A few weeks ago Eli and I attended the National Outreach Convention, along with our wives, in beautiful San Diego, California. Shortly after we returned, fires blazed through that entire area. After the convention Sue and I drove to one quaint little town which was filled with antique and gift shops. The white wooden buildings of the small town of Julian were nestled in the mountains. The town barely escaped the flames by a fortunate diversion of the winds. But much of the area we drove through was totally devastated by the fires. Sue and I also went to a wonderful little pie factory just outside of Julian and had coffee and pie as we watched the pies being made in an assembly line behind glass. It is possible that little pie factory was destroyed. Much of what we saw on that drive to Julian no longer exists, so the Southern California fires took on a special interest to us. Thousands of acres of forest now lay in ashes. Many people lost their lives, many more lost their homes. Schools were closed. A National Football League game between the San Diego Chargers and the Miami Dolphins had to be moved to Tempe, Arizona. Fast-moving fires raging in Southern California were fanned by low humidity and hot Santa Ana winds blowing 30-35 mph and gusting even higher. One man who narrowly escaped said, “I looked outside my house and I thought I was in the middle of hell.”
What do you do when the world is on fire? What if you knew that everything you owned would be burned up completely in a matter of minutes and you would be able to save little if anything? I remember being on the volunteer fire department in the little town where I was serving several years ago. I stood next to a family who had just lost everything they had in a fire. The thing the mother lamented more than anything else was the loss of the family pictures. It had never before occurred to me that pictures would be important, because I was young and at that point we had so few pictures and such a short history as a family. But it was as if someone had taken all her memories away.
But there are other ways that our lives go up in flames. You experience a painful divorce. You are notified that you will no longer have a job. A child, a spouse or a parent is diagnosed with a terminal illness. You go through a financial crisis. You are betrayed by a friend or loved one. Your health deteriorates. You fail at something important. Your life is reduced to ashes. What do you do? I am assuming this morning that you understand that I am coming from the perspective that the only way to get through these fiery trials is to know God and have him in your life. That is the given from which everything else I am saying comes. Those of us who have gone through these trials with God cannot imagine what it would be like to have to go through them without him.
So, given that assumption, the first thing that is necessary to survive the fire is: You have to decide what is of value. Sooner or later all of us come to a place where life takes us unawares and presents us with a devastating loss. No one gets by in life unscathed. The Bible says, “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you” (1 Peter 4:12, KJV). The difference between those who make it and those who do not is whether or not they had clearly defined values in their lives. Those who make it in life see beyond the present circumstance to the meaning and purpose of their lives. Psychologists studying the people in death camps have discovered that the difference between those who survive and those who do not is often attributable to whether or not the person had a sense of values that went beyond their present circumstances. Viktor Frankl, a concentration camp survivor who later became a world famous psychiatrist, said, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way.”
Here is what Peter says should mold our values: “Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives” (2 Peter 3:11). If you do not understand who God is, who you are, and what your responsibility to him is, then life is going to overtake you and consume you. If you do not understand what is of ultimate value in life, then you are not prepared for the conflagrations of life. If all you do is exist from day to day, then the fire storms of life will overtake you and leave your life in ashes. You have to know that there is more to come after this life is over. You have to understand that there is more to life than meets the eye. You have to be in touch with the spiritual side of life. You have to build your life on eternal values — the things that will last beyond this present world. You must have the knowledge that God cares for you, has a plan for you, and the faith that he will see you through the worst that life can bring. You have to be grounded in the reality that you are important to God, and that he cares deeply for you, in spite of the pain of life you are now experiencing. You have to understand that we are in a spiritual battle. You have to believe there is a higher power and a greater plan than you may be aware of. You have to believe that even though you don’t understand all that is happening to you, one day you will. It will all be made clear.
Job was a man in the Bible’s Old Testament who experienced great suffering. He lost his children. He lost his friends and they turned against him. He lost his wealth and means of livelihood. Eventually he lost his health and lived in constant pain. The fires of life came and took all he had. Job knew that God was not punishing him, because he had done nothing to deserve this kind of catastrophe. He did not stop believing in God or God’s love for him, but he could not understand what was happening. He searched for answers. He asked question after question, but no answer came. Finally, God showed himself to Job. He still offered no explanation, he just appeared — and that was enough. As someone said who was going through a Job-like experience said: “So that is why there are no answers. He IS the answer ”
If you have no values beyond your own existence and pleasure, then you are ill prepared to meet the challenges and losses of life. You need some core values which will hold you through life. You can find the source of values and the meaning of life wonderfully laid out for you in a book we call the Bible. That is the only place where we can acquire true values. You cannot make up your own values and expect to succeed. Start living by the values that come from the world around you, or ones that you have made up to suit you, and you will be in a mess. You need values which are transcendent and eternal. And those values become a reality on a daily basis only as we live in an ongoing relationship with Christ. Our eyes are pointed to eternity. Our appreciation for the things of eternal value give us perspective and make our day to day lives full of satisfaction. Our security and strength come from our relationship with God.
The second thing that is necessary when your world is on fire is: You have to let go. When you understand what has value and what does not, then you find it easier to let go of some
things. As I was listening to the news during the California fires there were stories of people who refused to go. One couple was on their roof watering it down with a hose and insisted on staying with their house. In spite of all the strong demands and pleadings by the firemen and other officials to come down, they remained on their roof because they wanted to save their home and belongings. They were not heard from again.
At some point you have to realize that you cannot hold on to all your possessions. Sometimes you cannot reach your wayward child no matter what you do. You cannot make someone you love return. You will not get your job back. There are times that no matter how good medical science has become, you will not regain your health. Someone has taken something and you will never get it back. Someone you love has died and things will never be the same. Those are all extremely difficult realities to face, but they are even more difficult if you do not know how to let go. Paul wrote to the Corinthians saying that we should, “use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away” (1 Corinthians 7:31). We keep a loose grip.
You can let go because you know that you still have God, and that no matter what happens you still have your loved ones who belong to Christ. You know that God still loves you and is with you even in this fiery time. He is the true object of your affections. He has given you something that is more important than all the things in the world put together. He is your security when everything else is gone. He has promised to be with you and see you through the worst of times. He has said, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). You have a home with him in eternity. In fact the Bible says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade — kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:3-9).
The third thing that is necessary when we are going through the fire is: You have to seek out others who have been through the fire. Do you remember the story you learned in Sunday School about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego? They were thrown into the fiery furnace by the wicked king Nebuchadnezzar because they would not bow down and worship the golden image of Nebuchadnezzar that he had set up. They were extremely committed to God and their values, and ready to give up everything in order to maintain their commitment. They said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” (Daniel 3:16-18). Wouldn’t you like to have a faith like that? You could stand up to anyone because you were so secure in your values.
As I thought about this story again, I wondered if they would have been able to have the same courage if they had not surrounded themselves with other men who shared their values? Many times people fall because they try to go through the fire alone. It is a pride thing. They don’t want to lean on anyone else or have anyone know their problems. They want to be tough. They want to keep everything private. But you need other people. And there is no one better than someone who has gone through the fire before. We know that when Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace, God showed up and went into the fire with them. It is a great consolation to know that when we go through the fire, God goes through it with us. Jesus said, “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20).
God meets us in special ways together that we do not experience alone. That is why we have our small groups on Wednesday evening. When we share in those groups we realize that we are not alone and that there are other people who have the same feelings as we do. There are other people who have been through the fire. They have the same struggles. We pray for each other and encourage each other. We share the wisdom we have gained as we have gone through fiery trials. You don’t get that when you just see people on Sunday morning. We need other people. That is the way God has created us. It is not weakness to need other people, it is wisdom. It is also a great privilege to have brothers and sisters in Christ who will walk with us when we are going through a fire storm. Many of them have been there before us. They know the way.
It was a cold winter night in Epworth, England when the church bell began to ring. People ran into the dark night and saw a house engulfed in flames. People gathered and began to fight the fire as best they could, but it was soon out of control. The mother and father escaped the flames and were able to rescue six of their children, but no one could find little Johnny. Knowing that he must be in the house, which was by now an inferno, Samuel, his father, dropped to his knees to commit his son to God. The crowd stood there watching helplessly as the house burned. But suddenly someone shouted: “Look ” A little face appeared in an upstairs window. Johnny had awakened and poked his head out. He could not escape through the house because of the flames. Then some men came out of the crowd, and as one leaned against the house the others climbed upon the shoulders of one another. The flames were so intense their clothes began to smoke, but little Johnny was pulled through the high window by the arms of this human ladder. The little boy saved that night was John Wesley who would later bring England, and indeed the whole world, a great spiritual awakening as he preached on the streets of England. He would eventually organize a group of people called “Methodists” who were seriously and methodically seeking after God. Years later he wrote, “That night I was plucked as a brand from the burning.”
The day is surely coming when the world will be on fire, for the scripture says, “That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat” (2 Peter 3:12). God will be there to deliver you and pluck you as a brand from the burning. But whether or not you are prepared for that day will depend on whether you have built your life on the right values, whether you have learned how to let go, and whether you have learned how to lean on others who have been there before you. What will you do when the world is on fire?
Rodney J. Buchanan
November 16, 2003
Mulberry St. UMC
Mt. Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
Questions for November 16, 2003
1. Share about a time when it seemed like your whole life was going up in flames.
2. What were the things that helped you come through that experience?
3. . Why do some people overcome their circumstances, while others are overcome by their circumstances?
4. . What values do we need to face the fiery parts of life?
5. . How does having an eternal perspective make a difference?
6. . How does having a relationship with God affect our ability to handle what life brings?
7. How can we let go of things? What helps us in this process?
8. How does our relationship with others help us to get through great losses in our lives?
9. How do these situations change us? Do they make us worse or better? Weaker or stronger?
10. How can you reach out to someone who is going through a trial by fire?
