The Hurting Heart

Message Sentence: You can’t choose what happens to you, but you can choose how you respond.

Intro:

Introduction of myself.

Faithstudents Updates

Pray:

Story about Miscarriage.

Wife is a few weeks pregnant at the time, I’m at El Salto and brother in law comes in

jasmine’s trying to reach me, I couldn’t hear my phone.

Jasmine’s telling me she’s been bleeding and it’s worrying her

we go to the hospital, get checked out

we get a pregnancy test done and comes back negative

While I was holding my wife crying, the only question in my mind was Why. Sad thing is that my story isn’t rare. There is suffering all around us.

Suffering: It has no prejudice. Comes upon all people regardless of age, social status, gender, or race. It does not care how close or far away you are from God. It takes different forms. Physical suffering, Emotional suffering, and even Spiritual Suffering. Natural Disasters, Forms of violence.

Suffering brings out the questions we normally wouldn’t ask ourselves when things are going well.

Why, if you are good, do I experience suffering?

Why, if you are so powerful, don’t you remove evil from the world?

Why do they get to have children but I don’t seem to get to?

Why do they get to have a high paying job after college, but I seem to be struggling to find work?

When things are the hardest, it feels like we have been abandoned.

When we look at the Bible, we see an open and honest discussion about suffering among God’s own people. One of which we know as King David.

David writes Psalm 22 expressing His own feelings of Suffering.

This was David who was a man after God’s own heart, but he suffered much in his own life.

He was chased by king Saul who wanted him dead out of pure jealousy

His best friend Jonathan died in battle

David’s own son rebelled against him.

David had so much happen to him, but He knew where to turn to in his time of need. And we also have the same God to turn to in ours. As we dive into our passage today I want you to remember this: You cannot choose what happens to you, but you can choose how you respond to it.

As we read, we are going to look at the responses we should have when we are suffering. Think about where you’ve suffered or where you may be currently suffering today. But I also want you to think about Jesus, because when we read this, we not only read David’s heart through suffering, but we see exactly what Jesus experienced on the Cross, and even what His responses were as He suffered to heal the world from sin and death.

Psalm 22:1-2

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?

2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,

and by night, but I find no rest.

The first Response to our suffering is to Choose to Cry out to God.

1. Choose to Cry Out to God

Even though King David feels totally abandoned, He is still choosing to cry out to God. He is knocking on the door crying out to Him day and night. He trusted God enough, that even though he felt like he was separated from God, he knew that he was not truly abandoned or alone.

To Cry out to God is the first step of acknowledging that God is with you even when you don’t feel like He is. Jesus made this clear right before He ascended up to heaven He told His disciples, “I am always with you”

So are you knocking on the door of God crying out to Him for help? Simply acknowledging that He is with you in the midst of your pain? Maybe it’s been a long time and you’re wondering why He hasn’t answered you yet. Why hasn’t anything happened yet? But I encourage you to keep knocking, keep seeking, keep praying. Go to war in your prayer life knowing that the Lord is faithful and He is with you.

We should now ask, what could have brought David to cry out? I believe the next section shows us it was because he remembered God’s Faithfulness from the past.

Psalm 22:3-5

3 Yet you are holy,

enthroned on the praises of Israel.

4 In you our fathers trusted;

they trusted, and you delivered them.

5 To you they cried and were rescued;

in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

2. Choose to Remember

David looked to the past and saw the Lord’s faithfulness to his ancestors.

To Abraham and Sarah, they were given a promised child in their old age.

To Joseph, after being sold into slavery by his brothers and thrown into prison, God made Him the 2nd most powerful man in all of Egypt.

To The entire nation of Israel, He split the Red Sea to set them free from the hostile hands of Pharaoh.

Something worth noting that in just two verses 4 & 5, the word trusted appears 3 times. These early patriarchs of the faith Trusted, Trusted, and continued to Trust God, and He showed Himself faithful.

God was faithful then, and He is faithful now. When my wife and I suffered a miscarriage together, He gave us strength to depend on His great love, He surrounded us with loving people who gave us words of encouragement, and now He has given us a son who we look forward to seeing in December. The God we serve is faithful through our suffering and has given you and I the opportunity to look back in our own lives as a sign of His promise to always be with us.

Where can you look in your life where God has pulled you through? Whatever circumstances you face, you can look back to how He cared for us and for others and be encouraged. That if He did it then, He can do it again. When it comes to His children, God shows no favoritism to those whom He is faithful to.

David continues on by describing the situation he has been facing:

Psalm 22:12-18

… Skipping to verse 12

12 Many bulls encompass me;

strong bulls of Bashan surround me;

13 they open wide their mouths at me,

like a ravening and roaring lion.

14 I am poured out like water,

and all my bones are out of joint;

my heart is like wax;

it is melted within my breast;

15 my strength is dried up like a potsherd,

and my tongue sticks to my jaws;

you lay me in the dust of death.

16 For dogs encompass me;

a company of evildoers encircles me;

they have pierced my hands and feet—

17 I can count all my bones—

they stare and gloat over me;

18 they divide my garments among them,

and for my clothing they cast lots.

Have you ever felt this surrounded before? Like no matter where you would turn or like every day there was something else that just piled up on you? Doesn’t it just get to the point where you almost want to surrender to the pain around you because maybe it won’t feel so bad to just give up?

David is being very specific to God about his current trials and sufferings. He compares them to strong bulls, lions, and dogs that encircle him. He continued to cry out to God. And instead of being helped by people around him, he felt like people were mocking him and benefiting off of his suffering which is described in dividing up the garments and casting lots for them.

God knows our sufferings and every detail of them, but there’s something about the action of just letting him know everything in your heart about what you’re dealing with.

3. Choose to give God your Hurting Heart

We have to trust God enough to let Him in on every detail of what we are going through. Our hearts are filled with the burden of our pain and our God desires to take that burden off of us so that we can experience His rest. And maybe rest isn’t deliverance from what you’re suffering from, maybe it is simply just being able to rest in God’s promise that everything works together for a purpose that is greater than what we can see in the moment.

When everything seems like it’s not going your way, continue to cry out to God. Knowing He will never leave you by yourself to deal with anything alone. He will show you that you are weak, but in that weakness God can show us how strong He is.

Let’s keep reading

Psalm 22:19-21

19 But you, O Lord, do not be far off!

O you my help, come quickly to my aid!

20 Deliver my soul from the sword,

my precious life from the power of the dog!

21 Save me from the mouth of the lion!

You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!

David makes a turn here now. He was examining his struggles, but now verse 21 is the climax and expression of God responding to Him in his time of need. He has rescued him! Other translations would even say that “You have Answered Me”

God’s ear is not turned away from you. He hears every word and he counts every tear. He hears you. Continue to cry out.

David continues on and will begin to thank God for his deliverance. Not just for his own sake, but He chooses to invite others with him in Praising God.

Psalm 22:22-26

22 I will tell of your name to my brothers;

in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:

23 You who fear the Lord, praise him!

All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him,

and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!

24 For he has not despised or abhorred

the affliction of the afflicted,

and he has not hidden his face from him,

but has heard, when he cried to him.

25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation;

my vows I will perform before those who fear him.

26 The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied;

those who seek him shall praise the Lord!

May your hearts live forever!

4. Choose to Praise The Lord

David is now praising God and teaching others that they should praise Him too. He even looks back again in verse 24 to show us why we should be praising Him because God has not hidden His face from the afflicted but has heard when he cried to Him. David is choosing to Praise and choosing also to praise with people.

The beautiful thing about being a family, and I mean us as a church, is that we do not have to suffer alone. For one, we know that we have God with us, but the other thing is that we have each other. Sometimes when we suffer, we like to try and deal with it by ourselves. Please don’t do that. Be honest about your struggles with people you love and trust. And if you are someone who sees someone else struggling, extend your hand to them and help however you can. A simple text, a hug, food, there are many ways you can extend grace to someone in need. If you’re in a small group, ask for their prayers. If you are an attender or visitor and you are going through something, we will invite you after this service into the prayer room to have someone pray with you for whatever you may be dealing with, I would even be more than willing to pray for you as would PC.

And if God has gotten you out of a moment of suffering in your life, how are you choosing to praise Him? Do we just go day after day as though nothing happened? I think if we’ve seen God show up in our suffering, we should be telling people about how good God is. We need to live a lifestyle of gratitude.

Psalm 22:27-31

27 All the ends of the earth shall remember

and turn to the Lord,

and all the families of the nations

shall worship before you.

28 For kingship belongs to the Lord,

and he rules over the nations.

29 All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship;

before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,

even the one who could not keep himself alive.

30 Posterity shall serve him;

it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation;

31 they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn,

that he has done it.

The last response we can pull as encouragement from David is his choice to look forward

5. Choose to Look Forward

David is now pointing forward to a future hope to come. The last words of this psalm are a glimpse of what Christ accomplished on the cross. He has done it has become It Is Finished.

Because of His reliance on God, his choice to remember how God saved His people in the past, he can trust that He is also faithful to give us glimpses of hope when we are in the suffering. I love what Paul writes as He looks forward himself in Rom 8:18

Romans 8:18 (ESV)

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

And we should share in this hope too. That is one day, Christ will return to redeem the broken creation, redeem our bodies away from the corruption of sin, to give us a new home that is purified and cleansed of any sinful intent or pain, and to spend it all with Him forever.

And Jesus suffered for us, in order that this would get accomplished.

Hebrews 5:7-8

In the days of the flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,

In the greatest rescue plan, Jesus, Who suffered a great while on the cross, died, and was buried, did not stay buried, but He rose up from the grave to give those who would believe in Him victory over death. Becoming the source of eternal salvation to you who would obey Him. We can look to the one who suffered more than we could ever imagine suffering, and trust that we would also be rescued too. We can trust Him to strengthen and pull us through all circumstances, but the greatest hope that we ought to trust Him to deliver us from is the power of sin. This is the root of all issues. And that is what Jesus suffered for to save us from.

God met His Son in His suffering, and His desire is to meet us where we are in our suffering too.

However, when God meets us, His purpose may not be to cure the suffering we’re experiencing, but to reframe how we should see it.

Friends, If you believe in Jesus Christ, suffering for you will be the closest experience you ever have with Hell, and the most intimate experience you get to share with Jesus.

I hope we would choose to respond to our suffering by looking up to Jesus as our suffering savior, who has given us everything we need to endure and look forward to the great hope of His return.