Pt. 1 Lies of the Devil - God will never give you more than you can handle

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

He is sly, crafty, articulate and whispering in your ear. He is whispering lies in your ears - he is Satan. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Today we are beginning a new series, “Lies of the devil.” What will make this series challenging is that the lies we are going to talk about are the lies that Christians believe. A pastor/ a teacher, a Sunday school teacher may have said these things to you, but they are lies. Today the lie is, “God will never put more on us than we can handle.” What? We think that is true right? 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. The context of the passage is temptation not all the other pressurized situations in life. For example the same author of 1 Corinthians 10:13 is the same one who wrote 2 Corinthians 1:8 which says, We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Sometime we get overwhelmed. But God doesn’t get overwhelmed. God will often let more come on us than we can handle so we will quit relying on ourselves, throw away our pride and rely on him. If God didn’t put more on us than we can handle many of might never come to see our need for him.

There are three truths that we need to keep in mind as we go through life: 1) We have a problem 2) We are just coming out of a problem 3) We are about to go into a problem. This place isn’t heaven. It is corrupted earth.

There are at least some of us here who have at least one big problem who need this message today. Maybe you are about ready to give up on school, life or even hope. So let’s check out God’s Word and go into the Old Testament history book of 2 Chronicles. As this time in history Israel is actually divided into 2 kingdoms, the north and the south. The north always had bad kings and the south, well, it was kinda hit and miss on whether the king was good or not. In 2 Chronicles 17 the south has a pretty good king with a really weird name - Jehoshaphat. But his weird name wasn’t the problem. The problem hit him out of nowhere. Have you ever noticed that. Problems come out of nowhere. None of us ever plan out a problem. None us get in our car and plan a blow out at rush hour. We don’t get a phone call and have our friend say, “Let’s meet for lunch on Wednesday.” And we say, “Let’s see, I am going to the doctor on Wednesday morning at 10 and am going to be diagnosed with heart disease, so how about Tuesday. I’ll be in a better mood on Tuesday.” That doesn’t happen. Problems come from out of nowhere.

2 Chronicles 20:2 Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, "A vast army is coming against you from Edom, from the other side of the Sea. The kings advisors come to him and tell him an army is coming. “Well how far are they away,” the king replies. The response, “they are in our backyard.” 2 Chronicles 20:3,4 Alarmed, (this means they were scared pottyless) Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the LORD, and he proclaimed a fast for all Judah. 4 The people of Judah came together to seek help from the LORD; indeed, they came from every town in Judah to seek him. Then in verses 5-12 Jehoshaphat prays and says, “we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us.” Maybe the best thing some of us can do today is just confess, God I can’t handle this. I don’t know what to do. I am clueless. I can’t figure this out.

There three emotions that we usually have when we have problems. First one, anger. We get mad. Sometimes even mad at God. I know what that is like. I bet you do too. We get mad at God because we finally understand how not in control we are. We feel helpless and so we get mad. We are not in control and we have a hard time dealing with it. We say, God this isn’t fair. And here’s the bottom line, we don’t want God to be fair because if he is fair, we are going to hell. Second emotion, confusion. We get confused because we have been told and we live by this little voice inside of us that says, If you are good, if you love God, pray, go to church, then nothing bad will happen to you. We hear some people says things like, My week just goes better for me if I go to church.” And if something bad happens to you it is because of sin in your life or because of your lack of faith. You thought that haven’t you, at least on some level. But think about that. Did something bad happen to Jesus. Yes. Did he have sin - no. Did he have a lack of faith - no. Look what happened to him. Just because you are a believer doesn’t mean your life is going to be a piece of cake. It might just mean your life might get more difficult. Third emotion, despair. Some of us have fallen into such tough times that we have come to hate life itself. I can relate to this. A number of years ago, when I would run there were any number of days where I would not have minded it, if I had been taken out by a car. Maybe some one here today is thinking, I just don’t know anyway out other than death. If that is you, don’t give up on God who has never given up on you.

There is a solution. That solution is not to sit around and cry and whine but rather to go to God and tell him the truth: I can’t handle this. I do not know what to do. You have to do it. The solution is found in the Word of God. 2 Chronicles 20:15 He said: "Listen, King Jehoshaphat and all who live in Judah and Jerusalem! This is what the LORD says to you: 'Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God's. God sometimes speaks through pain and problem so the sooner we listen the better. I especially like the last part of the verse, the battle is not yours, but God’s. Whatever situation you are in, joblessness, grades, a family that doesn’t understand, a relationship that is off and on, hot an cold, despair whatever it is God has it. So the people get ready to go out to battle. And they look and the enemy is big, real big. Have you ever noticed that - the enemy is big. If they weren’t big we wouldn’t worry about them too much. But at issue here is this thing that we often do and that is we give Satan way to much credit. While he is stronger than we are. He is not near as strong as god is and we too often put him on the same plane of power with God. Not true. Not close. It’s like we think God is going to win in the end because he is going to be sneaky enough to pull off a sucker punch. Not the case God is going to win because Satan is nowhere near his equal.

The solution is found in worshipping God. I now of a guy named Perry who just loves Chik-Fil-A milkshakes. In fact when he is having a milkshake from Chik-Fil- A he says it is pure joy. And one of these days Wisconsin and Milwaukee will get a Chik-Fil-A and then we will know fully what he is talking about. One day he went into Chik-Fil-A and ordered a large shake for he and his wife to share. While they were sitting down talking a fly was buzzing around their table. He’s like I wish that fly would go away. A minute or so later he notices that there is no sound of the fly any longer this is cool. But upon looking at his milkshake the fly is in his milkshake doing the backstroke to try and get out. So what does Perry do? As he describes it, he didn’t freak out, he didn’t ask for another shake. He scooped the fly out of milkshake and murdered it. And then proceeded on with his milkshake. Right now some of the problems you may be having may seem overwhelming, crushing. It may seem like all hell has broke loose but from the perspective of the other side of eternity it is going to look like a fly in a milkshake. Don’t stop living, don’t stop having joy because you have a fly in your milkshake.

So they go out to fight the enemy. 18 Jehoshaphat bowed with his face to the ground, and all the people of Judah and Jerusalem fell down in worship before the LORD. 19 Then some Levites from the Kohathites and Korahites stood up and praised the LORD, the God of Israel, with very loud voice. 20 Early in the morning they left for the Desert of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, "Listen to me, Judah and people of Jerusalem! Have faith in the LORD your God and you will be upheld; have faith in his prophets and you will be successful." 21 After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the LORD and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: "Give thanks to the LORD, for his love endures forever." Who leads them out into batter. The archers? The horse dudes? The best soldiers? No the singers. Jehoshaphat tells the worship team to get out in front because the worshippers are the warriors. And what are they singing, We will, we will rock you? No. They are singing, “Give thanks to God his love endures forever.”

Circumstance sin our life will change but our circumstances do no alter God’s character. Don’t give up on God because of your circumstances. Don’t give up on God who has never given up on you. We can worship him in the good times and in the bad times. So the worshippers lead them out into battle and the enemy begins attack each other. So the worshippers sang louder and the self inflicted assaults and attacks grew more fierce. And God’s people won even though it was too much for them. God’s people won because it was not their battle it was God’s.

Time for honesty. God there is so much in my life that I can’t understand, let alone handle but I will praise you regardless because you have proven yourself trustworthy throughout history, you have proven yourself trustworthy on the cross, in my life. Lord in our problems remind us of who you are and your faithfulness. Amen.