DIFFICULTY IN OUR LIVES COMES FROM THE FALL

When we go back to the foundation of things, sin entered into the world. (Romans 5:12) Okay? You could blame Eve, you know, she got deceived into it all. (Genesis 3:13) Well, you know,

Adam did it with eyes wide open.

Okay? That's right. All right. All right. So, so we can go blame. Oh, Eve started out. That woman's fault!

Well, all Adam had to do, say, but see, he, he loved the woman. This is the, this is the guy's trouble, okay? Is we, we love the, the women that God puts into our lives. And then we love what, how they make us feel, how they make us feel good and they become partially our god. And so

he had to choose between the god in the horizontal that God that gave him, the gift, right? Or the God of heaven.

And he goes, I don't want to lose her. I don't want to lose this wife because it's not going to go good. And he gave in, eyes wide open.

And when that happened, the world was made subject to corruption. Scripture says, the world was made subject to corruption. (Romans 8:20) Sin entered into mankind. (Romans 5:12) And says, you will not live forever. So they said, you will surely die if you eat of the tree of good and evil. (Genesis 2:17) Sometimes we, we mix this up. We say, well, God's promise didn't come true. He said you will surely die. Adam didn't just die right then. Yeah. Death entered into him. People get AIDS. You say, “You're a dead man.” Somebody on death row. “Dead man walking.” Right? “You're as good as dead.” Okay? “You're as good as dead. You know your time's going to come.” Well, Adam's time originally was never going to come. And then it came, you know, death, that cancer entered into him that caused him to die at some point.

Go ahead.

AUDIENCE: Spiritual death.

That was a physical death we're talking about. But there's also the physical death entered into him, okay? The spiritual death also did, okay. The spiritual death also did. And sin entered into the world.

So every problem we face in the world is from sin and the corruption,

the sin and the corruption of the world. And it's either somebody else's sin because somebody else is being a sinner. And because they're not, they're not overflowing with the fruit of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentle self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23) They're not overflowing with it. They, when they enter into our space, they're not showing love and kindness, but they're showing, they're, they're giving us some messed up stuff. And so then we get into, we miss it. It's not about you, but about God. It's about a God thing. And then we go, expectations. Alright?

We have an expectation that we're supposed to be able to go through this life and not be negatively impacted by other people's sins.

Where did you get that one? Where did you get that one? That you are above having to be impacted by other people's sin? It's a, it's a totally false view. (1 Peter 4:7) And every part of you knows it's a false view. But whenever you get impacted by other people's sin, there's a natural inclination to fight against it. Hey, “I'm not supposed to have to deal with this.” Why not?

Did Jesus deal with it? Yeah. How much? All the time. In every way. Yeah. But, but I shouldn't have to.

So Jesus did. I mean, yeah. I mean He, He became a brother like us in every way. (Hebrews 2:17) He suffered through it. (Hebrews 2:18) And so when you're suffering through it, you go to Jesus. And "You went through this for me?" "You went through it for me on purpose? What I would never go through if I could get out of it? On purpose, because you love me that much?"

And you go from your pity party about yourself and feeling all bad about the way you're being treated, to realizing how much you were loved.

(John 3:16) It's all up here. Because what you're doing is you're taking the lie that you've created for yourself on how life is supposed to be, the false expectation of how life's supposed to be. And you brought into truth. “In this world, you will have much trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

The overcoming happens as you convert the thought from being messed with, to being, I guess when I'm pushed on, I can get stronger.

(James 1:2-4)

And Jesus, you went through this for me.

You went through it for me. You love me that much.

This really hurts. How could you love me that much? How could you love me that much to go through that for me? We don't know what the pain is like until we actually feel it and we feel a little bit of our pain. That's what Jesus did for you because he loves you that much and he cares for you that much. And if you don't feel loved, it's your fault. Because you're not taking the time and the mental effort to go to the truth and seek the truth. And Jesus says, “I am the truth.” (John 14:6)

And so we come to Jesus, we come to Jesus, we come to Jesus. And that's what he wants us to do throughout our life. Love God, love others. (Matthew 22:37-39) We come to Jesus and we give him glory. (Romans 11:36)

Unrealistic Expectations (Audio) 5:54

It is at the basis of almost all the problems we have. And I just want to hit it again. because you've got to have this,

if you're struggling with things, you're having an unrealistic expectation of life.

(1 Peter 4:7) Where did you get that? Where'd you get that? That people are never supposed to let you down, never supposed to be unreasonable with you, always show you respect. Where do you, where do you get that? I mean, did you find some, some book that says you got it from God? It doesn't say that people are supposed to show us respect. It doesn't say, you know, make sure people are showing respect to you. There's nothing in there.

Jesus was disrespected. (Mark 15:29-32)

AUDIENCE: Actually, hate me.

The world's going to hate you. (John 15:18-21) That's the real, that's the realistic expectation. All right?

And I shared it with the baseball example, that when the, when the guy goes to the bat, what is it 30, 35 percent is like really hot, right? If you're hitting that, you know, you hit that. So they have, they still go with the focus, and they're watching that ball. And every time they're focused, "I'm going to hit that thing. I'm going to hit it. I'm going to hit a home run." Their focus is on winning. At the same time. When they swing and they miss, they go, "Okay, move on." You're going to swing and you're going to miss. All right? That's a realistic expectation.

Other people are going to miss showing love to you.

It's going to happen over and over. Other people can disrespect you. People are in a bad spot.

That's the thing I shared with Terry. I may have shared with you guys, but this is so awesome. And he learned it in a second. He learned a second, came to Sunday school class, and he was crying about four or five years ago. And he, I said, "What's the matter, Terry?" He said, "Oh, some people were mean to me." And I'm going, I'm just talking out loud in Sunday school class. I'm going, "Who'd be mean to a guy like you? I said, they have to be a really, really mean person. Or maybe it's just somebody having a bad day."

Maybe it's just somebody having a bad day.

And I said, "You know, mean people have a bad day every day." And so I said, how about if you say to them, "It seems like you're having a bad day?" He goes, "Okay, Rick. Okay." He said, "Say something mean to me." I said, "You are ugly!" And he says, "You must be having a bad day!" And laughed, you know? And so the next week he came back and said, "How'd it go?" "Oh fine." I said, "Anybody mean to you?" "Yeah, this one customer." I said, "What'd you do?" He said, "I just looked at him and said, 'you must be having a bad day!'" I said, "What did they do?" He said, "They didn't say anything." Didn't know what to say. He learned like that, that when someone is mean to you, they're not being kind; they're not ministering God's love, that they're having a bad day.

You don't have to take the hit. He quit taking the hit. He smiled. See,

you don't need to take the hit when you have a realistic expectation that other people are going to fail you.

You don't need to take the hit. You don't have to be down. "My mom did this. My dad did this. The, the leadership did this, all this stuff, you know, so I'm upset because they did this. They said this to me. They made me do this." Whatever it might be. Expect it. The world has fallen. When Adam sinned, sin ended into the world, into mankind, (Romans 5:12) it entered into our physical self, and it entered into the earth. Everything is going downhill. Scripture said the world was made subject to frustration. (Romans 8:20) Okay? And so this is what we're dealing with.

We're dealing with a broken world, a completely broken world, and we keep trying to make it right.

Okay? And I really believe, and it's interesting because I think it's my pastor, he preached on this thing that, and 'cause I've always believed this and taught it, that the reason we're trying to make it right is because we have this longing for heaven. God put eternity in the hearts of man. (Ecclesiastics 3:11) And so, but we need to identify that

we're not going to be able to make it right.

Okay? We can't make the world right. It's broken.

We can only do our best to submit to God and make us right.

(James 4:7-10) That's our job. It's all about you. Okay? It's not about you at all, because it's about God. But when it comes to interaction with other people, it's all about you. You know, God brings people into your life and they mess with you and poke at you and all that stuff. And when you can learn to say, "Poke at me, poke at me. Go ahead."

In fact, a guy named Darren, he's a tough dude. And we had a talk about anger in the back, right back there, about 20, 30 minutes. And, I may have shared this before, but it is really good to have it solid in you. Okay? I know I repeat these things, just so you know. I know I've told this two or three times over the years. And anyway, he was out in the parking lot there. And I went up and went bam. He didn't see me coming, you know, blindsided him, you know, turned around like that, you know, ready to fight. But I, of course, as I did, I stepped back. You know, I made sure to be out of range. And he said, "Oh, it's you. Oh, it's you." And I said, "So what difference does that make?" I said, "Did it hurt?" He goes, "No!" You know, it didn't hurt. So I said, "What difference does it make if it's me or somebody else that did it?" He said, "Bring it on." He's saying, train him. Train him to not react. So I shared with him the story about Terry, right? He had a guy working in the kitchen, a little shrimp of a guy, a little smaller than me, and skinny, backing him up in his face, backing him up. And he said, Rick, he said, "I was ready to just let him have it; it, it would've just taken one hit. It'd been all over." You know? And he said, I remember what you said about your friend. And I just looked him in the eye and said, "You must be having a bad day and its being in your best interest to take a couple steps back." You know? And he said, the guy stepped back and he said it was over. He said, "Rick,

you saved me from jail.

You saved me from getting kicked out of the program."

Now I didn't save him. He took the truth that was shared and he integrated it,

okay? He integrated that truth into his life, right? That's what it takes when you hear the truth. He integrated and he put into practice. And that's what it takes when you hear different speakers share things and you go, "You know, that's right!" Integrate it, integrate it, meditate on it. (James 1:22-25)

Changing Your Situation Doesn't Bring Peace (Audio) 4:51

Endure hardship as discipline. And the discipline is a workout. It's not punishment, it's a workout. And so I just want to really encourage you, as you're going through life and you're interacting with each other, you're in, you're really all alone. Okay? That's what I'm trying to say. You're really all alone in your relationship with God. Because just you and Him.

Even when you're married, you're alone. You can't make a marriage happen.

You can't keep a marriage together.

You have a job when you're married. You be the best wife you can be.

You have a job. You be the best husband you can be.

That's your job, not to make the marriage work. Okay?

When you're in this situation, (Speaker points to mom holding baby) be the best mom you can be. You can't make your kids turn out right. Can't do it. You can't do it absolutely impossible. Otherwise, you have power over another human being to change them. You have a hard time changing yourself, okay? You think you can go inside somebody else and fix them. God has not given us that power, to go fix somebody else. And so there's a freeing to that whole thing. because you say,

it's my job to do my best at what God's called me to do.

This section is specific to people in a recovery program.

You may find similarity in an authority relationship in your life.

And so now you're disciples in this program, and so you'd be the best disciple you can be. Amen. In other words,

you submit to the leadership, even when the leadership's going sideways.

And they do at times. Okay. Oh, well, you expect it. Yeah. Well, they shouldn't because they're leaders. Well, where'd that come from?

They're human beings and they’ve got a problem.

Okay? And you pray for them when they're, if they're getting angry or if they're being unreasonable or whatever.

You pray for them.

You say, wow, that must be really tough because you're in a position of leadership and you haven't matured yet to be able to learn to do these things better. So you pray for them instead of coming down and said, but they're still your leaders and they're still helping provide your place for you to be able to have, get away from the world, so to speak, and away from the drugs, the alcohol being out there on the street, and you just got this safe place.

They help provide that. And so they got their own growing up to do you pray for them, and you expect that they're going to go sideways. So

when they go sideways, you don't get off caught off guard.

Scripture says,

You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts in you.

Isaiah 26:3

. Okay? So here's the test. You're cruising along in life and you're feeling that build-up. Things aren't good. Right? There's not peace. Somebody did something.

I am not going to do it. <laugh>,

Somebody did something to you and you don't, you lose that peace and you stop. "Why am I losing my peace?" You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts in you. Am I trusting God right now? No. That's why the peace is gone. And so this is what you learn to do is you're going through alone in your life and all of a sudden you get this feeling, you stop and say,

"What's going on, Lord, what's happening?"

I'm, I'm upset because da, da da da da. And you point at all these people like, like Adam did, the woman you gave me caused me to sin, right? The other person who entered into my life and started bothering me, they're the reason I'm having the trouble. Really?

There's 8 billion people in the world and you're going to go blame it on one of them?You're having trouble because you're not trusting God.

It's your problem. You can never blame it on the other person. Are they the cause of the particular difficulty you're having right now? Yeah. But God's allowed that thing. And if it's not them, it's going to be one of the other ones.

You want to go live in China right now and see what it's like? You want to go, you want to go live in it in Kenya, you know, or Uganda, where you got you know, there's no education, no medical care, and you got to walk for water that's dirty.

And you got to, and you can, you want to do that. You want to complain about how, what the conditions are like. You know, wherever you are in the world, whatever situation you're in, there's going to be trouble.

You think the actors and actresses and sports stars don't have trouble with their spouses, really? I mean, those people are some of the most messed up people and they got to live with them. And so they're living with a messed up person full-time. That's hard. You guys live with spouses that aren't very easy to live with. Yeah, they're stuck with them too. Their life are not any better. So what? They got a lot of money, so got nnnnnn in their ear and it won't go away. You guys know what that's like nnnnnnnn and you go “stop the noise." Well, they can't stop the noise with them, with their spouses any more than we can stop the noise. There's no difference.

The only peace comes from God. It doesn't come from having your situation improved or changing who you're around.