How to Handle Bad News

There is Hope is the name of our spring series here at Twin Lakes Church. Good morning, my name is Renee, another one of the pastors here at TLC. And on this rainy Sunday morning here in Santa Cruz County, we wanna really welcome you. I feel like we braved the rain to get into church so that you didn't have to, whether you're watching in Santa Cruz County or, as Mark said, all around the world.

Hey, listen, very quickly, in case you don't know about it, I wanna remind you about a site called tlc.org/notes. That's where you can get the outline for the message I'm about to give you today. But even more importantly, at the very end, are discussion questions that are designed for your own personal reflection, or you can use these discussion questions with your own family, with your spouse, maybe with your virtual small group, so that you can really get these truths from God's word down into your soul.

You know, somebody asked me the other day a very good question: "Renee, how am I supposed to handle all this bad news?" We are surrounded with bad news right now in the media, in social media, everywhere you look, even in personal conversations. What are we supposed to do? Just avoid talking to people about anything that's in the news these days, not watch TV, never go on social media? How are we supposed to handle all of this?

This is a very relevant issue right now. A recent survey from the Pew Research Group said that about two thirds of us feel worn out by the news right now, and fully half of us say we are worn out by divisive political posts and views. All of us are like, man, enough bad news already, yet we don't wanna be uninformed, so how are we supposed to handle it?

Well, this morning, what I wanna talk to you about is how to handle bad news with hope, how to receive bad news and yet not have to put it off, not have to ignore it. You know, when I was growing up in church, I was basically taught that there were two options when it came to bad news. First, you could suppress any bad news in the world, even suppress any bad news in your past, just not pay any attention to it.

And the way people justified this from scripture was they said, didn't Paul tell the Philippians to think on things that are excellent and good and true and praiseworthy? That must mean you should not think about anything other than just things that are good. So when it came to bad news or bad memories, why, we just suppressed them; we lived like ostriches with our head in the sand.

But as I grew older, I didn't just wanna suppress all the time, and in fact, I went to the other extreme, and that was to obsess on bad news. Man, I was tuned into the 24/7 cable news cycle, and as an adult, I got to the point where either I was almost addicted to the news, and I'd get so amped up and angry, or I put myself in total media blackout. And I got a confession to make to you. Those are still my natural two tendencies. I either suppress or obsess. How about you?

Well, here's my question today. Is there a third option, a healthier option, a more constructive way to deal with bad news? Is there a way to hear bad news and yet not live in fear, but live in hope? I don't think so. Let's close in a word of prayer. No, yes, there is, and the Bible gives us a hint in Psalm 112. Look at this verse: "The righteous will never be shaken. They do not fear bad news. They confidently trust the Lord to take care of them."

Did you notice it doesn't say the righteous do not hear bad news? It says they do not fear bad news. That means there is a way for you to hear bad news and not live in fear and not be shaken. And what I want to talk to you about today is how to get to that point. And I want to get you there by telling you one of my favorite stories in the Bible.

Here's the setup. The year is 1450 BC, and the Israelites have just escaped slavery in Egypt, and they've marched through the desert wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula, and now they're right on the border of Canaan. This is their ancestral homeland, the promised land. But instead of just crashing right over the border, Moses assigns 12 spies to go, and he says, "Spy out the fruitfulness of the land."

And the spies can't believe the bounty that they witnessed. They spy it out for 40 days, and in this story, we catch them in the moment that they return to the camp, and they show off some of the fruit that they found, and they tell all the assembled people their report. But did you notice, even though God had promised them this land, they didn't just barge right in; first they strategized. They stopped, they spied.

How does this relate to you and me? The first thing we've got to do when we're in unfamiliar territory, like we are now, is get the facts. Gather the data. Don't live with your head in the sand. Look at the report that the spies give the people, and they told him, "Moses, we came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit." So that's the positive part of what they saw.

However, here's the negative. They're telling him the pros and the cons, just the facts. The people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large, and besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb, and the Hittites and the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and the most dreaded enemy of all, the cellulites, also live there. That's not in most of the later versions of the Bible.

The bottom line is they see the facts. They're just reporting the data, both positive and negative, and you and I need to do the exact same thing. Now, that doesn't mean you need to obsess. You don't need to be told the same exact facts over and over and over and over in an endless news cycle, and besides, when you look at most news channels, most of most hours isn't actually news. It's analysis.

Usually, you can get the facts pretty quickly, but then you have to realize you have a choice about what to do with the facts, and that's point two, and I wanna spend most of my time on this point. See the facts in light of God's promises. See the facts with this perspective in light of God's promises. The facts are only the beginning.

See, you're not just viewing the facts. You're writing a story based on the facts, and everybody does this all the time. Let me tell you a story to kind of explain this. Most of you know that I was in broadcasting before I was a full-time pastor, and way back in my journalism classes at San Jose State University, go Spartans, our investigative journalism teacher would do an exercise.

He would show us big screens just full of all kinds of random facts. Some of them looked like they didn't even have anything to do with each other, and he would tell us, find the story in these facts. Weave these facts together, leave out some facts, put together a news story from these facts, and we would have three minutes to write a short news story that wove together all of those facts on the screen, and then we would do this over and over and over and over again in the classroom hour.

He would show us new screens, new sets of facts. We'd have to write new stories, and then at the end of the class, he would read out loud some of the stories that we had written, and it was amazing how different the stories were, the different ways that different students wrote stories about the same exact facts that we had all seen.

Now, don't miss this. What he was showing us was, by our editorial decisions, even just choosing what facts to include and what not to include, we were interpreting. We were actually doing more than reporting the facts. We were writing a story. Now, I say that about my journalism class not to apply this to journalism and not to point the finger at media. I'm applying this to you and to me.

In your mind, every single day, you are like an investigative reporter writing a story with the facts as they come to you, and you are making editorial decisions. You are choosing to focus on some facts and not on others, and two people can see the exact same reality and write completely different reports. It happens right here in this story in the Bible.

Verse 30, it says, "But Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and he said, 'All right, you've heard the facts. Let us go up at once and occupy the land, for we are well able to overcome it.'" So Caleb, and we find out later Joshua also, two of the 12 spies, they have this positive report about the facts after they present the facts.

But then the other men who had gone up with him, the 10 other spies, they said, "No, we are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we." So wait a minute, you have the 12 spies go out and you have two different groups. The minority says, "We are well able." The majority says, "We are not able." How did two groups of the same 12 guys come up with two completely different conclusions from the same exact facts?

How does this happen? There's a guy named Dan McAdams, who is a researcher who specializes in exactly that phenomenon. And he says it comes down to what he calls narrative identity. Now, he has actually been studying this concept for 30 years. And he says that most of us tend to tell two kinds of stories about ourselves. There's redemption narratives. And those are narratives about how the bad in our lives has turned to good.

And that's how we look at our current situation too. Like I got fired, but I know it's gonna lead to something better. And I know if anything else, God can work on my character through this; it's going to work out for good. That's kind of a redemption narrative. But then there's the opposite of this. Sometimes we tell contamination narratives. And contamination is about how everything good has turned bad.

Yep, I got fired; that's because I'm a loser. And it's because people are always out to get me and nobody really understands me. That's a contamination narrative. And you can take the exact same set of facts and choose to write either a redemption narrative or a contamination narrative about it.

One example he gives is, let's say when you were a little kid your dad threw you into a pool to teach you how to swim. Now something almost exactly like that happened to me. He says two different people can look at that same exact event, the same set of facts, and one can write a redemption narrative and say, you know what? That taught me to really strike out for myself. It taught me to be a risk taker. It taught me to be an entrepreneur. And that is why I am an enterprising person to this day.

Another person, even a sibling, who had the same thing happen to them from the same father, can write a contamination narrative and say, that is why I don't trust authority figures to this day. That's why I hate the water to this day. One person writes a redemption narrative. Another person writes a contamination narrative from the same event. It happens right here in this Bible story.

One group writes, "The land through which we have gone to spy it out is a land that devours its inhabitants." Now they're not just reporting facts; now it's analysis. It isn't just that, wow, you know there's fortified cities there that are gonna be difficult to overcome. No, the land opens up and eats people up. And all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim, super tall people, to make a long story short.

And we seem to ourselves like grasshoppers. This isn't just a fact; this is analysis. It's not just, on average, they're about six inches taller than us. It's, we're like insects compared to them, and so we seemed to them. And so these people come at the same exact set of facts with this contamination narrative.

Meanwhile, Joshua and Caleb said to all the congregation to the people of Israel, "The land, which we pass through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, he'll bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey." Now, notice, even Caleb, who has a positive report, does not say, there's no giants, there's no fortified cities, it's gonna be no problem. They're not like, "We can do it, Moses, Moses, he's our man, we can do it, yes we can," no, not at all.

He says, it's gonna be tough, guys. You heard the report, but here's my analysis. If he brings us into this land, then we're going to be able to overcome it. Here's how this applies to you and me. Listen, God does not expect you and me to live in denial of bad news, specifically right now.

He does not expect you to go, there's no such thing as the coronavirus. I'm claiming victory over it because I believe there's no such thing as COVID-19, there's no such thing as the grief and the pain that many people are feeling and the sense of loss that I'm pretending not to feel right now. Now, Caleb is not in denial of the facts. He's not saying it's gonna be easy, he's not saying it's gonna be quick. He actually agrees with all the other spies on the facts.

The difference is he's writing a redemption narrative. Why? Because he sees his present problems in light of God's past promises. What promises? Well, over 170 times, God says to the people of Israel, "I have given you this land," 170 times. I mean, this is just about Caleb trusting in what God had already promised.

You say, great for Caleb, what about me? God promises you and me not, there's no such thing as a virus in the world and there'll never be another virus like it after this one, not you won't get sick, but God promises you is I will be with you always to the very end of the age. I will never leave you nor forsake you. I will work out all things for good to those who love me, who are the called according to my purpose. And that's the promise we have.

So here's a question for you. Why is it so hard to see the facts in light of God's promises consistently? Why is it so easy to go negative? I was listening this past week to a Freakonomics podcast. I love to listen to that. And they had an interview with John Tierney. He's a former New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer reporter. And he's just written a brand new book called "The Power of Bad, How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It." And it's about what psychologists call negativity bias.

Negativity bias is the universal human tendency to focus on the negative and forget the positive. One example, let's say somebody gives you 50 bucks for something that you did for them. You're probably pretty happy, but you're probably not gonna remember it for the rest of your life. It won't become a story you tell to your friends. I remember the day I made 50 bucks. But if that same $50 bill falls out of your pocket one day and you lose it, or worse, it gets stolen by a pickpocket, you're gonna remember that day. You're gonna remember and retell that day for a while, the day I lost 50 bucks. That's negativity bias.

And that's exactly what is happening in this story, because I just told you the context here, the people have heard a good report and a bad report. What happens? What do they focus on? Numbers 14:1. And so all the congregation lifted their voices and cried. And the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron. Of course, it's the leader's fault. And the whole congregation said to them, "If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in the wilderness."

Now, wait a minute. Had they experienced tough times in Egypt? Absolutely. Had they experienced challenges in the wilderness? Of course. But they'd also experienced stunning, history-making miracles in Egypt and in the wilderness. But they only remembered the mess and forgot the miracle. They only remembered the disturbance and forgot the deliverance.

And God himself diagnoses this a few verses later when he says, "How long will they refuse to believe in me in spite of all the signs I performed among them?" Because of their negativity bias, remembering the mess, forgetting the miracle. And so they write a contamination story. Whereas Caleb and Joshua have a redemption story. This is part of God's promise to us. We're gonna have challenges, but we're gonna be able to overcome them.

So the question for you and me is during this COVID crisis, what kind of story are you choosing to write? Because all of us are seeing the exact same facts. This is a mess. And God is doing miracles. So are you going to choose to write a redemption narrative or a contamination narrative?

Here's how important this is. Listen carefully. Negativity bias doesn't just affect how we look at the news. It works its way into all the rest of your life. It affects how you see relationships. It affects how you see your work. It affects how you see the rest of your whole life. So you have to be on guard against it.

Now, does living in a redemption narrative mean that whenever you're faced with challenges, you always charge right ahead, no matter what anybody else in the world tells you? No, because there's a very important third point. You need to see the difference between faith and presumption. See the difference between faith and presumption.

What am I talking about? Later on in this same chapter, something happens that in my observation, preachers rarely talk about, because it's kind of awkward to explain. Some of the people repent and they decide, you know what, we were wrong to believe the negative report. We believe Caleb and Joshua; they're right. And we're going to get so amped up, we're going to blast into the promised land right now.

And Moses sees this happening. Now think about this. Moses is an expert, right? Moses has spent more time in the wilderness. He'd been living in the desert for decades before any of these people ever went into it. Moses is their designated leader. Moses has a better contact with God than any of these people do. Moses grew up in the Pharaoh's palace and surely studied military strategy, which none of these people had done. So you'd think he'd probably be a good expert to hear, right?

So Moses speaks to them and he says, "Wait, do not go. It is not God's timing." But they don't listen to him; they don't wait. They just barge ahead. It says, "In their presumption, they went up toward the highest point in the hill country." Why is this detail in there? Because that is the best defensible spot in the country. In other words, their enemies were looking down from the highest point, were very well defended. This would have been the most difficult spot for Israelites to go to.

So why did they go to the hardest spot first? I think they must have had this mistaken notion that we're gonna show God just how much we believe that this is the promised land. We're gonna go to the most difficult thing no matter what anybody else tells us. And because we're doing God's will, it was God's will that they go into the promised land, right? Then we're gonna have a victory.

Though neither Moses nor the Ark of the Lord's Covenant moved from the camp, they went; they wildcatted; they went all by themselves. And then the Amalekites and the Canaanites and the Stalactites and the Stalagmites who lived in that hill country came down and attacked them and beat them. And they go back with their tail between their legs.

You see, there's really two different kinds of, you could say rebellion or foolishness in this story. On the one side, there's fear. And that's the one that's the most easy to observe, right? The people who shrink back in the face of challenging news, in the face of bad news. But on the other extreme, at the end of chapter 14, there's presumption. Those are people who presume on God. They're testing God more than trusting God. They're barging ahead unwisely.

There's no big deal; we can do this because it's God's revealed will. It's what the Bible calls zeal without knowledge. Caleb and Joshua didn't wanna do either one of those things. They didn't wanna shrink back in fear or act in presumption. They wanted to move ahead in faith.

Now, what does it mean to move ahead in faith? Moving ahead in faith means I do God's will, yes, but in God's way, in God's time. And this distinction applies to so many things in life. And let me make a direct application to what is on the minds of many of you who are joining us for the live stream. And that is, when are we going to reopen our physical plant for in-person physical gatherings back here in the Twin Lakes Church Auditorium right now?

That is a great question. I don't think there's anybody on this planet who wants to reopen this place more than I do. You gotta understand that when I stand here and I look out on a completely empty auditorium, except for one camera person, what I see is this: all these photos that you've sent in, taped to pews. And sometimes they just make me cry because I really miss you.

But listen, I don't wanna move ahead in presumption. There are experts we need to listen to. There are plans we need to design. And we've been working on it. I wanna show you a detailed spreadsheet that we've been working on that shows all the different phases of the recovery and all the different ministries and all kinds of different organizations that are a part of Twin Lakes Church. It even shows material that we need to purchase and all kinds of sanitation equipment and so on.

And we've got this plan; we're game planning for different scenarios with our different ministries so that when we are allowed to reopen our facility, it will reopen as a model of safety that people can attend with confidence. What I'm saying is we will not fear and shrink back from the challenges ahead, nor will we be presumptuous and just barge ahead without consulting experts and so on. We will move ahead in faith. Does that make sense? I hope so.

By the way, you can get more details about that at our website, tlc.org/reopen, where I talk about more of my thoughts regarding reopening and regathering.

Well, finally, I wanna point out one consistent habit of people who are able to stay hopeful in the face of bad news. Number four, stay connected to hopeful friends. This is so important. I mean, think about it. Caleb had Joshua. Moses had Aaron. Even Jesus had Peter, James, and John. And you and I need people to help you stay hopeful because when you're all alone and there's bad news, you're just staring at your TV or laptop, you're gonna go down the rabbit hole of despair pretty easily.

You need people around you, and I'm not talking about friends who help you rehash all the fear and anger and make you even more bitter, right? Someone who helps you write the redemption narrative. Somebody who helps you hope; they're not denying any bad news. It's not about living in denial. It's about seeing the same facts and writing a redemption narrative from the facts.

Now, maybe you're saying, "Renee, that is a great idea. I'd love to do that, but I've been in this shelter in place all alone. I'm so lonely right now." You know, we have dozens of virtual small groups meeting all week long, and they're so great for lifting your spirits. In fact, last week, I chatted with one of them, and I asked all the people in the group, "What do you like about this?"

Watch their responses.

- I love this group because it gives me something to look forward to each week, a way to connect with my community and my fellow believers.

- Just like Jill says, I just look forward to it. It's my Thursday evening get together. I can't go out and visit people right now, but even if I could, it enriches my knowledge and enriches my faith.

- For me, I am still working and going out on a daily basis, but a lot of the people that I work with are not believers, and so for me, it's really critical to have this ability to check in with other believers and just sort of get the spiritual side that I really crave.

- Well, for me, I'd like to say that every day feels like groundhog day sometimes. They just repeat over and over again, and I so look forward to Thursdays knowing that I get to connect, and also praying together has just been something that really fills me up.

- I think what I love about this group is that sense of community and camaraderie and knowing that we're not alone in this.

Doesn't that sound great? I just wanna encourage you to get into a group. You can email Jim@tlc.org. Jim Joslin's our Connections pastor. He will help you. I don't want you to miss out on this wonderful experience, or you can go to tlc.org/classes.

Now, maybe you're saying, a virtual small group is great, but I would just love somebody to talk to. I'm so lonely. I wanna invite you to get connected by emailing us at info@tlc.org or calling us at 465-3300. Let me tell you something. We can get you in touch with a virtual phone pal, a volunteer who would love to just talk to you on the phone and help you get over this loneliness. There's no reason to wait until the church facility reopens again to get connected with a church friend who can help you stay hopeful.

Well, let's wrap the story up. 40 years later, the Israelites return to that same place, the border of the Promised Land. This time they go in, they have good strategy, they're stronger, and still they're attacked, and still they have stress, but they do eventually get their ancestral land back as God promised. And you know one thing that shows me? Just because you are exactly where God wants you to be does not mean that life is stress-free, because there's stress even going into the Promised Land.

Sometimes we get this idea, if I'm doing God's will, then everything's gonna go smoothly for me. No, there's fortified cities. There are enemy kings ahead, but the thing is, there's stress back in the wilderness too. At least stress going in the Promised Land is getting you somewhere, as opposed to stress wandering around aimlessly in the wilderness.

My point is this: when it comes to bad news, you and I don't get to choose between a life with bad news or a life without bad news. I wish that was our choice, but nobody gets that choice. You and I get to choose between life with bad news with faith or life with bad news without faith.

In other words, bad news comes into every single person's life, whether you have faith or not. It's not like you become a Christian, you don't get bad news. It's that your perspective on the bad news is different. You have hope. Do you remember that verse that we started out with? Psalm 112: "They will have no fear of bad news." It's not that they don't hear bad news. They have no fear of bad news. Why? Because they trust in the Lord.

See, the central problem in this whole story was that the Israelites forgot the miracle of their own salvation. They forgot about the whole deliverance from Egypt. They forgot about the Passover lamb. They remembered the mess but forgot the miracles. But what about you and me? Have you forgotten the miracle of your salvation?

You know, when you think about it, we've been given the ultimate Passover lamb and the ultimate deliverance from slavery: Jesus Christ, our savior. So God is not gonna abandon you now. You know, if he brought you up out of Egypt, how was he not going to lead you into Canaan? Like the apostle Paul said, if he gave you his own son, how will he not also give you all things? That's how you fit into the ultimate redemption narrative.

And so the real secret is this: see bad news in light of the good news, the gospel. Jesus laid down his life to redeem you. He is not going to abandon you now. There is hope. Let's pray together. Would you bow your head with me?

God, I know that there are those watching who are facing huge challenges, who are facing huge problems and huge grief. Help us to hear bad news, but not to fear bad news. And instead to confidently trust that you are writing a redemption narrative in our lives. And you're going to even redeem this. And God, I pray that some for the first time right now will want to place their trust in you and say, "God, I want to choose to live in faith and not in fear. I don't understand it all, but as much as I know how, I want to receive Jesus Christ into my life right now. Help me to grow in my faith."

And Lord, we want to especially pray for confidence for the frontline workers, for the nurses, doctors, technicians, grocery store workers, first responders, our civic leaders, that you would grant them wisdom and strength. And God, we pray for the families who are grieving loved ones. Strengthen them with hope. And we pray that you would triumph over this virus through the skill of people and by your divine might. And we pray this in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.