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Tough times
Hebrews 12: 1 - 13
Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 25 Jul, 2004

AT THE same time as I was planning to talk about how to handle tough times, some of our people were entering on their own tough time. God knows our needs!

  The Bible talks a lot about tough times, because the Bible is realistic. Don’t dream that there must never be difficulties for believers.
  You have had serious illnesses. Does that mean you had no faith? You have lived through years of conflicts and distress. Does that say that God no longer blesses you? Think of the many deaths and other losses we have seen. Does that make us backsliders?

  Did Jeremiah only dream he was in the sewer tank? Did Moses only take a half day walk in the desert? Did Ezekiel’s wife not die? Or did Hosea’s wife never give herself to the men of her town?
  Did Hannah have no cause for her grief or the Hebrew children never face the fire?

  Of course not. Even God knows suffering. God didn’t even spare his only Son. He gave him up for us all.

  There is no escape from suffering in this dark world. In fact, true Christians can expect increased suffering, because our belief puts us into opposition to the world. If you like this world, if you support everything that leaders and politicians do, and agree with every radio shock jock, your faith is in worse shape than you think. Christians are called to renounce the world and its ways.
  But there is always that normal suffering that is the lot of everyone, one way or another.
  Today we will learn from three people who suffered in different ways. Today we will see how Joseph suffered, when he was sold into slavery. We will look at how Elijah suffered after Mt Carmel. And we will turn our eyes back on Jesus himself, as he faces the agony of the cross.

JOSEPH
  You have all heard Joseph’s story. He was his father’s favourite son, and he knew it. He was unconsciously arrogant from his earliest days, and his elder brothers hated it.
  He was clever. He was talented in many ways. But he used his talent unwisely. He understood the times. He could interpret dreams. But he was tactless. He told his brothers about his dreams and prophecies. He upset them with his stories about how they would bow down to him one day.

  His father sent him to help his brothers minding the sheep, far from home. His own brothers decided to kill him. They hated his air of superiority.

  When I was young, I spent some holidays with relatives in country NSW, and I learnt a lot about life out there.
  In the city, if you don’t like something, you sue. In the country, if you don’t like something, you give the person a belting behind the woolshed. I came close once or twice, by transgressing some local custom.
  That’s the culture of Joseph’s brothers.

  While they debated what to do, the eldest of them, Judah, spoke. “Don’t kill him. Let’s fake his death, but sell him as a slave. Give him a chance!”
  So they sold him to passing Arab traders, and brought his bloodied coat back to his father, saying that some wild animal must have eaten their little brother.

  Just imagine what that must have been like for Joseph. He was a young kid, just becoming a teenager, when his brothers did that. It must have been terrifying. The people he depended on, his very own family, sold him off to foreigners. Alone, abandoned, cast off — how much worse could it get?
  Then he was enslaved to an Egyptian general. From being the favoured one in his own family, he became the lowest of the low in a foreign family.

  Do you remember those verses in Philippians?

5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
  6Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross! 1

  There are many parallels between Joseph’s life and that of Jesus.

  But let’s follow Joseph’s life even further.
  In Potiphar’s household, the General’s wife took a liking to the new lad. She was bored, she was lonely, she thought he was just what she needed. But Joseph resisted her seductions; he held firm under pressure.
  Imagine what that meant for Joseph. He’s a teenager. It’s the best offer he’s ever had. That would be hard enough to resist on its own. Anyone who has ever been anywhere near there knows what a struggle it is to resist when your hormones are shouting, “Give in! Why hold out?”
  But Joseph respected himself, respected women, and respected God. Potiphar’s wife had no scruples: Joseph did. He knew the damage that fornication does, that sex outside marriage wrecks your life.

  Yet the pressure was strong. Added to it was a lot of other stuff. Joseph had lost his family: Potiphar’s wife offered him the illusion of family. He had become a slave: Potiphar’s wife offered to make him the favoured slave. And, if he did well, who knows? She might even persuade her husband to free him.

  Sex, love, power, freedom: it’s a heady mix. But Joseph refused, and Mrs P accused. She grabbed his cloak as he ran, and screamed, “Rape!”

  So, from being the favoured son to being a slave and then to being a prisoner with no defined sentence, Joseph reached the bottom of the tank.
  Even in prison, his fellow prisoners promised to put in a word for him when they were released, but they forgot him.

   But Joseph never lost his trust in God. He never abandoned the gift he had, the gift of prophecy and of interpreting dreams. Eventually, those things led to his release, led to his rise to great power in Egypt, and led to his restoration to his family. You know the story. You know how he was gracious to his brothers. You know how he could see, after all those years, that they meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

ELIJAH
  Elijah was a very different character from Joseph. He was a prophet, and you know about prophets. Long hair, beard, sandals and total self–confidence. You know how prophets are always the ones to declare, “Thus saith the LORD!” when no one wants to hear it.

  But they are not always like that at all.

  A prophet has a particular kind of personality. It bridges between the bold self–confidence of the evangelist and the quiet introspection of the pastoral carer.
  Elijah shows that very clearly.

  On Mt Carmel, he is the supremely confident ambassador for God as he tackles the prophets of Ba’al. “Build your altars to your god,“ he says. “Lay the offering on your wood. Call on your god to accept your gift. If he answers with fire from heaven and burns up the offering, then he is truly God. But, if not, let’s see if Yahweh will accept an offering.”
  All morning, the Ba’al prophets cried out to their god, cut themselves, screamed, frothed at the mouth, but there was no answer. Elijah mocked them. “Where is your god? Is he on holidays in Tasmania?” — well, something like that — “Is he stuck on the toilet? Call louder. Cut yourselves more!”
  But there was no answer. The heavens were silent.
  Then Elijah rebuilt the old altar on Mt Carmel. He laid his wood on it. He cut up his sacrifice and laid it on the altar. Then he dug a trench around and soaked everything on the altar with water until the trench was full. And then, at the time of the afternoon sacrifice, he called on Yahweh, the LORD, and fire came down from heaven and consumed the offering and the wood and everything.
  “Yahweh, he is God! Yahweh, he is God!” the people shouted. They took the false prophets and killed them.

  Now it turns nasty. Elijah has seen the glory of God and his victories in human affairs. But now he hears Queen Jezebel’s ranting voice, the threats that she will make him like one of the false prophets before the end of the next day. He sees his own downfall only too clearly!

  And despair overtakes him. He runs until he can run no further. He may have a prophet’s beard and sandals. He may have a staff to walk with. But he feels he hasn’t a leg to stand on. He sits under a bush and pleads that God will kill him before his enemies do. He feels alone and unwanted.
  But an angel from God visits him, gives him something to eat, gives him security in the midst of his trials, and he sleeps and sleeps and is better when he wakes.

THE ISSUES
  Both Joseph and Elijah faced tough times. Whether it was for a day or for years, that’s not really the question. What they faced was different for each of them, but it was still tough.

  When you face tough times, remember is that it never does you any good to compare yourself with other people and their lot.

  There’s a saying: if you’ve just hit your finger with a hammer, knowing that thousands are starving in India doesn’t reduce the pain.

  Soon  after I came to Marrickville, my eyes were attacked by a virus. I still see the world past blind spots, as though it has a fine dust of white pepper over it.
  It’s a rare disease — I think there were 12 known cases around Australia at that time.
  The specialist photographed my retinas. This meant placing the camera lens and its flash unit on my eyeball. It was like torture!
  I felt such a softy for flinching so much. But the nurse said, “You have more sensitive eyes than the average.” She wasn’t trying to make me feel better. She flinched every time the flash went off, because she knew it hurt me.

  For some people it would have been a breeze, but it was no breeze for me! Different people are different. What seems easy to you is intolerable to me. Never make comparisons.

  But, when you need help in your tough times, certainly, learn from how others coped with their tough times.
  Joseph maintained his integrity and hope.
  In tough times, the temptation is very strong to do whatever might make you feel good, or might take off some pressure.
  Joseph looked beyond the immediate situation. He remembered the old dreams and visions. He knew that God had a purpose for him, and would eventually work it out. He could have taken the short–term offers that Potiphar’s wife offered, but what would happen when she tired of him? What if he did something she didn’t like? Where would he be then?

  I love that Mary Mary song,

I just can’t give up now,
I’ve gone to far from where I started from
Nobody told me the road would be easy
But I don’t believe he’s brought me this far to
        leave me.

  Keep your eyes on the prize, and don’t give up yet, because God hasn’t given up on you!

  But learn from people like Elijah, too.

  Sometimes the bottom falls out of your world at the very moment when you thought you were on the top. We all know that

Pride goes before destruction
And a haughty look before a fall

  But don’t think that every tough time is the result of pride or haughtiness. That wasn't true of Elijah on Mt Carmel, just as it wasn’t true of Jesus, who wrestled with the devil only days after his baptism.

  Learn from Elijah.

Learn to stop running. Why wear yourself out when you are already pushed to the limit?

Be still, and know that I am God

  Learn from Elijah to look after yourself. The angel may have provided the bread and the water, but it was up to Elijah whether or not he would eat and drink.

  At one time in my life I was very stressed, I didn’t want to eat, and I lost about 7 of the 57 kg I was at the time. However I felt, I’m sure that not eating didn’t help me face the stress!

  The third thing to learn from Elijah is to take appropriate action. Sitting under a bush on the edge of the desert didn’t do him any good. Pleading with God to take his life didn’t help the situation. But purposefully going into safer territory was sensible at the time. Do what you can do!

JESUS
  I want to close by turning our eyes back to Jesus, as we read about him in today’s passage. If anyone faced tough times, he was the one.

 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
4In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:
  “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
6because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”

  Jesus joyfully looked beyond the present suffering and saw the glories yet to come. He faced pain today in the hope of joy tomorrow.

  And, above all, he remembered his relationship. God was his father; he was God‘s son; if the Father allowed it, he knew the pain came from a heart of love.

  So, in all things, trust God, maintain your integrity, take appropriate action where you can, and, above all, live in hope. As Paul says,

In all things, give thanks.

  May God bless us all most abundantly, in good times and in bad, AMEN