Seasons: Surprising Seasons
Pastor Rollan Fisher
Some seasons you can prepare for
While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
-Genesis 8:22
The winter in Chicago
*What do you do when you find yourself in a season you did not expect?
Though we may be surprised, God is not, and has a plan in the midst of it all.
What I wouldn’t have expected
What I wouldn’t have done
What I couldn’t have imagined
What I wouldn’t have expected
Our surprise seasons are for the advance of God’s Kingdom and for the believer.
And Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs that he did. For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city.
-Acts 8:1-8
What I wouldn’t have done
Surprise seasons move you to do things you would not have done if left to yourself
“When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”
-Corrie Ten Boom
What I couldn’t have imagined
In the end, with eternal perspective, as we work with God through our surprise seasons, tilted towards him to ask what he wants to do with the circumstances for Kingdom advance, it will lead to exceeding joy for the believer.
-Galatians 4:13-14
You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.
-Romans 8:28-39
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Second City Church - Seasons - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2019