Strategies for Stressful Times: Week 3

Have you ever noticed how much we love change? Let

me finish my sentence. When we choose it. We like

a new phone when we picked it out. We we

like a new restaurant if they have something that we

absolutely love. A few years back, I told you guys

that I had fallen in love with a new restaurant

an area called Torchies Tacos, and I'm over that now.

My new favorite restaurant I've discovered the last six months

is Juicy Seafood. I got the same reaction every service, like,

oh gosh, what's wrong with you?

And and yes it has a horrible name, but their

shrimp is amazing, and and and and the funny thing

is our Arabic pastor Isaac, our Latino pastor Jose, and

our pastor Michael Thinkton and I have decided that's the

place we're going to meet every.

Other week, and so we are. You can imagine us

sitting there meeting with our ministry reports with lobster BIPs on,

and that's exactly what's going on. And we love it,

and you know, it's fun. You know, change is good

when we choose it. We like a new job if

we make more money and have less meetings, you know,

but if somebody were to move your apps around on

your phone without your permission, some of you would act

like civilization just fell apart. You know, change is exciting

again when we choose it, but it can be exhausting

when change chooses us again. There's some changes that had

a wonderful newborn baby, a prayer answered, a new opportunity

comes open. But other changes come without asking permission. The

doctor calls, a relationship changes, a child moves away, the

company restructure, the economy shifts, and it feels like once

we finally learn how to handle life our way, all

of a sudden there's a change and we don't like it.

Just think about all the changes in our region that

came last weekend, you know, think about all the way

up from Newcastle to you know, Munsey, Masson County, Noblesville, Fishers, Carmel,

even right around here in the church in Indianapolis. Lots

of changes. A lot of people experience floods, some people

just can't imagine lost their homes. And there's a lot

of changes, and for a lot of us, it's just

it's small changes, but we don't love them. For instance,

a lot of us have to figure out some new

routes right, because the old route now has a new

sign road closed. And you know, my family always took

a lot of times we would take River Road, that's

kind of our back way into the church, this area

from Fishers. That road no longer exists, those of you

who love Hazeldale between ninety six one hundred and six,

that's going to be a couple of years, okay before

you get to drive down that road again. And we

don't like that little sign it says road closed. And

we especially don't like it when you know, we are

putting the directions in or excuse me, put the destination

in on our phone, and all of a sudden we

get that little phrase that comes up, re routing. We

don't like that. And it seems like for a lot

of us, re routing is almost a norm in our life.

Change is constantly happening and a lot of times again,

we like it when we choose it, but when change

chooses us, we don't like it so much. Then we

don't like it. When you know, if we don't choose

for our job to change, our health changes, our relationship changes,

our family changes, are are no longer able to travel

down the road that we expected to. But here's what

I want you to hear today. You don't have to

understand every change to trust the God who does not change.

You do not have to understand every change in your

life as long as you trust the God who does

not change. So here's what we're gonna do today. We're

gonna study Psalm forty six, famous famous psalm. And here's

what I want you to know a little bit about

the background. Many scholars connect Psalm forty six with a

siege around Jerusalem. So if you could just imagine the siege,

you got the Assyrian army surrounding you. Look outside and

you can see their campfires, you can see their tents,

you can hear them shouting out warnings. Oh, by the way,

before they got around Jerusalem, they came through other cities

and destroyed them routher than tore down their walls. Matter

of fact, the commander of their army, even not the

King of Israel, saying, why are you hoping in a

god that can not change any of this? Guys, there's

nothing you could do. We're gonna take over your city

and we're gonna take you back to Assyria. Nothing you

could do. And it's in that moment that we see

King Hezekiah. He goes into the temple of the Lord.

He lays out the letter from the king of Assyria,

and he says, God, you know we can't destroy this army. God,

we will only survive if you intervene. And you know

what his prayer. God answered through the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah

came to him and said, don't worry. The Lord is

with you. Matter of fact, there is not even gonna

be an arrow. And then we see this happened in

Second King's nineteen It says that night the angel of

the Lord went out and put to death a hundred

and eighty five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the

people got up the next morning, there were all the

dead bodies. So Sanakreb, king of Assyria, broke camp and withdrew.

He returned to Nineveh and stayed there. Now Jerusalem didn't

win because they had a strong army. God had to intervene.

God removed the threat that they were powerless to overcome.

Now that you understand the situation in which Psalm forty

six was written, you understand language like the earth gives way,

the mountains move, the oceans crash, nation's rage, clean, kingdom's collapse.

This is not a psalm that was written on the

front lawn on a quiet, beautiful afternoon. This a song

that was written in chaos. And this is what the

message of Psalm forty six just still hold true today,

tells us, when everything around me changes, I can trust

in the God who never does so. By the way,

Psalm forty six gives us three ways and that's what

we're gonna look at today, Three ways to respond to

change when life throws us a curve. All right, here

we go the very first reaction to change. It says,

when the ground beneath you moves, run to God. When

the ground beneath you moves, run to God. Let's look

at this passage together. It says, God is our refuge

and strength and ever present help in trouble. Therefore we

will not What does it say here fear though the

earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart

of the sea, though the waters roar and the mountains

quake with their surging. Now notice something, There's a lot

of information here. What does the psalm start with? Does

it start with all the situations surrounded them? No? No, no, no, no,

pay attention here. The psalm starts with who God. The

psalm starts with God. See whatever fills your mind, that's

going to shape your response. If all you can see

around you is all the changes and all the things

that are happening. If all you can focus on is

the bad things, and guess what, well, fear is going

to increase. But when you get your eyes on God

and what he can do and what He has done

in your past, your faith increases instead of your fear increases.

The writer gives us three very very vivid descriptions of God.

The first one is that God is our refuge. Refuge

is a place that you run to when you're in danger,

and a danger is real. Now, by the way, our

faith does not pretend that we're not in a storm. No no, no, no, no,

no no no. Our faith just knows where to go

to when we're in the midst of a storm. You know,

after I came to Christ, my sinful nature was still

just off the charts, and I and when I came

to Christ, none of my friends came to Christ. So

I felt like this big loaner and I struggled. And

let me tell you, when I especially struggled. I struggled

after I got off work three or four nights a week,

because that's where I would, you know, used to go

out with my friends. We usually went to a lot

of pool halls. We had a lot of fun, a

lot of shenanigans, not good stuff. Or I would go

out with my girlfriend. And it was in these moments

that after I came to Christ and I would get

off work, I would have deep urges and deep struggles

to want to go back to that old life. Well,

Brother Bob and Missmel. Brother Bob's the guy who led

me to Christ and Brother Bob my struggles, and they

were so kind to me, and Brother Bob knew that

I really struggled, and they said this to me. They said,

you know what, when you get off work any night

of the week, when you drive by our house, as

they lived right down the street from me, they said,

whenever you see our curtains open and our lights on

in a living room, you're welcome. You know what, Three

or four nights a week, I was at their house

and we would just maybe hang out and we would

cook whatever they had and we'd eat dinner together, or

we would watch a movie or we play a lot

of yuker or a rook or whatever. Here's what I noticed.

And all those months until some of my friends came

to Christ and I had a new friend group to

hang out with, and all of those months, guess what,

I never drove by their house once where their lights

were out and their curtains were closed. They became a

refuge for me. And I think that's one of the

reasons why my wife and I we've been in ministry

twenty six years or excuse me, Yeah, we've been a

ministry and we've been married for twenty six years. Twelve

of those years we've had a young minister live with

us that we can pour into that we could grow

up in disciple. You see. Sometimes, yes, we run to

God because He is our refuge, but often God is

our refuge through other people, and if we're doing well,

we get to be the refuge for others who are struggling.

Number two, it says that God is our strength. Now

this is not merely just talking about God is just

a place for us a hid No, He has the

strength to keep us standing. Now let me tell you

guys something, and some of you might not like what

I'm ab ready to tell you sometimes God will give

you more than you can handle. And you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no no. I've always heard that God will not give

you more than you can handle. You haven't you had

somebody say that to you before? Where is that biblically?

I've been in a lot of situations where people's lives

been thrown upside down and they'll say, but thank God,

God will not give me more than I can handle. Now,

I don't ever correct them in the midst of that.

It's not the moment to correct theology. But what they're

referring to is that passage that says that God will

not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can handle.

He will provide a way out. But let me tell

you something, Church, God will allow you absolutely to take

on more than you can handle. Sometimes life is more

than we can handle. Here's the thing. It's in those

moments where life is just too much for us that

God often becomes more than a backup plan in our life.

It's actually God uses those moments that overwhelm us and

we can't handle to drive us to a deeper dependance

upon him. See, you don't have to manufacture strength that

you do not possess. No, no, you draw strength from

God who is already present and able to give you

his strength. Thirdly, what it tells us about God is

God is an ever present help. Now. This phrase means

that God has proven he's available, He's near. Now. Now

what do they mean by this that he's ever present help.

They're looking back in their history. And by the way,

the Israelites did a phenomenal job of when they were overwhelmed,

to look back at history and say God has been faithful.

Think about King David when he went up before Goliath.

He had never seen somebody like Goliath. He had never fought.

He didn't know, you know, what he could do versus

what Goliah could do. But in that moment he remembered

a couple things about God. He remembered that God rescued

him from a lion. God rescued him from a bear.

And so David, in this moment where he's literally facing

an actual giant, it says this, David shouts, the Lord

who rescued me from the pauw of the lion, and

the paul the bear will rescue me from the hands

of this philistine again. David had never faced a life before,

but he had experienced God's faithfulness. Yesterday's line, Yesterday's bear,

gave him faith for today's giant. See remember him. By

the way, as not living in the past, it allows

yesterday's faithfulness to give you courage today. Now, when we

get to this next spot here, I want you to

pay attention because things change a little bit in a text,

and we see these words in the passage. Therefore it says,

therefore God, God is our refuge and strengths. Therefore we

will not what we He will not fear. And by

the way, that's courage that's not rooted in your circumstances.

So where do you get courage from. If you can't

have courage in yourself or your circumstances, you gotta have

courage in God's character, trusting in who he is. See,

they're not saying that we don't have fear because nothing

bad is gonna happen to it. Remember they're surrounded by

an army. They're saying, even if the unthinkable happens, God

will still be our God. You know the former reformer

Martin Luther. He's the one who led the Protestant Reformation

he the reason you're in this church today has a

lot to do with Martin Luther. By the way, Martin

Luther drawl on Psalm forty six at a certain point

in his life. Let me tell you a little bit

about that. Between fifteen twenty seven and fifteen twenty nine.

This is when we belie that Martin really drew on

Psalm forty six. And let me tell you what's going

on during those years. During those years, there's a plague

where he lived in Vintenburgh, and a lot of people

fled the city, but he and his wife decide to

stay behind and help the people. Also, he experienced some

physical illness, deep discouragement and depression because he was persecuted

heavily by the Catholic Church and their intense opposition to

the Protestant Reformation. And then in the midst of all this,

his infant daughter Elizabeth died. So he's got all this

stuff going on in his personal life and beyond his

own personal suffering. Europe it is shaking. The Ottoman army

has just came through en routed Hungary and now they

are on the doorsteps of Vienna. They've laid Thiese to

it and now it looks like all of Central Europe

after you know, centuries a stability, looks like it's gonna fall.

So on one hand, he got political and religious powers

because of the Protestant Reformation, overwhelming Martin Luther. On the

other hand, there's an actual army that might make Central

Europe fall, and life will never be like it was.

And it's in the midst of this trial that Martin

Luther pens these words, A mighty fortress is our God,

a bullwark, never failing. Now. He didn't write this, by

the way, because he felt safe. No, no, he wrote

this because he discovered where to run to when life

was not safe. He took the promise of Psalm forty

six that God is my refuge and in my strength,

and he put it into ordinary wars that all of

us can remember for centuries. A mighty fortress is our God,

a bullwork, never failing. No. Notice what Luther did not say.

He didn't say that his own life was a four.

He didn't say that the government was a fortress. He

didn't say his job, or health or his savings was

a fortress. No, no, no, God is our fortress. Now,

when life overwhelmed you, we run somewhere. The question is

where do you run. There's a few different places we

typically run to. One is a lot of us run

to distraction. You're stressed out, you're overwhelmed, So what do

we do? We go home and we doom scroll just

on our phone, zoning out. Are we being a series

on television? Are we shop like crazy? Or are a

lot of us just work more? We get busy so

that we're distracted. Some of us run back to our addictions.

This is so we can number our pain or forget

our pain for that day. Some of us run to control,

you know, and we we only try to manage the situation,

but we try to manage the people in our life,

trying to take back control. Some of us run to nostalgia,

I'll tell you, because we find a lot of comfort

and the things that were set yesterday and lavas resent

the fact that today is not yesterday. For me, I

didn't realize this for years, But when I'm overwhelmed, when

I'm stressed, when a lot of change is happening, that's

what I run to. I can run to nostalgia like

the best of them. Let me tell you something, Whenever

I'm stressed, here's one way you can tell if I'm

stressed out. I will start watching shows that I've watched

years ago. I'll start streaming Seinfeld, I'll start streaming Frasier.

Why because I already know what's going to happen. I

know the shenanigans that Kramer's gonna get into. I know

the situations that Freder's gonna get it too. I know

the jokes that are coming out. But there's nothing there

that's gonna surprise me. So I find comfort in those

things of old. I didn't even realize it, but during

the pandemic and when my daughter was struggled through deep

depression and I felt very overwhelmed, I ran to nostalgia.

I rebought a lot of my old childhood toys. I

got into vintage baseball cards. I even got into antiquin

Did you hear that? I would go antinking all the time.

And I didn't realize this, But there's something inside of me,

because everything was so stressful and so many things were changing,

that I was looking for stability in things of the past. See,

if we don't pay attention, and if we're not cognizant,

then we will run too things. But so I'm forty

six reminds us run to the Lord because he is

the one who is stable. He is the one who

is unchanging in the midst of everything. And this is

why time alone with God is so important in our life. Okay, see,

when life gets louder, we often let prayer get quieter. No, no, no, no no.

When life gets overwhelming, we got to get a loan

of God. We're going to open up that Bible, put

in our lab and speak to him. Listen to him.

Augustine prayed this. He says, you have made us for yourself,

Oh Lord. Our heart is restless until it rest in you.

So what do we do when the everything changes around us?

We run to God. The second thing that so on

forty six cells us do when life is in upheaval. Well,

it says, when life becomes overwhelming, be assured God is

with you. Be assured that God is with you. And

this is where your faith kicks into action. Let's look

at this, it says, the river. There's a river whose

streams make glad, the city of God, the holy place

where the most high dwells. God is within her. She

will not fall. God will help her. At break of

day nations are an uproar kingdom's fall. He lifts his

voice to earth melts and then he says this line

in the Lord Almighty is with us. The God of

Jacob is our fortress. Now within the psalm, the scene changes,

But guess what doesn't change their situation. They're still an

army outside. But yes, they're saying, look what our God

can do, and they're praising God. And remember again, they

can see the tents, they can see the smoke from

the fires, and humanly speaking, they could not win. Yet

they found peace even though the army had not disappeared.

Why well, it says here, is because they remembered who

they served. They serve the Almighty God, the God of Jacob.

Now it says in a text, the God of Jacob

is our fortress. That really bothered me a lot when

I was studying, because I'm like, of all the patriarchs,

of all the great people of faith before this moment,

why did they pick Jacob. I'm not a big Jacob fan,

by the way, you might have been able to tell

that over the years. I'm just I think he treated

women horribly. He was a liar, he was a deceiver,

He lied to his dad, he stole his brother's birthright,

he stole from his uncle Laban. This is not a

good guy. By the way, He's not a good guy.

I remember early on in my ministry here I was

talking about something that Jacob did, and I talked about

Jacob and a negative light, and there was a guest

here and they sent me an email about how disappointed

I was that I could talk about one of the patriarchs,

Jacob like that, which, by the way, made me like

Jacob less after that email. But Jacob's a good guy,

and it says, you know, we trusted a little mind,

you know, the god of Jacob. And I'm like, why

it really bothered me this week, Like why pick Jacob?

And then I realize there is no one who went

through more change than Jacob. Jacob ran from his brother

and more. Jacob wrestled with God. God gave him a

lamp and in his later life, even though his whole

life he was running from situation a situation. In his

late life, his son Joseph was taken from him. At

the end of his life because of a family, he

had to leave his homeland and move to Egypt. And

here we see this passage And for those of you,

you know, a lot of you need to hear this today.

You need to know that your God loves you and

he's here for you. And Jacob in the midst of

his disobedience, and the Jacob, in the midst of all

these things, God says this. One night, when Jacob is

lying outside with a stone beneath his head for a pillow,

God says this to him. He says, Jacob, I am

with you and will watch over you wherever you go.

I will bring you back to this land. I will

not leave you until I have done what I have

promised to you. And here's the point. Why did they

pick Jacob. They picked Jacob because Jacob was not faithful

to God. But God was faithful to Jacob. God was

with him when he was running, when he was afraid,

when he was wrestling, when he was limping, when his

life was falling apart, when everything around him was amiss.

God was faithful to the guy who was not faithful

to him. And they said, may our God, that's the

character for God. Even when we mess up, even when

we're imperfect, even when we blow it. Our God is

faithful because he is a good God. He is a

loving God. He is a merciful God. He is a

graceful God, oh man. Our hope is not and a

God who responds to us based on our goodness. Oh Lord,

somebody needs to hear this again today. God is faithful

when your God is with you. And for some reason,

I think a lot of Christians have this in the

back of their mind. When you're desperate, when you're in

trouble in life is overwhelming. For some reason, we kind

of have this belief that God's up there in heaven

and He's weighed out our sins against our good works.

And if our good works outweigh our sins, then God

might come through for us. But if our sins are

more than our good works, and then why would God

listen to me? No no, no, no, no no no no. If

you belong to God and you are his child, God's

goodness to you is based on his character, not your

goodness to him. That's hard for us to understand, you

know why, because we don't naturally understand grace. Oh man.

It's not based on you. It's based on him and

his character. Lastly, today, when control slips, release it to God.

Release it to God, says come and see what the

Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth.

He makes war cease to the ends of the earth.

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns

the shields with fire. He says, now one of my

favorite passages ever, be still and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations. I will be

exalted in the earth. The Lord Almighty is with us.

And then again here it is the God of Jacob

is our fortress. You know, we often see those words

be still and know that I'm God on pictures of

very serene works, kind of like this. How many of

you actually have this picture at your house. But it's

a beautiful thing. But I want you to know that

when we see God tell us to be still or

be still, know that I am God. And whenever you

see these comments brought up in scripture, it's during chaos.

It's when the nations are raging, when the kingdoms are falling,

when weapons are breaking, when the world is shaken, and

it's in the middle of this God says, be still

and know that I am God. Now, what does be

still mean? Be still means let go seize your struggle

it means to stop. Here. I want to translate this verse.

This is according to the James Robbers translation in plain language.

When God says, be still and know that I am God,

here's what he's really saying, Stop trying to do my job.

You don't have to control everything. You don't have to

fix everything. You don't have to know what happens next.

You don't have to carry a weight that was not

meant for you. Matter of fact, doesn't this be still

and ode that I'm God? Doesn't it remind you of

another story in history when Moses had came to Pharaoh

and he says, let my people go. Pharaoh's like, I

don't think so. Moses like, well, here's ten plagues, and

He's all right, you can take them, all right, So

they take the people. They get all the way to

the Red Sea. And then Pharaoh's like, man, who's gonna

make our bricks, who's gonna burel our pyramids? Who's gonna

did we just let go of our whole labor force.

Let's go get them? And so here we go. We

have this scene here where Moses is standing before the

Red Sea. Behind him, you can see the army of

the Pharaoh. You can see the dust kicking up from

the horses. You could hear the sound roaring. And then

the people start to complain, Moses, why did you bring

us out of there? Maybe we should go back? And

then Moses, in the midst of all that chaos, what

does he say? He says, do not be afraid, stand firm,

and you will see the deliverance of the Lord that

he's gonna bring you today. The Egyptians, you see today

you will never see again. And then listen this. Listen,

the Lord will fight for you. You need only to be

what still? He told them to be still? But guess what.

The sea had not opened, The army was still coming.

The circumstances had not changed. But Moses told them to

be still. Why because they were facing something only God

can do. When you reach that point in your life,

when you're facing stuff that only God can do, why

do you keep trying to solve it? Like it's up

to you? Now? The Israelites they had their part to play. Yeah,

when God opened up to the sea, they had to walk

through it. Moses had to raise up his staff. But

God was going to divide the See God made the way.

God's one who's going to defeat the army? And see,

that's the difference. We need to understand this. There's a

difference between responsibility and control. Responsibility asked God, what's the

next faithful thing you want me to do? Control says,

how can I guarantee the outcome? Now, we could be

responsible yet still let go and release it to God.

We could do what God calls to do. We can

have that conversation, we can make that decision, we can

ask for help, we can take that next faithful step,

but we have to trust God for a situation. I

think a lot of us and I'll use the illustration

of a car, since that's what Andrew did last week.

He ended with a car illustration. And I think a

lot of us we do God with God and say,

Jesus take the will, Jesus starts driving, and then we

do stuff like ah, not that way, taking a little

too long? Are we there yet? See? Some of us

want God to lead as long as he follows our directions,

but faith needs trusting God even when we don't know

the route. He says to be still, the Israelite still

had to walk through the sea. But the Psalm forty

six reminds us to be still and know that I

am God. Let go remember who God is trusted. So

that's why we pray. God. I don't understand you. God,

I would not have chosen this. God. I don't even

know what comes next. But God, I trust you with

my future in my life. Last weekend, a lot of

things change in our region, a lot of things. And

again some people just went through tragedy and lost their homes,

and our heart breaks for them last weekend, and I

was just so you know, trenched in prayer and praying

for you. I kept praying for your homes, that your

homes will not be destroyed, praying for our church. We're

so close to the White River. And and you know,

my own home, I live on a pond, and just

a couple of years ago, my house got flooded and

it took like eight months to you know, in tens

of thousands of dollars to fix my basement. So I

had that fear in me, and so you know, I

just said, you know, I would just pray and pray

and pray, and I would march around my basement. That's

where my office is, that's where all my stuff is.

And I'm just praying and asking God to stop the

flood waters. And here's a thing. You know, I would

pay attention to the news. They said, hey, anything you

want to keep, get it to high ground. So I

spent that whole Saturday morning taking all everything that was

this tall or lower went upstairs. I was exhausted by

like noon one o'clock from all those trips upsteps. And

then I kept going out looking at my pond, and

then I would go oh, and then I'd walk away

because my pond kept getting higher and higher and higher.

And finally I just hit that point where I just said,

you know what, God, I've done everything I can. I've

prayed all my prayers. I can do nothing about this.

Whatever you want to happen, I know that you're faithful

and you're good, so I'll just give this to you.

I'm done worrying about it. Something interesting happened when I

released it to God, something that I couldn't control anyways.

All of a sudden, the very next thing that came

to my mind. The very next thing was this, how

can our church help people who are victims of this?

I got my mind off myself in my own situation,

and immediately how can we help others? So I just

start working all these text and setting up these meetings

that we could meet the next day and have all

this planning sessions on it. And it's so fascinating how

when I fully trusted in God to handle a situation

that I couldn't control anyways, I can then go and

turn and look for others. I think this is what

the song does. The song says, hey, remember you can't

control anything, but you need to trust in your God.

But then this song was written down so that the

future generations can learn and remember that, hey, God's the

one who handles everything anyways. And then Martin Luther wrote

this song to pass it down the generations. Remember, hey,

you can't control this anyways, but you can trust in God.

And we're reminded by this song to day, guys, are

is this much? You actually have control in your life?

That's why we turn to God and trust him