Title: Life is hard-God is good.
Place: BLCC
Date: 2/11/18
Text: Romans 8.28
CT: Our pain draws us closer to Jesus and makes us more like Him
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Doctors make a lot of recommendations for their patients. But do they incorporate these suggestions into their own lives? An article in The Wall Street Journal had a number of doctors weigh in on this question. One doctor noted that doctors often warn their patients about stress and burn out, and yet a survey from Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic found that 40 percent of surgeons said they were burned out.
A doctor of internal medicine from California insightfully said, "We tell our patients to avoid stress, to not work too hard, to balance their professional and personal lives. Yet many of us who dole out this advice completely ignore it ourselves … We ignore it because it is [darn] hard to follow. Rather than closing our eyes to this well-meaning bit of hypocrisy, we'd do well to confess our own struggles to our patients."
Another doctor lamented that doctors often tell their patients to pursue life balance but "From relentless studying in pre-med years fueled by vending machines and burned coffee, to medical school's brutal avalanche of information, many of us take our own health for granted. Often, we fail to see that our lack of balance affects our ability to care for patients with compassion and focus."
What Is the Most Common Piece of Advice Doctors Give—;but Don't Take? The Wall Street Journal (8-11-14)
LS. The hardest person to give grace too is often ourselves. We let our busyness and drive to so much that we forget to live a graceful life.
I’m in the last sermon of the series on Grace is Greater. God’s grace is compelling when explained but irresistible when experienced. I have tried in this series to be sure you experience grace not just learn what it is. Grace is greater than our mistakes, our bitterness, our hurts, and our vengeance. We have looked at how these keep us from giving grace and letting it flow to others. We have discovered the importance of forgiving even those who try to hurt us. Not for their benefit but for our own as followers of Jesus.
The sermon today is titled [Screen 2] Life is Hard-God Is Good. We all have our struggles that make life hard but we have God on our side that makes our life still good.
In 1921 a missionary couple from Sweden named David and Svea Flood went with their two-year-old son to the heart of Africa. They met up with another missionary couple and the four of them decided to take the gospel to a remote area where people had never heard about Jesus.
Unfortunately, when they arrived, the chief of the tribe wouldn’t let them live in the village. They were forced to live about a mile away, and their only contact with anyone from the village was with a young boy whom the chief allowed to come sell them food. Svea ended up leading that young boy to faith in Jesus, but that was their only progress. They never had contact with anyone else from the village. Eventually the other couple contracted malaria and left. The Floods were on their own. And soon Svea, who was pregnant, also contracted malaria. She died several days after giving birth.
Her husband dug a crude grave, buried his twenty-seven-year-old wife, and went back to the main mission station. He gave his newborn baby girl to the missionaries there and said, “I’m going back to Sweden. I’ve lost my wife. I obviously can’t take care of
this baby. God has ruined my life.”
And he took his son and left. Missionaries adopted his baby daughter and brought her back to the United States to raise her. At this point in the story I can’t help but wonder why a man of such faith would respond this way. I have never had to deal with this kind of disappointment and heartache, but it seems like the pain was just too much. His life seemed completely ruined. Beyond repair. From his perspective this was how his story ended. There was no coming back from such loss.
When I was a kid there were these books that let you pick your own ending. When you got to a certain part in the book you got to choose what you wanted to do next. The ones I had were Star Trek versions of these books. These books have sold over 250 million copies over the years. I’m not surprised. Most of us would prefer to choose our own ending. We like the idea that we can change our circumstances and decide our own outcomes. It would be great if we had a real Option B that would allow us to avoid problems and dodge difficulties.
Eventually we all reach a point in our story where we want to quit reading. The challenge is overwhelming. The relationship is too broken. The situation seems impossible to fix. The pain is too great. I believe David Flood our missionary had reached that point.
Have you ever reached a point like that? You are overcome with the pain of your struggle and you want to quit.
Here is my question: What if what feels like the end is actually just the middle?
When God is the author of your story, you can trust that his grace will have the final word. God’s grace can redeem anything you are facing.
One of the most beautiful verses in the Bible about the power of God’s grace is Romans 8.28: [Screen 3] And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Paul is telling us that the author of our stories is going to bring a good ending no matter how bad the current chapter you reading might seem to be. That is the promise of grace. But lets be honest this morning:
When you are the one that is hurting,
When it’s your health that is failing,
When it’s your marriage that’s falling apart,
When it’s your child that is struggling,
When it’s your job that is being eliminated, and
When the pain is too much, the idea that God’s grace can work things out for the good seems at the best naïve but more likely offensive.
This promise must have seemed just as unbelievable to the Christians in Rome who first received it. Because of their faith, they faced potential loss of their jobs, facing.
He writes about them in Romans 8.37-39; [Screen 4] 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. [Screen 5] 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers [Screen 6]
39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul wasn’t calling for blind optimism here. He doesn’t say, “And we think that in all things God will work for good.” He doesn’t say “ And we believe/ hope/ are pretty sure…” [Screen 7]
He says, “WE Know God works for the good of those who love Him.
This word translated to “we know” is used in another place in Romans 8.
In verse 22, Paul is talking about how bad this world is and he writes;
[Screen 8]“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”
Paul is saying two things that are absolutely true: [Screen 9]
1. Life is hard (v.22).
2. God is good (v. 28).
Paul is completely sure about these two truths, but the space between the two sometimes feels like an eternity.
The thing is when we are reading some researchers in San Diego say we like to receive a spoiler alert. Someone lets us know how it will end.
Paul doesn’t give a spoiler alert, but he does tell us how the story ends. Because of grace , we know in all things God works for the good of those who love him and are called to his purpose. [Screen 10]
Sometimes you just have to keep reading.
I want to return to the story of David Flood.
David Flood, the Swedish missionary who moved his young family all the way to Africa to see just one child come to faith. Then he lost his wife to malaria soon after she gave birth to their daughter. Furious with God, David buried his wife, gave his baby away to a missionary couple from the United States, and went
back to Sweden with his small son.
Well, that daughter was given the name Aggie and grew up in the United States with Christian parents. One day she checked her mailbox and for some unknown reason found a Swedish magazine. She was flipping through it when a photo stopped her cold. It was a picture of a crude grave with a white cross. On the cross was the name “Svea Flood.”
She recognized her mother’s name. She took the magazine to someone who could translate the story that accompanied the photo. Aggie sat and listened to the story about the work her mother had done as a missionary. Sometime later she traveled to Sweden to find her father. Turns out he had remarried, fathered four more children, and basically ruined his life with alcohol.
After an emotional meeting with her half
siblings, Aggie brought up the subject of seeing her father. They hesitated and then explained, “You can talk to him, but he’s very ill. And you need to know that whenever he hears the name of God, he flies into a rage.” Aggie wasn’t deterred. She walked into his tiny apartment, saw empty liquor bottles everywhere, and approached the seventy-three-year-old man who had deserted her years before. As soon as she said “Papa?” he began to cry and apologized profusely. She smiled. “It’s all right, Papa. God took care of me.”
Instantly he stiffened and his tears stopped. “God forgot all of us,” he said, turning his face to the wall. “Our lives have been like this because of him.”
“Papa,” Aggie said, “I’ve got a story to tell you, and it’s a true one. The little boy you and Mama led to the Lord grew up to lead
his entire village to faith in Jesus. The one seed you planted just kept growing and growing. Today more than six hundred African people are serving the Lord because you were faithful to the call of God in your life. You didn’t go to Africa in vain. Mama didn’t die in vain. Papa, Jesus loves you. He has never hated you.”
David was stunned. His muscles relaxed, and their conversation continued. By the end of the day he had come back to the God he had resented for so many decades, and within weeks he walked through the doorway of death and into his eternal home with God in heaven.
I’m thankful for what God did as David Flood lived out his last weeks on earth. But I can’t help but think that David could have handled his pain so much better if he just hadn’t lost faith in God’s goodness. If only
he would have believed that God’s grace is greater.
What if, instead of closing the book, he would have just kept reading?
One of the reasons we have a hard time in believing that God’s grace is working for our good in our lives is because of how we define good. We have our own ideas of how God should work for our good, ideas
that range from cancer-free to winning the ball game.
We tend to think God working for our good means we won’t experience pain and will somehow be exempt from the suffering of this world. But God’s definition of good is different from that.
So what is God’s definition of good? How does God’s grace bring about goodness in our life? [Screen 11]
1. You can know God’s grace is working in your pain to draw you closer to Jesus
1 Corinthians 7.10, Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
We go through something incredibly difficult and in the midst of it we discover Jesus in a way we had never known him before. What you thought was the worst thing you thought could happen to you becomes the best thing because it brought you closer to Jesus. [Screen 12]
2. You can know that God’s grace is working in your pain to make you more like Jesus.
God’s grace takes all the broken pieces of our lives and puts them together so that we look more like Jesus. After promising to work for the good in our lives he gives us the next verse, [Screen 13] Romans 8.29. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.
My wife tells me that as a man I have no clue of what real pain is about. I have never had a baby. She said if it were up to men to have the babies this world of people would end. The closest thing to having childbirth is to pass a kidney stone.
Kathy said that maybe true but the person who wrote that study had never been in labor for ten hours and given birth.
But then she made the best argument, “There is a big difference between choosing pain and having no choice.” Meaning that women are tougher because they consciously choose to have pain, whereas a man has never chosen to pass a kidney. “I’m excited to pass another kidney,” said no man.
I believe that is a good point, but why would a woman choose to go through it again. It is because she knows it is pain with a purpose. Once the labor is done and her child is with her she often wishes God would grant her another pregnancy.
There is a purpose that comes from the pain of childbirth. As long as we have confidence that pain has a purpose, we can find strength to endure.
Paul reminds us that it is God’s grace that gives us confidence. His grace in our pain is a promise that whatever pain we go through in this life does not get wasted. It will give birth to something good.
I have people tell me, everything happens for a reason. I know God has a reason for this.”
When the pain of life is so overwhelming, we are desperate to make sense of it. We think if there is a reason for it, the pain won’t hurt so much. But I’m not sure there is always a reason and even if there is we won’t always understand it.
Here is a way I have found to reframe this question. [Screen 14] Instead of asking, “What is the reason?” we should ask, “What is the purpose?” Because I don’t know if there is always a reason but I know God’s grace has a purpose.
Reason looks for a “because”, but purpose focuses on the “for”.
Reason wants a logical explanation that will make sense out of whatever has happened. Purpose offers us hope that whatever happened God can work for good.
God’s grace to us in our pain is that our pain is not without purpose. God can work through it to make us more like Jesus.
There was a child born with no arms. He struggled with many tasks that most kids had no trouble with. He tells of a time when he was very young when he was trying to get his shirt on. His mom and her friend stood watching him struggle.
Mom’s friend said, “Why don’t you help your poor child?”
Mom stood with her arms folded and held stiffly at her side and her jaw clamped tight as she resisted every instinct and through gritted teeth responded, “I am helping.”
I know when you are going through suffering or you’re living with pain it may seem that God should do something to help. Consider the possibility that God in his grace is helping. Sometimes grace hurts so it can help.
It is hard to find grace in cancer, but maybe God allows the cancer to help us take stock in our life and help those around us think about their own eternity.
It is hard to find grace with a teacher who comes down really hard on you, but maybe God in his grace is using this teacher to make you stronger.
It is hard when you are looking for a job and it can’t be found, but maybe God will use this time to bring you closer to him.
It is hard when your heart has been broken, but maybe God is trying to teach you about putting your hope in the wrong person or thing and placing your hope in Him.
God’s grace to you is that he will work through your pain to accomplish his good purpose in your life.
God will bring good out of your bad. And even if you can’t currently see how God might be drawing you closer or getting glory from your pain, you still need to remember: you’re in the middle. This isn’t the end of your story. [Screen 15]
Just keep reading.
Grace will have the final word.
Bibliography: Idleman, Kyle; Grace is Greater; Baker Books, Grand Rapids Michigan, Chapter 10, 2017
