John 9:1-3: Hope for Our Pain

James 5:10–11“As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.”

Intro:

What do you do with pain?

What do you do with all the trials and hardships in your life?

Where do you turn when your suffering.

We all struggle with the problem of pain.

We all experience hardships…sadness…bitterness of soul and broken expectations.

The question is what do you do with all that?

When suffering comes into our life there are all kinds of sinful ways to respond: anger, bitterness, hoplessness and despair, depression, running away from God and using our pain as an excuse to sin.

Or we can respond with faith.

Just think about some of the ways we suffer in our life.

Money troubles.

Losing a job.

A struggling marriage or singleness when all you want to do is be married.

Lost and unsaved children…prodigal sons and daughters we wish with all our might would come to faith in the Lord.

Infertility…a miscarriage…or going through a parents worst nightmare of losing a child.

Losing a loved one?

Aging, chronic pain, or medical trials.

Sickness.

Anxiety…Depression.

Struggling with loneliness or losing a friend.

What do you do with all the pain and bitterness in your life?

Because of the daily hardships we face in life whether they are small frustrations or huge life challenges we all need a Theology of Suffering for our life.

How do you face your pain, keep going, and make it all mean something and make it make sense?

For today’s sermon, I want to look at three anchors for the soul to answer our pain and suffering.

Three biblical truths that can change everything when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death in our life.

Let’s start with the first anchor for Theology of Suffering with point number 1 from John 9:1-3…

I. God Sovereignly Ordains All Things Including Our Suffering

John 9:1–3 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

In just these three little verses, Jesus gives us some of the most important Big God Theology we could possibly have for our life.

Theology that if we believed it would fundamentally change our life and how we encounter the sufferings, trials, and hardships we all endure.

Everything from a Bad Tuesday to the worst news you could possibly imagine.

The highest highs…the lowest lows…and everything in between.

And that is God is sovereign over all things and is working everything, whether good or bad, to the praise of His glory And our good.

As Jesus was walking by He saw a man blind from birth.

Now notice Jesus saw Him.

That’s important.

Jesus sees and knows our sufferings and what’s more, He’s the One that takes the initiative to answer them.

This man doesn’t come to Jesus, Jesus came to him.

He is our Great and Sympathetic High Priest.

Intimately concerned with our sufferings, and so full of love and compassion that He doesn’t just walk on by, but He acts.

And this man we are told, was blind from birth.

We don’t know how old he is, but we do know that his whole life has been lived in darkness.

Never seeing a thing!

He didn’t even have the memories to help him see the world in his mind’s eye.

As a child, he couldn’t play ball.

He didn’t know what a bird looked like, or have an image of his mother’s face.

He didn’t know the joy and love of seeing his father’s smile or the comfort of his mother’s crying eyes caring for him when he was sad.

Everything that he knew of the world was from other people describing what they were seeing.

But what was red and what was blue?

Nothing you could ever hear with your ears could ever match what you can see with your eyes.

No matter how well someone described it, everything would still be just out of reached.

And that’s how he lived as a child and he grew as a man.

Eventually his parents, we know they are still alive, because they come up later in the story, couldn’t afford to take care of him.

And so he had to resort to a life of poverty and begging depending on the kindness and generosity of others.

In verse 8, John describes him as a beggar, and after his eyes are healed the people wonder Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?

Can you imagine the suffering of this man’s life?

Nothing was easy.

Nothing ever had been easy.

Blind from birth only to grow up to be poor and a beggar.

You can almost imagine the man asking, “Why me?”

Why me, God? Everyone else can see, but I’ve never seen anything.

I’ve lived my whole life in the dark, and now I’m destitute with my best day being someone having pity on me?

Why’d you make me like this? Do you even love me? Do you even care?

Year after year pain, suffering, and affliction.

But what this man didn’t know and what God wants us to see is that that pain had a purpose.

This man had no idea that one day the Son of God would take notice of Him.

Would have compassion on him.

Heal his eyes and give him eternal life so that the end of that pain…the ultimate result of it…would be God’s glory and his good.

But when the disciples saw him they asked “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

The disciples assumed that this man’s suffering was the direct result of some particular sin in his life…either that of his own or his parents.

Like Job’s friends, they assumed that ever suffering or misfortune was the direct result of some sin in someone’s life.

And that was a popular thought in Jesus’ day, and its still popular in our own.

When someone’s suffering or its one thing after another, we sometimes wonder I wonder what they did to deserve that?

Or in our own life, “I wonder what I did to deserve this? Why is God punishing me?”

But thoughts like that are closer to the world’s idea of karma than they are Christian faith and belief.

Not to mention it disparages the Name of God looking at Him as some angry, cosmic judge in the sky just waiting to bring the hammer the moment you step out of line when all of us could look at our life and see God’s mercy and tenderness because how many times have we sinned and not received the punishment our sins deserved.

Discipline for Specific Sin

Now this is not to say that God never uses physical sickness or suffering to discipline for some specific sin.

When David sinned with Bathsheba and murdered Uriah God’s Word says the Lord afflicted the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and he became sick and eventually died because of David’s sin (2 Samuel 14-23).

Nadab and Abihu were killed for offering strange fire to the Lord (Leviticus 10).

Even in the New Testament Ananias and Sapphira fall over dead for lying to the Lord (Acts 5).

And Paul told the Corinthians that their sin in how they were taking the Lord’s Supper was the reason why many of them were sick and ill and some had even died (1 Corinthians 11:28-30).

So yes, the Lord does sometimes bring sickness and suffering as discipline for some specific sin in your life.

But it is wrong to assume that is always the case.

Sometimes sickness, physical ailments, or suffering in general is just the result of sin in general…of living in a fallen and broken world.

Jesus could have easily answered, “It wasn’t this man’s sins or his parent’s sin…it was Adam’s.”

Adam’s sin is what broke the world.

As Paul said, sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin (Romans 5:12).

All sin suffering and brokenness finds its original root in Adam’s sin and is not a part of how God made the world when He said it was very good (Genesis 1:31).

So sometimes sickness and physical trials are the result of some specific sin.

Its a biblical truth that you reap what you sow (Galatians 6:8).

But that does not mean it is always the case.

Sometimes our trials, hardships, and sufferings are just a result of the Fall, not some specific sin in your life but the bitter providence of living in a broken and fallen world.

One is meant to drive us to repentance and the other is meant to grow our faith in God’s love and care for us all along the way.

How Do You Know?

And the question you might be wondering is, “Well how do you know?”

And I would say, you need to remember that the Holy Spirit wants your holiness more than you do.

When God is disciplining you for sin, you usually have a pretty good idea what its for.

His discipline is meant to lead us to repentance…not punish us.

There is no condemnation for those in Christ.

So if you are keeping short accounts with God and repenting of sin in your life and you can’t see anything in your life that God might be disciplining you for…

If you have no conviction of any specific sin, I think you can rest easy that God is not disciplining you for some specific sin in your life, but merely disciplining you in general as a loving Father to wean you from your love for the world, conform you to the image of Christ, and grow you in faith and dependance on Him.

So every time some suffering or trial comes into your life, don’t automatically assume, “Why is God punishing me?”

That does not see Him as a kind and loving Father.

Instead ask, God is any sin in your life?

And if not, if the Holy Spirit doesn’t convict you, then trust Him.

Entrust yourself to your kind and loving Father who is not absent in your suffering but using it for His glory and to grow you in Christ-like holiness and dependance on Him.

That’s what God was doing in this man’s life.

Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

So Jesus says this man was not suffering for some specific sin, but that this man was blind from birth that the works of God might be displayed in Him.

And this is where we come to the mysterious workings and providence of God.

Jesus says that God sovereignly ordained for this man to be born blind to reveal God’s glory (not just to this man, but to us reading this story today) and to bring this man to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

That God ordained this man’s suffering for His glory, and ultimately, this man’s good.

So here’s where we get to one of those three pillars I talked about that we need for a Theology of Suffering.

God sovereignly ordains all things including our suffering.

In eternity past…before the foundation of the world…before anything that was made as made…God sovereignly ordained everything that would would come to pass.

He sovereignly planned and purposed all things down to even the smallest, most inconsequential details of life.

This is what we call God’s eternal decree.

His eternal plan and purpose to reveal His glory and grace.

And as the Sovereign Lord of the universe He sovereignly governs all things to perfectly fulfill His eternal plan.

This is what we call God’s providence.

His active working in history to effectually bring about what He decreed in eternity past.

Ephesians 1:11 says He works all things according to the counsel of his will.

That’s what we are talking about.

That nothing can thwart God’s plan or is outside of His control.

Job 42:2 I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Isaiah 46:9–10 I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’”

God sovereignly ordains and governs all things, down to the smallest details of life.

Matthew 10:29–31 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. [And] even the hairs of your head are all numbered.

Nothing comes down to chance.

Proverbs 16:33 The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.

Not the Author of Sin

God is even sovereign over sin while we must be careful to make clear that God is sovereign over sin without ever being the author of it, approving of it, or having fellowship with anyone in their sin (1689 3:1, 5:4).

We are the authors of our own sin which is why James says Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one” (James 1:13).

And yet in the mystery of His providence God still sovereignly ordains and rules over our sin to accomplish all His purposes.

Like Joseph said what you mean for evil, God meant for good (Genesis 50:20).

Even Christ Himself was according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, to be murdered at the hands of lawless men.

God ordained Christ to die while at the same time leaving the Jews and the Romans fully responsible for their own sin.

Point

The point of everything we’ve been saying as it relates to suffering in this life is this…

Everything…Everything…both the good and the bad…is all a part of God’s sovereign plan and providence working out in your life.

Nothing is that comes into your life is outside of His control or contrary to His sovereign and perfect plan.

Now why is this a comfort for our suffering?

Why does this change everything for how we look at suffering and trials in our life?

Because of two things:

God is perfectly and infinitely wise

And God is perfectly and infinitely good.

Wise

Because He is infinitely wise, God never makes a mistake or chooses the wrong thing.

He is perfect in wisdom.

Psalm 147:5 his understanding is beyond measure.

You can never find the end of God’s wisdom.

He has never once wondered what to do or what was best.

He never had to weigh the options or seek outside counsel (Romans 11:34).

God took counsel within Himself according to His own perfect wisdom.

And being infinitely wise His eternal decree is always best.

Look at Numbers 23:19.

Numbers 23:19 God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

So here we see God’s sovereignty and providence.

Has He said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

But I want to look at the first part.

God is not a man that he should lie…

We get that.

God is a God of truth…His Word is Truth…He never lies…

But look at that second part: or a son of man, that he should change his mind.

Usually we just brush that off or go on.

But look what it says.

God is not a man that He should change his mind. What does that mean?

It means God has never made a wrong decision or learned new information that would have led to a better decision.

All of His eternal decrees and divine providences are perfectly wise and perfectly good.

Good

God’s goodness guarantees there is no sin or wrong in any God’s decrees or providences at work in your life.

God is never unjust.

He is never evil.

Remember we saw, God cannot be tempted with evil.

Psalm 145:17 The Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works.

In fact if you read the Psalms you’ll see a refrain that comes up again and again.

The Lord is good and His steadfast love endures forever. (Psalm 100:5, 86:5, 106:1).

So God’s goodness is intimately connected with His steadfast love and covenant faithfulness to all who believe.

God is not just wise…He is good, loving, and kind to all His children.

Summary

And when you put all that together…God being infinitely wise and infinitely good as it relates to His providence over every single detail n your life…here’s what it means.

Nothing in your life…not even the hardest thing…that painful and impossible suffering…comes into your life without first passing through the almighty sovereign hand of your infinitely wise, loving, and good father.

All of it, even the hardest things are a part of God’s perfect plan and eternal decree.

He is not caught off guard or surprised.

Even when you feel like you are falling…He still has you in His sovereign and gracious hands.

What a comfort that is that God always has us and its all going according to plan.

What do we have to worry about…or stress about…or grumble and complain about?

God is wise…God is good…God is in control.

That takes us to our second pillar for a theology of suffering.

Not only does God sovereignly ordain all things including our suffering…

II. God Sovereignly Ordains All Things for His Glory and Our Good

Notice what Jesus says…

John 9:3 It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

This man’s suffering was ultimately for the glory of God in the goodness of God poured out on Him.

That’s what the works of God are…Jesus healing the man - good…to the praise of God’s glorious grace - glory.

This is the ultimate end…the ultimate purpose of all our suffering.

God’s glory and your good.

This is the lens of faith we need to see all of our suffering through.

Not only do we need to believe that God sovereignly ordains all things, but that He ordains all things for His glory and our ultimate good.

Let’s go to Romans 8:28-29…the quintessential passage on patiently enduring suffering.

Romans 8:28–29 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Now this is a passage specifically about Christians…God’s elect.

If you are outside of Christ you have no assurance that God is working all things in your life together for your good.

God could be working judgment.

But for those in Christ, those who love God, God works all things together for their good, according to His purpose.

God’s purpose is ultimately His own glory.

Romans 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

All things were created and exist for the glory of God.

This is one of the core tenants of reformed theology…we are God centered.

And here’s an important application…

If all things were made for the glory of God, shouldn’t we bend every aspect of our life and every aspect of our being…all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength…to that end?

Should we live for ourselves or should we live all of our lives for God?

Offering ourselves as a living sacrifice to ultimately exalt God and His glory?

Wouldn’t just that change everything about how we live?

What is man’s chief end? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

But we must be careful to define what good means.

Because it doesn’t mean, for Paul, comfort or ease in this life.

Paul suffered shipwrecks, beatings, and imprisonments, hardly anything we would define as good for our life.

But what he defines as good is in verse 29…

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.

In other words, Christ-like holiness and conformity to Christ.

Its so crucial you understand this.

Without it all your sufferings, all your trials will only be bitterness.

When we say that God works all things together for His glory and our good we are saying that God sovereignly uses our sufferings to:

Purify us from sin…

Wean us from the love and comfort of this world…

Grow us in our faith and dependance on Him shattering our pride and self-sufficiency…

And show us His kindness, mercy and grace…His glory…in caring for us and sustaining us in the midst of our trials sufferings.

They are the forges God uses to purify and refine our Christian maturity and character (1 Peter 1:6-7, Romans 5:3-5, James 1:2-4).

That’s why James is able to say…

James 1:2–4 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

The aim of our trials is that we would be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Holiness and conformity to Christ to the praise and glory of God who in our sanctification shows the world that He has the power to save sinners and free them from their sin.

This is a total shift in thinking that redeems all of our pain and suffering and gives it purpose.

Doesn’t the Bible say to be transformed by the renewal of your minds? (Romans 12:2).

This is what its talking about.

Take God’s promises to heart and live by them.

Whether what you are going through is just a bad Tuesday or the actual life of Job your pain is not pointless…futile…chaos.

God has a purpose in it.

Its not just pain…but its pain God is using…pain God sovereignly ordained…pain God is working together for His glory and your good - Christlike Sanctification.

Now that doesn’t take all the pain away.

Its still hard…its still crushing…

But what it says is that there’s a reason for it which is why we can count it all joy even as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and drink the cup of bitterness that has sovereignly passed to us through our Father’s wise and loving hand.

And when we start to look at our suffering that…as God’s plan and purpose to grow us in Christ and exalt His glory…then we can get on board with what God is doing and let that steadfastness that it takes to walk through that suffering with the eyes of faith have its full effect.

I may not understand what’s happening, or why the thorn in the flesh is not being taken away…

But I trust God and I will follow Him wherever He goes.

We look at our suffering and say, God what are you doing?

How are you growing me? How are you teaching me?

How are you maturing me.

How are you revealing your love and grace to me in Christ?

How are you using this for your glory and my good?

Don’t waste your suffering.

Count it all joy and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

And when it feels like everything is about to crush you…

That what God is asking you to go through feels impossible and beyond any strength or sufficiency you have…

Remember God’s promise: My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Suffering is hard.

Its not fun.

No one wants to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

But God is not trying to crush you…He’s not trying to kill you…He’s not trying to leave you or forsake you…

He is working all things together for His glory and your good.

He is loving you, and caring for you, and disciplining you as one of His own beloved sons as any wise and loving Father naturally would.

And that takes us to our third pillar for a Theology of Suffering.

Number 1: God ordains all things.

Number 2: God ordains all things for His glory and our good.

And Number 3…

III. In All Things God is Our Loving Father Who is Always Good, Always Wise, and Always In Control

This is where everything we have been talking about all boils down and starts coalescing as one.

Go to Hebrews 12:5–13.

This has been a passage that has been particularly encouraging to me as I’ve walked through my own trials and sufferings and I hope it will be for you.

Verse 5…

Hebrews 12:5-8 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

Here we are talking about discipline of the Lord in a general sense…

It could be the discipline of the Lord for some specific sin or just the discipline of the Lord in general that God uses to refine and sanctify us and conform us to the image of Christ…

Whatever kind of discipline it is, whatever means God uses…all of it from the same source: The love of the Father.

For the Lord disciplines the one He loves.

God loves us to much to let us hold on to our sin…

And He loves us too much to not grow us in our sanctification so that we might experience the true freedom from sin that we have in Christ.

So all the trials, hardships, and sufferings of life…as hard as they can be…are always the evidence of God’s love and care for us.

Unbelievers, don’t have that hope.

Only Christians do. Its one of the blessings God gives to believers.

A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven (John 3:27).

Nothing comes into our life, whether good or bad, that does not first pass through the hand of our kind and loving Father.

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Hebrews 12:9-13 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

This is what I really want to focus on.

The Author of Hebrews uses an argument from lesser to the greater.

He says look how our earthly fathers disciplined us and we respected him.

We patiently endured their discipline trusting it was for our ultimate good.

How much more should we trust and submit to the discipline of our Heavenly Father?

Grumbling

In other words, patiently endure suffering and not grumble or complain against the Lord which is nothing more than making a veiled criticism of God.

Every time we complain, we are saying God you are not good…you are not wise…you are not kind righteous and loving…

You’re bad at being God and I would run my life better than you.

Grumbling is a serious sin because at its core its blasphemy against God.

Perfectly Wise

But here’s what I find so encouraging and what I come back to again and again as I walk through suffering.

The Author of Hebrews says For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them.

In other words, our dads got it wrong.

Every dad in here could look back on their discipline and say somewhere along the way, I’ve gotten it wrong.

We’ve disciplined for the wrong things in the wrong way.

We haven’t disciplined when we should have.

And sometimes when we had disciplined we were too soft or to harsh.

The point is we discipline according to what seems best to us.

From our own finite wisdom.

You know who never disciplines that way? God.

He disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.

He disciplines according to His infinite wisdom and perfect goodness to perfectly and fully accomplish all of His purposes precisely as He intended to.

He never gets it wrong.

Now here’s why that’s a comfort.

God disciplines with perfect discipline.

What that means is that your suffering and your pain will never last one second more or one second less than what is precisely necessary to accomplish all of God’s purposes…

And that it will never be one ounce more or one ounce less that what is exactly necessary to precisely accomplish all of God’s will for us.

There is an immense comfort in that.

That this pain…whatever hurt or suffering you are going through or will go through…will not last forever.

It will last as long as its needs to last and hurt as much as its needs to hurt and not one bit more to accomplish God’s grace and purposes for your life.

Whatever God ordains is right, and wise, and good, and is evidence of His love for you.

And so practically how this works out…when you are going through a season of suffering and you’re in it…you’re in the thick of it…

You need to remember:

God is wise.

God is good.

God is in always control.

And He is our heavenly Father who loves us.

Nothing we are going through is a surprise to God or unnecessary to perfectly accomplish His purposes.

He disciplines with perfect discipline according to His perfect love, wisdom, goodness, grace, and sovereign power.

Therefore [the Author of Hebrews says] lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed (Hebrews 12:13).

Trust the Lord and follow Him wherever He leads knowing that…

In all things, God is our loving Father who is always wise, always good, and always in control.

Conclusion

We started this sermon by asking what do you do with pain?

How should Christians face and persevere through suffering no matter what it is in their life?

We all suffer.

Whether its a hard week or a bad Tuesday…

Or a dark cloud that seems like it overshadows everything and doesn’t feel like its ever going to lift.

How do we suffer faithfully and not respond in sin or give into hopelessness and despair.

To do that I said we need a Theology of Suffering.

What does the Bible say so that we can apply the truth of God’s Word to our life.

And there are three things that we need to suffer well.

Number 1…to remember when trials and difficulties come…God is sovereign over all things.

Nothing happens outside of His sovereign will and control…

And everything God decrees in the mystery of His providence is infinitely wise and infinitely good.

Number 2…God sovereignly ordains all things for His glory and our good.

Our suffering and our pain is not meaningless chaos.

It always serves a purpose. Its not wasted.

No matter what we are going through God is always using it to show His glory and grow us in Christ.

Therefore we should count it all joy when we suffer trials of various kinds and ask:

God how are you using this to grow me? Sanctify me? Glorify your name?

So that our suffering and steadfastness would have its full effect.

And finally, not only does God ordain all things.

And not only does God ordain all things for His glory and our good.

But in all things God is our loving Father who is always wise, always good, and always in control.

These are the truths we need…anchors for the soul…to have hope for the pain in our life.

It all has a purpose and nothing…absolutely nothing without first passing through God’s sovereign, wise, and loving hand.