The Christians Hour

Guest (Male): It's time for the Christian's Hour. Welcome to this week's Christian's Hour broadcast. We've all been in situations or faced circumstances that look absolutely impossible from a human perspective, whether it's disappointing events, a past we can't do over, or fears, hurts, and habits for which there appears to be no remedy.

Jesus said that while some things may look impossible to human beings, with God all things are possible. This month Gene Appel, senior pastor with Eastside Christian Church in Anaheim, California, will be unpacking some ways where only God can make the difference in our lives.

Each of us one time or another has experienced disappointments in life and it's not unlikely that we will again in the future. The Bible's Book of Psalms is a collection of sacred poems often containing prayers gathered by God's people over 2,500 years ago. One of the things the Psalms teach us is how to express our raw unedited disappointments to God. So here's Gene to dispense with all the polite, positive God-talk and share with us how God can make a difference when disappointments overwhelm us.

Gene Appel: And thank you for joining us for what I think has the possibility to be an eye-opening and enormously helpful new series in your life titled "Only God." Everyone of us knows what it is to feel disappointed. It's universal. Disappointed with something, some situation, with someone. Your team doesn't make the playoffs. You didn't get the part. Didn't pass the test. Didn't get the job. Didn't make the sale. You're not allowed to reopen your business yet or send your kids back to school. Life is full of painful disappointments.

But disappointment goes to a whole another level when you're disappointed with God. When it seems as though God has abandoned you or just walked away and he's silent. I know many committed followers of Jesus who desire to be linked together in a Christian marriage with a man or a woman who share their spiritual priorities. And they've been waiting and praying and doing all the things they ought to be doing, but right now they're disappointed with God. I know some married people who are waiting for God to come and just heal their marriage and to make their marriage better. And they've been trying and praying, but they're disappointed with God.

I know many couples, way more than you would think, who long to have a child. But the inability to conceive, the miscarriages, the adoptions that fell through at the last minute have left them devastated. And they're disappointed with God. Today I want to begin our new series "Only God" with a sermon titled "Only God is Greater than My Disappointment." And I'm basing this series on a statement that Jesus made. It's in Matthew chapter 19, verse 26, when he looked at a difficult situation and he said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

There are many situations and circumstances and events that we encounter that through human eyes, I mean, they just look impossible. But then there are situations that only God can work in. And so in the weeks ahead, I want to share some conclusions I've come to about God and why I believe only God can forgive my past, only God can calm my fears, only God can break my chains, only God can heal my hurt, and only God is greater than my disappointment.

Now, as I said, one thing I'm absolutely certain about you is that at one time or another, you've been disappointed with life and maybe with God. Life is not lived up to your expectations. And that's especially perplexing when everything in your life had been going along great and then it stops. Some of the most fun recreation I've had in my life is when we're fishing in northern Minnesota for crappies at our family cabin. I love to fish for crappies. They're spelled crappie, but it's pronounced crappie. I used to have some neighbors that had a sign with a picture of a crappie and it said, "Have a crappie day."

Anyway, I don't know if you've ever had this experience, but I've had it many times in my life where you're fishing for crappies and you hit a school of fish. I mean, it's like boom and you're catching those fish just as fast as you can get them in the boat. And it's fantastic. You cast your line and as soon as it hits the water, you got a fish on it. And you don't even have time to put them in the livewell. You just throw them in the bottom of the boat and you cast your line in again. And just as quickly as you can, you bring in another and another and another.

It's unbelievable. It's exciting. It's fish after fish after fish and then suddenly, nothing. After 15 minutes or so, it just stops. Not a bite, not a nibble. As quickly as that feeding frenzy began, it stopped. It's over. No more school, no more unlimited bites, not another fish. There's silence. There's still. There's disappointment. Can I ask you to think about something and I want you to be painfully specific. What's the greatest disappointment in your life? What is the circumstance or situation in your life that you can't figure out?

The thing that has most disappointed you, the thing that you just may never be able to understand or get over? Whether you're a Jesus follower or not, whether you're just starting a faith journey or you're far enough in your journey that the new car smell is wearing off, sooner or later, you will experience disappointment with God. And I don't know what your disappointment is, but disappointment has a way of raising troubling questions. Troubling questions about God. Is God there? If he is there, why doesn't he do something?

The truth is, some of you really have trouble believing in God at times, right? I used to think that people who didn't believe in God were just being stubborn or prideful or thought it was cool to say they didn't believe in God. But one thing I've come to learn over the years is every time I've met an atheist, when they unpack their life experience, I've discovered they have a pretty good reason for being one. One of my goals throughout this series is I want to be real. I don't want to be trite.

I don't want to offer you glib cliches, simple answers, textbook formulas for dealing with the greatest disappointments in your life. And I guess this is one of the reasons that I just love the Psalms of the Bible so much because they're just so shockingly real. The Psalms are actually a collection of prayers gathered by God's people over 2,500 years ago. And I believe one of the reasons that the Psalms are in the Bible is to just teach us how to express our raw unedited disappointments to God, how to dispense with all the polite, positive God-talk.

God doesn't want tame, sanitized, dishonest prayers. He wants us to talk to him with authenticity from our hearts. And sometimes that involves raising your voice, using words you wouldn't repeat in public, certainly not in church. Some of the Psalms have even come to be known as Psalms of Lament. Lament comes from the Latin word for weeping. And if you're reading through the Psalms, you know when you come to a Psalm of Lament because you feel like you've just found someone who is kicking and punching and banging and screaming at a locked door.

The Psalms of Lament are that intense. How do you talk to God when something has so completely broken your soul, you don't know if you'll ever recover? The Psalms of Lament show us how. They teach us how you can love God and feel enormous hatred toward God at the same time. Psalm 77 is written by a person whose life was probably a lot like yours and a lot like mine. His name is Asaph and he's in a season of an extreme disappointment. And apparently, he senses that God is being unresponsive to his pain, unresponsive to his needs.

Ever felt that way? He says in verses one through three of this passage, "I cried out to God for help. I cried out to God to hear me. When I was in distress, I sought the Lord. At night I stretched out untiring hands and I would not be comforted. I remembered you, God, and I groaned. I meditated and my spirit grew faint." Now Asaph doesn't tell us what his disappointment is here. It may have been a terrible loss in his life. It may have been a life-threatening illness. It may have been the breakdown of a marriage, the betrayal of a friend, or a financial loss.

All we know is that he is crushed by disappointment and it has him all torn up inside. In verse four he says, "You kept my eyes from closing." I mean, he's so troubled, he says, "I can't sleep. I just stare at the ceiling all night long." Have you had some nights like that? He says, "I was too troubled to speak." My emotions are so disturbed that I can't even describe my problem to others. I'm so troubled, I can't get it out. How do you talk to God when something has you so completely broken?

So broken in your soul that you don't know if you'll ever recover? Now if you know someone who's going through a huge disappointment, what's one of the first things followers of Jesus usually counsel them to do? Pray, right? Just pray. And evidently Asaph was no spiritual rookie. He's not a beginner in this faith thing because when his disappointment hits, that's exactly what he did. "I cried out to God for help. I cried out to God to hear me." Like many of you, he has tried prayer, but prayer has not worked.

Friends, Psalms is unmasking here the glib and superficial advice we often give one another in a time of trouble and discouragement. Like we see a person whose heart's just been ripped out, who's just experienced the biggest disappointment of their life. And what do we say? "Oh, just pray about it. Just pray about it." Someone's house goes up in flames, "Just pray about it." Someone loses a family member to COVID-19, "Just pray about it." Someone is raped, "Just pray about it." Someone was left a quadriplegic after a tragic accident, "Just pray about it."

Someone gives birth to an infant two and a half months premature, "Just pray about it." Now, I'm sure you never expected to hear this coming out of the mouth of a pastor. I hope I don't get sued for pastoral malpractice for what I'm about to say. But prayer is not the first thing you should do in a crisis. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm not saying it's damaging. I'm just saying it's not the first thing you need to do when you're overwhelmed by disappointment. Asaph prays and he doesn't sense God doing anything.

He doesn't sense any answer. And it leads him to ask some haunting questions about God, about who God is and what he's capable of doing or not doing in this situation. Questions that you're almost shocked to read in the Bible. Beginning in verse seven, he says, "Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time?" And he's wondering there, is God a promise breaker? Has he just abandoned me forever? "Has God forgotten to be merciful?"

Maybe God's developed some kind of case of heavenly Alzheimer's that's set in. "Has he in anger withheld his compassion?" Friends, those are the kind of raw real questions people who are disappointed with God sometimes endlessly wrestle with. You are not the first person in the history of the world to have some dark thoughts about God. In those moments, the question you've asked, the question I've asked, the question Asaph asked was, "Why is God silent? Where is God? Is he going to be greater than my disappointment?"

I'll tell you something. The longer I've been a pastor, the better I've got at saying three words that I find myself increasingly saying the older I get. I don't know. I don't know why some people are endlessly unemployed. I don't know why six-year-olds get leukemia. I don't know why some daughters and sons get abused in the homes that should have protected them. I don't know why God gave some of you the parents he did. I don't know why things like global pandemics and 9/11s happen.

The older I get, the longer I follow Jesus, the greater sense I have of so many things that I just don't know and can't explain. There's a word in the New Testament of the Bible that's used to describe the painful experience of God's silence. It's the word mystery. Can I ask you, what is the great mystery in your life that you may never be able to understand or get over? You know what it is. It doesn't take long to bring it to mind, does it?

Now what do we learn from the psalmist Asaph about dealing with the mystery of disappointment? Did you find it surprising when I said a few moments ago that prayer is not the first thing that you should do when you're in trouble, when you're disappointed with God or with life? Are you wondering like, well, what else could it be? What should you do before you pray? Let me show you verses 11 and 12. Asaph says, "I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds."

What's he doing? He's not praying, but instead, he's focusing on who God is. Listen, that's the place to begin. Before you pray, make sure you have a clear picture in your mind of who God is. Focus on God before you focus on your circumstances, before you focus on your hurt, before you focus on your disappointment. When we pray before we meditate on who God is, what are we doing? We're putting ourselves at the center of the prayers. "Oh God, I'm in trouble. I'm disappointed. I'm hurt. I'm afraid. I'm confused. I need a miracle. Me, me, me, me, me."

Do you see what's happened here? Asaph begins the Psalm describing his pain. "I cried out to God and he didn't hear me. I couldn't sleep." It's all about Asaph. God is not doing anything for me. But in verse 11, something changes. Instead of focusing on his pain, on his disappointment, on his self-pity, he starts focusing on the God who is greater than his disappointment and says, "I will remember the deeds of the Lord. I will remember your miracles of long ago." And in the following verses, he remembers another time in Israel's history when it seemed for a while like God was doing nothing.

The Israelites were trapped at the waters of the Red Sea. There's no way over it, no way under it, no way around it. They were in this deadly predicament. And God seemed silent. But then, God parted the waters and made a way for them where there seemed to be no way. I don't know what disappointment you're dealing with right now in your life, but I do know the starting point for you is to focus not on the disappointment and not even to pray. It's to focus on God, to remember what he has done throughout history, to focus on who God is and how he's greater than your disappointment.

And there's something about God you need to know. It's a principle I've taught a number of times over the years and it's a powerful truth that we all need to be reminded of from time to time, including me. Before I tell you this principle, I have to kind of set it up. After crossing the Red Sea, the children of Israel who had spent 400 years in Egyptian slavery, who had been miraculously delivered, ended up wandering around the desert in a journey for the Promised Land that should have taken about a month, but took 40 years because of their disobedience.

Every time they disobeyed, God said, "Take another lap." And finally, the big moment is here. It's Promised Land time. After 40 years, so here they are, over a million of them who've waited all their lives for this moment. Picture a crowd like Woodstock or something, only sober, okay? And there's no social distancing going on there. All that stood between them and the Promised Land now after 40 years was the Jordan River. So imagine the excitement, the anticipation as Joshua is giving the final instructions and says, "Hey, when you see the priest carrying the Ark of the Covenant, you just follow them and you'll know which way to go."

But the Israelites soon discover that Joshua has left out one very important tiny detail. It's harvest season and the Jordan River is at flood stage. Any other time of year they could have just waded right across the water, not during the harvest season because the river is now a terrifying white water raging rapids. So try imagining how terrifying this raging river must have appeared to mothers holding the hands of their three-year-old or elderly couples clinging to each other or those with physical disabilities.

They must have wondered, "God, have you brought us to this moment after 40 years just to watch us die?" I imagine there were some raw unedited prayers going to God at that moment. "God, this situation is impossible." But only God could have pulled off what happened next. And I want to read from Joshua chapter 3, verses 15 and 16. "Now the Jordan is at flood stage, raging waters, all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priest who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, the water from upstream," notice that word upstream, "stopped flowing."

"It piled up in a heap a great distance away at a town called Adam so that people crossed over opposite Jericho." Notice the water it said it stopped upstream at a town called Adam. Now scholars estimate the town of Adam was around 19 miles upstream from where the Israelites stood, far beyond from where they could see. Think about this. It was a miracle, but it was a miracle the people couldn't see. They didn't witness it with their own eyes. God performed the miracle upstream out of their sight.

Now here's what I want you to understand about God and here's what you need to remember about God when you're going through a season of disappointment and everything looks impossible. You need to remember God is at work upstream in your life. Where is God when he seems silent and you can't see him and you're facing disappointment of the worst kind? He's at work upstream out of your line of sight. The Israelites could only see the problem right in front of them, a raging river rapids.

And they could have concluded God is absent, God's not here, but they would have been wrong. He was at work upstream beyond what they could see at that moment. Friends, when you're going through a season of enormous disappointment, you have a choice of faith to make. A choice to turn your back on God or a choice to put your faith in the God who is greater than your disappointment, the God who is at work upstream in ways you can't see right now. Psalm 77 begins with a man paralyzed by his disappointment, in a race of painful questions about God, on the brink of the total collapse of his faith.

But then he takes himself out of the center of his prayers and he focuses on who God is. The God who is greater than his disappointment, the God who is at work upstream, and his entire perspective changed almost immediately. By the time you get to verses 13 and 14 of Psalm 77, he says, "Your ways, God, are holy. What God is as great as our God? You are the God who performs miracles. You display your power among the peoples." Friends, disappointment is never the last word in any story that God writes. Never.

And if you choose by faith to trust him, it won't be the last word in your story either, even though right now he seems silent and you can't see him. We are finite beings, so if we begin by praying about our problems, our disappointments, our frustrations, our heartbreaks, we're going to be bound by our limited thinking. But when we start with our eyes on and faith in the only God who can do the impossible, the only God who brought water out of a rock, the only God who brought forth a child from a virgin, the only God who brought Jesus back out of the grave never to die again, the only God who performs miracles, then one day, one day we'll see that the entire time he was at work upstream in ways that we couldn't see. And one day we'll declare, only God is greater than my disappointment.

Acappella (Group): (Singing)

To the God of all creation

To the everlasting Father we sing

We will sing

With a joyful celebration

Lift our voices to our Father and sing

We will sing

Our heartstrings in tune with the Father

The giver of life

We will sing

In harmony united together

One heart and one mind

We will sing

We will sing

We will sing

We will sing

We will sing to the Savior the Son

To Jesus the Christ

We will sing

To the Son of incarnation

To the everlasting Savior we sing

We will sing

Oh with a joyful celebration

Lift our voices to our Savior and sing

We will sing

Our heartstrings in tune with the Savior

The giver of life

We will sing

In harmony united forever

One heart and one mind

We will sing

We will sing

We will sing

We will sing

We will sing to the Savior the Son

To Jesus the Christ

We will sing

To a holy habitation

To the ever present Spirit we sing

We will sing

With a joyful celebration

Lift our voices to the Spirit and sing

We will sing

Our heartstrings in tune with the Spirit

The giver of life

We will sing

In harmony united together

One heart and one mind

We will sing

We will sing

We will sing

We will sing

We will sing to the Savior the Son

To Jesus the Christ

We will sing.

Guest (Male): Our thanks to Gene Appel for today's message. We also want to express our thanks to the group Acappella and their ministry through music. Psalm 77 was a turning point for Asaph when he brought to mind what God had done before. Gene encouraged us that when we find ourselves experiencing disappointment, to focus on God. He is the one who is greater than whatever we are facing.

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