Pain

Pain – And the problem we have with it.

1 Peter 2

¹⁹ For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God.

 

We think as humans that pain should not exist if there is really an omnipotent God that is all loving. 

We are told that all things are possible with God.

So why is there pain?

There is a reason but it is not something that is right on the surface of scripture.  It is not something we can open our bible and turn to a verse and there it is plain as day the reason pain exist.

We have to become the theologians we are asked to be.  You may say what is a theologian?  A theologian is one who studies the concepts of God. 

You all should be doing this every time you open your bible.

So lets put on our theologian hats and dig into this.

We know that God gave us free will, which means we can chose to do whatever we want.  If this is so then is God going to stop you from actually following through on doing what you desire to do?  If He did then this would be withholding free will which would contradict a righteous God. 

We also know that God established the ‘Law of Nature” in which all things abide by.  These laws were designed for those things created without the ability to reason. 

We ask why would He create the “Law of Nature” if He did not intend man to live by it?  But lets take look at the world in which we live in.  We live in a time and place where we have the ability to talk to one another through air waves which is “matter”, we travel about our towns that are made of concrete, wood, asphalt, etc, which is “matter”.  We are made of flesh, muscle, blood and water which is “matter”.  “Matter” does not have the ability to reason does it?  So “matter” would have been without limits if God did not establish them, this is the Law of nature.   If “matter” had no law to follow we would be unable to exist as we do or at all because every time it did not suit the needs of a soul it would change. 

So in saying this we know that not all "matter" agrees with each person all the time because we have free will to choose how we interact with it.  We have free will on how we use it whether for good or evil.  We can use a piece of wood to build a house with or we can use that same piece of wood to kill someone with. 

So at the Fall when the choose was given to Adam, how was he going to use what God had given him; he chose evil.  At that moment Pain was introduced to man. 

So you might be saying to yourself as we often tend to do that is to blame someone else for our misfortunes; that do to one man’s choice to do evil we are all to suffer? 

But lets think about this; were we not all conceived from Adam?  When Adam chose to do his will and not God’s will he chose to then follow the “Law of Nature”.

Man was intended to have authority over the earth and all living things.

Genesis 1: ²⁸ God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

He was to live above the “Law of Nature” not under it.

So this is why Pain is a part of our life.  In everything we do, there is a possibility of pain to be experienced.  There is no exception when considering our “cure” salvation or our Discipleship walk.

 God says to be "cured" to work out our salvation, we need to:

1.     Surrender our ‘Self-will”

2.     Surrender our “Self-sufficiency”

3.     Surrender to do God’s will

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to our conscious, but shouts in our pain: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world!”  - CS Lewis

First to surrender our “Self-will”, (it is all about me), is to be shattered. This involves pain.  Remember “breaking” a child of a bad habit.  Maybe you were that child. 

·        All is well if it is about me needs to be broken

·        Retribution needs to be God’s – bad people ought to suffer

·        Vindictive passion needs to be broken – “I will teach Him”

 Second is to Surrender our “Self-Sufficiency”. 

“God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full” – St Augustine

As long as we have any other resort we will not seek God.  If your life and family stand between the recognition of your need of Him, He will make that life less sweet.

Honest, Kind People who are self-sufficient can expect misfortune to fall on them!

 

Thirdly is Surrender to do God’s will – Abraham was tested in this manner with Isaac as a sacrifice.

Martyrdom is the supreme enacting and perfection of Christianity regarding this surrender.

 

Christian renunciation – (abandonment of a right) does not mean “Apathy”.  But A strong will accompanied with a perfect readiness for obedience is.

Shelly was a mother of two with a degree in finances and was taking care of her mother.  She gave of herself to her family all the time.  She was married to Joe who worked a full time job and was layman at their church.  Shelly depended on Joe ‘s job for their financial needs and her abilities in investing and saving to keep their life style comfortable.  But as time went on Shelly started to feel anxious about the house hold budget.  Taxes were continuing to go up, bills were getting higher and things started to become tighter and tighter.  She began to feel the pressure of the household budget on her shoulders.  Joe became ill and had to go on medical leave.  The house hold began to spiral out of control.  The anxiety became to much and shelly had a nervous breakdown.  As she lay in the hospital she began to ask God why was this happening to them?  Joe was a leader in the church, I have given myself to the family and now this.  What a mess.  I just do not know what to do. 

What am I suppose to do?

That is the Problem, God responded!  I have had something to give you for a long time and your hands have been to full.  You have looked to yourself for everything.  When was the last time you seeked my guidance in your daily life?  You waited until you experienced pain before I got your attention.  I want you to be mine.  I will not take anything less than complete surrender.  But you have free will to choose just remember if you choose your will then you are choosing the “Law of Nature” to control the outcome of your decisions.  

But if you will surrender to my will you are choosing wisdom and righteousness to control the outcome of your decisions.   

Dependency

“I once visited a “church” that manages, with no denominational headquarters or paid staff, to attract millions of devoted members each week. It goes by the name Alcoholics Anonymous. I went at the invitation of a friend who had just confessed to me his problem with drinking. “Come along,” he said, “and I think you’ll catch a glimpse of what the early church must have been like.” At twelve o’clock on a Monday night I entered a ramshackle house that had been used for six other sessions already that day. The “sharing time” worked like the textbook description of a small group, marked by compassionate listening, warm responses, and many hugs. The parallels to the early church are no mere historical accidents. The Christian founders of AA insisted that dependence on God be a mandatory part of the program. My friend freely admits that AA has replaced the church for him, and this fact sometimes troubles him. I asked him to name one quality missing in the local church that AA had somehow provided. I expected to hear a word like love or acceptance or, knowing him, perhaps anti-institutionalism. Instead, he said softly this one word: dependency. “None of us can make it on our own—isn’t that why Jesus came?” he explained. “Yet most church people give off a self-satisfied air of piety or superiority. I don’t sense them consciously leaning on God or on each other. Their lives appear to be in order.”
(Church: Why Bother? p. 49-51)
Via Philip Yancy

Jesus called out to the Father asking for this very thing – Dependency for his disciples.  Those that the Father gave him. 

Jesus knew the one thing we needed more than anything else… 

He did not pray asking that those who follow him or I should say are his family, have an easy life.  He did not ask that we should never experience hurt, fear of the unknown, sadness; nor did he pray that we receive everything we want.  He did not pray that whatever we set our mind to we should be able to achieve. 

What Jesus did pray for was two things,

He prayed that we not be taken from this world but that we be protected from the evil one.  And He Prayed for oneness. 

John 17

²⁰ “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹ that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— ²³ I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Questions;

   Who is Jesus praying For – Those who will believe (That is us) Jesus prayed for the disciples and    he prayed for all future generations of believers.  He knew you before  were born.  Your picture is in the photo album and your chapter in the book has been set aside; ready to be penned.  What is your chapter saying?

   What is His Prayer requesting - That all who believe may be one.   How so? Just as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father.  Is this possible?  It must be because Jesus  asked the Father that this be allowed.  We know that all things asked in our Lords name will be answered.  But are all things given?   This depends on this oneness.             

Why was Jesus requesting this unity?  - He obviously knew how important it was.  It was one of the  only things other than protection for the evil one that he asked the Father for.  I believe all things regarding true discipleship hinge on this oneness  with God.  Jesus knew it.  He spent hours with the Father in Prayer  everyday. 

 

Jesus then reiterates to the Father that He has in fact given us His glory.  What is this glory?  What does he mean?

 

The Hebrew word means “weight – worth” of something - The glory of God is the worthiness of God, more particularly, the presence of God in the fullness of his attributes in someplace or everywhere.

 

What this means is we have the attributes of God in us.  WOW!!!  Do you feel one with God?  Jesus prayed that you will. 

Matthew 11:50

No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides ⁵¹  to reveal him.

 

Did he not pray that we would also be in them. 

 

Remember that at this point in time Christ was about to be arrested.  He knew what was going to happen, He knew the Fathers will and was staying on task.  Yet he wants us to be with Him.

 

He wants us to know their purpose.  He wants us to be one with Him.  Some of us here today maybe are saying I really do not feel absolute oneness with God.  You may think this is absolutely absurd to think you can be in that close of fellowship with God.  Not so!  What you are experiencing is either a lack of trust or of Faith. You may have become small-minded and cynical.   Jesus prayed for us requesting that we be one with them.  This is Jesus’ prayer, not ours.  The question we have to ask is am I willing to or wanting to become one with them?  Am I will to give up myself and my admirations for total dependency on God.  Notice how I said Total!!!!!!