What Do You Do When The Problem Is Too Big?
Acts 12
Intro.: What do we do when we face little everyday problems? Most of
us handle them ourselves, don’t we? Medium sized problems? Again we usually
try to fix them on our own. Now with large problems we are often overcome
by the enormity and we throw up our hands. I want to look at a large problem
the early church faced. It had to be enormous. It had to be discouraging.
It had to seem unfixable. So what did they do? Let us see….
Read: Acts 12
We need to first…
Recognize that Satan desires to vex the Church
He wanted to sift Peter as wheat
He wants to harm or hurt us
He wants to hinder or hold us back
He wrestles against us Eph. 6:12
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places.
Similiar to wrestling...
He wants to damage our "base" with dishonesty and dogma that is wrong
He wants to dislocate us from the One who sustains us
He wants to defeat us through difficult times and a determined approach
He walks about to "devour" us 1 Pet. 5:8
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion,
walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
He wants to discourage us
He wants to spread disharmony in our lives
He wants to us to doubt the Lord’s commitment and blessings and increase
our Dormant do-nothingness
Lest we get discouraged, we must also…
Realize there is a defense against our problems
We find the early church when faced with insurmountable difficulties
had...
Prayer without ceasing
We need to see a
Prayer of action – they started and continued praying
Prayer of alignment with the problem (empathy)
Prayer of access with the Master
Prayer of acknowledgement of God’s great ability
Prayer of anticipation of God’s providence
Prayer of acceptance of God’s will
And we need to…
Receive God’s solution with gladness
He knows the proper solution – not our personally chosen solution
He opens the doors of His choice – not ours
He clears the path we need to walk
He guides His own in the right choices
He answers the prayers of His loved ones better than they know
So we can see our first step is to pray without ceasing.
And continue in this trusting the Lord.
Gary Marcum – East 38th Street Free Will Baptist – 042201am