Full sermon follows the handout version. Dealing With Your Deepest Needs
AGAINST ALL ODDS
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2 Chronicles 20:1-17
I. What are the odds?
A. The house always wins.
B. How many of your days have been this bad?
II. Background on Jehoshaphat.
A. He was one of the rare good kings.
B. His father, Asa, had also been a good king.
C. Jehoshaphat faced some desperation of his own.
III. Spiritual principles in the story of Jehoshaphat.
A. Jehoshaphat was afraid. 20:3
B. Jehoshaphat turned to God in prayer. 20:6
C. Pray with honesty. 20:12
D. Trust God to help you. 20:12
E. Thank him in advance. 20:21
IV. There are times when the solution is out of our hands.
A. I am a firm believer in doing what you can do.
B. Evil can seem an awful lot bigger than we are.
V. Peace is possible.
A. Israel (and Jehoshaphat) were given peace and rest on every side.
B. Do you want peace in your life?
C. Put your trust in God.
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Rev. David Holwick E Dealing With Your Deepest Needs
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
January 30, 2011
2 Chronicles 20:1-17
AGAINST ALL ODDS
I. What are the odds?
A. The house always wins.
Atlantic City is a big gambling destination.
I have toured it, and wasn't impressed.
Room after room of slot machines.
Some are like small TVs playing video games.
Others have the traditional spinning wheels.
Most people think the odds of winning are calculated by
the number of stops on the wheels.
They are wrong.
A computer program determines what the odds are.
The symbols on the wheels are just there for looks.
As a matter of fact, they are programmed to come up with
"near misses" more than they should just so you will
keep playing (and dumping in your money).
And the longer you play, the no more likely you are to win.
The chances are the same each time you pull the lever.
The one thing of which you can be certain is that the odds
are in the favor of the casino.
Unfortunately, lousy odds are not limited to casinos.
B. How many of your days have been this bad?
A man named Brian Hice of Provo, Utah, had a single day that
takes the cake.
First, his apartment became flooded from a broken pipe in
the apartment above his.
So his manager told him to go rent a water vacuum.
That's when Brian discovered that he had a flat tire.
So, he went inside to phone a friend for help.
But because he was standing in water, when he grabbed the
phone, he got an electrical shock that threw him to his
knees and caused him to rip the phone off the wall.
By the time he finally was ready to leave, water damage had
swelled his door jamb shut.
He had to yell for a neighbor to come and kick the door down.
While this was all going on, because Brian left his keys in
his car, somebody had stolen it, flat tire and all.
However, it was almost out of gas so he found it a few blocks
away.
But he still had to push it to a gas station to fill it up.
That evening, Brian had to attend a military ceremony at his
university.
Unfortunately, he injured himself severely when he somehow
sat on his bayonet which he had tossed on the front seat
of his car.
Doctors were able to stitch up his wound.
However, his four canaries were not so lucky.
All of them were crushed by falling plaster from the wet
apartment ceiling.
When he got back from the university, Brian Hice slipped on
the wet carpet and injured his back.
He said at that point he began to wonder if, "God wanted me
dead, but just kept missing."
#63436
1) Feeling overwhelmed, that the world is out to get us.
a) Have you ever had a day as bad as Brian Hice's?
b) Do you ever feel like everyone is out to get you?
c) It can seem like the world is conspiring to give you
a bad day or week or life.
2) This is when God can meet your deepest needs.
a) He has done it before, for others.
b) He can do it for you.
II. Background on Jehoshaphat.
A. He was one of the rare good kings.
1) Fourth-great-grandson of King David.
2) By this time his kingdom was limited to Judah.
a) Civil war had split the country in two.
b) But he had fairly good relations with the king of
northern Israel.
3) Jehoshaphat tried to keep the Jewish faith pure and the
nation strong.
a) He even sent out officials in his government to teach
the Bible in various towns.
b) It was sort of like the Bible studies we have in our
own church.
B. Even more rare, he had followed his father's example.
1) Asa got rid of the idolatry and false worship. 14:3
a) He even dumped his grandma, who was a big idolater.
2) Asa built up the national defenses.
3) They had peace and prosperity.
a) But then a huge Ethiopian army invaded.
b) Asa turned to God in prayer. 2 Chron 14:11
"LORD, there is no one like you to help the powerless
against the mighty.
Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in
your name we have come against this vast army.
O LORD, you are our God; do not let man prevail
against you."
c) The Israelites ended up with a huge victory.
1> Apparently, Jehoshaphat took this to heart.
2> Perhaps his father told him stories of how the Lord
can come through for him in a desperate time.
C. Jehoshaphat faced some desperation of his own.
1) Three hostile armies ganged up on him.
a) They sneaked up on Israel from the south and were
already at their doorstep.
b) There wasn't enough time to mobilize more than a token
force to oppose them.
c) Their odds didn't look very good.
2) We can learn a lot from his response.
III. Spiritual principles in the story of Jehoshaphat.
A. Jehoshaphat was afraid. 20:3
1) He was no dummy. It often makes perfect sense to be afraid.
2) But what you do next is what really counts.
B. Jehoshaphat turned to God in prayer.
1) When you are afraid, it is important to get God's
perspective.
2) Ask him how you should respond to the problem.
a) Jehoshaphat made it a public endeavor.
1> He proclaimed a fast to focus their attention.
2> He gathered people from all over the country.
3> He prayed out loud before them.
b) Three points to his prayer.
1> Remind yourself who God is, that he is bigger than
your problem. 20:6
2> Remind yourself what God has done in the past. 20:7
3> Ask God to do it again. 20:12
C. Pray with honesty.
1) Jehoshaphat admits he feels powerless. 20:12
a) We often feel like that and don't know what to do.
b) I suppose if we knew what to do, we wouldn't pray.
2) Remember that God still has power. 20:6
a) We don't have to be the one in control.
D. Trust God to help you.
1) Jehoshaphat urged them to turn their eyes on God.
a) He shifted the focus away from the problem.
b) When there is trouble, many people make the mistake of
fixating on the trouble and not on God.
c) Don't let the circumstances control you.
2) God's response - the battle is mine. 20:15
a) Turn the control over to God.
E. Thank God in advance.
1) The king had singers give praise in front of the army. 20:21
a) It's an unusual battle plan.
b) Your house is getting foreclosed on - do you speed-dial
Donna Morelli and get our choir over to your
neighborhood?
2) But it is not the choir that produces the victory.
a) God caused confusion and the enemies turned on each
other.
b) The choir was just a statement of Jewish faith that God
would keep his promises.
3) Praise is verbalized faith.
a) Thanking God before the victory is faith.
b) Thanking him after the victory is gratitude.
IV. There are times when the solution is out of our hands.
A. I am a firm believer in doing what you can do.
1) But there are certainly times when, like Jehoshaphat, we
are powerless.
2) Don't despair. Pray and try to trust God.
B. Evil can seem an awful lot bigger than we are.
1) Put yourself in the place of Lothar Kreyssig.
Kreyssig was a judge in Germany in the 1930s and his
story his has been told by Charles Colson.
At the end of that decade he began receiving an increase
in death certificates for handicapped people.
He knew something was terribly wrong, but didn't realize
it was the outcome of secret Nazi policy.
In 1939 the Nazis created what they called the Action T4
program.
In order to enhance "racial hygiene," bureaucrats,
working with doctors, were authorized to identify
people considered to be "unworthy of life."
Most of them were people who had been institutionalized
due to severe handicaps.
The philosophical foundation of this policy came from
an unlikely source - the United States of America.
We used this policy to sterilize the handicapped.
The Nazis went a step further and decided to kill them.
Hitler called for 70,000 people to be eliminated through
the program.
The process they used was eventually perfected in the
Holocaust.
Gas chambers disguised as showers were set up.
The families of victims were lied to and the deaths
were listed as natural.
And so Judge Lothar Kreyssig began processing hundreds
of death certificates.
He did some investigating, and ended up protesting to
the Reich Minister of Justice.
He brought up not only the Action T4 program, but the
concentration camps.
Nothing happened.
If you know anything about Nazism, that would have been
a good time to give up.
But Kreyssig was a Christian, and part of the Confessing
movement.
These were Christians who opposed Nazism and the values
they were promoting.
So Kreyssig took the next step - he charged a doctor
with murder of a handicapped patient.
The Minister of Justice called him in and notified him
that Hitler himself had authorized the program.
Kreyssig replied, "The Fuhrer's word does not create a
right."
The Nazis wanted to put him in a concentration camp,
but they didn't want to draw any more attention to
the Action T4 program, which they closed down.
So they forced Kreyssig to retire.
He spent the rest of the war on his farm...hiding Jews.
#63000
2) God is bigger than the Nazis, or your problems.
a) Kreyssig had been the only judge to stand up to the
Nazis.
b) He outlived the "1000 Year Reich" by 41 years.
c) Twenty years after his death, Germany honored his courage.
V. Peace is possible for you.
A. God gave Israel peace and rest on every side.
B. Do you want peace in your life?
C. Put your trust in God.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
#63000 “Confessing Courage: Lothar Kreyssig and The Sanctity of Life,”
Chuck Colson, BreakPoint Commentary, January 24, 2011.
#63436 “God Wanted Him Dead, But Kept Missing,” from the sermon “When the
Odds Are Against You” (Kerux Sermon #62964) by an unknown
unknown preacher at Risen Christ Lutheran Church of Stillwater,
Minnesota.
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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World Book Encyclopedia puts out a year book in which they record all the
major happenings of the previous year. They have a section entitled
Strange Occurrences.
