God Always Provides a Way Out

There is a passage in Scripture where the Lord tells us that even though we may sometimes find ourselves in difficult and tight situations, He always has a way out. God always has a way out for us. And I am going to use this passage as a foundation; it is found in Second Corinthians, Chapter 4. The Apostle Paul says:

“…But we have this treasure in earthen vessels—do you see the contrast? A treasure and a humble, fragile vessel that is not worthy of the treasure—we have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us…”

In other words, who should always receive the glory? God. God often arranges circumstances and situations that reflect our weakness and His power. And sometimes God calls us to do extraordinary things in difficult situations, where it would not seem that we can do them, because He wants to show that all things are possible for those who believe. So that is why we have to live… my desire this afternoon is to encourage you to believe in a God who never abandons His own and who always has a way out of every situation we may face. Paul says:

“…The power of God, not of us; we who are troubled on every side, yet not distressed…—look at the antitheses, the contradictions he establishes here—…we are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body everywhere the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies…”

May the Lord bless His holy word. Notice that constant contrast between the negative and the positive, and a God who always allows the positive to surpass the negative. And that is my desire this morning: to encourage you to believe in that almighty God who wants to give you a way out.

And why am I talking about this? God placed this on my heart over the last few days. We have chosen the month of October to reflect on our sanctuary and on the fact that we still have 12, 15 months of construction and expenses ahead of us. Glory to God that thus far we have seen His hand. We can say, “Thus far the Lord has brought us.”

And this campaign that we are renewing in your hearts, as I always clarify, is not the product of a crisis or an urgent situation. On the contrary, it is simply because we want to maintain the same steady pace that we have maintained thus far. Like a runner who gauges his capabilities halfway through the race and wants to make his energy last until the end, we want to become aware, because you have a very important part to play. Your leaders have the responsibility to give you honesty, good planning, vision, energy, and strength, but you have the responsibility to support them and stand behind them. And together we can keep moving that ship I mentioned to you some time ago—you saw that ocean liner, an immense ship passing through a very narrow strait—and I have told you that, in a sense, that is where we are: in times of economic difficulty in this nation and throughout the world, with a multimillion-dollar project that might seem beyond our reach because, first of all, we have reduced the cost to half of what it would normally cost.

Just this past week, our architect and the owner of the construction company directing the project told us, “Look, Roberto, this is not an 8-million-dollar project, as you say; it is a 9-million-dollar project, and we are attempting to do it for 4.3 million, less than fifty percent of the cost.” And glory to the Lord. With 50% of the work completed, God has been with us, and we have seen His hand. Glory to God for that. That deserves a round of applause for the Lord, amen.

But with a tight project—that is the word you need to keep in mind—a tight project in a tight situation, we believe that God gives us the solution and gives us the way out. That is why I say that there is always a way out for the children of God. And I want to bless you this afternoon not only with a word to encourage you to continue giving and to maintain vision, courage, and enthusiasm for the future of this project, but I also want to invest in your life with a word that you can apply to every dimension of your life.

To your marriage, your children, your career, your work, your personal life, at home, in the neighborhood, your friendships, your personal growth, your emotions, your past, and the financial difficulties you may be going through at this time in your life. Perhaps you are fighting to keep your house, or perhaps you lost your house. Perhaps you are in a situation where you are afraid that you may not have a job a few months from now; they are laying people off at your workplace, and you are still there, saying, “Lord, what is going to happen to me?” Perhaps you have even lost your job. Or perhaps you are in a situation where you do not have your documents, and you are thinking, “Well, when is this immigration problem here in the United States going to be resolved?” And you feel anxious about your children’s future and your situation. Tight spots, tight spots—many of us are in tight spots. Every one of us—our church is in a tight situation. But do you know what? God tells you, “There is always a way out.” Amen.

That is the message. We, the children of God, must make that word a motto for our lives. I believe, brothers and sisters—I have always said it, and my wife knows it—I always say, “There is always a solution.” When I have searched and dug and knocked on doors and still do not see the solution, I say, “No, but my God can still give me a way out,” and I keep searching, keep trying, keep knocking, keep asking, keep inquiring until I receive from God the word He has promised me.

And when you live like that, brothers and sisters, even when situations are difficult, you say, “No, but my God is more powerful and can bring me through.” If I had time, I would take different passages from Scripture and show you again and again how a persistent theme of the Bible is precisely this: when it seems there is no way out, God has a way out.

I can choose a passage at random. Do you remember when Elisha and his servant were surrounded by the Syrian army, and the servant was trembling with fear because they were surrounded and there was no way out? And Elisha knew there was a way out, and he said to God, “Lord, open this coward’s eyes so he can see what I am seeing.” And the Bible says that God opened this man’s spiritual eyes, and he saw that surrounding the army that was surrounding Elisha and his servant were chariots of fire with angels protecting them. And God blinded the Syrian army, and Elisha had to spare their lives because he led them as though hypnotized to where the king of Israel was, and they found themselves surrounded in Israelite territory. And Elisha showed mercy and forgiveness to these people.

Because God had a way out. The servant could not see it, but in the spiritual world there is always a way out. And that is why I encourage you to live a creative life, to live a daring life, to live an enterprising life, to live a life of excellence, and to dare to do great things, because along that road you may find yourself in tight spots. When you dare to leave your comfort zone and enter the realm of heroism and creativity, you may find yourself in difficult situations, but at that moment you have to say, “God has a way out for me. The God who brought us out and led us into the wilderness will take us to the Promised Land.” Amen.

The God who brought us out of Egypt—even though it seems that the sea is before us and the Egyptian army is behind us—can still open the Red Sea so that we may cross on dry ground. And that is the challenge: when you dare to enter the realm of greatness, you will have some scares along the way and find yourself in a tight spot, but God tells you, “Do not be afraid; there is always a way out.”

So here we have this passage where the Apostle Paul says, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels.” You and I are fragile, brother; by ourselves, we cannot win the battle life throws at us. We always lack intelligence, we lack strength, and we lack resources. The great dreams God places in our hearts, the message of the Gospel, the church’s calling to bless the nations and win them for Christ—that message is embodied in fragile, breakable, imperfect men and women who are prone to sin and prone to make mistakes. That is a marvelous treasure, but it is in you and me, who are weak, breakable people.

Now, what happens? Instead of that shaming us, he says that it results in glory for the Lord. Your dreams are limited because you are limited, but with God, when you achieve your dreams, that results in blessing and praise for the God who brought you through.

So my desire is to tell you: dare to believe. Rise up, as that chorus says; do not live a mediocre life. Dare to believe the almighty God. And the Apostle Paul speaks about that in this passage, about how we often find ourselves in very difficult situations.

But notice what is interesting: God placed that passage on my heart to encourage you to have faith in times of difficulty. We live in a time when the world seems to be falling apart. Wars and rumors of wars. Divisions, an almost unprecedented financial crisis. It is not as great as the one in 1929, the Great Depression that occurred here in the United States and in other parts of the world, but thus far it is the second-greatest crisis the world has experienced.

But we still do not know how far it may go—who knows? Perhaps things will get straightened out; perhaps they will not. We are in tight situations. And at this time God has given us a visionary project to launch ourselves into. And that is why I believe God placed this word on my heart, because many times, when we preach about the God who blesses us, prospers us, and opens doors for us, we oversimplify things. What I always see in Scripture is that God tells me, “Look, even though you are in a tight spot, even though you have bitten off more than you can chew, as people say, even though your own humanity has betrayed you and thrown you forward and you are halfway down the road, and you believe the resources are not going to come, God is with you.”

And you can say, as the Apostle Paul says, “Rather, in all these things we are more than conquerors.” Hallelujah! The essential paradigm of Scripture is that difficulties may come on the way to blessing, but there will always be a way out and a solution. It is not that there will be no difficulties; in the life of a child of God there is a cross, there is crucifixion, but there is also the day of resurrection and victory.

That is why you have to live believing God, and you must not live a mediocre, conservative, timid life, remaining where it is safe, because you have to understand that when you launch out, God will open the way before you as you go. I have gotten into this with you, into this project, and thanks be to God, halfway down the road, there is now less ahead of us in terms of expenses and dangers, but there are still some. But I have always said that even if unforeseen difficulties arose, even if the budgets were exceeded, even if I were standing here telling you, “Brothers and sisters, expenses have risen by 500 thousand dollars”—glory to the Lord that it has not happened that way—I would say, “But do you know what? I know that God is going to bring us through. I do not know how, but there is a way out somewhere. There are invisible chariots of fire around us defending us.”

The Word says that He will not allow your foot to strike a stone, because He will command His angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. Hallelujah!

That is God’s promise for my life. And that is why we can always dare to move forward and not settle for what we have, for what is safe, because God says, “I will be with you.” So there is a series of antinomies, a series of antitheses that the Apostle Paul presents here. He says:

“…We are troubled, from the original Greek tripomenoi, but we are not distressed…”

If you go to the original Greek, the idea is even more revealing. I do not think the Spanish translation is quite as good as the English one. It is one of the few cases in which English beats Spanish in translation. The idea in the original Greek is: we are restricted, but we are not strangled. The idea is, you know, even though your shirt fits tightly, it is not a straitjacket. You can move a little. There is still some space for you to move a little and, from there, free yourself from that tight situation.

“…We are restricted, I would say, but not strangled; confined, but not totally prevented from moving, as though we still have options. In English it says, ‘We’re hard pressed on every side, but not crushed.’ Perhaps your situation at this time in your life is a little tighter than you would like, but brother, that little bit of space in your life is your point of leverage; that is your position from which to leap toward what comes next.

All a child of God needs is just a tiny bit of space. Someone said—Archimedes, a great Greek philosopher and mathematician, said—‘Give me a lever, and I will move the world.’ If you have a point of support with God, that is all you need. Perhaps you do not have all the space to leap that you would like, but just a tiny bit is enough, and you can make it to the other side.

So always remember: there is space in your life; there is space, no matter how narrow your situation may be. Look at what the Apostle Paul says:

“...troubled but not completely crushed,” then he also says, “We are hard-pressed, but we do not despair. We are perplexed but not in despair.” How beautiful it sounds in English: I feel perplexed; we are perplexed, but we are not desperate. How many times have you faced situations in your life when you say, “But where is God? Why has this happened to me?”

Job asked the Lord, “Look, I have behaved well; I have blessed the poor, I have conducted myself morally, I have raised my children in the fear of you, I search and search and cannot find sin in my life. Why has this terrible tragedy come upon me?” And God had an answer for him.

And I believe that we, the children of God, will often find ourselves in difficult situations. We will lose a loved one, suffer a moral failure, see our marriage shattered, lose our home, and it will seem as though God’s promises have failed us. And we ask, “But Lord, you told me that I could move forward. I thanked you for that house, bought it with so much sweat, and blessed it. I thought you had given it to me, and now it is being taken away from me. Where are you? I am perplexed.”

But do you know what the Word says? Do not despair. A child of God may be perplexed, but does not despair. Why? Because, as Job said, “But I know that my Redeemer lives.” You must always say, “Father, I do not understand my situation, but I know that you are good. I know that you are merciful.” How do you tell a mother who has just violently lost her son, “Woman, keep believing that your God is good and almighty”?

How do you say that to a nation that is experiencing terrible atrocities right now, as so many nations in Latin America are? And how does one believe in a good, merciful, kind, almighty God who rules over history? We, the children of God, say, “We do not have the answer right now, but we know that God has a plan, God has a purpose, and God is good and is in control of the universe and of history.” Perplexed, but not desperate. We must always believe. The Lord has the answer.

Even if night falls, even if the early morning comes, even if you spend a sleepless night asking him, “Lord, why?” remember that perhaps your answer will come when the sun rises. Never condemn God; never stop believing in the love and mercy of God. And in due time, if you bless the hand of God that has struck you, God will caress you with that same hand, bless you, and give you the answer you need.

Although not everything makes sense, the children of God believe that God has an explanation. We are hard-pressed; we are perplexed—that is the idea in the original Greek—we are perplexed, but we are not in despair. In English it says, “Puzzled but not utterly perplexed.” Perplexed, but trusting that there is an answer.

And then the apostle Paul says, “We are persecuted, but we are not forsaken. We are persecuted but we are not forsaken.” In other words, how many times have we felt the enemy nipping at our heels? As a pastor, I have often felt Satan’s foul breath behind me, and there are times in our lives when we know that our family is engaged in spiritual warfare.

I was speaking with a brother just yesterday, and he was telling me about his struggle with an addiction. He had overcome his problem for more than twenty years, but recently suffered a relapse. We examined different aspects of his life, and in the end I told him, “Look, there may be many things—circumstances, things you do not understand within your own psyche—but ultimately, would God want to take a man who has already been free from an addiction for more than twenty years, who is being a blessing to his community, whom the church regards with gratitude because of the blessing he is bringing into his life and his marriage? Satan would love to knock that man down, to send him rolling across the ground and make God’s community say, ‘Where is God?’”

So you have to be vigilant. Brothers and sisters, we must be vigilant, because every child of God is engaged in spiritual warfare, whether they know it or not. The enemy wants to persecute us, and that is part of the struggle of a child of God. But God says, “You know what?” The Bible says that even when the enemy rises like a river, God will erect a barrier between you and him.

The psalmist David said, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Why? “Because you will be with me.” You are not forsaken. The Bible says, “Though an army encamp around me, my heart shall not fear. Though war rise against me, I will remain confident.” Hallelujah!

Even if you are struggling, battling, or facing difficulties, believe that God will never forsake you. He says, “I will not leave you or forsake you,” just in case you did not believe the first part. “I will not leave you or forsake you,” says the Lord.

Yes, we face opposition and persecution, but we are not defenseless. And finally, the apostle Paul says that, yes, perhaps we are also knocked down. Do you see the progression? Perhaps you are hard-pressed; God is with you. Perhaps you are perplexed; God is with you. Perhaps you are persecuted and on the verge of being destroyed, but God is with you. And finally, perhaps God allows the enemy to touch you, because Satan can never enter those intimate dimensions of a man or woman of God without first passing through the toll booth, through God’s entrance gate. Sometimes God mysteriously allows us to reach dire situations in our lives.

Job was allowed to be touched. God allowed Satan to touch Job in many ways. He lost his children, he lost his fortune, and he even reached the point of losing his health. But God told Satan, “Do not touch his soul.”

There are times when, in mysterious ways, even though you believed, prayed, fasted, and behaved well, you will find yourself in a situation where you slipped and fell. You lost your house, lost your health, received a devastating diagnosis, lost your marriage, or perhaps experienced some kind of failure in your life. Perhaps something happened that made you say, “Wow, I never thought I could reach such a point of destruction and suffering in my life.” Sometimes the devil deals us one of those blows that knocks us down, but do you know what the Lord says? Even though you have been knocked down, you have not been destroyed.

It says, “We are knocked down, but not destroyed. We may be cast down but we’re not destroyed. We may be knocked down but we’re not knocked out. There’s a difference.” You may be knocked down, but the Word says that God will raise you up. The Word uses the image of a boxer. A boxer may be struck and fall to the ground, but the count must reach ten, and if he gets up before ten, he can still give the devil a beating. Amen. So, children of God, look, you may be knocked down and they may have to count, “One, two, three, four, five, six,” but you get back up before you are completely knocked out. Amen.

That is God’s Word for our lives. There is always a solution. There is always a way out. Even if you reach the very limit in your life, this must be the motto of your life: God is with you. There is a progression, and so I am going to finish. I still have three-quarters of my sermon left, but I do not want to tire you anymore. I am not going to give you indigestion, because I believe there is already enough there for us to feed on spiritually.

I want to invite the musicians to come up here. My brothers and sisters, what does this have to do with two things—your life and our church? As for our church, we are in a tight spot. As I was saying, we are undertaking something noble, serious, and creative—something I believe should capture the imagination of the entire city. And we are a group of immigrants. None of us, as the apostle Paul says, are rich. As far as I know, there is no chief executive officer of a major corporation here—and if there is, please identify yourself at the end of the service, because I am going to ask why you have not yet given the million dollars we need.

No, but do you know what? The apostle Paul says, “There are no great magnates or people with a lot of money among you.” We are not like so many churches where three or four people can contribute ten million dollars between them. No, but glory to God, the Lord loves to work through ordinary people like you and me. The Lord loves to work through a people whom others say are a burden on this nation, but God says, “You are a blessing to this people.” Hallelujah!

While large churches and great powers often have to be squeezed to make them give something up, when someone touches you in the name of the Lord, honey flows out of you in the name of Jesus.

Remember, we have a great cloud of witnesses around us. We can be an inspiration to many people. God has called us to something great. God has called this community, as he has called so many other communities in our city, to set an example showing that God delights in working through the supposedly poor, those who are on the other side of the wall.

I believe that God has great destinies for each one of you, brothers and sisters. The limit is in you, not in God. God has planted greatness within you. And God says, “I will not leave you or forsake you. I will open the Red Sea before you. Do not remain in Egypt; do not remain in poverty; do not remain in small dreams; do not remain where it is safe; do not remain trapped in your family’s past, where no one has ever excelled. You blaze a trail. You are the beginning of greatness in your family. You must live up to God’s calling and gifting in your life.”

So what if there is a drought in the world right now? God opens a path. God brings forth water in the midst of the desert. God makes water gush from the rock, says the Word of God. That is why you can dare to walk through the desert: because God has an answer. There are wells beneath the ground that God can use to give you water while you are in the desert. Even if your boat is in distress, God is with you.

Ultimately, brother, look, today I am not even all that concerned about encouraging you regarding the project ahead of us. Do you know why? Because if I can help you believe that the Lord accompanies you when you do heroic things, everything else will be added unto you. What we need is to believe God. What we need is to believe. Am I going to live a mediocre, small life, considering only what I have at hand? Am I going to live within what is comfortable, within what I know, within my family’s past, my national background, my status as an undocumented immigrant, my status as a woman who did not attend school and who has only ever been a homemaker? Or am I going to believe God for great things? I am going to enroll in college; I am going to learn English; I am going to learn to use the internet; I am going to learn to use a computer; I am going to learn to use an iPad. The Lord is powerful enough to help you move forward.

Believe God. Dare to believe for great things. Strive for the utmost, because God has called you to greatness, and there is always a way out. God bless you. Let us stand in the name of Jesus.

Give it to the Lord. Brother, I ask you right now to take a moment and play the most powerful chord you can think of. Believe God. Let us believe the Lord. Let us declare greatness this afternoon. God calls us to greatness.

I want to see you five or ten years from now, having advanced beyond what you can imagine—your children studying, you bettering yourself, you doing great and extraordinary things, our sanctuary built, and everything we need for a powerful church. Hallelujah!

God’s people setting an example before the world of a victorious people because they have the power of God on their side. This is what God has called us to believe. Declare it this afternoon. Say, “God is with me. God is powerful within me. He who raised Jesus from the dead moves within me. And I am destined for greatness.”

There is always a way out. Thank you, Lord. We declare blessing over your people. We believe in a powerful God. We believe in a faithful God. We believe in a God who has called us to greatness, and we thank you for your Word, Lord. You are not a man, that you should lie, nor a son of man, that you should repent. Hallelujah! Glory to the name of Jesus! Hallelujah! Give glory to the Lord. Give glory to the Lord. Declare the greatness of God. Father, do not let a single word fall to the ground. May your people be blessed and edified by the word that has been declared this afternoon over their lives and their spirits, and over this project as well, in the name of Jesus. Hallelujah!

And God’s people say, “Amen.” Glory to the name of the Lord. Blessed be his name.