Overcoming Adversity Part 2 - Face the truth and stop living in denial | Mark 11:20-26
Timestamp
00:00 - Livestream starts & Introduction
05:56 - Message: Face the Truth - Overcoming Adversity
06:30 - The power of positive thinking (recap - it isn't all that powerful)
07:06 - Deal with the root first.
11:10 - Mark 11:20-26
12:12 - Have faith in God
12:38 - Faith in yourself - if you put your mind to it you can accomplish anything.
13:45 - Believe in God First?
16:18 - How much faith do I need? How much is enough faith?
17:16 - What if I have no faith?
18:28 - Acknowledge the mountain. - ie. Face the Truth.
21:19 - Keep calm and carry on?
23:10 - The Stockdale Paradox
24:10 - Unwavering Faith
25:30 - The problem with optimism
28:20 - Confront the brutal facts
33:00 - Worship: Overcome with Lyrics
42:43- Catch up
46:22 - Close
Recap
Last week we started off our mini-series on overcoming adversity and discovered two things:
Why positive thinking isn’t all that powerful. We looked at why being positive is OK if your core beliefs are right. But optimism, positive thinking, on its own is largely ineffective in the long run when it comes to overcoming adversity because it doesn't deal with the root of our beliefs or our thinking. Which was a nice segway ->
Dealing with the root first. You know we have called this mini-series overcoming adversity because that resonates with people. More accurately, we should call is uprooting adversity, uprooting the obstacles that are in front of us. We saw that with the tree last week, and next week we will see it with the mountain. But that's next week!
So if positive thinking isn’t the answer to overcoming adversity? What is? What is Jesus’ strategy here? That’s what we are getting into this week, but first - let me tell you about a sauna.
The Sauna (company)
Let me tell you a story about me and about a sauna that you probably don’t know. You see as well as pastor our online church, I also run my own companies. And one of the questions people often ask me is how did I get started?
Well, if I trace it back there we some key, major events on my journey which have lead me to this point - and one of them has to do with a sauna - or more accurately, a sauna company. I started my working life working for a friend of mine, a chap called Simon O’Shaughnessy, in a sauna company he owned. We imported the saunas from Germany and installed them here in the UK. That was a fun job! I actually loved what I did - and I was there for 5 years, working for and with Simon. Towards the end of that time, Simon decided that he wanted to sell the company and move on to a new challenge.
So what was I going to do? Well, and I appreciate that this may sound a little strange, I actually thought God was telling me that He was going to give me that sauna business. I was so convinced of it, that I even went to the bank to see if I could borrow the money to buy it from Simon.
But that never came off - and it was sold to someone else and I ended up leaving.
So here I am, convinced that God was going to give me this business, but I was actually unemployed and to top it all off - our first child, Josh, had just been born. It was a crazy time. I had a new baby and no money - I had to do something. So I set up my own company doing digital stuff. I had to confront the fact that what I thought would happen, what I was "in faith" for was very, very different from the facts of the situation.
So what has that got to do with Mark’s Gospel and Jesus’ strategy for overcoming adversity?
“Now in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter, remembering, said to Him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree which You cursed has withered away.” So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”
#1: Have faith in God
So in this lesson - Jesus’ first response is the most critical aspect, it is the simplest of instruction, it’s easy to read but it is this hard to do: Have faith in God. It’s as simple as that.
I read a lot of books about how people became successful. I’ve seen a lot of quotes on Instagram from people wanting to gain success. And one of the most common beliefs that I read on how to be successful: have faith in yourself. Believe in yourself. If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.
And whilst I think there is some element of truth to this, and whilst I wholeheartedly believe that it is important to have healthy, balanced self-esteem you have got to agree that there is a slight difference between this thinking and what Jesus said.
Have faith in yourself. Have faith in God.
Do you see the difference?
That's not to say I don't think you should believe in yourself but believe in God first. Because fundamentally you and I are flawed human beings. We are going to mess it up. We are going to make the wrong decision somewhere and somehow.
We talked about this in Part 1 - remember - you are human. Humans are messy, unpredictable, reckless, limited and well, a bit selfish at times. God isn’t. He’s infallible. He’s a much better place to put your faith. He is good, he is sure, he is steadfast, he is faithful, he is loving, he is powerful, he is everlasting, he is joy, he is peace, he is wise, he is kind and he is for you. He knows you, inside and out. He wants what’s best for you and He knows how to get it to you. He has a plan for you.
So it makes much more sense to put your faith in God first.
This is true when it comes to people. You can put your faith in other people, the government, the doctors, the teachers, your friends. Putting your faith in God doesn't mean that you shouldn't put your faith in medicine or doctors too.
Just put your faith in God first.
But how much faith do we actually need?
Big faith. Little faith? How much is enough faith? Well, Jesus tells us the answer to that too:
“Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain...”
How much faith do I need?
A mustard seeds worth. That's it!
Because ultimately this is not about you, it is not about how much faith you can muster, it is not about what you bring to the table. This is not dependent on the size of your faith, but rather on the Grace and love of Almighty God. You just have to believe, with simple, small mustard seed faith. That's where it starts. Sure, your faith will grow over time, but this is where it starts...you just need that tiny bit of faith in God.
But what if I don't have faith? Well, again - the Bible helps us here too:
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for...”
Start with hope
We simply start with hope. Hope that the future can and will be different. Hope that we will come through COVID 19 stronger. Hope that we can still have and enjoy life despite the cancer diagnosis. Hope that tomorrow, or next week, or next month, somehow - despite it all the rainbow will shine, and God will lead us into the next chapter of life. Hope is where we start. And that becomes the mustard seed of faith that we need.
Love this! It takes the pressure off, right? I have faith in God. But I only need the smallest amount to get started and then God's grace and power help me with the rest!
So what’s next?
“So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain...”
#2: Acknowledge the mountain
In the explanation that Jesus gives, he doesn’t tell us to speak to a fig tree, he tells us to talk to a mountain. Why a mountain? Because it is the biggest thing on earth that we can see. It is so big, there is no way we as humans can impact it or destroy it.
You know what, if I see a small mound of dirt in my garden, I know I can move that. Give me a shovel and an hour of time, and it will be moved. That’s easy. As messed up as I am, I can believe in my ability to move that thing.
But this is a mountain. This is something colossal. It is gigantic. And I have no way of moving it. Not even with dynamite.
And this is important because when we have faith in God, the mountain, to him, is like the small mound of dirt in my garden to me. What is gigantic to me is microscopic to God. And what Jesus is saying here, is when you have faith in God, and not just yourself, the scope to overcome adversity, the scope to overcome obstacles is mountainous. That’s why Jesus said:
“With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
With God, the impossible becomes eminently possible. And that is awesome! We believe in a God that is not passive, that does change lives and that does help us move mountains, overcome adversity and have life in all it’s abundance...love it!
Now, before I get back on to faith in God...because this is such amazing stuff...I want you to notice a subtlety here that is essential.
Acknowledge the mountain.
You see to speak to the mountain. To cast it into the sea, you first have to acknowledge it is there. And if there is one thing that we are good at doing, especially as men, it is ignoring the mountain, pretending that it is not there and never acknowledging it whilst we live our lives permanently in the shadow of it. So we come up with sayings like, 'believe in yourself' and 'chin up' and 'keep calm and carry on', using them as excuses for not actually looking up and acknowledging the mountain and realising that by ourselves, we have no chance.
And that’s the key reason we don't acknowledge it. Because we know we can’t do anything about it. It exposes us, our weaknesses and our humanity.
This can be a really hard place to come to. Especially if you don’t have faith in God - because life then becomes hopeless. It is something that I see on a weekly basis - men, with a mountain, and have become hopeless. It is an awful place to be.
But if I add faith in God into that equation - it changes everything. I acknowledge the size of the mountain, but I also believe in something that is so much bigger and so much more incredible than that mountain and that is Christ Himself. That’s not hopeless. It is the exact opposite. It is full of hope because I know that things can and will change. It's liberating. It is exciting.
It is overcoming adversity and really starting to live.
The Stockdale Paradox
And as I was studying this, something called the Stockdale Paradox came to mind again. I mentioned this a few weeks ago when I asked who encourages you to do stuff that scares you?
Admiral James Stockdale was a prisoner of war from 1965 to 1973. During that time he was tortured over 20 times and regularly beaten. He lived out the war without and prisoner's rights, no release date and no reason to believe that he would ever see his family again.
But he did get released and author Jim Collins interviewed Admiral Stockdale about his time in prison - how did he survive? How did he overcome such a hopeless obstacle?
Stockdale's answer is extraordinary, he said, 'I never wavered in my faith, not only that, I would get out. But I would turn it into the defining event of my life. That in retrospect, I would not trade.'
So here, just like Jesus, Stockdale talks about the need to have faith. Jesus talks about having faith in God. An unwavering faith that you can and will ultimately prevail.
So Collins asked about those that didn't survive well, and stockade replied - and listen to this - "Oh, that's easy. It's the optimists, the ones who said, always we're going to be out by Christmas. And Christmas would come and it would go... And they suffered from a broken heart."
Interestingly, Viktor Frankl noticed something similar. He noticed that a lot of people in the concentration camps died around Christmas. He believed that they had such a strong hope they'd be out by Christmas that they simply died of hopelessness when that didn't turn out to be true. He called it "Tragic Optimism".
"Why do you need Faith? Well, it is strong enough to confront the brutal facts, optimism isn't. Optimism tries to ignore them, even pretend that they don't exist. But faith doesn't get derailed by the facts. It is strong enough and secure enough to confront them and deal with them.”
— Matt Edmundson
It is about Acknowledging the mountain. After his interview with Stockdale, Collins called this Confronting the Brutal Facts.
To do that, you need faith. Strong unwavering faith that is much deeper than optimism. It is a belief that is at the core of you.
Why do you need Faith? Well, it is strong enough to confront the brutal facts, optimism isn't. Optimism tries to ignore them, even pretend that they don't exist. But faith doesn't get derailed by the facts. It is strong enough and secure enough to confront them and deal with them.
And it's all here, in this passage with Jesus. Frankl, Stockdale and Collins all stumbled across a truth that has been around for thousands of years: if you want to move the mountain, move past optimism, have faith and confront that mountain.
So what has all of this got to do with my sauna story?
Well... I am glad you asked!
I had my unwavering faith - that God was giving me that company. And I am going to talk more about this next week - how did I know this? It can sound a bit crazy, right? So tune in next week as it is good stuff! But for now, I was sure, unwavering in my faith about this.
But I had to acknowledge the brutal facts - I didn't own the company. I wasn't given it. I didn't buy it. It was sold to someone else. In fact - I didn’t even work at that company.
I had faith in God. But I also acknowledged the mountain.
So let me close that story. 5 years later, the German company that we imported the saunas from came to an end of the contract with the chap that purchased it. They had decided that they didn’t want to renew it with him. They called me and asked if I would get back involved. In the end, I prevailed, and I didn't have to pay a single penny to get it. God did indeed give me the company. It just wasn’t instant. And I went on to run that company for several years and meet some incredible people as a result.
It's good stuff eh? It turns out Jesus was right all along! And you know what, there's more - but more on that next week! We will have the trilogy part that I can't wait to get into.