Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, and what a historic weekend this is as
Speaker 1: we move back into the new, remodeled worship center at
Speaker 1: Lake Forest nearly two years after the pandemic started. I
Speaker 1: want to thank you again everybody for your prayers as
Speaker 1: I'm recovering from two surgeries, and while I'm not yet
Speaker 1: able to stand and teach every service yet, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be at all the services of our Lake Forest
Speaker 1: campus this weekend. Now today, I want us to continue
Speaker 1: with part two of our series on pain. Where is
Speaker 1: God When it hurts? I've been thinking a lot about
Speaker 1: pain in the last month, and I thought i'd just
Speaker 1: share with you what I've learned about pain from God's word.
Speaker 1: One of the most common questions I'm asked as a
Speaker 1: pastor is this, if God is good, if God's good God,
Speaker 1: why is there so much pain in the world. Now,
Speaker 1: that's not exactly a new question. In fact, thousands of
Speaker 1: years ago, Solomon asked this question in the Bible in Ecclesiastes,
Speaker 1: chapter two, I think it's verse twenty two and twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three. He says this, So what do people get
Speaker 1: for all their hard work and struggles on earth? Their
Speaker 1: lives are filled with pain? And their work is filled
Speaker 1: with grief. Even at night, their minds don't rest. It
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense at all. Now, if you're taking notes,
Speaker 1: I hope you took out the message notes, and if
Speaker 1: you're watching online, you can download the teaching notes. Right now,
Speaker 1: I want you to underline the phrase their lives are
Speaker 1: filled with pain, just to underline that their lives are
Speaker 1: filled with pain. Having traveled literally all around the world,
Speaker 1: and I've seen many of the poor situations, and been
Speaker 1: in the worst disaster areas, and have council thousands of
Speaker 1: people in pain, I can tell you this much. This
Speaker 1: verse sums up what much of the world feels. Every
Speaker 1: day is a day of pain for most of the
Speaker 1: people in the world. Why, well, we'll be honest with you.
Speaker 1: I don't know all the reasons there's pain in the world.
Speaker 1: It's on my list of questions to ask God when
Speaker 1: I get to heaven. But I do know some reasons.
Speaker 1: The first big reason is we often experience pain because
Speaker 1: God gave us the freedom of choice, the freedom to
Speaker 1: make choices, the freedom to choose between right and wrong,
Speaker 1: good and bad. That's not only our greatest blessing, it's
Speaker 1: also our greatest liability too, because we often make poor choices,
Speaker 1: and when we make poor choices, we hurt ourselves and
Speaker 1: we heard others. Now, God could easily wipe out all
Speaker 1: of the pain in the world by simply eliminating evil.
Speaker 1: But if he did that, he'd have to wipe us
Speaker 1: out too, because every one of us have acted in
Speaker 1: evil ways. We act in selfish and self absorbed and
Speaker 1: self centered rebellion against God literally every day of our lives.
Speaker 1: So there was no pain in the world until sin
Speaker 1: entered the world. It broke everything, and along with it
Speaker 1: came pain. There was no pain in the garden of Eden. Yes,
Speaker 1: God could eliminate all the hurt and all the pain
Speaker 1: in the world by simply removing our freedom to make
Speaker 1: bad choices.
Speaker 2: But you know then we wouldn't be people anymore. We'd
Speaker 2: be puppets.
Speaker 1: Now, in part one of this series, I gave you
Speaker 1: a practical definition of pain, and I said, this pain
Speaker 1: is a warning light that something is wrong. Pain is
Speaker 1: a warning light that something is wrong. And if we
Speaker 1: didn't have that warning light, we would often continue in
Speaker 1: the wrong direction and continue to hurt ourselves. For instance,
Speaker 1: if you didn't feel pain when you touched a hot stove.
Speaker 1: Then you wouldn't know to remove your hand and it
Speaker 1: would probably just burn up and you could lose your
Speaker 1: hand without even knowing it if you didn't have pain sensations.
Speaker 1: Pain says stop it, Pain says don't do this. Pain
Speaker 1: is a warning sign. Now, last week, in part one,
Speaker 1: I shared from God's word five ways that God tells
Speaker 1: us how he can use pain in our lives for good.
Speaker 1: He can use it for a good purpose. And if
Speaker 1: you miss that message, I want to ask you to
Speaker 1: go back and watch it online either at saddleback dot
Speaker 1: com or pastorick dot com because it's half of what
Speaker 1: I'm teaching you on the meaning of pain. Part one
Speaker 1: we looked at how God uses pain for good five
Speaker 1: ways in your life, and I'm not going to cover
Speaker 1: that again, but today in part two, I want to
Speaker 1: share how you can benefit from pain by the choices
Speaker 1: that you make by choosing the way you respond to pain. See,
Speaker 1: God says I can bring good out of it by
Speaker 1: doing these things, and he gives us five good reasons.
Speaker 1: And he also says, here are five choices that you
Speaker 1: can make that will help pain be beneficial in your life. Now,
Speaker 1: in that first message, I pointed out that pain is inevitable. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's inevitable, It is not optional. You can't opt out
Speaker 1: of it. Nobody gets to go through life pain free. Now,
Speaker 1: when I talk about pain, we're not just talking about
Speaker 1: physical pain, like the kind I've been going through for
Speaker 1: the last month. But we're talking about every kind of pain,
Speaker 1: emotional pain, mental pain, of relational pain, for spiritual pain,
Speaker 1: financial pain, vocational pain, pain at work. Because we live
Speaker 1: in a broken world where nothing works, nothing works perfectly,
Speaker 1: everything's broken, then pain is inevitable. But as I said
Speaker 1: last week, pain is inevitable, misery is optional. That's choice,
Speaker 1: because you do have choices that you can make. You
Speaker 1: can choose how you're going to respond to pain. And
Speaker 1: that's part of being a huge that's part of being
Speaker 1: made in the image of God. That's part of the gift.
Speaker 1: The downside is we have pain. The upside is God
Speaker 1: says you get to choose what you do with it,
Speaker 1: and you can actually use it for good in your
Speaker 1: own life if you'll let me do what I want
Speaker 1: to do and if you'll make the right kind of choices. Now,
Speaker 1: because we have that ability, what it means is this,
Speaker 1: this is what I want to talk about today. We
Speaker 1: don't have to waste our pain. We don't have to
Speaker 1: waste our pain. God doesn't want you to waste any
Speaker 1: of the pain. You're going to go through pain, whether
Speaker 1: you waste it or not, but you may as well
Speaker 1: use it for good. You can benefit from it, and
Speaker 1: through the choices that we make, we can come out
Speaker 1: on the other side of pain being better, not merely bitter. Now,
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of study in pain over the decades,
Speaker 1: and I've seen many, many scientific studies that have documented
Speaker 1: the fact that human beings are able to handle enormous
Speaker 1: amounts of pain. If here's the if, the big if.
Speaker 1: If we know there's a good purpose behind it, there's
Speaker 1: a good purpose for our pain, and then we can
Speaker 1: benefit from the pain. But if we don't make the
Speaker 1: right choices, the pain in our lives ends up being worthless.
Speaker 1: It ends up being wasted, it ends up being pointless.
Speaker 1: It is pain without any purpose, and pain without purpose,
Speaker 1: pointless pain, arbitrary pain, unexplained, irrational, not benefiting from it.
Speaker 2: Pain.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of pain that's unbearable and intolerable, and
Speaker 1: it drives us to despair. On the other hand. When
Speaker 1: you know there's a purpose, you can handle an enormous
Speaker 1: amount of pain. Every mother knows that giving birth is painful.
Speaker 1: If you want to ask mom after the service, go
Speaker 1: right ahead. It's why if they call it labor. But
Speaker 1: mothers willingly go through that pain, the pain of labor,
Speaker 1: for a purpose that's greater than the pain.
Speaker 2: And what is that purpose? To bring forth life?
Speaker 1: Now, if I were able to ask all of you
Speaker 1: moms who are watching right now, how many of you
Speaker 1: would say that the pain of childbirth was worth it
Speaker 1: your all your hands would go up. And if I
Speaker 1: asked how many of you would want to experience that
Speaker 1: pain for no purpose at all, no hand.
Speaker 2: Would go up.
Speaker 1: Okay, I recently agreed to a very painful surgery and
Speaker 1: recovery because I believed that the purpose of the surgery
Speaker 1: was worth the pain. Now here's the point that I'm
Speaker 1: trying to make. No matter what kind of pain you're
Speaker 1: going through right now, you're going to be far better
Speaker 1: prepared to handle it and cope with it if you
Speaker 1: focus on what I'm about to share with you, the
Speaker 1: five possible purposes for your pain. Now, I shared that
Speaker 1: last week God's five purposes for your pain and the
Speaker 1: five potential benefits of your pain that I want to
Speaker 1: share with you today. Now we're going to begin with
Speaker 1: Romans chapter eight, verse twenty eight. It's one of the great,
Speaker 1: most famous verses in the Bible, one of the great
Speaker 1: promises of the Bible. In Romans eight twenty eight, you've
Speaker 1: got this memorized. We know that in all things, God
Speaker 1: works for the good of those who love Him, who've
Speaker 1: been called according to his purpose. Now look at let's
Speaker 1: hold it there for just a minute. Look at that verse.
Speaker 1: We know that in all things, not some things. All
Speaker 1: that means even the painful things, God works. Doesn't say
Speaker 1: all things are good, doesn't say all things are pleasant.
Speaker 1: God works for those who love Him who've been called
Speaker 1: according to his purpose. And it only makes sense when
Speaker 1: you understand the purpose. What I want to share with
Speaker 1: you this weekend is this that you're going through, whatever
Speaker 1: you're going through right now, at work, at home, in
Speaker 1: your body, in your mind, in your relationships, pain can
Speaker 1: be managed by purpose, Pain can be managed on purpose,
Speaker 1: and pain can be managed for a purpose. Now, if
Speaker 1: you've read the Purpose Driven Life Book, you know that
Speaker 1: the Bible tells us that God has five purposes.
Speaker 2: For your life.
Speaker 1: And these five purposes are repeated and they are reinforced
Speaker 1: hundreds of time in the scripture. It's not like God's
Speaker 1: hidden this out and only put it in one place.
Speaker 1: At scripture. God has five purposes for your life. Let's
Speaker 1: review it. Number one. God's first purpose for your life
Speaker 1: is to know and love Him, to get to know
Speaker 1: and love him. He gave you the capacity to know
Speaker 1: and love him. You are planned for God's pleasure. You
Speaker 1: were made to be loved by God. You're created as
Speaker 1: an object of God to be loved by God. God
Speaker 1: knows everything about you and loves you. He wants you
Speaker 1: to know and love him back by the way that's
Speaker 1: called worship. Worship is getting to know and loving God.
Speaker 1: The second purpose of your life is to learn to
Speaker 1: love other people. You are formed for God's family. We
Speaker 1: call that fellowship. God says, I don't want you to
Speaker 1: just love me. I want you to learn to love
Speaker 1: other people as well. This is the great commandment. Love
Speaker 1: God with all your heart. Worship, love your neighbors, yourself fellowship.
Speaker 1: The third purpose for your life is to grow up
Speaker 1: spiritually like Christ. You were created to become like Christ.
Speaker 1: You're born again. But God doesn't want you to stay
Speaker 1: a baby. He wants you to grow up spiritually and
Speaker 1: be like your older brother Jesus Christ. You're created to
Speaker 1: become like him. We call that discipleship. That's the third purpose.
Speaker 1: To know and love Christ, to learn to love his
Speaker 1: family and other people, to grow in Christ in character.
Speaker 1: The fourth purpose of your life is to use the
Speaker 1: talents that God put in you to serve others. You
Speaker 1: are shaped for service. You are made for a ministry.
Speaker 1: This is called your ministry and it's the fourth purpose
Speaker 1: of your life. God didn't put you on earth just
Speaker 1: to suck up air and live for yourself. He wants
Speaker 1: you to make a contribution with your life in this world.
Speaker 1: He wants you to leave the world a better place.
Speaker 1: He wants you to make a difference in your part
Speaker 1: of the world. And the fifth purpose for your life
Speaker 1: is to share your life message with others. Part of
Speaker 1: that life message we all share in common. It's called
Speaker 1: the good News. But part of your life message is
Speaker 1: the message that God has given you about what you've
Speaker 1: learned through pain, what you've learned through experiences. You are
Speaker 1: made for a mission. This is called witness. So whether
Speaker 1: we call it worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and witness, or
Speaker 1: whether we call it know in Christ, growing in Christ,
Speaker 1: serving Christ, sharing Christ, you know, growing in Christ, loving
Speaker 1: Christ's family. It's all the same five purposes. Now, that's
Speaker 1: all review. If you've been around saddleback, we've covered that many, many,
Speaker 1: many times. But what many people don't understand is this,
Speaker 1: and I want you to get this. Are you ready?
Speaker 1: God uses pain to help us fulfill all five of
Speaker 1: those life purposes, every one of those purposes, worship, discipleship, fellowship, ministry, evangelism, outreach,
Speaker 1: whatever you call it. God uses pain to help you
Speaker 1: fulfill each of your life purposes. Now, sadly, most people
Speaker 1: don't know this. Most people waste their suffering. They don't
Speaker 1: profit from their problems. They don't learn from their losses.
Speaker 1: They don't harvest their hurts. They don't improve from their injuries,
Speaker 1: they don't advance from their adversity. They don't gain from
Speaker 1: their pain. And this is why Saint Paul asked the
Speaker 1: question in Galatians three, verse four, your outline? Have you
Speaker 1: gone through all of this for nothing? Is it all
Speaker 1: really for nothing? Now let me review you again. You're
Speaker 1: gonna have pain in your life. The issue is are
Speaker 1: you gonna waste it? Let me ask you, up to
Speaker 1: this point in your life, have you wasted the pain
Speaker 1: in your life?
Speaker 2: He said, well, I don't know. I may have.
Speaker 1: Well, it's not too late to start benefiting. You're not
Speaker 1: through with pain. You're gonna have pain in the future
Speaker 1: in your life, so it's not too late to start
Speaker 1: benefiting from it. So today, let's look at five ways
Speaker 1: to benefit from any kind of pain, emotional, relational. All
Speaker 1: of these different or physical, And these are choices or
Speaker 1: actions that you can take, and they're all found right
Speaker 1: here in God's word. All right, you're taking notes. Here's
Speaker 1: the five ways you can benefit from your own pain
Speaker 1: if you'll make these choices. Number one, use my pain
Speaker 1: to draw closer to God in worship. Use my pain
Speaker 1: to draw closer to God in worship. Now you know
Speaker 1: that when anything happens painful in your life, you've got
Speaker 1: a choice. You can run to God or you can
Speaker 1: run from God. And you know what I've noticed in life,
Speaker 1: about half people do both. Half people run toward God
Speaker 1: when they're in pain, and about half people run away
Speaker 1: from God in pain. Now, the second way never seem
Speaker 1: to make sense, because how are you going to get
Speaker 1: any comfort when you're running from God. You know that
Speaker 1: when you're in pain, your prayers get more real, your
Speaker 1: worship gets more real, your your heart gets more tender. Personally,
Speaker 1: I've spent more time alone with God in the years
Speaker 1: since my young son, my youngest son died by taking
Speaker 1: his life than in all the previous years, because in
Speaker 1: the grief of that law, what kept me going through
Speaker 1: all my painful days it was time alone with God.
Speaker 1: So you can use your pain to draw closer to
Speaker 1: God in worship. How do you do that? Well, here's
Speaker 1: what you do. You don't tell them what you think
Speaker 1: you ought to say. You tell them exactly how you feel.
Speaker 1: You cry out to God when you're in pain. God,
Speaker 1: I'm in pain. You argue with God, God, I don't
Speaker 1: like this pain. You tell God you lament. One third
Speaker 1: of the psalms, fifty of one hundred and fifty psalms
Speaker 1: are psalms of lament. They're crying out to God, They're
Speaker 1: arguing in God. Did you know that complaining to God
Speaker 1: is an act of worship. You can worship in all
Speaker 1: the phases of grief. You can express your shock. You
Speaker 1: can unload your sorrow. You can share your struggle, what
Speaker 1: you're feeling with the pain you're feeling. You can surrender yourself.
Speaker 1: You can ask God to use the pain for good
Speaker 1: in your life. Paul does this in Second Corinthians, chapter one,
Speaker 1: verse eight to ten. He says, when we were crushed
Speaker 1: and overwhelmed, and we saw how powerless we were to
Speaker 1: help ourselves, said, even that was good for then we
Speaker 1: put everything into the hands of God, who alone could
Speaker 1: save us, and He did help us. When I'm in pain,
Speaker 1: it's a time for me to draw closer to God,
Speaker 1: not further a way. It's a time for me to
Speaker 1: trust God more, to worship God, more, to turn to God, more,
Speaker 1: to surrender to God more. When Matthew died, our family
Speaker 1: did a family surrender to God retreat. Yeah, we went
Speaker 1: over to Ranchi Caapistrano and did a day retreat on
Speaker 1: surrendering to God the pain that we were in. I
Speaker 1: could give you, friends, thousands, thousands of saddleback stories of
Speaker 1: people who came to know Jesus out of their pain
Speaker 1: or their lives were totally transformed in the process of
Speaker 1: worshiping when they were in pain. I'm sure many of
Speaker 1: you could say pain turned me to Christ. And if
Speaker 1: you can say that, I say, like Paul and Second
Speaker 1: Corinthian seven to nine, I'm glad not because it hurts you,
Speaker 1: because the pain turns you to God. So the first
Speaker 1: thing we do in pain is we don't run from God.
Speaker 1: We run to him. We turn to God in our pain.
Speaker 1: We let it draw us closer to God, to trust
Speaker 1: him more, to worship more, to know him and love
Speaker 1: him more. Number two, the second purpose of your life
Speaker 1: is fellowship learning to love other people. And you can
Speaker 1: do this. Number two, Use my pain to draw closer
Speaker 1: to others in fellowship. Use my pain to draw closer
Speaker 1: to others in fellowship. If you will allow it, pain
Speaker 1: will deepen your love. Pain will mature your love because
Speaker 1: suffering sensitizes you. I have seen pain turn the most
Speaker 1: self centered people in the sympathetic people. When Matthew died,
Speaker 1: Kay and I knew the statistics that couples that have
Speaker 1: a child die nearly a third of those marriages end
Speaker 1: up splitting up with the death of a child because
Speaker 1: people grieve in different ways and they don't know how
Speaker 1: to handle it. But Kay and I have actually grown
Speaker 1: closer together since the death of our youngest child. I'm
Speaker 1: more in love with my wife than I was when
Speaker 1: I met her fifty years ago. You can believe that
Speaker 1: she was two years old fifty years ago.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I asked, Kay, why do you think we made it
Speaker 1: when we are so absolutely different in every.
Speaker 2: Cell of our bodies.
Speaker 1: I was hoping she'd say, because you're so nice to me,
Speaker 1: But that's not what she said. She said, because we
Speaker 1: intentionally worked at strengthening it, and we gave each other grace.
Speaker 1: Pain will draw you closer to other people if you'll
Speaker 1: be honest to God, honestly yourself, and honest with others.
Speaker 2: Pain.
Speaker 1: When you're in a small group and you take a
Speaker 1: risk to share where you're in pain, it takes the
Speaker 1: level of fellowship to the deepest level. There are four
Speaker 1: levels of fellowship in a small group. There's the fellowship
Speaker 1: of sharing. Hey, how about them Chargers, how about them rams?
Speaker 1: That's sharing, it's what's going on in your life. That's okay.
Speaker 1: It's the shallowest level, but it's okay. There's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with sharing fellowship. But then the deeper level is studying.
Speaker 1: That's studying the word together is a deeper level of
Speaker 1: fellowship when we actually serve together. We do a project
Speaker 1: together as a small group that takes our fellowship even deeper.
Speaker 1: Our small group went to Rwanda one time. We've done
Speaker 1: lots of different projects together in serving together. But the
Speaker 1: deepest level of fellowship of all, it's what the Bible
Speaker 1: calls the fellowship of suffering.
Speaker 2: Suffering together.
Speaker 1: Glatians six to two says, by helping each other with
Speaker 1: your troubles, you truly obey the law of Christ. By
Speaker 1: helping each other with your troubles, you truly obey the
Speaker 1: law Christ. What's the law Christ? Love your neighbors, yourself.
Speaker 1: The deepest love, true fellowship shows up when people are
Speaker 1: in pain. That's why you're going to have to use
Speaker 1: your pain, and you're going to have to enter into
Speaker 1: other people's pain to understand what real connection, what real quintinia,
Speaker 1: what real fellowship, what real.
Speaker 2: Belonging is all about.
Speaker 1: There's a third purpose in your life, and that's God
Speaker 1: wants you to use your life to grow in Christ
Speaker 1: in character. And here's the third way. You use pain.
Speaker 1: Use pain to grow more like Jesus in discipleship. Use
Speaker 1: pain to grow more like Jesus in discipleship. I grow
Speaker 1: closer to Him in worship, I grow closer to others
Speaker 1: in fellowship. I grow deeper in discipleship through pain. Every
Speaker 1: pain in your life is an opportunity to grow in character.
Speaker 1: Learn love when you feel unloved. How do you learn
Speaker 1: joy in the middle of Greece? How do you learn
Speaker 1: peace when everything's in chaos? How do you learn patience
Speaker 1: when you're not feeling patient in the exact opposite situation. Again,
Speaker 1: this is a choice. Am I going to be bitter
Speaker 1: or better? Am I going to let this pain be
Speaker 1: a stepping stone to maturity or a stumbling block to immaturity?
Speaker 1: Spiritual growth is not automatic. And you I said this
Speaker 1: last week. I've learned nothing from pleasure in my life.
Speaker 1: Everything I've learned important in life, I learned the pain.
Speaker 1: We looked at this verse last week Proverbs twenty thirty.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it takes a painful situation to make us change
Speaker 1: our ways. Now, once you're saved, God's number one purpose
Speaker 1: in your life begins to be making you like Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: You're born into God's family. Now he wants you to
Speaker 1: grow up. Now, here's the corollary to that. If God
Speaker 1: wants to make me like Jesus. That's his gold for
Speaker 1: my life. How does God make me like Jesus? The
Speaker 1: answer is this, by taking you through everything Jesus went through. Hello,
Speaker 1: were there times when Jesus was lonely?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Where the times when Jesus was frustrated? Yes, misunderstood, yes, criticized. Yes,
Speaker 1: there were there times when Jesus was in pain.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Look at these next two verses on your outline Hebrews
Speaker 1: five eight. So even though Jesus was God's son, he
Speaker 1: learned obedience from the things he suffered. If Jesus learned
Speaker 1: obedience from suffering, how do you think you're going to
Speaker 1: learn it? Hebrews five nine says suffering made Jesus perfect,
Speaker 1: and now he can say forever all who obey him.
Speaker 1: If Jesus was made perfect through suffering, how do you
Speaker 1: think you're made perfect? How do you think you're matured?
Speaker 2: Same way?
Speaker 1: Folks, there are some things we only learn through pain.
Speaker 1: In that sense, pain becomes a gift. Pain becomes a
Speaker 1: friend if we let it draw us closer to God,
Speaker 1: Worship draw us closer to others and fellowship, and grows
Speaker 1: teep deeper in discipleship. You know, Paul complimented the way
Speaker 1: the Corinthian Church had grown through their pain in Second Corinthians,
Speaker 1: Chapter seven, Verse eleven. I love this in the message.
Speaker 1: It says, Now, isn't it wonderful? All the ways in
Speaker 1: which listen? This distress has goaded you closer to God.
Speaker 1: Remember last week we talked about God uses pain to
Speaker 1: goad me and direct me to move me in a direction.
Speaker 1: This distress has goaded you closer to God. Now in
Speaker 1: this verse I want you to notice as we read it,
Speaker 1: Paul mentioned seven character qualities. And tell me if you
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to have these seven in your life. He says,
Speaker 1: because of the distress you've gone through. He says, you're
Speaker 1: more alive, you're more concerned, you're more sensitive, you're more reverent,
Speaker 1: more human, you're more passionate, and you're more responsible. Looked
Speaker 1: at it from any angle, You've come out of this
Speaker 1: with purity of heart.
Speaker 2: That's the scripture.
Speaker 1: And did you notice those seven qualities that he mentioned.
Speaker 1: You might want to go back and circle them there
Speaker 1: on your outline. If you want those seven qualities in
Speaker 1: your life, that's christ likeness, then ask God to use
Speaker 1: your pain. Don't waste your pain. Ask God to use
Speaker 1: it to build your character. The fact is pain transforms us.
Speaker 1: It never leaves us where it found us. We start
Speaker 1: off in one area, we go through pain, and when
Speaker 1: we come out of the pain, we're at a different
Speaker 1: place in our lives every single time, hopefully more mature
Speaker 1: if we respond correctly. Now, I know you've been under
Speaker 1: a lot of stress for the last two years. They've
Speaker 1: been the two worst years probably in your life. But
Speaker 1: the number one quality of winners in life is this
Speaker 1: resil alliance, the ability to bounce back. I've been watching
Speaker 1: all the NFL teams through this season. We're halfway through
Speaker 1: the season. One moment they're up, the next minute they're down.
Speaker 1: The next minute there hero, the next minute there zero.
Speaker 1: One minute they just beat the best team. The next
Speaker 1: minute the worst team beat them. How do you become
Speaker 1: a resilient person, Well, Paul shows us out.
Speaker 2: Let me let me.
Speaker 1: First read you Paul's testimony. To Paul's testimony is in
Speaker 1: a couple passages. The first one is second Crinias, chapter eleven.
Speaker 1: Here's what it says. They'll be on the screen. I've
Speaker 1: been put in jail, as Paul talking, I've been put
Speaker 1: in jail more often been whipped times without number. I
Speaker 1: faced death again and again. He says, five different times
Speaker 1: I was whipped with thirty nine lashes.
Speaker 2: Imagine how many.
Speaker 1: Marks were on his back five times thirty nine. Three
Speaker 1: times I was beaten with rods, said once I was
Speaker 1: stoned with stones, three times I was shipwrecked once. It's
Speaker 1: been a whole day and night adrift at sea. He said,
Speaker 1: I faced dangers from flooded rivers, and dangers from robbers,
Speaker 1: and dangers from angry mobs. That I faced dangers in
Speaker 1: the cities and in the deserts and on stormy seas,
Speaker 1: and I faced dangers from people who claim to be
Speaker 1: Christians but are not.
Speaker 2: He said.
Speaker 1: I've lived with weariness and pain and sleepless nights. He said,
Speaker 1: I've often been hungry and thirsty and gone without food.
Speaker 1: This is the greatest missionary in the history of Christianity.
Speaker 1: I've often shivered with cold, without enough clothing to keep
Speaker 1: me warm. And besides all that, I've got the daily
Speaker 1: burden of all the churches that I've started. That sounds
Speaker 1: like pretty discouraging life. Then he adds over in chapter
Speaker 1: one of Second Corinthians one, Second Corinthians one, eight to ten.
Speaker 1: He says this, we're pressed on every side by troubles,
Speaker 1: but we're not crushed and broken. That's resilience, pressed but
Speaker 1: not broken.
Speaker 2: He said.
Speaker 1: We're perplexed, but we don't give up and quit. He says,
Speaker 1: we're hunted down, but God never abandons us. And he said,
Speaker 1: we get knocked down, but we get up again. We
Speaker 1: keep going through suffering. These bodies of ours constantly share
Speaker 1: in the death of Christ of Jesus, so that the
Speaker 1: life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies. Wow,
Speaker 1: would you like to have that kind of resilience? Wouldn't
Speaker 1: you have that kind of faith that you make it
Speaker 1: through anything, that nothing can destroy you in your life.
Speaker 1: What was the secret of Paul's resilience is the way
Speaker 1: what he focused on. He had an eternal perspective and
Speaker 1: eternal purpose. Remember when I said this a few minutes ago.
Speaker 1: You can handle unbelievable pain if you see a purpose
Speaker 1: behind it. Well, this is why Paul was able to
Speaker 1: handle all those things. In Tewo Corinthians, chapter four, there
Speaker 1: on your outline, Verses sixteen and seventeen says this. Paul says,
Speaker 1: this is the reason we never become discouraged. He's going
Speaker 1: to give it to you. He's going to tell you
Speaker 1: why he is resilient in the face of enormous pain,
Speaker 1: in the resilient in the face of enormous trials, tribulations, stress, sorrows, suffering.
Speaker 1: He says, we never give up for this reason, we
Speaker 1: never become discouraged, even though our physical being is gradually decaying.
Speaker 1: Did you know your physical being is gradually decaying, yet
Speaker 1: our spiritual being is being renewed day by day, day
Speaker 1: after day. And these temporary troubles like the one I'm
Speaker 1: going through right now, these temporary troubles that we suffer,
Speaker 1: will bring us a tremendous and eternal glory much greater
Speaker 1: than the trouble. Where does all that kind of resilience
Speaker 1: come from. Here's the verse. Here's the key to resilience
Speaker 1: in your life. For we fix our attention. Here's what
Speaker 1: we do. We fix our attention. That means we focus
Speaker 1: our mind. We focus our mind not on the things
Speaker 1: that are, but on the things that are unseen. Because
Speaker 1: what can be seen lasts only for a little bit
Speaker 1: of time, but what cannot be seen last forever. This
Speaker 1: table can be seen, but one day, this table will decay,
Speaker 1: the wood will fall apart, the iron on it will
Speaker 1: rot or rust. But what can't be seen the Father,
Speaker 1: the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Heaven and Hell, those
Speaker 1: are gonna last forever. All right, Let's review when I'm
Speaker 1: going to do pain if I want to use it
Speaker 1: for good in my own life, not waste my pain.
Speaker 1: I use it to let me draw me closer to
Speaker 1: God in worship, draw me closer to others in fellowship,
Speaker 1: learn to love others and fellowship. I use it to
Speaker 1: build my character, become more like Christ and discipleship. Number four,
Speaker 1: use my pain to be more sensitive in serving others.
Speaker 1: That's the fourth purpose of your life. God wants to
Speaker 1: use pain to help you with the purpose of service,
Speaker 1: the purpose of ministry.
Speaker 2: You weren't put here to live for yourself.
Speaker 1: Now, well, how does pain help you be more effective
Speaker 1: in serving others? How does pain help you be more
Speaker 1: effective in ministering to others? Pain sensitizes you to the
Speaker 1: pain in others. You feel it in others. If you
Speaker 1: have gone through a divorce, you know what it feels
Speaker 1: like to be divorced. If you've gone through the loss
Speaker 1: of a loved one, you know what that feels like.
Speaker 1: If you faced cancer or any other major physical problem,
Speaker 1: you know what that feels like. If you've been rejected,
Speaker 1: you know what that feels like. Rather than focusing on
Speaker 1: my pain, I choose to readdirect my focus in helping
Speaker 1: other people in pain with the same kind of pain.
Speaker 2: You see, Jesus wants to redeem your suffering. What does
Speaker 2: that mean?
Speaker 1: Redemptive suffering is when you use the pain you're going
Speaker 1: through to help other people. This is what Kay and
Speaker 1: I've tried to do with the loss of child through suicide.
Speaker 1: We've tried to use our pain to help other people.
Speaker 1: And there's almost not a week goes by in all
Speaker 1: the years that have passed that somebody famous or not famous,
Speaker 1: well known or none unknown, old or young, calls K
Speaker 1: or me or both of us and asks us for help.
Speaker 1: Why because they know where we've been through it. Second Corinthians,
Speaker 1: chapter one, verse four to six says this God comforts
Speaker 1: us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others.
Speaker 1: Then when others are troubled, we'll be able to give
Speaker 1: them the same comfort that God has given us.
Speaker 2: You can be sure.
Speaker 1: The Bible says that the more we suffer for Christ,
Speaker 1: the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ,
Speaker 1: so that when we are weighed down with troubles, it
Speaker 1: is for your benefit and salvation. Or when God comforts us,
Speaker 1: it's so that we in turn can be an encouragement
Speaker 1: to you, and then you can patiently endure the same
Speaker 1: things that we suffer. You know, this past week here
Speaker 1: in the United States was Veteran's Day. Who's better to
Speaker 1: qualify to help a suffering veteran than somebody who has
Speaker 1: been a suffering veteran. Whatever you have had pain in
Speaker 1: God wants to use that to tell buthers. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk more about that now. Let me give you the
Speaker 1: last one. The fifth way you can use your pain
Speaker 1: is I can use my pain to witness to the world.
Speaker 1: I use my pain to witness the world. I'm going
Speaker 1: to spend more time on this in another message because
Speaker 1: it's so important. You See, we think that the world's
Speaker 1: impressed with our success, with our prosperity. We think the
Speaker 1: world is impressed by how we enjoy prosperity. But actually
Speaker 1: the world is impressed with how we handle adversity.
Speaker 2: And when you're going through.
Speaker 1: Pain, all the non believers around you are watching you
Speaker 1: and see what does it mean to be a Christian
Speaker 1: when you're in the same kind of pain. We have
Speaker 1: the same pain everybody else does. We just have a
Speaker 1: different source of comfort. We think our successes give credibility,
Speaker 1: but actually it's our suffering that gives us credibility. And
Speaker 1: the more you're honest about the suffering in your life,
Speaker 1: the more vulnerable, the more authentic, the more powerful your
Speaker 1: impact will be in people's lives. We think fame earns respect,
Speaker 1: Now actually it's faithfulness that are in respect, faithfulness in
Speaker 1: tough times. Paul of all people was a pro at
Speaker 1: using his pain as a witness. In Philippians, chapter one,
Speaker 1: verse twelve, he says this, I want you to know,
Speaker 1: dear brothers and sisters, about how everything that has happened
Speaker 1: to me, all the bad stuff. He's writing this from
Speaker 1: prison in Rome, how everything that's happened to me has
Speaker 1: helped to spread the good news. That's pain for a witness.
Speaker 1: He says, I use my pain to model my message.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do that right now, use pain to
Speaker 1: model the message. Tewo Corinthian six 's four says, in
Speaker 1: everything we do, we try to show that we're true
Speaker 1: servants of Jesus. We patiently endure suffering. Okay, we patiently
Speaker 1: endure suffering and hardship and trouble of every kind. Now
Speaker 1: you've heard me say this before, but I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: it again. Your deepest life message will come out of
Speaker 1: your deepest pain. This is real, This is authentic. This
Speaker 1: is the kind of witness. This is the kind of
Speaker 1: testimony the world needs see. Not Christians who are perfect,
Speaker 1: not Christians who have everything together, but Christians who are
Speaker 1: patient in pain, Christians who walk faithfully in suffering.
Speaker 2: Now listen, every.
Speaker 1: Area where you've had a pain in your life, you
Speaker 1: may have never released, this is a testimony. You've been
Speaker 1: in debt, that's painful, that's testimony to God help you
Speaker 1: out of it. Had physical pain, God helped you through that,
Speaker 1: that's testimony. Been in relational pain, God helped you. That's
Speaker 1: testimony you everywhere you've had pain and God helped you,
Speaker 1: that's a testimony. Please, as your pastor, I'm asking you,
Speaker 1: don't waste your pain, don't waste your hurt. There are
Speaker 1: people all around you going through the very thing you've
Speaker 1: already gone through, and they want, they need your help
Speaker 1: comforting them.
Speaker 2: Now, here's the greatest witness.
Speaker 1: The greatest witness of God's love in all of history
Speaker 1: was not jesus perfect life. The greatest witness of God's
Speaker 1: love in all of history was not Jesus' sermons. The
Speaker 1: greatest witness of God's love for you in the world
Speaker 1: was not jesus miracles or his stories. It was his
Speaker 1: se That's the greatest witness of God's love. With the
Speaker 1: arms outstretched, God says, Jesus says, I love you this much.
Speaker 1: His suffering was the greatest witness of his love. So
Speaker 1: here's the bottom line. You can waste your pain or
Speaker 1: you can utilize it for good. So I said, we're
Speaker 1: going to continue in this series, but I want to
Speaker 1: end by giving you some homework. Don't waste your pain.
Speaker 1: Here's what I want you to do this week. I
Speaker 1: want you to get alone by yourself, and I want
Speaker 1: you to write down the four most painful moments in
Speaker 1: your life. Identify Him the four most painful moments in
Speaker 1: your life. And then Part two is using last week's
Speaker 1: message and this week's message using part one of the series,
Speaker 1: how God can use my pain in life five ways,
Speaker 1: and this week's message, how I can benefit from my
Speaker 1: pain five choices that I can make. Use those ten
Speaker 1: factors as a checklist to write out how you have
Speaker 1: personally benefited from pain, how God has helped you through pain,
Speaker 1: and how the lessons you've learned have been important to you,
Speaker 1: and why do I want you to write down so
Speaker 1: you can share it with the next generation. Now, before
Speaker 1: we close, I want to pray for everybody who's in
Speaker 1: pain right now, and if you've never opened your life
Speaker 1: to Christ, I want to invite you to open your
Speaker 1: life to Christ and give him whatever pain you're facing
Speaker 1: right now. Let's bow our heads Heavenly, Father, I want
Speaker 1: to thank you for these who are watching right now
Speaker 1: online on the internet, at all of our campuses, wherever
Speaker 1: we are. You're speaking to us directly right now. And
Speaker 1: I don't know the pain that every heart that's hearing
Speaker 1: these words is feeling, but you do. You Lord know
Speaker 1: every pain in our heart, and so I'm asking you
Speaker 1: to help each person where they need it, even though
Speaker 1: I don't know what that is. I'm asking to help
Speaker 1: every woman and every man listening right now and comfort
Speaker 1: them with the pain in their heart, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: And I pray that they will use these five purposes
Speaker 1: to benefit to not waste their pain. Now you pray, say,
Speaker 1: Dear God, just say this in your heart. Dear God,
Speaker 1: help me to use my pain to draw closer to
Speaker 1: you in worship, to be closer to you, to pray more,
Speaker 1: to wait more, to listen more, to be quiet more.
Speaker 1: And then say Lord, I'm asking you to use the
Speaker 1: pain in my life to help me learn how to
Speaker 1: really love other people through fellows. I want to have
Speaker 1: a sense of belonging, a sense of connection. I want
Speaker 1: to go through the shallower fellowship of sharing and studying
Speaker 1: and serving and get to the fellowship of suffering. Let
Speaker 1: me take that risk, Say God, I ask you to
Speaker 1: use the pain in my life to make me more
Speaker 1: like Christ. Jesus learned obedience through suffering. He was made
Speaker 1: perfect through suffering. I'm asking you to use this for
Speaker 1: good in my life. Build resilience in my life, Lord,
Speaker 1: as I trust you in my pain. And then say Lord,
Speaker 1: I'm asking you to use the pain in my life
Speaker 1: and help me to use it to help other people
Speaker 1: in their as a ministry. And to take the things
Speaker 1: that I'm most embarrassed about or most discouraged about or
Speaker 1: most afraid of talking about and use the deepest pain
Speaker 1: in my heart to hurt others, to help others. I
Speaker 1: don't want to waste my pain. I've already gone through it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to waste it. And Lord, give me
Speaker 1: a life message. Help me to use the messages of
Speaker 1: pain in my life as a witness to others. For
Speaker 1: jesus sake, you've never opened your life to Christ. Say
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, come into my life right now. Heal my
Speaker 1: heart and heal my hurt. I give myself completely to
Speaker 1: you in your name. I pray Amen.