Navigating through The Obstacles of Life - Part 5

Transcript

thanks for joining with me on another Helping You Become podcast. I pray it's a
blessing to you. Then in your bibles please to John chapter 16 and as you do that
I'm just going to stop and pause for a moment and just pray for us today. Father
God thank you so much for all that you do for us. Lord you sent Jesus you
provided the Holy spirit, to lead us and guide us into all truth. Jesus, who
forgives us of our sins and cleanses us of all unrighteousness, when we confess our
sins to Him. Lord, He is our method of achieving eternal life with You in heaven.
So no one comes to the Father but by Jesus. So Lord,
we thank You for that. And as we gather round Your Word today Lord we ask for
actionable intelligence, something that we can take, learn, apply, get some revelation
on and Lord see the divine outcome come through our life and into our world.
And Lord we ask these things in the wonderful name of Jesus. John chapter 16,
a fascinating verse that I've been looking at for many many years. We've been
looking at it for the last four weeks as I've been discussing how to navigate
through the icebergs of life or navigate through the obstacles of life.
Jesus says a fascinating thing here, verse 32, "Behold, the hour comes." Yeah,
it has now come. That you should be scattered, talking to his disciples. you shall
be scattered, every man to his own." Just think about that for a second. Have you
ever felt scattered? And have you ever felt scattered after you've done it your own
way and it doesn't necessarily work or it hasn't necessarily worked the way that you
wanted it to work or the way that it first appeared? Remember that nothing is ever
as it first appears. We see that in the life of Jesus. We see in a normal man.
I mean, the spirit of God came down on him when he was baptized by John the
Baptist and said, "This is my beloved son "and whom I am well pleased, hear ye
him." Yes, now that identified Jesus to the spirit world.
This is the one. And And after that the devil went after him. Nothing is ever as
it first appears after he died. The devil thought he had won, he was cheering. But
then later, three days later raised from the dead and all the cheering stopped.
Nothing is ever as it first appears. And that's a very powerful principle to
remember as we travel through life. "You shall be scattered every man to his own,
and shall leave me alone." The disciples leaving Jesus after he was captured, yes,
in the garden. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.
These things I have spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace. He has the
Father with him, and he's saying in me you might have peace, gives us access to
the Father. No one comes to the Father, but by me, in the world you shall have
tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." How fascinating is
that? An innocent man facing execution and he's saying, "I've overcome the world,
you'd be happy." (laughs) I read that and it just used to do my head in. I think,
"Wow, man, this is incredible." So over the last four weeks, I've been discussing
navigating through the obstacles of life and I've talked about the what I call the
grime of life all those little sins that just plague you, plague you, plague you,
plague you and they're annoying and frustrating and you know you you get annoyed and
you know yell at the kids and all these sorts of little things that just they're
just wrong and they're just mostly of the flesh and they just plague us and then I
talked about the quagmire of life those big things are just bogus down. They're
designed to do your head in if you stop and meditate on them and think about them.
Think about interest rates. Think about rising inflation. Think about war in other
countries. Wow, you know, our radio program goes all over the world. War might be
happening in your country and if it is, then I just pray God that He protect you
and look after you and preserve you. A terrible tragic thing. But these things are
going on all of the time and Jesus said I have overcome the world you be happy
because I've overcome it so we need to be able to navigate our way through.
When Solomon was faced with a myriad of obstacles and issues and problems and things
because he had to judge at a young age he had to judge a whole nation and judging
the people meant judging their decisions and the outcomes of their decisions, and
Solomon had to work through all of that. "Oh man, oh man, what a job. Seriously,
do you head in?" You know, so how is it that we can face these things,
navigate through them, and come out the other side, and we've dodged our iceberg,
not like the Titanic that hit its iceberg? There's always obstacles,
but we have to navigate through them. Jesus said, "In the world you will have
tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Last week we looked
in Proverbs chapter two, verses six through to 12 in particular, and I shared with
you that the wisdom is a gift from God. Wisdom creates the ability to discern,
it sharpens your ability to discern, to choose or to be able to discern right from
wrong, to discern the difference in things, the difference in people. And we
discussed some of these sorts of things in detail last week. Now, what I do suggest
is that you turn over with me please to Deuteronomy chapter 4. I invite you over
there. And in verse 5, it reads this way, "Behold,
I have taught you statutes and judgments even as the Lord my God commanded me that
you should do so in the land whether you go to possess it so God's instructed
Moses here and he's said and he's taught Moses things and Moses is discussing this
with the people and he says look I've taught you statutes and judgments as the Lord
God has commanded me so these haven't come from me. They've come from the Lord God.
And He commanded me in this. So this is very important. Moses has got personal
ownership here because he was commanded by God. Very, very important. Verse 6,
"Keep therefore and do them the statutes and the judgments that God commanded Moses
in. Keep therefore and do them, for this is your wisdom? Wow,
this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations which shall
hear all these statutes and say, "Surely, this great nation is a wise and
understanding people." Isn't that a fantastic, fascinating, just couple of verses?
God's wisdom, God's wisdom is released through statutes and judgments but it's the
kind of wisdom the statutes and the judgments create a kind of wisdom that's
workable in the marketplace is noticed by other people and noticed internationally in
the sight of the nations. They'll hear of all of these statutes and these judgments
and they'll say surely this is nation is a great and wise nation and and
understanding people. So it became their unfair advantage in the marketplace.
The wisdom of God, the statutes of God, the judgments of God, being delivered
through the people into the marketplace, getting international recognition.
This is a remarkable couple of verses when you think it through. Effectively, the
Word of God. This is our wisdom. Now this tells me, these two verses,
the statutes and the judgments that become our wisdom, all of that, it tells me
that wisdom does not come through age and getting old.
Isn't that fascinating? You know, he's a wise old man. Well, is he? He just might
be
But wisdom doesn't come through age, certainly experience might come that way.
But wisdom doesn't necessarily come that way just because you've got old doesn't make
you wise. In fact, some of the stupidest people on the planet are old people, 90
year old that refuses to accept Jesus as Lord and a 16 year old that serves the
Lord. I was preaching a conference one time at our church in Newcastle.
I'd been ministering for quite some time, three or four hours on change,
out of Ephesians. And it was time, we were getting ready for just a big powerful
point that the Lord was bringing. And I was building up to this point and I was
all excited about it and my audience was very attentive. I was talking about change
and paused for a moment and there was a very unhappy elderly lady on the front row
and she crossed her arms and said in a very loud voice and a very grumpy voice
"I'm too old to change? I'm too old to change." And completely destroyed the feel
of the evening, just with that comment. And I said, "Lord, what do I do? What do
you want me to do here?" And I just felt, why don't we just pause for a moment
and have a cup of tea and have a coffee and just have a bit of a break and
we'll come back for the last session for the evening. And so we broke up and
stopped for a coffee. And I went out to my secret place out the back into a
private room, and I said, "Lord, what do I do now?" Because she's just wrecked the
evening. And the Spirit of God just rose this, just sentence up within myself and
said, "If that was the case, then no old person, no elderly person could ever
become born again." I thought, "Wow, how simple is that? How simple is that?
There's no such thing as being too old to change, otherwise no elderly person could
ever become born again. Wow. So anyway, when we came back, I raised that,
and I don't think she was happy. But it's fascinating because experience might come
through age, but wisdom doesn't necessarily come that way.
And as I said, you can have a 90 -year -old person who is just absolutely bent on
not serving Jesus, and you can have a 16 -year -old young person that serves the
Lord with all their heart. And remember, Jesus at 12 years old, or is it Luke 47?
Chapter 2, verse 47, he talks about him being about his father's business and asking
questions and giving answers that confounded the people and the educators of the day,
they were astonished at his understanding and his answers.
So that itself, just in the life of the Lord, also tells us that wisdom does not
come through age. Now, also, wisdom does not come through bloodline or genetically.
You can have, and this is a fascinating thing, you can have somebody like Saul,
effectively a fairly stupid father who has a son like Jonathan.
How remarkable is that? What a contrast between those two men. Saul, who was just
bent on doing literally quite silly things,
quite dumb things, taking on God and expecting to win,
I mean seriously. So you can have a Saul and become a Jonathan.
Or you can have an incredible father like David, a man after God's own heart.
And you could become an Absalom. Wow. See, so wisdom comes from learning the
Scriptures. It is a gift from God. The Word of God is a gift from God.
And wisdom comes through learning the Scriptures. Deuteronomy, "I have taught you
statutes and judgments even as the Lord my God commanded me therefore you keep and
do them for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations
how strong is that wow so this
also tells me that if we look at that it doesn't come wisdom comes doesn't come by
age doesn't come by experience doesn't come by bloodline. That also tells me that
our decisions, because you can decide to pursue wisdom or you can decide to sit in
front of the television and just watch you know whatever. You can decide to pursue
wisdom, you can decide to get up early, you can decide to meditate the Word by day
and night and observe to do according to all that is written there in and then you
will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success, is what God
told Joshua.
So decisions, our decisions, if you be willing and obedient, you eat the good of
the land, if you, our decisions are the things that decide the next season that we
enter.
Decisions decide seasons. Decisions decide lifestyles.
That's so important. The decisions that were made had a very adverse,
literally a tragic effect on the Titanic. When it hit that iceberg,
it was a series of decisions. The people They were taking the messages and the
radio, they were taking messages for the passengers because there were very many
wealthy, influential passengers and they wanted to get their messages, wanted to get
their messages. They were too busy to take messages about the condition of the sea
and the obstacles that were there ahead of them. So decisions decide seasons,
decisions decide styles. Decisions are the source of failure or success.
Any failure or any success can be traced back to a decision that was made.
You took that job, you went through and you got promoted and you finished up the
CEO and you're on a million dollars a year or something. You see what I'm saying
here and you took the job when you were 15 and you worked your way through the
company and you became one of the executive directors and you took that decision.
You made that decision and you took that job. See everything can be traced back to
a decision of some kind. How did you get married? You decided to.
Yes?
Why did you pass your exams at school? Because you decided to work hard. You saw
the need for that. You understood that and you decided to comply. And compliance
through education is much more powerful than compliance through enforcement.
I'll say that again because that's a very strong sentence. Compliance through
education is much more powerful than compliance through enforcement.
So that brings us back to the next point is what are we basing our decisions upon?
When we agree with something do we really know why we're agreeing with it?
Or do we agree just because we think it sounds okay? See there are the chief
priests and they were saying Jesus, crucify him, crucify him, crucify him in John
chapter 19, and there were other people there. The Jews were there as well,
and everyone was screaming out, "Crucify him." I wonder if everyone really thought
about that,
whether they thought about Exodus chapter 20, as we know it, where it says,
"Thou shalt not kill," God's law versus man's law that says, I hear we can do that
if it suits us. So do we know why we are agreeing with something?
Yeah, that's really important. Accuracy is required in navigating through the quagmire
of life. And there's going to be, I believe,
a lot of tragic human cost around the world from 2020 through to 2040.
The world is changing at an incredible rate. Aspects of it are just hurtling out of
control, crazy little stuff. So accuracy is very important as we navigate through the
quagmires of life. And as I said before, do you agree with something just because
it sounds right and because it's popular? Or are you agreeing because you understand
that this is on the Word of God and this is the way it is and this is what I
need to do? Because it is God's desired intention, his required outcome,
his preferred outcome that he wants to released through me into the world around me.
The Titanic did not accurately navigate through the icebergs.
Accuracy is critical. Many other ships did. They made it through.
But the Titanic didn't. And there were other ships that came to their aid and
collected those people that made it to the lifeboats on the Titanic.
It did not accurately navigate through the icebergs, but many other ships did. We
have to be able to accurately discern and identify difference.
We have to be able to accurately discern and identify what is scriptural, what is
biblical, what is on the Word of God, so that our decisions that flow from that
lead us into memories that we love,
not memories that cause pain. The Holy Spirit wants to lead us into memories and
give us memories that we love to remember. Oh,
that's so powerful. So how we respond to the quagmires of life, all these things
that are beyond our control. How we respond to all of that is critical.
It's probably beyond our control anyway. It's already underway. It's already happening.
Rising interest rates, rising inflation, escalating human cost all around,
all right? But there's no need to be concerned because Jesus said,
"In me you have peace." The world has tribulation but you be happy because I have
overcome the world. Jesus has already overcome the world and we need to get in the
flow of that victory in the wake of that victory through strict obedience to His
Word, not through our own good intentions. More so than ever do we need to learn
our Bibles. That is very, very important. I'm going to finish with that now for
today. Thank you so much for your company. It's always a great delight to share
God's Word. As I said before, I take access to your heart and mind very seriously
indeed. So I just pray that these programs are a blessing to you. And I just pray
that you find yourself in church this week. You do something good for somebody,
bless somebody, and always remember that we need to be kind one to another.
Tender hearted for forgiving one another as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us.
God bless and enjoy a good week of serving the Lord. Thanks for joining with us on
this podcast. We are dedicated to helping you become all you can possibly be in
Christ Jesus. Please do check out the resources at livingsuccess .org That's
livingsuccess .org. God bless.