure. We are able to bear up under in the power God gives us, and this bearing up proves something, not only to us but also to the world of what we really are. It proves the fact that we are Christians.
Romans 5:4b perseverance, character;
Romans 5:4c and character, hope.
Suffering, Endurance and Character; The Christian Worldview Journal.
“Character that has been shaped by God through suffering has amazing abilities that non-character simply doesn’t. It’s capable of seeing beyond circumstances. It knows that God is faithful. It embraces the truth of the Gospel that if God sent His Son, He spares nothing for the good of His children. All this produces hope, that is, the confidence that God delivers on His promises. The stronger the character, the greater the hope…
Wayne Barber -I’ve always said, "Put a Christian under pressure, and you’ll find out what they’re made of."
3. Inspect us!
James 1:12 "Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love Him."
A) Point?
1. Pressure can be something that God uses to literally show his approval of you!
2. Approved (dokimos from dokime = test, proof, trial = idea is that when you put metal through a fiery testing and it comes out on the other side enduring it "proven", "authentic" or "genuine")
Charles Spurgeon -“Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of.”
1 Peter 1: 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.- NIV
4. Correct us!
Psalm 119:71-72 My troubles turned out all for the best. They forced me to learn from your textbook. Truth from your mouth means more to me than striking it rich in a gold mine (Msg)
A) Correct?
1. One thing that trouble can correct is our bad theology!!
2. When someone asks why do bad things happen to good people, the correct answer is – THERE ARE NO GOOD PEOPLE!
a) That’s why we need the gospel!
Romans 3: 10 As it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
Isaiah 64: All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
3. As well as our bad behavior!
Hebrews 12:7 Endure hardship as discipline; “God is treating you as his children.” For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! 10 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.-NIV
A) In his book Knowing God J I Packer said it this way….
JI Packer - "In this world, royal children have to undergo extra training and discipline, which other children escape, in order to fit them for their high destiny. It is the same with the children of the King of Kings. The clue to understanding all His dealings with them is to remember that throughout their lives He is training them for what awaits them.
Tom Landry - "The job of a coach is to make men do what they don't want to do, in order to be what they've always wanted to be."
Charles Spurgeon - What a bright light this sheds upon all affliction…When you feel the weight of God’s hand upon you, never forget that it is your Father’s hand. Whatever form your trial may take remember — the rod is never in any hand but the paternal one….let this be your comfort, that it is not the hand of an enemy….You are not suffering from a crushing blow from a foe’s hand, but the stroke, whether it is heavy or light, is wholly caused by your loving Father’s hand.
Malcolm Muggeridge The English journalist and satirist - "Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, everything I have learned, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness.”
“The graduate degree of spirituality comes from attending the School of Hard Knocks.”
5. Direct us
Proverbs 20:30 Sometimes it takes a painful situation to make us change our ways. (GN)
A) My own salvation testimony
Psalm 107 (NIV)
1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his love endures forever.
2 Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story—
those he redeemed from the hand of the foe,
Q: How do we come to the Lord?
Q: What was the precursor to my salvation?
A: Trouble!
Psalm 107 (NIV)
6 Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
a) Trouble has a way of directing us to God!
b) Despair has a way of forcing us to rely on God
2 Corinthians 1: 8 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.
c) Paul is saying here that the trouble was so threatening, they saw no way out!
2 Corinthians 1: 9a Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death.
d) Purpose?
2 Corinthians 1:9b But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.
e) That is exactly where God wants us to live doesn’t he?
i. CONSTANT CONSISTANT RELIANCE ON HIM?
Isaiah 31:1 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or seek help from the LORD.
1 John 4:16 aAnd so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
2 Corinthians 1:10 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,
6. Connects us!
2 Corinthians 1:11a as you help us by your prayers.
a) May I say that it was through health challenges that has connected me mostly to you!
i. My Hep C challenge of many years ago now….24 prayer chain started for me?
ii. This recent challenge you are praying again!!
iii. Wednesday night as I reported to the prayer group I woke up feeling differently Thursday morning!
John McCarthur - Intercessory prayer is critical to the expression of God’s great power and God’s sovereign purpose. In prayer, human impotence casts itself at the feet of divine omnipotence. Thus the duty of prayer is not to modify God’s power but to glorify it. We’re not trying to change God’s plan, we’re just trying to get in line with it.
b) Praying for others helps us to think beyond ourselves and to grow in compassion for and connection with others.
Acts 12: 5 So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.
6 The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. 7 Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.
Acts 12: 13 Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door. 14 When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!” 15 “You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.” 16 But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished.
iv. God has done some amazing things for me through your praying!
c) Problems connect us in the sense of:
1 Corinthians 12:2a6 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it;
i. Trouble not only draws people together, but it also draws them collectively to the Lord
7. Progresses us!
“Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.”
2 Corinthians 1: 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
A) Point?
1. God is a comforter, Christ is a comforter, the Holy Spirit is – is a comforter and he wants us to be comforters too!
Q: How do we become comforters?
A: A ministry of comfort is born out of trouble!
8. Prepare us!
2 Corinthians 4:17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
Albert Barnes- This they do:
(1) By their tendency to wean us from the world;
(2) To purifying the heart
(3) By disposing us to look to God for consolation and support in our trials;
(4) By inducing us to contemplate the glories of the heavenly world, and thus winning us to seek heaven as our home; and not this world,
William Dyer - Oh Christians! under your greatest troubles—lie your greatest treasures! When a believer lies under God's hand which afflicts him—he lies in God's heart which loves him! Afflictions are good—but not pleasant, just as sin is pleasant—but not good. There is more evil in a drop of sin—than there is in a sea of afflictions! God by affliction, separates the sin He hates so deadly—from the soul He loves so dearly!
Well beloved those are some truths about trouble, may I conclude with some practical advise on what do do in the midst of trouble?
Sing!
Psalm 59:16 But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.
Pray!!
James 5:13a Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray
Psalm 91:15 When they call on me, I will answer; I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue and honor them.
Psalm 145:18 The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
Stay!!!
Romans 12:12 12Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
Don’t be so eager to get out of it!!
James 1:4 4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
Don't be in a hurry. God isn't
Ask God to teach you what He wants you to know through everything you're experiencing
Give thanks that God is using the circumstances to make you more like Him. That is His goal, you know
Say!!!!
Psalm 91:1 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
