What Do You Do When Things Go Wrong In Your Life

Hello and welcome to Social Media Ministries. My name is Spencer Coffman. Thank you so much for being with us today. We’ve got a great sermon in store for you. If you haven’t yet subscribed or followed us, please do so.

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Today we’re talking about when things go wrong. Too often in this world, things go wrong. We’re working, we’re doing something, and no matter what happens, something goes wrong. It’s like the Murphy’s Law. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

So, let’s go, you know. That’s what happens. Things are gonna go wrong. Guess what, in this world—it’s broken. It’s already wrong. So, I guess things can’t really go wrong because they’re already there. It’s all in how you look at it. It’s perspective.

I was talking with someone a while back about the state of the United States, the state of—well, it’s a country, but I mean, like, state, as in a different term. There we go. English—such a broken language. The state of the United States.

Well no, not state as in a location or a territory, but, like, state as in the current state. Or the—how do you even define that? The position that it’s in. Well, not position as in on the map but the situation that it’s in.

The state of the United States as in, like, the border, the Mexican border. There are so many people crossing illegally into California. Well, if you take a look at California, and it’s kind of—let’s just say, their morals might not be godly. Or some of those states, like the state of California, is not good.

So, what’s happening down there? Well, a bunch of people are flooding in. Maybe God’s saying, “Hey, there are these Hispanic or these Mexican families. They’re hard-working. They’re God-fearing. They’re married; so, husband and wife together, raising children. They’re trying to get out of Mexico into America.

Yes, they may be doing so illegally, but maybe God’s moving good, God-fearing families with family values, committed to being better, bettering themselves—bringing them into California to change the state of California. Both states: state of California, as in that situation there; and changing the entire state. Making it go from away from God, toward God.

It’s all in how you look at it. You may say, “Hey, things are going wrong in California. We got a lot of illegal immigrants.” Maybe things are going right because they were already wrong

Anyway. You work very hard to follow God on a daily basis—I really hope you do—and things are going well.

And you’re like, “We’re making progress. We’re finally paying down our debt,” because that’s progress to you. Or, “We got two new cars,” because maybe that’s progress to you. Or, “We’ve led 10 people to Christ.” That’s true progress.

But no matter what, you’re going forward; you’re making progress. Things are good. You’ve got a family, or you’re making headway. You got a new job, or you’ve got your pay raise, or whatever.

Your life is finally starting to happen. You’re making it happen rather than things are happening to you. You’ve got a grip on it rather than it grabbing a hold of you and taking you wherever it wants to go.

Whenever that moment is, when you feel like you’ve got things under control, you feel like things are good, or you finally pay off that credit card—and then all of a sudden, something happens.

Something happens. Car—you get a car problem; something breaks. Something happens to your house; you have a medical bill. Something comes up. And all of a sudden, there goes that credit card bill again.

Or, you finally get the medical bills paid down, and then all of a sudden, there goes another trip to the doctor, or kids got sick. Or they grew, and you need clothing. Or now they want to play sports, and holy moly, the price for a season of sports is up to $400?

Something always happens. At that point, you have a choice. You have a choice. You can react like a normal human being by panicking, becoming angry, discouraged. Or you can act and choose to accept the situation and realize that it’s all part of God’s plan.

Did you hear that? You can either react like normal human beings, or you can act like a child of God. React or act. Which do you want to do? I want to act like a child of God.

So when something happens—maybe I’m recording, and all of a sudden the light comes crashing down—something happens. Am I going to react, “Oh no,” and start getting mad and doing all this on camera? No. Or I can act like a child of God and say, “Wow, I guess that comes down. Whatever, keep going; life happens.”

There are people that blap out certain letters with just the ‘i’ there, and then, of course, our humanistic sees a different word. Life happens. Is life happening to you? Or is life happening, and you are in it? You can choose; react or act, it’s up to you.

Someone dies; someone loses a job; you get sick. Are you acting or reacting? Are you becoming upset and discouraged? Or are you taking heart and persevering?

Of course right there, with what we have demonstrated and the words that I have used, you might already know what position you are in. And no doubt, you’ve been thinking of people in your mind of, “They’re a reactor. They get mad. Reactor. Nuclear.”

Are you going nuclear, or are you an act, an actor, putting on what you want people to see? Modeling what they need to follow? As Paul says, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” He was an actor.

Now, he was not just acting like a phony. No, he was acting in his faith. And people were seeing that, and then they were following. Other people might have been reacting. Something happens; they’re going nuclear.

With the words we use, I haven’t even brought in any scripture yet, and you could be convinced that you want to act rather than react. And so many motivational speakers have all kinds of talks on that situation. It’s the mindset. Guess what, that’s biblical. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” It’s in Romans 12:2, I think.

Now, what do you wanna do? You have a choice. Is life happening to you, or are you making life happen? All kinds of sayings, but guess what, God has a plan in all of this. “In this world, you will have trouble.” Again, we said, because it’s a troublesome world; it’s a broken world.

Let’s go to John 16:33. Let’s start bringing in some scripture here. John 16:33 says, “I told you these things so that in me,” this is Jesus talking, “you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.”

When things go wrong, hey guess what, Jesus has already overcome the world. I’m taking heart. I know that no matter what’s happening, God’s got me. That’s it. God’s got me. Take heart; realize it’s part of God’s plan. Maybe He’s testing you.

God sees, hey, you’re able to follow Him and do what He says when things are good. Everything’s good. You got good money coming in, you’ve got a steady paycheck, you got your mortgage, you got your family, everyone’s in good health, things are going well. “I’m following God. I’m tithing; I’m donating. I’m above and beyond the tithe. Things are good. I’m volunteering; I’m helping others.”

All of a sudden, things get bad. Now you’re careful; now you’re like, “Maybe we ought to cut back a little on this; maybe we ought to do this. Maybe I’m not going to volunteer this weekend; I don’t feel like it. Maybe I’ll stop helping out. Maybe I’ll do the–” Because guess what, things start happening, and you start pulling back.

Stop pulling back. When things happen, you should push out a little bit more. God might be testing you. God might be putting you through something. We’ve talked about this before in another card on how God puts you through trouble. – In another card… Right here, you can check out the card for the sermon on God Puts You Through Trouble.

God can put you through trouble for a couple of reasons: either it’s a test, a test of your faith so you can be strengthened and encouraged; or it’s a course correction. We see this all throughout the Bible. Let’s bring some more scripture in here. God will give you hard times. “In this world, you will have trouble.” That’s all throughout the Bible.

Even Paul says that in Corinthians when he’s talking about marriage. He says, “Hey if you want no trouble, don’t get married. But if you get married, you will have trials; you will have trouble.” Why? Well because if you’re single, you’re following God; you’re looking to God; you are concerned with pleasing God only.

You get married. Now, all of a sudden you’re complicating your life. Now you’re trying to please your spouse and God. So, now there could be some conflict in your relationship with God. But, if you look at your spouse and you see God, and you work with love to please them and God, now you’ve found harmony.

There’s a great speaker who wrote—I am blanking—his name is Emerson. He wrote Love and Respect. Okay. Pretty cool guy. He says pink and blue, boys and girls, boys blue, girls pink. Come together; pink and blue makes purple. Purple is the color of royalty.

We come together in marriage. What are we reflecting? Jesus. How Jesus has a bride of the church. He draws all these symbolisms and puts them together, and it’s really very cool. Pink and blue make purple; together we can reflect Jesus.

Now, if you’re single and you stay that way and you’re pure, you can reflect that on your own. Very very cool. I’m not gonna get into it.

But the point is, God will give you hard times. He’s going to. This world is broken; you’re gonna go through trouble. Now, you can be going through trouble for a couple of reasons. Again, it can be a test of perseverance and faith so you can be encouraged and renewed. Or it’s a course correction.

And again, we see this all throughout the Bible. Look at Job. Was Job on a course correction, or was he just being tested to renew his faith? It was a heavenly battle that Job knew nothing about. He didn’t do anything wrong, but he went through hell.

Look at Ahab. God sent a spirit. He said, “Hey, who’s gonna go and entice Ahab to his death?” Whoa, God’s doing that? Yes, He is. He’s putting him through trouble. Why? Because Ahab wasn’t following; that was a course correction, majorly.

Look at Peter. “Peter, Satan has asked and received permission to sift you as wheat.” Why? Was Peter doing something wrong? Peter was starting to become proud. Guess what, we gotta cut him down a little bit.

Jonah. Jonah went through some big trouble. Jonah’s on a boat. All of a sudden, a storm comes: trouble. All of a sudden, in the ocean or the sea: trouble. All of a sudden—fish eats him: more trouble. He’s in the belly of a fish, then he gets vomited out: more trouble, nasty. Then he has to travel through the desert: more trouble. Then he gets to the city; he’s gonna be killed: more trouble.

Jonah went through a lot of trouble, for what? Course correction. Had Jonah just gone to Nineveh to begin with, he wouldn’t have gone through all these troubles where God was pointing him to the very place He told him to go.

What’s God telling you to do? Are you following it? No trouble. Maybe some. Or are you not following it? Lots of trouble because God’s pushing you to where you need to be. Look at Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They went through some trouble; they were going to get burned alive. The furnace was so hot that the people who throw them into the furnace all die. Yet they were fine.

They went through trouble, but God saved them. God put them through trouble for what? Not because they were doing wrong. Because they were doing right, and God was using it to strengthen and encourage them and to save so many people around them and to provide a very, very powerful witness for all kinds of people to see, and a story for us to be encouraged by.

Look at Daniel; he went through some trouble. Daniel—people were conspiring against him. Ended up getting thrown into the lion’s den. These lions were so powerful that the other people, who later on in the story got thrown into the lion’s den—the lions leapt up and crushed these people, breaking their bones before they even hit the ground. Yet Daniel got thrown in there and nothing happened. He was just hanging out with the lions.

Daniel got put through trouble, not because he was doing wrong but because he was doing right. So you are going to have trouble, whether you’re following God or whether you’re trying to get off the path. God’s gonna keep you following Him, and you’re gonna have more trouble if you don’t follow God.

Look at Jonah, all the trouble he had to get where God wanted him to be. Look at people like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego or Daniel who have some trouble, but then great reward. Job who went through a period of time of misery, but then great reward.

God is faithful. He’ll get you through the trouble. Look at Jesus. Did Jesus do anything wrong? No. Look at the trouble He had. People—you will have trouble, but take heart, Jesus has overcome the world. It is a test. It is a test of your faith to produce perseverance.

You’ve got rough edges on you, and if you try to put a square peg in a round hole, there are some—it’s not gonna work. There are rough edges. You’re the square peg; God’s trying to put you through a round hole. Guess what, these edges have to get sanded down. Pretty soon, you go through that round hole. God’s shaping you to be the person He wants you to be.

Accept it. There’s gonna be some tension there. Proverbs says, “As iron sharpens iron, one person sharpens another.” Guess what, iron sharpening iron is not a nice, smooth, easy process. There’s some friction. There’s some tension. There’s some grinding down. There’s some chipping off. There’s some edges that are gonna be smoothed out. It happens.

A mortar and a pedestal—a pestle. It’s not easy, but it’s shaping. God’s shaping you into who He wants you to be. For what? For His glory. You can follow God, and you will have some trouble. But you can take heart that God has overcome the world. Or, you can choose to deviate from God’s path, and you are going to have a lot of trouble to get you back on there.

Things are going to go wrong in this world, but endure those times. You’ll notice it is a lot harder, though, to accept things and follow God during hard times. Why? Or maybe you say it’s a lot harder for me to follow God in the good times because everything’s good, and in hard times, I’m calling out to God like crazy.

God says that in the Bible. “When things are good, you guys don’t even talk to me. But when things are hard, you are calling out to me like crazy.” God wants you to be calling out to Him all the time. So keep that in mind. If you follow God the same, no matter when there are good times or bad times—that is your goal.

In sickness and in health, just like our marriage vows a lot of people take. They say—you choose to love them in sickness and in health, good and bad, till death do you part. That means in the bad times, you gotta be fighting to stay together. When Christ puts you through trouble, you gotta be fighting. Stay with Him; honor Him. He will always see you through.

And your suffering should be a cause for rejoicing because you’re rejoicing. Why? Because you’re suffering for Jesus or because you bear that name of a Christian. We don’t have time to go through all of those suffering verses and all of the suffering things to rejoice. But we have some sermons on suffering; you can check that out on how James talks about rejoicing in your suffering. They will be all over on our website and on YouTube etc.

But, let’s go to James. James 1:2-4. We’ve got a little time left. We’re gonna dive into some scripture. James 1 Verses 2 to 4, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”

When your faith is tested, you develop perseverance. It builds character. God wants to build you some great character. He wants to strengthen you and give you more. So guess what, He’s gonna put you through some hard times.

Romans 5:3, “Not only so, but we rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance.” You need to persevere. Run this race with perseverance. God’s going to give you some suffering to help you persevere. It’s gonna happen. There will be hard times, but take heart, God has overcome the world.

So no matter what, in good times and in bad, follow God. Look to Jesus and remember He is your light. He loves you, okay. He loves you so—look, think of the act of love. How much do you love your spouse or your child?

Some people say, “I love my child or I have a stronger love and a stronger bond for my child than for my spouse.” You say why? Well, because you created that. You’ve made that person; you’ve shaped them.

God has made you. He has shaped you. There is a bond there, more than you could ever imagine. So much so, He sent His son to die for you. He wants to shape you and make you into the person that you are meant to be.

Exactly like you want to shape your child into the person that you know they’re meant to be. But it’s not what you want for them; it’s what God wants for them. So you’re trying to shape and mold them into what God wants them to be, and you are trying to discern that.

But you have a great love for them. God has that love for you times infinity. Not times 10; not 10 x-ed. No, times infinity. He has so much love for you, we can’t even grasp the concept. We don’t even have a word in English that describes the type of love God has for us, that’s how limited English is.

The Greek word is agape. You’ve probably heard it: unconditional, unending, never-failing love that God has for you. So, when you’re going through hard times, look to Him. He loves you.

Think of David, man, he went through all kinds of hard times. Not once but twice, he had the opportunity to kill his greatest enemy who was putting him through all this trouble, but he didn’t. Why? Because he said, “I cannot lay a hand against the LORD’s anointed.”

God has put all kinds of people in your life. Some of them may be giving you trouble. It’s not up to you to do anything to correct that. It’s up to you to look to God, to get His guidance, to read the Bible, and to do what it says. And in doing so, that situation will be corrected by God, maybe through you or through others.

You must accept it; you must persevere, build character, and take a look and examine your life and say, “Is this trouble meant to put me on course, or is this trouble to build something in me?”

Answer those questions and always, always, always keep following God. And let your strength be renewed. Let your faith be strengthened. I almost said let your strength be faithened. But, let your faith be strengthened, and be stronger in Christ as a result of whatever you go through. Trust God.

Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for giving us all of these people as examples in the Bible, of all of the trouble and the trials and things that they went through. And I pray that for anyone right now going through a trial or trouble, that they would look to you; they would look to the Bible.

That they would read Psalms and see all the anguish that David went through and how he just cried out to you and found his joy and found his comfort in you. Because that’s where we need to be looking. You are our rock. You are our firm foundation. Nothing in this world can satisfy us, can help us, can provide us that comfort. We have to look to you.

And Lord, I pray that they would be looking to you each and every day, all day, in sickness and in health, in trouble, in good times and in bad. All the time. And that if there is something going on in their life, that they would look to you and say, “Why? What is going on?” Not questioning you, but questioning themselves and saying, “Am I doing something wrong, or is this a test to show God’s glory in my life?”

And that they would be able to discern that. Lord, give them that discernment. Give them that clarity, and help them to shine like a bright light in the darkness around them. And so that others would see that, in times of trouble, they’re cool, and in good times, they’re cool. That all the time, they show your light. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Look to God in good times and in bad, and remember, He is your strength. Everything in this earth, everything that He is doing, He is doing to make you better. Have a great week. God bless.