Rev. David Holwick ZD
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
September 17, 2017
2 Corinthians 1:5-11
PICKING YOURSELF UP
I. Falling down.
A. Tragedy challenges a family.
Personal story I heard this week:
The parents owned a liquor store.
The income gave them a comfortable middle class lifestyle.
Then one day, while the father was working there by himself,
robbers came in and hit the father hard on the head.
They stole money and fled.
The blow gave the father brain damage and he has been in a
wheelchair ever since.
The medical bills were high; their income crashed because
they had to take care of him.
The person telling me the story said they went from being
middle class to being on food stamps.
Older siblings took charge of the family and the stress was
evident.
Emotions got frayed and survival instinct kicked in.
They were not a warm and fuzzy family, but they did what they
had to do.
The man wanted to go to college but he knew he was on his own.
No family or friends would be paying his way.
So he got multiple jobs, took out some loans, and got his
degree.
Today he owns his own successful company in Morris County.
B. Do you have what it takes to pull yourself up?
1) Everyone's situation is different.
a) The man who told me his story was a hard worker, but
he is also highly intelligent and driven.
b) Not everyone has those gifts.
c) But I believe God gives all of us the ability to raise
ourselves out of adversity.
2) Not everyone will raise themselves.
a) Plenty of people let adversity destroy them.
b) You don't want to blame them, because you are not in
their shoes.
c) But you are responsible for how you respond.
II. When some people fall, they stay down.
A. Failure can be hard to accept.
The BBC website carried a tragic story this week.
It was written by a mother about her son.
He had always been carefree and a little mischievous.
He wasn't a genius but he worked hard enough to get into
a university.
After they dropped him off there, they didn't hear much
from him.
They called him, but he never called back.
He did come home for holidays and he seemed OK, but when
he went back to school he closed them off again.
They called the university to see how he was doing
academically.
Because of privacy laws - just like here - they were told
nothing.
A while later, in his second year, they found out he had
dropped out.
He tried to become a fireman, but failed.
He ended up in a low-level clerk job.
But he often hinted that better things were coming - things
which his parents later found were imaginary.
The parents went on a short vacation and when they
returned home they found a handwritten note on the door.
The police wanted the parents to call them.
Their son had taken his life. He was only 20 years old.
The mother titled her article, "I wish I'd told my son he
could start again after dropping out."
He had a caring family and good friends.
What he didn't have is any hope.
#18677
B. The wrong response to adversity.
1) Don't become frustrated and isolated.
a) This is when you need other people the most.
b) Don't shut out your family and friends.
2) Don't turn to alcohol and drugs.
a) Watching the Iwo Jima movie, "Flags of Our Fathers."
One flag-raiser, Ira Hayes, saw many terrible things
in the battle and turned to alcohol to drown it.
He died ten years later at the age of 32.
1> Young people are dying all around us from addiction.
2> It may seem like an escape from a harsh reality, but
it only feeds despair.
b) Be very careful that the things you might enjoy in the
good times don't end up destroying you in the bad.
III. Defeat can be turned into victory.
A. The Apostle Paul knew all about defeat.
1) He suffered - a lot.
2) 2 Cor. 11:23-26 has a list of some of what he endured:
"...I have worked much harder, been in prison more
frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed
to death again and again.
Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus
one.
Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with
stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night
and a day in the open sea,
I have been constantly on the move.
I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits,
in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles;
in danger in the city, in danger in the country,
in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers."
3) In chapter 1, he says at times he felt like it was his end.
a) He felt doomed.
b) But he also felt something else - a bond with Jesus.
B. Christ is a two-way street.
1) Paul says the sufferings of Jesus will flow into our lives.
a) Rejection, pain and apparent defeat were all experienced
by Jesus, and we can expect them, too.
b) Paul knew this personally.
c) 2 Corinthians shows him at his most emotional and
vulnerable, more than any of his other letters.
2) We also receive comfort from Jesus.
a) Our pain has a purpose.
1> Our trials can encourage and help others.
2> (assuming we overcome and have a good attitude)
b) Paul has seen this in the Corinthians, and I have seen
it in many of you.
IV. Times of trouble teach us we have to rely on God.
A. Supernatural power is available to Christians.
1) God used this power to raise Jesus from the dead.
2) Paul had seen miraculous deliverance in his own life.
a) What seemed like certain death, turned out not to be.
b) He expects God to keep doing it, too.
c) But he did not demand it - he expected to die one day,
and he did, rather dramatically.
1> The key thing for Paul was that God would be
glorified in his life.
B. God can deliver you.
1) Christians should never give up hope.
a) When I hear of young people committing suicide, or
ruining their lives with drugs, it saddens me.
b) Their despair is often rooted in their comparing
their lives with others.
c) Realize that God loves you just as you are, even if
you are a mess.
d) You have no idea what God can do if you have enough
faith in him.
2) My business-owning friend understands this.
a) He has been very successful, but his greatest desire
is to glorify God in his life.
b) His family had gone to church but had a formal and
legalistic approach to faith.
c) As a young man he was introduced to Jesus and he
accepted him as his Savior.
d) He also shared his father with his father when the old
man was on his deathbed.
1> Someday, this man will be raised from the dead
just as Jesus was.
V. It is not just God's direct power.
A. Other Christians have a role as well.
1) Paul asks the Corinthian Christians to pray for him.
2) We should pray for each other.
a) I think of Sharon, who has had one setback after
another.
b) And Todd, who has so many things in his life
turned on end.
c) Pray for these people, that God will give them a
victory.
B. When you see your life lifted up, give thanks to God.
1) Perhaps others will be inspired by what they see in you.
2) Christian speaker Ravi Zacharias has been inspired by
what he saw God do in a close friend's life.
During Ravi Zacharias's ministry in Vietnam in 1971, one of
his interpreters was a man named Hien Pham.
Hien was an energetic, devoted young Christian who had worked
very closely as a translator with the American military
forces.
He was an excellent translator so the missionaries also used him.
He and Zecharias traveled the length of the country and became
very close friends before Ravi left Vietnam to return home.
Both were very young, and neither knew if their paths would
cross again.
Within four years Vietnam fell to the Communists, and Hien's
fate was unknown.
Seventeen years later, in 1988, Zecharias received a surprise
telephone call that began with, "Brother Ravi?"
Immediately he recognized Hien's voice.
They got caught up with their pleasantries, then Ravi asked him
how he had managed to get out of Vietnam and come to the
United States.
Ravi was not prepared for the story he was about to hear.
Shortly after Vietnam fell to the Communists, Hien was arrested.
Accused of aiding and abetting the Americans, he was in and out
of prison for several years.
During one long jail term, the sole purpose of his jailers was
to indoctrinate him against the West - and especially
against democratic ideals and the Christian faith.
He was cut off from reading anything in English and restricted
to communist propaganda in French or Vietnamese.
This daily overdose of the writings of Marx and Engels began
to take its toll on him.
MAYBE, he thought, I have been lied to.
Maybe God does not exist.
Maybe my whole life has been governed by lies.
Maybe the West has deceived me.
The more he thought, the more he moved toward a decision.
Finally, he made up his mind.
He determined that when he awakened the next day, he would not
pray anymore or ever think of his Christian faith again.
The next morning, he was assigned to clean the latrines of the
prison.
It was the most dreaded chore, shunned by everyone, and so with
much distress he began the awful task.
As he cleaned out a tin can filled to overflowing with toilet
paper, his eye caught what he thought was English printed
on one piece of paper.
He hurriedly washed it off and slipped it into his hip pocket,
planning to read it at night.
Not having seen anything in English for such a long time, he
anxiously waited for a free moment.
Under his mosquito net that night after his roommates had
fallen asleep, he pulled out a small flashlight and shined
it on the damp piece of paper.
He read at the top corner, "Romans, Chapter 8."
Literally trembling with shock, he began to read:
And we know that in all things God works for the good of
those who love him, who have been called according to
his purpose....
What, then, shall we say in response to this?
If God is for us, who can be against us?
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or
nakedness or danger or sword?
...
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through
him who loved us.
Nothing in all creation, will be able to separate us from
the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Hien wept.
He knew his Bible, and he had not seen one for so long.
Not only that, he knew there was not a better passage of the
Bible to give strength for one on the verge of surrendering
to the threat of evil.
He cried out to God for forgiveness, for this was to have been
the first day in years that he had determined not to pray.
Evidently the Lord had other plans.
The next day, Hien asked the camp commander if he could clean
the latrine again.
He continued with this chore on a regular basis, because he had
discovered that some official in the camp was using a Bible
as toilet paper.
Each day Hien picked up a portion of Scripture, cleaned it off,
and added it to his nightly devotional reading.
In this way he retrieved a significant portion of the Bible.
The day came when, through an equally providential set of
circumstances, Hien was released.
He promptly began to make plans to escape from the country.
After several unsuccessful attempts he began again to build a
boat in secret.
About fifty-three other people planned to escape with him, and
Hien was taking the lead.
All was going according to plan until a short while before the
date of their departure when four Vietcong knocked on
Hien's door.
When he opened it, they grabbed him and said they had heard he
was trying to escape.
"Is it true?" they demanded.
Hien immediately denied it and went on to distract them with
some concocted story to explain his activities.
Apparently convinced, they reluctantly left.
Hien was relieved but very disappointed with himself.
"Here I go again, Lord, trying to manipulate my own destiny.
I am too unteachable in my spirit to really believe that You
can lead me past any obstacle."
He made a promise to God, fervently hoping that the Lord would
not take him up on it.
He prayed that if the Vietcong were to come back again, he
would tell them the truth.
Resting in the comfort of that impossibility, he was thoroughly
shaken when only a few hours before they were to set sail
the four men stood at his door once more.
"We have our sources, and we know you are trying to escape.
Is it true?"
Hien resignedly gave his answer, "Yes, I am, with 53 others.
Are you going to imprison me again?"
There was a pronounced pause.
And then they leaned forward and whispered, "No. We want to
escape with you!"
In an utterly incredible escape plan, all 58 of them found
themselves caught in a violent storm on the high seas.
Hien fell with his face in his hands, crying out to God,
"Did You bring us here to die?"
As he concluded his story, he said, "Brother Ravi, if it were
not for the sailing ability of those four Vietcong, we
would not have made it."
They arrived safely in Thailand, and years later Hien arrived
on American soil where today he is a businessman - forever
grateful for America and praying that she would open her
heart as a nation to Christ.
#4313
Nothing is impossible for those who have Christ on their side.
No enemy can overcome us.
God can give you the victory.
Do you believe enough in him to grab it?
Before you pick yourself up, you have to let God pick you up.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
# 4313 “Deliver Us From Evil,” by Ravi Zacharias from his book "Cries of
the Heart,” p. 190; secondary source is Glenn Gunderson's
Best Illustrations.
#18677 “I Wished I Had Told Him He Could Start Again,” by Zoe [pseudonym],
adapted by Rev. David Holwick from BBC Magazine, September 10,
2017.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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