When Things Seem Impossible | Timeless Truths – Dr. Charles Stanley

[Music] timeless truths a collection of classic sermons from dr charles stanley today's selection recorded in 2001 when things seem impossible what makes this book such an absolute treasure to us somebody says well because it's the revelation of god about himself and about the way he deals with people well that's true and there are many other wonderful things about this book that gets our attention and causes us to have preeminence in our life one of the most important things is the fact that most of us who have trusted jesus christ as our personal savior realized this is the handbook for living in other words this is the way you live and what we discovered is this if you follow the principles in this book you will experience life at its very best if you violate these principles written in this book what you'll discover is that you'll reap a very bitter harvest and so therefore it's very important the way we view it the very important the way we understand it and the very it's very important the way you and i practice it one of the unique things about the bible is the fact that so many of these wonderful principles of scripture that are so practical for us every day they're couched in events in events in the life of jesus and events for example the life of the apostle paul and others not only that but oftentimes it's just what jesus was saying or what the apostle paul or james of peter was saying and one of those events that is known probably by most people who've ever read the bible is the event that i want us to look at today and the title of this message is when things seem impossible all of us at some point in our life have had our backs to the wall and we think god i don't know what to do i don't know where to go i don't know which way to turn what shall i do we've had our backs to the wall and everything looked rather impossible so i want you to see today nothing is impossible with god so i want you to turn if you will to john chapter 6. in fact in this sixth chapter of john it's the story the account of the feeding of the five thousand somebody says oh i know that story well but do you know the truth of this story do you know the principles here do you know what god is trying to say to us in this passage because god has some wonderful lessons in this 6th chapter of john and beginning in verse 1. and what i want you to remember is this that this is the only miracle that jesus performed that's recorded in all gospels matthew mark luke and john this is the only one so there must have been some reason the holy spirit inspired all of them to include that in the gospels so beginning in verse 1 after these things jesus went away to the other side of the sea of galilee or tiberius which is named after a caesar a large crowd followed him because they saw the signs which he was performing on those who were sick he'd been healing the sick then jesus went up on the mountain and there he sat down with his disciples he was trying to get away to get a little rest at this particular time now the passover the feast of the jews was near and so that means there are lots more people floating around and walking around than normal therefore jesus lifting up his eyes and seeing that a large crowd was coming to him said to philip where are we to buy bread so that we may eat this he was saying to test him for he himself knew what he was intending to do so that was not a command that was just the request we said where are we going to do this philip answered him 200 denari worth of bread is not sufficient for them for everyone to receive a little one of his disciples andrew simon peter's brother said to him there is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish but what are these for so many people jesus said have the people sit down now there was much grass in the place so the men sat down in numbers about five thousand jesus then took the loaves and having given thanks he distributed to those who were seated likewise also the fish as much as they wanted when they were filled he said to his disciples gather up the leftover fragments so that nothing will be lost so they gathered them up filled 12 baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves which he were left over by those who had eaten therefore when the people saw the sign which he had performed they said this is truly the prophet which is coming to the world and two things don't want your mind remind you of number one jesus primary purpose for performing miracles was not just to heal people or to help them feel better his primary purpose was just what happened here he says therefore when the people saw the sign all of his miracles were signs of his true identity that is that jesus christ was and is the messiah a second thing i want you to remember about this passage is this that matthew mark luke and john all record this particular event not any one of them say the very same thing each one of them has a contribution that they make somebody says well aha then the bible's not inspired yes it is if all of them had been exactly the same we'd have figured somebody copied somebody but each one of them as the holy spirit led them brought to mind those things that they remembered and that they saw happen so i will say some things that probably are not here for example the bible says that it was a very desolate place and it was very late getting very late in the evening when this happened so if i say something so i don't see that in the passage it's either in here or it's in matthew mark or luke so with that in mind let's think about this whole idea and first of all we're talking about the issue when things seem impossible the times in all of our lives when we hit those situations where we don't know what to do it looks impossible for us to be able to get through this without a great deal of pain or hurt looks impossible for us to get through this without some real financial problems developing it looks impossible for us to be healed after what the doctor said so there are all kinds of situations we come into the first thing i want you to notice here is this and that is that jesus is aware of those circumstances in which we feel it is a seemingly impossible situation you'll notice i didn't say an impossible situation but seemingly impossible it appears to be impossible it looks like it's impossible and here in this situation there were five thousand uh men and the bible says in matthew for example that there were five thousand men plus women and children so that could have been fifty five hundred six thousand sixty five hundred or seven thousand and so the impossible situation it appears is that all of these people who've been following jesus and when he left one side of the lake they sailed around the edge of the lake and came to the other side and these people who saw him leaving they followed him hundreds of them and probably thousands of them followed him around because they were interested they were curious they had seen healing they wanted to be healed and so a lot of them were curiosity seekers then of course some were saying this is the prophet this is the messiah and so they want to see more so they could decide whether he was or whether he wasn't so here they are now tired weary worn they've been listening to him all day and some of them also wanted to be healed and they're also hungry it's till the end of the day the evening has come and so the disciples said send them away jesus said where are we going to buy food and i want you to notice something very significant and there are lots of little lessons in this passage and i want you to notice here what happens notice what he says he said verse 6 that he was testing philip when he said to him where are we to buy bread so that we may eat and so the scripture says philip answered him 200 denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them for everyone to receive a little now donate was a roman coin and a day's wages would be one denarii then i want you to notice what happens philip answered or in beginning in verse eight one of his disciples andrew simon peter's brother said to him there's a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish but one of these for so many and so he'd been scouting around when they realized that there wasn't any food there and so here's what i want you to notice now you listen and say amen he asked the wrong question look at the question he asked he says there is a lad here who has five berlin loaves and two fish but what are these for so many that's not the right question the right question is here's a lad here who has five loaves and two fish now lord jesus what are you gonna do with that that's the right question not what is this among so many for example when you and i hit one of those difficult situations in life are we our backs to the wall or we think something looks impossible what do we say we say oh lord what am i going to do wrong question now remember this is really important because you're going to get one of these lord what what am i what in the world am i going to do how many of us have asked that oh god what in the world am i going to do that's not the right question the right question is lord what are you going to do nothing is impossible when the supernatural invasion of god by the lord jesus christ comes into our life and he enters our circumstance to deal with them if i and i alone have to deal with him i'm going to have a problem but if he begins to deal with them he if i allow him if i acknowledge him if i call upon him into my circumstance he is going because of his compassion love to deal with that circumstance no matter what it is and oftentimes we wonder why things don't happen right we wonder why why we can't figure it out god doesn't want us figuring out he wants us to rely upon him to trust in him and as he says to call upon him and so now they're saying we don't know what to do send them away and he says no i'm not going to send them away i'm going to feed them how much money do we have go buy something let's let's feed them and so absolutely totally they don't have any idea what to do but the bible says that jesus knows what he's going to do which leads me to the second point and that's this not only is he aware of our circumstance but listen he always listen he always has a plan for our seemingly impossible circumstances that is jesus is never caught off guard that is he always knows what he's going to do and he knows how he's going to do it and he knows how where when and he knows exactly the resources that are necessary no matter what you're facing in life he knows exactly what to do and yet believers listen christians act like unbelievers we act like unbelievers oh lord what in the world am i going to do we we have the shakes and we have all kinds of problems going on and lord we tell our friends and we want pity and we want sympathy and we want all this you need to get on your knees and say lord what are you going to do what are you going to do now i know what i can do and what i can do is not going to cut it it's not going to work but god it will work for you because you said there's nothing impossible with you so i'm going to stop my calculation i'm going to start trusting and see what you do you'll be amazed at what god can turn around in your life but if you do what you feel like doing what is natural and normal you're going to be calculating this what will happen and what will not happen and what happens is you end up losing you listen you can lose listen you can lose at the finish line of god's very best blessing in your life if you try to figure what you're going to be able to do or maneuver to some situation trust him he will guide you step by step because he has a very definite plan he knew exactly what he was going to do in this situation everything he required of them was one of the steps toward accomplishing his goal which was to feed all these people and his ultimate goal which was to demonstrate his power which was part of his ultimate goal to clearly say to them i am a prophet and i am the messiah that was his ultimate goal step by step he led them and see he's got them in training and they're having a very difficult time at this particular point the third thing i want you to notice here is this and that is that jesus will often surprise us by the way he turns our impossible situations into things that are possible sometimes he's very surprising and he's surprising in lots of ways and when you think about uh what uh andrew said here he andrew was scouting around and he found five loaves and two fishes this little boy and everybody nobody else seemed to have any food at all and so now we're down to five loaves and two fishes and uh at least maybe i say we should we are up to that we have five loaves and two fish and we still have all these people out there and so what do we learn here when he brought them back to jesus he brought the lad to jesus and i don't think he went and got him and said look the master give me your five loaves and two fish i think he brought the little boy over to jesus and either jesus was seated or if he was not seated he probably sort of knelt down and asked this little boy his name but i think he must have had a conversation enough that he said well would you let me have your lunch all of it could i have all of your lunch all five loaves and two fish yes sir he turned his bread over to jesus and what i want you to remember is this don't ever underestimate what god can do in your life when you surrender all you are and all you have to him i am fully persuaded that one of the primary reasons that so many people are discouraged with their life disconcerted with life sort of looking at life and thinking well am i important i'll never be able to accomplish anything never be able to amount to anything that was just sort of discouraged about their life most people probably when they look at their lives they don't see a lot going on could it be it's because you have never turned it over to the one who created you surrendered it to the one who owns you yield it to the one who wants to work in you and reveal to you and show you what he can do what he will do with your life if you'll give yourself to him most people are selfish they have their life in their own grip this is the way i want to live this is where i'm going to live this is what i'm going to do this is what i'm going to have yes where i'm going and so their life is their own plan and what they don't realize is this that god has the best plan possible for your life but the only way he can make that plan work is for you to open your hands surrender your life to him and give yourself to him absolutely and totally now that is a matter of pure trust do you believe that god has the best plan absolutely are you willing to allow him to demonstrate to you the best plan most people aren't well you know they'll give some kind of reasoning well you know well i've done my best and this is what i think i'm trained for and this is what i'm best at and hear my gifts and and so what they've done they have locked themselves into their own puny plan when god has the best but you must open yourself to him to see what could god do with me i was reading just this morning that the tent meeting in 1949 in california and around hollywood there was led by a 30 year old farm boy from north carolina and that tent meeting became the awesome stage upon which god set in motion the whole ministry of billy graham that has touched this globe many many many times 30 year old farm boy from north carolina who is this so the next time you think about well who am i let me tell you something are you listening say amen it doesn't make any difference who else knows who you are you know somebody who knows exactly who you are and what he's willing to do in your life if you just let him do it well the last thing i want to mention here is this that is that he will use these impossible seemingly impossible circumstances in our life to teach us to train us and to grow us up and if you'll just think about what happened to these disciples here when they watch this they watch jesus do this what kind of impact they had in their life he'll do the same thing in your life in mind so let's look at this for a moment and the first thing you see here is this that this incident in their lives strengthened their faith how could they doubt they watched him there was no question there was no manipulation five little barley loaves two fish and he fed five thousand men plus women and children now how did you do that the awesome power of god they saw it listen they saw they they watched and their faith was strengthened they watched the power of god that is he demonstrated his awesome power what did he do and here's what i think he did because the bible doesn't say how he did it but he took those five loaves and two fish the bible says he prayed and thanked the father then he began to break it and passed his disciples and he kept on breaking it and the interesting thing is that every single word in the bible is important and oftentimes oftentimes the language and and the greek and so forth is important in the sixth chapter of mark if you look there for a moment here's what happens in the 40th verse it says they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties now i want you to watch the wording here in this 41st verse because this is a way i believe he did it and mark gives this account he says and he and he that is jesus took the five loaves and the two fish looking up toward heaven he blessed the food and broke the loaves and he kept giving them to the disciples to set before them and he divided it to two fish among them all that is he kept on doing that now what's happening here here's what's happening he begins to break it and give it to his disciples and he keeps breaking it and giving it to them and what happens they start passing it out and when it comes to euro for example you break it off and you pass it to someone else well when they get it and they break it it's still just as much there and they passed the next one and somehow there's still just as much there and they felt all those people what happened god set in motion his awesome miraculous power to break those five loaves and those two fish into enough to feed probably six or seven thousand people and so what's he doing he's building their faith he he allows you to hit some impossible situation in your life what's he up to he's got a plan part of his plan is to strengthen your faith part of his plan is to demonstrate his power working in your life part of his plan is also to demonstrate his love that he loves you enough he loved those people he had never seen most of them before he loved them he had compassion filled with compassion moved compassion god loves us so what does he do he works in our life he begins to work in our life in such a way that we we see the most awesome things happening what's he doing he's demonstrating his love to us just like he did to them another thing he did was this he revealed to them how inadequate they were he said go buy food we can't do that uh feed them what are we going to feed them with and so oftentimes god allows us into those situations where our backs to the wall enable us to see that apart from him what can we do in life listen if you live your life based on your resources your abilities your talents your gifts you're gonna come up short you're gonna come up disappointed you're gonna you're gonna end up failing in life he wants us to live listen according to his resources his strength his power trusting in him that's his goal for us he will reveal our inadequacy that's why he doesn't want us saying over once what am i going to do now is he wants us to come to the end of ourselves so we will say god i can't i can't settle this what are you going to do in my life and this is what's happening here likewise he displayed his dependence upon the father he could have said let's take five loaves two fish and after all i'm god and start breaking him no you know what he did he took the time to talk to the father he asked the father to bless wouldn't you have loved to have heard that prayer what what did he say to the father with five loaves and two fish i'm trusting you father to break this enough times that all of these people will have enough to fill them and there'll be some left over one thing about it the father always answered every single prayer that jesus prayed and you know what listen to this jesus is interested in answering all our prayers what he wants them to he wants the prayers to fit his will and his plan for life because it's the best if you want god's best you must surrender yourself to him and see what he will do and what's he going to do he's going to show you how inadequate you are but he's also going to manifest his faithfulness that is has there ever been a situation or circumstance that god was late no is is there any possibility that jesus could not do something no is there any possibility that he has not heard you no unless you're just living in sin he's turned the deaf ear to you is there anything that you and i could come up with that he cannot do but if you don't understand who you are you'll say oh lord what am i going to do wrong question what am i going to do what's the right question lord what are you going to do that's the right question it's interesting this morning i woke up about four o'clock and um i was just like that and this song came to my mind that i'm sure i hadn't even thought about it in 40 years i'm sure i haven't out of the clear blue of unconsciousness i woke up and these words came to my mind are there any rivers that seem to be uncrossable are there any mountains you cannot tunnel through the next part goes with god nothing is impossible he knows a thousand ways to make a way for you let go and let god have his wonderful way let go and let god have his way your sorrows will vanish your night will turn today if you let go and let god have his way and thought about it years i thought what an absolutely perfect chorus for this message are there any rivers that you can't cross impossible mountains you can't tunnel through looks impossible god specializes in things that seem impossible he knows a thousand ways to make a way for you but when we let go and let god have his way his wonderful way in our life and i wonder what you're facing you've been trying to figure it out just give up yourself isn't giving up weakness giving up is not weakness it's wisdom when you're giving up to god not weakness but wisdom because then what you do you allow the invasion of the spirit of the living god to take your circumstances and absolutely change them for your benefit and i want to encourage you if you're one of those persons who's never been saved you're not a christian and all this seems just to be so difficult to you it takes simple childlike faith to place your trust in him and watch what he does in your life and maybe you're one of those persons who's been struggling with who you are what you're going to do with your life where you're headed and what god could do with your life and you say well i'm this age or i'm that age of this educated that education all of these things none of that's important the issue is lord i surrender my entire being to you now i'm going to watch what you do and one thing for certain listen he'll do the best thing that a sovereign omnipotent omniscient i'm the i'm listen i'm the present all-loving unconditional loving god will do in your life if you'll let him father how grateful we are that you can take a simple story like this and teach us so many wonderful marvelous truths that if we will apply to our heart we will discover what you are able ready and willing to do in our life i pray the holy spirit sink these truths teach us to ask the right questions to place our trust in you to keep our focus upon you to refuse pity parties and doubting fears and anxiety and fretting and to ask the wise question father what is your goal for this circumstance in my life father what are you going to do with these resources that i have and then lord i know that you will bless and honor every single person who surrenders themselves unconditionally to you and that is my prayer today in jesus name amen you

Channel: In Touch Ministries

Views: 224,715

Rating: 4.9114065 out of 5

Keywords: Charles F. Stanley, Charles Stanley, In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley, In Touch Ministries, Preaching, Bible teaching, Dr. Stanley, Intouch ministries, intouch

Id: 2hk6SAXGM7o

Length: 25min 59sec (1559 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 24 2021