Sermon Tone Analysis

How do we as Christians respond to the pain and suffering of the world?

How do we respond to the pain and suffering in our own life?

INTRO

Are you in Pain?

Not physical pain, but emotional pain?

The stabbing in ATL by the mother of her husband and four children

A Mom in Gwinnett County - Isabel Martinez called 911 after she had stabbed to death her husband and four children.

A fifth child survived.

The ages of the kids were 2-10

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/07/06/georgia-stabbings-4-children-man-found-dead-in-home.html

App: How many of us feel as if we are being beaten down or flogged.

Maybe not in a physical sense.

How many of us are ridiculed for our belief and for our faith

How many of us are falsely accused - maybe at work, or within our own family

As Christians how do we respond when we have been wronged?

How do we react when the pain and the suffering, which is real, very real, comes down on us and is allowed to oppress us from a God who loves us?

The dilemma - The Problem of Evil

For the Christian - the problem of pain and suffering

We are not immune

DRAMA

God allowed Jesus to be flogged

John 19:

Roman Scourging

A short handle and a whip with multiple tails and bones or sharp objects set in the end

He was beaten and whipped

God allowed Jesus to be mocked

John 19:2-

A crown of thorns

A reed in His hand - he kneeled and mocked him - Matthew

Illus: Bored soldiers can come up with some creative ideas

God allowed Jesus to be falsely accused

John 19:

Jesus responds to this uniquely

He does not defend his claim

He does not fight for his freedom of speech

He fully grasped Pilates authority, even more than Pilate did

God allowed all of this to convey His authority over all things

Jesus was flogged, mocked and falsely accused by civil authorities and is on his way to lay down his life and die for the sins of God’s children and to redeem the curse of the covenant.

App: How many of us feel as if we are being beaten down or flogged.

Maybe not in a physical sense.

Illus:

Andrew Brunson - while this is not a 1-1 illustration it represents the realities of the sufferings of this world for Christians

How many of us are ridiculed for our belief and for our faith

How many of us are falsely accused - maybe at work, or within our own family

A Prisoner in Turkey accused of being a conspirator with known terror groups.

The Turkish Prime Minister has accused him of: “being a national security risk”

He was arrested in October and remains there today.

As Christians how do we respond when we have been wronged?

How do we react when the pain and the suffering, which is real, very real, comes down on us and is allowed to oppress us from a God who loves us?

DOCTRINE

For clarity in this let’s look to Jesus response.

This story is His story and is about Him.

Jesus is willing to go through all of these and even death because He knows that God is sovereign over all things

He is in control of ever circumstance and situation that you are in and have ever been

God’s Providence teaches us some basic principles we should consider when dealing with circumstances in our life:

God is in control completely and without exclusion

IV.

The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God, so far manifest themselves in his providence, that it extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men, and that not by a bare permission,p but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to his own holy ends

God allows His beloved children to feel the effects of sin and the pains of this world

V.

The most wise, righteous, and gracious God, doth oftentimes leave for a season his own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption, and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled; and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends.

God does this for two reasons:

1) To expose the hearts of men

2) To build in them a more humble and faithful heart

God allows all of this without being the author of sin nor being the source of sin

yet so as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God; who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.

Many accuse God of then being the author of the evils of this world.

God is Holy and cannot be the author nor approver of sin.

James

1 john

DOXOLOGY

Praise God for his active work in your life.

Even if he did leave us for a season or to encourage our spiritual growth then it is only temporary

King Hezekiah in

Hezekiah was a proud man

God placed His wrath on Him to humble Him

God left him temporarily to test him

Praise God that there will be a resurrection Day

How is it that Jesus could lay down his life and be willing to suffer and die our death?

He knew that He would be raised from the dead.

Death was not the end.

The pain and suffering we experience is temporary and under God’s control

App: We should take comfort in the fact that the things that happen in our life are under the providential hand of the God of Abraham and Isaac.

The Creator of all things, who has power over every aspect, has control of the things that cause Pain and Suffering in your life.

He had them over His own Son Jesus who He loved, He has them over you.

Conclusion

Illus:

How many of us are ridiculed for our belief and for our faith

How many of us are falsely accused - maybe at work, or within our own family

As Christians how do we respond when we have been wronged?

How do we react when the pain and the suffering, which is real, very real, comes down on us and is allowed to oppress us from a God who loves us?

You have within you, if you are a child of God, the Spirit of Christ.

God allows us to go through pan and suffering, not because he is a horrible and unloving God, no it os just the opposite.

He does so so that we may Grow into Christ, who is the head.

Even in the midst of pain and suffering God is Sovereign.

This is important for us to remember as we experience the pain.

God is Sovereign and even the suffering and pain in our life are a witness to the work in our life.

Job - many of focus on the first half of that story.

He lost everything.

His friends could not console him, nor were good advisors during that loss.