Monday, January 5, 2009

Overcoming Our Handicapped Lives

The ideas of this sermon come from the pen of Roger Barrier
Text:
2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (The Message)
7-10 Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn't get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then He told me,
My grace is enough; it's all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.

Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.

God’s Grace: True story. Two pastors were on their way to Atlanta, Ga. for a large Christian men’s gathering. One of them had never been in the south before. After staying in a motel overnight, they stopped at a nearby restaurant for breakfast. When their meal was delivered, the pastor who had never been south before saw this white, mushy looking stuff on his plate. When the waitress came by again he asked her what it was. "Grits", she replied. "Ma'am I didn't order it and I'm not paying for it". "Sir, down here you don't order it and you don't pay for it, you just get it." How like the GRACE of God!

Topic: How to overcome life’s handicaps
Big Idea: God gives us handicaps for our own betterment.

Introduction
* Much of the great work in this world has been done by handicapped people:
Ludwig van Beethoven: 1710-1827. Beethoven used a special rod attached to the soundboard on a piano that he could bite—the vibrations would then transfer from the piano to his jaw to increase his perception of the sound. Later, became 100% deaf. Also, he was most likely suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder along with Albert Einstein, who also had dyslexia along with Donald Trump.

John Milton: 1608-1674 Authored the Epic Paradise Lost. By the time of his death in 1674, Milton was blind, impoverished and yet unrepentant for his political choices. Milton had by then attained Europe-wide fame, and notoriety, for his radical political and religious beliefs, as well as his writings in English and Latin poetry.

Helen Keller:(June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, activist, and lecturer. She was the first deaf/blind person to graduate from college with a magna cum laude from Radcliffe College. She spoke and traveled opposing war, campaigned for women’s suffrage, and worker’s rights. Was made world known by the movie and play The Miracle Worker.

David Beckham and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: have/had Tourettes Syndrome.

Kristi Yamaguchi: an American figure skater and the 1992 Olympic Champion in women's singles. Yamaguchi also won two World Figure Skating Championships in 1991 and 1992 and a U.S. Figure Skating Championships in 1992. She won two national titles in 1989 and 1990 and one junior world title in 1988 as a pairs skater with Rudy Galindo. In December 2005, she was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame. Kristi was born with club feet.

* Paul also had a handicap or thorn. He says, "To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given unto me a thorn in my flesh.” - 2 Corinthians 12:7

* No one knows exactly what Paul’s thorn was, and he probably left it a mystery so everyone could identify with him.

* Handicaps come in many forms but they tend to be looked at as being ‘bad.’
To overcome life’s handicaps, trust that they are no accident.

* God has a plan for each of our lives, and to carry out that plan, He must correct us. Our thinking may be off center. It (LIFE) is not about me-it is about Him.

- Illustration: One man told the great preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who, because of his debilitating gout and kidney disease, was knit closer to Christ, as was evidenced in his preaching. It is really beyond our understanding at times. Or just a different way of looking at things.

To overcome life’s handicaps, say, “What an opportunity” Instead of “What if?”

* Paul rejoiced in his circumstances because he knew that God would pour His power into Paul’s life.
- Illustration: Norwegian Classical violinist Ole Bull once broke a string during a concert, but instead of stopping to replace the string, he improvised and finished the concert using only three strings.

To overcome life’s handicaps, stop window-shopping and enjoy your own inventory.
* Paul warns us in Rom 12:2-3 to stop comparing ourselves with others.

* God gives us each a special plot to till and accept, and the real test is what we will do with it. How can Man make better God’s creation? Why, indeed, do we believe we would know better…?

To overcome life’s handicaps, recognize that thorns set the stage for spiritual service.

* Paul would not have been Paul without the thorn in his side. “It” really made him who he was: dependent on the Lord.

- Illustration:
It Is Well with My Soul is a very influential hymn penned by hymnist Horatio Spafford and composed by Philip Bliss.
This hymn was written after several traumatic events in Spafford’s life. The first was the death of his only son in 1871, shortly followed by the great Chicago Fire which ruined him financially (he had been a successful lawyer). Then in 1873, he had planned to travel to Europe with his family on the S.S. Ville du Havre, but sent the family ahead while he was delayed on business. While crossing the Atlantic, the ship sank rapidly after a collision with another ship, and all four of Spafford's daughters died. His wife Anna survived and sent him the now famous telegram, Shortly afterwards, as Spafford traveled to meet his grieving wife, he was inspired to write these words as his ship passed near where his daughters had died.
The Spaffords later had three more children, one of whom (a son) died in infancy. In 1881 the Spaffords, including baby Bertha and newborn Grace, set sail for Palestine. The Spaffords moved to Jerusalem and helped found a group called the American Colony; its mission was to serve the poor. The colony later became the subject of the Nobel prize winning Jerusalem, by Swedish novelist Selma Lagerlöf.
taken from http://en.Wikipedia.org

To overcome life’s handicaps, find the strength in God’s Grace, which is energy enough when life gets tough.

* When Paul begged God to take away his affliction, God told Paul that God’s grace would be sufficient for him. But many of us say: “But the pain… I could do so much more without this… I feel it would be better than what You have planned for me… After all, I do know what works best for me!”

- Illustration: A boy playing by the sea coast cannot possibly drain the ocean with his sand pail. In the same way, God’s Grace will never run out.

* Illustration: A television show profiled three terminal cancer patients from the time of their diagnosis to their death. Two were faithless and their anger destroyed their relationships, while the third was a pastor who embraced God’s Grace and his impending death with faith.

• Illustration: When a person works an eight-hour day and receives a fair day’s pay for his time, that is a wage. When a person competes with an opponent and receives a trophy for his performance, that is a prize. When a person receives appropriate recognition for his long service or high achievements, that is an award. But when a person is not capable of earning a wage, can win no prize, and deserves no award—yet receives such a gift anyway—that is a good picture of God’s unmerited favor. This is what we mean when we talk about the Grace of God.
Clip-Art Features for Church Newsletters, G.W. Knight, p. 53
Handicapped by GRACE Alone!

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Next week: Let's Talk About Fruit. It would be great if you would please read ahead from Galatians 5:16~25.

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