INTRO.- Our present sufferings.
ILL.- An old man goes to his doctor and says, "I don't think my wife's hearing is as good as it used to be. What should I do?"
The doctor replies, "Try this test to find out for sure. When your wife is in the kitchen doing dishes, stand 15 feet behind her and ask her a question. If she doesn't respond keep moving closer, asking the question until she hears you."
The man goes home and sees his wife preparing dinner. He stands 15 feet behind her and says, "What's for dinner, honey?" No response. He moves to 10 feet behind her and asks again -- no response. Five feet, no answer.
Finally, he stands directly behind her and asks, "Honey, what's for supper?" She says, "For the fourth time, I SAID CHICKEN!"
Loss of hearing is one form of suffering, but it’s not all. We often experience many forms of suffering in this life: physical suffering, mental, emotional, etc.
Whether we like to admit it or not, we all go down physically as we age. None of us can do what we once did when we were in our 20s, 30s, 40s, and perhaps even 50s.
I’ve heard talk on TV about people who are in their 70s as being the new 50! I THINK THAT’S HIGHLY DEBATABLE! It depends on your health, obviously.
ILL.- I remember when Elaine and I went back to Webb City, MO, for my 45th high school class reunion. Elaine and I were walking in the Joplin, MO, mall before the reunion and there was some guy walking in front of us. He was walking like he was every bit of 80 years of age, humped over and very slow.
I thought, “Look at that old man!” It turned out he was one of my classmates who was a big football jock in high school. He looked like a broken down old man. And he wasn’t the only one who looked that way at my class reunion. I started feeling pretty good after the way some of those old people looked!
All suffering in this life, however, is not just physical even though that’s a major emphasis with us. We also suffer mentally and emotionally in life. We raise our children and continue to worry over them.
- Someone once said, “When they’re little, they step on your toes; but when they're grown, they step on your heart."
- “Children are a great comfort in your old age - and they help you reach it faster, too.”
- “The one thing children wear out faster than shoes is parents.”
- Bill Cosby said, “No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I'm not talking about the kids.”
C. S. Lewis: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” What's the idea? God gets our attention very well when we're in pain or are experience troubles and suffering in this life. When things are going well, we don't pay much attention to Him.
Romans 8:17 “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”
Philippians 1:29 “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.”
Hebrews 2:18 “Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” Temptation, persecution, unbelief, etc.
Hebrews 5:7-9 “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. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”
Can suffering cause us to become more obedient to God as well? I think so. It brings a person down. And God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Suffering humbles us and makes us more submissive and obedient to God, which is something we all need to do more of.
PROP.- Paul tells us why we must not let our present suffering get us down.
1- We recognize that suffering is a part of this world
2- We relish our hope of something better
3- We receive help for our weaknesses
I. WE RECOGNIZE THAT SUFFERING IS A PART OF THIS WORLD
18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
ILL.- Once when comedian Bob Hope received a major award he responded, "I don't deserve this, but then I have arthritis and I don't deserve that either."
He may have just because of his age. What do you have that you feel you don’t deserve? Or what have you experienced that is negative that you feel you don’t deserve? We all have these things in our lives. Why? Because we’ve a part of the human race and as humans, we are aging and decaying. And so is this world, in case you haven’t noticed.
What about that poor girl who got that flesh-eating bacteria?
ILL.- Aimee Copeland, 24, University of West Georgia graduate student was out with friends May 1 at the Little Tallapoosa River, about 50 miles west of Atlanta, when the homemade zip line she was holding snapped. She fell and got a gash in her leg that required 22 staples to close.
Three days later, still in pain, she went to an emergency room, and doctors eventually determined she had necrotizing fasciitis caused by the flesh-devouring bacteria. Her left leg, other foot and both hands had to be amputated. On Wednesday, August 22nd, she returned to her Snellville, Ga. home after spending more than 50 days in a Georgia rehabilitation center.
Do you think Aimee Copeland deserved that disease? I don’t, but it happened and it could have happened to anyone, depending on the given circumstances. Accidents happen. Disease happens. Aging happens. And the world is decaying as well.
ILL.- Someone said: “We want to avoid suffering, death, sin, ashes. But we live in a world crushed and broken and torn, a world God Himself visited to redeem.” Praise God that He didn’t just create us and then leave us alone to die in our ashes. HE CAME TO REDEEM US!
ILL.- Author, Chip Brogden wrote: “It is not a question of God allowing or not allowing things (suffering) to happen. It is part of living. Some things we do to ourselves, other things we do to each other. Our Father knows about every bird which falls to the ground, but He does not always prevent it from falling. What are we to learn from this? That our response to what happens is more important than what happens. Here is a mystery: one man’s experience drives him to curse God, while another man’s identical experience drives him to bless God. Your response to what happens is more important than what happens.”
When suffering comes our way we need to be like Job. After losing everything he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.” (Job 1:21-22)
II. WE RELISH OUR HOPE OF SOMETHING BETTER
24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
There is something better waiting for us. We have a beautiful life ahead of us and in some ways, we have no idea how beautiful!
ILL.- The famous preacher D.L. Moody told about a Christian woman who was always bright, cheerful, and optimistic, even though she was confined to her room because of illness. She lived in an attic apartment on the fifth floor of an old, rundown building. A friend decided to visit her one day and brought along another woman -- a person of great wealth. Since there was no elevator, the two ladies began the long climb upward. When they reached the second floor, the well-to-do woman commented, "What a dark and filthy place!" Her friend replied, "It's better higher up."
When they arrived at the third landing, the remark was made, "Things look even worse here." Again the reply, "It's better higher up." The two women finally reached the attic level, where they found the bedridden saint of God. A smile on her face radiated the joy that filled her heart. Although the room was clean and flowers were on the window sill, the wealthy visitor could not get over the stark surroundings in which this woman lived. She blurted out, "It must be very difficult for you to be here like this!" Without a moment's hesitation the shut-in responded, "It's better higher up." She was not looking at temporal things. With the eye of faith fixed on the eternal, she had found the secret of true satisfaction and contentment.
II Corinthians 4:16-18 “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
II Corinthians 5:1-5 Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
Philippians 3:20-21 “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”
Something far better is coming to us!
III. WE RECEIVE HELP FOR OUR WEAKNESSES
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
ILL.- Someone asked C.S. Lewis, "Why do the righteous suffer?" "Why not?" he replied. "They're the only ones who can take it." I think we can take it better those who don’t know the Lord because we have Him on our side to give us grace to endure.
Why can we take it better than someone who doesn’t know the Lord? Because we have the help of God’s Spirit who lives within us! There are times when we hurt, suffer and don’t know how to pray, other than perhaps saying, “God, help me!” But this is when God’s Spirit intercedes on our behalf to the Father. He makes known our deepest pain and desires. Then what? Then God goes to work to help, to bless, to sustain and strengthen us.
II Corinthians 12:1-10 12 I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. 3 And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— 4 was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell. 5 I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. 6 Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say. 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. He gives us His grace in what form? One way is the strength the Holy Spirit supplies.
Ephesians 3:14-16 “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being.”
CONCLUSION-----------------------
ILL.- A. Parnell Bailey visited an orange grove where an irrigation pump had broken down. The season was unusually dry and some of the trees were beginning to die for lack of water. The man giving the tour then took Bailey to his own orchard where irrigation was used sparingly. "These trees could go without rain for another 2 weeks," he said. "You see, when they were young, I frequently kept water from them. This hardship caused them to send their roots deeper into the soil in search of moisture. Now mine are the deepest-rooted trees in the area. While others are being scorched by the sun, these are finding moisture at a greater depth."
We find our moisture, blessing, help, and strength in the Lord. If we never experienced any hardships or suffering we would never reach up to Him! 1- We recognize that suffering is a part of this world 2- We relish our hope of something better 3- We receive help for our weaknesses
Steve Shepherd, Cape Girardeau, MO
shepherd111@hotmail.com
