In Touch Ministries

Dr. Charles Stanley: Whatever your circumstance and whatever your situation, the proper question is, "God, what are you saying to me?" Because I want to tell you, my friend, He never loses an opportunity to teach us something, to stretch us a little bit further, to grow us up a little bit more, to mature us. He never overlooks a single situation of testing and trial, tribulation and temptation, to teach us something that He knows we need to know, which will shape us and conform us into His likeness.

So what is your response when you get to those situations? Do you blame God? Do you blame the devil? Do you blame others? Or do you blame yourself?

Guest (Male): Have you ever felt like your life is a wreck? As if everything you do just goes from bad to worse? Well, the good news that you'll hear today on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, is that God's grace is inexhaustible. He is always available to reassure and enable every believer. Be encouraged as you listen to, "Out of this Wreck, I Rise."

Dr. Charles Stanley: If you'll turn to Romans chapter eight, and beginning in verse thirty-one and verse thirty-nine are probably some of the most comforting and reassuring verses to be found in the Bible anywhere. Paul deals with a problem here that all of us face, and that is how we're to respond to circumstances and difficulties in our own life.

When a person understands what that means, sometimes they come out of it shouting, "Out of this wreck I rise, as conqueror, not as victim." And so he says in verse thirty-one, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?"

"Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, yes rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?"

"Just as it is written, For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

God did not make us to be immune from trouble, but rather He promised to be with us through the trouble. He didn't promise to always remove the trouble, but He promised to be with us through it. He knows that real character is formed best by not evading problems and heartaches and burdens, but by learning to endure them until God has finished what He set out to do in our life.

God knows that spiritual maturity is not the overflow or the fruits of a life of ease, comfort, and pleasure, but what? Tribulation, trial, temptation, and testing. And if that be true, the goal of a believer should never be to avoid all problems, all heartaches, all difficulties, all disaster, all calamity, but rather to learn how to respond when these things come into our life.

When you and I think about the things that we go through, the difficulties and the hardships that you've faced in life, and the things that people face every day, what is our response to be? Is it to be defeat, or is it to be one of victory? Even though you and I strike out, that doesn't mean we're down. We don't have to give up. We don't have to throw in the towel.

We don't have to surrender to our circumstances. We don't have to settle for a "settle for" life. Regardless of where you are today in your circumstances, you still have the privilege and the power to become the person that God Almighty wants you to be. But it's a matter of seeing things from God's perspective and not as the world's perspective. Seeing not the circumstances, but the person who lives within you.

So I want us to look at this passage in the light of all of this and where you may be. And the first thing I want you to notice in this passage here is that Paul does not see his circumstances as problems and insurmountable, impossible situations, but rather as a challenge. That is, look at your challenging position. Listen to what he says.

He catalogs seven major trials, heartaches, testings that have always affected the body of Christ, individually and as a corporate body. And he says of them in verse thirty-five: tribulation, that means great pressure. Distresses, that means being crowded into a narrow place. Persecution from others. Famine. Nakedness. Peril or danger, or sword or death.

That is what he's saying is as we face each of these things, what is our response to be? Is it to see them as impossible situations and blame someone else? Or is it to see your situation as a challenge to your growth and your spiritual maturity? Now, let's take these words. What kind of circumstances and situations and heartaches and burdens are people living in today?

Divorce, separation, divided from their children, financial disaster, calamity, loss of job, frustration, anxiety about their vocation because there's an imminence of the possibility of the loss of their vocation. Suffering, a lifetime handicap, illness, disease, and at the point of death. Broken relationships, full of fears and anxieties and frustrations and worries that you can't quite put your finger on. Root causes of bitterness down in your life that you can't seem to trace.

And so you find life oftentimes just crowding in, as he says, a place of distress. He says it's like being crowded in, and the situations getting narrower and narrower. Tribulation, the Greek word means increasing pressure, more and more pressure. And so all of us find ourselves in situations like this at times. And what is the response to be?

Well, I believe in this passage he tells us what that response is to be because, you see, when these things begin to come upon us, they are trying and they're testing. We feel hopeless sometimes and helpless and harassed by circumstances and situations that we would like to push out of our life. But sometimes, because someone else executes them, it isn't something you and I can always push away.

Sometimes it's because God has allowed us to be in a situation where we find ourselves in a strait, and we'd like to break out and we'd like to push it away, but somehow God won't let us push it away. What is our response? Are we to give up, blame God, blame someone else? Are we to mature in that situation, or to fight back at our circumstances?

Are we to try to remove the circumstances, or to ask God, "Lord, what are you saying to me in these circumstances?" Listen, this is always the proper question. Whatever your circumstance and whatever your situation, the proper question is, "God, what are you saying to me?" Because I want to tell you, my friend, He never loses an opportunity to teach us something.

To stretch us a little bit further, to grow us up a little bit more, to mature us. He never overlooks a single situation of testing and trial, tribulation and temptation, to teach us something that He knows we need to know, which will shape us and conform us into His likeness.

So what is your response when you get to those situations? Do you blame God? Do you blame the devil? Do you blame others? Or do you blame yourself?

And sometimes we're in one of those situations as a result of one of those four reasons. It may be that God has placed us there. It may be something that we have done to ourselves. It may be something that we can look and say that person is responsible. But regardless of why it's there, why you're where you are, the question is, "Lord, what are you attempting to teach me?"

And if I'm able to ask that question, I will not see my present circumstances as difficult as they are. I will not look upon the circumstance, but I'll be focused upon God. I will not see it as an impossible situation, but an opportunity for God to work out and to work in something in my life that He feels is necessary in order to accomplish His perfect will.

So when you look at the catalog of things here that he says in verse thirty-five, then you translate them into your own lifestyle. What is it that you brought with you today? And you've already identified as you read these things or heard them: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword. You've already translated those into your own situation.

Divorced, family's left, all alone, finances coming to an end, hard to make ends meet, separated from the people you love the most, all kinds of difficulties and fears. You've already translated all of that, and so you're feeling the pressure and you're feeling the crowding of your circumstances. And so the question is, what am I to do and how am I to respond?

And I believe in this passage of scripture, especially in one verse because it all sort of revolves around this one verse, I believe here is God's answer for God's people to be victorious over and in and through any circumstance He allows them to be placed in. Look if you will in verse thirty-seven. "But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us."

Or the King James says, "But in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us." Now, I want us to look for just a moment at that word here, conquer. Because he's talking about here, having looked at the circumstance, here is a tremendous comforting promise from God. Listen to what he says. "In all these things we are overwhelming conquerors through these things."

Look at the word conquer there. It is the word in the Greek *nikaō*, which means to conquer or to be victorious. But this Greek word here is *hypernikaō*, which means to over-conquer. That word in essence means a super conqueror.

And here's what Paul is saying. In all of these things, what things? All of our circumstances. Tribulations, distresses, persecutions, famine, nakedness, peril, sword. He said in all of these things we overwhelmingly—that is, we are super conquerors—we do overcome. We are overcomers of all of these things through Him, that is through the Lord Jesus Christ who loved us.

Now, here's what I want you to see. That verse can be read backwards or forwards. Watch this. Through Him that loved us, we overwhelmingly conquer in all these things. You can read that verse any way you want to read it, and it all comes out the same way. That from God's viewpoint, every single one of His children, from His viewpoint, is already a conqueror. He said not only a conqueror, but a *hypernikaō*, a super conqueror.

What does he mean by that? He simply means that not only do we overcome the situation, not only are we able to survive, it isn't just a matter of merely survival, it is overcoming. *Hypernikaō* means super conqueror means not only do we overcome the situation, but we learn that it was an exciting circumstance in which we found ourselves. We learned something about God, we learned something about ourselves, we learned something about others.

Our own spiritual life was deepened. We grew in the experience. God taught us something we couldn't have learned any other way. We've come out victorious and excited and challenged and more committed. That is a super conqueror.

That is, we glean and squeeze out of that circumstance and that situation as painful and as difficult as it may be, we squeeze every ounce of spiritual growth and maturity and knowledge and understanding and spiritual depth that was possible for us to squeeze out of one trying experience. We are, he said, super conquerors.

Now, my friend, we'll look at ourselves in one of two ways. We'll either see ourselves the way Satan would try to convince us, or we see ourselves the way God sees us. The devil says you are defeated, you are wiped out, you are finished, this is it, you might as well give up. That's what Satan says. But what does Jesus say? He says you are a super conqueror in all these things.

Listen, the extent to which you and I he says are conquerors, he says there are no boundaries. Listen: persecution, distress, nakedness, peril, sword, all of these things. He says in all of these things—the reason Paul mentioned all of those is because they cover every realm of life. He says in every single circumstance, whatever your situation is, he says you are to see yourself from God's point of view, and that is that God has made you a conqueror.

How is it He's made you a conqueror? Because when you trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, what happened? The Bible says the Holy Spirit came into your life, sealed you as a child of God, and you became one of God's children. And as a child of God, he says Jesus Christ is living His life in and through you.

So that whatever circumstance you move into, whatever valley God leads you through, whatever circumstance you get yourself in, you are never there alone. You can't be there alone. What does He say? He says, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." So that when he says in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer, what is he talking about?

He's talking about that because of our relationship to Him, we do not have to believe Satan's lie. We can believe God's truth, and God says—listen, it doesn't make any difference whether you feel like it or not—God says we are conquerors over every sort and every type of experience that brings circumstances that put us in a distressful situation.

But notice how he says it also. Not only does he say we overwhelmingly conquer, and that is because of our relationship to Him there, but secondly, notice what he says here. He says in verse thirty-five, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" Verse thirty-nine, he says what's able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus?

Now listen, he says because we are who we are, that nothing in existence can ever separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Now, he says here in looking at these two lists, there is an unfailing love, an unalterable, unchanging love of God that is always present with us whenever we are facing anything.

And you see, whatever the circumstance may be that you happen to be in today, whatever it might be as we've listed just a few and there are multitudes and multitudes and multitudes of seemingly impossible situations, the question is, what does God say? God says that in all these circumstances, in all of these things, he says nothing can separate you from God.

He says not only that, he says you're more than a conqueror. He says you're a super conqueror. That is, you have the privilege of learning and becoming and developing. Your character has the privilege of being shaped and formed in these difficulties and trials. In the furnace of trial and stress, you have the privilege of becoming what you probably would not become were it not for the difficulties and the heartaches.

What did Paul say? He said he used to try and pray and ask God to remove the thorn of the flesh, but then he learned the most beautiful lesson: that when he was at his most weakest moment, he came forth as conqueror. So therefore he began to thank God for the difficulty. He began to thank God for his trials. He began to praise God that He loved him enough to want to develop him and strengthen him and build him and form character in his life. He began to thank God for his trials and his heartaches.

How do you respond when these things come into your life? Do you see yourself as a conqueror, or do you see yourself as a defeated foe? Do you believe what Satan says about you? "You can't make it. You're too weak. This is just the way you're going to have to live. This is just the way you're going to have to be. This is just the way you were born. These are your circumstances. You can't ever get out. Things will never change. It's going to get worse and worse and worse, and that's just the way it is. You might as well give up and settle down for a 'settle for' life. That is, you can just count yourself as defeated because life has dealt you a death blow."

And I want to tell you, my friend, you don't have to live in defeat. You don't have to surrender to your circumstances. It doesn't make any difference what they are. You say, "But you don't know how awful my circumstances are." Let me ask you this. Are they any worse than this? Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger or death, the sword. Your circumstances any worse than that?

Listen to what Paul said. He said in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Christ who loved us. That is, listen, having looked at the whole gamut, and in those seven words you can put all the difficulties and hardships that people ever face—you can find a place to slot them in one of those seven—he says in all these things, Almighty God, when He came into your life through Christ, He made you then and there a super conqueror over all these things.

And the question I'm asking you is this: are you willing to appropriate for yourself? Are you willing to believe what God says about your circumstances and you in your circumstances, or are you going to continue to believe what Satan says? Jesus says you are a super conqueror. You're not a defeated foe.

Listen, watch this. You may suffer periods and experiences of defeat, but that doesn't make you defeated. Listen, you say, "But I've had a whole string of defeats." So what? You are still a conqueror. Listen, you know what we do? We mix and confuse experiences with who we are. There may be experiences of defeat. There may be times of distress. There may be times of discouragement, but that doesn't make us a defeated foe. He says we are super conquerors through Him that loved us.

Guest (Male): You're listening to In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Romans chapter eight says, "In all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us." No matter what you face, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you can rest in the grace of your victorious Savior. We'll wrap up Dr. Stanley's message, "Out of this Wreck, I Rise," tomorrow.

Visit us at intouch.org to find many resources that can help you make the kind of connection with Christ that will sustain you throughout your life and go back through what you just heard by clicking on the link to Today on Radio. And you can order a copy of today's complete message at the bookstore. The title is, "Out of this Wreck, I Rise." Our web address again is intouch.org. Call or text to 1-800-INTOUCH. If you prefer, you can write to us at In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia 30357.

There is only one relationship that can totally complete you and thoroughly satisfy you. Hear about it coming up in today's Moment with Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Let your time and your schedule and everything about you revolve around this: that you and I are to develop and continue to develop this ongoing, intimate, wonderful, exciting, satisfying, indescribable, wonderful, incomparable relationship with a personal God.

Guest (Male): Dr. Stanley devoted his entire life to helping us get closer to Jesus as we all want to do. You can learn how at CharlesStanleyInstitute.org.

In Touch Plus is streaming on Local Now, featuring all the best of Dr. Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Want to have strong convictions based on the word of God? He's working out things that you and I would never know about in our future.

Guest (Male): In Touch Plus, your streaming network for quality Christian programming 24/7. Now watch this. In Touch Plus, streaming free on Local Now.

You're listening to In Touch. Are you keeping life's most important relationship a secret? With a challenge for believers, here's a Moment with Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Do you realize what is the most important relationship you have as a believer? Your father's important, your mother's important, children important, but the most important relationship you have is your relationship to Jesus Christ.

When you and I would choose to be disobedient to Him and follow in the ways of the world, living in disobedience, here's what happens: we lose our fellowship with Him. And the last thing you want to lose in your life is that. Now, the unbeliever doesn't have it.

So watch this. They can just party and have a big time or whatever they're into and whatever they would try to cause you to compromise. They don't have Him. They don't know what you have. And the reason they're into this all the time and got to have this and more of that and more pleasure and on and on, they go, you know what they're trying to do? Fill up this big void. Yours is already full. It's full of Jesus.

So they don't understand you. And so they're trying to get you to get full of something that they think will fill them up. They don't know you're already full. Tell them, listen, they say have a drink, say I've already had one. I've already had a drink. Well, what did you drink? I had a drink of Jesus Christ and He satisfied me, and I've been overflowing and satisfied ever since.

What did Jesus say to the woman at the well? I'm going to give you a drink. And He said, "Look, what I give you is going to be a well of water springing up into your life out of your life into eternal life. I'm going to fill you up and satisfy you."

You have His promise of His presence, of His power in your life, of His preservation of your life, of His provision in your life. That is, He is the great satisfier.

Guest (Male): Learn more about the contentment that comes through trusting in Jesus at intouch.org. And if today's program has encouraged your relationship with Jesus, we'd love to hear from you. Tomorrow on In Touch, first we have to know the truth, then we must apply it. We'll get into that second step Tuesday on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.