Rick Warren - How to Trust God When You Don't Like the Changes in Your Life (06/18/2024)
In part three of Strategies for Stressful Times, Pastor Rick addresses trusting God amid unwanted changes caused by the pandemic and other global shifts, sharing five truths to remember—that change is unavoidable, God uses it for good, His purpose is to make us like Jesus, He can redeem even human sin and error, and every change tests our faith—along with five actions to take in response.
As your pastor, I am deeply concerned about how you are handling the trauma and the stress of all of the changes that have taken place in your life in the past eighteen months. Now, certainly the global pandemic of COVID changed everything. And we are still not out of the woods. We are still not free from it yet. But there is a lot of other changes going on in the world at the same time.
And that is why I started this short series a couple weeks ago that I am calling Strategies for Stressful Times. Strategies for Stressful Times. And we are looking at tips and strategies and skills from the scripture on how do you handle when things are not good.
The first message you remember a couple weeks ago, I did a message called finding the strength to keep going when you are emotionally worn out. Anybody ever felt that way? Emotionally worn out? Yeah.
Happiness Is a Choice, Not Dependent on Circumstances
And then last week, we looked at how do you be happy no matter what happens, and we talked about how happiness is a choice. It does not depend on happenings. You are as happy as you choose to be. If you are unhappy, you cannot blame your wife or your husband or anybody else. You are as happy as you choose to be. I know people in much worse situations than us that have chosen to be happy.
This week in part three of the Strategies for Stressful Times, I want us to look at how do you trust God during changes you do not like? How do you trust God for changes you do not like, during those changes?
Everything Is Constantly Changing
Now, we all know that everything constantly changes. Everything is constantly changing. In fact, even material objects are actually changing at the molecular level constantly. There are protons and neutrons and electrons that are zipping around in these metal bars. They look like they are solid; they are moving at a molecular level.
Now, while we love some changes, and we all do, we love some changes, but there are some changes we just hate. And there are seasons like the one we are in right now where change is so rapid and so relentless that you just get tired of it. And right now we have been hit with so many unwanted changes that as I talk to people, they are reeling from it. They are literally reeling.
And so many people—maybe you feel this way—just feel like they are in limbo right now. They are just treading water because you are unable to get on with your life, unable to get out of what is going on. And it feels like we cannot really get on going because we do not know how long this thing is going to last. And a lot of people are just overwhelmed. And they are just barely getting by. I care about you if you feel that way.
Five Truths to Remember During Unwanted Change
And so today, as I have studied God's word all this week, I want to give you some very practical guidance from God's Word on how do you trust God when you are going through changes in your life that you do not like. You will have plenty of those in life.
And what I want to do is I want to give you—I want to summarize what Scripture says—five things, five truths you need to remember, and five things you need to do, okay? So if you get out your message notes, we will look at these five things you need to remember when you are going through changes you do not like and how do you keep trusting God in those situations.
So, anytime you are overwhelmed by change, there are five things you need to remember. So write these down.
1. Change Is Unavoidable
Number one—this one is kind of obvious, but we need to start with it—change is unavoidable. Okay, that is the first thing. We all know that, but we just need to be reminded that change is unavoidable. No matter how much you like a change or how much you dislike a change, no matter how much you like the way things have been, they are not going to stay the same.
Now, when change happens—and it is constant—you can complain or you can grumble or you can get mad or you can blame other people. You can even try to stop the change futilely because you cannot stop change, but things are still going to keep changing. Every moment of your life, you are changing for good or for bad.
Now when God created the earth way back in the beginning, here is one of the first things He said in Genesis 8:22, "As long as the earth remains, there will be springtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night."
What is He saying? He is saying that everything on this planet is seasonal. Nothing stays the same. We live in a world of opposites, and the world is not the same the way it used to be. Your family is not the same the way it used to be. Your job is not the same it used to be. You are not the same that you used to be. As I said, even inanimate objects like this table—it looks solid, but actually at a molecular level, it is moving constantly on the inside.
Many of you know that I drove the same green Ford truck for twenty years. Why? I liked it, okay? I do not buy a car for bling or to show my status. It got me the same way a Rolls Royce would, and it was comfortable. And frankly, I would have driven that twenty-year-old truck for the rest of my life, but after a quarter of a million miles, it started changing. And it started breaking down and it started falling apart, and I could not stand to give it away, so actually it is parked in my barn even though I do not drive it anymore.
Now, I have taught this for decades—look there in your outline—I have taught you that there is no growth without change. There is no growth without change, there is no change without loss, there is no loss without grief, and there is no grief without pain.
A person who wants to grow and be better but not go through the pain of change is like a woman saying I want to have a baby but I do not want my tummy to get bigger and I do not want to go through labor. It is not going to happen. They do not call it labor for nothing. Any of you ladies want to testify to that right now? To bring new life into the world requires pain. Things change.
But remember this: if nothing ever changed, you would have never been born because you were a change. You would not have even been born. So change is unavoidable. Okay, we got that one down.
2. Change Is Not Always Good, But God Uses It for Good
Here is number two—this is more important—change is not always good, but God uses it for good. Change is not always good, but God uses it for good in the lives of those who trust Him. It is not good for everybody, but it is good in the lives of those who trust Him.
One of the greatest promises of the Bible, Romans 8:28, "We know"—not we are confident—"that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."
Now, as I have said many times, that verse does not say everything is good. There is a lot of things in the world that are not good. Evil is not good. Cancer is not good. Rape, molestation is not good. War, prejudice is not good. A lot of bad things in the world. But the Bible says God specializes in bringing good even out of bad. He can turn crucifixions into a resurrection.
And the way God works all things together for good is kind of like baking a cake. Now, you may not realize this, but I am a master cake builder. I know how to bake cakes because I figured if I want to eat them, I had to know how to make them. I once made a German chocolate cake from scratch—no box—for my wife's birthday. So I know how to make cakes.
Now, when you make a cake, the individual ingredients do not taste good at all. In fact, some of them are quite bitter. If you eat flour by itself, it does not taste good. You eat butter by itself, it does not taste good. If you eat baking powder by itself, oil by itself, it does not taste good. Even a little vanilla, raw eggs by themselves—none of the ingredients in the cake taste good by themselves. But if you mix them all together, stir it all up and stir and stir and stir, and then put the heat on it, it is delicious. Delicious.
In your life, there will be elements of your life that are bitter and unpleasant. And you go, that does not taste good. I do not like that change in my life. I do not like what just happened. I do not like what is happening in the world today. But God takes it all, and He takes even the bad and the bitter—you ever drunk some vanilla by itself? It is not very tasty—and He mixes it all up. All things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.
Now, the most important word in that verse that we just looked at on your outline, Romans 8:28, is the word all. So circle the word all. What does all include? In all things, God works for the good of those who love Him. That means all—it literally means all. It means every circumstance you face, every choice you make, every consequence you feel, and every change you experience, including all of the changes we have just had in the last eighteen months. All work together for the good of those who love God.
You know, some people act as if God was caught off guard by COVID-19. Like God goes, wow, I did not see that coming. I did not imagine that world global pandemic ever happening. And I had no idea what it was going to do to all my churches. Man, am I in a mess? God is not sweating this pandemic. The church has outlasted everything for two thousand years—every dictator, every pandemic, every fire, every flood, every revolution, every critic. It is still here, and none of those things are.
Now, the difference between whether you are going to be bitter at the end of this season we are in of rapid change and relentless change—are you going to be bitter, are you going to be better?—the difference is the letter I. The difference between bitter and better is I. I makes the difference—my attitude.
So, I need to remember that change is not always good, but God always uses it for good if I trust Him.
3. God's Purpose Is to Make Me More Like Jesus
Number three, here is the third thing to remember: God's purpose in every circumstance—every one of them, including the ones we are going through right now—is to make me more like Jesus. God's purpose in every change in my life is to make me more like Jesus.
Now, the promise of Romans 8:28 is a wonderful promise, but it does not really make sense until you read the next verse, Romans 8:29. So let me read you those two verses together from the New Living Translation.
Here is what it says: "We know"—in other words, we are not guessing—"that God causes everything"—even the bad stuff, even the bad changes—"God causes everything to work together for the good" of everybody? No—"for the good of those who love Him and are called to His purpose for them. For God knew in advance who would come to Him." He already knew before you decided to accept Christ that you were going to accept Him. "He knew in advance who would come to Him, and He chose them to"—circle this—"become like His son, so that His son, Jesus, would be the firstborn in His family with many brothers and sisters."
God does not just want you in His family; He wants you to develop the family characteristics of a daughter of God or a son of God, a child of God—like father, like son; like father, like daughter. God says, I want you to grow up. And who is the model for maturity? Not you or me—Jesus Christ.
And God says, my number one goal in your life is to make you like Jesus Christ. His number one goal is not to make you happy. His number one goal is not to make you comfortable. His number one goal is not to make your life pleasant. Those things are the result of becoming like Christ.
This is not heaven. In heaven, there is no sorrow, suffering, sadness, sickness. But on earth, everything is broken. And so what are we doing here? This is a school in character for the sixty or eighty or ninety or at the most one hundred years you get on this planet. You are in school for character.
You are not taking your career to heaven. You are not taking your cash to heaven. You are not taking your reputation to heaven. What are you taking to heaven? Only one thing—your character, what you became. The man you became on this earth—you are taking that to heaven. The woman you became on this earth—you are taking that to heaven.
So His number one goal—God uses everything for our good, and what is that good? He uses it to build my character. He uses it to make me more like Jesus.
So what is Jesus like? The best picture of Jesus in the Bible is Galatians 5:22-23. They are called the fruit of the Spirit—nine character qualities. The fruit of the Spirit are love—Jesus is love—joy—Jesus is total joy—peace—Jesus was always at peace—patience, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, kindness, self-control. These nine qualities are a perfect picture of Jesus.
Now, how does God produce that kind of fruit in you? How does God make you more loving? Are you just walking down the street one day and all of a sudden zap—you are filled with love and I am so loving, I love everybody. I am just the lover of lovers? No, no, no. It does not just zap. There is no pill you can take, no seminar you are going to attend that is going to turn you from a hater into a lover or from a loving person into a really compassionate person.
How does God produce love in your life? How does God produce joy in your life? How does God produce peace and patience in your life? Listen very closely—I have told you this before, but I will tell it to you again—by putting you in the exact opposite situation where you get a chance to learn and practice that character quality.
How does God teach you love? It is real easy to love people like you who are cool. If God is going to teach you real love, He is going to put you around some unlovable people, unlovely people. Now, do not look at them right now. Do not hit them in the elbow with your elbow. Be cool. But God puts people around you who get on your nerves to teach you real love. They are heavenly sandpaper. They are roughing down your rough edges.
Anybody can love the lovely. How do you learn to love the unlovely the way Jesus loves you in spite of all your hang-ups and hurts and stuff?
How about joy? How does God teach you real joy? In the middle of suffering, in the middle of grief. Joy is not happiness. Anybody can be happy when you are out at a bonfire at the beach and the sun is setting. Man, it does not get any better than this. Anybody would be happy fly fishing in the mountains.
If God is going to teach you real joy, it will be in the middle when you are heartbreaking.
How about peace? How does God teach you peace? It is easy to be peaceful when everything is going your way. He will allow chaos in your life, conflict in your life, to teach you inner peace—the peace that passes understanding which says there is no reason I should be peaceful now but I am.
Patience—how does God teach you patience? The department of motor vehicles. Waiting in line, traffic jams, delayed doctor's appointments and on. Anytime you have to wait, God is teaching you the quality of patience to make you more like Jesus.
I remember a number of years ago when I was going through major problems and I said, Lord, I need patience. And instead of it getting better, they got worse. They got worse. And I said, Lord, I need more patience, and my problems got worse. And then, Lord, I need more patience—it got worse. Finally, after six months, I realized I am a lot more patient than when I started out.
It is easy to be patient when everything goes your way.
Have you thought about maybe the last eighteen months God has been trying to teach you love for people who are unlovely? Joy in the middle of crisis? Peace in the middle of chaos and uncertainty and transition when you feel like you are in limbo? Patience with people who will not do what you want them to do? And on and on and on.
This is a school we are in right now, and God is watching. Change is not always good, but God uses it for good, and the purpose is to always make me more like Jesus.
4. God Can Use Even Human Error and Sin
All right. Now here is the fourth thing you need to remember. Write this down: God can use even human error and sin. God can use even human error and sin.
I am talking about when you were the innocent victim of somebody else's bad decision. My family is not what it used to be because my husband broke it up and left me or my wife left me, whatever. God can use even human error and the sins of other people—not even just my own—for the good in my life, in His plan to grow your character and make you like Jesus.
Do you remember the story of Joseph? Remember the story of Joseph, how his brothers were jealous because he was the favorite son. And so his brothers sold Joseph into slavery. And he is taken to Egypt, and for the first forty years of his life, everything goes wrong. He is falsely accused of rape. He is sold into slavery. He is thrown in jail for a crime he did not commit.
And sitting in a foreign jail forty years later, he is going, nothing has gone right in my life so far. First forty years—his whole life is downhill. But God had put Joseph exactly where He wanted him to be.
And a series of God circumstances—Joseph is raised up to become the second most powerful leader in the most powerful nation in the world at that time, which is Egypt in the age of the pyramids. And when Joseph later—and he actually saves two countries from famine—he saves Egypt and he saves Israel from famine because of his wisdom. But it did not look like things were going good in his life for a long, long time.
One day though, he finally has his brothers come to meet him, and he confronts his brothers—the guys who had sold him into slavery in the first forty years of nothing going right in his life. And what was Joseph's attitude? He treats them with grace, not bitterness.
Why? Well, Genesis 50 tells us his perspective that God can use even human error and sin for good. And Joseph says in Genesis 50:20, "You"—talking to his brothers—"you intended to harm me, but God"—that is the most important thing—"but God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." Two entire nations were saved.
So out of the sin of his brothers, two nations got saved from famine and destruction. "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good."
Friends, I will be honest with you—there are people in your life who intend bad. You will face people in your life—people who resent you at work, they are in competition with you, they are critical of you, they do not like you or whatever. They intend to hurt you. They intend it for bad, but God intends it for good.
And so God can even use human error and sin in all the circumstances of life.
You know, here at Saddleback, we all know the story of how God brought good even out of Danny Duchene's life in prison. How he went to prison for a double murder and was spending all his years in prison—was in there nearly thirty years. But he came to know the Lord and he lived for God, and I called up the governor and asked for commutation. I said I need him on our staff to run our prisons ministry. And he was not—today Danny is a pastor at Saddleback and ministers to prisoners all over America. That is grace. That is grace.
And that is the kind of church we are. It does not matter what your background is. I do not care what you have done, how badly you have done it, or who you did it with, or how long you did it. What matters is the direction of your feet today. That is all that matters, all right?
5. Every Change Is a Test of My Faith
Now, here is the fifth truth that you need to remember when we are going through changes we do not like. It is unavoidable, but God uses it for good, and He wants to make me like Christ. And even He can use the bad things that other people do in my life that spread the problems to me that I did not ask for.
Number five: every change is always a test of my faith. Write that down. Every change in your life is always a test of your faith.
1 Peter 1:7 says this, "The purpose of these troubles"—you know, the ones you are in right now, the ones we have been facing for eighteen months—"the purpose of these troubles is to test your faith"—circle that—"as fire tests how genuine gold is. Your faith is more precious than gold, and by passing the test, it gives praise and glory and honor to God."
Now, I have told you before that having faith during a time of change—major change like we are going through these days, these ugly days that we are going through—when it is rapid and it is relentless, having faith during a time of change is like a trapeze act and a trapeze artist.
You have all seen it in the circus and stuff. Trapeze artist swings out on one bar. The other one comes from the other direction, and at one point they let go this bar and then grab onto that one and swing across to the other side. At some point in that trapeze artist, you have to let go of this one in order to jump over and grab the other one. At that point you are hanging suspended in space with nothing holding you up. That is the moment of faith in your life.
But when you grab onto that, it will take you to the other side. If you do not take that risk, if you do not step out in faith, you will get out there and you go, I am afraid to do that—then you swing back here and you swing back here, swing back here, swing back here. And pretty soon you are dead center, and there is only one way out—straight down.
You have got to let it go. You have got to stop wishing for the good old days. They are not coming back. Besides that, the good old days were not as good as you think they were. There were problems then too, and pressures and struggles then too.
Five Actions to Trust God Amid Change
Now, before we look at what God says to do—and we are going to look at that now in a time of change—I want you to consider how these five truths apply to your life, okay? So let us look at them again.
Number one: change is unavoidable. Are you going to just stop complaining and griping and going, I wish it were like eighteen months ago or whenever your golden days were? They are not coming back. It is unavoidable, and you are just going to make yourself miserable looking in the past. It is like looking in the past like trying to drive looking in the rear-view mirror—you are going to crash.
But you need to remember—you say, God, I believe you are going to use all of this, even the stuff I do not like, the changes I do not like—you are going to use it for good in my life. Okay.
And I know that you want to work on my character. You are more interested in my character than my comfort. So make me like Christ. Help me be more patient, help me be more loving, help me be more at peace, help me be more faithful, help me to have more self-control—all those nine qualities.
And then the people who have hurt you or how society has hurt you over the past—you just have got to go, okay, they intended it for bad, but God can use it for good in my life.
And then to realize that everything in my life that happens—every change—is a test of faith.
Write these down. Number one: how do I trust in God when I am stressed by changes I do not like? Number one: invest more time alone with God. Invest more time—you personally—alone with God.
1. Invest More Time Alone with God
Now listen: the greater the changes that are happening in your life, the more you need time alone with God. You need to make a specific time each day that you sit down—we call this a quiet time—and you sit down and you are just quiet and you do not turn on the TV or the radio, and you read a little bit of the Bible and you talk to God in prayer and you sit there and you be quiet and go, God, is there anything you want to say to me? It is just a timeout.
Your quiet time during times of rapid change is the greatest stabilizer in your life. It will give you stability. It is also the greatest re-energizer in your life when you are worn out. It will give you more energy.
Now, have you noticed over the last eighteen months that you do not have as much energy as you did before the pandemic started? You do not. Nobody here has the same level of energy as you had two years ago. Why? Because that is what rapid and chronic stress and change and trauma does to you—it saps your energy. It drains your strength.
So if you get up in the morning and you go, I had a good night sleep, and two hours into the day you are going, man, I am worn out—welcome to the club. Welcome to the human race. That is normal. It is natural when you have been under eighteen months of chronic change. It is prolonged stress.
And so fatigue—the fatigue that you are feeling these days—it is natural. It is normal under prolonged stress, and you are just trying to get by and in many ways you are just treading water. And this has nothing to do with your age because whether you are old or you are young, both young and old are feeling this way—drained and destabilized and out of energy.
What is the antidote? Isaiah 40 in the Bible—it is there on your outline, verses 28 and following—"Do not you know, do not you know that the Lord is the everlasting God and He created everything on this earth?" And in the universe too—that would have taken a lot of energy. But it says this, "And He never grows tired or weary." That is why when you spend time with the God who never gets tired or weary, you get re-energized and you get re-stabilized.
"He never grows tired or weary"—you are tired and weary—"instead He gives strength to those who are weary"—that is you—"and worn out"—that is you. "And He gives power to the weak"—that is you. "Even young people become exhausted and want to give up. But those who trust and wait on the Lord will find new strength, flying high like eagles. They will run and not grow weary, and they will keep going and they will not faint."
Now, here is the point—I will just say real quick, we will move on—when you are stressed by major change, do not seek a quick fix in a drink or a drug or TV or sex or you name it—whatever you do. Do not look for an escape. Do not look for a shortcut, and certainly do not try to fight a change that you cannot possibly control.
Instead, seek the Lord and do it on a daily basis. Invest more time—the more change you have in your life, the more you need quiet time every day alone with God. If that is all you get from this weekend, it will help.
2. Ask God to Help Me See His Perspective
Now, when you are having that quiet time with the Lord, you do the second thing. Number two: ask God to help me see His perspective. Write that down: ask God to help me see His perspective.
If you can begin to see all the changes going on in society, in the world, in your life, in your career, in your family—whatever—if you can see all those changes from God's point of view, you are going to feel a whole lot better and you are going to be a whole lot less stressed.
Now, this is so important—everybody look up here for a second. What I am talking about is the difference between seeing everything that is going on in the world—all the current events—and seeing how God is working behind the scenes using it the way He wants to. Big difference between these two—seeing what is happening and seeing why it is happening.
This is the difference between having knowledge and having perspective. It is the difference between having information about everything that has happened in the world and having wisdom.
You do not need any more information. Today we are overwhelmed with information. We have an information glut. There are unlimited channels—literally millions of places now you can get information on what is happening in the world. You can find out what is going on. You do not need more information. What you need is more understanding. You need more discernment. You need more perspective. You need more wisdom.
Anybody can be informed today. I want you—people of Saddleback Church—I want you to be better than people out there. How? Everybody is informed, but I want you to be wise. And only wise people seek God's perspective on the events that are happening in the world.
Now, in the Bible, this is the difference between Moses and the children of Israel. Moses—probably one of the greatest leaders who ever lived in history. And during the Exodus, he led about a million people out of four hundred years of slavery in Egypt across the desert to the new Promised Land which became Israel.
And during the Exodus, everybody could see what was going on. They could see the current events. They could see how God was acting. They could see like those ten plagues in Egypt when the river turns red like blood, and they can see the parting of the Red Sea, and they can see when they are in the middle of the desert and they need water and Moses strikes a rock and a waterfall comes out and saves everybody. And they saw all of what was happening. They could see what is going on.
Anybody can see what is going on in the world right now. But only Moses understood God's reasons—God's perspective. Only Moses had understanding and discernment. Only Moses knew the ways of God.
Look at this next verse. Psalm 103:7 says this, "God let the people of Israel see His mighty actions"—that is all the current events—"but He revealed His ways to Moses."
Now friends, as your pastor who loves you, I want you more than anything else—I want you to understand the ways of God. You can get current events and current information from any media source, but that does not make you better than anybody else—just seeing what is going on in the world.
We have tons of information and tons of news, and yet we are still so unwise. And my deepest desire for you, my friends, is that you will handle this COVID pandemic not just with knowledge but with wisdom and with God's perspective and with true understanding so that you will be a woman of wisdom or you will be a man of wisdom. You will be a wise man or a wise woman.
That is really what I want for you. It sets you above others who just know what is going on but you know why it is going on.
Where does that wisdom come from? Well, you do not get it from the news. You do not get it from talk radio—you will get no wisdom from talk radio—or the social media or any of that. None. You get knowledge, but you do not get wisdom and discernment. You do not get understanding and perspective.
Where do you get that? Two sources. Write these down. Number one—first word—is just two words: ask God. Write that down: ask God. You ask God for wisdom.
When was the last time you said, God, make me a wise woman? Make me a wise man? You have not because you ask not.
The Bible says in James 1:5, "If you need wisdom, just ask God for it. God is generous and He will gladly tell you what you need." You have not because you ask not.
So you say, God, make me wise. And then the second thing—this is what you do—is you learn from this book, from God's Word. You learn from God's Word and from those who teach it.
Many of you maybe have never seen this verse in the Bible. It is from the book of 2 Peter 1:19. It says this—here on the screen—"We have greater confidence in the message of the prophets." Now hang on there—what is the message of the prophets? It is the Bible. It is this book.
God inspired holy men over a period of 2500 years to write down what God wanted written down. These are called prophets, and we got this book called the Bible—the Old and the New Testament in this book. So when it talks about the message of prophets, it is just talking about the Bible.
"We have confidence in the message of the Bible. Pay close attention"—circle that—"pay close attention to what they wrote, for their words are like a light shining in a dark place."
Culture is getting darker and darker. We do not know how dark it is going to get. You know, I started to call this message "How to Trust God When Life Sucks," but I just figured that might not be clear enough.
And the world is getting darker in many ways. Things are getting worse in many ways. How in the world do you cope with that kind of situation? Pay close attention to what they wrote for their words are like light in a dark place. Pay close attention.
So let me just ask you as your friend—friend to friend—what are you paying the most attention to these days? What are you paying the most attention to these days? The media? Social media? Talk radio? Or God's Word?
This will always tell you the truth. You cannot rely on anything else.
3. Ask What Do You Want Me to Learn?
And here is the third thing you do. Number three: you invest time alone with God every day. You ask God, help me see life from your perspective. Number three: instead of asking why is this happening, ask what do you want me to learn? Very important question.
We do not know how long the pandemic is going to last. It keeps flaring back up again with different variants. Do not worry about the circumstances. Worry about your character. Focus on your character, not the changes in your circumstance that you cannot change.
Instead of asking why is this happening, ask God, what do you want me to learn? Look at this verse up here on the screen. In the book of Romans 5:3-4, it says this, "We can rejoice even in our troubles and struggles"—troubles and struggles, troubles and struggles—that sound familiar? Yeah, the last eighteen months have been troubles and struggles, troubles and struggles.
"We can rejoice even in our troubles and struggles because we know they help us learn endurance. They teach us endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character creates hope."
Now, leave that verse on the screen for just a minute because I want you to notice two things about this verse.
First, it says life is a struggle. Everybody agree with that one? Life is tough. Life is not easy. Life is a struggle. That is one of the first things you learn. We should not expect any less. This is not heaven. In heaven there is no sorrow, sadness, sickness, suffering. On earth, everything is broken. Life is a struggle, and you are in a school of character, and God is testing you and strengthening your character, and there is stuff He wants you to learn.
And you need to just start asking, what do you want me to learn through this? Through this change in my life? I do not like this change—what do you want me to learn from it?
Life is a struggle. By the way, have you ever wondered why the struggle in life is so relentless? Ever once thought about that? Why is life so hard? Why is it such a struggle?
Here is the reason: because God wants to change us and we do not want to change. That is the struggle. God wants to change us, and we do not want to change. And so it gets a whole lot harder than it should be.
The second thing on that verse I want you to notice: "We can rejoice even in our troubles, know that it creates endurance, endurance creates character and character creates hope."
If you develop character—you become a man of character, you become a woman of character—you are going to have more hope. You are going to be more hopeful when you look at society, when you look at the future—not optimism, that is different, that is a whole other sermon—but you will be more hopeful.
If you develop character, you are going to be full of hope. If you just complain about how life is tough, you are going to be full of doubt and unhappiness.
Wise, mature people are full of hope. Wise, mature people are full of hope. Unwise, immature people are scared and bitter. And they are all around you, and they are angry at everybody else in the world too.
So you have got to decide: do I want to be wise and mature and have hope, or do I want to be unwise and immature and be angry and bitter and doubtful?
You guys, I love you. And it is because I love you I want all of us to eventually get to Paul—St. Paul's level of spiritual maturity. I am not there yet. You are not there yet.
What is Paul's level of spiritual maturity? The next verse, Philippians 4:12-13, "I have learned"—circle the word learned because this is something you learn. Remember we are talking about ask God what do you want me to learn, not why is all this stuff happening?
"I have learned the secret so that anywhere, at any time, I am content—anywhere, anytime I am content—whether I am full or hungry or whether I have too much or too little. I have the strength to face all conditions by the power of Christ that Christ gives me."
I have learned this. This is not natural. You are not naturally content. I am not naturally a contented person. How do you learn contentment when everything—change is relentless and rapid? You have got to learn it. You have got to learn it and say, God, help me to learn what you want me to learn.
Let me ask you an honest question: what are you learning about yourself these days? I am not talking about the world—what are you learning about the world? In the last eighteen months, what have you learned about you? About you?
What do you know about your strengths that you did not know? What do you know about your weaknesses that you did not know? What have you learned about you?
I want you to write this sentence down, everybody—please write this down: every situation is an education. Every situation is an education.
Everything that happens to you in life—every change—you will either get better or bitter. You are going to grow or you are not going to grow. Every situation is an education. There is nothing that happens in your life that you cannot learn from—does not matter if it is a big thing, big change, or little thing, little change. Every situation is an education.
4. Focus on What Never Changes
All right, number four—fourth thing you need to do to trust God when everything is just blown out of the saddle: focus on what never changes. This is the fourth practical suggestion from God's Word: focus on what never changes.
Because there are many things in life that are never, never, never, never going to change. And when you are going through a period of great change, you want to let those unchangeable things be your anchor.
What is anchoring you right now? For the last eighteen months, what has been your anchor? Somebody goes, I do not have an anchor. And that is why you are drifting around in the storm.
What anchors you are the things that never change in life—the unchangeables.
Now, I can give you a whole list of stuff that is never going to change, but let me just give you three: God's love for you is never going to change. God's truth—the truth of God's Word—is never going to change. If He says it is right, it will always be right. If He says it is wrong, it will always be wrong. You do not take a vote on it. And God's plan and purpose for your life will never change. Nothing can change that—no other people can change it, the devil cannot change it, society cannot change God's plan and purpose for your life.
So you anchor your life in the things that are never going to change.
Look at these three verses. Jeremiah 31:3, "I have loved you with an everlasting love." Nothing is ever going to change that. God will never, never, never stop loving you. You cannot make God stop loving you. You can try, but you will fail because His love is not based on what you do—it is based on who He is.
Isaiah 40:8, "The Word of God shall stand forever." Stop paying attention to stuff that changes. Opinions change. The truth never changes. Pay more attention to this.
Psalm 33:11, "His plans endure forever, and His purposes last eternally."
Now, friends, I want to tell you something as somebody who loves you—and you can bank on this—no matter what is going on in the world and society and culture everywhere today, you can bank on this: God will have the last word and it will be good. God will have the last word and it will be good.
So what are you scared of? What has got you so uptight? Why are you so frightened? This is a chapter, but it is not the whole story. We are going through a chapter right now that does suck—it is not good. Nobody likes what we are going through right now.
Our church—we have got these giant plans that are on hold right now. I have not even told you the cool things we are getting ready to do. But they are just on hold because we are in limbo right now. But God will have the last word and it will be good.
5. Keep Telling God: I Trust You No Matter What
Number five—here is the fifth thing you do when change is relentless and rapid: keep telling God—and I am saying this—say it verbally to God every day—I trust you no matter what. Keep telling God, I trust you no matter what.
If you do this, you are going to be a lot more at peace regardless of how long this pandemic lasts.
What I want—what I want our church family to be, as I said—is better than others in the world. I want you to be a righteous person.
What is a righteous person? Look at this verse, Psalm 112:7, "The righteous man or woman does not fear bad news nor live in dread of what might happen. For he or she is settled in his mind that God will take care of him."
That is a righteous person: God, I trust you no matter what happens. I will trust you no matter what.
I cannot tell you the number of times—thousands of times in my life—I have had to say that when facing a problem, a difficulty, or change I did not like: I trust you no matter what happens.
I remember when Kay was going through cancer treatments and I thought I was losing her and I thought I am going to lose the love of my life. And I had to say over and over, Father, I trust you no matter what happens, and I will serve you no matter what happens—even if I lose my wife.
And when our youngest son Matthew lost his twenty-seven-year battle with mental illness and depression and took his life—which was the worst day of my life—and we are standing on the driveway of his home waiting for the police to come break the door down and carry my son out in a body bag—the worst day of my life—I had to say, I will trust you no matter what.
It does not mean I understand it. It just means I will trust you no matter what.
Any time things seem to be falling apart in your life, this is the thing you need to say: I will trust you no matter what.
Now, I do not know what is going on in your life personally. I know what is happening in society. I know all the stress that we are all feeling from all the massive changes around us in society. But right now you may feel under attack from every angle.
And so I end with Psalm 27:3 that says this, "Even if a whole army surrounds me, I will not be afraid. And even if enemies attack me on all sides, I will still trust God."
That is what you need to do.
Let us bow our heads for prayer.
I want to pray a prayer right now, and I invite you to pray this prayer in your heart. You are not to say it aloud. God brought you here today—one thousand years before you were born, He knew you would be here today at the end of August so He could say this to you. So you talk back to Him now.
Say this—say, "Dear God"—just say that in your mind:
Dear God, I realize that change is unavoidable. And there is no growth without change, and it can be painful. And Lord, I realize that you can use even bad things in my life for good. Change is not always good, but you can use it for good. And I realize today that you want me to grow in character. You want to make me more like Jesus—more loving, more joyful, more patient, more at peace, more in self-control. And God, I want to thank you that you can use even human error and sin for good in my life, and what other people have done against me and I was innocent and they hurt me. They intended to harm me, but you intended it for good. You have a bigger plan and purpose for my life than the pain I have gone through. Help me to remember that every change is always a test of faith.
And, Lord, I want to take these simple steps to be more stable and to be re-energized. Help me to invest more time alone with you. I want to commit to spending time alone with you every day—read a little bit of your Word, talk to you in prayer, listen, be quiet, say what do you want me to do. Help me to see your perspective. I do not want to just know current events; I want to know the ways of God. So I am asking for wisdom. You said just ask for it—I am asking. Make me a wise person. And help me to remember that instead of going why is all this stuff happening, to instead ask what do you want me to learn? I want to learn like Paul to be content in every situation. Help me to focus on what never changes.
Thank you that you will never stop loving me. Thank you that your word will always tell me the truth about life and myself. Thank you that your plans and purpose for my life cannot be changed by anybody else. And Lord, from here on out and no matter how long this pandemic lasts, I am going to keep saying to you, I trust you no matter what. And even if I feel like I am being attacked from every side, I will still trust God.
If you have never initially said to Jesus Christ, I trust you—say that: Jesus Christ, come into my life. I want to trust you. I just do not want to know about you; I want to have a relationship with you. So I humbly ask you to be the manager of my life. In your name I pray. Amen.
And, Lord, I want to take these simple steps to be more stable and to be re-energized. Help me to invest more time alone with you. I want to commit to spending time alone with you every day—read a little bit of your Word, talk to you in prayer, listen, be quiet, say what do you want me to do. Help me to see your perspective. I do not want to just know current events; I want to know the ways of God. So I am asking for wisdom. You said just ask for it—I am asking. Make me a wise person. And help me to remember that instead of going why is all this stuff happening, to instead ask what do you want me to learn? I want to learn like Paul to be content in every situation. Help me to focus on what never changes.
Thank you that you will never stop loving me. Thank you that your word will always tell me the truth about life and myself. Thank you that your plans and purpose for my life cannot be changed by anybody else. And Lord, from here on out and no matter how long this pandemic lasts, I am going to keep saying to you, I trust you no matter what. And even if I feel like I am being attacked from every side, I will still trust God.
If you have never initially said to Jesus Christ, I trust you—say that: Jesus Christ, come into my life. I want to trust you. I just do not want to know about you; I want to have a relationship with you. So I humbly ask you to be the manager of my life. In your name I pray. Amen.