What do you do with the Hard things in Life?
Deuteronomy 27:1-8
The story is told of a little boy who went to the grocery store and asked the clerk
for a box of laundry detergent. The clerk was very impressed at such a little guy taking on the
responsibilities of helping his mom with the household chores. So he said to the boy “Well that is
mighty grown up of you to be wiling to help your mother out with the washing. Well the little guy
wanted to set the record straight so he told the clerk, “Oh, I’m not going to use it to wash
clothes, I need it for my dog.” The clerk was a little concerned at that point and so he said “Don’t
you think this detergent might be a little strong for washing a dog?” The little boy replied, “Well,
that’s what I want, he’s a mighty dirty dog.” So the boy took the box of detergent home, and
about a week later returned. Well the clerk recognized him and asked him about his dog. The little
boy said “O my dog is dead” The clerk was shocked “Oh that’s so terrible, I guess that laundry
detergent was too strong after all.” The little boy thought for a minute and said “No, I don’t think
it was the detergent that got him, I think it was the rinse cycle.” Have you ever gone through a
time in your life when you felt like you had been through the wringer. I think all of us have, and
sometimes those times feel like they are ganging up on us, it’s just one thing right after another. I
have to be real honest with you this morning , I experienced a time like that just this week. I know
I have said this before but it bears repeating, if not for you then for myself, “Just because you are
a Christian does not make you immune to the hard things in life. As a matter of fact, sometimes
being a believer opens you up to a whole new set of trials and tests that unsaved people don’t
even begin to understand. This week I learned something’s about myself and about my spiritual
walk because very often it’s how we react when the heat gets turned up that indicates to us our
level of spiritual maturity. At some point every one of us is going to deal with some hard things.
Most of you already know more about that than I have yet to learn. This morning I want to revisit
a message I preached here about 5 years ago dealing with “What do you do with the hard things
in life? What if, what happened to Job happened to you or me. I mean out of the blue, like a
bomb-shell, you experience some difficulty and it leaves an emptiness where your joy used to be?
What if you experience, what a famous British Pastor described as... “a tumbled ruin of your
ordered ways.” I have questioned myself this week as to whether I would be able to say with Job,
“The LORD giveth, and the LORD taketh away, Blessed be the name of the LORD.” What if we
experienced what happened to the Prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel 24:16-18. One day the LORD
comes to us and says “Son of man, behold I take away the desire of thine eyes at a stroke; yet
neither shalt thou weep, nor let tears run down...” And then Ezekiel says “So I preached unto the
people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died.” How would we react? What if it
becomes evident at some point that our life is not going to be everything we thought it was going
to be. The dreams we dreamed were not becoming a reality. That the road we travel is going to be
steep or lonely, or somewhere along the way some tremendous sacrifice is going to be asked of
us. What if we are like Paul and there is some hurt in our life, some continuing disability or
weakness, or pain, and we have asked the LORD to remove it, not once, not twice, but many,
many times. And instead of removing the hurt from us GOD simply replies, “My grace is sufficient
for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. How am I going to react, what am I going
to do, How is it going to affect me service for CHRIST? How am I going to handle the hard
things in life? Well, by now you are probably wondering just what all of this has to do with
Deuteronomy 27 and what is going on in the lives of the children of Israel. If we look at this
passage in it’s context we begin to see some definite applications. As we come to Deut 27, Israel
is coming to the end of a very long journey. For 40 years, a number in the Bible that always
symbolizes testing, they have been wondering around in the wilderness dealing with life. At this
point they are on the verge of experiencing their finest hour. The wilderness wanderings are over,
and the promised land is just in sight. Everything they had experienced up to this point had been
preparing them for this moment. But before they could go forward, GOD wanted them to pause
and make a place of worship. Before they could experience the blessings of the promised land
they had to learn some lessons from the past and use those lessons as a springboard for
worshiping GOD. We have a tendency to think that while Israel was wandering around in the
wilderness, they were on some sort of extended camping trip where they hiked all day and roasted
marshmallows at night. But GOD used the wilderness experience to test Israel and to purify their
faith in the day to day activities of life. These people had children to raise, jobs to go to. They
laughed, they cried, they worked, they played, they grieved, they rejoiced. There were times in
their lives I’m sure when they had to struggle just to survive. If you go back and read the history
of their time in the wilderness, you will see what I mean. In Numbers 14:39, we see that right off
the bat Israel suffered a major defeat in life. They had put their trust in something that represented
GOD instead of putting their trust in GOD Himself, and it was a major mistake. To be sure it was
their own fault, they wanted to go into the promised land after GOD had them they were not
ready. But a defeat is a defeat, and it was a struggle for Israel to get over this one. Anytime you
and I experience a spiritual defeat in our Christian lives it can become a major obstacle to
overcome. Some people never get over them and their service for CHRIST is severely limited. We
need to receive the LORD’s forgiveness by faith. Not only was their failure in the wilderness but
there was also loneliness. The wilderness was a lonely place for Israel. They were a separate
people. The other nations looked on them with dread and fought them every chance they got.
Loneliness is one of those hard things in life that we often have to deal with. Not only was there
loneliness in the wilderness, but there was also death. In those 40 years Israel buried an entire
generation of their people. There was not a single family that was not touched. The whole time
they were wandering around in the wilderness they struggled with life, they fought with their
enemies and with each other, they encountered thirst and a recurring need to come back to GOD
the source of Living Water. They faced opposition, discouragement, frustration, and defeat, in
essence they daily dealt with the hard things in life. Then we get over here to Deut. 27. They have
come through the wilderness, and at some point GOD told them to gather up some stones and
from those stones they would build an altar to Worship Him at. Now, let me ask us all a
question... WHAT DO THOSE STONES REPRESENT TO ISRAEL AND TO US? I don’t
think we would be doing damage to the scripture if we said those stones represented the
difficulties, the trials, the hard things in life that Israel faced as they lived and labored in the
wilderness. I see Israel at a crossroads, they are at the point of moving forward or going back,
and the key to which direction they go is found in what they do with the hard things in life. It’s
the same with us. I really don’t see that much difference between the wilderness wanderings of
Israel and the difficult things you and I face in our daily Christian lives. There are trials, tests,
defeats, discouragements, loneliness, but just like Israel we have a decision to make. What are we
going to do with the hard things in life??? I think there are only 3 options. #1 we can “PUT
THEM IN A SACK AND CARRY THEM AS A MAN WOULD CARRY A BURDEN. #2 we
can “PICK THEM UP AND THROW THEM AT OTHER PEOPLE, OR #3 WE CAN USE
THEM TO BUILD AN ALTAR ON WHICH WE CAN WORSHIP GOD. First of all...
I. We can put them in a sack and carry them as a man would carry a burden.
Now, you are going to have to use your spiritual imagination on some of this.
GOD told the Israelites to gather up stones and build an altar. But don’t you think it would have
been pretty foolish for the Israelites to have gone around with a sack of rocks saying “Yea, one of
these days I am going to get rid of these rocks and do what GOD said. One of these days I am
going to build an altar. Now, listen to me right here, believe me, I am preaching to myself more
than I am preaching to you. It’s pretty dumb to carry the hard things of life around on our
shoulders when we have a GOD big enough to carry them for us. JESUS said “Come unto Me, all
ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” That passage is basically talking about
the rest we experience in CHRIST when we get saved. The burden of guilt and sin and shame, the
war we have waged with GOD is over and now there is rest. We don’t get saved by trying, by
struggling, by working to be god enough. We are saved when we come to the end of our own
good works and rest in the all sufficient grace of GOD found and manifest in the Person and
Work of JESUS CHRIST. Salvation is a relationship of trust with JESUS CHRIST at the helm.
The same thing is true after we get saved. We come to CHRIST for daily strength to deal with
the hard things in life just like we did when we got saved, in total trust and dependance. The
problem is more often than not we think we are better able to handle our problems than GOD is.
I came across a passage as I was studying for this message that I had never seen before. It found
in Isaiah 28:12 “To whom He said, ‘This is the rest wherewith you may cause the weary to rest;
and this is the refreshing; yet they would not hear.” It’s like GOD is offering His people an
opportunity to find relief and rest from the burdens they are bearing, but they refuse Him. It is
very easy to let the hard things in life weigh us down to the point that we become weary. The
word “weary” that JESUS used carries with it the idea of working to the point of utter
exhaustion. If we wrestle with the hard things by ourselves we can easily lose our joy and
confidence in the LORD. The Psalmist said “Cast your burdens on the LORD and He shall sustain
you, He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.” The word “moved” means to slip or fall .
GOD will not allow those that are His to be so overburdened that they slip and fall under it’s
weight, He is faithful. I heard Jessie Ventura say the other day that Christianity is a crutch for
weak-minded people. Well, that may be true, but when life comes crashing in I’m so thankful for
the crutch. There are really only 2 kinds of people in the world– Those who are weak and know
that they need the LORD, and those who think they are strong but are too weak to admit their
need. You and I can choose to carry our burdens, to put the hard things of life in a sack and carry
them, or we could choose to give them all to JESUS and let Him turn our sorrow into JOY. That
brings me to the second point. Another thing we can do with the hard things in life is we could...
II. Pick them Up and Throw them at other People.
Some people, and even sometimes Christians are guilty of this. They allow
the hard things in life to make them bitter and resentful towards GOD and towards others. You
can usually pick these people out in the crowd. They have experienced some tragedy, some hurt
or loss or defeat, and instead of offering those experiences to the LORD, they either blame GOD,
or they blame somebody else. In Hebrews 12:14-15 we read this “follow peace with all men &
holiness without which no man shall see the LORD. Looking diligently lest any root of bitterness
springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled. I want you to write in your Bible beside
this verse a short sentence. Write this... “Bitterness hurts more than just me.” Sometimes we get
so caught up in the pain we are experiencing that we miss the work of grace GOD wants to do in
us and we react in bitterness or resentment. Ed Rowell who Pastors a church of another
denomination recently told this story. When I was young, a neighboring family came down with a
devastating illness. Several of the children died, and the rest suffered permanent brain damage.
What investigators discovered was the father had found a truckload of discarded seed corn and
fed it to the family hogs. The corn (not intended for animal feed) had been treated with something
so bugs wouldn’t eat it before it germinated. The hogs ate it, seemingly with no ill effects. But
when the family hogs became the family breakfast, the family was poisoned. It seems that many
substances——pesticides and heavy metals like lead and mercury——do not pass through the
digestive system, but remain in the body, always. In tiny doses, the effects are minimal. But over
time, the effects are horrible. That’s what happens to many of us.…… Every day we ingest minute
amounts of conflict and disrespect. No big deal, we think. Just blow it off. But we don’t. Instead it
gets buried in our liver and 20 years later, we go ballistic over some small offense and wonder,
Where did that come from? Right now, I could take you to the home of a man who lives in
Arkansas. At one time this man was on fire for GOD. He was faithful to attend church, he went
out on visitation, he served as a deacon in his church, but one day something happened that hurt
him, and it hurt him deeply. He was not able to let go of the anger, the resentment, or bitterness
that he felt. As a result that man, who once served GOD faithfully doesn’t go to church anymore,
he went back to some of his old ways and his old habits, and whenever he is approached about
getting right with GOD he responds in anger and bitterness. What happened? He chose to use the
hard things in life to injure those who had injured him. What do we do with the hard things in life?
Well we can put them in a sack and carry them around as a man would carry a burden. We could
pick them up and throw them at other people or we could do one more thing and this is what the
children of Israel did with the hard things they experienced....
III. We can use them to build an altar from which we worship GOD.
When the Israelites came out of the wilderness one of the first things GOD
told them to do was to gather some stones and build an altar. Remember the stones represent the
hard things in life. But what about the altar? Well it was made from those very stones they had
gathered, the hard things they had experienced. It was a place of worship, a place of rest, a place
of recognition, a place of wonder and amazement at the love and power of GOD who had so
graciously led them out of the wilderness. Well, as New Testament Christians we don’t build
altars of sacrifice anymore. JESUS our Great High Priest has once and for all offered Himself for
us. But from time to time we need to go back to the cross and behold the beauty of the LORD
and the grace of the LORD, and the power of the LORD, that would so wonderfully and
graciously bring us out of the wilderness of sin, and we need to take the hard things we have
experienced and once again lay them at the foot of the cross. The altar is where you and I lay our
burdens down, it’s a place of wonder, o place of worship, a place of rest. It’s where you and I
take our eyes off the problems and focus them on the LORD. Some here this morning, Pastor
included have been trying too long to carry our own burdens. Col 3:3-4 If CHRIST is our life like
Paul said He is in Col 3, and if our life is hid in Him then nothing we face surprises Him, and He is
big enough to handle what we are going through. I want to encourage you this morning to build
an altar, a place of worship where you stop struggling and allow CHRIST to be your life–
PREACH
