SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST? OR THE FAITHFUL?
INTRO.- ILL.- The backwoods preacher found a small boy all alone, playing in the dirt. "Where’s your father?" the preacher asked. The boy said, "He was hanged last week."
"Where’s your mother?" "She run off."
"Where’s your sister?" "She’s in jail."
"Is there anybody else in your family?" "Yup, I’ve got a brother."
"Where is he?" "At Harvard University."
"Well, at least one member of your family is doing well. What is he studying?" "Nothin’. They’re studying him."
Brethren, that boy had to be discouraged with life! WE ALL MUST ADMIT THAT LIFE CAN GET PRETTY DIFFICULT AT TIMES. Life is a tough course even when things are going well for us.
Look at we are faced with these days: terrorism, war, anthrax scare, job layoffs, personal problems, etc.
ILL.- The terrorism of 911. Three-quarters of the victims were men. The average age of those killed was 40. Most were in their 30s and 40s, prime parenting age. Some were new fathers; others, like Deanna Galante, who was eight months pregnant, were expecting children.
A total of 230 were vice presidents at major financial institutions. At least 130 victims were brokers of one sort or another. Three hundred forty-three of the missing and dead were firefighters.
"Since Sept. 11, you are either at work or you’re at a funeral," said Tom Jensen, a New York deputy fire chief. There were also salesmen, housekeepers, engineers and janitors, as well as dozens of cooks, military accountants, electricians, secretaries and travel agents.
Eight children died. The youngest was 2-year-old Christine Hanson of Groton, Mass., who was on her first trip to Disneyland. She was killed along with her parents on one of the airplanes hijacked out of Boston.
Forty-one were over 65. The oldest was retiree Robert Norton, 82, of Lubec, Maine, who was aboard one the airliners with his wife, Jackie Norton, on their way to a wedding in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Besides the 911 terrorism, we are at war. Again. We know about war. Our beloved country has experienced many of them. Wars exist because hatred exists and the devil is alive and well on planet earth.
We have the anthrax scare. Many people are worried to death about it.
Job layoffs seem to be at an all-time high. It is said that the number of Americans laid-off from their jobs rose from 8,000 to 504,000 recently, which is the second highest level in the last ten years.
Besides lay-offs, we have our own personal problems that we have to deal with: work-related problems, martial problems, family problems, financial problems, health problems, etc.
With everything going on, some people are having a difficult time coping and it’s not surprising.
ILL.- Lisa Nardelli hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks. Before Sept. 11, Nardelli used to doze peacefully through till morning. But these days, the 27-year-old Washington DC resident lies awake tossing and turning.
Once she does manage to drop off, she sleeps fitfully, often startled awake by nightmares. "I used to really enjoy my sleep," says Nardelli, a resident of the Capitol Hill neighborhood. "Now I only get about four hours a night. It takes a couple of extra cups of coffee each day to stay awake now."
ACROSS THE nation, people who used to sleep soundly are slipping into insomnia. Sales of sleep aids are on the rise.
Dr. Neil Kavey, director of the sleep disorders center at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City said, "People are having trouble falling asleep. They’re having trouble staying asleep. They’re having bad dreams."
Brothers and sisters, I think most of us are not only interested in getting our sleep, but also in being able to cope with life; 911 and everything else that we are faced with!
How can we cope? How can we survive? Is it a matter of the survival of the fittest?
Obviously, some people seem to handle everything fairly well. Even some non-Christian people. We should know, however, that our survival and success is not dependent upon worldly tactics. We have something greater and stronger to draw from.
II Cor. 10:3-4 "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds."
We have divine power available to us to be able to survive and succeed in this mixed up and messed up world.
Survival is not a matter of the fittest! Or the smartest! Or the person with the most money. It’s a matter of the faithful! The more we walk by faith, the more we will be able to survive in this world. But we will do more than just survive. WE WILL SUCCEED!
Prov. 16:3 "Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed."
II Tim. 1:7 "For God did not give a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love and self-discipline."
I John 4:4 "You, dear children are from God and have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you than He who is in the world."
Phil. 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
PROP.- Let me share some Scriptural survival tactics. Or scriptural success tactics.
1- live and let live
2- pray and let God
I. LIVE AND LET LIVE
ILL.- A bum asked a guy one time, "Could you give me $5 for a meal?"
The man replied, "You must be crazy! If you had asked me for a buck I might have given it to you, but $5, no way!"
The bum replied, "You can cough up the $5 or not. That’s up to you, but don’t tell me how to run my business."
In life, it seems like someone is always trying to tell us how to run our business or our lives.
ILL.- When I was preparing to run my first marathon in December of 1986 one lady in the church tried to discourage me from running. She more or less said to me, "You don’t realize what you are doing. Running that far is a very dumb thing to do..." Blah, blah, blah. She went on and on.
That lady who had never run a step in her life and couldn’t, did absolutely nothing but try to throw cold water on my desire to run a marathon. That lady wanted to control my life!
Brethren, we don’t have any right to control anybody’s life, unless, of course, it is the children we are trying to raise. And then we’d better control their lives, because they sure can’t!
ILL.- Old preacher Vance Havner used to say to parents, ’Don’t tell your children to cooperate, tell them to obey. When I was a boy if we didn’t cooperate, Daddy would operate."
Beyond parenting, we must learn to tend to our own matters.
Live and let live. Where have you heard that statement? The statement comes from the world but contains several Scriptural ideas.
I Thess. 4:11-12 "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody."
Make it your ambition to mind your own business. Live and let live.
You might be tempted to say, "But Brother Steve, just last Sunday you told us that we should be interested in the lives of others. Now you’re telling us to mind our own business. What’s the deal?"
You are right. On the one hand you should show interest in the lives of others. You should listen to others and especially, when it’s obvious that they have a burden that needs to be shared or unloaded. We should be in the burden-bearing business.
But on the other side of the coin is this thought. Live and let live. Do your work and let other people do their work. MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. Don’t butt into people’s business where you are not wanted. Don’t give advice when it is not asked for. Don’t tell people how to run their own lives.
Even if you are smarter, better, and know the answer to whatever it is they are facing. This still doesn’t give you the right to tell somebody how to run their life.
Now if I were about to walk into a blazing fire, yes, I would want to jerk me back or snatch me out of the fire. But sometimes we are far too willing to tell people how to live their lives. WE NEED TO BUTT OUT.
We need to live and let live. We need to pay more attention to our own lives. We need to pay more attention to what needs fixing in our own lives than in the lives of others.
ILL.- Before you chew someone out over their smoking habit perhaps you should first correct your gossip habit. Before you tell someone they should stop using foul language perhaps you should stop thinking foul thoughts.
Don’t be too quick to correct someone’s life unless you are willing to correct your own.
Prov. 10:19 "When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds is tongue is wise."
Matt. 7:1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged."
Matt. 7:3 "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"
Matt. 7:12 "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you..." Hmm, do unto others...
Live and let live. Mind your own business. Don’t judge others. Don’t try to run other people’s lives. Treat people the way you want to be treated. Doing these things will help you to get along a lot better in life. It will enable you to survive, cope and succeed.
II. PRAY AND LET GOD
ILL.- The proud father brought home a backyard swing set for his children and immediately started to assemble it with all the neighborhood children anxiously waiting to play on it.
After several hours of reading the directions, attempting to fit bolt A into slot B, etc., he finally gave up and called on an old handyman friend working in the neighboring yard.
The old timer came over, threw the directions away, and in a short while had the set completely assembled.
The father said, "It’s beyond me, how you got that thing together without even reading the instructions."
"To tell you the truth," replied the old timer, "I can’t read...and when you can’t read, you’ve got to think."
Some people are smart and others think they are. Most of us fall into this last category. We think we are smart about certain things in life.
There are times when we think we "have it all together," but we soon find things falling apart. Only then will we reach out to someone greater than ourselves.
ILL.- A small country church in Arizona hosted a group of young people who were traveling back from a Christian retreat in a nearby forest preserve. A few days after the youth group left, someone in the congregation noticed strange bugs in a restroom. She told the custodian. He grabbed a can of insecticide and sprayed it around the room.
A few weeks later, a preschool teacher in the church turned on a light in the kitchen and saw dozens of bugs scurrying across the floor. The next day the custodian identified the bugs as German roaches. He tried using roach traps and strong insecticides, but the problem continued to get worse.
Finally the church called in a professional exterminator. It took the company nearly six months of bimonthly visits to get rid of the problem. Had the church called a professional as soon as people noticed the bugs, the cost and treatment time would have been substantially less.
Brethren, sometimes we need to call in a professional. Sometimes we need some professional help with the problems and the pain we face in life.
Phil. 4:6-7 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
Instead of being anxious, worrying, fretting or stewing over things that happen to us in life we need to pray about everything and let God go to work on the problem.
Ps. 37:5 "Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this." The Lord is a "pro" at everything.
ILL.- Dr. Les Parrott said, "Life, by its very definition, is uncertain. Uncontrollable. When the truth of this message sinks in, it transforms the soul of control. It loosens our clinched grip on those things and those people we are trying so desperately to direct. Ultimately our faith in God and his grace is what gives the serenity to change those few things over which we have control (especially our attitude) and accept those things over which we don’t."
Job 38:4 "Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand."
In Job chapters 38-41, God goes into detail about all he can do. He’s reminding Job that everything that happens in the world is in God’s control. It’s almost like God’s saying, "Hey, who’s the boss here, buddy-you or me?"
Since we know that God is all-powerful and all-wise this should tell us something about letting Him take control of our lives and everything that concerns us.
We need to learn to pray about everything and let God work. We need to put everything we’re faced with in life in God’s hands. He’s smarter. He’s more powerful. He’s God!
There are some things I can pray about and let God handle.
ILL.- For example, I can pray for President George Bush and let God work in his life. This is a very easy thing for me to do. Why? Because he lives a thousand miles away from me! I don’t talk to him every day! He’s not my brother! He’s not my family member.
Now when it comes to my wife, my children, and my mother, this is a different matter. It’s much harder to pray and let God handle things in the lives of our family members and those close to us.
ILL.- For example, last summer my daughter, her husband and baby Hope came to central Illinois from Hutchinson, KS, to interview for the Christian Church in Catlin, IL. Chris interviewed for the associate minister’s position.
The church has many good things going for them: they run 500 in attendance, they have excellent offerings of around $10,000 to $11,000 every Sunday. There are some definite advantages of going to that church.
And one of the best advantages would be that my granddaughter Hope would live about 90 miles from us instead of 600!
So I told my daughter and her hubby Chris that I would be praying about this matter. Now how do you think I prayed about this situation? "O, please Lord, let them get the job! Let them move to Catlin and then I will be able to see my granddaughter every week or so! Please! Please! Please!" Sob, sob, sob.
No, honestly, that is not how I prayed. Here is how I prayed. "Lord, it’s up to you. If you want them in Catlin, open the door and help them to walk through that door."
Well, the door was opened but they didn’t walk through it. I think they should have, but that’s the way the ball bounces sometimes.
You should be proud of me, though, because I was able to pray and let God handle this situation. When it comes to my family, most of the time, I find it difficult to pray and let God take over. DON’T YOU?
We tend to pray and then try to tell our family members what to do. But somehow we need to learn to pray and let God. Pray and let God do His thing. Pray and let God go to work on the problem.
"Father, I can’t handle this. Please do something. You can handle it. I know you can."
ILL.- One lady said, "It was ’errands morning,’ and for several hours I raced through the tasks listed in my organizer. Finding myself near the fast-food district, I decided to splurge on a drive-through lunch. After all, I had a coupon.
"Sneaking through the back of several adjacent parking lots, I pulled up to an order monitor and said coolly, ’One regular roast beef on a 99-cent coupon, please.’
"As I dug in my organizer for that elusive coupon, I heard the monitor reply, ’Ma’am, do you know where you are?’ ’Right in my car,’ I said, ’ordering a roast beef.’
"’Ma’am,’ the voice continued, ’we don’t do roast beef. This is Kentucky Fried Chicken.’
"As I looked around, I realized I’d overshot Arby’s by two businesses. I meekly waved goodbye to the chicken people as I drove past the pickup window.
That lady said, "Sometimes God sends a reminder that I’m trying to go too far, too fast. My good intentions end up bungled and I fulfill the old saying, ’The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.’
"It took a few crimson-faced incidents such as the roast beef blunder to teach me what God really meant by Proverbs 19:2: ’It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.’"
Brethren, most of us go off half-cocked in life. We are in a hurry to get things done, to go places, to do things. And we often end up blowing some things royally because we forgot to do our homework first. By that, I mean, we didn’t pray first and let God do His thing.
Ps. 37:7 "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him."
Ps. 40:1-2 "I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on rock and gave me a firm place to stand."
We need to stop and pray and let God work. We need to wait on the Lord. We need to put our trust in the Lord. And when we do, life will be better.
CONCLUSION----------------------------------------
ILL.- Did you hear about the cat that survived the World Trade Center disaster? Oct. 18 - A miracle kitty survived 18 days without food amid the debris of ground zero, according to the New York Post.
Emergency workers rescued Precious the cat from the debris-covered roof of a damaged apartment building across from the World Trade Center. The 9-pound Persian suffered eye injuries, burns to her paws and smoke and dust inhalation. But the feline was able to stay alive by lapping puddles of contaminated rainwater.
"It’s unbelievable. It’s a miracle. I can’t believe she’s alive," D.J. Kerr, who owns Precious, told the paper. She and her husband Steve were out of town when the Twin Towers collapsed, blowing out the windows in their loft and filling it with flying glass, metal, dust and smoke.
Brothers and sisters, cats may have nine lives, but we humans have only one life. And it must be lived properly and wisely if we are to survive life’s troubles and come out on top.
Only as we live and let live can we make it. Only as we pray and let God will we be able to cope and survive the pain and problems of this life.
Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28
