Struggle can be a REAL pain
Notes
Transcript
So then, banish anxiety from your heart
and cast off the troubles of your body,
for youth and vigor are meaningless.
Today's Best Illustrations, Volumes 1-4 Pain Precedes Joy
I don’t envy those who have never known any pain, physical or spiritual, because I strongly suspect that the capacity for pain and the capacity for joy are equal. Only those who have suffered great pain are able to know equally great joy.
—Madeleine L’Engle in A Stone for a Pillow. Christianity Today, Vol. 31, no. 3.
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
Sorrows here is Hebrew word “mak-ob” which literally means the “man of pain”, referring to Jesus.
Jesus knew PAIN and also offers to take our PAIN on himself.
Jesus knew PAIN and also offers to take our PAIN on himself.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Pain is treated completely different in the Old and New Testament
The Old Testament is filled with people in pain
The Old Testament is filled with people in pain
Job cries out for God to kill him rather than continue with his pains
so that I prefer strangling and death,
rather than this body of mine.
he sees pain as a result of sin.
I still dread all my sufferings,
for I know you will not hold me innocent.
He and tells other God has no mercy.
Night pierces my bones;
my gnawing pains never rest.
In his great power God becomes like clothing to me;
he binds me like the neck of my garment.
He throws me into the mud,
and I am reduced to dust and ashes.
David asks God to put protection around his pain
I am in pain and distress;
may your salvation, O God, protect me.
Solomon sees pain as a result of hard work which in the end appears meaningless
What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless.
Isaiah sees pain as a tool Satan uses to get us off course but one that will be conquered in the end by God
On the day the Lord gives you relief from suffering and turmoil and cruel bondage, you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon:
How the oppressor has come to an end!
How his fury has ended!
The Lord has broken the rod of the wicked,
the scepter of the rulers,
which in anger struck down peoples
with unceasing blows,
and in fury subdued nations
with relentless aggression.
All the lands are at rest and at peace;
they break into singing.
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea and others all complained about pain.
Then comes the New Testament
Then comes the New Testament
In the Gospels and Acts everyone was healed by Jesus or disciples.
Paul complains about a thorn in the side but said it makes him lean on God just that much more.
So what is the answer?
Today's Best Illustrations, Volumes 1-4 What Good Is Pain?
Sometimes it is spiritual pain which makes us aware that we need a transfusion. Just as physical pain is a marvel for the human body, an early warning system, so is spiritual pain … We are all part of this battered, bleeding bride, struggling to regain beauty and purity. And there is nothing, nothing but a transfusing love, which will make any difference at all.
We need our pain warnings before we can turn to love. Yet if we watch television or read magazines, we often come across a different attitude toward pain: avoid it, deaden it. But when we take a pill, when we kill the pain, we don’t heed its warning.
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
If we can somehow find a way like Job, David, Paul and John to see God’s work through our pain we have a grand promise.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”