The Village Church
The Perspective of Suffering - Audio
You're weak as you think about coming this morning here It's with worship together And we've sung praises to the Lord And we hear the testimony about what He's done Think about what we looked on in this past week But it's been like for you I will share with you this has been a really hard week I've been calling on my face a little over and over and over again If I'm honest with you, there's a sense of shame when I fall You know what? There's not an obligation to do what we're about to do now There's an invitation There's an invitation to freely come to the Lord with our masks, with our sins And it's the path of freedom As I read Psalm 32, just a portion of it to us I want you to think about an invitation We don't serve a Father who's waiting for us like this But there's an invitation come to me I want you to come to me I want to forgive you It's my heart It's my heart from Psalm 32 From when I kept silent, my bones wasted away from my groaning all day long For day and night your hand was heavy upon you My strength was bright up as white and heat of summer I acknowledged my sin to you And I did not cover my eniquity I said I won't confess my transgressions to the Lord And you forgave the eniquity of my sin Let's go to a giant of silent oppression And pour out our parts And if we confess our sins with faith and trust It blends us from all unrighteousness Where we thank you because without you we have no hope We have no promise Because you're righteous And pure holy God, you praise the good Jesus name, we pray You tell us I'm on or not I'm on Will you turn in your vibes with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 1? While you're doing that I have to tell you I love being in this church with you And every time I come I think maybe I should switch my membership I'm going to cave her But I do things over there too and I'm torn But I absolutely love it Absolutely love it 2 Corinthians chapter 1 We're just going to be reading verses 8 through 11 And I'm going to read it for us It starts like this We do not want you to be unaware brethren Of our affliction which came to us in Asia That we were burdened excessively Beyond our strength So that we despair even of life Indeed we had the sentence of death within ourselves So that we would not trust in ourselves But in God who raises the dead Who delivered us from so great a peril of death And we'll deliver us Be on whom we have set our hope And people will yet deliver us You also joining and helping us through your prayers So that thanks may be given by many persons On our behalf for the favor bestowed on us Through the prayers of many Please pray with me Heavenly Father your word is so beautiful I pray that I wouldn't get in the way of being proclaimed this morning You pray that your spirit would do the work Work in the hearts Of those who know you And of those who don't know you this morning To bring freedom To peace Jesus thing we pray Amen In college there was a I took a child development class It wasn't my idea to take it You know how random things stick in your brain And you don't know where you really got them And you don't know Not really what you were supposed to learn But it just kind of sticks in your brain In this child development textbook There was an illustration given And it had a picture And just tried to recreate it for you It was a table And it had a little girl About four or five years old At the head of this table And then these three other chairs For her stuffed duck Her stuffed cat And her stuffed dog And she was asked To tell the person talking to her What she sees And she said well that's my stuff Definitely a daughter of my cat And then she was asked to switch positions And take the position of where the stuffed duck sat And describe what perspective What vantage point the duck sees From its point of view Without moving And then the point of the illustration was She couldn't do it She couldn't do it She could only see her own point of view And the point of the illustration in this book was Until that child reaches a certain age And is able to get beyond this concrete form of thinking This literal way of viewing her world She will be unable to see any other perspective But her own She will only see her own perspective We can see her own We can see the perspective Of the stuffed animals at the table She cannot She needs to rely on somebody else To see another point of view other than her own Suffering is like that When you're suffering When you're going through really hard things There's a perspective that you can only identify with And it's your own It is hard to see any other perspective But your own perspective when you're suffering We know that's true And we know that there's one other person who can see our suffering From any other viewpoint from our own And it's our Heavenly Father And for that reason there needs to be a trust there A trust that relies on him When we can't see anything else In the passage we just read Paul is going through He's recounting a time when he suffered To a dramatic degree And the account that he's describing Actually comes to us in Acts chapter 19 In turn there if you want But I'm going to kind of summarize What he's talking about He said we went through this really difficult time And I want to describe what time he's describing for us If you want to follow along as Acts chapter 19 Starting around verse 23 I think But Paul has an ethicist with his disciples And they are proclaiming the gospel And in this region there was a silversmith Named Demetrius And Demetrius made his living His livelihood was making these little silver shrines To the goddess Artemis And he's noticing all these people Getting on board with what Paul was preaching Gospel, same in grace Freedom in Christ And he's kind of getting worried As any of us would Because he's taking the business away from You know all these people are following what Paul is proclaiming If all these people get on board with Jesus Christ We're not going to have anything to come We're not going to have anything to sell Nobody's going to want the silver shrines And so he talks to the people around him And he gets all the other workers Who are in the business of making these shrines stirred up There's nothing like money to cause enough for him And he succeeds in getting them all fired up And what ensues is this all-out riot Chaos And as it's going on Paul notices Something really big is happening here And this is really out of our control And he starts to panic And he starts to worry And he gets anxious And he pretty much results in himself to death This is the way I'm going to die Apparently there's no way I'm going to get out of this one And as the riot escalates The only perspective he sees I guarantee you is his own He has this tunnel vision of this is just dead And in less dog interviews This is the way that we're going to perish If you're doing an outline, I want to describe three ways Three different reasons from this passage And there are more that we could look at The three different specific ways Reasons we need to trust When we can't see any other perspective but our own We need to trust because God allows suffering To focus our dependence on himself He's focusing our dependence on himself Secondly, we need to trust because God permits suffering To fashion our deliverance He's going to bring us out of it And sometimes he allows suffering to highlight Almost a showcase to stage the way that he's going to do it There's deliverance involved There's our hope There's a deliverance And thirdly, we need to trust God because God uses suffering to feature his own design It's not about us, it's about him And him receiving glory And the way that he chooses to do it I think as we look at it, we'll produce it in my own part A sense of awe Why would he do it this way? Why would he do it this way? So dependence, deliverance, and design That's where we're headed The first two focus on us, the last one On God Firstly, we need to trust God because he allows suffering to focus our dependence Look with me at the second part of verse nine Indeed, we have a sense of death within ourselves So that we would not trust in ourselves But in God I think God, think of all the words that come before this There's affliction And despair And being burdened excessively Some of you can relate to that, some of you are there this morning In that place And I recognize that I recognize that These are descriptions of suffering And they're real And when you're there, it's hard to hear the message of hope It's hard to hear the message of deliverance It's hard And some of you will be able to relate to this How many of you government? Raise your hand on this one How many of you have ever been told yourself Or you have been the one that has said to somebody else You know In response I should preface this In response to somebody who's going through something really hard Really hard You said God doesn't put more on you God doesn't put more on you than you can handle God won't give you more than you can bear Would it surprise you to know that that's not in the bible? That is not in scripture He says I won't give you more temptation than you can handle That's in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 Some of you know the verse by heart But just to give you more than you can handle period Not in the bible Not in the bible And think about this with me Because if we're talking about somebody who's struggling Hard And they are at the end of their rope Somebody comes along and they say you know God doesn't give you more than you can handle And that person starts thinking I tell you what it feels like more than I can handle But if God doesn't do that, then I'm shifting my thinking God won't give me more than I can handle And this load that feels oppressive to me must be within my range of handability So now I'm thinking about what I must be the problem God's faithful I'm going to get a question to him Whatever it is that's in my lap right now I must be handle of all Just made up that word So I must be the problem I need to try more I bet if I read my bible more I bet if I tried harder I bet if I was more faithful I bet if I did more I bet if I served more And immediately Our eyes go to ourself And we begin to Pay the perfect recipe for despair Because the more I tried harder And the more I try to be better Things that I am unable to do in myself I am going to plummet into despair Because I take my eyes off of the Lord He doesn't give me more than I can handle Do you know what scripture says? He exact opposite God doesn't give you more than you can handle Really? Really We just read this We just read this And I want us to look at it again But the verse 8 We were burdened excessively Beyond our strength Beyond our strength That doesn't sound like a handleable amount Beyond our strength NID says far beyond our ability to endure Getting a picture here This isn't something God's not going to give you an amount That you can handle How does that say anything about the gospel? That's how to be your own God I'm going to give you a manageable amount And sometimes you hear people say Well maybe God thinks so much of you He knows you can handle it That sounds awful That sounds awful to me If you feel like you're in over your head right now Guess what? You probably are You probably are You probably are even way over your head That's good news That's good news Because instead of trying harder Instead of trying to be better Something that you cannot do By the way I've tried Many of you know a million ways that it won't work Instead of trying harder The point is That God is giving you more than you can handle Too thoroughly Bring you to the recognition That you need help That you need this help That's good news to know that you need help And not try to Talk up and be better And almost wise That people try to sell us And maybe you are one of those people that say God doesn't give you more than you can bear You don't say it vindictively You don't say it to be me You're not trying You're trying to bring hope A lot of dumb things people say When they're trying to bring hope And they don't know what to say I'm one of them I can tell you lots of stories Not this morning Not this morning Ways that I've tried to be helpful I think it was really bad It was really bad What does this look like In our lives And we're trying to bring hope We don't know what to say Well it's not There's not one specific answer It doesn't always look like Such and such I can tell you what it does look like Does it look like Be better Try harder Be more Be more than you already are It's about our dependence It's about our dependence on God And not only does God permit suffering To highlight To show us that dependence It is also intended To show us what deliverance will look like What deliverance will look like An amazing thing happens When Paul stops relying on himself In this passage Deliverance When he has his eyes on his circumstance He's overwhelmed With his spirit of life With his spirit of life You know what that's like When he had this resolution There was a change in his focus And I want you to hear This really spoke to my heart As I was studying this As soon as Paul notes the change in focus From himself to God Notice what happens Look at the descriptor He uses of God Who raises the dead God who raises the dead Talk about a resume builder Talk about inspiring awe In this fan of a handful of tiny little words Who raises the dead For the little words Think about being in a interview and saying I can type 60 minutes I can type 60 words a minute Oh and I can raise the dead Oh, oh, oh, we don't have anybody who can do that Why you just kind of take yourself off the sheet Oh, who raises the dead Oh, you're gonna classify yourself Oh my gosh, okay The one who raises the dead By the way That's the one who your trust is in The one who has the ability to deliver you From anything You know, the one who raises the dead That's the one who's going to deliver you It ought to inspire all And trust That's the, yeah, that's the point Who delivered us who rescued us From so great a peril of death But peril isn't really a word That we use a lot anymore But think of a danger A hazard Some kind of jeopardy That's what he's talking about And I really want us to see God's commitment to us In these verses Look at verse 10 Who delivered us from so great a peril of death And will deliver us Be on whom we have set our hope If he will yet deliver us He delivered us from this bear He will deliver us If we're serving a God Who's promised to deliver us There has to be an attentiveness on his part To know that we need delivering in the first place If he's far off and he's removed And he's distant How will he know what we need to be delivered In these promises I want us to see To recognize There is a deliberate intentional delight To know when you need deliverance And they're passionate in such a way That inspires trust Inspires trust This is the one who can raise the dead He's the one that you're counting on To deliver you And you're not just hoping I hope he wants to He says you know what I promise I promise that I will deliver you Not just once But this ongoing deliverance For all the suffering that will hit your life For the rest of your lives God's commitment is to deliver you Let me tell you what this does not mean It does not mean that the things that you're hoping to deliver To be delivered from will work out the way that you think they should It does not promise a They lived happily ever after from this day forward But it's a promise that his presence will meet you As you suffer In a way that Hear me on this Hear me on this In a way that you wouldn't trade for anything There is a presence of God that comes to you when you're hurting And it doesn't mean that things are all better But his presence comes to you And it's enough It's what you need It's not what you think you need But it's what you need We could look at a thousand different characters in the bible Who cried out to the lord And he met them with himself And it was enough And it wasn't happily ever after Talking about Men and women that were Martyr for their faith Saw it in half stone One man is called a weeping prophet He was called a creature of people that he was told wouldn't listen to him He knew what it was like to cry out to god And god met him with himself And it was enough It was enough It's a deliverance That's deeply personal It's deeply personal I have a cousin that as a child Was stunned by a bee She's allergic to bee sting So this wasn't a small affair And her mother, a very godly woman Said Sylvia The first most important thing you need to do is be calm Your heavenly father loves you And you need to remain calm throughout this whole thing She gently removed the stinger And if you talk to the mom later She says I was freaking out sayable I was coming on blue But I knew that the presence of god would calm her So I kept reminding her God is in this You need to remain calm And the whole incident just passed by without going Without escalating at all Fast forward To Sylvia being 36 years of age And she has a brain aneurism She goes to the hospital She said I was careful And she said The doctors did something called I think it's called an arterial gram Where they go in through the vein of your leg And they go in through your heart And it's this thing that goes into your brain This little tiny camera To take pictures of where the problem area is And she said I was told not to speak Just to remain very still And she said I was coming absolutely on blue And she said and anesthesiologist Before he started this procedure He said Sylvia This is going to hurt a little bit Think of it like a piece thing And she said immediately I thought back in my mind I could hear my mom saying You need to be calm You need to rest God is in this And she said I had a spiritual moment during that arterial gram Do you know what the reason I share that story Is because I want us to understand how personal How intimately God cares for us When we're struggling He knows what it's like When we're there When we feel like we can't see any other perspective But our own And deliverance doesn't just mean Oh, I gotta come through for Waikita I promised her I would I guess I'll just count and she's free It comes through in the most intimately Personal ways that That I hope makes your jaw drop Many of you have had that experience When you're hurting You experience God coming to you And it's what you need It's not what you hoped for It's not the happily ever after But it's a reminder of the presence of God That in the first Sylvia The remarkable intricate way That was so personal That surgeon That anesthesiologist had no idea He was being used in that manner And yet God used him God used him to bring deliverance for her It's a confidence that God gives us That the one who raises the dead That's the one we're trusting in That's the one we're trusting in Nobody else raises the dead The one who raises the dead He's going to bring our deliverance We can we can depend on a God like that We can depend on a God like that Finally I want us to look at the way God uses Suffering in our lives to feature his own design There are many ways we could look at verse 11 About our role in prayer and how God uses something that we do Something I'll never understand To accomplish his means But I want to kind of look at this In a back door kind of way Verse 11, you also joining and helping us through your prayers So that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf For the favor be stowed on us through the prayers of many Think about this for a moment Not so much our role in prayer, which is important But again Why would God choose to use something we touch Something that we do To accomplish his means We already know I mean this whole passage is being burdened And weak And unable to see beyond ourselves Why would a holy wise sovereign omnipotent God Recognize our weakness and say oh, oh yeah, that's the way I want to accomplish this I'm going to use the prayers of those tiny little frail weak people I will use them to accomplish My needs Why? Does that make sense? That doesn't make sense to me I don't get that I don't get that So I know there's more to it And tell you why it's not The way it doesn't do it It's not because we're smart We like to think, well, he just recognizes that we have a little bit of wisdom, right? We have some things to bring No I guarantee you that is not the reason God uses them Not at all Not at all There ought to be lots of nodding heads after, oh yes The focus of this passage is to bring suffering believers into full trust And reliance on him After this is established, once we're persuaded that he will deliver us I hope there's a confidence In that deliverance, but also a curiosity about the design Why in the world does he do this? Why does he do this? For an illustration think of Think of having a business right here in Lincoln Village And uh And you've been working at it. It's sort of a dream of yours Whatever you have in your life and your heart That is a desire God has been blessing And you built a business up and it has been successful And it has made thousands of dollars and tens of thousands of dollars And it's right on the mark going between hundreds of thousands of dollars And possibly a million dollars And you've got this business that is Monumentsially expanding like you're in Lincoln Village And you come to the realization where that you need help I can't do this on my own anymore, but I don't want this help I've spent my whole life my whole savings account My passion my time my talents on this business I've got to have somebody who shares my passion Who will join with me Who will take this business as seriously as I do Those are the kind of people that I want to join my business Can you imagine an interview with a person the first applicant comes through the door And you sit him down and you say okay, here's, you know what my business is about Let me ask you some questions about yourself Uh, do you have any kind of experience with this kind of, you know industry? No, no, not really All right. Hey, okay Maybe uh education. What was how high did you go in school? Do you finish high school? Do you happen to go to college any Master or post-graduate how far did you go to school? You know what I dropped out in the seventh grade Really what was going on? I didn't see any for it Well, how did you spend your time? Well, uh Man, the rest of the drugs still do a little bit. Well, I really honestly I do a lot Um, I've been to rehab it and they they didn't really understand me Um, and uh, they they just don't know my needs and oh, okay. Well, we're going Um Are you willing to learn? Are you willing to learn? Well, I gotta be honest with you When I feel like it When I feel like it, I gotta be really motivated and I'm not really easily motivated But when I am, I'm there for you. I'm there for you Uh You can get here on time? You can get here on time I Think about that Not really a morning person When my alarm goes off sometimes I feel like it's a car alarm across the street and I go, oh sucks to be that guy And I just ignore it And eventually when I do wake up and I'm really on and Yeah, I'm there I'm there This can be anywhere between 10 30 and 2 And you got my whole heart and attention for at least an hour and a half when I'm there You know and I can go on and on with this illustration Do you know what? For the man that is interviewing that applicant to say You're a liar That's you're the kind of guy I want That actually makes more sense than what God does involving us In anything he's trying to do. Do you see that? This marvelous design of doing amazingly beautiful things that will shut your mouth and bring a Chills down your spine of the beautiful way that he will work dependence and deliverance in your life He's inviting you to touch it to be a part of it I hope that I hope it makes your mind swim I hope it does it makes my mind swim it's uh, it's a beautiful beautiful thing and um if you think about this kind of love This kind of involvement this kind of commitment To deliver you This is the same god who loved us first when we were hostile to him When we gave child a figure he embraces us When we told him we didn't want anything to do with him And in our anger and shortsightedness ran away from him. He ran after us. He didn't go. Okay I'll wait for you to figure it out. He pursues the lost sheep And when he brings that lost sheep back there is more rejoicing in heaven than the 99 of the remaining flock that didn't stray He loves that much He loves that much and if you contemplate in your minds A god who's that committed who loves that much It's a little easier to depend on a godlike that It inspires a little bit more confidence for deliverance that comes from a godlike that And as you think about the design Of all the ways that he could have done it To design a way for us to be involved to be invited into his kingdom work Just kind of makes me want to stand up a little bit more straight Beautiful thing. Don't miss Pray with me. Heavenly Father your word is so beautiful And we pray we wouldn't miss it Heavenly Father as we come to you with our suffering whatever it is We remember that you're the one who raises the debt You can do all things And we praise you for that And we wholeheartedly give you every part of our suffering and part of our lives, Jesus' name we pray, amen.