Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast. Have you ever looked back in time and considered
how certain defining moments have shaped your life in future? Today, John Metter, lead
pastor of Cross City Church, looks at the importance of defining moments and how we
can recognize what God is saying through them. We're so glad that you're with us this morning
and we are starting a new series today and I'm very excited about it. Have been for quite
some time. Defining moments really has to do with everything in our lives that are defining
moments that happen to us over the timeline of our whole lives that affect us for the
rest of our lives. Defining moments can be all kinds of things. Some of them can be tragic
moments. Others can be incredible moments of opportunity and blessing. But we have a
certain number of defining moments in our life. I think we would all agree with that.
There are these mountain peaks of life where you can look back and you say, well, I remember
that happening. I remember where I was when this happened and I remember how I felt when
this particular thing took place. And my life has not really been the same since that moment.
And so today we're going to begin talking about defining moments over the next few weeks.
Today I want to talk about immovable life events. Events that happen that can't change.
We can't change them. It doesn't seem like anyone can change them and we have to learn
to deal with these immovable life events and the title of the message today is A Moment
of Silence. I want you to take your Bibles and turn to 2 Corinthians today, chapter 12
beginning in verse 7. 2 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 7 and stay with me and we'll read
God's word together in just a moment. 2 Corinthians chapter 12 beginning in verse 7.
By the way, as we walk through this text, keep in mind this text is written by the Apostle
Paul about a defining moment in his life. An immovable life event that he prayed that
God would remove but God did not remove and so he found something of God's provision in
the midst of that disappointing unanswered prayer. Some of the terminology I'm using
is terminology you probably have experienced in life. A mountain you can't move. A prayer
you prayed that didn't get answered the way you thought it would get answered. A surprising
provision that God has made in your life or one you're still looking for. All those things
will connect with us in a powerful way. As I read this text, keep in mind Paul has had
an incredible revelation of God. He's caught up into third heaven. In fact the first seven
verses of chapter 12 talk about this man that God revealed so much to. And the Bible says
as a result of the surpassing value of the revelations, the surpassing glory of what
he saw if you will, God allowed a thorn in the flesh to happen in his life. To keep him
humble, to keep him dependent upon God. And that's where we pick up the text in verse
seven. Paul says this by himself. He says because of the surpassing greatness of the
revelation, for this reason to keep me from exalting myself there was given me a thorn
in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from exalting myself. Concerning
this I implored, that means he prayed desperately, I implored the Lord three times that it might
leave me and he has said to me, my grace is sufficient for you for my power is perfected
in weakness. Most gladly therefore I will rather boast about my weaknesses so that the
power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weakness as Paul says,
with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties for Christ's sake. For when
I am weak then I am strong. Man this is an incredible passage. It's going to be an amazing
encouragement to you today to see how it built up Paul's life and how it can affect you.
Father in Jesus name let this passage powerfully touch our hearts. Father in the same way that
Paul was lifted up and the same way that he was encouraged and in the same way that he
experienced your amazing grace in his life, his ministry, I pray God that we in this room
will experience it to the same degree. Thank you for your goodness, your faithfulness to
have every resource we need at the time we need it the most. We believe you for this
and we look forward to seeing it in our lives in Jesus name. Amen. Please be seated if you
would.
So this passage deals with a defining moment in the life of a very, very great man, the
appellation of Paul. This text talks about how God met with him in a really, really troubling
time. I am convinced that when you see how God met with Paul in his time of great trouble
you will see how God can meet you in your time of great trouble. That is the purpose
of this text for us today. You will see that as it unfolds. I have used this passage as
my personal life verse for many, many years. At some point in life, probably about the
time I was 20 or 22, I began to look back at all my life leading up to that moment and
realize that just about everything I was experiencing I could trace back to this passage, to this
text because I found a lot of things in my life that were problems and insurmountable,
things I couldn't move away, couldn't get around and prayer that God didn't answer.
And I look back at this verse and realize just how powerful God used this verse in my
own life and I hope my own story will help you with any immovable life events in your
life and I am convinced we all have them in some form or another. My story really begins
back in my very first waking memory. Everybody has a first memory, right? How many of you
can remember the earliest time in their life and it is a really definite memory? Would
you raise your hand if you can remember that memory? I hope they are all good memories.
I hope it is you on a swing set somewhere in a beautiful park or something like that.
But my very first memory, my very first memory that I can acknowledge at the earliest point
was the memory of my parents in our bathroom pushing me into a bathtub full of ice. I was
just under six years of age and I remember looking on their faces and seeing their desperation.
I was confused at what was going on and there they were pushing me in this bathtub full
of ice and it was freezing cold obviously and I didn't understand what was going on
but what had happened was I had contracted a very high fever. It was over 106 degrees
for a number of hours. The doctor on the phone advised them to put me in a bathtub of ice
in order to break the fever or else I could be in danger of organ failure at some point
and actually die. So that is my first waking moment.
To make the long story short, the fever broke and I got better but within the year my parents
learned that at that moment of that high temperature in my body I lost 80% of my hearing and within
a few years I lost eventually 95% of my hearing which means that without hearing aids my world
went suddenly silent, completely and totally silent.
Now my parents didn't realize I had lost my hearing. When they gave me instructions
I didn't obey them. They thought I was just ignoring them. It was a first grade teacher
within a couple of days after I was placed in the first grade that said your son has
a hearing loss and he is not ignoring you. People still think I ignore them sometimes
but the reality is I really do have a good reason.
So I entered immediately into that world of silence where people are moving their lips
with all kinds of action taking place around me but no sound associated with that at all
and really no comprehension of what people were saying to me. I realized by face expressions
they were communicating with me, they were looking right at me but I didn't know what
they were saying.
And the defining moment in my life happened when all that unfolded and from that moment
on really things began to change in a different direction from what it would have gone otherwise
and a different direction from what other people were taking as six and seven year old
kids I was going in a completely different direction.
Imagine going from a hearing world to a silent world in a very short period of time. Imagine
trying to adjust to school where everyone else just simply watches the teacher or listens
to the teacher and they hear what she might say and they do what she might say and I'm
looking around like what did she say and what am I supposed to be doing?
Those early hearing aids they fitted me with were awkward devices to say the least. They
were very large ear phone type things that I wore around my ears larger than my ears
themselves and they were connected to a little box that went into a pocket. Now listen no
first grade boy really likes to wear a button up shirt with a pocket but I had to do that.
I was the ultimate nerd at the first grade. I won the championship for that.
It was awkward in every way but it was the only way that I was able to hear any sound
at all. The only way I was able to really connect with anything going on around me.
And I knew I stood out. I knew I was different. I knew it was visible. I knew other people
would stare and I didn't feel like I was in a good place at all even as a young boy.
Gratefully I was surrounded by some incredible people. I was surrounded by a mom and a dad
that were as spiritual as I can possibly imagine. Godly people who were incredibly patient,
incredibly loving and encouraging to me. I was living in a small community where my parents
raised me and this small community was just kind of a one big family. There were 700 people
total in the community. It still does not have a stop light in that town. And yet that
town adopted me as family. And I loved it and I appreciated it. I had some great teachers.
I remember the first and last name of my first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade,
fifth grade teacher because they went the second mile in helping me do what I needed
to do. And at some point early on my parents made a strategic decision not to send me to
a school for the deaf which was typical for most students that have lost their hearing
to that degree. My profound hearing loss meant that there was not going to be a big chance
that I could articulate words well even though I had already learned to speak. Not a great
chance that I would be able to do well in school but my parents believed as they prayed
through that that they wanted me wired for the hearing world. So they began to secure
people who would train me how to read lips, how to pronounce words, how to read out loud,
how to read and then how to read out loud. And one particular young woman who was a college
graduate who worked with me every day for almost three years, about two or three hours
a day did a phenomenal job of teaching me how to read lips, teaching me how to pronounce
words. The problem was she was from South Houston and I sound like someone from South
Houston y'all. I got her accent. My parents have perfect Midwestern accents and I do not.
I'm also a killer at reading lips still to this day so be careful what you say to the
person next to you because I might know what was said. But this event and all surrounding
that event made me feel like I was behind instead of ahead. It made me feel like something
was wrong instead of something right. And I can remember moving forward searching for
ways to cope instead of just learning things that I needed to be learning like reading,
writing and arithmetic. It made me feel inferior. It made me feel lacking. I can remember as
a young boy worrying about my future. What will I do? What do people do that can't hear?
Where do they go? Where do they work? What happens to them if they can't hear anything?
And I found myself asking different questions than most people my age were asking. Questions
like why me? And God where are you? And if God can do anything why doesn't he change
this in my life? And I also realize now all these years later that we often ask these
kinds of big questions when huge challenges come in life. It's natural isn't it? And
all of us have had something that happens in our life that makes us turn to God and
say why me? And where were you? And what are you doing? Immovable life events tend to unfold
in three phases and we see them in this text. And I've experienced them personally and I
believe you have too. Those three phases would be problem, prayer and provision. Problem,
prayer and provision. You know what problems do? Problems drive us to God, to prayer. And
when we go to God then we find that God can meet our need but it may not be the way we
think he's going to meet our need but provision is always there. And I fully identify with
those three words and those three phases because I've lived these out over the years and the
more in ministry I've been over these many, many years the more I realize everybody has
had some immovable life event happen to them, good or bad, visible or invisible. And they're
all dealing with that in some way. And it's a defining moment in their lives. Well I want
you to know today that the apostle Paul, this great man of God had a defining moment like
what we're talking about. Now this defining moment teaches us, these phases, teaches us
also how God meets us in our moments that are immovable, unchangeable and definitely
negative in our lives. When we can't see the way out of it we have Paul's example here
of how God met him. And it all begins with first of all an unsolvable problem. If you
go back to verse seven where Paul begins his description he says, there was given to me
a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from exalting myself.
Commentators over the years and scholars over the years have debated about what Paul's thorn
in the flesh actually was but nobody really has a good answer to what it is. We have a
number of possibilities. When you look at the scriptures themselves you can see some
things come to the surface, they could have been personal issues. He called it a thorn
in the flesh. So we get the idea that something physical was going on. The wording itself
in the original language deals with a stake that usually is normally used in war to impale
someone else and Paul uses that kind of word. Some think he had eyesight problems because
of his difficulty in seeing. Some thought he had piercing migraines that inhibited his
ability to move around and travel. Others said the wounds from being beaten as the preacher
of the gospel were part of what these thorns in the flesh were. Still others said the betrayal
that he experienced, the deception that was always attempted on him and the disappointment
in his life were these personal issues. Others say no, they're spiritual conflicts because
in the text it says a messenger of Satan. Satan's mention brings us to the reality of
spiritual warfare. So certainly whatever was going on could be part of the spiritual warfare
that Paul was experiencing. I think we would all agree Paul was on the front line. He was
that man that went into new cultures with the gospel so obviously the enemy would want
to stop him. In one interesting place of scripture in Acts 19 verse 15 we read about seven sons
of Skeba who are trying to cast out demons in the name of Jesus and the demon actually
speaks to them and says, Jesus I know and Paul I know but who are you? It's a really
interesting text. But my point is even the demons knew who Paul was. Paul was probably
under some sort of spiritual oppression from the demonic world as well and some say no
these were people problems. Maybe demonically inspired people problems. The word messenger
insinuates that certain people were bringing messages to him to discourage him. Rick Renner
makes a great case about this possibility that really resonates. Number one it's entirely
possible that people are the opposed leaders in the gospel and that's what was going on
with him. But number two we could biblically verify names of people that opposed Paul but
the main idea of this text is not exactly what the hardship was but that there was incredible
hardship and the life of Paul. It was an immovable mountain. He couldn't do anything about it
and nothing was changing about that mountain. The point is that no one knows exactly what
it was, what the thorn in the flesh was, but that it was present. And I think that mystery
is intentional. Why is this so mysterious and all encompassing? Because I think God wants
every one of us to identify with this passage. Because if we said no it's because he was
an apostle that Satan directly opposed him that would exclude you from that picture perhaps
and me from that picture. If we said oh no it's a physical ailment and yet you are physically
healthy that would exclude you from that picture. I think God makes this obscure for a reason.
He wants every single one of us to experience what Paul experienced in the end when we have
immovable life events. And I'm convinced again that everybody in this room has something
in their lives that affected them in a powerful way. Some visible, some invisible. For people
like me it's visible, it's evident, you can tell. But for others maybe nobody knows about
it. It might be personal, it might be invisible. Few know about it. It could be a traumatic
experience that happened to you. A devastating loss. An incredible disappointment that took
place in your life that you haven't gotten over. An overwhelming fear or doubt or pain
that pulverizes you. Or maybe a catastrophic failure where you thought you were going in
the right direction and you miserably failed at whatever that was and it can't get undone
and you can't fix it. In any case these kinds of immovable life events bring us to the place
where we can't do anything about our problem at all. And we're just kind of there. I wrote
this down the other day. It defies human solutions and when it does God has us in a position where
we must depend on Him. And I've got to tell you that's the bigger work God is doing always
in your life. He's always about you depending on Him. He's always getting you to believe
in Him and trust in Him even more than you possibly might imagine. It's not about just
giving you an easy life. It's not about just lifting problems out of your life. God wants
you to depend on Him in every way. And when you trust Him in and through your situation
you're going to experience some things you might not imagine. Now these unsolvable problems
are things that we actually kind of like when we see them in other places. Like the movies.
We love unsolvable problems in the movies don't we? We go to movies because there's
an unsolvable problem. There's a mystery of how it's going to be fixed and we love when
the hero comes through. Right? That's how we are motivated to go to movies and there's
always some sort of a hero out there and they become our hero because they come through.
But you know it's also the theme of dozens of characters in Scripture. The unsolvable
problem of sin. The unsolvable problem of Israel's bondage in the Old Testament. Who
will set these people free? The unsolvable problem of the Red Sea when they came to the
Red Sea and didn't have a way across. The unsolvable problem of Job's affliction in
the book of Job. The unsolvable problem of Goliath the giant until David came along.
The unsolvable problem of 5,000 hungry people listening to Jesus teach on a hillside in
Galilee that day. How do you fix that problem? The unsolvable problem of Lazarus dead in
a tomb for four days until Jesus comes and resurrects him from the dead. The unsolvable
problem of Jesus being crucified on a cross. What do we do with our Messiah when he's being
impaled on that cross? Unsolvable problems are what God specializes in. And over and
over in the Scripture God comes through. As a matter of fact, Scripture constantly reminds
us of this one verse that we find in Luke 1 verse 37, for nothing will be impossible
with God. Say that verse with me. For nothing will be impossible with God. So unsolvable
problems in our life should lead us to the next phase which is prayer. We're driven to
prayer. We're driven even into seasons of prayer. And sometimes we experience what I
call an unanswered prayer which is what Paul experienced. Look at verse 8. He says, concerning
this thorn in the flesh, concerning this pain that wouldn't go away, I implore the Lord
three times that it might lead me. Now the word implored is a passionate word. To implore
is to beg, to plead. It's not just a casual prayer. It's not just making a request. But
this is Paul on his face crying out to God. Now it's not just three prayers. This text
says there are three separate seasons of prayer where Paul went to the Lord over and over.
This is Paul drawing as close as he can to God and continuing to pray. And probably words
like this, I'm going to follow you but please remove this so I can do it better. I'm going
to follow you. I'm not going to leave you. I'm not going to turn my back on you Lord.
And his sincerity and his earnestness and everything that makes a prayer answerable
makes it surprising that God didn't do that and answer that prayer. It's Paul. It's the
apostle Paul. It's not me and you praying. Listen, this is one of God's men that God
raised up and rescued from a deadly direction and placed him in a place on the globe for
his glory, for his honor and God did not answer that prayer. And you know what that feels
like, don't you? How many of you have had a prayer over the years that you have not
seen the answer to? I've got my hand up. How about you? How many of you have experienced
that? I've had many times like that. I can't tell you the endless number of times I cried
out to God to change my hearing to heal me. It seems so simple to me as a boy that if
God is powerful, if God can raise people from the dead, if God is granting salvation for
those that put trust in his son's name, Jesus, then he could heal me. My godly parents prayed.
I mean I trusted their prayers more than I did mine as a young boy and I heard my mom
and dad call out to God and ask God to heal my hearing loss. I remember in junior high
being desperate asking God to change that in high school years when it became more of
an aggravation to me, more visible. It began to hold me back socially and in other ways.
I remember being on college on a college spring break trip, actually a mission trip where
those that we were ministering to paused and surrounded me with dozens of people including
a leader that anointed me with oil and was convinced that God was going to heal me on
that campus on that day and we trusted God, we begged and we prayed and believed God deeply
that God would heal me but that prayer was never answered in the way we asked for. And
you've been there too haven't you? It's part of the process. It's part of what you have
to go through in walking from this insurmountable problem to this time of prayer. But it also
leaves us with some questions doesn't it? Let me give you some answers to a question
of why doesn't God always answer our prayer or always change our situation to the way
we're asking. Why doesn't he do that? Well there are three ways in scripture we know
that he doesn't answer our prayer our way. Some situations he allows to transform our
character. God allows us to remain under a certain difficulty physical or otherwise because
he's changing our character, he's transforming us. It's always God's will that we become
conformed to the image of Jesus. But in James chapter 1 there's a great text that reminds
us of this. Consider it all joy my brethren when you encounter various trials knowing
that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect work that
you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing. In other words it matures us, it
perfects us, it grows our character. So some situations transform us. But some situations
he allows to testify of his grace. In other words he allows us to go through these times
so he can demonstrate his sufficiency when we're struggling. Demonstrates how he meets
our need when we don't have a way of doing it on our own. In the Gospel of John chapter
11 Jesus heard the story that he was encountering with Lazarus and he said this sickness is
not to end in death but for the glory of God that the Son of God may be glorified by it.
In other words this person wasn't going to die but he was going to be raised up just
for the glory of God. But that very line also reminds us of some situations he allows to
transport us home. Sometimes sickness isn't to death. Sometimes sickness does lead us
to the point of death and God is calling us home. I remember one mentor of mine saying
to me after he went through many, many illnesses and had the do not resuscitate kind of marker
on his wrist in the hospital he said if I go, if I die do not bring me back. Do not
put those paddles on me. If I die you let me stay in heaven. I'm not coming back to
you. I'm staying with the Lord. That's a good mindset to have. Sometimes God uses certain
situations and circumstances to bring us home. So God has reasons beyond our comprehension
why he allows certain things to happen and doesn't allow other things to happen but
ultimately they are for our good. God is always working for our good. So one of the things
we have to learn to do is to hold our prayer requests loosely in our hands. We have to
hold our expectations loosely. We have to hold our life loosely because God literally
has it in his big hands and we don't really need it in our hands. It's never been in
our hands anyway. And what we have to do is rest in his grip. Whatever that means. And
that's what trust looks like. God I really want you to change this situation Paul said
but since you haven't I'm just going to keep serving you and keep trusting you. And that
leads us to the third thing what I call an unexpected provision. Paul says in verse
9, and he has said to me, my grace is sufficient for you for power is perfected in weakness.
So God spoke to Paul and said, I'll make it possible to bear. I'll give you grace. And
the grace that I give you will be sufficient for anything that you need. In other words
God was saying to Paul, you've been endowed with everything you could possibly need to
overcome and I'll keep giving it to you even though it's inexhaustible moment by moment
by moment you reach for that grace it's going to be there. The word grace by the way is
often interpreted as enablement. It reminds us that he gives us just the strength we need
just for what the challenge is. And I call this grace an inexhaustible well. It will
never run dry. Let me tell you the grace of Jesus that saves us from our sin, the grace
of Jesus that washes our sin clean so that we can be right with a holy God forever and
ever in heaven. That grace is so big in order to clean us. Everything else on this planet
is small stuff compared to that big thing. You've been reconciled with a holy God. That's
a big deal. That's what grace does. But grace also helps you while you're on this planet.
With all the challenges you have in your life you'll always have all you need to do the
will of God. So it's not I'll give you more but what I've given you already is enough.
So try grace and trust grace. It's proven in your weakness. Some of you are still back
here in this prayer period. Why will God not answer my prayer? And I understand that. I've
been in and out of that from time to time. But here's what I've learned. Listen carefully.
When God does not answer the prayer you may be asking for the wrong thing. At some point
you just say, okay. Then whenever you want to make it different you make it different.
But until then I'm going with what I have and what you've given me. At some point we
just have to say that. At some point we just have to trust that he heard us, that he's
aware, that he's not tied up with other important events. He knows everything going on in our
lives. He could change it in a moment. And if he doesn't it's because of his sovereignty
and he's got a different plan. And that different plan is this unexpected provision. I love
the idea of that line. My grace is sufficient for you. Now look at how it works for Paul.
Paul went on to be the greatest apostle of them all. The most prolific author of the
New Testament scripture that we read 2,000 years later. He brought thousands to healing
and deliverance and freedom in his lifetime. We never find that God ever removed that thorn
in the flesh. But what he did do was give him grace day by day to deal with everything
he had to deal with. And he continued to draw from that inexhaustible well of enablement
and grace that allowed him to carry out his life and even be content in that weakness.
Because of his thorn in the flesh, Paul became known not for pride and ability, which is
what he was known for before he came to Christ, but for his weakness and his dependence on
the grace of God. By the way, that's what you want to be known for, not pride, but weakness
and dependence upon God. Because that shows that God is working in your life and you're
trusting him to do it. And that's where God wants all of us at some point in our lives
to live that way. And basically, we now read the words of this
apostle Paul as we read what he wrote and it's full of grace. Let me read some of those
words for you. 2 Corinthians 3, verse 5, not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider
anything that's coming from ourselves, but our adequacy, our sufficiency is from God.
Well, 1 Corinthians 15, 10, but by the grace of God I am what I am and his grace toward
me did not prove vain, but I labored more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace
of God with me. Some of you will argue with me about who authored the book of Hebrews,
but I believe it was the apostle Paul. And look at these words. Therefore, let us draw
near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace
to help in time of need. How many of you have looked at those verses over the years and
drawn all kinds of encouragement from them? You know the common word in all of these?
Grace, grace, and more grace. Grace to help in time of need. Sufficiency that you don't
have. Superabundance that you could never have apart from his grace. And I'll be the
first one to admit that it's not easy to understand and walk and wait for the blessing
of sufficient grace, but it comes through a lot of disappointment, sometimes a lot of
grief, but Paul walked through that, got the blessing, and now has the testimony of it.
Grace emerges in our life when we keep trusting God in spite of no change and what we're
asking him and our steadfastness and continue to follow him in spite of that unanswered
prayer. Notice how Paul concludes that passage in verse 9. He says this, he said,
Therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses. I've always thought that to be a
strange phrase. I will boast, I'll brag about my weaknesses. Why? So that the power of
Christ may dwell in me. When you get to the barest common denominator of what Paul says
in verse 9 and 10, it's this, I have no complaints with God. No complaints. I'll just
keep serving him and keep trusting him to the day I die. And we have every evidence
that that's exactly what he did. Now my own story of how God's grace was poured out
in my life is that it was poured out all around me. I know I'm not the only one that has
a hearing loss and I'm not trying to magnify that, but I am trying to say it was an immovable
issue I had in my life and still have in my life that God makes his way through and around.
But I see his grace poured out all around me through people that God placed around me.
Friends who understood. An incredible set of parents who would not let me give up. Who
kept quoting the book of Philippians to me. I can do all things to Christ who strengthens
me. And every time I said I can't, my mom would respond by saying I can do all things
to Christ who strengthens me. She would not let up. My wife who had amazing patience.
Oh my goodness. Amazing patience and encouragement. A family that understood. It's amazing how
much grace was poured out in the churches that I practiced, that I pastored who practiced
unconditional love and grace to me. You people in this church who accepted me for who I was
16 years ago when I came in spite of any deficiency that some may have seen. Co-workers who gave
me respect. Who took up slack. Who helped me hear the things I needed to hear in the
gaps when I didn't hear them. The joy I get from identifying with people who think
things are holding them back and I can look at them and say I understand what you think
and how you feel but that's not the end of the story. That God is able to give you all
the grace you need to do all he's called you to do. I love identifying with people who
can't hear, can't see, can't walk. Whatever it is in their life I love to encourage them
because I've been there in a sense. I'm amazed at how God's grace is poured out through
an uncanny ability to hear what I need to hear and not hear what I don't need to hear.
I'm kind of surprised at what I do hear sometimes and some of you are too. I love the idea that
95% of my hearing is gone so therefore 95% of criticism directed my way. I never hear.
I have no complaints. If it were up to me I'm not sure I would bring healing. If I could
just flip the switch and get all my hearing back I'm not sure I would. In fact I'm pretty
sure I wouldn't. Because if I said yes to that I would have to stop the flow of grace
that comes every day for me. It gets me through all that I need to get through. There are
some advantages to silence you know. And I've learned after a lot of years that I'm not
behind I'm ahead. Some of you are just now getting hearing aids and I'm way ahead of
you. When I was 10 years old my audiologist said to me when I was complaining about having
to wear hearing aids he asked me some of the reasons I didn't want to wear them and you
know they're awkward, they're visible, people make fun of me and on and on. And I don't
know how wise he actually was or whether he was just trying to encourage me but he said
John he said someday all your friends will wear hearing aids. I didn't know he meant
55 years later. I was speaking at a Gideon convention not too long ago a group of people
well over 65 years of age most of them were. I asked them to raise their hands if they
had hearing aids. 75% of them had hearing aids on. I told them I'm way ahead of you
I've had them since I was 6 years old so I know about this stuff. But I also think I'm
ahead in the way of having to trust God in things. You know there's something about an
immovable object in your life an unchangeable event that makes you trust God. Not that we
go seeking them or looking for them I'm not saying we should look for tough situations
to walk into I'm saying that when you face them realize that God is going to grow you
through them. He's going to build elements in your life that make you stronger more patient
he'll give you character you wouldn't have if you didn't have to go through those times
and when you go through those times you come out ahead not behind. And learning to walk
with God when nobody else maybe has experienced that. But ultimately I don't want you to
miss this. Ultimately your life will not be defined by immovable life events but in how
you allow God's grace to work through them. That's what's going to identify you. Not
how big the tragedy was not how heartbroken you were at that point not how unfair the
thing was but how you trust him in that moment. That's what will characterize your life until
the day you die. And you want your life characterized by faith in a God who has enough grace to
get you through. Amen. Ron Dunn was a great teacher a great pastor and author and in his
book When Heaven is Silent he shares something that he shared with his church after he had
come back from a sabbatical which was taken because his older son committed suicide. The
ultimate tragic event for a parent is that. And he took some time to just get his bearings
to get back on his feet spiritually. And when he came back to the church he read these words
to them. He said God's power and authority are such that even the actions of the enemies
of God and his people must be subservient to his will. If this is true it means my complaints
against life and God no matter how understandable or not legitimate. If this is true it means
that I have no right to cling to anger or to harbor bitterness against whatever injustices
I may have suffered. If this is true it means that if God subtracted one pain one heartbreak
one disappointment from my life I would be less the person I am now less than the person
God wants me to be in my ministry would be less than what he intends. And if this is
true it means that I can climb over those hurts and disappointments over the tears and
heartaches over the graves and sleepless nights and stand on top of that ash heap and declare
all these things God is working together for my good. That's powerful. It's deep. It's
real. You know Romans 8 28 does say God causes all things to work together for good for those
who love God for those who are the called according to his purpose. And I have a feeling
in this room there are lots of people that love God and lots of people who are the called
according to his purpose and if you are that then all things will work together for good
in your life. That's just the truth that you learn when you go through the hardest times
of your life. So a moment of silence can be a blessing in the end. Unimmovable life evokes
no matter how difficult the tragic can be the greatest thing to climb on. You have to
learn to experience the inexhaustible wealth of God's grace in your life. Test it. Try
it. Trust it. And watch him come through. You know we first experience God's grace when
we place our trust in Christ for salvation. That's when it begins. His grace to forgive.
His grace to give us eternal life. His grace to make us right with the Father. And when
you get that grace you get everything you need until he calls you home. But it all begins
there. You can't get his grace without getting his salvation first. And you can't get his
salvation without having enough to help you all the time you are on this planet. They
go together. That inexhaustible wealth of grace. Maybe today you need to take that step
and put your faith and trust in Christ who by his grace gave his life for you on the
cross. And by his power will help you through every day of your life. When I pray at the
end of our prayer we'll have our decision stations manned and lit up. A chance for you
to stop by and ask some questions. Or maybe make a decision today to put your life in
the hands of Christ. I invite you who are part of our service and maybe your guests
for the first time to our guest reception center. I'd love to meet you and tell you
about our church. Let's stand together.
Father today as I pray I am very aware of those in the room today. Many of whom face
and have for some time immovable life issues. Lord I don't pretend to know what they are
but Lord you know. You are intimately acquainted with every person in every situation, every
event, every hurt, every pain. Lord I ask you today that you be very real to every person
in the room today. Let them know of your presence. Let them know of your sufficiency. That if
they learn to test you and try you throughout their hardship that you will be there. Let
them know it's not overnight. Let them know it's not something that happens instantaneously
but it is real. And it is powerful. And it is forever. And by my prayer today is that
you will draw us closer to yourself. Don't let us run away. Don't let us turn our back
on you. Draw us closer to you in our heartbroken difficulty. And there we will meet you in
your grace. I ask this in Jesus name I pray. Amen.