Sermon for 08/19/07

Explore our opportunities for...

Sermon for 08/19/07
(First time visitors: Please read the notes HERE about these sermons first!)

GOD, I’M SUFFERING – Are you alright with that? -

Pentecost 11

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, AMEN

Main Theme: Try as we might to escape suffering and pain, it seems to find us. As individuals, families, congregations, organizations, and nations – we must face the fact that “broken people” living in a “broken world” will experience… brokenness. What may shock us is to hear Jesus admit He came to add to that “divisiveness” that causes struggle, pain, and suffering. What we often fail to recognize is that the suffering that comes as a result of God’s light, truth, and love coming into our world can lead us to that humble place where we surrender self and receive the newness of life! It shocks us to realize that our very faith can make painful demands upon us. Christianity costs! There is no easy, comfortable faith. Suffering often becomes a part of the journey of faith. But God does not abandon us. God can turn suffering around, turn pain into victory. We become stronger, our faith is purified, and suffering becomes redemptive – bringing us closer to God. We may even grow to see that suffering is a gift. Suffering can lead to healing and new life!

1) BROKEN AND SUFFERING! Let me begin with a couple of questions: Are we by nature “Broken People”? Of course! We in the church affirm the Bible’s revelation that we are self-centered and sinful by nature. Answer this: are we living in a “Broken World”? No doubt. The evening news affirms that! What are some of the results of broken people living in a broken world? (Wait for answers) Absolutely? Are these good things? No! Intellectually it easy for us to conclude that broken people living in a broken world will never evolve into “heaven on earth!” What it does result in, is a world where pain and suffering abound. Now I don’t know about you but I have an aversion to pain and suffering. Is anyone here INTO pain and suffering? Didn’t think so. Hey, it hurts! It doesn’t take a child very long to decide that pain and suffering is a bad thing. Best approach is to AVOID it! And in most cases we Christians conclude that since suffering was not God’s original idea for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God is also against ALL suffering!

2) GOD, I’M SUFFERING – Are you alright with that? So naturally it puzzles Christians when our marriages begin to fall apart. And with tears in our eyes we look upward, asking: “GOD, I’M SUFFERING – Are you alright with that?” Maybe at school or work we are unfairly picked upon or made to feel worthless and inferior. It hurts, and in our prayers, we ask, “GOD, I’M SUFFERING – Are you alright with that?” Maybe we’re worried because the world seems be changing so fast that our sense of stability and security has been shaken dramatically! Maybe we feel like we are losing control of our lives, and fear increasingly engulfs us. “GOD, I’M SUFFERING – Are you alright with that?” Or maybe we’re a church member and our latest attempt to do ministry ran smack into resistence. We’re shocked to see it became so divisive that people we cared for left the church. And we drop to our knees and cry out, “GOD, I’M SUFFERING – Are you alright with that?”

3) PEACE? DIVISION? CONFUSION! How could He be? Is not Jesus a Lord of healing and love? Certainly our “Prince of Peace” stands 100% against pain and suffering in His children’s life! So why then are we so often dealing with it? If pain and suffering is not God’s will for His children, then has He forgotten about us? Are we being punished? Are we no longer His children? Sometimes our heads spin around and around in confusion when we are dealing with pain and suffering. Even scripture tends to lead to our confusion! After all – what did Jesus say today, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!” (Luke 12:49) And then He says something that blows our mind, “Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” (Vs 51) Woe! It doesn’t take a scholar to see that families “torn apart” by division is going to bring pain and suffering. …So what do we make of that?

4) PARADOX! Today, we have crashed into a “paradox” in the Gospel. A paradox is two ideas or statements that are true despite the fact that they appear to contradict one another. An example: Jesus says “It is better to give than receive”, and at the same time He reminds us “not to throw our pearls before swine.” Both statements are apparently true – after all God said them! But deciding which statement to use at a particular time requires us to what? Toss a coin? No. Decide for ourselves? Of course not! The paradox pulls us back to God! To humbly give up “self” and invite Christ in to show the way. The paradox demands we consult the Lord constantly in every case!

5) PEACE/NOT PEACE? In today’s Gospel, the paradox is that the “Prince of Peace” has declared He did not come to bring peace but division. Wait a minute, …how can Jesus have it both ways? Apparently Jesus is capable of bringing us inner peace – AND the way of the cross which ruptures the world’s peace! Faith costs! And the truth is; the transformation that comes to growing disciples often leads to suffering! Ouch! I could have gone without knowing that! In fact, I’m tempted to ignore it. I don’t want to be reminded about those early Christians who suffered for their faith. “Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented – of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.” (Hebrews 11: 29-12:2) Ouch! What happened to peace? Apparently “Choosing the path of God” can actually lead to pain and suffering – not peace!

6) THE COST! And no one knew that more than Jesus! And because Jesus knew that, He graciously warns us that following Him will not always be easy. He awakens us to the reality that God is releasing a divine truth into this lost and sinful world, and much of the world is not going to want to hear it! In fact it’s going to cause great stress, because it goes against the grain of the world, and it’s going to cause friction. “Your faith,” Jesus is saying, “is going to make great demands on you.” He does not want us to be naïve, nor get caught off guard. He told his followers that people within the same household will turn against each other over God’s truth. And history has shown His predictions to be 100% true. Christianity Costs! It costs emotionally, physically, financially, and spiritually. It means giving up “self” (dieing to self) and surrendering to the Holy Spirit, each and every day! This is no easy, empty, or comfortable faith. It makes great demands upon us, and so Jesus equips His children with this message: “Be prepared for the cost.”

7) SUFFERING! Ouch! Let’s face it, Americans hate suffering. Ours is an Asprin culture; seeking every pain reliever available, avoiding suffering at all costs! And yet, we turn to discover; suffering is still all around us! God’s children are called to face the facts! Brokenness will 1) seek us out despite the fact we are Christians, and 2) seek us out because we are Christians! Thankfully, the Holy Spirit comes today to empower us… 1) to avoid becoming disheartened by our suffering, and… 2) to push through to the newness that is often realized through our suffering.

8) ALL! First of all, how do we NOT get “disheartened” by our suffering? It begins by recognizing that all people suffer! Why? Because it is a broken world full of sinful people! We often think that suffering is the intruder into a world that is normally peaceful and comfortable. No way! Suffering is the norm! The fact that you experience any peace and comfort in the midst of a broken world reveals just how active God is in this world - for every blessing comes from Him! And when you suffer, you are not the exception, so do not get disheartened. All people suffer!

9) REDEMPTIVE! And Christians often suffer in special ways because we are called to care about others, love unconditionally, and pick up our cross and follow Jesus. See: Caring costs! Loving costs! And NO ONE knew that more than Jesus! Christ voluntarily endured suffering on the cross! Why? …so that our suffering may be redemptive and not wasteful. Hear that again… Christ endured suffering on the cross so that our suffering may be redemptive and not wasteful! How can suffering be redemptive? When it drives us to Christ!

10) HIS! Face it; there are times when your own strength, courage, and power will abandon you in the midst of suffering. You will despair and question the reason for going on. You will become frustrated because you do not understand where this pain and suffering is heading! Then, hearing your cry, Christ embraces you and assures you that He will never abandon you! Eagerly He gives His strength, His courage, His power, and His love to you! Suddenly your suffering becomes redemptive as it draws you closer to Him! His resurrection becomes yours!

11) NEWNESS! And secondly, we are empowered to push through to the newness that is promised. Because no matter what the world throws at us, no matter how well we can self-destruct, God can and desires to turn it all around! No doubt, the powers of evil in this world attempt to use our struggles to defeat us, take us down, cause us to despair, and turn us from God. Perhaps the brokenness that came our way was even meant to destroy us. But God gently takes our hand and says, “Watch this! Watch as defeat is turned into victory, watch as weakness is turned into strength, watch as the power of sin, Satan, and death is made ineffective and not fatal. Watch Me strengthen you through this crisis. Watch Me teach you the truth through the struggle. Watch Me draw you closer to Myself! And watch me move you through this painful experience toward wholeness, and newness of life!”

12) PASTOR? Now, congregations often assume that pastors must have this concept down! Maybe you assume spiritual leaders must certainly be able to flawlessly and faithfully face pain and struggle like a rock! And oh how you would be… wrong. I confess to you now, that in these past few years I have been struggling internally with issues concerning my pastoral identity. As this congregation has tried to reinvent itself in a changing community, I have felt less and less effective in bringing about the unity that rallies us around a common vision. Though I have tried to console myself with the fact that thousands of pastors are struggling with the same thing, that knowledge has brought me little comfort. I have read countless books, interviewed “the experts”, and brought out every tool in my tool box to help make the transition towards change a smooth one. But, in my mind, the results I prayed for, continued to slip through my fingers. I became disheartened because what had worked so well in my previous ministries has not proven to work here in the same way. Truthfully, I recently began to doubt my calling as a pastor. At other times, I have wondered if I needed to move on to another congregation. But most of all… I wondered why God had been so mysteriously silent. “What is the answer… show me Lord! It’s clear that I am missing something, and it hurts! GOD, I’M SUFFERING – Are you alright with that?”

13) REVELATION! I reveal this now, knowing that some of you may be thinking, “Wow, I never knew this, pastor”. A few of you, who have known, have been quietly praying for me for some time. And now, thanks to the blessed gift of this sabbatical that you gave me this summer, I have found what I was looking for. Or should I say, God revealed what I should have been looking for! Now what that revelation was “specifically” - is not the topic for this sermon, I still need some time to process and practice the new skills and tools God has revealed to me, …and with God’s help I hope to share this “process of discovery” with you in the months to come. But today I simply present my personal struggle as an example of when pain and suffering seemed to fall on deaf ears above. Revelation could not be found. You may even be in that place now.

14) HOPE! As I look back with hindsight, I can see that God’s silence and timing were perfect. Indeed, this patient Lord knew that only a broken and contrite heart would be ready to hear what He needed me to hear. I’m sure Christ had longed to free me from my pain and suffering earlier, but my ego-centric ways of thinking would have blocked the revelation. God was about to call me to abandon much of the human wisdom I had routinely leaned on, tossing aside previous seminary teachings in order to receive a new understanding of leadership in a changing world. Anyone think it’s easy to abandon 52 years of American cultural learning about leadership, and start again with a whole new paradigm? Hardly! That’s why God knew that I would have to exhaust all of my earlier preconceptions, before I’d be truly ready to explore and received new skills and tools to bring back to this church family. At the end of this particular journey of pain and suffering, God has washed away my frustrations, and my hope has been restored! Trust me, I am excited again about my ministry and the future of this church!

15) JESUS! Now as I said, WHAT I learned on my sabbatical is not meant to be the focus of my story. I share this recent spiritual journey, in order to humbly point to Jesus as one who can use pain and suffering to catch our attention and awaken us to a new revelation! I share this confession only in order to point to Jesus who can take our suffering and turn it into a healing and empowering experience. I do not share my personal crisis to demonstrate how “Holy” my response was – for indeed, all I did was fall to my knees and cry out “GOD, I’M SUFFERING – Are you alright with that?” Looking back, I see that sometimes suffering is allowed to sculpt a broken and contrite heart in order for it to be ready to receive God’s blessing. Sometimes our preconceived ideas, our precious human truths, and our worldly culture have to be allowed to pour through exhausted fingers to be abandoned on the ground - before Jesus can fill those same hands with something truly life-giving. If it takes a little pain and suffering to help us experience divine resurrection, then so be it! Especially if we place our pain and suffering in the hands of Jesus who can use it to expose our idols, transform our hearts, bring healing, and align our will with the will of God that brings true life!

16) TOGETHER! Someday I hope to be so strong in my faith that I may resemble those saints who declare in times of trouble, “Hey, God has faithfully gotten me over all the other stumbling blocks in my life, and I have grown to be a better person because of it. So why fear this or the next struggle? With a life-time track record like the one Jesus and I have had, I am confident I shall endure and grow because we faced the pain and suffering together.”

17) THE RACE! Wow! I’m not there yet – are you? When a crisis lands in your lap, do you see it as a catastrophe, or an opportunity for growth? When called to “pick up your cross and follow Jesus” along troubled paths, are you eager to follow? When you discover that love costs, and caring costs, and Christianity costs, are you willing to pay the price? Jesus wants you to know today that the race of life, as difficult and painful as it is at times,… that race CAN be run! How does He know? Because He has already run the race ahead of us! Empowered by the Holy Spirit, the pain and suffering we experience along the way can be endured! Running the race with Jesus means that crushed spirits and shattered hope can be avoided, and an amazing opportunity for growth can result instead.

18) A HOLY GIFT! If you’ve recently said, “GOD, I’M SUFFERING – Are you alright with that?”, hear the Holy Spirit lovingly remind you today, that suffering often becomes a part of the journey of faith. And out of struggle, sacrifice, and pain, God can produce newness of life! Let us keep our focus on Jesus! …remembering how the world stepped on Christ, beat Him, nailed Him to a cross, but God turned that suffering into a spectacular act of redemption. Hmmm, “Suffering” as redemptive, suffering as that which strengthens, suffering as that which brings us closer to God!… It is a strange but wonderful concept! This awareness is a Holy gift!

19) NEWNESS OF LIFE! Earlier we asked “Are we broken people living in a broken world?” Absolutely! So let us face reality: we will all experience pain and suffering. But because Jesus walks with us, we do not have to be disheartened by the suffering that comes our way. Our Savior longs to bring us inner peace even while His truth and love brings division to the world. And… because He so loves you and me (that He gave His life for us on the cross), we are empowered to push through to the newness of life He promises and provides. Yes, the suffering that the world often slings our way is meant to weaken and destroy, but through our Savior’s love - that same suffering can be redemptive and lead to newness of life. Praise God! AMEN!

Return to Sermon Index & Intro Page