Lies We Believe About Our Circumstances

Summary: Unmask the lies that your life is built upon and discover the freedom that only the Truth can bring.

In the children’s book called Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day the young boy at the center of the story is having a bad day. “I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.”

Now for me / that sounds like just about any old typical day in the life of Daniel Hallum…

I imagine that every one of us has a day every once in a while where we would echo the words of the Psalmist

Psalm 55:6–8 I said, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest. I would flee far away and stay in the desert; I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm.”

If those words describe your experience today / then God has you here for a reason

Rom 8:28-29 (Hold until Later)

I. Lie #1: If my circumstances were different, I would be different.

A. Think of some of the funny things we say

1. Have you ever said, “I wouldn’t have lost my temper if so and so didn’t do such and such?”

2. Or “I would be a happy normal adult if my parents hadn’t done such and such to me?”

a. If this lie were true / then we would all be VICTIMS of our circumstances

b. This thought pattern is plaguing our society / Victim mentality / everyone is a victim

i. If we are victims, then we are not responsible, someone else is.

ii. If we are victims, then we can’t help being the way we are.

iii. If we are victims, then we cannot be held accountable for our actions.

3. This is a lie that Satan uses to convince you to take the blame game

i. If only we didn’t have to move / If only I didn’t lose that job / If only my spouse didn’t end up sick

4. We all have regrets, we all say, “if only.”

i. If only we had more money

1. I think this one probably comes up every time you pay the bills.

2. Did you ever notice that the more your income increases, so do the bills?

ii. If only we lived closer (or further) to my parents.... If only....

B. Satan wants to deceive you into thinking that your happiness is dependent upon your circumstances.

1. But the truth is / if we are not content with our CURRENT circumstances / we would not be happy in any other circumstance

Martha Washington / wife of our first president wrote “I am still determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds, wherever we go.”

a. Paul wrote in Philippians 4:11-12, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”

2. Just like we learned last week that we may not be able to always control our emotions / but we can prevent them from controlling us

a. So it is with our circumstances / We may not be able to control them / but we keep our circumstances from controlling us!

i. This passage in Philippians tells us that for Paul, he LEARNED TO BE CONTENT. It didn’t just happen overnight.

ii. It was the result of a struggle.

iii. It was the result of passing through the tough circumstances / learning one of the hardest lessons of life / in order to learn who was the Source of true contentment

b. Where did he learn it? He did so in God’s classroom / took either class "Discipline101", "Tribulation102",

2 Corinthians 11:26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers.

i. The Apostle Paul calls it a “SECRET” or “MYSTERY” (Greek word musthrion)

ii. The secret or mystery of contentment / “to be satisfied to the point where I am not disturbed or disquieted”

3. . If you aren’t worried about what you are going to lose or gain / what you want or need / but are satisfied sufficiently that it does not disturb you to have to miss a meal, not have a change of clothes, or whatever the need is…then you will understand contentment

a. Most of us here can make a list of things we wish we could have…

i. A better car, a better job, a nicer home, more food in the fridge, better food in the fridge…

ii. It isn’t bad to say, “it would be nice to have these things”

a. But when we are disturbed / because we don’t have something / when it steals our peace / causes us to be upset / then we don’t understand contentment.

Someone once asked John D. Rockefeller how much money is enough. He thought a moment and said, “Just a little more than one has.”

a. One of the problems with a lot of Christians is they’re not content with having their needs met

1. We live trying to get our wants met

i. So we miss out on the things God has for us / because we will our lives with more overtime / more work / to get more / more

ii. You can never, ever satisfy your wants. You will always have more wants

C. What is driving your life?

a. The hard truth is that circumstances don’t make us what we are / they REVEAL what we are

i. A young mother loses her patience with her children…are the children to blame for her anger?

a. They are if she believes this lie

1. But if she understands the truth / all her children did was reveal what was already inside of her / hidden from herself and the rest of the world / until something came to shake it out

ii. You slam your thumb with a hammer and a cussword comes out of your mouth.

a. Did the hammer cause you to pronounce the expletive?

1. No / it only revealed that you still had that in your heart.

b. You see / circumstances are like a bouncing road to an upset stomach / Eventually what is inside that stomach will be revealed “come out” if you will / because of the bouncing

i. If you think you are a patient person / have some children / You will discover that patience is developed / not inborn!

Luke 6:45 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

c. It is in the revelation of what our hearts are really like / of the stuff that is in them / that we realize how much we need Jesus to make us holy

i. I don’t care how long you have been saved / We are all far from attaining the righteousness of God / And As God exposes every hidden corner of our lives / we learn to lean upon His righteousness and to reject any belief in our own

a. Funny How We love to look ...and sound good to other people

1. Doesn’t it just kill you to have a sin slip out / something within you (greed, gossip, envy) to slip out and ruin your façade of goodness?

2. It is bad enough when we are aware of it…BUT if we are the ONLY ones who know / we can rationalize it or explain it away

1. But when others see what is inside of us / they will see us as we are…we realize / we are people in need of God’s grace

d. When you fail (you will) / have the humility to acknowledge your struggles / people will be drawn to Christ through you!

Jonathan Edwards “Nothing sets a person so much out of the Devil’s reach as humility”

Dr. Samuel Brengle (Salvation Army) said “The axe cannot boast of the trees it has cut down. IT could do nothing but for the woodsman. He made it, he sharpened it, he used it. The moment he throws it aside, it becomes only old iron.”

a. It is through circumstances that reveal our character that we realize who we are and all that we depend upon God for.

II. Lie #2: Suffering isn’t God’s will

A. We live in a culture in the west that does everything it can / to alleviate any form of pain / suffering

1. We hate suffering so much that we almost view it as the worst evil that exists!

a. This concept is not in the bible / In fact / Bible says something completely different!

i. Hebrews 5:8 “although He was a Son, he learned obedience from what he suffered”

1. Did you hear that? Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered?

2. Learning is a process. Jesus learned from what he suffered

a. If Jesus suffered / not only on the cross / but in this life.... if he was not exempt from the pains of the body in daily life / then why should we?

i. To those who say Jesus died on the cross so we wouldn’t have to suffer..... Read this

1 Peter 2:21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

b. We are called to suffer for others / to give ourselves to others / because that is what Jesus did for us /

i. We follow the same road . not a different one!

3. I will agree that God didn’t intend for Adam and Eve to suffer the way in which they did (as a consequence of sin.).

a. But I don’t think God excluded them from suffering or pain in the garden / Consider this....

Genesis 3:16 “To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply (increase) Your pain in childbirth”

i. To increase something means it existed to some degree before it was increased

ii. Eve was going to suffer childbirth pains before the sin and the fall that expelled them from the garden. How bad? I don’t know

a. But it got a lot worse after the curse of the fall.

iii. I also think Adam felt pain from time to time / He had to have stubbed his toe or get stung by a bee while in the garden

a. He had a human body for heavens sake... We can all agree / The human body feels PAIN!

4. Pain is an informant / Informs us to stop stubbing our toes on rocks!

a. Pain is how we learn to take our hand away from the fire / almost every kid learns what HOT means when they burn themself at some point

i. Pain is a tool to learn from

The only place that is EXEMPT from suffering is Heaven / when you shed this body and get your new / spiritual body promised at the resurrection of the dead

b. Are you are looking forward to that! / I know I am!!!

1 Peter 5:10 “The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered for a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.”

i. It is in this passage that I am convinced that God PERMITS us to suffer / so that we will learn dependence upon Him / not ourselves

ii. True joy is not the absence of pain / but the presence of God in the midst of the pain

2Co 12:9 And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

1. And his grace is sufficient for me / Is His grace sufficient for you?

B. How we respond to a problem has to do with where our focus is

2 Cor 4:16-18 “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

1. As long as we look at the visible stuff we will be frustrated, angry, prone to bitterness, likely to say, “No way” to God’s intervention

a. It is this way for people who get bitter in life instead of better

i. This is because they choose to focus upon the problem / their own wants / desires instead of looking outside of themselves

ii. But when we look at life’s troubles with spiritual eyes / we see God’s promises / God’s true nature

1. Then we are reminded in this of our first purpose…that we were created for God’s pleasure / not our own

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. 29 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

2. It doesn’t say “God causes everything to work out the way I want it to.” / “God causes everything to have a happy ending on earth.”

a. We live in a fallen world.

b. “We know that God causes…” means that your life is not a random series of events

III. There is a master plan

A. We make mistakes but God never does

1. “Everything…” means that God’s plan for your life includes ALL that happens to you and I

a. Including your mistakes / your sins / your hurts / Illness / debt / disaster / divorce / even death

i. “To work together…For the good

2. The events of our lives are not isolated acts / they work together when God uses them

Just like taking flour, oil, sugar, baking powder, salt and raw eggs. Imagine, any of those by themselves would be pretty distasteful. But together, in the hands of a baker, they can make a yummy cake / cookies (I know this very well in my household)

a. If you will give God all your distasteful / unpleasant / painful / hard experiences / He will blend them together for good

i. This doesn’t say life will be good or even pleasant / Much of our lives are surrounded by evil and pain

ii. God’s good means His plan and His purpose.

1. “of those who love God and are called according to His purposes.”

3. This promise is only for God’s children

a. It is not for everyone / If you are not saved / living in sin / this promise is not for you

b. If you are living in opposition to God / and insist on being god of your own life / then the events of your life are in your hands

i. And they will be random and painful / totally without meaning / just like your life will be

B. You can become a child of God today!

1. “according to His purpose” means to “become like His Son.”

a. Did you know / God has ONLY ONE purpose for your life.... And it isn’t to make your life easy, smooth, comfortable, or happy

1. His singular purpose is to reproduce the character of Christ in you / to glorify Himself through your life

a. Means Every problem is a character building opportunity / for God’s hands in your life

2. God does this through something called Providence:

a. Providence is a term to indicate that God provides / He orchestrates everything to accomplish His purpose

1. There are two ways that God can act in the world / One is by miracle / two is by providence

1. What is a miracle? It is where God stops the normal flow of nature and injects a miracle. It has no natural explanation. It has nothing to do with what is normal. He raises someone from the dead. He heals someone. God can intervene in history, stop the flow of normal history, do a miracle. And then set the flow back in motion, just like stopping the Red Sea until His people could walk across. He stops the natural course of things, injects what is supernatural, and then lets the flow go again. That’s a miracle / an invasion of the natural that causes the natural to cease and be invaded by the supernatural.

2. Secondly, is Providence / It’s how God takes all of the diverse elements of the normal and orchestrate them to accomplish His own purpose. He takes 50 billion circumstances that He’s got to orchestrate to accomplish this one thing. That’s providence. That is more incredible than we can ever imagine!

3. When you come to understand that a sovereign God is not only sovereign by supernatural intervention / but He is sovereign by natural orchestration / you can have confidence / and you can have contentment

a. The contented person is the person who knows that God is ordering everything for His own holy purpose. You’re content.

Romans 5:3-5 “And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

i. Exult: (greek=boast)

ii. Tribulation means to “press together”

I read last week about how Japanese sword makers make their famous Samarai Swords. (too brittle too soft, so they press together 3000 layers of steel alternating soft and hard, hammering and pressing together.

b. When was the last time you boasted about your tribulations and struggles?

i. It is something we rarely want to do when we are going through them…in fact, Paul’s writings are mostly reflections upon his troubles

c. Our gratitude comes as we look back / see God’s hand on our lives

A silversmith was once asked, “how do you know when the silver you are smelting is pure enough to work with?” He replied, “when I can see my reflection in it.”

4. Can God see His reflection in you yet? / Can other people see God in you?

a. When you have been refined by trials and trouble, what is inside of you is purified.

C. How to have victory in any circumstance:

1. Stay focused on God’s plan and not your pain or problem.

Hebrews 12:1–2 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

a. What do you look at? Your needs, yourself, or Christ?

Corrie Ten Boom, who suffered the loss of her family and was imprisoned in a Nazi Concentration Camp said, “If you look at the world, you will be distressed. If you look within you will be depressed. But if you look at Christ, you will be at rest.”

b. Your focus will determine your feelings.

i. What you look at will determine how you respond

1. The secret to endurance is to remember that pain is temporary and our reward is eternal.

i. Rick Warren: “Because God is in control, accidents are just incidents in God’s plan for you.”

2. Don’t give in to short term thinking.

Romans 8:17-18, “If we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. What we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will give us later.”

a. Rejoice and give thanks

i. Not thanks for the trouble / but thanks IN the trouble

ii. “Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Th. 5:18)

God doesn’t expect you to be thankful for evil or for sin or for suffering. But He does want you to be thankful that He will use all the junk of life to fulfill His purposes and draw you to Himself.

b. We don’t rejoice over pain / We rejoice IN the Lord!

c. Refuse to give up.

d. Endurance is the mark of a Christian

Lets see if you know riddle…what is the one common thread between the 7 churches that are mentioned in the book of Revelation?

i. I already gave you answer / It is that of endurance. “He who perseveres to the end will receive a crown of life.”

1. You will know you are growing in endurance when your prayers during times of trouble become less “comfort me” kinds of prayers and more “conform me” kinds of prayers

2. When you Ask God, “What can I learn from this difficult situation?” instead of “why me!”

2 Cor 4:16-18 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

D. DON’T LOSE HEART! Shake It Off!

All heard this story before… worth repeating.... One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally he decided the animal was old and the well needed to be covered up anyway, it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement, he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well and was astonished at what he saw. With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer’s neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off!

1. Life is going to shovel dirt on you / all kinds of dirt

a. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up.

i. Each of our troubles is a stepping stone / We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping / never giving up! / Shake it off and take a step up!

How have you been handling the troubles of life?

Have you been shaking your fist at God?

Has life been tossing you some tough pitches?

Then you are LEARNING the secret of contentment.

a. I invite you to come for prayer for the strength to endure the troubles of life, to commit your struggles to Him and to leave them here at the altar.

b. You were not designed to carry them.

c. You have carried those troubles far too long.

d. Won’t you bring them to the altar and leave them there?