For Those Who are Knocked Down

Matthew 7:24-27, John 16:33

February 22, 1998

By Dave Wilkinson

During a Monday night football game between the Chicago Bears and the New York Giants, one of the announcers observed that Walter Payton, the Bears’ running back, had accumulated over nine miles in career rushing yardage. The other announcer added, "And that’s with someone knocking him down every 4.6 yards."

Life has a way of knocking us down. We have different ways of trying to get back up.

In a recent magazine poll conducted by the Princeton Research Associates, 65 percent of those polled said they feel great stress at least one day a week. That compares with 55 percent in 1983. To control their stress 82 percent watch TV, read, or listen to music, 76 percent talk to a spouse, parent, or close friend, 69 percent play sports or go for a walk, while 40 percent smoke or drink alcohol and 36 percent go shopping.

Managing the stress and tensions of life is a frequent topic of magazine articles, books, work-shops, and seminars. Everyone wants to learn a way of making life simpler and the stresses of life fewer.

Have you seen the laundry instructions on shirts made by the Korean company HEET? "For best results: Wash in cold water separately, hang dry and iron with warm iron. For not so good results: Drag behind car through puddles, blow-dry on roof rack."

Sometimes, even as believers, we feel that we’ve been blown dry on the roof rack. But that shouldn’t surprise us. What we are experiencing is the fulfillment of a Biblical promise.

In the Upper Room Jesus said to His disciples, "In Me you will find peace -- but In the world you will have pressure."

The second part of that verse is a promise -- but it is not one of those promises that we tend to underline. We like the first part. All of us want more peace and less pressure. But Jesus promises both.

Our first reading today was Jesus’ parable of the wise and the foolish builders, The wise man built his house on the rock but the foolish man built his house on the sand. The house built on the rock survived the great storm but the house built on and collapsed.

Now our desire -- our wish -- is to build a house where there aren’t any storms -- an "El Nonoless world." But that isn’t an option. The only choice we are given is to build to survive storms. And Jesus says, "the one who hears my words and acts on them is like the wise man who built his house on the rock."

The bottom line of this sermon -- the theme for this week’s 50 Day Spiritual Adventure -- is that God uses storms in our lives. We tend to think of the desired miracle as not experiencing tension at all. But the Bible says that the miracle is to learn to use tension For Those Who and grow from it instead of just being beaten up.

We can only do this when we realize that God is in charge and that God is working for good in our lives.

After Easter I plan to preach a sermon on Romans 8:28 -- the powerful promise that "God causes all things to work together for good for those who love Him, who are the called according to His purpose." By way of preview let me say that this verse doesn’t claim that everything that happens to us is good. The promise is that God works in even the worst situations for our ultimate benefit.

The strength we need comes to us when we learn to cooperate with God in this process.

"Finding Tensions Good Side" the is the first weekly theme for this year’s 50 Day Adventure. This is not the first time we have looked at the hard themes of suffering and hope. Just last fall, in our series from Romans, I preached two sermons on this theme. Our guest preacher, Tom Bousman, spoke about this same core topic in his sermon as he reflected on his experiences as a teenage prisoner of war in the Phillippines during World War II.

But I am glad to deal with it again. I am also glad that you will have the opportunity to wrestle together in your small groups. Because of all the hard issues for believers throughout the centuries, I believe that innocent suffering and pain is far and away the most difficult.

During World War II the great preacher and U.S. Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall told a story that reveals both Christian and non-Christian responses to suffering. It’s a story about oysters and about heaven. I’m going to quote it at length.

"One day in the land of the bivalves there came real trouble to one oyster. Into the oyster's shell there intruded a grain of sand. It was not a very large grain of sand, quite a tiny piece of quartz. But it was sharp. Its edges were keen, and the oyster was painfully aware of the intruder.

There were at least four courses of action open to the sufferer.

First, there was the attitude of the mutineer whose sign is the clenched fist. The oyster might have said with considerable heat and justification, "What have I done to suffer this? Why should this have to happen to me? If there is a God of justice, if there is a God of love, then why should this be permitted to come to pass? Why should I be called upon to endure this pain? Why should this misfortune have descended upon me? Considering the millions of oyster shells lying up and down the Eastern seaboard, why in the name of higher mathematics did you have to enter my particular shell?

There are people you know who speak like that. There are those who grumble and complain. There are those who whine petulantly unto heaven in a vain effort to understand why misfortunes come.

It would be understandable if the oyster harbored resentment and bitterness or entertained self-pity. It would be understandable if in the oyster's heart there were to roll the drums of mutiny. It would be understandable if the oyster should pass his time in complaint before God. Yet, we know (and doubtless the oyster knows) that all of his grumblings and all of his complaints could not adequately deal with the situation because the grain of sand would still be there.

Or the oyster might adopt the attitude of the dreamer, whose sign is the closed eye. The oyster might refuse to face the fact and try to live in the warm atmosphere of wishful thinking. The oyster might have heard in its brief season of popularity the popular song that says, "If you wish long enough, wish strong enough, you will come to know that wishing will make it so." And the oyster might have said, "Oh, I do wish this grain of sand would go away. And I shall wish it every day. And I shall wish it over and over again. 0 grain of sand, go away.

Yes, the oyster might be like some of our most cultured and most highly-educated people, who have tried to deny reality. I shall concentrate only on the good, the lovely, the beautiful, and the true. I'll deny entrance to my mind of any other negative thoughts, and thus make it unreal. I'm perfectly all right. Very comfortable, thank you. Getting along very well."

The oyster might have subscribed to a course in ten easy lessons on how to influence himself. And he might have said over and over again, "Every day and in every, way, I'm getting better and better."

Yes, the oyster might have said things like that, but it would not adequately have dealt with the problem because the grain of sand would still be there.

Or the oyster might adopt the attitude of the stoic whose sign is the stiff upper lip. This is a noble attitude. There is something thrilling about it, something that we cannot help but admire. The brave heart that cries, "No surrender. Don't give up the ship. We have not yet begun to fight. Hold that line!" There is something thrilling and noble about a spirit like it.

The stoic has always inspired us. Heroism in the face of difficulty has put backbone into many a man. So, if the oyster were to say, "I'll never give in. I'll fight it out on this line. Though I'm bleeding and sore, yet I will never surrender. I must remember that the darkest hour is just before the dawn. I'll hang on."

I say that's noble. It's thrilling. It's fine. It's magnificent. But it does not adequately deal with the problem. The grain of sand is still there.

As a matter of fact, Marshall says, the oyster does none of these things because the oyster is at one and the same time a realist and an idealist. You can be both; you must be both in times like these. You must be a realist and an idealist, and the Christian can be and must be both. The oyster knows, with a profound wisdom God gives to the humblest of his creatures, that nothing is accomplished by rebellion against hard reality. The oyster knows that you can't deny a bleeding, stabbing pain in your side. You can't deny blood. And the oyster knows that no amount of stoicism can ever make life comfortable again once a grain of sand has entered your shell.

So what does the oyster do? The oyster begins carefully and patiently with infinite skill to deposit upon the quartz a milky substance, which upon its sandy base is spun and wrapped in nature's magic to make of the grain of sand that for which divers are willing to risk their lives --a pearl, a thing of beauty and hidden life, smooth and warm, wondrous beauty wrapped around trouble.

Marshall concludes with a very profound and insightful comment: "It is more than a figure of speech to say that we enter into heaven through pearly gates. When the Spirit of God enters into you, you will be changed. You will become triumphant because Christ has promised not to save us from trouble but to save us in it. His promise is not to deliver us from tribulation, from temptation, from sorrow or tears, but to save us in the very midst of them. So are the pearly gates, by the grace of God, made of our misfortunes, our trials, and our temptations through which we emerge triumphant by the grace of God. "

Gerald Sittser was one person who learned what this looks like. Gerald Sittser is a professor at my Alma Mater, Whitworh College in Spokane, Washington. He lost his wife, his mother, and a child to a drunk driver. In his book, A Grace Disguised, Sittser talks about the experience of loss and the grace of God. Sittser writes what he learned in the profound process of deep grief. He learned what it means to turn the horrible sharp sand into a pearl.

"The decision to face the darkness, "Sittser writes, "even if it led to overwhelming pain, showed me that the experience of loss itself does not have to be the defining moment of our lives. Instead, the defining moment can be our response to the loss. It is not what happens to us that matters as much as what happens in us. Darkness, it is true, had invaded my soul. But then again, so did light. Both contributed to my personal transformation.

"In other words, though I experienced death, I also experienced life in ways that I never thought possible before--not after the darkness, as we might suppose, but in the darkness. I did not go through pain and come out the other side; instead, I lived in it and found within that pain the grace to survive and eventually grow. I did not get over the loss of my loved ones; rather, I absorbed the loss into my life, like soil receives decaying matter, until it became a part of who I am. Sorrow took up permanent residence in my soul and enlarged it. I learned gradually that the deeper we plunge into suffering, the deeper we can enter into a new, and different, life --a life no worse than before and sometimes better. A willingness to face the loss and to enter into the darkness is the first step we must take. Like all first steps, it is probably the most difficult and takes the most time.

"There is little we can do to protect ourselves from these losses," Sittser observes. "They are as inevitable as old age, wrinkled skin, aching bones, and fading memory. There is much we can do, however, to determine how to respond to them. We do not always have the freedom to choose the roles we must play in life, but we can choose how we are going to play the roles we have been given."

The first disciples, as Jesus promised, experienced intense pressures. But, in God’s plan and purpose, they were good pressures.

For example, in Acts 8 and 11 we see the powerful results of the persecution of the early church. Until persecution came, followers of Jesus had been content to stay at home. From Jerusalem the church scattered to Judea and Samaria, further advancing the fulfillment of Christ's Great Commission. They preached the Lord wherever they went, Jews and Greeks were told the Good News about the Lord Jesus, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.

As followers of Jesus we need to see how God uses trouble for our good and for the good of the world.

The Bible also says that God uses the tensions of life to bring us to maturity and completeness.

In his book Run With the Horses, Eugene Peterson tells about three young swallows perched on a branch over a lake:

One adult swallow got alongside the chicks and started shoving them out toward the end of the branch --pushing, pushing, pushing. The end one fell off. Somewhere between the branch and the water four feet below, the wings started working, and the fledgling was off on his own. Then the second one.

The third was not to be bullied. At the last possible moment his grip on the branch loosened just enough so that he swung downward, then tightened again, bulldog tenacious. The parent was without sentiment. He pecked at the desperately clinging talons until it was more painful for the poor chick to hang on than risk the insecurities of flying. The grip was released, and the inexperience wings began pumping. The mature swallow knew what the chick did not --that it would fly --that there was no danger in making it do what it was perfectly designed to do.

The chicks experienced pressure but it was a good pressure -- a pressure for their growth.

An image the Old Testament uses of this discipline is the refining of precious metal. Zechariah and Malachi both picture God as a skilled refiner, heating the ore until the dross that has been mixed with it rises to the surface, where it may be scraped off. The refiner knows the metal is ready when he can see his face reflected in the glimmering molten surface. In the same way, God purifies us until He can see the face of Jesus Christ in His people.

Tension pushes us and matures us. But, at the same time, it also shows us our radical dependance on the Lord who has promised us His peace. For example, Paul writes of having a "thorn in the flesh" which makes him always aware of his need for God. Tension shows us our weakness. And sometimes it is when we are weak that others can best see the light of God through us.

John Claypool was known to many as the author of a book called the "Cotton Patch Version" of the Bible. When he was the preacher of a Baptist Church he had a little daughter who suffered with leukemia. When she went into remission, everybody thought maybe God had healed her. But on an Easter Sunday morning she went into a terrible recurrence. In his book, Tracks of a Fellow Struggler, Claypool relates how for two weeks his daughter was wracked with pain, her eyes swollen shut. She asked him, "Daddy, did you talk to God about my leukemia?"

He said, "Yes, dear, we've been praying for you."

She asked, "Did you ask him how long the leukemia would last? What did God say?"

What do you say to your daughter when you can't help her, and the heavens are silent? Emotionally and spiritually he was exhausted. A few hours later, she died. The following Sunday morning, John Claypool got into the pulpit to preach. He preached on Isaiah 40:31, which says, "Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

Dr. Claypool said something to the effect that there are three stages of Christian victory. Sometimes we mount up with wings as an eagle and fly. We're on top of the world. Sometimes we run, and we don't grow weary. We just go through the routine. Sometimes it's all we can do to walk and not faint. Claypool said, "I'd like to tell you today that because of my faith in God, I'm mounting up with wings as an eagle and flying. I know my daughter's in heaven. But the truth is, it's all I can do to walk and not faint, and I need your prayers and your encouragement."

At the moment John Claypool was at his lowest, he preached probably his most influential sermon. Perhaps his greatest contribution came at his darkest hour. He could have said like Paul, "For when I am weak, then I am strong."

Most importantly, tension often drives us to our knees to deeper fellowship with God, who alone can ease our tensions. Seldom will we experience God's touch as we do when we cast our cares on him. We so easily forget that the length of time God permits us to live is not related to a certain amount of work he wants us to do, as much as it is to a certain closeness of relationship to himself he wants us to develop. In the words of Helen Keller, "I thank God for my Handicaps, for through them I have found myself, my work, and my God."

Any time you think life is unfair, look at the cross. It wasn't fair for a 33-year-old man to be nailed to a cross to die. Three days later, he rose from the grave, and God showed his triumphant power. He has promise that if we walk by faith in Him, He will do the same for us. That's why we can walk and not faint. That's why we can still smile through tears. That's why we sorrow but not as those who have no hope. We believe in Jesus Christ.

That doesn’t mean we have all the answers. In John 16:33 Jesus doesn’t say, "I have explained the world." He says "I have overcome the world." His promise to us is that as we follow Him, we will overcome with Him.

If Jesus Christ is not the source of your strength and encouragement, why not respond to Him today. If you don’t need Him right now, you will someday because you are vulnerable and mortal. Only Jesus Christ can be an eternal encourager and savior to you and help make the pressure of your life into a miracle.