Healing Choices in Troubled Times

What makes a person undaunted through all the challenges of life? Good morning, my name is René, another one of the pastors here at TLC. You know who a great historical example of an undaunted person was? Florence Chadwick. Now you may have never heard of Florence, but in her day she was a legend. She was the very first person, man or woman, to swim the English Channel both directions from France to England and then England to France. Total round trip mileage 42 miles. That's right, a 42 mile open ocean swim.

I want to show you actual footage of this incredible historical event on September 11th, 1951. She went into the water. Her progress was followed by the news media that monitored her in boats and this last 21 mile leg you're watching here took a little over 13 hours, which was a world record for the English Channel at the time. Now Florence was born actually in San Diego, grew up swimming in the ocean, but this really put her in the world's spotlight. When she returned home to California, they threw her a ticker tape parade. She appeared on TV shows and in movies. She became famous and then on July 4th, 1952 Florence attempted to swim from Catalina Island to the mainland near Los Angeles. That's only 22 miles, about half of a record-breaking round trip English Channel swim.

But after almost 16 hours of swimming through the frigid California coastal waters, which were on this day infested by sharks, great white sharks that her people following in a boat kept shooting at with rifles. After all of that, she gave up within just a few hundred yards of the shore because she was in thick California coastal fog. She later told a reporter, "If I could have just seen land, I might have made it." Now are you getting what happened there? This was a world-class athlete who was defeated not by the cold, not by the distance, not even by the sharks, but by the fog.

And you know what? It's pretty foggy out there right now. I'm not talking about the climate. I'm talking about the fear of the future. A lot of us right now this year are asking ourselves, "What's the future going to be like? Will life ever get back to normal? Will our country get even more divided?" Those who lost homes in this recent fire are wondering, "Will we ever be able to rebuild?" Do you agree with me when I say 2020 has felt like a long-distance marathon swim through shark infested waters, but the worst is that the future is foggy.

Well today I want to encourage you, don't stop swimming. I know it's foggy out there. I know you can't see past tomorrow the way the headlines are changing all the time, but keep going. I'm gonna give you five ways to cut through the fog so you can stay undaunted. That's the name, as Adrian mentioned, of our message series in the part of the Bible known as 2nd Corinthians. This was a letter written by the Apostle Paul and if anyone knew what it was to have his life shrouded by fog, it was the Apostle Paul. The future seemingly always in doubt, the wheels constantly coming off, his plans constantly going wrong, yet he consistently makes five healthy choices to face his troubled times.

Choices that cut through the fog and kept him going. And I want to show you these in 2nd Corinthians chapter 1 verses 3 to 11. And real quick I want to encourage you to go to TLC.org/notes, download the notes, fill them in, keep them somewhere where you will see them over the next few months because I sincerely believe that the five choices you see Paul making here are the key choices that you must make if you want to keep on swimming, undaunted, into the foggy future that we all face.

Now you might be thinking five, René that's a lot of points, that's a lot to remember. Well really these are just five examples of one point, one word, choices. What this message is really all about is that even though you and I are right now in kind of unprecedented times, we still have choices. We still have agency about how we will choose to see these times, how we will choose to react to these times. You know you and I never get to choose how we're going to suffer, how long we're going to suffer, what we're going to suffer, why we're going to suffer, but we always have a choice about how we will respond to our suffering.

And you see these choices here in the very beginning, the very few verses here of 2nd Corinthians and we're in chapter 1. You know the first choice Paul makes is this and jot this down. Cynicism will weaken you, so choose faith. And it really is a choice. Faith is a choice that changes how you see the world. My wife Laurie sent me a photo of a theater marquee. This was a theater that was closed due to COVID concerns like so many theaters have been. And so the owners wanted to put a hopeful sign on the marquee outside their theater and so they put up on the marquee the words "You matter" and "Don't give up." And I really think they meant well.

Unfortunately they put those words in two columns so that when you put it together it looks like "You don't matter, give up." Your perspective changes the way you read the signs all around you. And that's the same thing when we go through suffering. Are you hearing? Are you reading? Is the message you're receiving from God, "You don't matter, give up." Or "You matter. Don't give up." It all depends on whether you choose cynicism or faith. 2nd Corinthians chapter 1 starting in verse 3. Paul says, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles." Now wait a minute. We saw last weekend the context for this letter. Paul has had everything imaginable going wrong for him. Betrayals, unjust imprisonment, torture.

The Corinthians to whom he's writing this letter are rejecting him and slandering his ministry. He could have easily lapsed into cynicism. "Nothing ever goes right for me. There's no hope for my ministry. Everything I touch goes wrong. You don't matter, Paul. Give up." Yet what Paul heard despite his circumstances was don't give up because he chooses to see God as the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort. You know the word that he uses here for comfort is an interesting one. In the Greek it actually implies much more than our English word comfort. It includes more nuance. It includes meanings like strengthen and encourage.

So here's my question. Do you see God as the God of strengthening, the God of encouragement, the God of comfort? Then you are going to see around you God telling you you matter don't give up. Choose to believe that God has comfort and strength and encouragement for you today. In a Bible verse you're going to read or a sermon you're gonna hear or a song you're gonna hear, a conversation you're gonna have, an email or a text you're gonna get, a sight you're gonna see. God has comfort for you but your eyes have to be open to see it and your expectation changes the way you read the signs around you. It just does.

You know last weekend I interviewed Eric and Sarah Swanson-Dexel about how they're doing after losing their home of 17 years in the recent fires near Big Basin in the Camp Hammer destruction and their interview was fantastic. If you didn't see it go back to last week's and watch it but I want to just highlight one thing that they said that really has stuck with me all week long. Watch this. Even when those verses at first can be hard to hear and not ready for them God when I just think of my own relationship with Jesus I know that it's the Holy Spirit and God's words saying you need this right now because I'm here and you need me always and I think in the harder times sometimes we can feel like we've got to shake off God or we're frustrated and wait but in this time I've learned I've got to lean into God.

I think you just have to have the courage to do that because it's filled with mystery and wonder and it's not something you can see but it's something you can choose and strive to lean into and trust. I love that. Faith isn't something you can see but it is something you can choose. If you agree with that go to the type go to the chat section or the comment section and type in I choose faith. I will choose faith over cynicism. This is the first choice and really this is the choice that all the other choices are built on. Alright choose faith over cynicism and it'll change the way you see the signs all around you.

Then the second healing choice that Paul makes here and it's so important for you and me too it's this self-focus will weaken you so choose service. Self-focus will weaken you so choose service. Paul actually talks about this so much in the book of 2nd Corinthians. This word for service in the Greek Paul uses it 16 times in the book of 2nd Corinthians. This is how he chooses to deal with his suffering instead of having a pity party he decides I'm going to use it to serve other people. You know a renowned psychiatrist was once asked how to manage depression. Part of his advice I quote get dressed lock your house go find somebody who's in need and serve that person and this is a choice Paul makes all through this book.

Look at the next couple of verses. God comforts us when we are in trouble so that we can share that same comfort with others in trouble. We share in the terrible sufferings of Christ but also in the wonderful comfort he gives. We suffer in now watch this don't miss this we suffer in the hope that you will be comforted and saved. Now now now now before we go on to the next verse are you getting what Paul is saying here. You know so often I have prayed and I've heard other people pray a very sincere prayer when we're in trouble when we're suffering God heal me so that my friends who are not yet believers can see your supernatural power and be brought to faith and don't get me wrong I believe God can and does heal I pray for healing but that's not what Paul says here he doesn't say we were healed in the hope that you will see our healing and be comforted and saved he says we suffer so that you will be comforted and saved.

How does our suffering contribute to somebody else's salvation that's an interesting sentence isn't it? Well let me give you just one example Dr. Francis Collins is the well regarded director of the National Institutes of Health he's also the director of the Human Genome Project that means this man and his team decoded and mapped the 3.1 billion bits of information that contains that consists of the human genome the human DNA he wrote a fascinating book about his journey to faith called the language of God which I which I strongly recommend but in this book he talks about how when he's 27 years old he was doing his intern rounds at a hospital in Northern Carolina North Carolina now he was raised an atheist he says he had never any reason to even consider faith a hundred percent a man of science but when he's doing these rounds he keeps running into people who were dying of incurable diseases and yet are experiencing such peace and joy and in every case they had attributed it to their faith as I said he writes about it in his book the language of God he says this he says I began to think if faith was a psychological crunch it must be a very powerful one if it was nothing more than a veneer of cultural tradition why were these people not shaking their fists at God and demanding their friends and family stop all this talk about a loving and benevolent superpower right he's saying how could these people still believe in a supernatural power when their prayers for healing are not being answered.

Well then one afternoon he walks into a room of a woman who was dying of a heart condition I mean there's no hope for her she's also a woman of faith and they've talked before about her faith and then on this day she asks him a question that stops him in his tracks she says doctor I've told you about my faith what do you believe and he says in his book he stammered out some kind of an answer like oh well I don't have time to I've just well I'm not not certain and then and this is his description of himself not mine he said faced with my willful blindness and my arrogance I began a journey and that journey took years but in the end as he describes in his book he became a follower of Jesus Christ but he said what led him there what him inspired him to take this journey of faith was seeing how Christians suffered it was in their suffering and even in their deaths that he found comfort and salvation and that is what Paul is talking about in this verse your suffering not just your healing can in fact be very powerful.

Now of course I'm not saying that God makes your life miserable so that you can be a better witness I'm saying you're gonna suffer anyway I'm saying stuff happens in life but God gives it powerful meaning Paul goes on and because we are comforted you will also be comforted as you patiently endure suffering like ours you never disappoint us you suffered as much as we did and we know that you will be comforted as we were you know what Paul's discovering here your greatest ministry may spring from your greatest struggle this was a huge theme of Second Corinthians and this will be such a breakthrough in your life when you really begin to understand this.

You know the other day I ran across the website of a woman named Marta Klonowska a well-known artist whose specialty is taking broken glass and creating museum pieces like this amazing koi fish it's glass that most people just throw away right because it's no longer useful for anything but she turns it into art prized by collectors well I saw this and I thought what an illustration of what God does with the broken pieces of our lives God repurposes my pain and turns it into something beautiful I think of people in this church who have seen their loss turn into grief ministry their alcoholism into recovery ministry their disease into cancer support ministry can you see how this concept is such a fog lifter believing that God can repurpose my pain for good so to get through the fog I choose faith over cynicism I choose service over self-focus and then the third healing choice you see Paul making here hiding will weaken you so choose honesty.

Hiding will weaken you choose honesty share your struggles Paul says this we do not want you to be uninformed brothers and sisters about the troubles we experience now this phrase we do not want you to be uninformed Paul uses that phrase no less than six times in second Corinthians he definitely does not believe in the old saying don't let him see you sweat he says we don't want you to be uninformed about the troubles that we went through when we were under great pressure far beyond our ability to endure so that we despaired of life itself and again this kind of revealing of his struggle is all throughout this letter a few chapters later he says when we came into Macedonia we had no rest but we were harassed at every turn conflicts on the outside and he even admits fears within.

Why did Paul think it was so important to really be honest and vulnerable about his struggles? Well Rick Warren puts it this way why is it worth the effort to really be honest about your struggles first it's emotionally healthy right I mean hiding takes a lot of emotional work and like they say in recovery revealing your feeling is the beginning of healing and then second it's spiritually empowering the Bible says God gives grace to the humble it's when you can come before God and say God I'm so weak I'm powerless over these struggles I need your help that's when breakthroughs happen and finally it's relationally endearing and this is really the primary reason that Paul does it here when you're open about your weaknesses it endears you to people and Paul is clearly trying to bridge a relational divide with the Corinthians and he knows vulnerability creates fellowship so choose honesty.

You know this is something that I really began to understand a few years ago in my own ministry I have suffered with anxiety attacks and I still daily take a prescription anti-anxiety medication and when I first began to think about sharing it in sermons and really being open about that weakness in my own life I thought but people might say I'm crazy and then I was speaking at Mount Hermon the very first time I revealed that publicly I described my journey through anxiety I described the fact that I take prescription drugs that I've seen a doctor for this and I was swamped afterwards with people who wanted to talk to me about it one person was crying and said René I've struggled with the same thing my whole life but I always thought it was unspiritual to go to a doctor and unspiritual to get a prescription for this and I said you're crazy no I didn't really say that I affirmed them for this because that sort of honesty with one another is what advances us into healing when the future seems foggy.

Now this isn't always easy to do right we tend to think people might make fun of me or I don't want to burden people but this is definitely the healthy choice and then fourth healing choice is this despair will weaken you so choose hope choose to believe it is not over you know I love a book by Max Locato called you'll get through this let me just recommend that to you if you're down right now get you'll get through this by Max Locato but let me read you just one paragraph he says we wonder will this gray sky ever brighten this load ever lighten will we ever exit this pit yes you'll get through this God gets us through stuff through the Red Sea through the wilderness through the Valley of the shadow of death through is a favorite word of God's I love that and I agree in fact think of the classic verse Isaiah 43:2 it says when you pass through the waters that you're not gonna avoid the waters but when you pass through the waters I will be with you says God when you pass through the rivers they will not sweep over you when you walk through the fire you will not be burned God is going to get you through it.

Now the fact that you're gonna go through it means they won't be painless and it probably won't be quick but God promises he will get you through Paul says this about his own sufferings he says in fact we felt sure that we were going to die now this is an interesting phrase the way they translated in the contemporary English version this phrase actually translates a very long Greek word that I can't even pronounce but right in the middle of this word is a form of the Greek word poros which means passageway or exit and what Paul's basically expressing with this word is we felt like there was no passage there was no exit he had come to the point where they talk about in recovery meetings where he had hit bottom he felt like he had lost the battle he was done but he says but this was good because it made us stop trusting in ourselves and start trusting God who raises the dead to life and this whole idea of God raising the dead to life this is the template through which Paul sees the world even tough times he said God saved us from the threat of death and we are sure that he will do it again and again.

In other words God is the God of resurrection and that is how he always works we go through crucifixions but God's the God who turns crucifixions into resurrections somehow can you see how that's a fog lifter you know would you just if you're finding this hard to believe would you just let me tell you right now like Paul there's hope for you even after that loss even after the death of that loved one even after your losses in the recent fires even after that business failure even after that relational disaster even after that relapse there is hope God will get you through this God will bring a resurrection out of this crucifixion this is the way undaunted people think.

You know every week in this series I plan on interviewing real-life undaunted people so you can see this isn't just you know Bible propaganda it's really true it really works it's really effective it's truly powerful and this last week in fact just a couple of days ago I did a zoom interview with Dan and candy Whitney and before our final point I want you to watch how they embody these choices that we've been talking about Dan described to us the day that your life changed sure I was a mountain bike riding Santa Cruz mountains up near de la viega I'd come down and it rained like a weird October rain or November rain and so it kind of made a gully in the where out where the path was and I flew over my hand of ours and all I heard was a lock and immediately I knew I broke my neck because everything from my neck down went completely numb you were paralyzed from that day so I broke my neck at c4 with c3 damage.

I remember Dan visiting you in the hospital shortly afterward and I remember even then all of us remarking on your attitude even then right away it was so positive but it wasn't positive like in some kind of a fake way or a denial way it was this is reality and yet I know God is going to use it somehow for me it was I broke my neck so I can either be and I I don't mean to say this in a in too much of a flippant way but I can be joyful and try to be a witness to the people that are there in the hospital so this ministry that you've had up now Camp Attitude it's camp for families who have children with special needs and of course you have so much credibility.

Yeah it's it's amazing René how much how much of an impact that has on people because you know they can't look at me and go well you don't know what I go through and think about it breaking my neck gave me some of that credibility but it also allowed me an opportunity to have a mission that I never ever ever thought that I would be doing candy you've had your own series of health challenges to four heart attacks rheumatoid arthritis right before we got married I started having symptoms that we later figured out was rheumatoid arthritis so it's kind of interesting because we thought I'd be kind of you know the disabled one of the family so why are you shaking your head I just can't believe her attitude is unbelievable she hurts every single day like hurts and so there's little things that she does that that she's in pain and yet I look should be smiling you know you have to make a conscious choice to to have a good attitude it's just doesn't come by just you know I always look at like when I read Scripture and I do my Bible study that I'm kind of refilling myself I always say God will give you what you need when you need it and sometimes you look at other people and go how did they do that I could never do that but when it's you and you are in that moment then God will give you what you need it's only one day at a time one moment at a time but he will give you what you need and just knowing that you can get through it and that you're gonna make it you're gonna be okay we're gonna get through this you know whatever it is that gives me peace.

This is such a small period of time for what the rest of our eternity is gonna be because we know Jesus Christ this is such a small sacrifice for what's gonna happen in eternity man Dan and candy both are so inspiring to me and what he just said there is kind of a sneak preview of what you're about to see Paul say next weekend this verse for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us and eternal glory the far outweighs them all man talk about a fog lifter so don't miss next weekend it's one of my favorite chapters in the entire Bible we're gonna look at 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 but let's look finally at the fifth choice that Paul makes here in many ways this is gonna be the most immediately life-changing for you if you dare to make it number five isolation will weaken you so choose connection choose connection.

Maybe you've been tempted to just kind of curl up into a ball in the darkness of your room right choose connection Paul says in verse 11 please help us by praying for us then many people will give thanks for the blessings we receive an answer to all these prayers you can choose connection here's some ways like Paul you can ask people to pray for you you can go to TLC org slash prayer we've got people standing by you can choose connection also through small groups this undaunted series you heard Adrian talk about it we're doing something new little 40 minute zoom groups they're free they're quick they're convenient we've got groups on any day of the week you choose doesn't take a ton of time but it's gonna make a ton of difference go to this URL TLC org slash small groups and sign up right now plus this year connect expos online all kinds of ways you can serve others through the church TLC org slash connect expo is the URL that gives you all those opportunities.

Now as we wrap up I just want to suggest that you take your notes again I want to urge you to download those notes and put them up somewhere put them on your fridge or by your bed side or at your desk your nightstand so that you can see them all throughout this fall and daily remind yourself to make these healthy choices you have agency you can conquer discouragement by God's grace in fact this week I want to I want you to ask yourself which one of these choices and I'm going to focus on this week and how will I choose to do that one choice this week do it.

You know I started out with a story about Florence Chadwick stopped swimming when she was almost to her goal when she was swimming from Catalina to the coast because of the fog well two months later she finally succeeded get this breaking the previous record held by a man incidentally by two hours man that's a record-breaking time when you break a time by two hours and that time she did not let the frigid water or the sharks or the fog stop her and you don't have to either when you make those five healthy choices you can swim through the sharks and the cold and the fog and stay undaunted.

Let's pray together God I just want to pray for all those who feel overwhelmed by life right now father lift them up give them comfort and strength and encouragement and help them to see that around them help them to read your signs accurately you matter don't give up and Lord help us all to make healthy choices in these trying times and I want to pray particularly for those who want to make the first choice to have faith today maybe for the very first time God I pray that they would they would pray to you Lord I choose faith today I choose to place my faith and trust in Jesus Christ as my Lord and as my Savior I don't understand it all help me to grow in it and God we want to pray for all those impacted by these fires give them hope give them strength and help us as a church to shine as a light to our community as examples of people who choose hope and choose life in Jesus name we pray Amen.