Isaiah 8:11-13

Introduction: This past week I was in Alexandria, Louisiana presenting a series of lectures at Louisiana College. On Tuesday I was reading devotionally in Isaiah and highlighted the verses that were read to you earlier. I had no way of knowing that in just two short hours that those words would be my only rope of hope during the most horrific evil our nation has faced thus far in it’s history. Those words have guided me when I have felt as you have felt: anger, rage, fear, grief, sorrow, confusion, uncertainty, nausea and so many more that are hard to identify yet nevertheless equally real.

As a pastor you have so many things going through your soul that you don’t know what to say or do. My first lecture came only two hours after the attack and ensuing death. It is on these occasions that anyone who dares to be God’s voice casts themselves upon the grace of Almighty God. We trust that what is lacking that He is able to do, "exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us…"(Ephes. 3:20).

There are three ways to approach this tragedy and crisis. One is to be more theological or philosophical. In the providence of God my Sunday evening message of last week explored the question, "How can you claim God exists when there is so much evil in the world?" We had no way of knowing that what we examined that night would be our anchors for this horrible event. The tape of that message is available for those of you might need that help. Another direction that a pastor could take is testimonial, in other words to tell you how I feel, what I think or what I believe should be done. I don’t think that is what you need. You have countless stories of people who are the witnesses to these events, numberless commentators who offer their opinions and scores of individuals who now say what should be done.

This morning I want to give you some hope for recovering from this first wave of this crisis. I say first wave because we are on "pause" not "stop". There will be and must be a response of justice for these attacks. Yet when you are lost in the woods you need a map to get out more than you need a dissertation on why you became lost or how you feel about being lost. So very simply I want to provide us with some reference points to guide us through these days. I want to just briefly share with you some principles on how you recover from this tragedy, others we will face and know hope for the future.

Isaiah was told, "Do not think like everyone else does." There is a way to respond to these events that reflects the mind of God. There is a way that does not. The Bible teaches that this is not a perfect world. Because there is sin in the world people do wrong things and suffering results. The Bible is brutally honest about this. "In this life, good people are often treated as though they were wicked, and wicked people are often treated as though they were good." (Eccles. 8:14) What he’s saying here is that we don’t always get what we deserve. Jesus himself recalled this principle in Luke 13:1-5. Jesus is talking about two tragedies that happened in His day. He said there were a group of innocent people worshipping at the temple in Jerusalem and Pilate the Roman governor ordered that they be brutally slaughtered. Then he said there was a tower that fell on eighteen people and killed them. He posed the question, "Who sinned, that caused this tragedy?" Was it a result of their sin? He answered His own question. He said, absolutely not, absolutely not! Now, that doesn’t negate cause and effect. Most of the problems we have in life are our fault or are the result of human fault or sin.

Sometimes we suffer innocently. My wife asked the questions that only a mother or woman could ask, "What did those mothers say to their children as the knew death was awaiting them? What did a teacher do to calm the terrified soul of students who were on one of those flights?" You see, not everything that happens is God’s intentional desire. Don’t blame God for this tragedy. God is grieving too. God’s will is not always done.

Now God could have stopped those terrorists. How? We talked about it last Sunday night. He simply could have taken away their free will, their freedom to choose. But to be fair, He’d have to take away your free will at the same time. Our greatest blessing in life, God’s gift of the freedom to choose, is also our greatest curse because we often choose the wrong thing. When I choose the wrong thing innocent people suffer. Does that make sense? God’s will is not always done in this world. That’s why 2 Peter 3:9 says, "It is God’s will that all should repent and none should perish." Question, do all repent? No. Do some perish? Yes. Why? God will never force His will on your will. That’s why we’re to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". Why? Because God’s will isn’t always done on earth. How’s it done in heaven? It’s done perfectly. And so we’re to pray, "God, just like your will is done perfectly in heaven, we want that to be done on earth". If it were being done, we wouldn’t have to pray for it.

Now my purpose this morning is because of the shock that this has presented we need some tools to help us cope. Therefore I want to give you six principles for finding hope for the future and for coping with this event.

1. RELEASE my grief: Let’s look at the first one. When you go through a tragedy, which is inevitably going to happen, the first thing you need to do is release your grief. Why? The reason is tragedy always creates strong emotions. Did you feel any emotions this week? Isaiah was cautioned, "Do not be afraid that some plan conceived behind closed doors will be the end of you." You have felt fear, anger, worry, depression and resentment. More than ever we have felt grief, grief over those who lost family, friends, hopes, dreams…life. Those feelings are scary. We don’t know what to do with our feelings. If you don’t deal with them, your recovery from a crisis always takes far longer than it should, if you stuff it down. See some people are stuffers. When they have emotions, they don’t know how to handle so they deny them, ignore them or push them down. In fact many people use God as an excuse for this. They think God wants everybody to go around all the time with a happy face. Folks, life isn’t always happy. God doesn’t expect you to be smiling all the time.

Notice what Jesus said in Matt. 5:4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Write on the side of it, "It’s ok to grieve." You have to face your feelings. You don’t repress them, push them down, you don’t rehearse them—torturing your self by repeating it over in your mind. You release it. You tell what you feel to God. Psalm 62:8 says, "Pour out your hearts to God, for He is our refuge." God wants to comfort you in a tragedy. The Lord is close to the broken hearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Grief is a part of life. So the first thing you and I must do is release our grief. If you don’t feelings pile up and they will eventually explode in some form or another. If you don’t talk it out, you’ll take it out on yourself or somebody else.

Now once you begin to let those feelings out, you release your grief, next,

2. RECEIVE from others: Galatians 6:2 reminds us, "Share each other's troubles and problems, and in this way obey the law of Christ." It is a big mistake to isolate yourselves from others when you’re going through a crisis. Now usually that’s what we want to do, we want to get all by ourselves; nobody understands our problem. But you need other people in a tragedy. You need their perspective, you need their support, you need their encouragement, and you just need their presence.

God says we need each other. Hebrews 12:15 says, "Look after each other so that none of you will miss out on the special favor of God." He’s saying, to make it through a crisis, we need not only the promises of God; we need the people of God. Now this is why it is vital for you to be a part of a church family. I’m not just talking about being just an attender; I’m talking about being a member of a family. When a crisis comes, if you don’t have those relationships in place, who is going to hold you up?

One of the overwhelming things that have amazed the world was the way our nation has responded with such unity to this crisis. One commentator noted that if this had happened in some other corner of the globe that people would have been in the streets screaming for blood. Instead there is a sense of community that is not found elsewhere. This past week our nation has filled places of worship and places of community with prayer. God says we need to receive from each other when we go through tragedy. We need to encourage each other.

3. Refuse to be bitter: The rest of Hebrews 12:15 says, "Look after each other so that none of you will miss out on the special favor of God. Watch out that no bitter root of unbelief rises up among you, for whenever it springs up, many are corrupted by its poison." Now you’re going to have to decide when you go through those tragedies, those disasters, "Am I going to allow this to make me a bitter person." The writer says here, you can have a choice; you can choose bitterness or look to God to take the bitterness away. It’s your choice, but you can’t have both. If you choose bitterness in your life, realize you’re not hurting anybody else with it, you’re hurting yourself. You’re guaranteeing you won’t be hopeful, because you can’t be hopeful and bitter at the same time.

See, one of the things I’ve learned, in being in the ministry for many years, is that there’s absolutely no correlation in life between your experiences and your capacity for hope. None whatsoever! I’ve seen people who had absolutely the worst experiences in life; things that would shock all of us, and yet they maintain this cheerful, positive, hopeful attitude, because hope is a choice. You’re about as hopeful as you choose to be.

There will be individuals who will come out of these events with a sense of hope and resolve that will stagger our understanding of what it means to be a Christian. There will be others who will choose to allow this injustice to turn them away from hope and from life. The tragedy is the same. Hope is a choice. You refuse to be bitter, because bitterness always hurts you most. How do you keep from being bitter when the inevitable tragedies of life are going to come? You do 2 things:

• Accept what cannot be changed:

We all wish for time to reverse and that life would be as it was before. Quit trying to fight it. Accept what cannot be changed. Faith is not pretending everything is great in your life. Faith is facing the facts and allowing hope to overcome. That’s what real faith is. It’s not pretending everything’s great. Everything’s not great. What happened Tuesday is evil at its most diabolical form. That evil has been perpetrated against innocent people, but faith is facing the facts and allowing hope to overcome. What I’m saying is this: The only way to overcome some problems in life is to accept them, and to get on. Our past is past. It’s over. All the second-guessing in the world can change the events of September 11, 2001. No amount of blame will replace those lost lives. Accept what’s been done. It’s not going to change. Now get on with your life. And that’s the second thing:

• Focus on what’s left not what’s lost.

Focus on what’s left, not what’s lost. 1 Thes. 5:18, "No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus." What’s God’s will for me in a crisis? It’s that I find reason for gratitude, no matter what. For the problem? Of course not. God doesn’t expect you to be thankful for a tragedy. But you should be thankful for what’s left, not what’s lost. You choose to focus on God’s goodness, because gratitude and despair cannot exist in the same body. You want to get over despair, start making a list of all the good things in your life. You cannot be grateful and depressed at the same time. The fact is there are people in this nation today who would love to have your problems. You focus on what’s left, not what’s lost.

Disasters have a way of clarifying values. They have a way of pointing out what matters and what really doesn’t matter. They define your values, notice this verse, Isaiah 8:13, "Do not fear anything except the Lord Almighty. He alone is the Holy One. If you fear him, you need fear nothing else." These events have caused us to clarify our sources of trust. We have once again realized that as humans there are some things against which we are helpless.

When all else is taken from us what really matters becomes more certain. The physical financial center of our nation is in shambles. We have discovered, though, that life can’t be valued in dollars and cents. Our symbol of security as a nation is crippled. We have realized that our strength lies in God alone. Our dreams of personal pursuits for success and achievement are now eclipsed by the discovery that unless we stand together we will not stand at all. What you discover in a tragedy is that the greatest things in the world aren’t things. The things that matter are relationships with people and with God.

These individuals who planned and perpetrated this attack assumed we, as a nation, would be destroyed and that our trust in God would be taken from us. They have grossly misunderstood us. Romans 8:35-39 tells us that we cannot lose our relationship with God! "Nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord."

If you want real security, then you build your life on something that can’t be taken from you.

Isaiah was told, "If you fear him, you need fear nothing else."(Isaiah 8:13) Philip. 4:13, "For I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need." In a remote way I was a participant in the effects of this past Tuesday. My plane was to have left on Thursday but because of the grounding of the airlines I was not able to fly home. There is a term for what was implemented Tuesday by the FAA. It is called: SCATANA. Yes, SCATANA. Maybe it's new to you. I just learned it myself. SCATANA is a term for a special military operation, meaning Security Control of Air Traffic and Navigation Aids. In a time of national crisis, all civilian airlines go to the ground, and all military aircraft go into the air, to provide for strong defense.

This past Tuesday, as you know, the Federal Aviation Administration closed all the nation's airports, for the first time in history. SCATANA. As Christians, we may not have a role in the grounding of any aircraft, but in a time of crisis we are challenged to practice a kind of spiritual SCATANA: To go to the ground of our being -- Almighty God. "Do not fear anything except the Lord Almighty. He alone is the Holy One." (Source: Henry G. Brinton, Homiletics Magazine Senior Writer, 9/12/01)

At a time like this, we go to the ground ... to the solid ground that is our creating, redeeming, and

sustaining Lord. At a time like this, we land on the firmest of foundations, the mighty fortress that is our God. It's the only place of any strength and stability. "If you fear him, you need fear nothing else."

6. Resolve to preserve freedom: "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32) The gospel thrives in freedom. People must be free for the gospel to be free. We cannot allow these events to determine our resolve that people should be free from tyranny either in their mind or with their life. Our nation is charged with preserving freedom.

"Do not be afraid that some plan conceived behind closed doors will be the end of you. Do no fear anything except the LORD Almighty. He alone is the Holy One. If you fear him, you need fear nothing else" (Isaiah 8:12-13).

(NOTE: The outline for this message (except for number 6) was adapted from a sermon by Rick Warren preached in 2000 in response to the fires in Southern California that year. It is used with permission. All Scripture passages are from the New Living Translation.)

Sunday, September 16, 2001

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org