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please, if you will, and turn
in your Bible to the book of Romans, chapter eight. Romans,
chapter eight in your Bible. Now, I baited you a little bit
this morning with a double-dog dare that you would attend church
on Sunday night, and someone said, Pastor Monty's going to
be controversial. For some, this could be very controversial,
but you likely will not admit it. There will be some, perhaps,
that will find this to be very difficult and direct medicine. But what I have to say tonight
is medicine. You don't always like medicine.
I don't like medicine. I especially don't like taking
pills. I don't like taking pills. But sometimes you take a liquid
medicine. How many of NyQuil? You like
NyQuil? You like NyQuil? Don't raise
your hand, addicts, NyQuil addicts out there. Some people like NyQuil. I don't care for any of that
stuff, the chemicals of that stuff. But every once in a while,
you get sick. And you have to have some good
medicine. And good medicine does not keep you sick. Good medicine
heals your problem. I want to talk to you really
directly about something tonight. And if I am a little more blunt
than what you want me to be, just take it, okay? Take it this
evening. Because I've become a little
bit weary about how many of us make excuses about our lives
based upon past trauma. Based upon past trauma. There
are some of us who we might not admit it freely. But we base
everything, including our own personal limitations, our own
failures, our own excuses, upon some event or a series of events
or a season of events that somehow took place in our past. And what
is really unfortunate is that the philosophy that my past must
determine my present, that is wrong. That is wrong. That is
wrong. Pastor Monty, you don't know
what an awful thing happened to me. I don't care. This is
where it starts to get rough. I don't care how bad it was.
I'm not denying the badness of it. I don't care how bad it was.
There is nothing, nothing that has happened in your past that
needs to determine who you are in the present. There is nothing,
okay? Now, that's a big statement I
just made. And immediately someone says,
well, pastor, you know, preach this to the rest of the crowd.
I'm the grand exception. The problem is you're not the
grand exception, and that's what holds you back. Now, I want to
read Romans 8. We're going to look at verse
number 35, and I'll explain why I chose this passage in a moment.
Romans 8, verse 35. Paul says this, who shall separate
us from the love of Christ? Kind of a rhetorical question.
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or
nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, these words
from Psalm 42, as it is written, for thy sake we are killed all
the day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. He
says, what shall separate us from the love of God? Shall any
of these things, any of these bad things, any of these bad
incidents, any of these things that happened to us in the past,
any of these things that we were a victim of, can any of these
things separate us from the love of God? Look at verse number
37. Nay, that's not a horse talking. He's saying no, no, no. I want you to hear something.
The Bible is crystal clear that the things that have happened
in your past, no matter how bad and negative they are, do not
have to affect your present or your future. I want to make that
crystal clear. If you believe that something
that happened in your past has to affect you, now I'll get into
this, because your circumstances might have changed. because of
something that happened in your past. But if you have the idea
in your mind that something in your past has happened that fundamentally
has to change you as a person, and you believe that, and so
as a person you have changed. Maybe at one time you used to
be very joyful, and now you're very depressed. Maybe at one
time you used to be very faithful to church, and now you don't
go to church. Whatever it might be. And you say, well, Pastor Marty,
I'm going to say this. This is the reason why, and you
throw out a reason at me. I say to you the same word that
Paul said in verse number 37, nay, no, no. Your past is not determinative
of your present or your future. Paul says, nay, in all these
things, what things? Tribulation, peril, distress,
sword, famine, nakedness. Nay, in all these things, what
are we? We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. That's
a mindset. That's a mindset. But with Pastor
Monty, he just talked about being beaten down. But you're a conqueror. You're not being beaten down.
You're a conqueror. He says, we're more than conquerors
to him that loved us, for I am persuaded. Now, what does persuaded
mean? Persuaded means that I have become convinced of something
in my mind. Now, I want everyone to look
up here. Look up here. Your problem is not what happened
to you in your past, period. Boom. That's not your problem. Your problem is your mindset. Your problem is your processing. Paul said, for I am persuaded. The idea of the word persuasion
means mental processing. It is a mindset. I have come,
the idea of persuasion means this, I believe this at one point,
but I have come to believe this now. In other words, I took the
natural route, believing what everybody else believes about
bad things, but he said at this point, I've grown up. I've learned
a truth that is contrary to what everybody else thinks. I've learned
a truth, now I am persuaded. I become convinced. Now I am
persuaded that neither death nor life, now listen to this,
listen to this, listen to this. These things are a big deal.
You want to talk about a big deal, my life is ruined, I stubbed
my toe. Oh, I hear dumb stuff like that
all the time. Your life is not ruined because
of anything except for you. For I am persuaded that neither
death, how many know death is a big deal? It's like one of
the bigger deals. Neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, by the way, these are
talking about dark and fallen angels, nor principalities, nor
powers, nor things that are present, nor things to come, listen to
this, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall
be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord. I am persuaded, I am a conqueror. Now, ladies and gentlemen, that
is a mindset. This sermon, by the way, for
those who work in the audio department, I want this posted on my Peace
of Mind series. I'm adding this to my Peace of
Mind series. I want to talk to you very quickly tonight, maybe
not so quickly, maybe not. We might be here a tad longer,
a little longer. Pastor Monty, you wouldn't keep
us overtime. Look, we gave you three Sunday nights off, okay? This is paybacks right now, okay? So fasten your seatbelts. I want
to talk to you tonight about the topic quickly, dealing with
trauma. Dealing with trauma. Because
as a pastor, oftentimes I get involved in counseling, and Pastor
Morris far more than I, and trauma, a bad experience, a horrible
incident, something that is life-shattering, those are real events that have
occurred in our lives. When I was thinking about this
sermon, I was going back through some of the things, events in
my own life that were highly, highly traumatic. I was thinking
about my wife and events that took place in her life early
on and then through life. Highly traumatic. If anyone should
be traumatized, she should. She is married to me. Highly
traumatic. When I preach tonight, I want you to hear me on this
because someone's going to leave here mad and they're going to
misquote me. And I don't want you to misquote
me. That's wrong. That's wrong to do that. Trauma is real. Did you hear what I just said?
Trauma is real. People go through some really
difficult instances in life and incidences in life. Bad things
do happen. There is nowhere in the Bible
that Paul says we're to deny the reality of something that
is bad. We practice something that we
don't maybe know it. I'll tell you about it right
now. We as Westerners practice something that is called Scottish
common sense realism. It is the method by which we
think. Westerners think differently from Easterners, from people
in Asia. We think differently. Scottish
common sense realism is something that we look at evidence and
we draw conclusions from evidence. And so in Scottish common sense
realism, we use categories for things. We categorize things.
So, for example, if your boss calls you in tomorrow morning,
come to my office. You go to his office with fear
and trembling. Kind of sits there in a grumbly mood at his desk. And then he looks up from his
desk and he says, listen, Joe, You've done a good job. You're
getting a $5 an hour raise. Do you know what we call that?
We call it beyond a miracle. Do you know what we call that?
We call that good. We categorize that as good. What
if the boss calls Joe into the office and says, Joe! Sick of
you, you're done here. We categorize that as bad. We think in areas of category.
It is a legitimate way to think. Trauma is real. Trauma may change
your circumstances in a negative way. Okay, your circumstances.
Because trauma is real, something has happened. And many times
that means something about your life is going to change. For
example, if you have the death of a loved one, that is traumatic,
especially the death of a spouse or a child. And anyone can tell
me who's experienced that in your life, it changes your life,
especially a spouse. If your spouse dies, half of
you is gone, because you were one. Half of you is gone. And
that changes the circumstance. Well, Pastor Juan, you know,
my spouse died so I can never know joy again. That's where
you're wrong. That's where you're wrong. Well,
it's changed. You know what it does to some
people? They get bitter. They get resentful. Some people turn
against God. All of those things are wrong,
even though the trauma is real, and that trauma has negatively
impacted your circumstances. Things like divorce, or disease,
an illness, a job loss, they changed the circumstances of
my life. They are things that we categorize as something that
is a loss, but listen, They do not have to fundamentally change
who I am. There's a problem afoot, because
we've been convinced that somehow, if a person has gone through
something very negative, that they have a right to have had
their life changed negatively, that they have a right to be
the person that they have become. Trauma, I believe, can make us
bitter, or it can make us better. Listen carefully. You determine
the outcome every time. Now, you look at me right now.
You are responsible for your own life, period. You are, not
one other person, not one other person, you are responsible for
your own happiness. You are responsible for your
own contentment. Well, Pastor Monty, you know,
I married a wife and she's responsible for that. No, she's not, buddy.
You're responsible for that. And the way I respond to the
trauma and the situations of life, if I respond biblically,
and we'll get to this in a moment, I have the ability to rise above
the worst of circumstances. If I do not respond biblically,
I will wallow in my self-pity and in my misery. The difference
between people who suffer similar traumatic events is how they
mentally process the trauma. It is what they believe about
the trauma. It is, in the words of the Apostle
Paul, how they have become persuaded about that trauma and what meaning
they assign to it. Now, I want you to hear me. As
a pastor of so many years, 36, 37 years, whatever it is, as
a pastor that longstanding, I have seen some people go through some
deep water. By the way, I've been through
some deep water, too. But I've seen some people go through some
very deep water. It's interesting. There are differences between
people. There are some people who will fold like a leaf under
the least, smallest level of trauma, almost not, couldn't
be called trauma. They'll fold like a leaf and
then they will whine about it for the remainder of their lives.
There are other people who will undergo traumatic experiences
beyond anything that I can possibly imagine going through myself.
And I've said so many times to people, I don't even know how
I would respond if I were going through that. And they go through
that situation not only with a sense of grace. Now, they have
hurt. They have tears. They have a sense of loss. But
they go through that thing with a sense of grace, and they come
out quickly on the other side of that thing. And they rise
above that thing to walk again on the sunny side of the street.
Pastor Monty, what's the difference between those two people? It
has nothing to do with the level of trauma. It has everything
to do with their processing or their becoming persuaded. Now,
hear me about this because this is where I got fired up. I was
studying this out this week. There are two vastly different
psychological approaches to trauma. Without being a medical doctor,
let me be a bit clinical for you. There is number one, the
number one, and by the way, this is the most popular view of trauma,
there is the cause-effect relationship between trauma. In other words,
trauma is the cause, and the effect is where I am. So listen,
listen. Someone says, oh, Pastor Marty.
My parents were abusive to me when I was a kid. And because
they were abusive to me, I've been a loser my whole life. And
everyone says, yeah, your parents ruined you. It's all their fault.
And it seems to make sense. Am I right on the surface? Right?
A little bit on the surface? It seems to make sense. Or how
about this one? Try this one on for size. Liz,
this one. Pastor Monty, I appreciate your invitation for me to come
to your church, but when I was eight years old, I got hurt in
a Baptist church. The preacher said something that
offended me and hurt my feelings, and I'll never go back to church
again. Boulderdash. That's garbage. That's garbage. You don't want to go to church
and so you made up a convenient excuse. By the way, you weren't
traumatized. Okay, get over it. How many of
you, how many of you have ever gone out to eat and had a crummy
meal? OK, I was eating at Chipotle,
which is normally pretty good, at Chipotle in West Virginia.
OK, maybe that was the problem. I don't know, but it was a Chipotle.
And to be in all fairness, it was closing time. It was closing
time. And by the time I got there,
those little buckets where they scoop the food out of, they were
almost empty. And everything looked like it
had glossed over with some kind of something growing on it. I
mean, I'd been sitting there all day. And I paid $15 for something
that was nearly not edible. What a bad experience. Guess
what? The next day I went back to a
restaurant, a different restaurant, mind you, okay, but I went back.
I had a bad experience in one, it didn't stop me from going
to another. Is everybody following what I'm saying? Okay, now I've
gone off of preaching and gone into preaching. All right, cause
and effect. Trauma being the cause, the current, I would say,
I would claim that my current ruined life is the effect, okay?
Do you know what that is? That is Freudian psychology. How many of you are familiar
with Freud? Okay, all I need to say about this is this, Freud
was a weirdo. Okay, he was a weirdo to the
core. Analytical psychology is the
dark side, it is flirting with Satan, it is entering into the
realm of the damned, and no Christian should believe in it, and yet
one of the fundamental tenets of Freudian psychology is widely
accepted in Bible-preaching churches. Oh, he can't help who he is,
it's because his parents. It's because of his upbringing.
It's because he got really hurt at some point in time in his
life. This, by the way, psychologically, is something called psychological
determinism, which we reject because the Bible rejects it,
okay? Determinism meaning this, that
an event in my past has the power to inevitably, that's the word
determinism, to inevitably determine my present and my future. So
that this event back here makes me who I am today, and there's
no way out of that because of the event. If I believe that,
I would never preach another sermon. God, by his grace, through
the power of the word of God, can change and deliver us. And
so, but some of us have agreed with this. We didn't know we
were agreeing with Freud, who was a weirdo. We didn't know
that. But some of us have agreed with this and accepted determinism. This school of psychology offers
no hope for the present or the future. It only offers comfort
and excuses, where the counselor will say, you know, I'm glad
you told me about this great trauma in your past. Nothing
about your life right now is your fault. You're not to blame
for how you are. It encourages the counselee to
commiserate with the counselor and spend endless hours and lots
of money in therapy sessions or to cry on their friend's shoulders
who quickly get sick of hearing about it with no answer. Now,
I didn't deny your trauma, but I did say it's time to do something
about it. There's a difference. It does
not have to affect who you are forever. I hesitate to use this
story. I'm going to talk about someone
that you don't know, but I'm going to talk about it in very
glittering generality. I was with a man one time, and
he was talking to me. about how as a boy he suffered
very, very serious sexual abuse on a very high level. And after
he told me details of the story, I said to him, I'd known him
for several years by that point, and I said to him, I said, wait
a minute, I said, you're happily married, you have
good kids, you have a great career. I said, man, you got everything
going for you. I said, why didn't that, I mean, it wasn't just
a one-time event. It was an ongoing thing for a
couple years. Why didn't that sexual abuse, why didn't that
just ruin you? Here's what he said to me, he
said, He said, Preacher, I came to the conclusion that I was
a victim and that I was not going to allow that to frame the rest
of my life, and so I became, and let's use the words of the
Apostle Paul, I became fully persuaded that that does not
have to frame who I am unless I let it. Now I know what I just
said was highly offensive. I know that's highly offensive.
But it's absolutely true. We give the past, even when we're
a victim of something, we give the past far too much power in
our lives. So what is the best way? Cause
and effect is not the best way. How about this? We believe trauma
is real, but that it doesn't have to have effect. We could
call this trauma, but no effect. Trauma, but no effect. Now, understanding
that traumatic things can change my circumstances, what I'm arguing
with you tonight is that traumatic things do not have to change
who I am as a person. While traumatic things happen,
the past has no real bearing upon my present mental attitude. Oh. Unless I let it, oh, unless
I like it, I'm really concerned that that's
a lot of people's problems. They embrace the pain of their
past. They embrace their victimhood
because it empowers them in other ways. I'm gonna get into that
more in a moment. This is very controversial, what
I have to say tonight. The past may have changed my
circumstances with the trauma but no effect model. The past
may have changed my circumstances. It does not have to negatively
change me as a person. The past has no real power over
me except as I imagine it to and then I allow it to. And that's absolutely true. Oh,
but Pastor Marty, you don't understand. This horrible thing has happened.
Stop your whining. It's in the past, you're still
alive, you're still breathing, you still have a brain, you still
have a heart, you still have a mind. Get a hold of yourself. That is an incident that is confined
to time. It only can invade your present
and your future as you allow it to do so by your ongoing embrace. Now, I'm being very blunt tonight,
and this is really good medicine, and I know there are people right
now who are rebelling against this. Fasten your seatbelts. You say, Pastor Marty, what are
you saying? By the way, this philosophical, this philosophy
or psychology was actually promoted by a man named Alfred Adler.
Anyone ever hear of Adler? Ever hear of Adler? Y'all heard
of Freud, the weirdo? Okay, you heard of Freud. Okay,
Freud and Adler were friends. until Adler looked at Freud and
said, you crazy man. He said, you're ridiculous. You don't give people real hope.
You just sit people in a chair and let them talk and commiserate
for hours. Adler developed the polar opposite. This is historic
psychology. Adler developed the polar opposite
thinking that much more aligns with the thinking of the Bible.
Now, let me connect a dot here. Remember all those words I read
in the Bible a moment ago? Peril, distress, nakedness, sword,
tribulation, persecution. Remember all that? Okay, Paul
said, I went through all of that, and then he said this. He said,
none of it matters. He said, is this gonna separate
me from the love of God? He said, no! Why? Because I'm fully persuaded,
and then he lists a whole bunch of other big deal things, none
of this can hurt me. Look at me, look at me, look
at me. Your past cannot touch you now
except you allow it. And some people don't like what
I'm saying because they want to use their past as an excuse
for every failure of their life. Here's what I believe. What we
believe about past trauma, what we believe about it, what we're
persuaded about it, in the words of Paul, what we believe about
past trauma determines how and if we will be negatively shaped
by that trauma. What we believe determines whether
or not, it's not predetermined that a trauma has to affect you
today, it is what I think about it. Now what I want to do very
quickly is examine Paul's approach. And Paul's approach is found
in Romans chapter eight, the passage we just read together.
Number one, point number one, acknowledge trauma. Acknowledge
trauma. Look at verse number 35 of chapter
eight. We're gonna look at the second
part of the verse. Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine,
or nakedness, or peril, or sword. What was Paul doing? He was acknowledging
the reality of it. We don't deny it, listen carefully,
and I am not minimizing it. So someone out there in the audience
right now is accused of, Pastor Mahoney, you've just never gone
through any, oh, by the way, by the way, by the way, baby,
you think I had been through some stuff? I've been through
enough stuff to curdle milk. I'll tell you, not what Paul
went through. Paul went through way more than I ever did. But
I'm not minimizing what you went through. Do you understand that?
I'm not minimizing it. If you walk out of here with
your feelings, and you say, Pastor, man, he just doesn't understand
me. And he just doesn't understand how I feel. Blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're crazy. Okay, I understand how
you feel, and I understand deeply how you feel. We're not minimizing
the trauma. Paul did not do that. Paul experienced
tremendous trauma. He talked about tribulation.
That would be an incident or a season of great pain and adversity. Paul went through that. He talked
about distress. That would be an incident or
season of difficulty, complication. Feeling overwhelmed. Anyone ever
been there? That's the word distress. That's what the Greek word means.
He talked about persecution. That is either an incident or
seasons in time of conflict, interpersonal relationships,
struggles back and forth. Persecution. He talked about
famine and nakedness. What is that? That is an incident
or a season of great need, whether it be financial or some other
need that he would have in his life. He had that. An incident
of vulnerability. That is distress. Distress made
him vulnerable. Maybe he went through a season
of time of that. He talks about that. He talks
about sword. What is the sword? What is that?
It is an incident or season of life that is a threat to life
itself. Spastimani, I've never faced
a sword. No. People have threatened to kill me. I've actually had
death threats before. I kind of like it. I kind of
like it, honestly, because it heightens the drama hero factor
of the pastor. I kind of like it when someone
sends me a death letter. I'd rather get, I'll tell you,
I'd rather get a death threat in the mail than a letter of
criticism. I'd much rather. Just say you're going to kill
me. If you don't like me that much, just say you're going to kill me. I don't
mind a death threat. But in all reality, no one has ever seriously
threatened my life with death. But you know what? Paul said
you might go through an incident or season of your life where
you're facing the sword. What about the sword known as
cancer? What about the sort of diabetes
or the sort of disease? Those are all things that are
a threat to life. Paul did not minimize. In fact, not only did
Paul not minimize the bad, but Paul actually maximized it. I
want you to look on the screen. You can put up the 2 Corinthians
passage for me. I want you to look at that. Paul
maximized it. Paul didn't say, oh, it's nothing.
So a lot of preachers say, oh, just don't, just, it's nothing,
it's not a big deal. Hey, your trauma is a big deal. Paul said this in 2 Corinthians
11, are they the ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool, I
am more. He said, I can prove that I'm
a pastor, I can prove that I'm an apostle. In labors more abundant,
in stripes that is in beatings above measure, in prison more
frequent, in deaths off, threatened of death, of the Jews five times
received I 40 stripes save one. 39 beating on the back with a
cat of nine tails and that happened five times. Thrice was I beaten
with rods. Once I was stoned. Folks, I want
you to think about this. I'm not coming back to church
because it hurt my feelings. What? What? My feelings get hurt
around this place on a weekly basis. Here I am. How ridiculous. Paul said, I
got beaten. I got stoned. I got beaten with
a cat o' nine tails. Thrice was I beaten with rods.
Once was I stoned. Thrice I suffered shipwreck.
Think about it, folks. Three times shipwrecked. Why
would that man ever get on a boat again? If anyone should have
had a phobia of sailing, it should have been the Apostle Paul. Most
of us after the first bad experience, because it was a doozy recorded
for us in the book of Acts, most of us after the first bad experience
would say, I'm walking the rest of my life. I'm never going to
be cast into the Adriatic Sea holding a chunk of a ship ever
again. And what did Paul do? He got
right on the boat again. Okay, I'm going somewhere with
this. He said, a night and a day have
I been in the deep, floating around in water. He said, I've
been in... You want to talk about trauma?
How many know this is trauma? Nothing that's happened in your
life can hold a candle to this. In journeyings often, in perils
in waters, perils means danger. In perils in waters, in perils
of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, everybody's against
me. In perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils
in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false
brethren. Ladies and gentlemen, that's
a lot of trauma. Makes our lives look pretty easy,
don't it? Well, Pastor, you know, it was kind of slippery out there
tonight and the car spun a little bit. First world problems. He goes
on in verse number 27. He says, in weariness, he was
tired. No doubt. In painfulness, he
was achy. In watchings often, that is,
he was on high alert. He was scanning the horizon,
are the words psychologists would use. In hunger and thirst, in
fastings often, in cold and nakedness. What a life, what a life. And
then he says, and I love verse 28, I love it. Besides all those
things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the
care of all the churches. I read that list, and I see what
a wimp I am." And Paul was magnifying that list to let us know there
is real trauma in life. We acknowledge that trauma. But
I want you to see something else in chapter 8 of Romans again.
Not only do we acknowledge trauma, but number two, We ask trauma. We ask trauma. That is in verse
number 35. He asks a question right at the
beginning of the verse. Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Okay, that's a question. We call
it a rhetorical question because the answer will end up being
no one can do it. But I want to ask my trauma question.
I had a bad time sometime in life, and so I'm going to ask
it a question. And the question is this, is does this trauma
mean that I am forever changed? Now listen, your circumstances
may be forever changed, but it does not have to ruin you. Okay, well, Pastor Monty, you
just don't understand. No, no, I do understand. I do
understand the truth of the word of God that I need to ask you
a question. Well, Pastor Monty, you know,
we grew up very, very poor. So what? So what? Stop it. Well, you just don't
understand how it is to be poor. Oh, really? My dad died when
I was in the eighth grade. I get it. Pastor Monty, I grew
up in a single-parent home. So did I. I get it. Did you ever
watch your dad languish in a hospital bed that was brought into the
house only to be carted off to a hospital somewhere and go visit
him one last time and hug him and turn your back knowing he
was dying and knowing you'd never see him again? That's pretty
rough on a 12-year-old boy. By the way, by the way, it didn't
ruin me. It didn't ruin me. In fact, it
is that thing that brought me to Jesus Christ as my savior.
It is that thing that made me come face-to-face with the reality
that there is an eternity, that I will spend somewhere, either
heaven or hell, forever, and that one day, it might be in
the distant future from the time that I was 12, but that one day,
I would be checking out of this world, and something would happen,
life would continue on, and as a 12-year-old boy, I wondered
about eternity, and by the grace of God, God brought some men
into my life with the gospel and it changed me and I got saved. And now I know. Death of my dad
was a trauma, as it would be for any boy to ever face that.
It did not have to shape who I have become and who I am as
a man. I ask the trauma questions, just
like Paul did. Though trauma may have changed
my circumstances, is it a foregone conclusion that it must negatively
impact who I am forever? No. Does the trauma forever condemn
me to a life of misery, anxiety, defeat, or resentment? Ask it
the question. Does this really mean that forever
I have to live this way? The answer is no. Does the past
trauma prove God doesn't love me? No. Paul said, nay. In all these things, we're more
than conquerors. Paul said, I am persuaded that
God loves me no matter what happened in my life. Has this past trauma
destined me to live in mental anguish and darkness forever?
The answer is no. Must the past trauma determine
my present and future mental state? No. Must this past trauma
make me cynical? No. You look at me. Pastor Monty, I've learned so
many things in life. I'm just a cynic towards everyone. You
haven't learned anything about life. The real thing you've learned
about life if you're a cynic is you've learned how to poison
your soul. And I'll be honest with you, now I'm gonna just
preach. I've run into too many bitter, angry, cantankerous,
moss-backed Baptist people who at their hearts are cynical toward
everyone new they meet. God help you if that's you. I
never want to be that way. Now let me be plain. In life,
I've seen out of people the good, the bad, and the ugly. Baby, I've seen it all. And I
refuse to let the bad and the ugly make me cynical toward people
that God has called me to minister to. I'll take abuse, and by the
way, I do. I do. I'll catch it for this
sermon. I don't care. Write me a letter.
I double-dog dare you. But I refuse to become resentful
and cynical because I'm a pastor of God's people. And I love my
sheep, even the bad ones. I love my sheep. You know why? Past trauma doesn't need to make
me cynical. Must past trauma become the determining factor
of the rest of my life? Look at me, no. And if you think
it does have to be, then you've adopted Freudian psychology and
you're going completely antithetical to scripture. Point number three,
not only do I acknowledge trauma and I ask trauma, but I also
answer trauma. Look at verse number 37, verse
37. Paul says it in one word, nay,
nay. He answers his own question,
no, absolutely not. You know what you need to do?
Just say no to trauma. Pastor Monty, it's not my fault,
it happened in my past. Okay, it happened, it happened,
look at me. It's over and done with. Now
what are we gonna do going forward? Pastor Monty, it just shook me.
That's what trauma does. Do you not think that when Paul
went down in the ship, his heart wasn't beating? When he was cast
up on the island, his heart wasn't beating. He was in a state of
high adrenaline. Cortisol was pumping through
his body. He was wound up. The heathen
people of that land built a fire for them, welcomed them to the
warmth of the fire. Paul went to gather firewood,
which is awesome, because the great apostle Paul didn't just
sit there like a great apostle. He went and gathered firewood,
amen? He went and gathered the firewood, and when he gathered
some firewood, a viper, a snake, came out of the firewood and
bit him! Wow, you talk about adding insult
to injury? Let me tell you something, folks.
All of those things could have discouraged him. The list I read
a moment ago out of the pages of the Bible would have been
enough to make most pastors quit. It would have been enough to
make most evangelists resign. It would have been enough to
make most missionaries come home. They wouldn't have had to have
suffered five of those things, and they would be off the field.
But Paul said, these things don't shake me. The answer to trauma
is I say no. I'm not denying it happened.
Paul magnified the fact that it happened, but he was denying
the idea that it had to make him a certain way, okay? Determinism,
that is the cause and effect thing, that is Freudian psychology,
says that trauma must shape you. Don't believe it. The Bible says
it must not. By saying no to past trauma,
you declare your willingness to leave trauma in the past and
move forward. Past trauma, whatever it is. Now, I'm saying whatever it is.
There are no exceptions. This is where it gets really
offensive, because everybody will say, well, mine is bigger than
yours, and mine is the exception to the rule. There are no exceptions
to what I'm saying. None. Past trauma does not have
to change who you are. It does not have to rob you of
your life. It can only ruin you if you choose
for it to do so. And many people choose this habitually. And they have reasons. They have
reasons. Teleology, and it's a big word,
it's an unfamiliar word to most of us, is the idea that the things
that we believe and practice, we have a reason for doing them,
and we have a reason for thinking. Well, Pastor Monty, why would
anyone hold on to past trauma and let it pollute their present
life? Why would they do that? You wanna know why? Because you
discovered trauma gets you sympathy. And you like sympathy. Everyone's
gonna feel sorry for me. You know, they do. And we should
be sympathetic. That's the right thing to do.
When something happens, it's really good for us as a church
to have a heart of sympathy and a heart of prayer and a heart
of compassion. Those are all biblical things. Not for the
next 20 years. and a person who gets hooked
on sympathy, just like a drug. They get hooked on sympathy,
and so they've had this trauma, and people are really sympathetic
for the first three days. Don't be offended when people
forget about your trauma, because they have a plate full of their
own. They're sympathetic for the first three days, then they
forget about it, so you find yourself reminding them over
and over again how bad life is. And then after a while, people
get sick of you and they don't want to hang out with you. Some people
like to hold on to their trauma because it gave them sympathy.
Some people have discovered that trauma becomes a good excuse
for not doing the things that you should do. It's a good excuse. If you're going through trauma,
it really gives you an easy out. You can say something like this.
I just don't feel up to it. And admittedly, if you've gone
through a really earth-shattering, big, traumatic experience in
your life, you probably don't feel like doing something the
next day, or the next two days, or maybe the next week, or maybe
the next two weeks. But look at me, look at me. 20 years of not doing something? Boulder Dash. 20 years? 10 years? No. Well, I would do that, but I
got so shaken that one time, I just don't feel up to it. You
know, you're using your trauma as a convenient excuse. The excuse
being you don't want to do something, and so you just use that as the
excuse. Now, you know what I tell you? Snap out of it. Because
Paul said that's not the right mindset. So what is the mindset? The mindset is to be a super
conqueror. We are more than conquerors to him that loved us. What is
the mindset? The mindset is to be an overcomer. What is the
mindset? The mindset is to be fully persuaded. It is to be
convinced. that this mess in my past, and
it's there baby, that this mess in my past does not determine
who I am today and who I will be tomorrow. It does not determine
that. Some people embrace their trauma
because it allows them to claim a phobia, a made up fear, fictitious
fear, their trauma allows them to claim a phobia that can exempt
them from things that they would rather not do anyway. It's funny,
no one questions phobias because they're diagnosable. Well, the
doctor said, I have this phobia. The doctor said, I have this
phobia. And we're, oh, oh, the doctor said. Oh, since the doctor
said, and you have this phobia, oh, we just feel sorry for you.
You don't have to participate in life anymore. By the way,
that'll ruin a kid. That'll ruin a kid. My wife,
who teaches in the public school system, she said most of the
kids have a letter, acronym, diagnosis of some sort or the
other. She said those kids are assured that they have some kind
of problem, ADHD, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, whatever it may be,
that they have some kind of problem. They're told that from the time
that they're young, and they lean upon that for everything,
and they say, well, because I have this, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah. throughout some scientific term, I have this, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, I don't have to do anything. What a horrible
thing to teach your kids. What a handicapping thing to
teach your kids. What a limiting thing to teach
your kids, especially in the light of the scripture that says,
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. So problematic,
so dangerous. We fall prey to this. Sometimes
we embrace our trauma because trauma becomes a grand excuse
both for sin and for failure in life in general. And if you
have a trauma, rather than judge you, people will sympathize with
you. And if you remind them often
enough, they will give you a hall pass for your entire life. I want you to look at me. That
is why people hold on to this. It's a really nice hall pass.
And as long as you're, well, you know, I'm just a different
person from what I was. It's changed me, Pastor Monty.
Why? You know why? Because you let
it. Because you mentally said, this will change me. And when
you discovered the level of convenience that having a diagnosable phobia
or fear or a problem or a trauma can give you, you started using
it like a credit card. And do you know what it's done
to your life? Ruined it. held you back. You say, Pastor, this is too
much. It's not too much. What is the
answer? Well, I have to acknowledge my
trauma, that's number one. I have to ask my trauma, that's
number two. I have to answer my trauma, that's number three.
Quickly, one last one. I need to ascend above my trauma. Ascend above my trauma. Look
at verse number 37. So Paul said this. Notice the
next verse. In other words, I become convinced I become convinced that none
of this garbage has to frame my life. I'm convinced that nothing
that happened yesterday has to ruin today. I'm convinced that
the trauma, though it was real, though it was big, and no one
is denying that, I am convinced that that trauma no longer has
to hold sway over me unless I allow it. I am persuaded that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Bible says
I am a super conqueror and I am persuaded. What does that mean? Trauma cannot beat me down. I may get knocked down once in
a while, I will not get knocked out. I may get hit once in a
while and stagger because of something that happens in my
life, but I'm not going to fall down permanently and lie there,
because I am, according to the Bible, a super conqueror, and
I believe that, and let me tell you something, I am not a victim. I am not a victim of any person,
and I am not a victim of any circumstances, because God's
word says, as a born-again Christian, I am a conqueror, and I'm persuaded
of it. I'm persuaded. Yeah, but sometimes
when you get beat down, you don't feel much like a conqueror. I
know. I've been there. I've been there. And then I read
my Bible. And you know what I do? I reconvince myself. because
it's what God says, and I'm persuaded once again. To ascend above the
trauma, I believe that God loves me, and nothing will ever change
that. Nothing changes that. I am persuaded,
Paul said, that nothing can separate us from the love of God, which
is in Christ Jesus our Lord. God loves me. Can I tell you something? God
loved you. when he allowed a negative trauma
to come into your life. God loved you. Pastor Monty,
if God loved me, he wouldn't have allowed it. Stop that. You're
not God. God loved you, and you can love
him in and through that. And I am fully persuaded of that.
Well, Pastor, it doesn't make sense to me. That's why I have
to be fully persuaded. I am fully convinced that if
a dark time comes, God loves me. And if a bad time comes,
God loves me. I am fully convinced that God
loves me, no matter what has come, good or bad, I am convinced
of it. I am fully persuaded God loves
me. I've become persuaded that nothing
in my past has to affect my present or ruin my future. I am persuaded
that nothing has to cripple me. I am persuaded that the level
of loss, the level of hurt, the level of pain, which was very,
very real, does not need to knock me out of the race. What is the
difference between the person who suffers a deep trauma and
comes out on the other side a victor? and the person who suffers a
deep trauma and comes out on the other side depressed, deranged,
and perhaps institutionalized. What is the difference? Choice. If you don't believe that, then
sign up with Sigmund Freud, sit on a couch for endless hours,
pay thousands of dollars, and commiserate. He'll be glad to
agree with you. If you do believe that you don't
have to be a victim to whatever circumstance it is, then welcome
to the fellowship of the Apostle Paul. Welcome to the fellowship
of distress, tribulation, pain. Welcome to the fellowship of
shipwrecks. Welcome to the fellowship of
beatings. Welcome to the fellowship of being stoned. Welcome to the
fellowship of robbers. Welcome to the fellowship of
a panoply of negativity that over seasons of time in Paul's
life poured in like a flood and would have sent most of us home
crying and licking our wounds and saying, we're never going
to do that again. I'm done with this. God, I'm done with you.
Welcome to the fellowship that says we are more than conquerors
because those things in my past will not shape it. My present
is my own. And that, ladies and gentlemen,
is Bible. And I know that's hard medicine.
That's hard medicine. But if I didn't believe that,
I would never pastor this church because I'm not a therapist,
I'm a preacher. I don't want to listen to endless
hours of whining. What I want to do is say, hey,
that happened in your past. Now, what is the goal for today? How are we gonna rise above it? Let me tell you something. If
this sermon irritated you, it's because you're embracing trauma
that has become your friend. It's your grand excuse. It's
the thing that you're going to hold on to because everyone will
feel sorry for you and everyone will say, yeah, that person had
some hard knocks in life, so I guess they didn't have to make
it. You get a hall pass for the rest of your life. You don't
want that. You know what you want to do? You want to join
the fellowship of Paul, a conqueror, an overcomer, and someone fully
persuaded that while that thing really happened, and it was really,
really bad, it can't touch me now, because I live in the realm
of the love of God. Father, please, message tonight. is hard medicine, but it is good
medicine. Lord, we need to hear it because
it strips us of our excuses. Some of us have made a detente
with our trauma. Some of us have made a friendship
with it. And Lord, we just use it as a
reason for garnering sympathy and an excuse for failure. Father, let us see from the pages
of the Bible. That's not right. We all have
a past. Father, help us to understand
that our present can be bathed in the goodness, the grace, and
the love of God. And regardless of how dark that
past is, we can rise above it by the grace of Christ. Help
us, Lord, to change our thinking to match the Bible, we pray,
in Jesus' name, amen. Stand with me, please, everyone
standing.
Dealing With Trauma
Series Peace of Mind
| Sermon ID | 11325026115677 |
| Duration | 51:19 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Romans 8:35-37 |
| Language | English |
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