Suffering 3 – Help - Dennis Mullen - 9.2.7 

            Raise your hand if you know someone who turned their back on faith because of suffering – theirs or someone else’s or “the suffering in this world.  It could be THE most common reason people reject the idea of God.

            I’m going to step out on a limb and say that this is a REASONABLE thing to do, and if the only response we can muster is “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God!’” then shame on us!  It is very reasonable to expect that faith will provide help in suffering. 

            Now:  I don’t think we should come to God as mercenaries expecting our payoff, and I certainly don’t have all the answers about human suffering or even my own difficulties (which are relatively few).  But I believe that help, and sometimes the only true help, comes from faith.  To that help we now turn.

So far in this series, we’ve asked “Why do people suffer?” and then we turned to another question, “To what end?” or “What good…will I let God bring out of my pain?”  Last week we asked:  “HOW should a Christian suffer in light of our faith in a Good and Powerful God, so that the world sees a difference?”  Today we turn to the simple word “Help”. 

Psalm 121:1  I lift up my eyes to the hills-- where does my help come from?
            The answer in v. 2:  My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.

            So we begin with…

 Help from God

Be careful about taking advice from others.  People say:  “Time heals all wounds” but it doesn’t.  If you break your leg, having it set in a cast…and THEN time…heals the wounds.  Sometimes it’s time and surgery or time and therapy that heals wounds.  And with deep wounds like grief, it might be time and a listening, praying friend that brings healing; time and good counsel; time and lots of effort mentally working through memories; or time and much contemplation on God’s Word and prayer. 

Wise friends CAN give us good help, but our primary need is to hear first what God’s Word has to say.  – the WHOLE counsel too, because it's so easy to take truth out of context and thereby make it false.  Job's friends – the challenging thing is that they really aren't far off the mark.  Indeed much of what they say is true sometimes.  In Job 8:11-15 for example, is this wise and very poetic observation:

JOB 8:11 Can papyrus grow tall where there is no marsh?
    Can reeds thrive without water?

  JOB 8:12 While still growing and uncut,
    they wither more quickly than grass. 

  JOB 8:13 Such is the destiny of all who forget God;
    so perishes the hope of the godless. 

  JOB 8:14 What he trusts in is fragile;
    what he relies on is a spider's web. 

  JOB 8:15 He leans on his web, but it gives way;
    he clings to it, but it does not hold.

            The only trouble is that this is Job’s friend Bildad speaking, and he’s making this point as part of a larger argument that says Job is hurting because he is secretly sinful, which isn’t true.  And like Bildad, many of our friends who know just a snippet of Bible here will take a verse out of context and whip it together with some homespun wisdom and mislead us.

            Our primary source of information has to be the whole counsel of God's Word.  What has God already said about our pain?  Let’s look at a few such things.  Some of them may seem harsh, and indeed they could be taken out of context and harshly used against someone who is suffering.  But I want to present these truths to you and when you are suffering (or I) we can ask God to make use of these truths to add value to our suffering.

            1.  God can use suffering to help us sense his presence. — In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Paul speaks briefly about some amazing visions he had from the Lord.  Now what do we do with people who have visions?  We either commit them to an asylum, OR we put them on a pedestal and give them all our money and worship.  And quite often, they figure they DESERVE our money and worship because they’re visionaries!  God didn’t want Paul institutionalized or worshiped, so:

7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Can I really delight in hardships, difficulties and problems?  It’s not natural.  It IS…supernatural, of the Holy Spirit.  Paul’s thorn in the flesh may have been a physical ailment, or some jerk he had to deal with, or a persistent temptation, or any of a number of things.  God didn’t take it away however, and his reason was:  “This makes you aware that my grace is sufficient for you.”  Without suffering, we tend to ignore God and become more and more agnostic.  Pain is a megaphone that reminds us of the truth that is ALWAYS there:  We need God.

Here’s one you may not like much…

2.  Suffering can develop perseverance.   James opens his letter with:  2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (1:2-4)

Raise your hand if you regularly exercise (once every six months may be regular, so regularly and FREQUENTLY J ).  I’m no expert on exercise, but one thing I know is that if you want to get stronger, develop more endurance and make sure you can persevere when your strength is called upon, then you have to hit it hard in the gym or on the trail or the track pretty frequently because it’s the hard workouts, the ones that you dread, the ones you may even try to avoid, that develop perseverance.  Sometimes – in fact, a LOT of the time – our lives are joyous and fairly easy, like a slow jog on a flat track.  Other times, though, it’s like a forced run up a mountain trail, and its hot and water is scarce.  Which kind of training makes us stronger? 

Philip Yancey has studied and written extensively on suffering.  I’m so glad that I read early in my ministry his books Disappointment With God and Where is God When it Hurts?  Yancey notes that most books on those topics, including his own, come out of places like the United States and Europe, where life is easy in the sense that we have running water and A/C and hospitals and plenty of food and no real persecution.  He says that Christians in Africa and Asia, where the church is very strong in places but where life is hard and persecution is a given – they don’t seem to wonder as much as we do “where is God when it hurts?”  In fact it’s probably more common to find them celebrating and praising God for what we would consider tiny blessings.  It’s easy to conclude that suffering has made them strong and we haven’t put in the miles and therefore are out-of-shape and easily winded.

Here’s one you WON’T like…

3.  Some suffering can be understood as discipline from a loving Father.  Hebrews 12:4-12 says:   4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:

  "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline,
    and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,

  6 because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
    and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."

   7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! 10 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

            12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13 "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

We usually don’t have a place for tough talk like that in American Christianity.  Instead we act like we have a deal with God whereby we provide a level of obedience and money and he’s obligated to keep things fairly smooth for us.  That isn’t Biblical.   So it was refreshing when, not long ago, I talked with a Christian who is going through some tough times, and I started out by saying:  “I’m sorry this is happening to you”, and he replied:  “I’ve got no one to blame but myself.” 

Now it’s true that, if I walk into a hospital room where someone is critically ill, and (apart from a clear, prophetic word from God, I make a firm connection between their suffering and some sin, then I’m as foolish and cruel as Job’s friends.  WHY bad things happen, and happen to good people, is often unknowable.  But we NEED to know that THIS truth is in God’s Word so that in OUR hardship, God can speak to us about what, if anything, still needs to be surrendered to him. 

But whether suffering is discipline, or just to teach us perseverance or value God’s presence our ultimate help comes from this fourth truth…

4.  Jesus shared our experience.  Every week we celebrate his cross, the emblem and source of his suffering.  But we don’t often enough consider this profound commentary on the cross from Hebrews – first, 2:9-11 - 9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

10 In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11 Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.

And then Hebrews 5:7-10 - 7 During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered 9 and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him 10 and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.

When these say that Jesus was made perfect through suffering, that doesn’t call into question his sinlessness.  It isn’t saying that he paid for some shortcoming, some sin on his part by doing penance through suffering.  Hebrews is using “perfect” in the sense of “complete” and is saying that until Jesus suffered, he wasn’t completely formed as our Savior.  Had he given in to temptation and dodged the cross, our salvation (of course) would have been like a bill left unpaid.  He was perfected, completed through suffering.

When it says that he learned obedience from what he suffered, that doesn’t imply (like it would with me) that he was ornery and rebellious and had to be broken down by enduring difficulties.  But he had to experience obedience by going through it as a human man; he learned it in the sense that he faced the temptations to disobey and he faced suffering when he could have avoided suffering by disobeying God’s will.  Suffering perfected him and taught him obedience.

My only reason for dwelling on this is to say:  He has been through it.  Whatever it is you’re suffering – loss, grief, shame, rejection, disappointment, pain – he’s been there.  That’s a trail he has run and he’ll run it with you.  And don’t forget those two most enlightening words of John 11:35, “Jesus wept”.  He knows.  He feels. 

That’s “help from God”.  Let’s turn to… 

Help Through Others

            It’s help THROUGH others, not “from” because in the church as God set it up, we are the Body of Christ, offering not human comfort in human wisdom and power, but rather helping one another with the very help of Christ.

            1 Corinthians 12 gives us what we call the doctrine of the church as Christ’s body, and it says:  12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

            I have to admit that usually when I talk about the Body of Christ and all the members of it and the different gifts with which we’re all equipped, I’m probably trying to convince someone that their gift is to work in the nursery or run the weed-eater on the hillsides.  But there is a deeper and more important application and that is that your experience of suffering – whether through divorce or the rebellion of a child or addiction or living with an addict or financial ruin or depression – your experience can help the members of this body and we need what you have to offer. 

            The thing about suffering is that it can make us believe we don’t have anything to give to others, that we should separate ourselves from the Body.  1 Corinthians 12:15 says:  15 If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.  But when people suffer, when they grieve, when they lose something important, they lose their joy and they say:  “Because I’m not happy, I don’t belong to the Body.  Because faith doesn’t seem to be making my life good, I’m not part of the Body.”  But we need your gifts, the experiences of your journey through your dark valley.

In 2 Corinthians 1:3–5, Paul describes how the Body can work:  3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

What form does that comfort take?  Let me just express a few ideas from my own recent experience with grief, along with some things that have helped others.

Acknowledgment – You can’t ignore someone’s suffering and you really can’t join in.  But you can acknowledge it.  My first Sunday back from my Dad’s funeral, one thing that stands out – Pat Estes came up to me and made me put my Bible down and she just hugged me. 

Contact – When someone is hurting, they may shun contact and yet they don’t want to be forgotten.  A simple call or a note can be very meaningful – much more so than waiting till you bump into them at church.

Inclusion – Suffering, and especially grief, tends to isolate people.  My parents related to the world as a couple for 45 years, so for Mom losing Dad meant losing part of her identity with other people, at church, even in the family.  People who go through divorce speak of the same thing.  So I’m grateful when my brothers or my aunts or other friends in the area invite Mom over for supper or on a day trip somewhere.  It isn’t going to make her forget or instantly heal her, but it’s a tiny step toward rebuilding the social link that has been torn away.

Listening – I think that sitting silently with someone, listening to what they have to say when and IF they want to say it…this is a rare and precious skill.  There are many more talkers than listeners, and yet when people who have been through grief talk about their friends who helped them most, they almost always describe a listener – not someone who came up with answers, or found the magic words to sooth the soul – they just listened, and maybe provided a measure of assurance that the grieving person wasn’t going crazy.

Prayer – of course, prayer.  How could we possibly minister to others with the power of God if we never represent them to the Lord in prayer? 

Now I want to say one final word about suffering that doesn’t really fit into my outline.  When it comes to my suffering and yours, I see a need for us to be willing to take ownership of our issues and not allow ourselves to fall into victim-hood.  It’s a strong temptation when I’m suffering to find fault with the way others deal with me, to DWELL on the real faults that exist, or let myself get hemmed in by my pain so that I’m angry at God or angry at everybody else.  There isn’t any positive future in that kind of life.  We all say we want to be Christlike, but do we realize that the best chance we ever have to be Christlike is when someone fails us, or wrongs us, or when bad things happen?  THAT’S when we’re on the spot to either turn to God or focus on self. 

Jesus’ entire ministry was lived out among people who had every reason to think of themselves as victims.  The people of Israel in the first century were a conquered people and they daily faced the question:  “How can it be true that we are the people of God when THIS is happening to us?”  And yet it was to them that Jesus preached the message:  “The Kingdom of God is near.  The Kingdom of God is among you.”

 How much more with us?

 Morrison Hill Christian Church
P.O. Box 59 - 1008 E. Race St.
Kingston, TN  37763   (865) 376-5205