5 Truths to Remember When Everything Goes Wrong

Once again, my name is René, one of the pastors here, and I heard a great phrase the other day, "Mamalese." How many of you have ever heard of this phrase before? "Mamalese." I love this. It's sort of like homilies, little sayings that your mom gave you, little sayings of wisdom. And I'll give you a couple of examples. We were talking about this in the office about "Mamalese." Our moms gave us. And just by show of hands, tell me whether or not you guys heard these when you were kids. Like this one. Those kids just make fun of you because you're jealous. How many of you, how many of you have heard this one? How many of you have realized by now that it's not true, actually? Those kids made fun of you because they thought you were weird. They were not jealous of you in any way.

Or did you ever say, "Mom, I am starving," and heard, "You can thank the Lord. You don't know what starving is." How many of you heard that, or a version of that? Speaking of food, if you eat all your carrots, you'll be able to see in the dark. Ever hear something like that about carrots? A lot of these "Mamalese" are about vision. In fact, I bet you'd be able to finish some of these. Shout it out if you know the answer. Don't sit so close to the TV. It'll what? Ruin your eyes. Exactly. Don't run with a stick. You'll what? Poke your eye out. You've heard these. Don't cross your eyes. They'll what? Cheer. Good. Not all of them are about eyes. Always put on clean underwear in case you're what? Thank you for your concern, Mom. I've never understood that one.

I heard this one a lot. Use your indoor voice. How many of you heard that one? I always said, "What indoor/outdoor voice? This is my normal voice." And the all-purpose "Mamalee" because I said so. How many of you heard that one? How many of you have said that one because I said so? It's handy. Now, somebody in the office told me their mom used to say this, and I'm curious to see if anybody else heard this. "Always let the phone ring twice before you pick it up." Anybody hear this one? Why? Because I said so. Right? That was the answer.

Now, my own mom is from Switzerland, and she's actually joining me here today. But she gets, because she's from Switzerland, she gets American and English things kind of mixed up. And so here's an actual "Mamalee" that she used to tell me, "You buttered your bed, now lie on it." Why? Because I am saying so, you know? But here's what my mom used to say to me that I actually treasure because it still resonates with me today. "René, happiness doesn't mean you don't have problems. It means you know how to talk to them." Isn't that good? I love that, and I love it because that's basically what Paul is saying to Timothy in the part of the Bible we're briefly going to look at today.

Grab your message notes that look like this. Let's talk about truths to remember when everything goes wrong. Strong Grace is the name of our Verse By Verse series in the biblical book of 2 Timothy. Remember the context? The Apostle Paul is writing this in prison, in Rome. Christians are undergoing severe persecution, and he's writing to Timothy, a timid, young, frail, inexperienced pastor. He's intimidated, paralyzed, worried, and Paul gives him five things to remember about the Christian life when everything seems to be going wrong.

Some of you are just getting slammed by life right now, and this is very timely. Some of you aren't, but you will be because that's the way life goes, and so you're going to need to write these things down too so that you know them when your difficult time comes. So jot these down. Number one is this. Pain is part of it. Pain is part of it. It's part of life. I mean, first bad stuff just happens to everybody. Chuck Swindoll tells a great story about something that happened right up the road here at Mount Herman Conference Center. He was speaking at one of the conferences, and one of the moms came up to him before one of the talks and said, "I just have to tell you about something that just happened to my family."

She said, "I was walking through one of the paths up at Henry Cowell Forest, and she said, 'I came across our three kids, along with a couple of kids that they met at camp, and they were all in a circle looking at something on the forest floor.' And she said, 'I thought it was a slug or something.' And so I came up and I said, 'Hey kids, what are you looking at?' And the kids said, 'These cute little fuzzy babies.' And she said, 'I came a little closer, and all these kids were gathered around six cute baby skunks.' And she said, 'I yelled out, 'Kids, run!' And each of the kids grabbed a skunk and ran. They still smell to this day.

Sometimes trouble just follows you in life, right? That's just life. We all know that. But Paul's not talking just here about the normal pain of life. He's talking about persecution because of your faith. Look at this. Verse 8. "So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, or of me, his prisoner. Rather, join with me in what?" Suffering. What? Suffering for the gospel by the power of God. Skip to verse 11. "Of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am what?" Suffering. "As I am." Peek ahead of chapter 2. "Join with me in what?" Suffering. Paul has to say this because at the time, Christians are being ostracized. They're being mocked. They're being ridiculed even at times being executed for their faith.

Now you might say, "So what? That's bad for those first century Christians in Rome, but that's not happening to us, so this doesn't relate to us, right? Christians today aren't being mocked or ostracized or made fun of, right? Not here in America, are they? Does the name Gene Simmons mean anything to anybody? Anybody remember Gene Simmons? Shout it out. Who is Gene Simmons? Right. The leader of the band Kiss. Remember these guys? Jog your memory. This was not a Christian band, okay? But the other day, Gene Simmons was on this talk show promoting his new arena football team, and he said something fascinating.

Listen to what he says here. Watch the screen. And you shouldn't have to mortgage your entire house to be able to go to an NFL game. So arena football's in your face, good family entertainment. In fact, we're about to almost sign Tim Tebow, and that's good for football. And all those pundits and the people in the peanut gallery who pick on him because he's an avowed Christian and proud of it is the heinous thing of all sports reporting and journalism, because here's a guy that believes in his God, and people pick on him. If he was a Jew or a Muslim and you did that, people would never dare. But for some reason, if he's a Christian, you're allowed to pick on him. I think it's the height of lunacy, and those journalists should be held accountable. They're never going to pick on a guy who tortures dogs or is, you know, perhaps going to jail for murder, but if he believes in Christ his Lord, then he's open-seized. It's like, what country are we living in?

Isn't that amazing? I mean, that's... I don't quite know what to make of it, but I know this. When a guy from Kiss is saying, "Stop picking on the Christians," something's going on, right? And Paul is saying to Timothy, "Look, it's a little more subtle than Rome in our day, but yeah, you need to know pain is part of it." Not everyone's going to love you if you're a Christian. Not everybody's going to automatically think that's awesome. And this is important because somehow we get the idea, somehow, that God promises us nothing but prosperity. But the first century Christians wouldn't even comprehend how we could think that, because these warnings that suffering and pain are a part of calling yourself a follower of Christ, they are all throughout the New Testament.

Pain is part of it. How do we not get this message? There will be pain. Sometimes really, really bad pain. And some of you are going, "Okay, yeah, Happy Mother's Day, René. Great Mother's Day message here. Pain is part of it. Glad I brought Grandma, right?" But the thing is, if we don't say this, what happens to believers who encounter their first real pain or persecution? What happens? What happens to their faith? They crash and burn because they go, "Whoa, this must all be a lie." Because nobody told me that there'd be suffering. Nobody told me there'd be pain even because, "No, I didn't know everybody wouldn't love me because I follow Jesus. It's all about love, right? How can people not love me?" Well, they won't. Not all the time. And if you don't say this as part of it, people go, "They lied to me," right? So you've got to say this.

Okay, so how does the Apostle Paul, who's writing this from prison on death row, how does he not stop at point one and just curl up into this stinging ball of despair, right? Well, because of the other four truths. Number two is there's a bigger picture. There's a bigger picture. Quick show of hands, how many of you recognize the name Johnny Eric Zentada? Anybody recognize this name? This is a picture that Johnny and her husband Ken posted the other day on Facebook. Johnny, when she was 16, was diving into a lake and didn't realize just an inch below the surface was a flat rock. And she got a back injury and she was paralyzed, quadriplegic, from the age of 16. So that's tough enough, right? That involves all kinds of health challenges. You know what? Right now, she's got breast cancer. Very serious.

And so they posted this from the doctor's lobby while they were waiting for their next test results, asking people to pray for them. So this is somebody who's been through all kinds of suffering, but she says, I love the way she puts this, she says, "God is taking all these threads of our lives, and from our perspective here on earth, they look like the back side of a tapestry." You ever seen one of these? Threads running everywhere. But she says, "One day, in glory, we will stand amazed to see the top side of the tapestry and how God beautifully embroidered each circumstance into a pattern for our good and His glory." There is a way bigger picture here.

All Timothy is seeing is the back side of the tapestry. I want you to see how Paul zooms him out to see the big picture. And it starts with grace, where Paul always starts and ends. "He saved us and called us to a holy life," Paul says, "not because of anything we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace." You know, the experts say that these verses are part of an early song, one of the very earliest Christian songs. Even back in those days, people loved to sing about "Amazing Grace." Still the number one song ever is "Amazing Grace," because we love to be reminded. This is so important when you're suffering, right? Because it's so easy when you're suffering to think, "I'm suffering, God must hate me. I'm suffering, what did I do to deserve this?"

Or to twist it even weirder and go, "God will love me more if I suffer more," and get into this weird martyr complex. Paul says, "No, it's not because of anything we have done. You didn't earn God's grace, you can't unearn God's grace just because you're suffering doesn't mean you're out of God's grace or you're earning more of God's grace." Then the picture gets even bigger. He says, "This grace was given us before the beginning of time." You know what this means? It means you've got a destiny. It means that God, before time began, said, "I am going to do something that's going to blow everybody's mind in the whole universe." And it's this. I'm going to pick this tiny, undeserving little planet and these tiny, undeserving people on this little planet and this tiny, undeserving person in Santa Cruz County, and I'm going to make them an object of my lavish grace.

They're going to get all the riches of heaven even though they did nothing to deserve it. It's my masterpiece, and you get to be part of that. It's part of your destiny, no matter what happens to you. And then the picture gets even bigger. Read on, "God planned it before time began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who what? Destroyed death. How brought life and immortality through his resurrection?" In other words, even if the worst goes to worst and you die, like Paul believes will clearly happen to him there when he's writing this in prison, there will be a resurrection, and God will perfect all the suffering and brokenness in this world.

Look up here for just a second. Mother's Day is awesome for most moms. But for some mothers, Mother's Day carries a unique pain. Kay and Rick Warren, Rick is the famous pastor in Southern California. His wife Kay, almost exactly a year ago now, they lost their son Matthew. He committed suicide after a lifetime of mental illness. And a little while ago, Kay, on the one-year anniversary, just the other day of Matthew's suicide, gave a profound interview to Christianity Today. And I want you to listen to a couple of lines that she says.

She says she used to have what she called a "hope box." She said, "Every time I would read a scripture that gave me hope, I would write it out and put it inside that box. But after Matthew took his life, I couldn't look at that box anymore. It mocked me." She said, "I took all the verses out, emptied them out, and threw them away. And my hope box sat empty, and I didn't know how to believe again." She says, "Slowly I've been repopulating that box with verses. And the first one God gave me was 1 Corinthians 15:43. And it says, 'These bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory.'" She says, "When I sit or kneel or lay on Matthew's grave," she said, "I clutch the dirt and I claim this verse. I say to God, 'God, Matthew grew up in brokenness, and he died in brokenness, but he will be raised in strength and glory.'" And that's faith, you see. That's real faith.

That's not that cheap kind of dollar store, prosperity gospel faith. That's faith that says, "No, pain is part of it, but we're all part of a bigger picture. And ultimately there will be glory and there will be resurrection and there will be strength." That's what I call big picture faith. That's the kind of faith you see in scripture. And then the third truth to remember when everything goes wrong is I'm in God's hands. I'm in God's hands. Now what do I mean by that? Well, I love the Peanuts comics by Charles Schulz, and in one of them, Peppermint Patty asks Charlie Brown, "What is security?" And here's his answer. He says, "Security is sleeping in the back seat of the car. When you're a little kid and you've been somewhere with your mom and dad and it's night and you're riding home in the car, you can sleep in the back seat, you don't have to worry about anything. Your mom and dad are in the front seat and they do all the worrying. They take care of everything."

And Peppermint Patty says, "That's really neat." But then he does a typical Charlie Brown and he says, "But it doesn't last! Suddenly you're grown up and it can never be that way again. Suddenly it's over and you'll never get to sleep in the back seat again. Never! Never! Absolutely never!" And Peppermint Patty just says, "Hold my hand, Chuck." I love that. How many of you remember sleeping in the back seat of the car when you were kids? How many of you are old enough like I am to remember sleeping back there without seat belts, right? That was very comfortable, wasn't it? It was great. Remember on long trips, my mom would just put blankets down on the floorboard in the back seat. And my sister and I, we were conked out for hours back there. It was so comfortable. We were secure.

Now looking back, I realized that the floorboards of our old car were rusted out. And so there were holes in there, so probably part of the sleepiness was carbon monoxide, to be honest. But still, let's just call it security. But what is true? Security? Knowing your father is driving. Look, this is such a good verse. 2 Timothy 1:12. In fact, let's read all this out loud together. Let me hear you. "I know whom I have believed and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day." Pastor I loved up in Oregon, Ron Mail up in Beaverton. He used to tell the story of an old woman who had memory problems getting worse and worse in his church. And her children finally had to put her in a nursing home.

And when they went to visit her, they would hear her quoting her favorite verse, which was this verse. Only it was in the King James Version. "For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day." In other words, he's going to keep my soul safe and bring me safely to heaven. It's all on him. He does the keeping. So that really gave her a lot of comfort, but her memory kept slipping. And as they visited her, she knew less and less of this verse. It became, "He is able to keep what I have committed to him." And as time went on, her voice grew weaker and the verse became even shorter. "What I have committed to him." And as she was dying, her voice became so faint that family members had to bend over her bed to hear the words that were whispered from her lips. And at the end, there was only one word she remembered how to say. It was a word from her life verse, "him." She whispered it again and again as she stood on the threshold of heaven. Him, him, him. That was all she had left. But it was all she needed because she knew, "I'm in God's hands. God's got you."

Truth's to remember when everything goes wrong. And this next one may be the hardest. "I must stay on message." Would you agree with this? Troubled times distract people. When you feel stressed, let down, attacked, you can get distracted. And you know what? I'll be honest. I see that happening with Christians today. Follow me. There's conspiracy mania. There's outrage mania. Sometimes I listen to so-called Christian radio. And speaking as somebody who comes out of Christian radio, I listen to the talk stations and they're really fear-based. We've got to fear this group, fear that group because they're persecuting Christians. It's just a big giant distraction.

You don't see that kind of talk coming out of the New Testament believers who were being persecuted. Paul says, "Now what you heard from me, keep that as the pattern of sound teaching with faith and love in Christ Jesus." Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you. Guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in you. Paul comes back to this again and again. You'll see it next week. Timothy, don't get distracted by all the fights people are trying to pick with you over this or that current issue or their pet peeve. Don't get distracted. You stay focused. Focused on what? Our story. That the Father loves the world so much that He sent His Son to die for us. And the Son sent the Holy Spirit to live in us.

You keep telling that story. The world has other narratives. That's our narrative. The world has other stories. That's our story. And your story is part of that story. So you keep finding ways to focus in and tell that story. You tell that story to the people who like you and the people who don't like you. Tell that story to your enemies and your friends. Tell that story to Republicans and Democrats. Tell that story to gay people and straight people, to black people and white people, to young people and old people, and to people who don't know what they are. Don't let trouble distract you. Don't let persecution distract you. Don't let fights people to try to pick distract you. You keep focusing on your story, which is God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son. That whoever believes in Him should not perish but of everlasting life. And because He loved us, we love others. That's our story. That's our story. And you keep telling that story. Don't let politics or anything else distract you.

And then finally, oh that's so important I could just go on, but finally the fifth thing to remember when everything goes wrong is this, help will find me. Help will find me. You're not alone. You're not alone. And by this I don't mean the universe will send you help, whatever you want. What I mean is some people are going to let you down. Look at what Paul says. He goes, yeah, you know everybody in the province of Asia deserted me, including Phygilis and homogenies. Sometimes people let you down. That happens. But check this out. Paul basically just gives half a sentence to the guys who let him down. And then the whole rest of this first chapter, he concentrates on the one guy who came through for him.

He says, may the Lord show mercy to the household of Anissa for us because he often refreshed me. He wasn't ashamed of my chains. On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me till he found me. Ah, may the Lord grant that he'll find mercy from the Lord on that day. Oh, you know very well. In many ways he helped me out. Look at that. Let me ask you, what about you? Do you have this kind of like, oh yeah, these people treated me bad. Oh, but let me just focus on this one, the one guy. Everybody else is sort of like, let me focus on the one guy who helped me. Is that kind of your ratio when you think of people in your life? Or when you're like driving around or when you're falling asleep at night, do you tend to think of all the encouraging words you got? Or do you think of that one guy at work who's got it in for you? Or that one relative who doesn't like you? I know what you do because I know what I do. I think of the critic.

But Paul's ratio is completely different. And be on this of Forrest, too. It says he searched hard for me till he found me. He didn't just like wait for Paul to stumble across his path. Who do you have to hunt down hard to help? So I want you to look at this. Is this what you remind yourself of when everything goes wrong? Some of you know this has been my struggle. I won't belabor it because many of you know my story. But when I was four, my dad died. We lived in poverty. Was raised by an awesome single mom. By the way, a great shout out to all the single moms here. Single moms are awesome. I was raised by a single mom. You are strong.

But you know what? When I was a little kid, I experienced that sometimes the worst thing you can possibly imagine. A four-year-old boy losing his dad and being plunged into poverty. I realized at four, sometimes the worst thing you can imagine happens. And so I thought, okay, so let's see. So you can't keep the worst thing from happening to you. So I know what I'm going to do. I'm never going to let that bad thing surprise me ever again because the surprise is hard. And so what I decided to do was everything in my life I will anticipate the worst possible outcome. And what I was experimenting with, I was working on dread all the time. I mean, and this went on for years.

I remember thinking in fourth grade, I really love this teacher. Then catching myself, she probably won't make it through the school year. Don't get too attached. Every time I felt a twinge in my arm or leg, it's probably cancer. I'm going to die. Every time mom was late from anything, she's probably dead. It was just constant. What kind of a little kid lives like that? That monster under my bed, going to devour me before the morning's over, you know? And what happened was years of this led finally to my anxiety attack as an adult because what I was missing was something so many of us miss. We think Paul is saying, so try harder to buck up and have a good attitude. This is not a try harder message. Did you miss it? Look at Paul's continual emphasis. Complete these. Join with me in suffering for the gospel by the power of who? Guard it with the help of the who? Holy Spirit who lives in us. He is able to guard. Who is able? God. God is able. Say that. God is able. Now say it like you mean it. God is able.

You ever heard that saying, God never gives you more than you can handle? Yeah, that's not true. I got more than a four year old can handle. Thank God it's not up to what you can handle. It's up to what God can handle. And he lives in you. You know what's fascinating to me? There is a kind of this hum through every word of this letter written in these devastating circumstances, the letter to 2 Timothy. Like an electrical charge running through wires. It's this continual underlying theme in Paul's writing. And it's this. God is going to do something great. Yeah, pain is part of it. But we're part of the bigger picture. We're in his hands. And God's going to do something great.

So stay on message. So let me just challenge you right now. Replace any feelings of dread you have this week. Just try this. You're driving on your way to work. I want you to say to yourself before feelings of dread start to kick in. Say God's going to do something great today. In fact, say that out loud. God's going to do something great. If you're writing to school, say that to yourself. Say it. God's going to do something great today. You're a mom and you've got a list of errands a mile long. Plus you work outside of your house. You don't know how everything is going to get done. Say this. Say it. God's going to do something great today. How do we know? Because he said so. Let's pray together. Bow your heads with me.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your love for us. Every minute of every day. And I just want to pray for those who feel like everything's going wrong right now. Everything's just a hard slog right now. And I pray that you would strengthen them from the inside out. Strengthen them when they feel like they can't go one more step. And help us especially to remember that it's all by your amazing grace from before time began. You saved us and you empower us now. And you will raise us all by your grace. We thank you that the resurrection proves it. God is able. And we look to you and hope in Jesus' name. Amen.