Pastor Wayne Cordeiro
June 5, 2005 - W0523

This weekend’s Spirit of Aloha outreach was kicked off by none other than Nicole C. Mullen, 2005, Dove Award winner – Female Vocalist of the Year. The weekend began with a FREE concert at the University of Hawaii Stan Sheriff Center where Christians, and not-yet Christians alike, were invited to gather, enjoy, and participate in an evening of worship. As an outreach, our goal is to reach as many hearts as we can for Jesus and to share His grace with all.

In a single, special offering that was taken a couple weeks ago, the Church (you) donated over $23,000 to help defray the costs of some special activities we hosted to reach out and touch the lives of the people in this community. We also recently became the recipients of an $80,000 grant to do community outreach in the Kuhio Park Terrace (KPT) and Mayor Wright housing areas.  As we open our doors and hearts to the community and invite them into our family…our family of God…it is most appropriate that we examine God’s nature and specifically, His willingness to take us (and love us) as we are, even…

WHEN THE ODDS ARE STACKED AGAINST US.

There are professional careers based on the calculation of risks. Insurance brokers, sportscasters, stockbrokers, or real estate investors: they all weigh the risks, count the odds; they create statistical probability of something happening. They call these professionals “actuaries”. Have these professionals ever been stumped at their own predictions? Who would have thought that on September 11, 2001, four planes would be hijacked almost simultaneously and three of them hitting buildings within hours? Who would have thought that a tsunami this past December 26 would hit Asia so severely that it would take over a quarter of a million lives? Then, what are the odds that amidst the chaos of an Asian seashore, where everything was washed away and destroyed, a little baby lay alive amongst hundreds of other bodies? These odds are astronomical!

There will be times in life where we may feel that the odds are stacked against us but there is a way through it because God loves to turn the table on the odds and show the world His grace.

• We all count the odds or the risks in life.

Some time ago, I went to Halawa prison to speak. A couple hundred inmates came; we had a worship team to sing. We shared the good news of Jesus Christ and at the end, about 60 of those inmates opened their hearts to receive Him. These men lived with the odds stacked high against them. Many of them lived locked up with the key thrown away. But Jesus entered that prison that day and set them all free! Our God loves to turn the tables on the “odd” makers and show the world His grace! He LOVES to do that!

The “odds” makers were wrong in biblical times as well. The odds were against a man named Moses. Pharaoh blotted his name from the annals of history. Rejected and utterly hopeless, Moses' existence was reduced to the life of a shepard in the wilderness. It was not until years later that God used him in a mighty way: he led nearly 2 million Jews out of captivity! The odds were against a man named Joseph too. Sold into slavery by scheming older brothers, Joseph was later thrown into prison over trumped up charges. Forgotten and overlooked for years, who would have thought that he would become 2nd in command over the known world only under Pharaoh? The odds were also against a scrawny kid named David. The least of seven older brothers, he lived as a “minimum wage” earner in the back of a desert. Against all odds, David became one of greatest kings Israel had ever seen.

There are stories like these all the time; where God turns the tables on the odds and surprises us with His grace. Yet…

• Sometimes, the odds are stacked too thick to see through.

In your own life, you may be a single mom struggling all alone and wondering what to do next. You may be at an impasse because you’ve been rejected. Maybe a dream was shattered and plans didn’t go the way you expected. Perhaps the odds that are stacked against you right now were caused by your own mistakes or oversights. Indeed, sometimes the odds are so incredibly impossible there seems to be no way out.

• Nevertheless, God loves to surprise the odds.

Before Jesus, the whole of humankind had all the odds stacked against him. It was called eternal death! Yet, God decided two thousand years ago that He would not allow those odds to win (See Romans 5:1-2).  Instead, He made a decision:

“For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life” (John 3:16 AMP).

OUR CHOICE

We are now left with a decision to make. We don’t have to accept this victory over our “odds” and take matters into our own hands. It’s like getting a full ride scholarship to Harvard by someone that loves us but the only rule is that we have to keep a “B” average. We could play around and procrastinate, but we’d be forfeiting the scholarship. On a greater scale, God is asking us to allow Him to win over the odds but we just have to open our hearts to Him or we forfeit this free gift.

Your life is full of potential and there may still be the odds stacked against you, but if you turn it over to Jesus Christ, God would love to turn the tables on those odds and show the world His grace. The decision is up to us to put our lives in His hands to save us. Save us from what? From taking things into our own hands, our own poor decisions; essentially, sins…because God says: “For all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious standard” (Romans 3:23 NLT).

I read an article back in 1996 about a man by the name of Lee Capps. He had all the odds stacked against him. In fact, statistically, experts say that he should be dead. One day, Lee took his very first plane ride in his friend’s private plane. When they reached cruising altitude, Lee’s friend, the pilot, suffered a massive heart attack and died. He’d never been in a plane before, but he remembered the radio his friend used while flying. In his desperation, Lee began screaming and yelling for help over the radio. An air traffic controller in the area responded to Lee’s cries for help. This air traffic controller not only happened to be trained for crises, but was also a flight instructor. Speaking in a calm voice, he led Lee through basic plane functions, how to maneuver it, and how to land it. Then, in a more serious tone, the air traffic controller said:

“Now, Mr. Caps, this is going to be very important. This is the most important lesson you will ever receive in your whole life because now you must apply everything you have just learned to land this plane. This is your only hope.” It was not the most graceful landing. In fact, it looked more like a drunken goose; it tumbled a little, but Lee walked away and is alive today. In a later interview, the air traffic controller that helped Lee over the radio confessed that he knew it was a long shot yet Lee Caps had defied all the odds. 

On this outreach weekend, we want to emphasize the fact that we have a good and loving Father who loves to surprise people with His grace, including those (or maybe we should say “especially those”) who seem to have the odds stacked up against them. When He does miracles with messed up lives, the impact on the world is even greater.

In closing, I would like to challenge anyone, and everyone, who has not yet made the decision to follow Christ, to do so right now.  It will be the most eternal decision you will ever make.  Make a choice:  (1) eternal life through Jesus Christ or (2) the consequences of your own actions.  Trade your past for His promises and believe the scripture that states…whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be redeemed.

God wants to do the same kinds of miracles in our own lives. When the odds are stacked against and we turn to Him, He returns to us life, He returns to us value!

Discussion Questions:
1. What are the “odds” stacked against you today?
2. Have you allowed Jesus Christ to turn the tables on those odds in order that He may surprise  you with His miracles, His grace?
3. If we are not careful, even as Christians, we can allow ourselves to try to take care of the “odds” against us ourselves. Maybe you already have and are experiencing the consequences of those decisions. However, Jesus is crying out today: “Please, allow me to take those and use if for my glory.” Will you symbolically draw yourself back to the cross today? No matter what those odds are, will you do that right now?

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for being a God who loves to take the odds that are stacked against my life and surprise the world with Your grace. Lord, I give them back to Your able hands to do miracles as you see fit. Thank You for Jesus, the ultimate miracle. I submit once again to Your loving arms. In Jesus I pray, AMEN!

Mahalo Nui Loa to a most faithful servant of our Lord, Liz Texeira! Thank you for persevering in your commitment to serve with all your heart! Well done!