Be prepared for when tragedy strikes

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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Welcome to The Rapid Bull, Daily Edition, where we provide a quick biblical interpretations and applications.

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This is a ministry of striving for eternity. You know, there are times in our life when tragedy strikes.

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For many, it is a time of unexpected tragedy. It is a time that people haven't prepared for.

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In fact, most tragedy or calamity is just that. It is something that catches us off guard.

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However, as believers in Jesus Christ, there are things we can do to prepare, and in fact, even be ready for tragedies that may come our way.

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Will you see that tragedy in your life is actually an opportunity to further the cause of Christ, not only with unbelievers, but in your own life, in your sanctification?

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There are goals that God has in allowing tragedies to occur, even within the life of a believer.

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And that is what we want to do. We want to give you a couple of steps of how to prepare for tragedy.

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We want you to be ready when tragedy comes. We want you to know that it is going to come, and to see how you can be prepared.

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So, tragedy strikes, are you ready? Are you ready when calamity strikes?

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Most people are not. We recently had someone in our church who woke up one in the morning to find out that their house was on fire, and they had to escape.

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Ended up in the hospital, being checked out. But the reality is, is that are we ready when tragedy strikes?

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Now, I have a friend of mine, several years ago, who had a similar thing. The Sunday before Christmas, his house was on fire.

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He was up making breakfast, got up before the rest of the family to make breakfast for his family. And in his case, he was ready even for tragedy.

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What do I mean by that? Well, even though he was standing outside, literally in his pajamas, watching his house burn as the fire department tries to put it out, he was very busy.

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What was he busy doing? Well, there was camera crews there, there were people that just wanted to see what was happening, and he was about the business of sharing the gospel.

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In fact, the news reporter that took the article had put in the article that this person, he's a friend of our ministry,

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Joe Conkle, had actually had such a spirit about him that he did not seem to be so worried about the fact that his house just burned down.

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Why? Because he was ready for tragedy to look to see how God could use even a tragedy to advance the gospel.

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And Joe was ready for that. Are you ready when tragedy strikes? There are things we could do to prepare, and that's what we're going to talk about this week on The Wrap Report.

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The first thing we have to be aware of when tragedy strikes is that it will strike. It is not a question of if, it is really a question of when tragedy will strike, because it is a foregone conclusion that tragedy will strike everyone.

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Now, we're going to deal with it in different ways, and so even though calamity may happen to us, it may not be as big of a deal for some of us as it would be for others.

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Things happen in life, but we as Christians can be prepared. In other words, as Christians, we could have an eternal mindset so that when things that look to be a tragedy here on earth, we would look at the eternal value of things and realize, even if it is our house that literally goes up in smoke, that that is okay in the grand scheme of things, because 10 ,000 years from now, well, you're not going to be worrying about that house.

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In fact, whatever new things you purchase, it's around Christmas time, and there's people out shopping for that latest toy.

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The reality is that brand new car you get is a rust heap waiting to happen. That brand new house that you buy that you're so excited about will one day be someone else's handyman special.

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All those nice toys that you get for Christmas, the new iPads and computers and all those things, will be sitting in an ash heap in rubble in a dump at some time in the future.

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No, the way we first plan for tragedy and calamity is to have an eternal mindset.

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Think about that, which lasts for eternity. As we look in the scriptures, the word that we get in Greek for the word tragedy or really distress, or sometimes in some translations calamity, is only used about four times, twice in Romans and twice in 2

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Corinthians 6. Now, let's take a look at the passages in Romans, because that is going to help us in the second step of how to deal with tragedy.

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We looked at before that the first step is having an eternal mindset. Now, Romans 2 .9 makes it very clear that those who are self -seeking, those who disobey

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God, those who are unrighteous and obey themselves, there will be a time of distress or calamity for them, because there is a judgment coming.

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But now let's contrast that and look at how the same word is used in Romans 8 .35. Because in Romans 8 .35,

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Paul ends up using the same word to say, who can separate us from the love of Christ?

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Shall tribulation or distress, that's that same word for calamity, shall tribulation or distress or persecutions or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

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So where tribulation and calamity will be something for the wicked to look forward to, unfortunately, as a judgment, those things cannot separate us from the love of Christ.

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So even when tragedy happens, we can rest assured that even the worst tragedy in our lives will not separate us from the love of Jesus Christ.

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So it gives us the assurance of salvation. That's step two in dealing with tragedy in your life. A third step for understanding and preparing for tragedy as it comes is to know that it's going to come.

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It is the knowledge that we can expect tragedy in our lives.

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Now, we saw already that for the unbeliever, there is an ultimate tragedy coming, a calamity on that final judgment day.

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And there is no unbeliever that will escape that. However, even for Christians, there is a calamity that could come.

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And Paul provides for us an example of that. The other two times that we saw that this word for calamity is used in the

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Greek is in 2 Corinthians 6. First, we take a look at 2 Corinthians 6 .4

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where he says, But as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way by great endurance in affliction, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labor, sleepless nights, hunger.

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So he gives a whole bunch of reasons to expect that there would be these calamities. But even more so in 2

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Corinthians 12 .10 where he says, For the sake of Christ, then, I contend with weakness, insult, hardship, persecutions, and calamities.

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For when I am weak, then I am strong. And that's the key to understanding that we must know the calamities are coming.

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We can't think that we will be avoiding them in this world. In a world system that is against God, they will be against Christians as well.

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Now tomorrow we're going to take a look at this verse to see that this key is knowing that we must depend upon Christ.

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Now as we've looked through these different steps in preparing and being ready to deal with tragedy, we saw that 2

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Corinthians 12 .10 that Paul gives the reason why he's willing to endure calamity or tragedy.

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And he says, For when I am weak, then I am strong. And that's what we end up seeing.

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That when we are in a time where we're dealing with distress or calamity or tragedy, it is at those times that we're most often most dependent upon Jesus Christ.

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When we have to rest upon him. And this is what is behind what James ends up saying in James 1 .2

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when he says, Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.

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For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and steadfastness will have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

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In other words, James ends up saying that when we have trials in our lives, when tragedy comes our way, it ends up sanctifying us.

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It ends up making us more dependent on Jesus Christ. And in that, it ends up making us complete.

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Perfect meaning the idea of coming to maturity or perfection, completion.

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And this is what tragedy does in the life of a Christian. It makes us steadfast in our faith.

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It is something actually that James would say gives us joy. Why would tragedy give us joy?

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Because it gets us to depend solely on Jesus Christ, God Almighty, and not on ourselves and our ability.

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This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.