Dealing With My Dissappointment

January 31, 2021 DEALING WITH MY DISAPPOINTMENT Let me encourage you to join us on Wednesday night at 6:30pm at LEC Online for the start of our six weeks in the book of Revelation. Tracy Vest is helping me teach this and we are excited for you to join us as we attempt to learn the things God will teach us from the fantastic book. Also, as we have completed the 21 Days of Prayer, we are announcing for February that we will be offering the following prayer experiences each week in February * OnCall Prayer Line on Tuesday-Thursday mornings @ 10am * Noon Day Prayer on Saturday with various leaders, elders in our church * 1st Monday night Churchwide Prayer Introduction: I hope that these series of messages have been helpful to you. I wanted to help-to encourage, inspire you to walk closer to God, to experience Him in fuller and deeper ways. The work of a pastor is very multi-functional-he/she is an administrator, manager, counselor, friend, etc.-but I promise you at the end of the day almost every pastor I know wants to lead people closer to Jesus and the payoff, the takeaway when I pull away from this building every day and especially every Sunday-did I help someone love Jesus more today? Throughout this month, we have been looking at the possibility that so much of what has gone in the past year has left us OVERWHELMED. We've talked about our fears, our over-reactions, the weight of our circumstances and today I want to dig deeper and challenge our disappointments with God. If we are honest, we all have disappointments with God, places where our expectations have not been met or we assumed something that did not occur and it left a bad taste in our mouth. Like when... * The cancer returned * the child left home * the spouse cheated * the job was taken away * the relationship did not materialize and on and on. We've reminded ourselves every week that God's Word is a foundation to our journey...so we have read this passage aloud each week-let's read Matthew 11:28-30 again. Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light. When reading the Bible it is very important to identify the connection with passages of Scripture-because taken out of context, you can make the Bible say anything you want! So, the passage we just read is connected to a bigger story and really helps us to understand why Jesus offers this "rest" and help. So, let's start with verse 2 of chapter 11... (Matthew 11:2-6) John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, Are you the Messiah we've been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?" Jesus told them, Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen-the blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor. And he added, God blesses those who do not fall away (are not offended) because of me. One of the most prolific Christian writers of our time is a man by the name of Philip Yancey and I say so because more than any Christian author I've read, Yancey has the audacity to ask the hard questions that we all have about God. Several years ago, I read his book Disappointed With God and he outlines the three (3) fundamental questions humans want to know about God: Is God fair? In other words, can I trust that God will be fair in his dealings with me? Is God hidden? Perhaps you have prayed the prayer of Psalms 22 (Ps. 22:1-2) My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help? Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief. Is God silent? Of all the things about God we struggle with-perhaps the silence of God is the worst. Can you imagine what it must have felt like between the last prophet in the Old Testament and the arrival of Jesus Christ? (400 years-no word, no prophecy, no bookstore, no LEC Facebook On Demand) God was silent. Mr. Yancy suggests that when the Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin (1961) looked out from his spaceship into the vast blackness of outer space and supposedly said "I see no God here" he was voicing the desire of our age. We want some proof, some evidence, a personal appearance, so that the God we have heard about becomes the God we see, feel and know personally. (Yancey, Disappointed with God) This has been a fascinating four week look at life when it's tough, trying and frustrating. What has made this series significant perhaps is how authentically it captures us-defines how we are, how we feel, what we battle against in our faith. At some point, we are all going to have doubts and disappointments. Nearly 15 years ago, I wrote these words and they are still true... There is a tombstone in every heart where unmet expectations are buried. As humans, we yearn for shortcuts-we want to get to the end of life's puzzle, find the answer and experience the satisfaction of knowing the answers to life's hardest questions. Like the very difficult math problem, we want to find a shortcut to the answer but like our math teachers, God knows the answer to the problem but he wants me to work out the problem for myself because of what the experience will teach me. The 11th chapter in Matthew is significant and noteworthy because it strikes at some of our basic feelings and emotions. It begins with John the Baptist and a BIG question, especially for someone like him-he was the forerunner of Jesus Christ, an evangelist sent by God (according to Scripture) to make the way for Jesus, the Messiah. In fact, John baptized Jesus in the Jordan River and was witness to the voice of God which said, "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." (John 1:29) However, 18 months later-he sends this question to Jesus. (v.3)--Are you the Messiah we've been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else? What changed? In Mark 6, we are told John had confronted Herod Antipas the king, about his adulterous affair with his brother's wife, Herodias. At her request, John was arrested and put into prison where he will stay the rest of his life and later die when during the king's party, Herodias incited her daughter to ask for the head of John the Baptist as a gift and he is killed. We don't know what happened in those prison days and the Bible does not tell how long John was there but we know he was there long enough to begin entertaining doubts about Jesus. His question is actually an interesting question because it's not really about whether Jesus is Messiah as much as it is a "back door way" to ask Jesus "you do know I'm still in jail and why haven't you come to get me out of this jail?" It sounds a lot like questions I've asked or been ask by other believers... * What good does it do to pray about things if God is going do whatever he chooses anyway? * My father served the Lord his whole life and I don't understand why God let him suffer like this? * I've been faithful to God, never failed to pay my tithes and why would God allow someone to steal everything I've worked my whole life for? It's a strange question because 18 months before... (John 1:29) The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! His circumstances have changed now, the long days in prison, the prospects of dying have caused doubt to creep in. We can all learn something here-don't linger in the fields of your disappointment-manage it, deal it with it and move on because Disappointment Can Turn to Doubt If You Linger Long Enough. On some level, disappointment is a very human experience and we all deal with it-the danger is in allowing it to fester and become something more. Perhaps your disappointment is located in issues of ... * Health-the cancer has returned, the medicine didn't work, the doctor seems to have lost interest in helping you, the bills are piling up, * Finances-you lost your job, the unemployment benefits were slow in coming, your household is having to tighten its belt because of less income-you'll be tempted to cut back on giving * Family-there problems with marriage, kids, doing school from home, working from home, finding quality time * Career-your career is on hold and you don't know how to move forward, your plans are derailed, they no longer can use your skill set * Relationships-what we had hoped for did not materialize, you thought you'd be married by now, or someone you cared for is no longer interested * Church-the starting and stopping of in-person services and our struggle to make progress on the vision we have for LEC has made it difficult for me not to feel like we lost a whole year! Sometimes our perspective (What you see, don't see, what you think you see) shapes our sense of disappointment. Think about what's going on with John-before prison the public was clamoring to hear him preach and watching him baptize believers-now he hears all this about Jesus and wonders how his life got off track...what he sees or thinks he's seeing... (1 Corinthians 13:12) At present we are men looking at puzzling reflections in a mirror. The time will come when we shall see reality whole and face to face! At present all I know is a little fraction of the truth, but the time will come when I shall know it as fully as God now knows me! Just because He does not do what I think He should does not mean He does not know what He's doing! One of the harder things in life is understanding that things are not always as they appear to us- * Joseph's life looks like a train wreck until God's plan is revealed and we realize God was at work all along * The Crucifixion looks like the Devil's biggest win until the stone is rolled away Jesus is alive Sometimes our disappointment is the result of not accepting that we don't see everything God sees, thinks or does. (Isaiah 55:8-9) My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. This where faith and trust help us. If we believe God is big enough, powerful enough, then we can accept that sometimes what looks like tragedy is not and what looks like defeat is not-because there is more to the story than we can see. Just because he does not do what I think he should--does not mean he does not know what he's doing. I found this in my reading recently and I've marked it because it speaks to us in the matter of our life experiences... (John 11:1-6) A man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany with his sisters, Mary and Martha. This is the Mary who later poured the expensive perfume on the Lord's feet and wiped them with her hair. Her brother, Lazarus, was sick. So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, "Lord, your dear friend is very sick." But when Jesus heard about it he said, "Lazarus's sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this." So although Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, he stayed where he was for the next two days. We fall victim to our assumptions about who God is, what God does, how He works...and it can lead to disappointment with God. We fall in love with the miraculous-we want Debbie Mullins healed, we want Sherman Frazier to be strong and we should and we must keep praying. God is a God of miracles and He performs them according to His plans... God is in love with the process (Romans 8:28-29) And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; God has bigger plans than meeting our expectations-He is conforming us, shaping our faith and making us to be like His Son, Jesus Christ. * We herald a God who rides into our crisis like a superhero and slays our enemies and rescues us from every circumstance but... o Sometimes God allows us to go through the fire... o Sometimes the miracle is the daily grace by which God has kept us going when we didn't have strength of our own... If we assume God always delivers...we will be disappointed If we assume God always prevents our pain If we assume God won't let us go through hardship If we assume God won't allow us to be hurt (2 Corinthians 12:7-9) So that I would not become too proud of the wonderful things that were shown to me, a painful physical problem was given to me. This problem was a messenger from Satan, sent to beat me and keep me from being too proud. I begged the Lord three times to take this problem away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is enough for you. When you are weak, my power is made perfect in you." So I am very happy to brag about my weaknesses. Then Christ's power can live in me. Conclusion:  (John 11:6) So although Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, he stayed where he was for the next two days. Why? Because His plan was better and bigger than the plan Mary and Martha's expectations and even their disappointment with his delay. You can almost hear the sister's words "if you were who I thought you were, you would come and my brother would not have died" Jesus says, I'm here-and I'm enough. When Jesus said, And he added, God blesses those who do not fall away (are not offended) because of me. It sounds a lot like 3 Hebrew boys who looked the king in the eye and says (Daniel 3:17-18) If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. He will rescue us from your power, Your Majesty. But even if he doesn't, we want to make it clear to you, Your Majesty, that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up." If I have to carry my illness to my last breath, I'll hold to my conviction that God is able and He is enough for me. If expectations of God are not met, I'll never stop praising and worshipping Him because I will always believe He knows what He's doing. Yancey suggests that the alternative to disappointment with God is to be disappointment without God. I may not understand the process or my pain but I've already decided I'm going with Him all the way to the end.