God’s Fire: Refining Gold Week 3

I’d like to read you Tess’s story.

My crisis of faith occurred early in adulthood, detached from any significant personal suffering. In my training to be a physician, I had participated in the care of untold numbers of tragedies: seven-year-olds being thrown from pickup trucks, fatal automobile accidents, twenty-five-year-olds diagnosed with breast cancer, heart attacks on Christmas Day, etc. I had seen a lot. I had treated a lot. And as I wrestled with these challenging circumstances, working through them with my husband, Barry, our faith had been tested. God increased our faith such that we trusted Him, even if we didn’t understand Him. And over the next several years, as my understanding of the complexities of human physiology grew, I began to develop more and more amazement that anything in the human body ever went right. How any baby was born without birth defects was a miracle. How we could continue to breathe and digest and fight cancer while sleeping was a marvel.

The idea of nature being in a very delicate, very tenuous balance, all by the sheer grace of God was driven home to me almost on a daily basis. So the idea of pain and suffering occurring and people asking the question “Why me?” was not part of our narrative. More, the question became, “Why not me? What did I do to deserve this unmerited string of unbroken blessing?”

In early 2012, my mother was diagnosed with metastatic and recurrent ovarian cancer, with a terminal prognosis. We displaced our family of four, pregnant with our third boy, to my parents’ house in Arizona to be with her until the end. Three weeks after our arrival, she died and was reunited with our Lord. In the last days of her physical illness, she became increasingly delirious, but remarkably, what she was quoting was Scripture. It was so embedded in her heart, that when disease had ravaged her mind, and reduced her to incoherent ramblings, what was left was the Word of God. As we buried her, my prayer was that the Lord would place His Word so deep in my heart, so that when my mind was in extremis, I would only be able to speak His words back to Him.

In August 2012, we welcomed our third boy in three years; our oldest child turned age three six weeks later. Life was near perfect again. Fourteen weeks later, on a beautiful and mild November afternoon, I returned from work into the blissful chaos of our home, just when our nanny was waking our baby from his nap. Her screams of terror took several seconds to penetrate my consciousness. I walked into our bedroom, knowing exactly what had happened. I knew he had died before I laid eyes on him. My very first thought was Job 1:21, “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord” followed closely by 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” All the years of training, combined with the incredible power of the Holy Spirit to equip you with exactly what you need when you need it, came over me. I was on the phone with my husband at the time. I told him Wyatt had died and he needed to come home immediately. I performed CPR while on speakerphone with 911, but I knew it was just a formality. Policemen and detectives came and went, ruled out a homicide, then the medical examiner’s office arrived to take my baby’s body. I refused. I was not giving up my baby without a fight, or at least an argument, with God. I knew what He said about asking and receiving, and not receiving because we don’t ask, and the widow who annoys the judge enough to wear him down and grant her request, and faith the size of a mustard seed. For one hour, my husband and I, along with our nanny, prayed for resurrection over our son. Actual, physical resurrection, like Lazarus. We went to the throne of God boldly, completely lucid, not grief-stricken, and asked as forthrightly as we could to give us back our baby. Not my will, but Yours be done. God heard our prayer. And He said no. And I told Him, okay, but You’re going to have to get us through this, because we cannot do this ourselves. In the end, the cause of death was positional asphyxia, or SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). He wasn’t even sick.

But the end hasn’t been written. The Lord has shown us over and over again how He never intended for us to go through this alone. He gave us Himself, and He gave us the Body of Christ. The morning after Wyatt died, two of our friends showed up without calling to look after our other two children. Our Redeemer Church community mobilized an army of prayer warriors and help warriors. Meals were sent, our families flown in from Nicaragua, Arkansas, Texas, and Arizona, people gave up their apartments for our families, rented an apartment down the block, delivered meals to our nanny in Brooklyn, planned and executed the memorial service, printed bulletins, etc. Every single last detail was taken care of, in typical Type-A New Yorker style, with precision and excellence, and all without our knowledge or consent. And so we were allowed to descend to the very depths of our grief, experience it in all its agony, and emerge on the other side. When we emerged, our community had been transformed in unity through suffering, and we were pregnant. “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Tim Keller once said that God gives us what we would have asked for if we knew everything that He knows. The idea that the prince of Heaven would empty himself and become poor, to live and dwell among us is humbling. The idea that there is nothing in the human experience that God himself has not suffered, even losing a child, is sustaining. And the idea that in His resurrection, Jesus’ scars became His glory is empowering. God will use these scars for His glory, as they become our glory. Indeed, the end hasn’t been written.

God is well acquainted with our suffering, and will use the suffering in our lives to make us more like Christ and remind us that we need God and His grace.

All human beings need the saving grace of Christ. And we must go through times of suffering and trial to see that we need God over ourselves.

But one of the popular questions I hear over and over is, “why does God allow suffering?” Or, “If God is a loving God, why do the innocent suffer?”

I know this is a trite answer, but the truth is, none of us are innocent.

We can trace this back to the Garden of Eden.

What we learn there is:

Suffering is Part of the Fallen State of Man

Ecclesiastes tells us in chapter 7 verse 20

Ecclesiastes 7:20 NKJV

20 For there is not a just man on earth who does good And does not sin.

Only Jesus Christ was sinless.

Because of this, He was a perfect sacrifice on our behalf.

The reason He needed to be a sacrifice for us was because of our fallen state.

When Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, our relationship with God was broken.

And in so doing we died spiritually, and began to die physically.

God’d judgment upon man extended to creation as well.

The earth would yield its fruit only reluctantly. Man would have to work to bring in a harvest.

Humans would have to put up with weeds, briars, and all sorts of problems.

And sickness, disease, and evil would become commonplace.

Sickness, disease, and evil were not part of God’s original design.

Suffering is part of the fallen state of mankind.

But Jesus came to earth to be our Savior. He died in our place to take our punishment.

If we believe and receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, we will be forgiven our sin and be given new life.

Nothing else you do can get you to heaven, nothing. What we deserve is hell.

What we are given is eternal life in the very presence of God if we come to Christ in faith alone.

Because of our sin, suffering comes.

"The Oak Tree" – “A mighty wind blew night and day, it stole the oak tree's leaves away, then snapped its boughs and pulled its bark until the oak was tired and stark. But still the oak tree held its ground while other trees fell all around...The weary wind gave up and spoke, "How can you still be standing, Oak?" The oak tree said, "I know that you can break each branch of mine in two, carry every leaf away, shake my limbs, and make me sway. But I have roots stretched in the earth, growing stronger since my birth. You'll never touch them, for you see, they are the deepest part of me. Until today, I wasn't sure of just how much I could endure. But now I've found, with thanks to you, I'm stronger than I ever knew." ~ Johnny Ray Ryder, Jr.

How deep are your roots in Jesus Christ?

We Must See God as Who He Is

Our God is eternal, infinite, omniscient (all-knowing), omnipresent (everywhere), and omnipotent (the adjective for the word is all-powerful, the noun - God).

Why should human beings who are not omniscient, not omnipresent, or not omnipotent expect to be able to fully understand God’s ways?

We need to remember Romans 8:28.

Romans 8:28 NKJV

28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

We don’t always understand why things happen in our lives the way they do.

But God knows what we need to bring about what is best for us.

Switching analogies momentarily...

A diamond is the hardest substance known, so its interior should be very resistant to corruption. But diamonds require very high pressure to form.

So, the Holy Spirit must allow very high pressure (trials, tribulations, tests) to strengthen our interior, as it also removes the debris, the dirt and baggage from us so that the treasure within can be seen and shine in God’s creative brilliance.

I think it is wiser that instead of questioning God, we are to focus on the example of our Savior Jesus and ask that God’s will be done and not ours in our own lives.

If God is calling and sanctioning you to do something for Him, you can and should expect to be tested.

You can expect testing proportionate with the seriousness of your call. Your hardships may seem unbearable apart from the grace of God - that is because they are!

Comfort, strength and resilience only come from God.

Trials are for our benefit even though we at times despise them.

They are never pleasant and at times we hate them, but we should rejoice in them – because those of us that know God – we will suffer for the sake of Christ!

And we should rejoice that we are blessed to do so! Realize that God is in complete control!

And thirdly...

Seek God’s Comfort in the Refining

Let’s go back to a verse we looked at last week.

1 Peter 5:10 NKJV

10 But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.

We have the power of the Holy Spirit to comfort and reinforce us in our times of tribulation.

God will help us through any anxiety, stress, disease, loss, etc.…if we obey His will for us.

Psalm 34:19 NKJV

19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the Lord delivers him out of them all.

Jesus obeyed the will of the Father and God gave Him the strength to withstand.

As He will us as well, that love Him.

Psalm 34:17–18 NKJV

17 The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, And delivers them out of all their troubles. 18 The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have a contrite spirit.

Message LifePoint: Every tribulation has a purpose. Every test has significance.

And your true character will show amid those trials.

What is truly in your heart will show during a conflict or test.

All human beings need the saving grace of Christ. We need to trust Christ alone as our Savior.

As well, we must go through times of suffering and trial to see that we need God over ourselves.

All we need is God, and what He chooses to provide.

And as we heard in Tess’s story: God will use our scars for His glory, as they become our glory.