God is the Answer (Part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry, Michael E. Avendroth, your host at the helm, Engage. Well, we're back from California. We Royal We. It's a good summer, 2023. Luke Avendroth got married to Hannah Rose.

And so now Luke's married. Luke started seminary. This week, Westminster Seminary, Escondido, California. Excited about that. Too bad they don't have a good historical theology department there. Luke said the first day of class with Scott Clark was great.

From talking about woke issues, like don't be woke, Marxist issues, don't be a Marxist, and everything in between. It was fun to hear Luke excited about it. And now the work begins. First day is fun day, maybe.

And then after that, it's work. Let's see what else. I have two other daughters, Maddie and Gracie. They're I guess next in line to get married, right? Haley was the oldest. She married Marty. Luke, second up to bat, married Hannah.

And then now I guess Maddie's next, maybe. Who knows? Gracie might be, but anyway, we'll see. I have three daughters and one son, and then eventually I hope to have four sons and four daughters, if you know what I mean.

Commentaries, Publishing, and Reading Through the Bible

Discovering Colossians, S. Lewis Johnson. Actually, because I can talk about it since he wrote it. It's not me. My name's on there as an adapter, but it is a great commentary. It was written in 6162, 19, 6162.

And it shouldn't surprise you that it's held the test of time. I mean, you can pick up commentaries written in the 1700s and they stand the test of time. Calvin writing, right in the 1500s, and it stands the test of time because it's talking about the chronological transcultural book called the Bible.

And it is safe to say that God is always relevant and forgiveness of sins is always relevant. How to live in this world is relevant, et cetera. I used to say et cetera, but then I had to say et cetera.

And now that I'm taking Latin in my Duolingo, I know what et is. We're, V-I-R, we're. I know what that is too. Anyway, it's a great commentary. Discovering Colossians. Probably by the time you hear this, it'll be out on amazon .com.

If you want to order a bunch of them, you can email me, mike at no compromise radio .com. Thankful for S. Lewis Johnson's son. His name's Samuel and he gave me permission to do it. I was very, very thankful for that.

Probably my last S. Lewis Johnson project, but between Romans and Colossians, it was fun. You know, people come into my study sometimes and they'll say, have you read all those books? And I want to say, I want to say, well, I have more books, just as many at home.

And I have 10 times as many on my computer program, you know, on Logos. But I don't say it. I'll say, yes, some books like this section here in Ephesians. I've read every one of these because I preach through Ephesians, right?

Or you preach through Mark, through first Corinthians, through James. Et cetera. And then some sections of theology, I'll say, yeah, I read every one of these here in this section on Christ or Calvinism or something like that, Holy Spirit.

And some books like Discovering Romans and Discovering Colossians, I've read 10 times each. It's like, okay, your mind does funny things when you just read, you know, over and over and over and it fills in the blank sometimes if you don't have a word, but your mind sees that.

And then you become so familiar with the material. But if you're a lay person or a pastor or a Bible teacher in any way, shape or form, you just want to learn Colossians. It is a great commentary. Plenty of footnotes, not end notes.

I made sure of that. That's one of the advantages of publishing your own book on Kindle Press and Kindle Direct Press, KDP, and a lot of technical stuff down there in the footnotes. I wrote a few of the footnotes, but mostly non-technical stuff I wrote.

I left the technical stuff for S. Lewis, or as he was known as Lewis. And there's devotional sections in there, discussion questions. I did write the discussion questions. So when you got to duplex gratio, you'll know that's me.

Although in the book, even in the early 60s, S. Lewis understood what the covenant of works was. He talked about that. And of course, later in his life, he became less dispensational. He became historic pre-mill.

He affirmed the covenant of works, covenant of grace and covenant of redemption. He didn't think there was going to be a millennial kingdom where there was a sacrifice of, I mean, he believed in the kingdom, yes, the millennial kingdom, but not where they would sacrifice animals in front of Jesus to make atonement.

Times three, he healed 40 through 48. But anyway, that's all I have for announcements today. Today, instead of announcements, I need to move to 1 Peter 5, verses 6 through 11. If you didn't listen to yesterday's show, or whenever it was last week, you probably should.

This is part two, the Church of the Two-Part Sermon. And I'm talking about trials, suffering, persecution, lab tests that are bad, biopsy tests that are bad, financial issues that go bad. We live in a fallen world.

There are all kinds of trials here that we get ourselves into sometimes, that other people get ourselves into sometimes. And ultimately, God has ordained for us, and we are in them because of God's good providential hand.

So how do we respond? And in 1 Peter 5, you're going to see some imperatives. But what you're going to see in verses 6 through 11 is you're going to see the mighty hand of God, phrase like that. He cares for you, that phrase, God of all grace.

And I want you to remember that God is the answer. So today is God is the answer, part two. By the way, why is this on my counter? That's crazy. You know what that is? A sturdy rosary from the Holy Land.

Now, sometimes there are flimsy rosaries, and sometimes they're sturdy rosaries just from other places. This is a sturdy rosary from the Holy Land, and I don't know who gave it to me, but it's got a sticker on the back.

As people know, I like to keep the stickers on my book so I know how much I paid for them. I've loaned books to a few people in my life, not many. And I get a $30 book from CBD book sale back in the day, Christian Book Distributor, not CBD-like cannabis stuff.

And it says $2 .95 on there. I like to keep it on because remember, I got a good deal. And then they return the book, and the sticker's taken off. Oh, we took the sticker off for you. Do not. Do not write in my book.

Do not do anything in the book. Do not take off things in the book. Don't take off the cover if there's a cover. You just return the book as is. This is from, the sticker shows Divine Mercy Gift Shop, $13.

And this is handmade in the Holy Land. When I was dying of, almost dying of COVID in the hospital two years ago, I turned on the TV. There was a prosperity preacher. I said, I don't believe in that. You know, you don't have much oxygen.

What do I really believe in? Eternity is a long time. This could be it. Do I trust the Lord Jesus? And then bad questions like, how much do I trust him? Do I trust him enough? And then there was a Roman Catholic on there doing the rosary at night.

And they just do it over and over and over in one of these public access channels. And I go, I know I don't believe that. Anyway, how do you handle trials? Well, God has a mighty hand. God cares. And God is a God of grace.

Those are the three things about God, the attributes of God. When you begin to think about who God is when you're in a trial, that'll help you to respond. There is a response. You should respond. We're not even antinomian in trials.

Lay back and let God in trials. Kind of just coast and float. We used to go to the Missouri River in the summers in Nebraska. And we lived on the Nebraska side. And we had a mobile home on that side. And often our parents would drive us up to the bridge that went across to Yankton, South Dakota.

Lyle Alzado was from Yankton College. And then we would get the inner tubes out or rafts of some sort of floatable device. And we'd always wear ski belts. We didn't wear life jackets back in those days.

You just had pretty much the orange life jacket. And then we kind of got a few vests. The vests were kind of new in the 60s and 70s. But a lot of times people just wore ski belts. And that was the best thing to wear as a kid because who wants to wear a jacket, a vest, an orange thing?

No, you're 14. You want to wear just a ski belt. One time I fell so hard skiing that it ripped my ski belt off. So I probably should have had something else on. I mean, if you get hit in the head hard enough and you're knocked out, you want to have something that'll keep your head above the water and not a ski belt.

All that to say we would float down, just kind of float. You didn't have to do anything. I mean, at the very end, you had to swim over to the side, but you just float, laugh and joke around floating. We're not talking about floating.

This is not an evangelical float session down the Missouri River, south of Gavins Point Dam and Lewis and Clark Lake. Why wasn't I into Lewis and Clark when I was a kid? There was Lewis and Clark Lake right there, a reservoir.

Come on. Can you imagine Lewis and Clark went up the Missouri River? Some people in the boat and then other people like on the side of the river with ropes pulling it up. That's incredible. Remember Lewis and Clark in their journals, they just kept saying things like this, the mosquitoes, the incessant mosquitoes, the danged mosquitoes, the ever present mosquitoes.

I mean, what do you do if you don't have off back in those days? I get some type of, I don't know, a charcoal thing or something. I don't know. What do you do to keep mosquitoes off? A big fat nothing?

The mosquitoes. Last time we looked at the first verse in our section, verse six, humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that the proper time he may exalt you. In other words, since God's got a mighty hand, that mighty hand delivers Israel out of Egypt, so he can deliver you anytime.

He's got you in a trial for a reason, and you just need to humble yourself. You need to acknowledge that he's got you in the trial, that he could get you out, that he can sustain you, and that you just need to humble yourself.

The opposite, of course, is being prideful and self-ruling and trying to do it all on your own. He says earlier in chapter five, verse five, clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

So therefore, be humble. Say to yourself, I got these test results, and I realize God's sovereign and providentially controlling, and I have to accept it. Kicking against the goads is not the right response.

Anxiety isn't the right response. Depression isn't the right response. Rebellion is not the right response. The right response is, I have to accept these circumstances, because probably you've already tried to change them, or you wish you could change them.

This is not a postmodern world, so biopsy results are biopsy results. The presence of cancer is the presence of cancer. I could ask you the question when you're in a trial, maybe you're in one right now, are you humbling yourself under the mighty hand of God, so the proper time He may exalt you?

Now, there's some hope in that verse in many ways. Here's one. At the proper time He may exalt you, that means it's not going to last forever. There's a time where He's going to get you out of that. And you say, well, I've already been in this wheelchair for 10 years.

There's still a time you're going to get out of the wheelchair. And of course, that's going to be when you see Him face to face. You're not going to need a chair in heaven. Isn't that going to be wonderful?

This mighty sovereign hand of God is working all things together for good for those who are called according to His purpose, right? And we know that because if He foreknows, He predestines. And He's conforming Christians to the image of His Son.

That's Romans 8. And while you're in this trial, one of the best things to do is what James 1 says. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet various trials. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

Unless steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. That's part of humbling, right? Romans 5. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope.

And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. That's part of humbling yourself under God's mighty hand. Mary knew God was powerful.

He has done mighty deeds with His arm. This picture of not only God's power, but I want you to remember this. Not only God's power, but His presence. Get that? Do you understand? Because if God's powerful and He's there to help, that means He's there.

Of course, we know God's omnipresent, but a hand of God, the arm of God is an Old Testament picture of God's deliverance, God's present deliverance. Behold, the Lord God comes with might and His arm rules for Him.

Behold, His reward is with Him and His recompense before Him. He will tend His flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in His arms. He will carry them as a bosom and gently lead those that are with young.

This is the powerful God of Isaiah chapter 40. This is your God, the hand of God. I'm not talking about a real hand. We're just using human terms so we can understand what God is like. Anthropomorphism, right?

God is in control. So you, as writers say, filter all your trials through the fact that you know God's in control. He's strong. He's powerful. He has a strong arm. His hand is mighty, Psalm 89. We're not under His thumb.

We're under His mighty hand, His preserving hand, His personal hand, His protecting hand. God's sovereignty rules overall, Psalm 103. He's in the heavens. He does whatever He pleases, Psalm 115. Heaven is His throne, and the earth is His footstool, Isaiah 66.

And so we know God is powerful. He's running the universe, and He has us now by His good design, when we might not ever know the reason till glory. He has us in this trial. He's working. The trial won't last forever that He may exalt you at the proper time.

You can be certain. God knows the limits of what you can take, and He might just push you past those so you can rest on Him. He'll never give you more than you can take with temptation, 1 Corinthians 10.

But He'll—listen to me—He'll give you more than you can stand many times. I think that's one of the folklore sayings of Christianity. He won't give you more than you can handle. And they take 1 Corinthians 10, 13 out of context.

It's about temptation. He's not going to give you so much temptation that you can never say no to it, almost like forcing you to sin. But He's going to give you so many trials that you can't hardly stand it.

I mean, you just look at Job, right? But we know God's faithful. And we know if God can rescue Israel out of Egypt by a mighty hand, He can rescue me. He can rescue you. And part of it's just waiting, waiting for God to do His work in the circumstances, in us, for other people.

And when it's time to raise us up and to lift us up, that's what the word exalt means. He'll do it. And then that means we're waiting. Part of humbling is waiting. Wait for the Lord, be strong and let your heart take courage.

Just wait for the Lord, Psalm 27. Psalm 37, rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Psalm 39, and now Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is with you. Lamentations 3, the Lord is good to those who wait for Him.

Micah 7, but as for me, I will wait, watch expectantly for the Lord. And I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. We're waiting with great expectation, eagerly anticipating what the Lord is going to do in the future and what He's doing in us.

Therefore, Paul says most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell within me. Therefore, I'm well content with weaknesses and insults and distresses, persecutions, difficulties for Christ's sake.

For when I am weak, then I am what? Strong. That's exactly right. There's a time, there's a time, even though Job went through all those troubles and trials, 10 children, deceased, he was exalted, not only later in heaven when he was glorified, but on earth, given seven sons, three daughters.

Job says, I know you can do all things and nothing can be thwarted in your plan. If you're in a trial now, it's best for God to have you in the trial right now. And it's been granted for you for Christ's sake, not only just to believe in Him, but also to suffer.

Right? And we want to know Him. That's true. And the power of His resurrection, that's true. The fellowship of His sufferings, it's hard, but that's the lot. That's the lot that we have. And of course, if you think about Jesus, right?

He suffers. He's humble. And then He's exalted, of course, in the resurrection. Your God is a mighty God, Christian. He's sovereign. He rules. He rules over your life, over your week, over the test results, over the death of a loved one.

And He's mighty enough to sustain you, to get you out of the trial, to see you through the trial. He was mighty enough not to have the trial even happen. And He will exalt you at the right time. And so now we just have to tuck ourselves underneath that mighty hand and say, Lord, whatever you have for me, I accept.

William Cooper, it looks like Cowper, but I've been told it's pronounced Cooper, wrote a poem, a song that you're probably thinking of right now. God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.

He plants His footsteps in the sea, rides upon the storm. Deep in unfathomable minds of never failing skill, He treasures up His bright designs and works His sovereign will. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take.

The clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace. Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower. Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan His work in vain. God is His own interpreter and He will make it plain.

The right time, God knows the exact right timing. I mean, if He had Christ at the right time died for the ungodly, He'll do it for us as well. The right time for us. Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry.

Hope this is encouraging to you. Peter goes on. Not only do we humble ourselves because God is mighty, but it also says casting your anxieties on Him because He cares for you. Since God is mighty, humble yourselves.

Since God is caring, well, then He cast. What if He wasn't caring? It'd be one thing if He wasn't powerful. It's another thing if He's not caring. I want you to make sure you realize you're going to do things and the Bible is going to have you do things.

But the law is just not random. The law is just not abstract. The law comes from the Father. And so I don't want you to ever separate laws like be humbled from the lawgiver. And this is technically the way in the Greek, this is the way you humble yourself by casting all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you.

Here's some other translations. Give all your worries to Him because He cares for you. Give all your worries and cares to God for He cares about what happens to you. You can throw the whole weight of your anxieties upon Him for you are His personal concern.

Having deposited with Him once for all the whole of your worry, because to Him it is a matter of concern, respecting you. Wow, that'll preach as they say. That's wonderful. Casting all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.

All your anxiety. Can I just keep a little? Can I just keep some? Well, I think pride talks that way. I'd like to handle this just a little bit on my own. I can handle it on my own. I've been through it before.

I can do these things. I've had tests before that come back negative, but we're not meant to carry. We're never meant to carry anxiety. We're to be anxious for what? Nothing. And so we're going to have to let somebody have these problems.

The problems aren't going to go away. So I'm just going to cast them on the Lord. This is how I'm going to humble myself. I'm going to trust them to God. I'm going to trust that God can take care of it.

He knows about it. He's powerful and He cares for me. This language of throwing is when they brought the animal to Jesus that He was going to sit on. The donkey. They threw their garments on the colt, put Jesus on it.

You hand over your cares. Hey, you've trusted the Lord with your eternal souls. How about your anxieties? Blessed be the Lord who daily bears our burden, the God who is our salvation. Psalm 68 verse 19.

Trusting my own self, trusting my own resources, trusting my own credit card, trusting the way I can get into doctor's offices. I don't like to quote movies that often, but remember, you can't handle the truth.

In this case, you can't handle anxiety. And it's not even good for your health either. Tension, headaches, insomnia. Did I mention insomnia? Ulcers, saliva is restricted, fatigue, irritable, muscle tension.

This is not a sermon on a show on should you take drugs or not for anxiety. That's not the point. But you need to be casting them on the Lord, right? That's the purpose here, casting them on the Lord.

Lord, I can't take this. I can't handle it. Take it from me. It's your job to run the universe. Proverbs 12, anxiety in the heart of man weighs it down, but a good word makes it glad. Here's your good word for the day class, cast, throw it.

You've got discouragement, despair, worry, anxiety, throw the whole of your care. Get rid of it. Not some, not most, not everything except what you can't handle, everything, all. Isn't that good? Everything that divides you, that's what the word worry is, cares, just divides you.

Teacher, do you not care that we're perishing and being aroused? Jesus rebuked the wind and said to the sea, hush, be still. And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. And he said to them, why are you so timid?

How is it that you have no faith? Big burdens cast. Don't keep the little ones, cast those too. Wisdom casts the cares on the Lord's burden, said. He cares. This is a God-centered way of doing things.

I'm worried. I have to think about who God is. Anxiety, when you study that word, anxiety elsewhere, it comes from the word choke. And it's just like, you know what? It strangles. It strangles your joy.

It strangles your sleep. There was a lady named Elisha Hoffman, and she was looking at this verse, casting your cares upon the Lord because he cares for you. She wrote a little song called, I must tell Jesus.

All my sorrows, everything else. I must tell Jesus. I've got problems. I must tell Jesus. I must tell Jesus all my trials. I cannot bear these burdens alone. In my distress, he kindly will help me. He ever loves and cares for his own.

I must tell Jesus. I must tell Jesus. Jesus can help me. Jesus alone. I must tell Jesus all my troubles. He's a kind, compassionate friend. If I but ask him, he will deliver and make of my troubles quickly an end.

That's so good. It begs the question, have you told Jesus? Dear Christian, have you told Jesus your troubles? He knows about them, so why don't you cast your cares on him? Well, my name is Mike Abenroth.

This is No Compromise Radio Ministry, and I'm pushing the wrong button. That was something else that I was supposed to do, but I didn't do it because I pushed the wrong button. I was supposed to push that button right there.

Oh, it's so bad. You belong in the circus, Spock. I hope you know what that is. God is mighty. Be humbled. God cares. Cast. More next time on No Compromise Radio Ministry. Maybe we're going to change our name to Duplex Gratia.

You never know. Pat Abenroth can use Latin. I'm taking Latin on Duolingo. One never knows.