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Trusting God After Losing Everything · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: We have a sad question today, Pastor John, from a
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  Speaker 1: friend of ours in southern California. Pastor John, Hello to you.
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  Speaker 1: We've lost our home in the California fires is past November,
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  Speaker 1: and many others lost their homes in the much larger
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  Speaker 1: fires in the La area in January. In the face
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  Speaker 1: of this devastation, we are struggling with worry about the future,
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  Speaker 1: whether we'll be able to rebuild, whether insurance will cover
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  Speaker 1: our losses, and what will happen when our equity is
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  Speaker 1: exhausted by these fires. I've been praying for wisdom, and
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  Speaker 1: I'm deeply thankful that God hears our prayers and gives
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  Speaker 1: generously without reproach. However, in the midst of so much uncertainty,
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  Speaker 1: I'm still grappling with anxiety about how we can move
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  Speaker 1: forward and what the future holds. Could you offer guidance
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  Speaker 1: to those of us struggling with fear about our future
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  Speaker 1: in times of deep loss.
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  Speaker 2: Anxiety is always about the future, even though the causes
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  Speaker 2: of it can be so. Thousands of people lost virtually
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  Speaker 2: all their material possessions in the fires in California. I
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  Speaker 2: know of one family personally whose house was totally destroyed
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  Speaker 2: I mean nothing lived, and they lost irreplaceable precious things,
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  Speaker 2: all destroyed. One thing to count dollars, it's another thing
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  Speaker 2: to count treasures. So the anxiety that we might lose
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  Speaker 2: our house in the fire as it was coming is over.
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  Speaker 2: We did. That's not anxiety anymore. It's history. It's pain,
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  Speaker 2: it's grief, it's loss. And now comes the grief and
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  Speaker 2: those irreplaceable losses and the uncertainty of the future with
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  Speaker 2: its anxieties, which is about the future. Will the insurance
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  Speaker 2: cover the losses? Will all the equity that we had
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  Speaker 2: built up?
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  Speaker 1: Be lost?
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  Speaker 2: What will we do in the meantime? And decision after
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  Speaker 2: decision that has to be made along the way, will
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  Speaker 2: we make them wisely? Now I'm not in a position
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  Speaker 2: of having lost my house and my possessions, but in
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  Speaker 2: a strange timely way, I did get a text when
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  Speaker 2: I was preparing this yesterday, while I was preparing, that
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  Speaker 2: my sixteenth grandchild, born now three days ago, choked and
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  Speaker 2: then his heart stopped beating, and they did CPR for
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  Speaker 2: twelve minutes, and this little eight pound treasure started. His
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  Speaker 2: heart started beating again, and he's on a respirator now
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  Speaker 2: as I speak, and his heart is beating and he
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  Speaker 2: has have surgery, and by the time you listen to this,
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  Speaker 2: he may be in heaven or he may be recovering
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  Speaker 2: from surgery. So I'm speaking out of an experience of
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  Speaker 2: present anxiety for my daughter and for my son in law,
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  Speaker 2: and for this one day old little boy who's got
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  Speaker 2: a heart defect and has to have surgery. Anyway, nobody
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  Speaker 2: is immune from anxiety. It comes. It just shows up.
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  Speaker 2: You don't plan for it. It's just there with a
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  Speaker 2: phone call from the nurse that says you need to
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  Speaker 2: come back to the hospital quickly, and you wonder has
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  Speaker 2: he gone. It comes at us from all angles. It's
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  Speaker 2: a feeling that's something very painful, maybe just over the horizon,
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  Speaker 2: and the feeling is nervous and fearful because we don't
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  Speaker 2: want it to happen. Now, I doubt that there's any
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  Speaker 2: feeling that humans have that is more frequently a threat
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  Speaker 2: to our trust in the goodness and power and wisdom
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  Speaker 2: of God than anxiety. When we're trusting God with our
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  Speaker 2: life and the lives of those we love and our
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  Speaker 2: whole situation. We trust God with our whole situation, we
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  Speaker 2: enjoy a peace about the future and its uncertainties that
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  Speaker 2: passes all understanding. It's beyond what human reasoning can produce
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  Speaker 2: Philippians four to seven. And when anxiety is gaining the
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  Speaker 2: upper hand emotionally in our hearts, that trust and that
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  Speaker 2: peace are in jeopardy and we need help. So what
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  Speaker 2: help does God give us with these feelings of anxiety?
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  Speaker 2: The longest text on anxiety in the Bible is Matthew
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  Speaker 2: to thirty four. Four times. In those verses, Jesus tells
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  Speaker 2: us not to be anxious verse twenty five. I tell you,
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  Speaker 2: do not be anxious about your life. Verse twenty seven.
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  Speaker 2: You can't add a single hour to your span of life.
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  Speaker 2: Verse thirty one. Do not be anxious, saying what should
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  Speaker 2: we eat? Verse thirty four. Therefore, do not be anxious
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  Speaker 2: about tomorrow. Now we need to be careful here. The
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  Speaker 2: Bible does not portray the faithful follower of Jesus as
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  Speaker 2: a person who never tastes anxiety or fear. Rather, the
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  Speaker 2: Bible portrays anxiety and fear as something that rises unbidden
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  Speaker 2: in the heart and must be dealt with with a
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  Speaker 2: Christian perspective, Christian approach, a Christian way. The Bible doesn't
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  Speaker 2: just say don't be anxious. It also says, cast your
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  Speaker 2: anxieties on the Lord. You got the everybody knows you've
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  Speaker 2: got some, Cast them on the Lord. Fir Speeder five seven.
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  Speaker 2: So the Bible portrays the Christian life as a good
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  Speaker 2: fight of faith for Timothy six twelve. And a great
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  Speaker 2: part of the fight is that we do with our
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  Speaker 2: anxieties what the Bible says we should do, namely, roll
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  Speaker 2: them onto the Lord, who is so eager to express
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  Speaker 2: his strength on our behalf, and carry them for us.
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  Speaker 2: We are not helpless victims of this emotion. Don't think
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  Speaker 2: about yourself that way. Anxiety is my ruler. I'm a victim.
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  Speaker 2: I can't have any influence over this emotion. This is
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  Speaker 2: not true. When Jesus says, do not be anxious about tomorrow,
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  Speaker 2: for tomorrow will be anxious for itself sufficient, for the
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  Speaker 2: day is its own trouble. He implies that God sees
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  Speaker 2: to it that no one day has more in it
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  Speaker 2: than we can handle, and that when the anxieties arise
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  Speaker 2: for that day, he'll see to it that we will
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  Speaker 2: not be overcome by them, but be able to roll
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  Speaker 2: them onto the Lord. God will work for us so
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  Speaker 2: that as your days, one day at a time, as
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  Speaker 2: your days, so shall your strength be. That's Deuteronomy thirty
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  Speaker 2: three twenty five. Every day will have no more trouble
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  Speaker 2: than you can bear, and every day will have mercies
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  Speaker 2: sufficient for that day's stress. As Lamentations three twenty two.
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  Speaker 2: Mercies of God are new every morning. Reasons for anxiety
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  Speaker 2: are new every morning, and mercies to bear them are
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  Speaker 2: new every morning. Suppose you're in This is my analogy
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  Speaker 2: that I'll close with, and it just might stick and help.
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  Speaker 1: It helps me.
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  Speaker 2: Suppose you are in a car race. You're driving the car,
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  Speaker 2: and your enemy, your adversary, has hired somebody, and they
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  Speaker 2: don't want you to finish this race at all, and
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  Speaker 2: they throw mud on your windshield. Now, the fact that
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  Speaker 2: you temporarily lose sight of the road or the goal
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  Speaker 2: and start to swerve around doesn't mean that you're not
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  Speaker 2: going to finish the race. It certainly doesn't mean that
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  Speaker 2: you are on the wrong track. Otherwise your enemy wouldn't
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  Speaker 2: give a hoot about bothering you at all. You're not
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  Speaker 2: going to defeat anybody because you're on the wrong track.
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  Speaker 2: But he knows you're on the right track, and so
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  Speaker 2: he's throwing mud on your windshields if he can get
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  Speaker 2: you somehow to leave the race. What this means is
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  Speaker 2: that you should turn on your windshield wipers and use
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  Speaker 2: your windshield washer fluid, which, if you are thinking with me,
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  Speaker 2: the windshield wipers are the promise of God in the Bible. Oh,
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  Speaker 2: they are precious. They clear away the mud of unbelief.
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  Speaker 2: Yes they do. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by
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  Speaker 2: a good promise. And the windshoe washer fluid is the
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  Speaker 2: Holy Spirit. Without the softening work of the Holy Spirit,
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  Speaker 2: the wipers of the Word just scripe over the blinding
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  Speaker 2: mud of unbelief. They don't remove it. Both are necessary,
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  Speaker 2: the spirit and the promises. We read the promises of
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  Speaker 2: God and we pray for the help of the Holy Spirit.
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  Speaker 2: That's the way I live my life. As these anxieties
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  Speaker 2: rise in my heart, and as the windshiel clears, we
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  Speaker 2: see the power and the goodness and the wisdom of
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  Speaker 2: God at work in and through those promises. He's going
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  Speaker 2: to work all things together for our good. We can
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  Speaker 2: see it more clearly now because of the Word of God,
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  Speaker 2: and our faith grows and we find rest behind the
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  Speaker 2: wheel as we press on in the race of life.
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  Speaker 2: When I'm anxious about some difficult meeting coming up, I
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  Speaker 2: turn to Isaiah forty one to ten. Fear not. I
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  Speaker 2: just preach it to myself. Fear not. I'm with you.
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  Speaker 2: If you're not dismayed, I'm your God. I'll help you.
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  Speaker 2: I'll strengthen you, I'll uphold you. And that's that promise,
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  Speaker 2: by the power of the spirit, has rescued me a
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  Speaker 2: thousand times. I think in this life from anxiety. When
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  Speaker 2: I'm anxious about being too weak to do my work,
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  Speaker 2: I turn to sewod Conthiens twelve nine. My grace is
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  Speaker 2: sufficient for you. My power is perfected byper and weakness.
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  Speaker 2: Get on with it. I'll take care of the problem.
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  Speaker 2: When I'm anxious about decisions that I have to make,
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  Speaker 2: I turn on the wipers that say I'll instruct you.
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  Speaker 2: I'll teach you in the way that you should go.
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  Speaker 2: I'll counsel you with my eye on you. Psal, I'm
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  Speaker 2: thirty two eight. What I'm anxious about the welfare of
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  Speaker 2: those I love, Like little baby, I turned the windshell
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  Speaker 2: wiper on. If you John Piper, being evil, know how
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  Speaker 2: to give good gifts to your children? How much more
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  Speaker 2: will the Father who is in heaven give good things
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  Speaker 2: to those who ask him Matthew seven eleven. Oh, how
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  Speaker 2: many promises? I could keep going for a dozen more
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  Speaker 2: instances of anxiety and corresponding promises. Oh, how many are
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  Speaker 2: the promises of God to help us in times of
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  Speaker 2: uncertainty and anxiety? So ransacked the Bible for these precious promises.
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  Speaker 2: Turn on the windshield wipers, pray down the fluid washer
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  Speaker 2: fluid of the Holy Spirit, and he will keep you
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  Speaker 2: on the track that leads to life.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, Pastor John, for sampling those many promises
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  Speaker 1: that God has given to us the windshield wipers. And
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  Speaker 1: if you want to store up windshield wipers for a
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  Speaker 1: win loss hits. And you want a list of the
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  Speaker 1: Bible's most essential Bible texts for life's hardest battles, proven
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  Speaker 1: texts that build from the specific promises that have been
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  Speaker 1: sampled here in this episode, see the s Paestro John
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  Speaker 1: book on pages forty one to forty six to get
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  Speaker 1: started both with texts and suggestions those promises, but also
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  Speaker 1: with how tos and suggestions from making memorization a part
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  Speaker 1: of your life. While we're reading the Book of Ephesians
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  Speaker 1: right now together and up in our bubble reading plan
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  Speaker 1: next week is Ephesians five to eighteen Fijians five eighteen,
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  Speaker 1: an important text on alcohol abuse and relevant to a
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  Speaker 1: question from a Christian teenage boy who's seeking to grow
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  Speaker 1: closer to God and asks if it's wrong to get
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  Speaker 1: a little drunk with his friends sometimes not a question
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  Speaker 1: to laugh off, one that needs a clear answer from you,
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  Speaker 1: Pastor John, and one that we will look at next time.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Tony Rank. You will see you on Monday.