The Trouble with Trouble
Jesus said …..In this life you will have trouble. (John 16:33). He didn’t elaborate. He leaves it up to us to seek so that he will grant us the revelation we need.
To begin lets review the story of Satan’s fall from Grace. …..Satan was an archangel. One of his names was son of the morning. Until his fall from Grace Satan held the very highest office before God. Satan desired to be like God. He became jealous of God’s plan to create humanity in. his own image and determined to do all in his power to thwart the plans of god to create humanity to reign throughout all eternity with Him as his family. Upon his fall from grace Satan became the deceiver of humanity. He became the destroyer and his primary goal was to separate man from God in order to defeat the plans of God.
Satan determined to do all he could to defeat Jesus as we see in the story of the temptation of Jesus. He thought he had achieved his goal at the death of Jesus but had not counted on the plan of God to raise him from the dead. By his death and resurrection Jesus defeated the plans of the devil yet, he remains the Prince of this world and he continues to do all he can lead men away from God by any deceitful means possible.
Satan has become the troubler of man and we discover as God reveals his truth that trouble comes in 3 very different forms.
Trouble comes:
Trouble comes as Satan commands his servants the demons against humanity. (Your enemy the devil prowls around looking for someone to destroy.). 1 Peter
Trouble comes from the world itself as it is influenced by Satan and by means of our own fallen fleshly nature.
Trouble comes as we follow the leading of our own fleshly nature in the form of sin that is in us..
We satan tempted Jesus in the desert, we were provided with a picture of what trouble in this life will look like. Jesus became for us the prime example of the ways that our enemy the devil will seek to destroy us.
When Satan confronted Jesus in the desert …. we got a first hand demonstration of what trouble would look like.
Turn the rock into bread using your own strength. Be independent of God. You don’t need God. You Can do it. Be independent you don’t need God.
Worship me ….. I will give you your hearts desire. Turn to any other God … just not the Lord. No shortage of other God’s in this world … Just not God !
Tempted by ….. The things of this world. (Power, Money, Sex). Hearts filled with desire for anything ….. Other then God. God wants us to desire him alone.
It is for that reason that Jesus came to this world with a mission. Of course God’s primary purpose was that Jesus would become the perfect sacrifice for the sin of all humanity, however in becoming that sacrifice Jesus also came to accomplish three other purposes as declared in God’s word:
Jesus came to defeat the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8). (Temptation) (Evil)
Jesus came to overcome the world … a world now filled with SIN. (Jn 11:33).
Jesus came to defeat Death. (Heb 2:14). 2Tim 1:10. Jesus overcomes death in the END
In life we know that trouble can take many different forms.
Jesus faced a feeling of sickness. He was weak in his flesh, he was hungry, he also felt alone and he felt fearful. Jesus faced all the same kinds of trouble that we face in our lives.
No matter the trouble, Jesus showed us that in life no matter how bad it gets, we have to learn that even in the midst of the greatest trouble, as believers we still have the responsibility to bring glory to God, yes even maybe even especially in times of trouble.
Jesus showed that no matter what, we have been given the tools so that we can be the overcomers that he is calling us to be.
As we learn to be overcomers, we are being taught that as the children of God we are being made ready as a people prepared, for the Lord.
Too many believers believe that when trouble comes it must have something to do with the fact that they have sinned or in some way been disobedient to the Lord’s leading in their lives. Friends, most often, the fact that we are facing trouble is simply a fact of life. Jesus told us that in this life we will have trouble and most often it will have nothing to do with sin or disobedience. Trouble comes as trouble and most often it has nothing at all to do with punishment. God can and does sometimes punish us for our sins but Jesus was showing us that in this life, having nothing to with us at all, trouble simply will come.
Jesus was preparing us for the fact that in this life we will have to battle our way through but he was also showing us that by means of his word and the wisdom that it contains, he has given us a way to come through.
In scripture we discover that each member of the trinity had at least 3 purposes in creation and I would like to address those now. God’s purposes in creation.
God our creator created man in his image,
Created mankind to bring glory to Himself,
Created mankind to spend eternity with Him
Jesus’s purposes:
To destroy the works of Satan,
To overcome the world,
To defeat death
The Holy Spirit’s purposes
To Walk along side (paraclete), comforting,
Teaching and equipping,
Anointing us with Power
The Holy Spirit came to to make Read a People Prepared for the Lord … Just as John came to prepare the people of his generation,…. The Holy Spoirit has come to prepare us.
A wonderful story in scripture of what to expect when trouble hits…..
Daniels Friends
One of the most amazing pictures in scripture of the way we are called to handle trouble is given to us in the form of wonderful picture in the story of 3 men called Meshack, Shadrack and Abed Nego. They had been ordered to worship the statue of kind Nebuchadnezzar. They refused, just as Jesus did in the desert when Satan told him that if he would worship he would receive all the power and the wealth the world could offer.
Jesus was showing us what that would look like.
Daniels friends refused and worship the statue just as Jesus refused to worship Satan.
Jesus came to walk with them in the fire even though they likely didn’t even see Him.
In the fires of life …. There is always a fourth man in the fire. That’s the role of the Holy Spirit. Why? Son that even in trouble we can give glory to God.
By the incident in the desert Jesus showed us ….. how to handle trouble when it comes.
Trouble will come, often when we least want it and fell unprepared.
It many different forms. Tempted by Satan the world to chose …. other
The goal of trouble will always be the same ….. Desert God !
We are called to be overcomers and not let circumstances dictate our response.
Glorify God especially in the troubles.
Lean not on your own understanding lean on the word of God …. We have been given the tools to fight.
When we learn this we will have been made ready as a people prepared for the Lord.
Amen, Amen and Amen
