Expect Trouble in 1997 (A New Year Sermon)

Thu, 2 Jan 1997

Clergy/Leaders' Mail-list No. 344 Happy New Year! (The full ms. of this sermon - with prayers - is on the JMM home page.) Shalom! Rowland Croucher Director, John Mark Ministries - resources for pastors/leaders. (Bookroom, library, and worldwide F.W.Boreham Trading Post) Home Page: http://www.pastornet.net.au/jmm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It's summer in Australia, a time for beach-holidays and reading. I'm enjoying Charles Williams' 'Bradman: An Australian Hero' (Little Brown and Co., 1996). Bradman is #1 on any list of outstanding Australian sportspersons. He may have been further in front of his colleagues than any other athlete, ever. By general consent he was the sole difference between Australia and England whenever he played. (One English captain reckoned he was worth three batsmen). A sportswriter put it this way: 'He has upset the balance of the game as it has never been upset before by the genius of a single player'. Who knows what further unbreakable records he might have set if the war had not intervened when he was at his prime (when he did not pick up a cricket bat for five years). But life wasn't easy for this little Aussie battler. He suffered the jealousy of lesser mortals (some of them laughed with glee when he was dismissed and couldn't raise his first-class batting average to 100). Don and Jessie lost their first baby, nearly lost their second to a fatal illness; their third baby was spastic. He suffered on and off from severe depression, an eye complaint (!) and back pains. He was invalided out of the army because of his physical problems! He was always sea/air-sick. A bit of a loner, he was criticized by his team-mates for not being a beer-drinking socialiser. A shy man, early in his career he hated making speeches. Revered around the world as a sort of demi-god, he didn't want greatness: he only wanted to play cricket; he didn't want crowds and adulation: he wanted to be left alone. What kept him going? An iron-willed determination, yes. But at a time in England when he was desperately ill, he received a cable from Jessie: 'Go to it, Don: I believe in you.' After he batted in the next match against Yorkshire, The Times wrote it up as 'one of the greatest exhibitions of his career'. As with any high-profile person, he was often accused unfairly of this and that, but, as Williams put it, 'Bradman knew as well as anybody [that] fairness is not necessarily part of life'... *** The Roman proconsul ordered: 'Take the oath, and I shall release you. Curse Christ.' Polycarp said: 'Eighty-six years I have served him, and he never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?' And when he had said these things and many besides he was inspired with courage and joy, and his face was full of grace, so that the proconsul was astonished... And with his hands put behind him and tied, he looked up to heaven and said: 'Lord God Almighty, Father of the beloved and blessed Servant Jesus Christ,.. I bless you, because you have deemed me worthy of this day and hour, to take part in the number of martyrs... for resurrection to eternal life... May I be received as a rich and acceptable sacrifice For this and everything I praise you, I bless you, I glorify you, through Jesus Christ, your beloved Servant, through whom be glory to you with him and the Holy Spirit both now and unto the ages to come. Amen.' And when he had concluded the Amen and finished his prayer, the men lit the fire... *** How does someone facing a painful death get to have this sort of faith? First, here's a truism so obvious that it is likely to be ignored or even denied: all of life is trouble. We in the West have been seduced into believing that, properly organised, we can buy our way out of trouble. The advertisers promise a trouble-free existence if we purchase their product. The insurers promise to cover any contingency, for a fee. We have government social welfare benefits on a scale unheard of in most of the world for most of history. Which is why, of course, that the suicide rate is climbing in affluent countries. We have been 'sold a dummy', and life is too catastrophic to endure when trouble comes. On a visit to the U.S., the well-known German preacher Helmut Thielicke was asked the most important question facing Americans. He said Americans did not know how to deal with suffering. He thought they did not expect trouble to be part of life. 'Again and again, I have the feeling that suffering is regarded as something which is fundamentally inadmissable, disturbing, embarrassing and not to be endured.' We are taught by our sick culture to indulge continually in what Albert Camus called 'nostalgia for other people's lives.' One of the few generalisations you can make about the greatest men and women of the Bible is that they all got into trouble. God must love his special people a lot to trust them with problems! An interesting text in the Psalms says, 'Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word' (119:67). Jesus promised his followers three things - constant trouble, and constant joy (because of his constant presence). The early Christian missionaries had this important piece of encouragement (!) for young converts: 'It is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God' (Acts 14:22). The Greek word 'thlipsis', affliction, is used fifty-five times in the New Testament, referring to persecution, oppression, famine, judgment, or even the labour pains of childbirth. The early Christian leaders said trouble was not merely to be endured, but even welcomed! Thus St. Augustine thanks God, in the Confessions, for 'mercifully sprinkling my path with thorns'. Malcolm Muggeridge saw life as 'a very bright light and a very deep darkness, an inconceivable hope and blackest despair, an overwhelming love and abysmal desolation.' There are some things we come up against which we have to adjust to, because they will not adjust to us. Our handicap or problem can become the foundation for strength - and even happiness. What you do to life is much more important than what life does to you. The way out is always the way through, not around or away. The good news really does come by facing the bad news. It is possible 'to fail forward,' and sad indeed is the person who does not know this and thus allows the experiences of life to be wasted on him or her. A young lady was just eighteen when she contracted a dreadful illness. To save her life, the doctor said he must amputate her feet. This he did, but the disease spread further, so he took off her legs to the knees. Later he amputated her thighs. Then it broke out again in her hands and arms: first one arm, then the other were taken off, right up to the shoulders. She was left with only her trunk. For fifteen years she lay there. The walls of her room were covered with Bible texts, all of them affirming God's gifts of love and peace and power. That woman mediated such grace from her room that hundreds of people were converted to faith in Christ through her letters. How did she write? A carpenter friend fitted an instrument to her shoulder into which a pen could be inserted. We write with fingers, hand and arm: she had to use her whole body, but her writing became as beautiful as copperplate. She eventually collected fifteen hundred letters telling of people blessed by her. When asked how she did it she smiled and replied: 'Well, you know, Jesus said that those who believed in him, from within them would flow rivers of living water. I believed in him - that's all!' Mozart died in abject poverty; Beethoven - of all people - started to go deaf at 28; Stevenson was writing novels while dying of consumption; Handel wrote The Messiah when he was broke; George Matheson, the Scottish preacher who wrote the great hymn 'O Love That Will Not Let Me Go' was blind; Lord Byron had a club foot; the philosopher Kant had an incurable disease; Wilberforce took opium for twenty years to deaden his pain; Helen Keller was blind and deaf... So our prayer is not for easier lives, but to be stronger in faith, and hope and love. Remember trouble comes to those who don't deserve it - but so does love! St. Theresa had problems, and once complained: 'Lord, if this is the way you treat your friends, it's no wonder you have so few of them.' But why is there a 'St.' before her name? Because through her trouble she came to believe that 'everything is grace'. 'In his will, our peace' - T.S.Eliot calls this statement, from Dante, the profoundest line in all of human writing. Well...? ..... A Benediction. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Romans 12:12. Blessed is anyone who endures temptation. Such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. James 1:12; 1 Peter 5:10. The LORD answer you in the day of trouble! The name of the God of Jacob protect you! Psalm 20:1. ____________________________ Clergy/Leaders' Mailing List (Moderated) This mailing list is open to all Christians via Internet e-mail and most fax destinations. Submissions welcome: clergy@pastornet.net.au To unsubscribe, e-mail to: clergy-request@pastornet.net.au with SUBJECT reading UNSUBSCRIBE Copyright: Postings may be re-sent ONLY with all copyright notifications intact. A PastorNET ministry: manager@pastornet.net.au

Clergy Mailing List Index | Mailing List Index | PastorNET Home Page | John Mark Ministries Home Page