Harold Bullock: Hi Hope family and friends! This is Pastor Harold. We’ve been in a very fluid time. Due to the coronavirus, things have been swiftly changing around. We get an idea of what’s going to be, and then things shift. In the middle of those changing times, it’s hard to find your footing, but after a little bit, you begin to develop patterns. You may have already developed some rhythms for handling both the time and the changes. Maybe you’ve gotten some routines, if you have children, for getting them in bed now. Or if you have apartment mates, you’ve figured out how to work around your schedule for meals or cleanup. We start getting our bearings, and we feel like we’ve learned a few things from the Lord, maybe through the pressures. But, the time goes on; it’s not stopping, and sometimes in the middle of continuing difficulty we can ask the question, “I’ve picked up a few things; this has been very inconvenient, but we’re pretty cheerful about it. So, why is it going on? What’s the point?” That’s what I’d like to talk to you about today.
I don’t know all that’s in the mind of God for what’s happening through this troubled time, but in the Bible the Lord does tell us some things that He does whenever trouble comes and trouble continues. So, what I’d like to do today is talk about what’s the point in terms of what we do know about what God does. First, you need to grasp that Christ followers actually experience many tribulations, not just one or two but many through time. Sometimes people think that if we come to Jesus Christ everything is just going to be wonderful after that, no problems. But Paul, the guy who planted so many churches in the first century, apostle of the Lord Jesus...Paul travels through a part of what’s now Turkey through a string of villages/towns planting churches. Scripture says after a time he returned, going back through those same towns after he reached the furthest point, strengthening the souls of the disciples and encouraging them to continue in the faith and saying “...that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”
It’s interesting that he’s encouraging them and strengthening them and saying that they’re going to have a lot of trouble. Troubles are a part of life. They come to all people, but for those of us who belong to the Lord Jesus, the troubles come with a special purpose for us. They’re a part of living in this world from a very different set of values. They’re a part of being Kingdom citizens. Once we were a part of this world. Now, we’re of the next world. Once we were of this timeframe; now the new age has already started in Christ Jesus, and we’re a part of that, not the New Age that so many people talk about today but the new age that is going to fully come whenever He returns. There are troubles that do come, and the Bible uses several words to describe the troubles.
I’d like you to take a look at four of them. If you have the handout, you will find a little chart on it that gives you some of the troubles. There are different Greek words in the New Testament used to define these troubles. They have different characteristics. They all create difficulty; they all create problems. I’d like to just sort of give you the feel for the different kinds of things. One, I call the crush. The Greek word is thlipsis. It’s pressure of circumstances or could be the pressure of opposition, like people getting mad at you because you are a follower of Christ. What you feel is pressure. There’s just so much pressure on you, and what you begin to feel over time is just burdened and sort of wearied, and you grow sad. That’s the temptation. That’s the crush.
Then, the narrows...there’s a Greek word, stenokoria. It means that things are narrowing down, like going through a narrow passage between rocks. It’s getting narrower and narrower. Your choices are narrowing; your options are disappearing. Your stress is increasing. It’s hard to rest in a very tight place. What you tend to experience whenever the options start disappearing and the stress starts increasing and choices are leaving...what you begin to experience is a kind of mental anguish. It could be grief, but in your mind you’re just stressing over it. It’s not so much anxiety; it’s just grief or maybe dread. Am I going to get stuck in the narrows? I hate this. I don’t know what’s ahead. Again, it’s not so much anxiety; it’s just mental anguish.
A third type is hardships. There’s a Greek word for it. It means that you’ve been forced into a situation where there are just really imposed limits on your possibilities, limits on your resources. You might be in tremendous need, difficulty. You need things, but you’ve got limited resources. What tends to happen with this one is you begin to experience anxiety. The other one was anguish. This is just “Oh, no! What are we going to do?” How will we respond to this? How will we have enough. You begin to worry.
Another type is just really hard losses. You lose things. This word is particularly used for times of persecution and what people suffer whenever they lose things is pain, distress, maybe damage and that sense of loss. You might...there are people who have lost jobs or been furloughed without pay now. You lose something; it hurts. It just hurts. You feel the hurts. I bring this up because as you’re walking through this time, you’re going to be feeling a lot of different things. The Bible talks about these kinds of things. When you feel the anguish or the anxiety or the loss or just the sadness, what you feel is what you feel. You need to deal with what you feel and move forward in faith. I’m not saying that what you feel is wrong or this is awful sin. It’s natural as a result of the consequences. However, if you stay in that, you will get in trouble. You will be in sin. You need to deal with it.
We pass through a lot of different times of difficulty, but God uses trouble to grow us and to grow us particularly in two ways. I’d like to shift our focus to that. What’s the point? Well, one of the big points is to grow me personally and to grow you. There are things in my life that God’s working on right now, and He wants to work on things in your life. He wants to work on who we are and how we approach things. God uses trouble to grow into us strong character. He wants to set steel into you and me—the steel of Christ-like character, so God uses tough situations to grow us in character and to set His priorities very deeply into who we are. His values are very important to HIm. These are His priorities, and He sets those in us, but He does it through the troubles.
James 1...I love it in the Living Bible. James 1 talks about this. James 1:2-4: “Dear brothers, is your life full of difficulties and temptations? Then be happy…” The first time I read that I thought, “This is crazy!” “...then be happy, for when the way is rough, your patience has a chance to grow.” Patience is not just simply sitting, thinking in a chair waiting on things to pass. Patience is a very aggressive term in the New Testament. It means an upbeat endurance under pressure, difficulty, even loss. It’s through the difficulty you’re… ”...when your way is rough, your patience has a chance to grow. So let it grow, and don’t try to squirm out of your problems…” He says. “...For when patience is finally in full bloom…” You’ve got plenty of it. “...then you will be ready for anything, strong in character, full and complete.”
Wow. Difficulty comes. Is your life full of difficulties and temptations? Then, be happy. Why? You may not feel happy, but you can be. You can look forward to this because God is going to change you, and you’re going to like what results. James begins with a question. Is your life full of difficulties and temptations? The actual word used in the Greek is peirasmos. It means “putting to the proof, testing, checking something out, finding out if it’s real.” Actually the testing could be not just by difficulty, discipline or provocation—being put in a circumstance where you just get provoked and you're just being tested. Or, difficult—the question is “Are you going to endure?”
Actually, sometimes this can come through good happening to us. Sometimes God allows good to come into our lives, so He can...even in the middle of tests. What He wants to know is what we’re going to do with the good. In the Old Testament, you’ll find characters whom God suddenly provides tremendous opportunity and wonderful things for. Some of them pass the test, and others in the middle of the good get proud and arrogant and fail the test. It costs them, but it’s a testing one way or the other. Right now we’re into a lot of difficulties. Good can come in the middle of it, and even the good can be a test. Is your life full of temptations, difficulties, temptations, testings? Then be happy. Why? When the way is rough, your patience has a change to grow.
What happens is in the middle of difficulty you have to make choices. We have to choose. Are we going to do what we feel, or are we going to do what’s right? Maybe we fail once or twice, but finally we get what’s right. We do what’s right. The problem is that difficulty goes on, and we have to make the choice over and over again. We have to do what’s right again, and then do what’s right again because the difficulty hasn't changed. We’re still facing the pressure or the narrows or the limited resources or maybe loss. We have to choose right again. We have to make the same choices over and over and over. The Bible says that we need to do it with upbeat endurance. That’s what patience really is. It’s not simply enduring through something or grinding through grumbling. It’s actually an upbeat trust in God that makes the right choice. It’s hard, but you make the right choice.
You know that God will come through, so your upbeat endurance has a chance to grow. Over and over and over you endure, you endure, you endure doing right. Out of that comes hardened priorities. You make the choice so many times. Yeah, this is what you do; this is who you become. It’s called character. God’s priorities are hardened by the repeated choices under difficulty. Maybe He’s working on a specific character quality. It might be speaking kindly in the middle of pressure rather than lashing in anger. So, you get the choice to do this again and again and again, maybe to your spouse or apartment mates or maybe to your kids. Maybe He’s working on you trusting God to take care of dangers you can’t control. You do this once, and you have to do it again. You do it again, and you do it again, and what grows in you is that kind of confident trust.
Maybe it’s to just calm yourself down rather than to wig out in the middle of the circumstances. So, you make the choice, and you make the choice. And, you make the choice, and you make the choice. And, you make the choice, and the person you are begins to change. It may be to actually thank God for His kindness rather than just taking it for granted. Many times we take God for granted, and He really would like us to thank Him. He doesn’t beat us up because we don't, but we get the opportunity to thank Him for His kindnesses. Repeatedly making the difficult choice...you grow. You make the right choice. You call on Him sooner. You choose again to do the right thing, and steel sets in you.
God also uses trouble to grow us up into an upbeat person. Most of us would like to be an upbeat person—someone who looks with confidence in God. They have a positive, bright attitude and outlook. For me, that’s always been a struggle. One facet of the personality I grew up with is I can be a little sad. So for me, it’s a challenge, but God works on this. He wants us to have a positive, bright outlook. For many of us, that has to develop through stress. Some of us just seem to have that, but for many of us it has to develop through stress. So, God takes us through stressful times, so that we can become upbeat.
Romans 5:3-5 talks about this. Here’s what it says again in the Living Bible. I like the way it says it. “We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us…” We don’t like them. They feel bad, but they’re good for us, like some medicines. “..they help us learn to be patient…” Again, that upbeat endurance… “...And patience develops strength of character…” Paul is saying what the apostle, James, said. Character comes out of the patience. “...and helps us trust God more each time…” Ah, yeah, trust grows when we make the choice. Each time it grows. Each time “...we use it until finally our hope and faith are strong and steady.” Hope is that forward look with that upbeat heart and upbeat mind and upbeat view of the future. Hope comes out of all this.
Faith trusts God in the middle of it. Faith trusts God for the future. Hope looks forward and says, “Yes, my God is going to be my God, and even if I die, I will be in His presence and it will be good.” For me, I’ve had to learn that hope, not through the parties, but through the difficult times. That’s the way most of us learn really. Hope grows out of the problems and the trials. The word, trials, here that Paul uses (troubles and trials) is a word that means “pressure.” It’s the pressures crowding in on you, things bearing down on you. It’s just a heavy weight that you feel walking through the difficult situations. It’s not that it just burdens you; it’s the stuff that tends toward sadness. It’s out of this that the upbeat comes, as we trust God and we walk with Him. The patience itself is basically an upbeat continuing endurance. It just keeps on.
How long does it keep on? Well, it ain’t over til it’s over. It keeps on until it’s over. There’s a sequence here. It’s difficulty, repeated trust, trust, trust, trust, difficulty, repeated trust, and then out of that character—hardened values. The things that are on the heart of God are really important to our heart, and then out of that, an upbeat look at life and the future. These things come from the Lord as we walk through tough times with Him.
For you personally in the midst of this coronavirus time, which aspects of this difficult time is He using to stretch you? What’s He really working on in you? For some of us, it’s more anxiety. For others, it’s more anguish. What is He using? Is it the pressures? Which one? Which pressure is He really using to work on you through? Tight situations...the narrows...is it that? The disappearing choices and options? If so, which one? Is there one particularly? The reason I’m asking this specific question is so that when that one shows up, you’ll know what God’s doing and will trust Him with it.
Maybe it’s the limits or the lack of supplies, so which supplies are really annoying to you? There are a lot of jokes about the lack of paper towels and toilet paper. Well, it’s through the lack that God does things. It could be groceries. Or, loss...losses during this time. Freedoms...some pleasures...things you enjoy doing that you can’t do now. Which one is God specifically using to shape in you the heart of Christ and an upbeat look at the future? What may He be forming in you by this? Is it deeper trust?
Maybe creativity with your resources? God is very creative, and He enjoy creativity. Maybe compassion for other people? Your heart really going out to them...getting outside your own situation and beginning to look at what others are experiencing and pray for them. What is God using, and what is He working on? You will experience what He’s using again and again, and as you cooperate with Him, what He’s working on will take shape within you. You don't so much have to create it as you do respond to Him again and again as we walk through this.
Here’s another thought. God is not putting us through sort of, laboratory, white mice tests where we’re trying to find our way through a maze, and He’s standing above it all and enjoying our difficulties. That’s not what God does whenever we’re in the middle of testing. The Father does use it to grow us, but His attitudes are just different from ours. You and I are at Palm Sunday. It’s a very interesting day to talk about this. The Scripture says that amid the trouble Christ runs to help us. I’d like to explain that.
On Palm Sunday many years ago, Christ entered Jerusalem before He was crucified, and crowds were praising Him and yelling for Him in favor. They used palm branches to wave for Him and lay down for Him where His donkey could ride over as a symbol of their commitment and loyalty to Him. Just five days later, crowds were yelling for His blood, yelling for Him to be crucified. So on what we call Good Friday, this next Friday, the Lord was crucified. The crucifixion was the most horrible death the Romans could dream up, the most painful way to go, and most tormenting. He was crucified. He died very hard, and He was buried that evening. Then on Easter Sunday morning—we’ll celebrate Easter next week—He came out of the grave alive but with a new kind of body.
You need to understand He suffered. He went through testing. He suffered not only physical agony but unimaginable spiritual agony as the weight of our sins, all the wrong we had done against God, the sins of the world—past, present and future world—were rolled onto His shoulders. The shoulders of One who was holy and pure...and all the ugliness came on Him. It was an unimaginable suffering for our sins. He died to pay the penalty for all the wrong that I’ve done, that you’ve done, that the world had done. When a person trusts Him, that person receives forgiveness of sins; he becomes a child of God, and he begins to know God.
He suffered incredibly, and He experienced the incredibly painful. He’s gone through the testing. You and I are in a kind of testing. He’s gone through the testing the Bible says, so He is able to help us when we are in “the crunch.” Actually, the way the Greek is written in the verse in the Bible, He is highly sensitive to what we’re going through. He’s not standing back, just watching; He feels it. The Wuest translation brings out the feeling that’s in the verbs in the New Testament. He’s a Greek scholar, who produced a special, expanded translation of the New Testament, and this is the verse, Hebrews 2:18, in the Wuest translation. Catch this. “For in that He suffered, having himself been tempted and put to the test…” He’s gone through this stuff. “...He is able to run to the cry of those who are being tempted and put to the test, and bring them aid.”
A lot of the translations say He is able to help them, but the way the Greek is written, it’s not just help. It’s run to help. Why does He do that? Because He knows deeply the pain. He’s gone through the tests; He understands. If you’re feeling the grinding concerns that are a part of this time of difficulty and a time of testing, then pour your heart out to the Lord. Tell Him. Tell Him how you’re burdened and weighed down and saddened by what’s going on by the crush and the pressure. Maybe it’s the anxiety; tell Him about your anxiety over the restrictions that you have on you now. Or, tell Him that you’re anguished. If it’s stuff that’s just sort of tormenting your mind, tell Him about it. Ask His help; He will run to your side, and He will bring help to you. He’s not just dispassionately observing. His heart goes out to you. If you're His kid, His heart goes out to you deeply. His heart goes out to humanity. He has suffered for you, and He runs to help.
Let me ask you a key question. I think this is a key question. Is Christ inside? Is He actually in your life? Is He in your heart? If you’ve never really trusted Christ enough to yield control of your life to Him, then I’d like to encourage you to. It’s very likely that you’re already sensing that He’s sort of knocking on the door of your heart, just like someone knocking on the door of your house. He wants in. You sense that in different ways. He says this in Revelation 3:20. “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” Invite Him in. If you have never yielded your life to Him and you seriously want a relationship with God, then invite Him in. Tell Him.
You can pray this, but tell Him. “Come in, Lord Jesus. I believe You are who You say You are. You are God. Thank You for dying for my sins. Come into my life. Make me the person You want me to be.” If you actually mean it, He will enter your life. He will do what He says He will do. You may or may not feel tremendous change immediately, but a new life will begin. Some people feel very strong things. Other people feel almost nothing, but over the next many days you’ll see internally that change is taking place because He keeps His Word. He will give you a new life.
If you're making that commitment, let us know about it. We can get you some helpful resources that will enable you to move forward and trust God. Let me wrap up. We’re in a time of extended pressure, inconvenience, difficulty, limitations, and maybe some losses. Why does it continue? What’s the point? I don’t know all the points. God does many things whenever He does something. I don’t know all. I pray for mercy from the Lord. I pray for help for those working and healing for those who are suffering. I don’t know all that God’s doing, but I do know this much. He’s working on making His people into better people—people like Christ Jesus. He’s working on making people realize that they actually need Him. A number of people have already come to Christ through this time. He’s working on growing His people into upbeat people who have Christ-like hearts. What’s the point? Actually when all is said and done, the point is at least one of the major points...the point is that you and I will find good in Him, that you and I will reflect Him more deeply, and that you and I will become people who look to the future with an upbeat hope.
I’d like to lead us in prayer. Father, You know what You’re doing. We have a few pieces of information. Thank You for the things You have said in the Bible about how You use difficulty in our lives. We pray for mercy for people who are sick. We pray for Your mercy on the nations that are suffering under this, and we pray for Your help, oh God. We ask You to protect those who are working to help others in the time. We pray that You would show us in our own lives the things that You are working on and enable us to do Your will. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
