Solving the Puzzles off the FOB
All Scripture marked NKJV: The New King James Version. 1996, c1982.Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
We are in the second sermon in a series we are calling “Exit Strategies”. Once we open the door to get off the FOB, once we exit this mundane interstate of the repetitive and routine, we will be encountering an entire different world—a world of puzzles.
Recently, I was encouraged by watching others around me to begin working on the mystic puzzles of SUDOKU.
I found a book in a care package and it sat in my CHU for about a month. One day, I opened it up and started a puzzle. I struggled to find the first number to put in the blocks, then the second. Soon, I completed my first puzzle and all the numbers actually matched.
At first, I was very happy to do them, they have numbers but don’t require any math—but they are addictive. They kind of like “Corn nuts”, once you eat one, before you know it you have finished an entire bag.
I was actually very proud of myself that I had been able to solve this first puzzle. One thing I like about my book of Sudoku , is that it doesn’t tell you whether they are hard of easy—so I assume that they are all very difficult. It makes me feel smarter.
I started doing these puzzles for fun. Then, I began reading articles about how good they are for you. There was even an article in Physiology Today that discussed how these puzzles keep your mind sharp and prolong your life.
We all like to solve puzzles once and awhile, they give us satisfaction, accomplishment, and a few minutes of escape.
That is until we get off the FOB.
When we get off the FOB, we will have a whole new set of puzzles to solve. We will go back to making decisions on how to raise your children, how to interact with your children, how to romance our spouses, how to pay the bills, how to fix the plumbing, what to do with our career, and so on.
How are you going to solve these puzzles that come your way?
What is going to happen when your expectations don’t measure up to reality?
Where are you going to stand when you find yourself having to make a choice between what is morally right and the influence of others?
Tonight, we are going to spend some time discussing how to solve these puzzles that we will encounter.
When solving puzzles the first step to a solution is
1. Patience.
When we solve any kind of puzzle, patience is always a factor. Why? Because, if we knew the answer right away—they wouldn’t be puzzles. We must take the time to be patient as we take the puzzle apart to uncover the solution.
I noticed, yesterday that somebody has started a jigsaw puzzle in MWR South. Sometimes those puzzles can take days even weeks to finish.
At MWR South there are other puzzles going on. There are Quilts being made and there are Plastic Models being built. They both take time and patience to finish.
To do the correctly, it takes even more time. I could probably rush in and make a quilt but it would look terrible. And I could probably rush in and build a plastic model, but there would be glue everywhere and there would be pieces missing.
This is the same as all of the other puzzles that we encounter. If we rush into the solution without thinking them through, we will have a mess on our hands.
We can’t solve our financial issues ten minutes after you get off the plane. We can’t solve our relationship issues, by one candlelight dinner. We can’t solve our parenting issues, by a quick trip to Toys ‘R Us. These issues will take time to solve, we must be prepared to stick it out—because finding the solutions are important.
The Bible teaches us to have patience. Patience is based on trusting that God will provide solutions to our questions but also is based on love. I Corinthians 13 says “love is patient.”
We are to be lovingly patient. The Bible uses the word longsuffering.
I like this word…longsuffering. Not just momentary patience, but longsuffering—that means that things may take awhile, but hang in there and be lovingly patient.
Colossians 3 12-13 explains our need to be patient this way.
12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.(Col 3:12-13, NKJV)
When you get home, this needs to be in your heart and mind at every turn. This is the attitude that you need to approach life off the FOB--put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving.
If we would just live this out, here and at home, many of our puzzles would not be puzzles at all.
We need to be people that are solving the puzzles that come our way patiently and there fore honoring to God.
In addition to patience, we also solve the puzzles off the FOB through
2. Logic.
Every puzzle has some rules. These rules are in place so that the correct solutions can be found and made. They add to the experience of solving the puzzles, but adding the parameters in which the solutions are found. They add satisfaction to the puzzle because when the solution is found, the solver knows that the answer was found the correct way.
The rules guide us to the right answer.
In Sudoku puzzles the rules are simple.
“The aim of the puzzle is to enter a numerical digit from 1 through 9 in each cell of a 9×9 grid made up of 3×3 subgrids, starting with various digits given in some cells; each row, column, and region must contain only one instance of each numeral.” (www.wikipedia.org)
Why do we expect rules for our entertaining puzzles, and then expect that there are no rules for life?
In life, we have parameters that we must fit into. We have the other persons needs, we have financial constraints, we have moral constraints, and we occupational constraints.
We use logic to solve these puzzles as they occur in life.
Logic is “the branch of philosophy that analyzes inference” which is “the reasoning involved in drawing a conclusion” (wordnet.princeton.edu).
We need to solve our puzzles off the FOB logically. The interesting thing however is that the logical solutions are the scriptural solutions. We can sit and stew over a puzzle or we can go to the scriptures and find out what God says about the subject or what principles he has given us that will help us form a logical solution. God has given us a mind to solve the problems and he has given us the scriptures to help us find the best solutions.
The Bible says
16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for 3instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Ti 3:16)
The Bible contains the rules for our puzzles. Through studying the scriptures, we learn the principles God has laid out for us to play the game. The principles can help us draw the correct conclusions so that our solutions are pleasing to God, and help us in our relationships, our work, and ultimately our purpose.
We solve our puzzle through faith and patience, but we also solve them puzzles through our
3. Faith.
There are many times as I am solving a puzzle that I am not 100% sure that I am solving the puzzle correctly. I fear that I am not searching for the right piece, or the right number, or the right word. But, I must trust through deduction that it is. I have faith in the puzzle maker that I am not wasting my time.
When I used to travel to Kentucky from South Carolina frequently, I would get bored with the usual route. After several trips on the same route, I began to get creative. I would pull out the map and find a new way to get to Louisville or Glasgow.
I simply had to trust the map, which we all know sometimes maps don’t tell everything. When that occurred I would trust my instincts and my cardinal rule for map reading; “All roads connect together somehow.” Traveling for me became a game, to find a new, possibly shorter way to my destination. Somehow, I stopped this game when I got married—I don’t think that Monica thought it was as fun as I did.
In our lives, we have many different puzzles that occur. We must make deductions based on the facts as we know them—but we don’t always have all of the facts. We must accept these conclusions by faith.
The Bible says that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hb. 11:1)
There are many times when we have to trust what God has revealed to us in scripture and follow through on these thing because, by faith, we know they are true.
Jesus said to
“…Have faith in God. 23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. 24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”(Mk 11:22-24, NKJV)
When we encounter the puzzles of life trust in the designer; the creator, and the God of the universe. He has provided guidance in his word. We must simply trust him and follow his word.
We can solve the puzzles in our life, through patience, through logic when it is based on the correct guidance, and through faith.
I saw in our S3 shop the other day, a Rubix cube. Do you remember those, how can we ever forget? For some of us who are old enough we can remember the hipe that was placed on the Rubix cute—that little puzzle that was cube shaped and a different color on every side. Once the puzzle cube was turned and twisted, the goal was to get it back to its original form.
I could never figure it out, still can’t.
My personal Rubix cube is up in my parent’s attic, still a jumble of colors, still unsolved.
Many times our lives seem like they are just like that Rubix cube. A jumbled up mess, where it seems like there is no solution.
We have fallen so far away from the original design that, we feel like the only answer is to just throw it away; sometimes on alcohol, sometimes on sex, sometimes we just give up.
Our original design was to walk with God. He created us for that purpose—to know Him.
And because of sin, we have fallen away from this design. We have been twisted and turned to the point where it is hard to determine the original design.
Sin is anything you think, say, or do that makes God unhappy.
And God is perfect and desires that we solve this puzzle.
The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. We must all pay it. No matter what we have done good, because there is no one good but God.
God provided the solution in Jesus Christ. Jesus took the punishment in our place. He paid the death punishment so that we won’t have to. This is why accepting Jesus is so important, because he alone was able to pay the penalty for us, because he was without sin.
So Jesus died in our place and we can have life eternal because of his payment. When we accept this payment, the solution to our spiritual puzzle becomes solved, what was lost is now saved.
Tonight, you can accept this payment, right where you sit, by asking him to come into your life and accepting this payment that he made.
I will be happy to talk with you after the service if this is something that you would like to do. Don’t miss another opportunity—Jesus is knocking on the door to your heart asking to simply come in.
Let us pray.
