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[00:00:25] Speaker B: Hey, we're in a series called Holidays. And the reason we're doing the series right at the, you know, the entrance of these holidays is because of a statistic, or. Yeah, statistic, I read, where three out of four people surveyed said the holidays were more of something that they endure instead of something they enjoy. And when I read that, I thought, man, we're doing this wrong. And I began to do research about why people dreaded the holidays and the things they didn't like about the holidays and the things that made them want to just get on the other side of the holidays. And so the series was kind of trying to unpack that a little bit, explore some of the reasons people give for why the holidays are a difficult time in their life. And I understand that holidays bring up memories of those that we don't have with us anymore. I totally get that. But this also gives us great opportunities to make new memories with our family and our friends. And so while there is a looking back, there is also a looking ahead and a desire to make new memories with those that we have and those that we love. And so we talked a little bit about the worry and the stress that can come with holidays. And one of the things I wanted to talk to you about this morning is some of the disappointments that can come along with a holiday season, the disappointments of life. And what I wanted to share with you is a principle we're going to explore in the Old Testament, and that is there are divine appointments in every disappointment. I believe no matter what the circumstance is that you go through what the person is that you encounter in life, that the end of it, it creates disappointment within your mind and heart, that God can make a way to navigate through the experience for your good and for his glory. One of the great verses of Romans eight is verse 28, where Paul said, and we know, and I love the certainty with which he wrote. He said, we know that all things, not just the good things, but the bad things, all things have a power and ability to work together for good. To those who love God and those who are called to his purpose, it didn't say everything is good. And none of us here this morning would say that the circumstances of life are always good. Many of us have gone through some very heartbreaking and soul crushing experiences, so certainly not everything is good. But that's not what it said. It said God has the power. He has the ability to take those bad circumstances and ultimately work those things out for our good and his glory.
Think about the disappointments in life. On one side of a disappointment, God will test you. A test. When you read the Book of James, you see this laid out very clearly. James talks about tests, and he talks about temptations. Now, tests, as we know, are something that God sends into our life. A temptation is something that the enemy will send into our life. And I want to suggest to your mind this morning in your heart that every circumstance in life that brings about disappointment. On one side of that circumstance, God will send a test, and on the other side of the very same circumstance, the devil will send a temptation. A test alongside a temptation. You remember the little cartoons that had the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other shoulder? That's kind of it. Sort of.
That's some pretty good theology and cartoon ology in that on one side, there is a negative influence. On the other side, there is a positive influence. Now, here's what the tests look like. A test, as every educator in the room would tell you, a test is an evaluation to determine your readiness for promotioN. In other words, you will not get to the next level of life if you don't pass the test where you are. God will not put more on you if you're not prepared and ready. He wants to do more in your life, but he is preparing you for the next level of life. So you have a test. He won't put fourth grade work on a third grader. And once you get through third grade and you're into fourth grade, he's preparing you for fifth grade, and so on and so on until you finally graduate. Or in that context, we finally go to heaven. And until we graduate, until we step into the presence of God. Guys, we're going to be faced with tests all the time. All the time. Varying degrees sent for different reasons, but it's always for the purpose of evaluation. Now, understand, God is not sending the test into your life or mine so that he'll know where we are. When God evaluates, he's not. Now, a teacher will test her class or his class to evaluate where they are. A teacher doesn't want to put new material on their class if they're not getting what they've already taught them, because education deals with layer upon layer, principle upon principle. And so you start those building blocks of understanding, and if there's a missing gap, those kids are going to have trouble navigating because it's going to get more difficult as you go along. Well, the same is true in life. God sometimes will send us back through the same test because we didn't learn what we needed to learn at that level. So he won't bring us to the next level. Do we pass the test where we are? But the purpose of the test is not so God will know, because understand this about the character of God. He's sovereign. And what I mean, when I speak of the sovereignty of God, I mean God is omniscient, Omni meaning that he knows everything. He knows everything. So the test is not so that God will know. Here's why the test comes. It's so that I will know. I can't fix something I'm not aware of. I can't do something about something in my life if I don't see it. That's why back when you used to go to the malls and you'd shop in the mall and you were trying to find a store and you finally found the map, you were looking for, the red dot. What did the red Dot say? You are here, right? Because you can't get there if you don't know where you are, if you're calling someone for directions and you don't have maps or you don't have ways and you're still living in the don't know who wouldn't have that? But anyway, if you don't and you call it, the first question they're going to ask you, where are you right now? Where are you? Because they can't navigate where you need to go if they don't know where you are. I'm just saying I don't want to belabor the point. I just want you to understand that's the purpose of a test. God may be illuminating you this morning to something you weren't aware of, and it took a devastating or even disappointing circumstance in life to wake you up.
Sometimes it's to be aware of a relationship that needs to be repaired, and sometimes you're not aware of it until you hit a rough patch. And when you go through that experience, all of a sudden your eyes are open and you realize, I got to fix this. This is not going to maintain itself. We got to work on this. Or maybe it's some financial circumstances that you're going through in life. And you say, man, I got to stop the bleeding. Remember I told you there's a law called the Law of Holes? Remember that one? The law of Holes? And the law of Holes says, when you're in one, quit digging.
And so sometimes you have to be aware of where you are. So that's the test. Now, on the other side of the same situation, there's a temptation.
And the temptation is, why don't you just give up? It's not worth it. Walk away. Forget it. Mail it in. Don't even try. That's a temptation. Now, a test is an evaluation to determine your readiness for promotion. A temptation is a solicitation to do anything that goes against God's word or his will for your life. God has your and my best interests in mind. And anytime we are tempted to do something that goes beyond or goes against his best interest, for us, it will be a temptation, and we're always going to make a mistake. Why do I say that? I say that because you and I determine whether or not what we're going through. No matter how disappointing it might be, we determine the nature of the circumstance. Is this a test, or is a temptation? Am I going to learn from this and grow from it, or am I going to yield to this and let this thing bring me down? We determine that outcome. And so I'm just challenging your heart and minds this morning. The idea that when the disappointments hit, you understand, God has a purpose, he has a plan, and if you'll stay focused on him, you'll find the divine appointment in the midst of the disappointment. Now, one of the things that I know about disappointing circumstances is they can't be avoided. It doesn't matter how spiritual you are or how spiritual you aren't, you can avoid disappointment. I read this in a business context. In fact, Harvard Business School did a study in the business Review, a study concerning people who try to avoid disappointments. How do we get around it? And they said there are two extremes that they found in their study. One extreme was what they called the underachiever. The underachiever. They're the ones who try to avoid disappointment in life by set the bar low. Don't take risks. Try to keep yourself and others from being disappointed by just setting a very low bar, the underachiever. And what they found in surveying people who kind of live with that life philosophy is they were disappointed in themselves.
They were living disappointed life. And then you had, conversely, the overachiever. Now, the overachiever said, I've got the expectation of perfection. I'm just going to work harder than anyone else. And they found with the overachiever, they were as disappointed as the underachiever. And they discovered that it has something to do with balance, finding the balance in life as finding how to navigate the disappointments that you're going to encounter in lIfe. I heard about a dad who was taking his daughter to the office with him one day. It was take your daughter to work day.
And she was exciting getting to go see where dad worked and meet all the people that he worked with. And so when she got there, she had been there for a period of time. And some of the workers that dad worked with noticed she didn't seem to be happy. She wasn't really enjoying the experience, and she was a little down. And they went to her and said, well, sweetheart, aren't you having a good time being with dad at work? She says, not really. And they said, why aren't you having fun? She says, well, dad said, I work with a bunch of clowns, and I hadn't seen one yet.
Well, it's possible to be disappointed for different reasons, right? And this morning, I wanted to point at a character in the Old Testament who hit disappointments in life, but discovered that they were God's way of sending him to better and bigger things in life. He found the divine appointment in its disappointment. His name is Elijah. Many of you are familiar with the narrative. It's in one king 17. Let me give you a quick context. This is happening at a time when there's famine in the land. They're having trouble growing crops. And the reason there's a famine in the land and the reason it's affected the Business is because the country has turned away from God.
They've become so self sufficient that they believe their self sufficiency is of themselves and their ability. And they forgot to recognize the fact that all prosperity really comes from God. The Bible teaches the principle in Deuteronomy, it is he that gives you the power to get wealth. And so they were attempting to do what they were doing without relying on God as the source. So sometimes God will send circumstances into a Person's life, as he did in the life of the nation to get their attention. So he just let it quit raining. And so the crops were dying and the business was drying, and all of a sudden, people were hurting. And when people hurt, they tend to look To God. Hence the reason for the famine. Well, Elijah was the mouthpiece of God, and he was the one to tell the people why they were going through what they were going through. And it didn't make him the most popular guy in the world. So after he gives this word in one, King 17, look at verse two. If you don't have a Bible, look at the screen. The Bible says in the word of the Lord came to Elijah and said, get out of Dodge. I'm just saying if you were reading that. I didn't say that.
Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Carruth ravine east of the Jordan. Now all of a sudden, this wicked king and queen who were ruling the land, who were angry at God, who instead of turning to God out of a sense of repentance because of what they were going through, just became more embittered and enraged at God. So they were going to focus all that on Elijah the prophet. So God said, I need to hide you. So you need to go to Kerith. You need to get up in that ravine up in the mountains. I've got a little condo up there, kind of loosely translated. And what you're going to do when you get there, you're going to verse four, drink from the brook as I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there. Now, he said, I'm going to doordash you some food with the ravens and I'm going to give you fresh water to drink. Now, understand? Nobody else was experiencing that but Elijah. He had been obedient. He had followed God. And God said, I'm going to take care of you, even a time of famine. So he puts him up in the condo in the mountains. He's at Carth. He's enjoying fresh food in the mornings brought by these birds. He's enjoying a beautiful, cool, clean water each and every day. He is chilling in the mountains and the Bible says verse five. So he did as the Lord told him. If you take notes, that's probably the most significant statement about Elijah's life is right there. He did what the Lord told him. Now let me stop long enough to say kind of parenthetical to the text. I don't think he understood everything God was telling him to do. I'm not even sure he agreed with everything God was telling him to do, nor do I even think it all made complete sense to him to do what God was telling him to do. But the big principle and the takeaway from that line, at least to me, is it's not my job to necessarily understand as much as it is my job to undertake.
I'm supposed to say, okay, God, if this is what you want me to do, I'll do it. And the reason that's important is sometimes, folks, we approach God this way. We say to God, God, show me what you want me to do. And if I like what I see, I'll do it.
Instead, we have to come to him and say, Lord, whatever your will is, that I am willing to do. Even in the garden, when Jesus prayed, you remember what he prayed? He said, if it's possible to let this cup, let this cup pass from me. Now, I don't believe he was praying to get out of going to the cross, though some believe that's what was meant by that. I think he was praying that if I could go to the cross without becoming the object of your scorn, without having the wrath of your fury come down on me, because on my body, I'll bear the sins of the world. If I could do that without having the wrath of God and being the subject of your scorn, I would want to do it that way. And then he realized there's no way he was going to bear the sins of the world. And in so doing, he would bear the wrath of God there on the cross. And for a period of time, God would have to turn his back on his son.
And Jesus said, nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. Can I tell you, sooner or later you're going to find yourself in a hard place in life where you may not get everything the way you want it. And all the prayers that you're praying may not be answered in the way you prayed. And you're dealing with the disappointments. And you might have to get to that place where Jesus was, where he said, nevertheless, God, if you do it the way I pray, you will. That's amazing. But, God, even if you don't do it the way I pray, you will. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. I've told you before, God only wants for you what you would want for you if you just knew what he knows.
He can be trusted.
I can tell you through all the disappointments that I've dealt with life, with the homegoing of my wife and the homegoing of a granddaughter, I've learned, as my family have learned, as many of you have learned, that you get to that point in life where you have to say, God, it's not what I wanted. It's not what I prayed for. It's not what I hoped for.
But I know you have a plan far beyond my ability to comprehend. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. Man, that's a tough prayer.
You remember the story of the three Hebrew teenagers, Shadrach, Mishak, and Abednego, and Nebuchadnezzar said, recount your faith or you go into the fire in Daniel 317. I love what they said. They said to him. They said, king, look, our God is able to deliver us. And I believe that. Let me tell you how much I believe that. I believe God can heal any disease. I believe God can forgive any sin. I believe God can lift any burden. I believe God can solve any problem. I have no problem having the faith to believe. God is able to do anything that he chooses to do. But my faith also has to be big enough to accept his will.
What if it's not his will to heal? What if it's not his will to deliver?
You have to have enough faith. As three Hebrew children said, he's able. But continue to read Daniel 317. Here's what they said. But if not, even if he doesn't, we still ain't going to recant our faith.
If God does this the way we hope he does, or if it ends up being disappointing for us, we are still going to trust God.
You see, man, when your faith gets in that zone, when you get right there between what you prayed for and what actually happens in your life, that's where your faith really kicks in. I don't know about you, I don't have to have a lot of faith if everything's going well. Do you think Elijah needed a lot of faith when there was plenty of money and the grain was everywhere, the rains were coming and there was no famine in the land that didn't require faith. What required faith is when he went up into the mountains and he's trusting God for daily bread. And he's trusting God to provide. And not just provide. He's trusting God to protect him. The king and queen said, we got a bounty on that guy's head. We're going to take him out.
And I can tell you one of the biggest things you're going to have to do when you hit the disappointments of life. When things happen not the way you wanted them to happen, but it happened anyway, is you're going to have to learn to trust God.
Proverbs three, five and six. Probably two of my favorite verses committed to memory. Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Your heart. What is the heart more than the muscle pumping blood through your chest? The heart is your mind. The heart is your will. The heart is your emotion. When you say to someone, I love you with all my heart. That means with all that I am, I love all that you are. I cannot love you with any more of me. That's all I am. My heart. You got it?
And Solomon said, man, if I could describe how I trust the Lord, I trust him with all that I am. And then he went on to say, lean not on your own understanding. Now, he didn't say you don't have understanding. He said, be careful to leaning too heavily on your own understanding because you and I don't have all the facts.
So that's why I trust the God who lives not just in the past and the God who lives in the present, but the God who lives in the future. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He's the beginning and the end. And so I can trust him not only from where I am, I trust him for where I'm going.
So I have understanding. But I don't lean too heavily on it because some of the things I go through in life, quite frankly, I don't understand. I don't understand.
If you and I were to sit and we were to talk a little bit and share life experiences, I promise you, you could tell me about something you've gone through or something you've gone through that right now, you would say, I don't understand.
And here's what I don't want you to do. Don't run yourself crazy waiting on God to explain himself.
It's just going to be a snake eating his tail. I mean, you're going to go nowhere fast.
I hadn't made that work.
I mean, Isaiah demanded answers of God. And finally, here's how God responded to him. Isaiah, as high as the heavens are above your head. So high are my thoughts above yours and my ways above yours. He is being sweet, but he was saying, you're going to have to trust me because everything you're going through won't make sense. You will not understand.
I shared with the church shortly after Cindy's homegoing that I came to the conclusion that the only time I would understand all the things we've gone through our life is when I'm finally in the presence of God and I have the mind of Christ and his mind is perfect.
I don't have a perfect mind. There's nothing about me that's perfect.
Nothing. I'm working on it. But ain't nothing perfect. And I'm saying I've given up with the understanding thing. Here's where I'm landing. I'm landing on the trust thing. All right, God, I'm going to trust you. I'm trusting you. I put my faith that you'll keep me out of hell.
I put my faith in you that one day in heaven, all this is going to make sense. We ain't there yet.
So not only am I trusting you for the destination, I'm going to trust you for the journey.
And so when you begin to do that, it doesn't keep you from being disappointed, but it helps you navigate through it. So you're not an underachiever, an over. You find the balance that keeps you healthy, that helps you find a way through it.
And I think that's the heart of the narrative. When he said he just did what the Lord told him. He goes to Kerith, he stays there. He's fed, and he stays there until verse seven, till disappointment. The brook dries up.
When I read that, I thought in that is, I'm going to give you three principles in two minutes.
I just looked at the clock. Dear Lord. Sorry about that, guys. I did that last 930 service the last weekend. I looked up at the clock, and I had been my whole sermon on. .1 and I know how, believe me, I've sat there and I thought, dear God, he's got two more points to go.
Cindy used to love plays and going to that sort of thing. So I'd go along with. And they'd give you the program. You know what I did at the program when we'd go to a play or hear an orchestra or she was trying to get me a little more refined and sophisticated, and I guess there's some value in that. I don't know.
But we'd go, you know what I'd do? I'd catch myself pulling my pin out and checking the songs off the program.
I know I got that out of the way.
I'm four songs away from leaving, man. I can do this. I can do this. I can get more. So that's what I think about when I look at you guys and I look at the clock and you're going, he's got three points, for the love of God. So let me just summarize it. Can I summarize it for my notetakers?
First of all, the Brook dried up because God was liberating him. Liberating him. He was moving him from where he was to where he needed to be.
It's great to be content in your Christian faith. You don't want to become complacent. Contentment is good. Complacency is bad.
And so God doesn't. He doesn't honor complacency. He honors contentment. Contentment says, I'm not what I used to be. I'm not all I should be, but I'm not what I'm going to be. So I'm progressively moving to improve myself and to do better. And so he put him in a place where he unpacked everything and made it so uncomfortable that he couldn't stay there. He couldn't be complacent. Let me give you this illustration. Deuteronomy 32, verses eleven and twelve, where Moses was writing about how the eagle trains her little ones to fly. And he said, this is how God deals with his kids, where, first of all, he creates the nest with its structure, and then he lines the nest with fur and feathers because the nest needs to be comfortable when they're babies for those little eagles to be able to begin to grow. And mom feeds them, takes care of them, she brings them everything they need, covers them at night, keeps them warm, protects them from all predators, until a time comes when Mama knows that baby needs to fly. Because she didn't birth that baby to stay in the nest. She birthed the baby to learn to fly. So what she has to do is create discontentment for her little one. She starts pulling the fur and the feathers out of the nest, and all of a sudden, the baby's going, ooh, Mama, where's that pillow? Man, that's sticking me in the bat's uncomfortable meatloaf? She's all upset at Mama, and so they're trying to make this as uncomfortable as they can. Mama's not providing them everything they need, and so suddenly, she gets it so uncomfortable, the baby has no choice but to get up on the edge of the nest.
I don't know. That's the best baby bird I can give you right there.
And the baby gets right up on the edge of the nest. And then the text says, it's all in Deuteronomy 30, 211 and twelve. It says, she takes them and literally she throws them out of the nest. I mean, can you imagine? They've never seen Mama do that before. She accidentally kicks that baby out of the nest. Now, if the baby begins to fly, mission accomplished. If the baby doesn't fly, the Bible says, then she swoops under and catches them and takes them up on her wings. Now, can you imagine being a baby bird going through that? Whoo. Mama, you scared me there for a minute. Let's don't do that again. Ever. Take me back to the nest. I think I'm feeling chicken fried steak tonight.
Instead, what Mama does is take that baby Bird way up into the sky and drops them again.
And then she begins to circle as the baby bird's falling. And if they don't learn to fly at that point, she catches them again. She takes them and bears them on her wings. And you know what she's doing? She's not just scaring the baby bird. She's teaching the bird how to fly. And it isn't long until the little bird starts saying, wow, this works. I'm flying like Mama. Mama's going, duh. That's what it's about. That's all I was trying to do. What's my point? Sometimes God stirs the nest. He makes it uncomfortable. He builds some discontent within us because he's trying to liberate us from what we had, to move us to something better. Secondly, to liberate us. Number two, to lead us. To lead us. You know where God was taking him? To Zarephath. You know why? Because in Zarephath, there was a widow and a little boy there that desperately needed help. He would have never been able to help them had he stayed where he was. God may be moving you from where you were to where you need to be, because somebody over there needs what you have, and they'll never get it if you don't move. So he was leading them onto other things. He was leading them onto better things. And here's the last thought. He did it to lift him. To lift him. You know what ultimately happened to Elijah? He stood on a mountain called Mount Carmel. And I've been there. He stood at Mount Carmel, and he faced down this wicked king and this wicked queen. He faced down 450 of those false prophets. And through Elijah's prayer and through the fire of God that fell on Mount Carmel, a whole nation was brought to faith in God. What is the point? The point is at any part in the journey, Elijah could have given up on the process too hard. I don't agree. I'm not going to do it. I'm done. I think God would have gone right around him and used somebody else.
But because verse five, he did and obeyed the voice of the Lord, God took him from level to level to level and used him to be one of the great leaders of the Old Testament. Friend, let me tell you as I close, there are divine appointments. Even in your disappointment. You just need to slow down and look for it. Let's pray.
Father, thank you for your word.
You've told us in Isaiah, your word never returns void. It always hits a target. It always accomplishes purpose. You've also told us that your word has to be believed, it has to be heard, and it has to be enacted. Faith without works is dead. So help us, Father, to put into practice what we've just heard.
When we break out of this holy huddle, I pray each of us will execute based on what your spirit has prompted us to do, give us a greater trust and faith in you.
Bless, Father, the business represented in this room. Bless the individuals represented in this room. The families, the single parents, the young people. Father, I know you don't love all of us. You love each one of us. You love us individually. And I know you have a plan for every life.
Finally, I pray, Lord, for those who may never have come to faith, they may never have trusted you as Savior. Like these that we've witnessed and we've celebrated this morning through baptism. I pray this would be the moment right where they are, where they humble their heart and they pray a prayer like this and just say, Lord Jesus, with everything I know about me, I now trust all that I know about you. Come into my heart, forgive my sin, be a reality in my life, and I'll give you praise and thanks in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions or prayer requests, please contact us by visiting Metchurch.com so that we can follow up with you this week. We look forward to seeing you next week.
