On God | DON'T GIVE UP | Kyle Idleman

[Music] we are hard pressed on every side but not crushed [Music] persecuted but not abandoned struck down and not destroys our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all so we fix our eyes not on what is seen but what is unseen since what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal don't give up don't give up don't give up so I'm just convinced that this is a message that everybody needs to hear sometimes more emphatically than others I give you that but all of us have some areas in life where we are tired maybe a little bit frustrated where we want to see some progress and it's just been slow and we feel like giving up I've tried to keep track in the last couple months just some of the ways that I have challenged people to not give up and I I can tell you about a young couple been married less than two years but they've decided it's not working out I could tell you about a middle-aged man who is just tired of dealing with unemployment and joblessness he's just discouraged parents who are ready to give up on a teenage son a young woman who's gone through a difficult breakup a wife who's just tired of feeling lonely in her own home with her own family a student who can't seem to climb out of depression a single woman who's waiting on God to bring along a godly husband a man who's thinking of leaving his family for another woman a husband and wife who just found out that their child's cancer has returned and I say I'm sorry to hear that can I pray for you and they say no that's all right we already did that this disappointment and disillusionment in life and you start to feel despair but what are you really giving up on in all of these areas we giving up on you're really giving up on God because you've asked God to do some things and he hasn't done him you've asked God to fix some things and he hasn't fixed them you've brought some broken things to God and said God can you put this back together and it just seems more broken than ever really what you're giving up on is God and in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 is where we're gonna study for the next few minutes and and the Christians in Corinth they were feeling this way they were just disillusioned their first century Christians which means you know nobody had been Christians before them this is all new it's brand new and I'm just sure that they thought if I follow Jesus then then the path is gonna be clear and if God is my father then things in life are gonna get easier not harder I mean it just make sense but that's not what was happening things were difficult for them therefore difficult than before they became Christians and so they're looking around at just the circumstances of life and doesn't seem like things are going their way and they're losing faith and so Paul's gonna write to encourage them to not give up now he uses a metaphor in verse 7 of 2nd Corinthians for that I think is pretty helpful it's the metaphor of a jar of clay Paul says look we're jars of clay now for us a jar of clay now okay kind of understand that idea for them in Corinth it was a big industry pottery ceramics and they were known for having this beautiful ornate pottery and Paul says these jars of clay that just surround you in your community that's what we're like we're like jars of clay well what's true of a jar of clay well whether its basic and simple or whether it's more ornate and beautiful and it's fragile that's what's true it's easy for them to break it's easy for them to get chipped to get knit and Paul's like yeah that's us that is a metaphor for what it's like to live life that we are a jar of clay in a hard world that's it's interesting if you go to Corinth even today it's not hard to find pieces of pottery like this that date back to the first century a friend of mine brought this to me it's from first century world lots of broken pieces of pottery lots of broken jars lots of remnants of what once was and Paul says this this is what life can feel like like it's it's broken its busted life is hard and we're jars of clay and so he wants to encourage and he wants to challenge them to not give up because when you feel like you're getting chipped away at when you feel like the jar has been busted and pieces are everywhere that's when we feel like giving up and in fact I asked the question took quite a few people in the last few weeks I said was there time when you gave up on God and why so could I just ask you for a moment to kind of answer that question I don't know when that would have been for you the fact that you're here tells me that you haven't completely given up so was there a time when you gave up on God and if so why it's kind of identify that season of your life my guess is that for most of you it was something bad that happened like there's a situation that was really difficult and you asked God for help and it doesn't seem like he did much to help you and and so you gave up on God you might not say you've given up on God but what you stopped praying and what is that except for giving up on God and so we go through something difficult and we just start to wonder can I count on him every year I take my son for a little three-day trip just for some father-son time and usually we go skiing and snowboarding it's what what he loves and so we went this past week and Monday morning at 8:30 in the morning we sat down on a ski lift and and I pray out loud I pray out loud I say God and so we're going up god it's a beautiful day thank you so much for some time I get to spend with my boy may there be no broken bones today that's what I said like out loud said it may there be no broken bones today and here's where we're at on the mountain there's my son he's okay here's my son getting ready to get put on a sled ski patrol it's got a broken let me call this thing clavicle collarbone he broke his collarbone it's good for him he's going too fast all the time like you tell him slow down slow down now you know right like you slow down the next time and it is so frustrating the first day I pray God don't let this happen and three hours later here we are on the way home was at the airport this guy came over to me and introduced himself and he said now I'm honestly I'm just kind of glad to be on the same plane with you it makes me feel better like that's not how it works like this is my son he's in the sling so we have these ideas these expectations we pray for a different outcome and some of you know exactly what this is like right and what you ended up with was much worse than a broken clavicle and then you ended up with a broken family or a broken spirit a broken heart you prayed specifically God don't let this happen and that's exactly what happened you prayed specifically God please let this happen and it didn't happen and the natural tendency is just to start to give up on God I mean why didn't he protect and why didn't he provide and why doesn't he help and why didn't he heal and and yeah okay fine maybe there's some answers for that that we can't fully see I mean maybe maybe my son having this injury because he's flying down the mountain maybe he learned something from that and that keeps him from being in a worse accident a few years I don't know maybe but come on it just it seems like there's no great answers and in those moments and and as a result we start to give up on God a little bit I was talking to a woman after church she was I'd say mid-30s or so and she had gone through this divorce a lot of financial hardships unexpected bills I said well have you talked to your family because sometimes that are willing to help but you just you have to ask and so have you talked to your dad what about your dad I'm just the mention of her dad bristles up kind of scoffs it's never sees her dad not since she was a little girl and he never calls certainly never visits birthdays come and go without so much as a text but she said I still check my phone on my birthday that's sort of where some of you are at like you've given up on God the way she's giving up on her father and you're here at church because you still check your phone but your expectations are not high you feel disappointed and letdown people sometimes say I don't believe in God and typically when someone says I don't believe in God we interpret that as like a statement of I don't believe God exists I don't believe God is real I don't think most of the time that's what people really mean when someone says I don't believe in God I think the problem they have is not so much a problem of God's existence it's more a problem of God's absence I don't believe in him now I believe that God exists I believe God is real I just don't believe in him that he's going to help that he's gonna be there and we start to give up so in 2nd Corinthians 4 Paul is gonna talk to some Christians here in the city of Corinth who are discovering that life is hard and they are fragile and he's gonna give them some truths some things to hang on to and this is huge for us when we feel like giving up because a lot of us have a mantra that gets played in our head when we are discouraged and we're giving up on God and the mantra is he doesn't care the mantra is it's too broken that the mantra is I I can't get up from this and so he's gonna give us a different mantra he's gonna give us some some truths to hang on to now he's he's gonna challenge us with faith but listen he's not gonna describe faith as pretending like everything is ok when everything's not okay right like that annoys that annoys me as a preacher when other preachers describe following God and it sounds like it sounds like what you're asking is for me to stand out in the rain and pretend like it's sunny I'm not into that Paul wasn't either so he keeps it real but it's also encouraging and so here's what he says verses eight nine here's the truth the truth is we are pressed on every side by troubles but we are not crushed we are perplexed but not driven to despair we are hunted down but never abandoned by God we get knocked down but we are not destroyed okay per se we are pressed on every side but we are not crushed pressures cannot crush us pressures cannot crush us I'm not saying you won't feel pressure but pressures cannot crush you I'm not saying you haven't felt it building I'm not saying it isn't coming from every direction I'm saying that you will feel pressure but you are not crushed because of the hope that we have in Jesus so a picture of what this looks like is an exodus where I mean you know the story it's where Moses leads the people out of slavery in Egypt and about the time they kind of get going on the journey Pharaoh decides ABB's a bad idea I want him back I want the slaves back and so he sends his army to go after these realize the army happens to catch that just happens to catch up to them right when they get to the Red Sea I mean the timing couldn't be worse so the Red Sea is in front of them the Army's coming up behind him come on god I mean it's just all at once I mean it's one thing for us to have to deal with this large body of water it's another thing to have to deal with this army but I've got the army on one side and I've got this body of water on the other just pressure and so here's how the people respond Exodus 14 verse 10 as Pharaoh approached the people of Israel looked up and what did they do at panic they looked up and panicked when they saw the Egyptians overtaking them and they cried out to the Lord and then they said to Moses why did you bring us out here to die in the wilderness weren't there enough grapes for us in Egypt what have you done to us why did you make us leave Egypt he didn't didn't we tell you this would happen while we were still in Egypt no they didn't we said leave us alone no you didn't say that let us be slaves to the Egyptians it's better for us to be a slave in Egypt than to be a corpse in the wilderness and so the pressure is on what are they you they panic and then they blame and complain they blame and complain this is what we tend to do the pressure is on and instead of looking at how God has delivered us in the past instead of being still for a moment and seeing how God has rescued us instead of thinking for a moment how far he has brought us we panic and then we blame and complain so they blame Moses for their situation they complain about their circumstances it used to be better even though it wasn't we blame and complain and here's the way I would say this is that blaming and complaining that's like the exit ramp to quitting you blame enough if you blame enough then you start to feel like the victim and once you're the victim then you can quit without feeling like a quitter let you off the hook you can give up without feeling like you quit something and so they blame and they complain and we do this it's not that it's not that we're giving up it's just you know I don't have a choice and if the home I grew up in would have been different if my spouse was more attentive if my spouse was more affectionate if my boss wasn't so demanding if God would have opened up this door it's not that I'm giving up I'm not a quitter back in what choice do I have and so we get around quitting by making ourselves a victim and what else were we supposed to do so the people feel the pressure there doesn't seem to be any way out verse 13 says but Moses told the people don't be afraid just stand still to stand still and watch the Lord rescue you today the Egyptians you see today will never be seen again the Lord Himself will fight for you just calm down just calm down God will fight for you here's the challenge about that reality is that God is rarely early God has a tendency to show up just in time like if I'm putting the story together in my mind I'm like okay god there's if you're fighting for them how about this how about you just don't let the army leave Egypt to begin with well why not do that or how about you change the timing up a bit so that it doesn't happen all at once it's not the Red Sea and the army just one one thing at a time how about that if you're fighting for me then and what about doing it different and God has an answer I love the way the message paraphrase is this and verse 18 God says I'll use Pharaoh I'll use his entire army his chariots and his horsemen to put my glory on display so that the Egyptians will realize that I'm gone there's something about pressure that allows God to put his glory on display there's something about being in a position where you have nowhere left to turn that God has an opportunity to demonstrate his power and his strength in your life that's what it means to be a jar of clay that you're a jar of clay the treasure 1st 2nd Corinthians 4 verse 7 is in you and that allows for God's power to be seen through you because you're a jar of clay I see this a lot in church so this couple has a child that's sick lots of tests lots of treatments and every time I see them they want to introduce me to a different nurse or a different doctor that they've brought to church God's glory is being put on display a young mom and wife loses her husband the pressure is on it just doesn't seem like there's much of a way out but you want God's glory gets put on display and a man it's been without a job for quite a while he's just feeling the pressure of the mortgage payment his small group gets together pitches in to help relieve some of that pressure and God's glory gets put on display that's how it works and so when the Red Sea is in front of you and the army is behind you how do you handle that it you be still let God fight for you how do you know when you're at that point here's how you know you can't do anything else that's when that's when you know the pressure is on like you've tried to control the situation and now you can't as much as you want to control her feelings you can't control her feelings as much as you want to make the decision for him you can't make his decisions for him as much as you want to change the diagnosis you don't have power over that there's nothing you can do and when the pressure is on and there's nothing you can do you let God fight for you and you tell yourself this truth I impressed but I am not crushed I'm pressed but I'm not crushed first day goes on to say we are perplexed but we are not driven to despair we are perplexed but we are not driven to despair the way I might put that as uncertainty can't discourage us yeah are we perplexed yeah we are are there some things that happen to us that we don't understand mmm-hmm yeah we've got some questions there's some things that are pretty confusing some things that from our perspective would be a lot different if if we were in charge are we perplexed yeah we're perplexed but we're not in despair why okay why why are we not in despair because God knows what we don't God sees what we can't that's what Hebrews 11 says faith actually is faith is the assurance of something you cannot see and so there's questions there's times where we feel perplexed and yet we have faith that a story is being written that we don't quite get when I was a little we used to go see my grandparents in Quincy Illinois and there was not a lot to do with their house and this was before the days of you know cell phones and there just wasn't much to do so they had puzzles like my grandmother had puzzles she loved to work puzzles but she kept her puzzles and ziploc bags I'm not sure why like I might had something to do with the Great Depression like that seemed to be the answer to a lot of different questions I had but she would work the puzzles I think she would work the puzzles and she'd leave them out for a while I remember that and I think she would not want to throw them away but she didn't want the box taking up all kinds of room and so she keeps the puzzle but she'd keep it in a ziploc bag and you know as a kid I just got to the point where I was bored enough to open up a ziploc bag and try to put together the puzzle I don't know if you've ever tried to put together a puzzle without the picture on the box I didn't know what it was some that could be like the skyline of Chicago it could be three cats looking back at me with that you know that look of entitlement cats do you know that like I could have been I didn't know what the picture was I I never finished a puzzle ever like I always gave up why because I didn't have the picture I needed the picture because if I had the picture that I would know that every piece made sense if I had the picture that I could understand that every piece had a purpose and they were all working towards this but I didn't have didn't have the picture and if you don't have a picture it's easy to give up so listen faith faith is working on a puzzle when you don't have the picture on the box you're trying to put the pieces together and you don't quite understand it you don't quite see it you don't get how they are gonna all come together but you keep at it so this is Abraham and God says hey I want you to move well where am I supposed to move to I'm not gonna tell you that this move this is joseph being told through this dream he's gonna be a great leader and then he sold into slavery this is David being anointed king and then spending years and years of his life running for his life in caves this is Mary being told that she would conceive a child but she was a virgin this is Peter leaving his fishing nets behind to become a Fisher of men whatever that means this is the story or God says here are the pieces and a lot of them just don't make sense to us we're trying to figure it out we get a few of them put together we think we know we think we're onto something get a corner here and maybe a little corner over there but but then a long time goes by we just don't see anything coming together look the puzzle is coming together the picture is coming together Romans 8:28 says in all things God works for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose you keep putting the pieces of the puzzle together even if you don't have a picture are we perplexed yeah we're perplexed are we in despair no now we're not verse 9 we are hunted down but we are never abandoned by God here's what we can be sure of is that opposition cannot stop us we are hunted bent down but we're not abandoned by God Romans 8 says my favorite chapter the Bible if God is for us who can be against us and maybe you hear that you think why ax I mean if that's the rhetorical question I actually know an answer but the question is if God is for you if God is for you if I really believed that God was for me then I'm not gonna give up and if I truly believe that God is in my corner then I'm not gonna stop now if I really believe God is with me they'll persevere in Holland or I will but how do I know that God is with me verse 32 of Romans 8 since God did not spare even his own son but gave him up for assault won't he also give us everything else if this one big thing is true then doesn't that mean that all these little things are gonna be taken care of he makes this argument from the greater to the lesser was there anything more valuable to God than his son no did he give his only son for you yeah he did if he gave what was most valuable to you doesn't also follow that he's going to take care of everything else and so I'm not looking at my circumstances as evidence that God is with me but I'm looking too the cross and so Paul goes on to say in Romans 8 can anything ever separate us from Christ love does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamities that what that means does it mean he no longer loves us if we're persecuted or hungry or destitute or in danger or threatened with death I don't know you can sure feel like it at times verse 35 verse 37 no it's that Paul writes despite all these things overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us victory has already been won you're looking at your current situation you're looking at your immediate circumstances and determining God's love for you in the moment victories already been won you're not fighting for victory you're fighting from victory it's already it's already happened verse 38 and I am convinced that nothing I am convinced that nothing can separate us from God's love neither death nor life neither Angels nor demons neither our fears for today or our worries about tomorrow not even the powers of Hell can separate us from God's love no power in the sky above or in the earth below indeed nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord okay okay we are hunted down we are not abandoned opposition cannot stop us verse 9 2nd Corinthians 4 we get knocked down but we are not destroyed I put it this way we get knocked down but we are never knocked out you can knock me down but you can't knock me out we we may get knocked down that phrase knocked down is this idea of an immediate concern it's a sudden emergency it's an unanticipated hit like everything's good and then out of nowhere it's a late-night phone call that's what that is it's a late-night phone call it's an unexpected diagnosis it's a devastating accident it's that moment you know everything's fine in the morning and then your life has completely changed by the middle of the day and in those moments we are not down but we we're not destroyed we get back up I started a podcast a few months ago I'd love to to ask you to check out its it's called one at a time the reason I started it of course podcasts are free so I'd love to have you listen the reason I started it is I find myself as a pastor listening to stories of faith I just inspire me I hear stories and testimonies of people who have experienced this not down but not destroyed and I just want you as a church to be able to listen to some of those stories and the voices of the people who lived in so it's not just me telling stories up here but you getting to listen to these things in their own words and I I talked some on there too it's again it's called one at a time I really think you can encourage you and inspire you there's something about listening to someone experience what we're talking about that gives us strength like it's one thing to read this it's another thing when you hear somebody say how it's true for them in their life that they were knocked down but they were not destroyed they were pressured but they weren't crushed they were hunted down but they were not abandoned by God you listen to that and and it gives you some strength so how can we how can we claim this and how can this really be true it's because ultimately our hope is not in this world our hope is in heaven this world is so short I don't doesn't seem like it now I know it doesn't feel like it in a moment Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians 4 we never give up our bodies are gradually dying but we ourselves are being made stronger each day verse 17 these little troubles are getting us ready for an eternal glory that will make all our troubles seem like thing well you think okay but Paul doesn't know what's going on in my life Paul Paul says one day in heaven I'll look back in all the troubles I went through it'll seem like nothing but he doesn't know right look he doesn't get it I be careful they're like I'd put his troubles up against ear troubles he was put in prison unjustly many times he was beaten with whips five times he was beaten with rods three times he was stoned and left for dead he was shipwrecked three times he was often homeless hungry thirsty he knew what it was to be cold and naked he had some physical problem that he three times asked God to take away from him and God's like hmm no my grace is sufficient for you my power is made perfect in your weakness you're a jar of clay and my power is going to be demonstrated through this going on in your life my grace is gonna be enough and Paul says one day in heaven I'll look back on all of these things that'll be no big deal CS Lewis explains it this way he says in heaven the door we've been knocking on our entire lives will finally be open and so you find yourself just you're just knocking on the door God would you you heal God would you help God would you restore and then having the door we've been knocking on opens up so we get knocked down but we are not knocked out pressure can't crush us uncertainty can't discourage us opposition cannot stop us so this week I asked quite a few people have you ever thought about giving up on God and why most of the people pointed to some trouble or suffering in their life but there was this one guy who answered a little bit differently I said have you ever given up on God and why and he said yeah there was this time where I gave up on God because I was convinced God had given up on me I wonder if that's really at the heart of this like I wonder if that's really the problem we see all of these circumstances and situations and we I feel like God's given up on us it's not that we want to give up on God but he's given up on us we convinced ourselves and I can't really blame him and then we are cracked and we are broken and we are defective jars of clay why would he want anything to do with us and so I talked to this lady after church and she says to me no one knows about the abortions but God knows is it okay that I'm here the enemy had been whispering to her for a long time God gave up on you a long time ago she believed it so she stayed away I think that's probably where some of you are it's not that you want to give up on God it just feels like he's giving up on you and and you don't want to risk rejection so you just kind of pretend like you don't want to have anything to do with him and you kind of roll your eyes a lot of church stuff but deep down you know who you are and you're worried that God won't receive you so you're not gonna give him a chance to reject you you'll just reject him first and how many times have you promised God never again how many times how many years have you done things your own way how many people around you have you hurt how many jars of clay around you have you broken and you just think well I don't know I don't think God would want to have anything to do with me there's a story in the Old Testament where God wants to communicate his love for his people his faithfulness to his people and so he tells his Prophet Hosea to do a pretty unusual thing he tells Hosea to to go to kind of like the red-light district bad part of town and to find a prostitute there named Gomer and to buy Gomer from her pimp and to bring her back home and marry her and make her his wife well that's an unusual request for a prophet but Hosea does what God asks and he goes and he finds Gomer and he brings her home and he marries her and and as you read it you just get the sense that it seems to be working out okay actually like at some point each seems to love her and then and then one day he comes home and the house is empty she's not there his heart sinks and he runs back to that part of town where he first found her and there she is on the corner in the arms of another man and she leads him into this cheap motel and Hosea is broken God won't Hey what am I supposed to do now he told me to marry this prostitute I did he told me to bring her home and make her my wife and to love her I did and now this happens what am I supposed to do now and God says here's what you do I want you to go back there I want you to get hurt again I want you to buy her back again I want you to bring her home again and I want you to love her again why why chapter 3 verse 1 so that the people will know how much I love them so that the people will know that they may have given up on me I haven't given up on them so you listen to me you may have given up on God but God has not given up on you let's pray God I know I know I'm talking to some people in this room who are just discouraged and their heart is hard and I don't even want to be here I pray God that you would let them get a glimpse of your love I know God when we go through some of these difficult seasons of life there's part of us to act like we want answers and maybe there's some really good answers out there and I I know there's theological arguments that can make some sense of some things but when when we feel pressured and we feel hunted down when we've been knocked down I don't know that the answers help that much we we just want to know if you're for us I just want to know that you haven't abandoned us we just want to know that there's a picture that you're putting together even if we can't see it and so we need faith God and Jesus I thank you that you did not give up because you could have as you were sweating drops of blood in the garden of gethsemane you could have said forget this as you're being nailed to a cross you could have quit and when you felt abandoned by your heavenly Father you could have given up but you were willing to be forsaken so that we would never be forsaken he would you were willing to be abandoned in that moment so we would never be abandoned so god I pray that you would help us know your love and your grace but you would give us faith there's a lot of things we can't see there's a lot of questions we have God would you give us faith to endure and to persevere it's in Jesus name we pray amen

Channel: Southeast Christian Church

Views: 23,588

Rating: 4.8731709 out of 5

Keywords: Southeast Christian Church, Dave Stone, Kyle Idleman, creative church, sermon series, worship, Jesus, God, Louisville, Kentucky

Id: fKXbTpFy3NQ

Length: 38min 22sec (2302 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 04 2019