Find Strength In God Through Difficult Times

 TRANSCRIPT

Well, welcome everyone. Hello. For those people online welcome. We are in week number two. We've already just kind of said this, but I'm recapping so far, week number two of this brand new series, and really we're looking at a series on miscommunication, aren't we? We are looking at the fact that sometimes phrases can get thrown around these fantastic sayings that we all love, but sometimes we need to stop and go, hang on a minute.

Do these things actually make sense? Are they actually true? And if not. We really need to reign them in. We need to bring them to God and say, well, if it's not true, what maybe has led us astray? And that's what we're doing over this lovely little series. And I must say that miscommunication is really a part of life nowadays, isn't it?

Especially in the digital world. As soon as Digital World came in, you can send a text to you. It makes total sense. You send it off to the person, they're completely offended. Whoa, I don't get it. The intonation was different when they read it, obviously. Has anyone had that happen? You could send a message and all of a sudden World War III has begun.

You're under, you can't understand why. And then also sometimes you might send the wrong message in the wrong group chat. Has anyone ever done that before? Delete, delete deletes on your end doesn't always delete on their end. Surprise. Um, so miscommunication. It is unfortunately part of life and one for me, I'm just gonna have to say it.

Facebook marketplace, people. I love a good Facebook marketplace. Facebook marketplace. If you're not sure, it's a place you can go online, you can pay it. Put something on there to sell and you never know what time a human being is gonna respond to your message. Anyone being ghosted on Facebook marketplace before if you're selling something?

Yeah, a lot of us, there are some absolute doozies. A few years ago I placed a phone, a perfectly great Apple phone online. It was already really cheap. Someone said to me, can I have it for 75% off or $75 off? They gave me a story about, you know, how they were in need and I said, look, I. Yes, yes, I will do that.

And I said, excellent. Can you also drive it to me in Brisbane? No, I'm not doing that. Obviously we all think a little differently right now. I love online. You can find some Facebook, um, marketplace stories. I've brought a couple of like safe for church ones here today, but I wanted to have a look at this one.

For example, here's a prime example, miscommunication. Someone's selling something, they write. Is it available? Yes, it's available. Would you consider $4,000? I'd do 4,500. I can do 4K. Thumbs up. Okay. I'm waiting for a deposit into my account, then I'll give you a call. Thanks. I'm not gonna take 4,000. You gave a thumbs up.

I thought you would. You.

It was the same person responding to himself and he thinks it's the other person. I never said yes. Here's another one. I love this one, Loretta or Loret Grace in December, 2021. I'd like to buy your chairs if you still have them in January. Question mark. I don't have any chairs for sale and never did.

Sorry. She's writing to herself. That's her responding to herself. Miscommunication, and this is what this whole series is about, lost in translation. And there are lots of times in our life where some things can get lost in translation, translation. And perhaps for you, that has happened in your life. I think there's a lost in translation on that.

Angel just saying in the promo pictures as well. I don't think angels look exactly like that, but today we are going to be looking at this. Lovely little phrase that can get thrown out there. God won't give you more than you can handle, and I don't know if you've noticed, but life is always throwing stuff your way.

And when I think back to when everything was perfect in my life and I didn't really have too many issues. Yeah, I was in nappies. That's when it was. It was when I was so little. Everything was done for me. But as soon as life gets on, this is, this is part of life. And it depends on the stage of life you are in that different challenges will come up when you're in school.

You've got friendship challenges, you've got assessment challenges. You go into high school, the assessment gets more. Then you're thinking about university, am I gonna go to university? Am I not? And then you start relationships. You have wife and husband challenges, you have challenges with. Finances, you have challenges with aging parents.

You become the aging parent. It continues on, right? This is life, and I don't think there's anybody that is exempt from the fact that in your life you are gonna have challenges because you live in this natural world, which is just absolutely full of them. And so when we have these challenges, I like to, I've got a few people that I like to go to, and I'll talk to them about some of my problems.

Some people are like, not that's my business. I'm gonna talk to anybody. But I have a few people like to go and chat to them. And sometimes when you're talking to someone when you're in a tough time, they'll throw a little thing out there, they think it's. Gonna be super helpful and it's totally not. And here's some examples.

If you are going to talk to someone about something in a hard time, can you just never start a sentence with at least, oh, at least that's never gonna land. Well, and if you are in also, um, maybe in f faith circles fill out a little god part in there. Just to show how spiritual they are in their response, right?

Maybe you've heard some of these ones. You're in a tough time. You're talking to someone and they might say, number one, um, well, when God closes the door, he opens the window, here's a little visual. You close that door, you go out the window. He is still in the same position. He would've just walked out the door before him, and now you've just gone out the window.

Does not make sense. I can understand, I guess, what they're getting to. But how about this one? God helps those who help themselves. Um, a bit judgy, you're saying? I don't helping for myself. Whoa. Hold on. And then of course, the one that we're looking at, God won't give you more than you can handle. And I have only been in the world for just a short period of time, a few years now, but I know for a fact that I have had situations in my life where I'm thinking, well, you know what?

Right now I don't think I can actually handle this situation. And I'm sure there's a lot of us, and some of you may even be in that now where you're like, the stuff that's happening in my life right now is so overwhelming. I'm extremely stressed. I don't know how to make a decision on this. This feels like this is more than I can actually handle.

And so when we throw around terms like, well, God won't give you more than you can handle, it actually becomes quite dangerous because within that, we start to think differently. We start to believe some different beliefs about God that maybe aren't actually true. And before I get really, like who's ever said that, put your hand up.

Get outta here. It's just natural that we sometimes are wanting to do stuff. We are not about judging if you've ever said that, but I think it's important to look at how does this miscommunication happen? And today we're gonna have a quick peek at a scripture that Pastor Simon actually shared last week in his message.

And this is Paul. And Paul, many of you know about him. He was one of the first pioneers of the Christian Church and he had an amazing relationship with God, full transformation in his life. And he's writing. We are gonna read in First Corinthians, he's writing to the faith believers in Corinth and he's sharing with them about how the Israelites way back in the day, we can learn from them guys.

They had it really hard. They were, they had so many temptations in their life. And you know what? Those temptations that they have, they're similar to ours. Now. We can learn from them. We can see how God helped them. And then this is where we pick this up in verse 13, it says this. The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience, and God is faithful moving on.

He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand when you are tempted. He will show you a way out so that you can endure. Ah. Miscommunication. God won't ever give you anything that you can't handle. Actually, in the scriptures it says, if you are gonna be tempted to step outta something that's not of God's will in your life, he'll make a way for you to make a right decision.

He'll be there to help you. It doesn't actually say in your life you're not gonna have troubled times. You can see how that miscommunication could, could come across right? Well-meaning, but not actually a hundred percent true. The problem is that if I start thinking, well, God won't give me more than I can handle, these are the lies that then start to creep in when you are in a really, really tough time of your life.

The first one, like right now, I can't handle this stress. I can't handle this pain, and what I'm thinking is, why does God not love me enough? If he's not gonna gimme more than I can handle? Why does he not love me enough to not allow me to have to go through this? Not true, but it's what we start to tell ourselves.

It's the misbelief. Or maybe why is God absent right now in my time of need? He said, you said you wouldn't give me more than I could cope with God. Ah, did I, did I?

These misbeliefs about God can be really detrimental to how you move forward in your life. And this is what we wanna really talk about today because we start to lose trust in God. We start to doubt his faithfulness. We start to believe that I'm not as good to be able to have God, to love me. And those things we just know are completely false.

In fact, you can read throughout scriptures so many people that had massive challenges in their life. Massive over. Far more overwhelming than I think I've had in my life. We can read them throughout, and I think that's the reason why they're in the scripture so that you can learn from them, so you can read about them.

Let's have a look at a couple right now. Let's have a look at Gideon. Now. Gideon, he was, you can read about him in Judges six. Now, for Gideon at this time, the Israelites, they had not been living so well, and so God actually allowed for them to be overtaken by their enemies. For seven whole years, they were just getting pounded constantly by the enemy.

And Gideon, he was part of the Israelites. And then seven years later, this angel comes to him and he says, Hey, Gideon. Guess what? You've been chosen to rescue all of the Israelites out of this situation. Just you mate. And Gideon, he's out there, he's like cutting down wheat at the time, and his response is, I'm the weakest of my tribe and I'm the weakest in my family, and you are expecting me to make my entire people become free from this.

What about Moses? Moses is called specifically again for the Israelites. They've been in slavery in Egypt, and Moses is the one that's called to go and release them from slavery in Egypt. And God comes to him in Exodus three and says to him, this is what your job is, Moses. This is what you've gotta do.

And Moses says to God, but who am I to go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? Me? Yep. You, Esther. You can read about her in the book of the same name. Esther. Amazing story. She was a Jewish orphan. She grows up to be the queen of Persia, which is already amazing enough. And then as she's queen, she's hearing around the courts around this plot basically to go and they're going to kill off all of the Jewish people.

And she hears about it, and so she gets her cousin to come alongside her and they hatch up a plan to free all of the Jewish people to save her entire race. That's just three examples, but I can tell you now those are some pretty, that's a little bit more than I can handle moments, but the thing is, I love the fact that you saw God work with them to make those things happen.

And then we can look at Jesus himself, just as Jesus was about to know that he's heading to the cross, that there were things happening and he was like, I would really love for this not to go this way. We can read in Mark 1433 to 34, and this is what Jesus said, Jesus or not what he said. This is what happened.

Jesus began to be deeply distressed and troubled, and then he says. My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. And one thing I can learn from this, if you are struggling with something in your life, Jesus has been there. When we say that Jesus and God can be with you in a hard time, it's not 'cause they've never experienced it.

Jesus experienced a lot of stuff. He can relate to us. So now that we've debunked this whole fact that God can't give us more than we can handle,

I know what your next question's gonna be. Why would God gimme more than I can handle? Why? That's really not nice, God. Why Rod? There's a few reasons why, and we wanna unpack this today, and I think if you are here today, you're here on purpose. And I believe that this message, if we can get this into our life, will change your life.

It will change your life because when you are in a situation where you feel like you can't handle it, one of the first things that we learn to do is be able to depend on God, depend on his presence. Have you noticed when everything in life is going really awesome? You tend to forget a little more about God in their everyday moments.

Oh, look at me. Look how fabulous I'm doing with my life currently. Yeah. Oh, hi, God. Yeah. Awesome. And then as soon as something happens, help Jesus take the wheel. It cracks me out that everyone wants to be their own chauffeur. Yeah, I'm good. I'm great. Until something bad happens, it's like, you better take over.

Now what are you doing? How did you allow this to happen to me? Oh. Oh, he's French all of a sudden. Um, it's true though, isn't it? Like I've experienced it in my own own life. Think about Jonah for a moment. Okay? Remember Jonah whale bait man? He repels against God. 'cause God asked him to do something. He is like, yeah, nah, don't like that.

I'll go and do my own thing. Thanks. Thrown off a boat, eaten by a large fish and what ends up happening? Jonah 2 27. It says this, in my distress. I called out to the Lord and he answered me. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, Jonah's very dramatic. After being inside that way, he all of a sudden, oh no, no, I'm sorry.

God, God, help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help. Help. We forget to depend on his presence sometime unless we're in a situation where we need it, and maybe for you right now that's happening. Right now you are in a situation where there is something huge happening and you're in that place of going, okay, I'm realizing.

I'm remembering now. I need to come back to you. God, I need to call out to you. And for some of you, maybe this whole God thing and exploration is brand new, and the entire reason you are here right now is because you've been drawn here because you are drowning. You're drowning in something and you're trying to find, is there a way that I can be released from what is weighing me down?

And again, I feel like this is where you're meant to be today. There's a purpose and a reason why you have come here today. And then for us that are Christ followers. If you profess that you love Jesus and you're trying to create your life to be more like him, then I believe this is a challenge for you.

A challenge to not only run after God when things are bad, but to every day run after God and say, how am I being used today? It's a challenge for everybody. There's something in this for all of us because when you develop a muscle of depending on God in the difficult times, you remember he's always there.

And then in the good times, you still remember he's there. And when you hit something difficult, you have backup straight away. You've developed it. You've gotten to that place, and you're not floundering to try and find, God, help me. You've already got him with you. So we depend on his presence. That's one of the reasons why sometimes we get things that we can't handle.

And the second one is to experience his power. To experience his power. And it is often at those times when you feel like, I cannot handle this anymore, where there's a light bulb moment and you remember That's right. I'm not actually meant to handle this on my own. I have a creator. That has made a way through a death and a resurrection for me to have connection to partner with, to get through any situation.

I'm not meant to handle it on my own. So will God give me things I can't handle on my own? Yes, he will allow it. Allow it. I can't tell you why he allows it all the time, but we can learn. To depend on his presence and then experience his power. And I can attest to you, this has happened in my life. I've had things that have happened to me, and I have learned how do I depend on his presence and then how do I experience his power to move through those things?

And guess what? It's not reserved just for the hoity totties. It's not just for the pastors. It's not just for the preachers. It's not just for the new Pope, it's for the everyday person. It is for everyone. And Paul, which we spoke about before, you know, he did some amazing things, right, and he shared some really deep times with God.

But in some of his scripture when he was writing these letters, he shared about this thorn in his side. He had an illness and he carried it with him and he was really frustrated the fact that, God, I'm doing lots of great stuff for you, but I have this illness and you know what I love? Thanks. And he would pray about it, and he had lots of stuff for it.

He was like, he was in prison. People wanted to kill him. So many things were happening to him. And he writes in one of these letters again in in Corinthians, verse 12, the second Corinthians. He says, three times, I actually begged the Lord to take it away, but you know what he said to me? My grace is sufficient for you.

For my power is made perfect in weakness, and then I love this, Paul says, therefore, I'm gonna boast all the more gladly about my weakness so that Christ's power may rest on me. Woo. That's a mind shift, isn't it? That is a huge mind shift from being in a position of being consumed by your difficulties.

Instead being used by God's spirit consumed by my difficulties. I can't get out of this to being used by him and going, I, this is hard for me, but you know what? I can be used in this situation. One makes you small, one makes you large, and I believe that he's calling us all to be large in the kingdom.

And I ask you, where would you place yourself right now in this spectrum of being consumed by difficulties or being used by God's spirit? When something comes in your life that is hard and challenging and it feels like more than you can handle, where would you place yourself at the moment? And where would you like to be?

Have you been so consumed by the difficulties that now that is the weight that holds your life back every day? It's the weight that stops you from moving forward into new things, or have you gotten to a place of realizing when I have challenges and in my life and I have difficulties that I'm having, well, I get a fresh chance to connect with God and I get to see God.

What can you do with this? What can you do with this? What do you want to do with this? I'm listening. What can you do with this? Two things that we can do. We can call out to God in prayer and we can make space for his spirit to move. Those two things. When you are in a really hard time, call out to God in prayer and make space.

Then this we've been talking about make space. For his spirit to then move in that situation and see how your mind begins to change. See that mind shift in your brain as it continues. Thanks band. The band are gonna come back up. They're gonna play for us in just a few moments, but with Christ followers here today.

I have a question for you. When your life has difficulties, are you at the moment? A walking advertisement for the power of God. It's a hard question, isn't it? When your life has difficulties, are you currently a walking advertisement of the power of God working in a hard time? I want you to think upon that.

I'm gonna share a little story with you as we're heading towards finishing up today. Few. I've been at the same school teaching for about 23 years now. Long time at one place, and when I was first started there, when I was about, I think it was 19 years ago, I was doing the maths last night. There was a student or a teacher that transferred to my school and her name was Tika.

And Tika was a bit of an odd bod. I could tell. Just when you meet someone, you know, they're like, oh. Socially, they just don't fit in with everybody. And I really felt to go and become friends with Tika. And so I would spend my lunchtimes, we would teach and we were in different year levels, but we would teach.

And then I would go and spend my lunchtimes with Tika and I would just ask her about her life. And she was incredibly lonely. She was incredibly lonely. She had a really beautiful relationship with her mom and dad, but she was incredibly lonely. And so I would spend all this time with her and I just thought, you know, if I can just be a friend with her here, and it was just little bits of time here and there, but if I can do this, then I would love to just be able to make her realize that people care about her.

Okay. At this time I was about 22, 23, and Tika was in her 30. She was 31. And then one day I got to work and my boss called me in and he said. Tika died in her sleep last night.

Tika died in her sleep last night. We didn't know she had sleep apnea, so on one day, I'm sorry, one day I'm hanging out with this person. The next day they were gone and I was pretty young and I just kept thinking, did I do enough? Did I do enough to make her feel like she was loved? You know, I wasn't gonna cry.

Um, and then a few weeks, two weeks later, oh, thank you. My boss again said, um, so we're gonna have a funeral for Tika. And her mom and dad have said they want you to speak at the funeral because you were her only friend.

And that was hard. That was a too much to handle moment. Right? And for me, I wanted to say, no, that's too hard for me. And you know what? I said, yes, I'll do that. That'd be great. I would love to do that. And so at the time I was living with one of my friends here from the church. And she wrote me a letter on the day, and I still have it to this day 'cause this is how much it meant to me at the time.

This is the letter she wrote to me. She said, dear ex, this is the day of the funeral. I'm so sorry. You have, I'm sorry. Sorry for you, for the events that you've had to undergo this week. And even more, sorry that you have to face this funeral this afternoon without more of your brothers and sisters by your side.

The more I meditate on it, the more I'm reminded of how we've been talking the last couple weeks, that there are many of us through testing times and all of it is to prove that we've learned our foundation. That our fruits of the spirit are evident in our life and makes, from what I've seen, you've been a pillar of strength, a rock, and more than you'll ever know in this lifetime.

Your life's witness has been the hugest testimony and it's impacting and challenging to so many of us. Us. Remember that God loves us when we are honest with him 'cause that's when we can com be comforted. It makes sure an encouragement to see you boldly stepping out in your workplace is awesome and it's challenging for me, and I just want you to know that today as you're at this funeral, funeral, you'll be in my thoughts and prayers.

I pray for strength and courage with what you share from the platform and with wisdom, peace to guide your heart and that you will see opportunities come your way and seize them out of this moment. Now, that was one of the first times in my workplace where I had to step out in a faith role. I work in a state school.

Okay. And from that time, many people here have heard so many of my stories of people that I've got to pray for my staff. Even just the last two weeks, people come from my staff and they seek me out and they ask for prayer, and they see that in me now. Because I had a moment which was so hard for me to handle, and God said, don't worry.

You can depend on my presence and my strength and my power is gonna, what's work gonna work in you in that moment? And so at the time I was so sad and I thought, why are you doing this to me? I'm like 23 years old. But I understand God used it in a way that has become so powerful in my ministry, just even in my school, and how lovely.

Now that I can look back and remember 19 years ago, God started something in my life that I continue to step into and learn more about throughout the years. And that's not just reserved for me. That's for all of you. Every person here has the ability to be navigated by him at every time, not fueled by the circumstance and the feelings of what is happening in your life, but to be forged by the presence and the power of God not held back.

Heading forward. And in a moment we are gonna sing, but I wanna put this to you. Imagine if every Christ follower lived a life that was like a lighthouse. For people searching for a way out of a difficult situation and they look and go, that person responded differently in a hard time. That's who I need to go and talk to.

What would the world look like in terms of the darkness of the world with the number of lighthouses shining? Imagine it. I can picture that world. This is what revival is like now, guys. Nowadays, guys, it's about people stepping up and saying, I am going to be the visible image of Jesus Christ in the world today, so that people know where to come when they're in a hard time, and I can point them back to him.

That's where we are at now, and for those of you that are maybe still exploring, well now is your time. Open your heart. Open your mind to connect with God and see what's he saying for the next steps for you. Your circumstance may feel hard at the time, but you have connection with one that will carry you through anything in your life when you connect with him.

These guys are gonna just sing now, and I've asked them to sing this song. It is well and. These are the lyrics and just as they're singing, I would just invite you to sing along if you know it, but allow the words and the music to wash over you and remember that God is on your side and he's just waiting for you to open yourself up to him.

And it says through it all, through it all my eyes are on you. Through it, all, through it all it is. Well. So let go my soul. And trust in him. The waves and wind still know his name. And I don't know where you are at today, but I believe that God wants to meet you where you are and he'll talk to you about what's the next step for you.

'cause his spirit is always with us when we're open to make space for it to come into our space and into our life. Let's just pray and then we're gonna sing. Father, we thank you that we can depend on your presence, and I think we are just completely humbled that we can also experience your power, just like Gideon and Moses and Esther and all those that have gone before us, that have stepped into the calls that you've made, they've listened to the whispers that you've said, do this now.

Step here. Now sit now, listen, now pray. And Father, I just know that you still work in this way now and Holy Spirit, right now, as we worship together, we just pray for you to fall heavy upon us, a fresh refilling of the connection that we get to have with a God that loves us, that has made a way for us to be able to come to you.

God and Jesus, we just have so much gratitude for making that available for us. Amen.