Transforming Trials: Embracing Hope Through Interruptions

"Paul, the apostle writing to the Romans, offers a perspective. I think it's kind of a radical perspective, even now, even though this is 2,000 years ago, that turns our understanding of these obstacles in our life, these sufferings that we encounter, these exposures of our weaknesses. Don't you hate it? When your weaknesses are exposed?" [00:01:39] (23 seconds)


"if you remember that you that's your response did make you angry they have a lot of power over you apparently and you don't even know them it's amazing but paul gives us a new vision a new perspective a new way to look at these interruptions in our lives maybe even maybe even be a host to the interruptions in your life so that you can see how god might be at work now i'm kind of quote -unquote preaching to the choir you have interrupted your normal weekend to come here you've you've created margin you've created space you've you've opened yourself up to god interrupting normal programming amen but why else are you here it's not is it the coffee it's not the coffee it's not the coffee it's not the coffee it's not the coffee thank you thank you debbie for making the coffee is it because it's joan's birthday is that why you're here happy birthday to joan i mean obviously that's why we're here now isn't it more that that we need his perspective we need his vision on life and so we just create a space we do it every week maybe some of you three or three times a week you know because you're at this bible study you're engaging this and you're just like i need an interruption and you're just like i need an interruption and you're just like i need an interruption and we don't like interruptions but we can choose to create space for that let's let's keep thinking about that because jesus welcomed those who interrupted him if you remember some of those stories and jesus jesus would just be like um you know these kids crawling all over him and the disciples were like leave the master alone he's like what else do you think i'm doing i'm like here for the kids like let them come let the kids come crawl all over me of course this is fine but maybe you're done growing and that's just the thing you're like you're my character is where i want it um my perseverance is where i want i just i've just i'm just complete and so jesus can just take me home now but i i think some of us get tired of growing pains and we just want to can i just be on a steady plateau right now i'm tired i'll settle for the mess i'm in i give up but the way jesus did it he he said i am preaching the kingdom of god the kingdom of god is broken and i'm not breaking it i'm not breaking it i'm not breaking it i'm not breaking it breaking in here and now" [00:02:28] (150 seconds)


"And are you the ones that want the kingdom of God breaking in? No? Okay, well, you don't have to be here. But are you, oh, these ones are the ones that want the kingdom of God breaking in, interrupting their life. And so it was the former paralytics, and it was the people that were formerly demon-possessed, and it was the people that were healed of all kinds of diseases and the poor and all that. And they said, I want the kingdom of God to break into my life. Break in. Let's go. And, you know, we talk about the kingdom of God a lot, and we're not necessarily building the kingdom of God. We're creating space for his kingdom to break in so that we can experience a little bit of God on our journey when he makes all things new." [00:04:58] (43 seconds)


"But in his way of thinking, it wasn't so much of a rush, because a woman came up and fought through the crowd, and she's ritually impure in this culture, and so you don't approach anything holy. In fact, don't touch me, because you'll do it. I imagine she walked up to him, and there was this like, growing space around her, like, don't touch me. I don't want to be ritually impure. She had been bleeding menstrually for years and years and years and years. Nothing could happen. I'm sure she's just emaciated, iron deficient, just struggling, just on her last grab, just like, Jesus, you could do this. And she just knew if she just grabbed maybe the tassel on his robe, if she could just get that close to him, and she would be healed. And she was." [00:07:09] (49 seconds)


"I'm interrupting your world, and when I can be interrupted, that's just more space for God to do something. And none of us think that way, which is a problem. Maybe some of you, I don't know. But if we had the King Jesus vision, this is the new KJV, if we had the new King Jesus vision, our trials could transform into actual triumphs. If we could just see things the way he sees them, and if we could train ourselves to want that, like, Jesus, what are you doing in this moment?" [00:08:06] (42 seconds)


"And he doesn't say, and we looked at this, he didn't say celebrate our sufferings. We'll look at this passage here. It says, not only do we have this peace of God and love of God poured out in our hearts, not only all that, but we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope. All these things we actually want." [00:10:18] (23 seconds)


"Like my son's going to run a half marathon coming up soon. And he was, what did he say? Like yesterday, he talked to us and he's like, hey, I'm doing a 10 mile just to kind of prep. Anybody want to go on a 10 mile run? And we're just looking at him going like, are you kidding me? A 10 mile run? Who's chasing me? Like that's what I need to know." [00:11:57] (20 seconds)


"I don't know if that's exciting. But endurance then would produce character. Now this is a person who can be relied upon to endure. And this woman is someone you can go to because you know she has persisted and held the faith in the midst of all of the struggles. And then you've got the character that produces hope because your consistent faithfulness to God has then created this covenant with God and He starts to be faithful to you and His favor is upon you. And then you just experience His love poured out into our hearts. So really, if you think about it, every obstacle that stands in our way, every obstacle is an opportunity." [00:12:41] (40 seconds)


"Some of you know this, some of you don't know this. Almost two years ago, I was in a church. Two years ago, my daughter died. She's 18 years old. And in the process of being dead in the hallway in my house, the medics came. The medics started coming up the stairs. Every new person with a new red bag, they're going to try to do what they can to revive my daughter. By impulse, I was standing at a bit of a distance watching all this happen." [00:15:39] (37 seconds)


"And literally, it's praying aloud, just, Jesus, what are you doing right now? What are you doing right now? What is going on? What are you doing? What is this? How am I supposed to process this? But one success story in the middle of tragedy is, that's the way I've been thinking for years and years and years. What are you doing right now? What's up? I don't get this. I need wisdom. I don't know. I'm weak. I'm broken. What do you do? How do I participate with it? That's a super extreme example. And I don't just mean to drop it on you." [00:16:16] (42 seconds)


"Rejoicing in suffering. Wow, that's crazy. But this is the pathway to a character, an unshakable hope. Rejoicing in suffering. But this is the pathway to a character, an unshakable hope. Rejoicing in sufferings. Normal response to obstacles. frustrated plans you go into hyper control mode you operate out of bitterness resentment despair self-pity or you self-medicate or you shift blame or you focus on the discussion discomfort ask me how i know these things just maybe we can talk about that um it's just like wow okay we don't get it don't they get it but if god is on the throne and he's allowed this thing or these 400 things in the room this blockage this suffering then maybe he's got a good reason to allow it i'm gonna have to trust that he might have a an opportunity here there might be a plan he hasn't given up on me and so i can rejoice in that when israel spent all those years wandering in the desert they were being formed as a people that would bear god's name to the world and there was a this note in this book i reread this week for a pastor's book club that i'm in i got to suggest the book I've read it multiple times. It's really helpful." [00:19:43] (65 seconds)