Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Joe Bayly had a change to stay in the luxurious Hilton Hotel in Chicago.

It was going to be a treat of a retreat, but then he was hit again by the x-factor.

That is what he calls Murphy's Law-the law that says, if anything can go wrong it will.

The hot water in his room would not work.

He was frustrated, but not all that surprised, for the x-factor is everywhere.

It is like the law of gravity.

It starts in childhood with getting the mumps on Thanksgiving.

Then when you wear your new shoes, you get a deep scratch in them the first time, which you can't even remember happening to your old worn out pair.

Then you move up to breaking an arm just as summer vacation begins.

Later on, the night before your first date you get a big pimple on your face.

Some people do grow out of the pimples, but nobody ever grows out of the x-factor.

Bayly says, when he finally gets a chance to sleep in late, that is when some unusual event will wake him up and hour before his usual time.

Dr. R. F. Gumperson began serious research on the x-factor back in 1938.

He made some discoveries that led the x-factor to be called Gumperson's law by many.

Some of his discoveries were-

1.

That a child exposed to a disease for weeks without catching it will then without exposure come down with it the day before the family vacation.

2. That the dishwasher is most likely to break down on an evening in which you are expecting guests.

3.

That good parking places are most often seen on the other side of the street.

4. That a man who can't start a fire with a box of matches and the Sunday paper will start a forest fire when he throws a burnt match out of his car window.

There is no telling what other discoveries his genius may have yielded had he not been killed in 1947.

He was walking along the highway one evening facing the traffic as wise walkers do, when he was struck by a visiting Englishman who was driving on the shoulder.

The x-factor got him.

It gets us all at sometime or another, and the reason I am preaching on it is because it has recently gotten us.

As we were going through a very frustrating time, it suddenly dawned on me that this is a major cause of suffering in the world, and it would fit right into my series on suffering.

I knew the Bible would have something to say about an experience so universal, and so when I began to search, it was not long before I discovered that it is a major factor in Biblical revelation.

Let me share some of our experience to show what motivated me to study the subject of frustration.

Lavonne and I always look forward to May because that is our anniversary month, and for many years it has been our month for a special get away.

This year it was even more important to us because Lavonne had been ill so much with a strange virus that would come and go.

It came more than it went, and left her weak and bedridden.

I have had to do things I have seldom or never done in cleaning, cooking, and taking care of her.

She was getting better, and the Sunday before our vacation she was in both services and felt good.

But then the x-factor got us.

Monday she was ill again, and the first two days of our vacation we were going to specialists.

On the third day she was admitted to Bethesda Hospital, and that is where we spent Wednesday to Saturday.

It was the most frustrating vacation we have ever experienced.

This deep taste of frustration made me realize just how powerful a force frustration can be in people's lives.

I know everybody gets frustrated, but when it is a prolonged experience, it has all kinds of potential for being destructive.

I better understand the battle of those who endure long range frustration.

And I better understand why it is one of Satan's most powerful tools to damage the Christian life.

I realized how important it is for Christians not to be ignorant of Satan's devices, and I became determined to find out what God's Word had to say about this serious subject.

We can't begin to cover it in one message, but what we can cover it enough to help us be aware of some basics.

The first thing we want to look at is-

I. THE FACT OF FRUSTRATION.

By this I mean, it is a part of our fallen world, and it goes with the territory.

There is no escape.

To be human is to experience frustration.

It is not sinful to be frustrated, for Jesus was sinless, but He did not escape frustration.

He may have had more than His share even, for the more ideals and goals you have, the more you will be frustrated.

That is why Paul had so many frustrations.

In our text, Paul says he wanted to come to see the

Thessalonians, and he tried time and time again, but Satan stopped him.

The word for stopped in the Greek is the word for frustration.

Satan is the great frustrator of the Christians goals.

The word means to hinder, to impede, to thwart, and thus, to prevent the achieving of a goal by being an obstacle.

The military used the word to refer to the practice of making deep ruts in the roads to hold up a pursuing enemy army.

You can imagine the frustration of a chariot driver in a hurry with deep ruts in the road.

Satan is a master at blocking the way to God's best.

He prevents blessings just as we are to prevent suffering.

All through history this has been his strategy-to frustrate the believer in trying to reach his objective, and cause him to give up in despair.

When Ezra records the attempt of God's people to rebuild the temple of God, he tells us of the strategy of Satan in chapter 4:4-5, "Then the people's around them set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to go on building.

They hired counselors to work against them and frustrate their plans during the entire reign of Cyrus king of Persia."

It is one of the facts of life we have to face, even if we hate it, and would rather not be aware of it.

If we try to do something that we know is the will of God, we will have to expect frustration.

Be not weary in well doing says Paul, and why?

Because he knows from experience that well-doing is not a piece of cake.

It is hard work, and often will not lead to the results you hope for.

That is why Jesus had to experience so much frustration.

He was perpetually going about doing good, but was it all greeted with gratitude?

Not so!

The Pharisees treated Him like a criminal for loving people so much that He would ignore their laws to heal people.

It frustrated Jesus that those who were supposed to represent God cared more about rules than about people.

Jesus was frustrated with His own disciples because they were so much like the world, and they quarreled among themselves for status.

He was frustrated over Jerusalem, for He loved the people and wanted to protect them from the wrath to come, but they would not listen and open their hearts to Him.

Jesus wept over the city in frustration.

We could do a whole study just on the frustration of Jesus, but the point we need to stress is that frustration is just a fact of life.

It is not wrong to be frustrated.

It is just a reality that needs to be recognized.

It makes a world of difference to know this, and that Jesus and Paul, and all God's people, are in this together.

Frustration, or the being hindered from reaching goals, is a normal experience for all who are in the will of God.

It is not a sign that you are failing God, or that you are on the wrong path.

If Satan can get you to feel this way, his strategy will be effective, and frustration can lead to failure.

When Christians lose their cool because of frustration, they do all kinds of meaningless or destructive things.

The poet Homer, in his epic The Odyssey, tells of how the Greek General Olysses was leading his army toward Troy, and came unexpectedly upon a flooded river he could not cross.

He was so frustrated by this obstacle that he went out into the river up to his knees and began to thrash the water with chains.

As might be expected, the river gave no response to his rage.

The nervous energy created by frustration needs to be channeled toward constructive ends, and we will look at this in a moment, but we first need to get it in our heads that frustration is a fact of life, and something we all need to cope with, even in the will of God.

Edwin Erickson, our Conference missionary in Ethiopia, wrote of the many frustrations he and his wife faced as they returned to Ethiopia.

He writes,

"A home that sometimes seems like a dorm.

City water that occasionally disappears when it is most needed.

A basement that sometimes floods after a heavy rain.

A guest house for our Ethiopian brothers and sisters that has plumbing problems.

People needing medical attention.

We need patience to find our niche, try to be ourselves and at the same time be God's servants.

Pray for us that we will not be overwhelmed or frustrated by human expectations as we discover what God expects from us."

Frustration is a common battle on the foreign field, but it is the same on the home field.

Listen to Gary Odle, who is a home missionary trying to get a new church started.

His testimony represents thousands of Christians in their struggle to be used of God.

He writes, "We tried everything.