Six Lessons Learned Through Adversity

Six Lessons Learned Through Adversity

Good morning Second Missionary! Please bow for a word of prayer. Our foundational Scriptures are found in Matthew 10:27 and James 1:2-3. I will be reading Matthew from the Classic Amplified Bible and James from the New King James Bible. Matthew 10:27 says, “What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered in the ear, proclaim upon the housetops.” James 1:2-3 says “(2) My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, (3) knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.” You may be seated.

I first visited this Church back in July of this year. During that service the Spirit began speaking to me about a message I was to deliver here. I waited a month after hearing this before I approached Min. Hoard and told her what I believed I had received from the Spirit and asked her to pray about it – for confirmation one way or the other. You see, as the current ministry leader of this Church, God will not bypass her authority and tell me to do something in this Church without confirming it with her. I told her if she did not receive confirmation, then I will know that in this situation, I had missed God.

Now I know that many of you do not know me, while some of you know a little about me as I have been attending your Bible study and Sunday school sessions. But, for those of you who do not know me, as you heard in my introduction, I have been in ministry for forty-four years and have worked in pastoral ministry for thirty plus years. I founded New Light Faith Ministries, Inc. and through that ministry established New Light Christian Fellowship Church, which I pastored for twenty-one years. Following the close of the Church I became the interim pastor for Strangers Rest Baptist Church in Kansas City, KS. I served there for fourteen months and now that that assignment is completed, I have been visiting Churches as I wait for God to reveal my next steps. From a secular standpoint, I spent eight years in the military and thirty-two years in the pharmaceutical industry retiring as a district director from Merck pharmaceuticals. I have been married to my wife for forty-three years this December and we have two daughters and one granddaughter.

The title of the message this morning is “Lessons Learned Through Adversity.” I have provided a handout of the Scriptures that I will be referencing so you can study them and verify the Word that you will hear in this message. This Church, as all Churches have, has faced some adversity. It could be said that you’re still dealing with some adversity as a Church and as individuals. Every person at some point in their life will have to deal with adversity and it is not a question of “if” you will face adverse times, but “when.” And if you are a professed Christian it is a guarantee that you will face adversity because we have an enemy who wants to use our times of adversity to discourage us from maintaining our faith, and for those who are watching us, to test our trust in God. Therefore when we go through times of adversity how we respond to those times will lay a foundation of spiritual growth or spiritual stagnation.

This morning I will share with you two specific situations of adversity and I want to focus your attention on how each person(s) managed to walk through their situations. As you listen to this message this morning, please keep in mind what Jesus told us. He told Thomas (and us) in John 14:6, “…. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” When Jesus says He is the way, the truth and the life, He’s saying that, outside of Himself, there is no other way, no other truth, and no other life. He uses the definite article THE to drive this point home. We could say the verse this way and maintain its scriptural integrity: Jesus says, “I am the way and there is no other way but Me. I am the truth and there is no other truth but Me. I am the life and there is no other life but Me.”

Keep this in mind as you listen to this message because, when we face difficult times, Jesus IS the only way through them. I am here this morning to encourage you as you continue on your faith journey. This morning we are going to be looking at Joseph and the twelve disciples. Each faced adversity, but how they responded to their adversity is what I want to use as an example for each of us. As a point of reference, Webster’s dictionary defines adversity as “a state or instance of serious or continued difficulty or misfortune.” Let me begin by sharing a story with you to set the stage. I ask for your indulgence if you have read or heard this story before. The story is called “Carrots, Eggs and Coffee.”