Meaningful Messages in Misfortune

since I became president in 2001 it's been by privilege to have alongside of us behind us praying for us encouraging us our Chancellor dr. Chuck Swindoll who was the fourth president if you are new to the campus this week and have not been here I'd encourage you to read what we posted yesterday as it relates to our beloved dr. Campbell that fraternity of presidents there's only been five dr. swindle was our fourth dr. Campbell was our third and we're gonna miss him 92 almost 92 years of age is now with the Lord so he's free from this body and in present with the Lord so it is a privilege to have dr. swindle be in our chapel two or three or four times a semester he speaks for us he writes for us as well but I wanted to be a big brother in the Lord and let you know of a new tool that he and his ministry have put together it is the the new swindoll Study Bible that's out and it is a terrific tool so terrific I thought of a tool that we made it available to our full-time faculty and staff or a Christmas gift as a gift from the seminary to them this year but it is some of the best of what he has done over the years and he is one of the most productive writers speakers you've heard his voice you've heard his laugh you've sensed his heart it's great to have him and if you're new to the campus we welcome you here this semester but would you join me in welcoming our beloved Chancellor dr. Chuck Swindoll [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you dr. Bailey into good morning things are often not as bad as we think they are but because we're short-sighted and tend to be a little impatient with life we jumped to the wrong conclusion that it's terrible rather than an opportunity for us to learn and to grow as a result of it a co-ed sent the following letter to her parents dear mom and dad just thought I'd drop you a note to clue you in on my my plans falling in love with a guy named Jim he quit school after grade 11 to get married about a year ago we got a divorce we've been going together for two months and planned to get married in the fall until then I decided to move into his apartment I think I might be pregnant at any rate I dropped out of school last week although I'd like to finish college sometime in the future next page of the letter mom and dad I just want you to know that everything I've written so far in the letter is false none of this is true but it is true I got a c-minus in French and and and I flunked math and it is true I'm gonna need some more money for my tuition payments sign your beloved daughter don't ever do that to your parents ever how easy for us when in a situation like this it's resolved quickly but how easy for us when life doesn't resolve quickly to think that some misfortune some real real trial that we're going through marks virtually the end of life as we've known it when in reality it may very well be a whole new beginning so today I want to address the importance of learning meaningful lessons from misfortunes that occur I have no idea what you are facing today and even if I did nothing I prepared to say would change I don't I don't know what you're going through but God knows in fact the good thing about God's knowledge is that he not only knows where you are he knows for all of this is leading you don't you don't you know the past fairly well depending on your memory you know the present quite well but you know nothing beyond this second in moment in time in the light of that you are you are limited in your understanding and your perspective is skewed none of that affects God's will or God's plan its unfolding its unrolling regardless of our partial knowledge or our limited understanding or our skewed perspective his will is taking place your personal trial right now included if he wished for it to be different it would be different he doesn't therefore what you were going through is exactly what he has planned for you to go through right now much of that is theological theory except for you going through really really tough time it's amazing what that does to theories they sort of blow out the window and and you're left having to come to terms with dealing with the ever-present now Tosa wrote it well we think of ourselves as inhabiting some parenthetic interval between the God who was and the God who will be and in this ever-present now we're lonely with that ancient and cosmic loneliness but we need not be lonely he was with us then he will be with us then he is with us now now with all of that as preparation I want you to look at a verse if you need to or would like to since you know it by heart it's found right in the core of Romans chapter eight what verse is it yeah it's verse 28 you you know it we know that all things work together for good to them who love God to those who are the called according to his purpose yada-yada-yada out it comes you know the words you probably some of you would be able to tell me even in the Greek what it says what you may have forgotten is the context context helps set it all up if you look closely at verse 25 I'm reading from the new American Standard Version if we hope for what we do not see I've got that circle in my Bible we do not see God sees it we don't so we hope for what we do not see and so with perseverance we eagerly wait for it but we do not see it and we love to see it we love to know the details of it we love to know the why answer but we do not see look at verse 26 in the same way the spirit also helps us in our weakness for we do not know I have that circle we do not see and we do not know I'll tell you something else no one else does either as much as they may love you and as close as they may be to you and as experienced as they may be in spiritual things none of us sees and none of us knows though God does both God sees what we are hoping and waiting for and God knows what we pray and groan about so that means we're left with stuff that baffles us I don't know why some husbands died young and other husbands live on with their wives to older age I don't know why some children are taken and others live a full life I don't know why my neighbor's child gets a dread disease and my child never got that disease I don't know that I don't know that that would bring much comfort to the neighbor but I I know there's mystery in it all and in the midst of the difficulty of not knowing and not seeing this verse appears and it talks about what we know look at it begins like that I won't do a little analysis of it though I don't want to pick it apart and thereby ruin the verse which I think can happen if you just analyze it to death it's to be is to be applied even more than analyzed let me go further in all of this our problem is we focus being humans on the immediate God focuses on the ultimate but second our knowledge is limited God's knowledge is limitless you know by now in your studies it's the omniscience of God he never learns anything he's never surprised by anything it all unfolds exactly as he has designed it we need the reminder of that regularly no one ever wrote it better than Isaiah as he quotes from the Lord God my thoughts are not your thoughts says the Lord neither are your ways my ways as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts so we're in two different realms no love song two different worlds we live in with God to different realms we exist in and in this limited tight radius called now we are forced to come to terms with what we're gonna do with the stuff that doesn't make sense the struggles are they're a tough situation occurs and if you're like me you want relief and you want it just as quickly as you can get it because our knowledge is is only as big as our brain which is smaller than a breadbox tiny tiny organ and and we wrestled with it there and and we come to the Isaiah 55 passage and we see our thoughts are weighed way below his thoughts and our ways are as well and all of his thoughts and ways are better which at the time they these events occur doesn't make a lot of sense let me add that well let's not get so theoretical in in our knowledge of theology that we forget the senselessness humanly speaking of events now throw your studies at Dallas seminary you you will gain a greater perspective a deeper knowledge and it will help you in the realm of the sense of it all but you'll never be able to unravel fully unravel mystery because you can't see where it's all going so Romans 8:28 comes as a as an oasis I'd like to think of it first of all it's something we know this is a promise to be claimed not ignored I don't care how well you can quote it or how often you have taught it or referred to it it is to be claimed it is an unconditional promise we know it's not something we simply hope for we know it it's not guessing it's knowing we don't think it's going to occur it will occur because God says you can know this it's not depending on how we feel about it now this is what we know we have absolute unshakable confidence in this truth we know what that God causes stop right there the project is God's not ours life isn't about us it is about God's working through us hard message for the young to grasp all of it is in his hands God is at work carrying out his ways in his time he has the long view in mind and in all the mess of life he is at work in all the pain all the disappointment all the misfortune all the mess he stays edit the old words he plugs away he's doing his plan he's carrying out his will it's just one thing for one person something altogether different for someone else it's one thing for me it's another thing for chaplain Joe it's one thing for her it's another thing for you God is at work through it all his plan is relentlessly unfolding though you cannot understand it and you cannot explain it and often in the really toughest part of it God shows himself the strongest jaag Herbert wrote it this way storms are the triumph of his art now we know God causes here it is all things to work together for good his plan is total and beneficial it is impartial and questionable our problem is with the all part of the verse be a lot easier if it were almost all a lot of it would make of life would make better human sense life is not about making good human sense God is not logical in our sense of logic God's timing is way off from our perspective when in fact it's really on remember the words of romans 11:33 or the depth of the riches both of the gays words both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways unsearchable unfathomable sort of a climax in Romans at the end of chapter 11 Paul just exhausts in the glory of God and the greatness of God and comes to the words unsearchable and unfathomable and it's all for his glory and our good áall every situation you encounter every hardship you endure every disappointment you deal with every loss may I add this every failure all of it for your good and for his glory or it would not occur he directs it and/or permits it and it takes place and it becomes a learning experience now let's take a deep breath and let me illustrate it in another way back in December of 2017 a man named Bob Greene wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal it's centered on a speech delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts Justice Roberts had been invited by his son's ninth grade graduating class his school to deliver the commencement to the class the crowd was modest as expected there was a lot of hoopla made over who was going to bring the speech is probably best because the speech he brought was a shocker let me read from some of the article itself the Chief Justice had been invited to present the commencement address at his son's ninth grade graduation he told his audience that commencement speakers will typically wish you good luck and extend good wishes to all of you I will not do that and I will tell you why from time to time in the years to come I hope you will be treated unfairly he began his speech so that you will come to know the value of justice I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty sorry to say but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don't take your friends for granted and when you lose as you will I hope every now and then your opponent will gloat over your failures it is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship I hope you'll be ignored so that you know the importance of listening to others and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion whether I wish these things or not they're going to happen and whether you benefit from them or not will depend on get this your ability to see the message in your misfortunes admittedly that's where I got the title for this this talk for you to see the message and your misfortunes some of you still struggle with and stumble over those messages because life isn't what you expected ah that never was God's plan he didn't bring you into this world to give you what you expected he brought you in this world a glorify his name and to realize his greatness and His grace and goodness it occurred to me as I read those insightful comments sort of out of left field for a commencement speaker gave me a good idea next time I bring in commencement speech I'm gonna take that I'm gonna take that tack I think but I'm not gonna wait a little it right now I decided to share with you some things I hope for you none of them are the things you would expect from a chapel speaker none of em are said to be cruel or in any way to be offensive they're meant to be realistic here they are five five of my hopes for you not only this new year but in the year especially in the years of ministry to come number one I hope you will not know early success rather I hope you will encounter difficulties early on that will shatter your self-confidence and drive you to your knees that will teach you the valuable vulnerability it will enable you to keep success from ever going to your head and even though you may think it never could pride still lurks in the backwash of our minds we are forever looking out for number one forever defending ourselves forever trying to make the record straighten out the records so that people understand most of whom don't and won't that's number one I hope you do not experience early success if you do I get concerned for you which leads me to the second I hope you will experience obscurity and anonymity after you leave these halls of learning especially if you are greatly gifted and very bright I hope you will learn what it is to be unknown overlooked and forgotten the result will be a true humility that will keep you surprised when and if God should ever exalt you one of the very best things that ever happened to Moses happened over a 40-year period right at middle age 40 to 80 when he was the CENTAC went on of Egyptian popularity trained in the best schools reared at the feet of the daughter of the Pharaoh handsome tall dark looked like Charlton Heston you know and and and here here here is this here is this 40 year old man who failed terrible and committed a murder and ran for his life and sat down by a well all of his medals dangling from his chest over those first 40 years in Egypt where he set all those records but now he will become acquainted with obscurity and anonymity over a period of 40 years he kept his father-in-law's sheep in the most barren part of the wilderness easy to forget that we raced to the last 40 years of Moses life and our preaching is all about that and we miss what made it possible for him to handle the incredible events of those last 40 years Moses died the meekest man on earth for a reason I hope you do too I hope every award amazes you and every time someone notices something significant you're surprised but that won't just happen fresh out of school here's my third hope I hope you will fail because you relied on your own flesh to reach certain goals I'll tell you I have an ache in my heart when I think back to early years in my life when I did a lot of that man I hit the floor running I I had I had great dreams and ideas and spas gonna set the mark then I was led to New England that's about all I need to say about that I remember one Sunday we had seven three of them were swindles in the worship service seven here I was a graduate of this great school and there I was unknown and feeling like a real failure I couldn't move those people off a dime and the problem wasn't then it was me failure you're scared to death of it you're scared to death of anything below a B hi I don't know where you learn that but you'll be grateful in life to get a B on something I found this following statement by a man who was arguably the best professional basketball player ever to put on a pair of sneakers and walk on the court Michael Jordan and I quote I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career I've lost almost 300 games 26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed I had failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I now succeed you would never think that those words came from Michael Jordan he's got a statue in front of the arena that's at the Chicago Court and for the Chicago Bulls he's everything may you know true failure I spoke on this when I was in Wheaton College several years ago my granddaughter was in her yes last year and I had talked to Heather about it I said I'm thinking about I was given three to a opportunity to give three talks in their spiritual life week and I chose for the third one failure and I'll run him by the chaplain and he smiled and said in all my years I forget how many years had been there on the campus I've never once heard the word used from this Chapel pulpit these kids have never heard the word they've been told over and over you're the Harvard of the Christian schools what a crock they're just a Christian school made up of depraved Christian kids who unfortunately can easily begin to think there's something on a stake but in fact they've not let yet learn their best lessons which will come when they get their first F in life and then their second F you can knock them dead in academics and flunk in relationships you can blow it at home and look like a hero at the church I hope I hope you will no failure because there's so much to learn through those times God doesn't leave you there just as he didn't leave Moses but he'll leave you there long enough to lick your wounds until it's terrible taste in your mouth number four I hope you will be forced to deal with a difficult elder and that you will have disagreements from a fellow staff member with whom you realize you cannot work I hope that becomes a part of your experience you know why I hope that because then you will discover the importance of discernment when you select leaders some of the worst mistakes I've made I made in selecting wrong leaders to serve a church I was a part of and they will make life miserable Paul had his Alexander the coppersmith you will have your elder often will be the one who plays the most prominent role in getting you to come to the church and then he will turn on you I don't know why but by going through this you will realize the Armel flesh will fail you you cannot even trust your own and their as a result you will gain discernment when you look for those who might be God's choices for those to help lead the ministry number five I hope you will be hindered from experiencing I hope you will be hindered by experiencing obstacles obstacles that keep you from reaching your goals in a ministry you had planned this is exactly what happened to Paul I flipped my Bible over to Philippians 1 and I and I come to the testimony of a man in this letter of joy which I've always felt was wonderful in the letter of joy he addresses again and again and again in the very first chapter his imprisonment what he calls his circumstances my imprisonment my imprisonment verse 7 verse 12 verse 13 verse 14 look at it for yourself he he longed to go to Rome he longed to spread the message of Christ at the place of power but his plan was set aside as God laid in front of him an obstacle called being under arrest and of all things being chained to a member of the Praetorian Guard Imperial Guard of Rome for two years they've been laid aside for two years don't answer out loud two years there is not one complaint here he is stopped in his goal because of the imprisonment and he's chained to a pagan soldier who lives in the barracks and has the duty rotating duty of guarding Paul under this house arrest and he says in verse 12 beautiful writing now I want you to know brothers that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel whoa I thought he was in prison he is I thought he was chained he was his plan for spreading the gospel wasn't one-on-one his hope was to have a platform and to be able to do it in a great public place that wasn't God God's plan and so he says my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole Praetorian Guard and everyone else so you know what I call that soldier chained to him the captive audience when you're in the public arena they can walk out on you soldiers got to stay everyone of those who sat beside the Apostle Paul heard the gospel one after another some up several times several times from the lips of the man who longed to go to Rome under different circumstances but his imprisonment was the obstacle that made it happen one insightful expositor writes it this way Paul was a prisoner but so far from his imprisonment ending his missionary activity it actually expanded it in fact the bonds destroyed the barriers I love that I want that for you now if you fight the bonds you won't have that happen because you will be missing the message of misfortune friend there is an obstacle that happens remember is no accident it's a surprise yes it's it's unexpected absolutely but not by God I mean he's not sitting on the edge of heaven going what am I gonna do now it's exactly what he has planned your goals notwithstanding you got it every setback every heartbreak every loss every misfortune even every death he's a part of his plan John ox and ham long long time ago wrote words that still ring with relevance he writes in characters too grand for my short sight to understand we catch but broken strokes and try to fathom all the mystery of withered hopes of death of life the endless war the useless strife but there with larger clearer sight we shall see this his way was right his way was right thank you Father bow with me will you please [Applause] you've heard everything said now you'll have a chance to live it some of you won't it'll take more and more and more you'll struggle the first several years of your ministry and you'll keep struggling till you finally learn to surrender finally learn to set aside what you thought was the game plan broken and bruised you'll finally get it whether it's peace like a river or whether it is the the seas as they roll like great billows roll you have fought taught us to say it's well with my soul so we're sitting in silence before you not knowing a a thing about the next few seconds to say nothing of the next few days certainly or the next few years of our lives thank you Father for not giving what we asked for or what we expected but for staying with your plan and bending and shaping our will to yours continue to do that father from one class to the next from one day to the next from one semester to another until we are long gone from here the place is only a memory and we're in the myths of misfortune then bring these things to mind and use them to encourage us I pray in the name of Jesus everybody sit

Channel: Dallas Theological Seminary

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Length: 44min 26sec (2666 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 20 2018