Pastor Aaron Cordeiro
May 4, 2014 - W1418

God promises His grace to us, right?  God says it and He has given us a free gift called grace.  We didn't even deserve it, yet He promised that to us. But what do you do when God has promised a bunch of stuff and there's all these promises that you're holding onto, but you just can't see His grace in your life?

God has promised you all sorts of things.  What do you do?  Well, we're going to look at this very fact through the life of David, and we're going to look at a real interesting season of his life where God had promised him so many different things. He was anointed king but went through many troubles.  And even David drifted off a little bit from God’s path. For a while, he could not see God’s grace but it was that unseen grace that pulled him back.

It's wonderful when God actually shows up in your life and you can see him. Let me just share with you something that happened to me just the other day, one of the unseens.  One of our sound men out in our Hawaii Kai campus, he got sick and went into the hospital.  And all of a sudden his heart stopped he was just totally unresponsive.  The guy's name is Wes Ichida.  But when we got to the hospital, he's like totally responsive, and the doctors are like, oh, my goodness.  He's doing like really amazing and like actually like responding.  It’s amazing when you're facing like crisis that you can't see hope and then God steps in and you see grace like right there.

I wish with all my heart that I had control over life, you know, like where you could sort of control life and predict what's going to happen, but I just don't and I realize this very much.

One day a little inch worm hitched a ride in the organic vegetables we brought home.  My daughters were afraid of him at first but soon “adopted” him and named him “Inchie”. Of course, I told them that the worm belonged outside and they protested but I explained that he would be safe in his natural environment. I chucked him off the balcony and they're watching, and they're so like, you know, happy about Inchie.  As soon as little Inchie hit the ground, one of those big brown chameleons ran out, grabbed little Inchie, shook him three times, looked up at me, smiled, and ran back in.  Now my girls accused, “You lie!”  My goodness.

I wish I could control those things, you know, but I'm just finding in life, there's just things you don't see.

But the unseen, it just messes us up sometimes, and here it is.  If you're taking notes, you may want to write this down is this.  When you face the unseen, the only way to combat the unseen, the only way to deal with the unseen is with the unseen.  Isn't that true?  Because sometimes we're faced with crisis, the things that we can see and taste and feel and touch, but we have no control over it.  And like crisis in our lives, it ?? it moves into this realm of I have no idea the outcome, and it moves into the realm of the unseen.  So the only way to deal with the unseen in your life is with the unseen.

The grace of God has already been given to us.  It's a free gift of grace that God has given to us, that has given to us as being the people of God's grace.  And it is something given to us so we can walk as people of God's grace, but sometimes in life, because of the unseen or crises that we go through, we don't walk as people with grace, do we?  And sometimes we face crisis, and our hearts, we start to lose hearts.  We start to fall apart as our world falls apart next to us, and we're left hopeless.  But I'm here to tell you today that God's grace is sufficient for every single one of us in whatever you're going through.

In fact, the apostle Paul, he speaks about this so strongly, about the ministry of God's grace, that it's not just another option. It is something so real, so tangible, so powerful that he writes, "Therefore we do not lose heart... For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." (2 Cor. 4:16-18 NIV)

We as followers of God do not have the luxury of losing heart because God's grace is so real.  That's what he's saying.

Reality, though, is ?? as those who follow Christ, reality is we realize that there is physical decay, there's setbacks, and we make mistakes.  We sin.

But here's two ways that we suffer, and let me just explain two ways. Number one, the first way that we suffer would be this, would be that we make poor decisions and we suffer consequences and we make mistakes, and that's, therefore, why the Bible says pray that your sins find you out so there's not this unresolved sin within you.

Just because we suffer does not mean that we have done something wrong. Mother Theresa suffered a lot.  All the reformers, the missionaries, how much did they suffer?  Nelson Mandela, the apostles, I mean, it's like these ?? Joseph ?? went through so much suffering, but it's not like they were in the wrong.  It's just like life happened.  Christ is ?? the unseen happened.  Where in the world do you find the grace in those moments of the unseen?

First of all we need to understand some common responses to crisis because we all face crisis.

Common responses to crisis:

• __BREAK DOWN__.

We breakdown as people, whether it be emotionally or mentally.  What does this mean?  Simply means you've come to the end of yourself.  We're at the end of ourselves and so we need God's grace.

 This happened to David. He almost lost everything. When David was still a boy God made the prophet Samuel anoint David as king because King Saul was not a very good king. King Saul grew very jealous of David and sent him off to fight many wars in the hopes that David would die. But David won many victories instead and became even more popular so Saul plotted to kill him. David fled for his life.

"Then David said to himself, 'Now I will perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than to escape into the land of the Philistines. Saul then will

despair of searching for me anymore in all the territory of Israel, and I will escape from his hand.'" (1 Sam. 27:1)

So out of fear, though God promised David, he ran into the land of the enemy and started to break down a bit.

What he didn't know was the Amalekites who he raided wanted revenge and came to Ziklag where his home was, stole all his wives, all his children, all his stuff, and ran off.  So when they get there, man, they are just, I mean, at the bottom. Everyone as with David was mad at him.

The Bible says, "Then David and the people who were with him lifted their voices and wept until there was no strength in them to weep." (1 Sam. 30:4)

Also, when we face crisis, we have a tendency to blame. We do it in our families, workplace and the courts.

• __BLAME___.

It is written, "Moreover David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him, for all the people were embittered, each one because of his sons and his daughters." (1 Sam. 30:6a)

Blame can become even a habit when we face crisis.  It runs to type in our lives that it becomes automatic.  Sometimes we won't even be aware of it. The danger is when we are facing the unseen and we start to break down and blame, then we'll be blinded to the unseen grace of God.

What's the correct response when you're facing a crisis today?

Correct response to crisis:

1. TRUST THAT GOD SEES THE __OUTCOME___.

That word trust in the Hebrew means to fall back and believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that God will catch you. That word trust means to fall into the presence of God.

Do we have enough in us when we're facing crisis that we are willing to trust that God sees the outcome? David started to put his trust back in God, and he started to remember the faithfulness of God throughout his life. Even though in a moment of weakness and fear and the unseen he drifted into not the best for his life where he started to lose himself, but he started putting his trust back in God. As the Bible says, "But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God." (1 Sam. 30:6b)

He couldn't see what the outcome would be, but he had faith that God did. David told himself, "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God." (Ps. 42:11)

You ever gone through a crisis and you're just at the end of yourself and you forgot about the faithfulness of God?  Maybe you forgot about God's grace.  Maybe it's really tough to trust and you got your doubts. Putting trust into God that he sees the outcome is the first step to inviting God's grace back into your life. Paul says that we don't have the luxury to lose heart because the sacrifice of Jesus was so great for us.  We don't even have the luxury of doubting.

2. STOP __DOUBTING___ GOD.

Even David had doubts. As the Bible says, "Then David said to himself, 'Now I will perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than to escape into the land of the Philistines. Saul then will despair of searching for me anymore in all the territory of Israel, and I will escape from his hand.'" (1 Sam. 27:1)

This is David, God's anointed speaking, the one that God promised would be the next king, but then he faced many challenges he couldn't see the outcome. He didn't know what was coming up around the corner and his life took sort of a secondary turn. Meanwhile, Amalekites were raiding his home.  Everything was being taken away from him, everything.

David really thought that fleeing to the Philistines (his enemy) was what he wanted.

• SOMETIMES THE WORST VICTORY TO WIN IS

WHEN YOU GET _WHAT YOU WANT__.

Psalms says, "And He gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul." (Ps. 106:15 KJV)

Psalmist King David writes about a time where the people of today wanted what they wanted so badly. God, give us what we want.  Better be careful because you just might get it.  And sometimes what we think we want we finally get it, we realize it's not what we really want.  And we're at the moment where we may just lose everything and there's a leanness in our soul.  At that point we need the grace of God.

David learned to …

3. RESPOND NOT BY WHAT YOU SEE, BUT BY WHAT

GOD _ SAID___.

David had a heart for God, but he was living in a drifted state, a world of fear, a secondary realm. It wasn't God's best. He wasn't inquiring of the Lord, but he realizes that he needed the grace of God.

"And David inquired of the Lord, saying, 'Shall I pursue this band?...' And He said to him, 'Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them, and you shall surely rescue all.'" (1 Sam. 30:8)

David finally came to the point of realization that he needed to inquire of God. David finally invited God's grace into the unseen. He inquired of the Lord.

God promises “... that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith ..." (Eph. 3:16-17)

You may be sitting here today and you need God's grace.  There's unseen things in your life here today, and you need strength.  You need the healing of God.  And you may be at a place where you've drifted because maybe you just didn't quite trust that God can handle your situation and you got ?? and you have a life that's riddled with doubts and all you can see is the stuff that you see and you don't see the outcome, but if you're ready, if you're willing to take that unseen and put it in the hands of God and allow the unseen grace of God to flood your life, you watch, you wait, you see.  

Study Suggestions

In crisis, what should you avoid?

In crisis, what should you do?

What bad thing happened when you got what you wanted?

What happens when you respond only by what you see?