Frankie Mazzapica - Resurrected From The Heat of Trouble
Thank you for tuning in today. My name's Frankie Mazzapica. The title of today's message is, "Resurrected from the Heat of Trouble". Resurrected from the Heat of Trouble. Let me just lay the scriptural foundation straight away. In 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 3, Peter says this: "Praise be to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new life through living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ". This is our hope and what I like about it is it's living hope. Let me move on to another scripture that is abridged to that scripture. It's in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 13, where it reads like this: "We are not like those who are full of sorrow, who have no hope".
We're not like them. We are those people who have hope and what I like about it, it says living hope. Our hope is in a person. It's not in us crossing our fingers, hoping the tide changes. It's in a person who determines where the tide stops, that's who we're trusting in. We're trusting in a person who directs wind. He's the one that touched a stone and turned it on fire and we call it a sun. He's the one who threw stars in the air and he numbered every single one of them. He's the one who numbers the hair on your head. For some of you, it's a lot more difficult than it is for me. But this is who we trust. Does anybody love the Lord for that? It's who we trust. It's in that person, a living hope.
You know, I have watched boxers throughout my life and they got a big fight coming up and they're yelling at the other person. They're saying, "I'm gonna beat you, I'm gonna punch you, I'm gonna knock you out". And the more I listen to him, the more I think, "Wow, I think this guy is gonna knock that guy out". And then he ends up getting knocked out and the hope that, the definition of hope is a level of expectation. He set an expectation that he could not fulfill. And I wanna let you know that the higher your expectation is with the Lord, the more he will do for you.
I know, I know it is difficult. It is difficult to have a high expectation for what God is gonna do for you. I know that that is difficult. It's a lot easier to look at someone else and say, "I know God is gonna do something for you". But when they point back at you and say, "I know God's gonna do something for you," you're like, "Thanks, thanks. Thanks". It's hard. But let me encourage you to base your faith on a person who has already rescued you hundreds of times before. And if he has done it once he can do it 1000 times. He can do it over and over again. When we are in the middle of trouble, we say to the Lord, "I need you to rescue me just like you have done over and over again in my life".
I have three major points for you. The first one is how we seem to always be able to find God's children in the heat of trouble. When we talk to each other, it's fascinating that when we're being transparent, it seems like you're in trouble, I'm in trouble. You're believing for a miracle, I'm believing for a miracle. It seems like God's children always seem to find themselves in the heat of trouble.
Number two, I'm gonna talk about why in the world would God allow this? Why? If you have children, and you could control their destiny and their present, you would never allow any hurt or harm to come to them. Why would he allow it when we, who are sinful, want good gifts for our children? How much more does he wanna bless you and I? So first of all, we find children, the children of God in fire. Why does God allow that?
And then number three, that the resurrection out of the heat of fire, the resurrection. So let's just dive into that first point. If you take the Bible and you open up the cover, the first book you're gonna see is Genesis. The very last book you're gonna see is Revelation. From Genesis to Revelation what we see is people are always finding themselves in the heat of trouble. If you look at Adam and Eve, where do you find them? In the heat of trouble. They got booted out of the garden and they are literally backing up and saying, "Oh, my goodness. How did we get here, to leave the Garden of Eden"?
If you just keep turning the pages, you will find Noah, the man building an ark for 100 years. He was being ridiculed for 100 years. Sometimes I think I'm only half-saved because when someone says something to me that is an insult, there's the saved part seems to go to sleep and the unsaved part seems to wake up and I look at him and I'm like, if you wanna talk to me crazy, I will meet your crazy, raise you by 10 crazies. Has anyone here thought to yourself, "I invented crazy. I was born crazy. You learned crazy. I was born crazy". Are you with me? Noah experienced it, not just for a moment; for 100 years. Where do we find Noah? In the heat of trouble. Where do we find Elijah? In the heat of trouble, asking God, "Will you please just kill me? I'm so depressed, I don't wanna live another day".
Where do we find Solomon, the wisest person who has ever lived? You find him writing the book of Ecclesiastes saying that life is meaningless. If you're not depressed, don't read that book, you will find yourself being depressed like that. He's saying, "Where do we find the disciples"? They're walking with Jesus, they're putting their arm around Jesus, they're seeing miracles all day long. If you read the scriptures and you add up the number of miracles that you have read, just remember this. Tthat was not all the miracles that he did. All those miracles, he probably, the number of those miracles he could do... he probably did that number of miracles in a morning.
In John chapter 21, verse 25, it says this: "If we would have written down all of the miracles that Jesus did, the entire Earth could not contain the books that would be written". And these disciples are seeing miracle after miracle after miracle and they still found themselves doubting Jesus. They were in the heat of trouble. And so you back up and you say, "What in the world"? Let me illustrate something because David, a man after God's own heart, was in the heat of trouble, being overwhelmed. He's the one who wrote the book of Psalms. And so what he says in 1, no, let me think. Psalms chapter 116, verse 3, he says this: "I felt the ropes of death wrap around me". The ropes of death wrapped around me. This isn't a bad day. This is, I can't get out of this and I believe that it's over. That's what he's saying. He's saying, "I feared death because the rope of death was wrapped up round me".
I don't know if you can relate to that. I know I can, where I'm thinking to myself, "I'm never getting out of this. There's no way I'm getting out of this," but in 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 12, it says this: "Do not think it strange when you're in the heat of fire," when there's fiery darts sending you away, when the rope of death is wrapped around you. Don't think that's strange. But remember this. Believers everywhere are experiencing the same thing that you are. This is where we find children of God fighting something that we can't punch and that we can't fix our own. But I want tell you that God rose again, not just so that you and I would have eternal life in heaven, but to look at you and I here on earth and say, "Look, I'm gonna pull you out of the heat of the fire that you're in right now on Earth". Does anybody love the Lord? Thank you so much.
Now, even though he promises, "I'm going to rescue you," point number two is why in the world even put us in that position to begin with? Like, come on, you love me. I love you. We're a happy family. Like, like, come on, let's just walk on water together. Come on, let's, just like, laugh and giggle and be full of joy. Why? Like I don't... why, why, why is this really necessary? I'll say this. The Bible says what is it? It's Psalms 116. Let me start at the beginning. Psalms 116. I wasn't planning on saying this one but it's so pertinent. It says this: "I love the Lord because he heard my prayer and my cry for mercy. I love the Lord". And so, he hears us and he draws us and he compels us for what? He actually compels us into these hot seasons so that we may be prepared for every single good work.
In 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 20, that's exactly what it says. It says, "Not all vessels, not all people, are made of gold, silver, and jewelry, but a lot of people are made of wood and clay. Some for honor and some for dishonor. So cleanse yourself of the dishonor". Look at yourself in the mirror and say, is this a good reflection of a child of God? Listen to your self-talk and, if you have to, just get some Scope, cleanse yourself. Cleanse yourself so that you will be a vessel of honor, sanctified and prepared. You have been prepared. You are ready. What is it? The National Guard. They stand ready for the phone call. They are ready. But here's the thing, I'll just speak for myself. If the Lord were to look at me, aside from his involvement, what he would find is someone rough, someone hard-hearted, someone not looking to him, but living for my own desires.
This is what I want to do. I don't care what you wanted me to do. In fact, I rarely think about what you want me to do. I'm living for my own desires. And so when it says that he sanctifies us and prepares us, he is taking us and laying us on an anvil where a blacksmith takes a cold piece of iron and he sets it into the fire and he hammers it so that he can form it into something that can be used. He takes a Frankie or maybe some of you who's hard-hearted and unusable and says, "I'm gonna put you in the heat of the fire because there's no one more humble than a person that's in the heat of fire and needs to be rescued".
No one is more humble than that. No one. Where you're saying, "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I'm in trouble and I don't know how to get out". And the more humble we are, the more we lift our chin to the Lord, versus looking around for things that might satisfy us. We lift our chin. We say things like this: "God, you're all I want now. There's all this stuff, I don't care about it anymore. I used to care about it, but I don't care about it anymore".
See, only people who have been in the heat of trouble pray prayers like that. If you've never been in the heat of trouble, wondering if you're ever gonna get out of a situation, if you've never been depressed, if you've never been discouraged, if you've never thought that you're gonna lose everything, if you've never looked in the mirror and didn't like what you saw, if you never were there, if none of those things ever happened where you weren't sure if you were gonna be able to pay the bills, where you were discouraged because the person who promised you that they would never leave you, they left. If you have never been to those places, then you do not pray prayers of desperation saying, "I am all yours now. I am all yours. I've seen what it looks like and you are my only living hope".
You have been formed in the fire ready as a vessel for every single good work. And that's why the Father says, "I'm gonna let you get hot. I'm gonna let you get in trouble. But it's for a purpose. I've got to work for you. And if I leave you the way you are, your heart will be too hard, you'll be full of pride. You will have an appetite for sin. You will follow like a dumb goat other people who don't even think about me. You'll enjoy sin. But no, no, no, no, I love you too much for that. My plan for you is too big. I plan on pouring my love into you so that when you speak, it comes out of you and gives strength to other people. But I gotta form you into that".
You know, I say to the Lord all the time, say, "God, I'm about to pray a prayer but I need you to be careful with me when you answer it. Don't ever take me off the anvil. Don't ever ever protect me from trouble. Don't ever let me not feel the heat of anxiety of fear. Don't, don't ever let me live without being in the fire because if I live without being in the fire", if you live the rest of your days without being in the heat of trouble, the form or the vessel that you are now will be all you will ever be.
But it's in the trouble where the Lord says this: "Up until this point, I have used you in this way, but I'm gonna use you in a greater way, but I need more humility. I need you to be a little bit more pliable because what got you here won't get you there. And I gotta form your heart a little bit. I gotta make you think that I got... no, not think. I gotta remind you that no one's gonna help you and you don't have the strength to help yourself. I gotta remind you of that". Now, does anybody... this is funny but serious. Does anyone wanna stay in the fire? I guess.
We're found in the fire. That's why we're in the fire. But then how does God rescue us from the fire? How does he do that? What he does is he doesn't necessarily grab you by the hand and pull you out. What he does is that he rescues you. He resurrects you from feeling dead to feeling alive. Not so much by changing what's happening to you, but what's happening in you. Let me give you an illustration. I have a very good friend of mine. His name is Luke and I was just with him at the hospital. I've been friends with him for many, many years, over a decade, and I was in the hospital and he finds out... well, he calls me and he says, "I have to have triple bypass surgery". Not triple; quadruple bypass surgery. We didn't even see this coming. We did not see it coming.
In one moment, all of a sudden, he knew he was in trouble and a family member had to drive him there. His son had to drive him to the hospital. Just like that. He gets there and the doctor says, "We're not letting you leave. We need to do this surgery now". Now here's the thing. He's laying in the bed. They're about to open up his chest cavity and start dealing with his heart, but he's laying there and all of a sudden he begins to worship the Lord and experiences a sense of intimacy and a sense of peace right in the middle of it. It's like the Lord said, "I'm not gonna change things quite yet because I need to change what's going on in here. I can change what's going on out there in a moment. But this is gonna take a little bit of anvil. This is gonna take a little bit of heat. Just trust me though".
And so there he is, he's worshiping the Lord right there. There's a peace in the middle of all the fire. There's a peace there. He comes out and he's just like laying there thinking, "Oh God, thank you for rescuing me". And then he goes home and he's sitting with his family and he's looking around and he sees his children. He's got a daughter that flew in from another state and they're sitting around, he's looking at his children, he's looking at his grandchildren and he's smiling. He had come out, he went into the fire and he came out. God, literally, God resurrected him out.
Now, let me ask you a question. When do you think he felt closest to the Lord? When do you think? Was it when he was laying on the bed, looking up to the Lord, reaching his hand out saying, "You're my only rock. You're my only living hope"? Or was it when he was sitting with his family and they were laughing and joking and going down memory lane. "Five years ago, Dad, do you remember when you said..." "Hey, you remember when I was little and you did this"? When do you think he felt closest to the Lord, when he was laughing with his family or when he was right in the heat of the fire? You know the answer to that. It was when you are in the heat.
All of a sudden he steps in and he says, "Look, I'm in the heat and I'm pulling you out. But in the process, we are going to experience a level of intimacy that you can't experience anywhere else". Do you love the Lord today? Come on, you love the Lord. Let's give him a standing ovation because he's our King. Come on, let's give him our best. Give him your best, your best, your best. We love you, Jesus. We love you, Jesus. Would you just put your hands up like this? Let me ask you why are you on the anvil today? And maybe you're not, maybe you're in a season of peace and bless you, bless you for that. But why are you on the anvil today? What is it that God is trying to do?