Suffering
PROBLEM
- I watched as a friend praised God through a very hard time in her life. I had not understood how she could praise God when her world was falling apart. She had a spiritual insight that I needed
- You never know how you’re gonna react in the face of trauma and pain.
GOD
Philippians 1:29 For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him
- Many Christians are misled or disappointed simply because they don’t know what the Bible teaches.
- Suffering is not some annoying hitchhiker, we pick up on the way on the Christian life. Suffering is a passenger in the car that we’ve accepted as part of our family, so to speak.
- We are to align expectations for the Christian life with what the Bible actually teaches.
- I am encouraged because I am anticipating the reality of suffering. But also anticipating the reality of God’s blessing and God’s grace.
APPLICATION
GOD CARES
- Nothing escapes God’s attention, not even your trouble.
- When you get alone with God, surrounded by trouble and sorrow, he will refresh his promises to you. You will open your Bible and somewhere in your reading, God will speak to you directly. God will somehow run a divine highlighter over certain promises for the hour you are facing. He may take his time. But if you have a Bible, God will speak through it.
- The things that you invest in day to day, week to week are doing more than you can realize, and one day, you’ll be really thankful that you did.
RESPONSE
- We have to decide if we’re going to endure it like the world does or if we’re going to endure it as people who are following Jesus
- This is one of the secrets, give up. And in trusting yourself to God, it’s summarized- not my will. but yours be done. I don’t want my will. I want your will. I want your way. I want your perfect timing.
WORSHIP
- Encourage people to remember God’s goodness and love in the midst of their suffering is worship.
- Job lost his family and wealth in one day. His response: worship.
- When we worship, we focus on something larger than our pain. When we worship, we focus on God
- There is something powerful that happens when we turn our suffering and our wailing into worship.
VISION
- God has foresight but we have only hindsight. Rather than focusing on progress, it’s important to find enjoyment in God — to worship. We will never have peace if we look at each moment and compare it to the previous.
- Can you say even if God doesn’t restore my marriage and my timing, I will still praise Him? Even if God doesn’t heal me or my loved one, doesn’t answer that prayer…
- My dad had a laminated card on his desk. When he died, I got that card and it now sits on my desk as a reminder. It reads: Lord, I am willing I am willing to receive what you give. I am willing to lack what you withhold. I am willing to relinquish what you take. I am willing to suffer what you require
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