GROWING PAINS?
Satan tries to undermine the Word of God and the importance of our faith in God. Eyes can’t always see what God is doing because most of what God does is in the spiritual realm. We can’t see the wind but we can see the results of it. Its very disturbing to think of the great influence Satan has upon the minds of many today. Satan is a contortionist. He can turn himself into any shape, and put on almost any form, and he looks sometimes like an angel of light. He can take the form or shape of hypocrisy, pride, unbelief, unfaithfulness, and even love (though artificial), in order to bring about the destruction in the lives of many, and even believers.
The most successful trick Satan use’s is to get us to question God about His actions. The words usually formed on our lips are “why am I experiencing such pain?”
King David questioned,
Ps 10:1
Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble? (If you loved me you would help me)
Ps 42:9
9 I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? (I’m not significant)
Ps 43:2
Why have you rejected me? (God doesn’t love me)
It’s interesting that these questions never enter our thoughts until we are faced with a situation that we are unable to meet ourselves. Its then that we realize our lack of faith in God.
Faith is labor intensive and too many times we give up at the point of victory.
There are a few things I think that we need to know about God.
God is:
Love, Able, At hand, Greater, Within you, Near, True, My witness, For us, Faithful, Holy, Eternal life, Wiser, Stronger, Light, Concerned,
Good, Complete, Not unjust, Forever and ever
I want to read my text as if Paul were telling it to us in today’s language.
2 Cor 11:16-33 (The Message)
16 Let me come back to where I started — and don’t hold it against me if I continue to sound a little foolish. Or if you’d rather, just accept that I am a fool and let me rant on a little. 17 I didn’t learn this kind of talk from Christ. 18 Oh, no, it’s a bad habit I picked up from the three-ring preachers that are so popular these days. 19 Since you sit there in the judgment seat observing all these shenanigans, you can afford to humor an occasional fool who happens along. 20 You have such admirable tolerance for impostors who rob your freedom, rip you off, steal you blind, put you down — even slap your face! 21 I shouldn’t admit it to you, but our stomachs aren’t strong enough to tolerate that kind of stuff.
Since you admire the egomaniacs of the pulpit so much (remember, this is your old friend, the fool, talking), let me try my hand at it. 22 Do they brag of being Hebrews, Israelites, the pure race of Abraham? I’m their match. 23 Are they servants of Christ? I can go them one better. (I can’t believe I’m saying these things. It’s crazy to talk this way! But I started, and I’m going to finish.)
I’ve worked much harder, been jailed more often, beaten up more times than I can count, and at death’s door time after time. 24 I’ve been flogged five times with the Jews’ thirty-nine lashes, 25 beaten by Roman rods three times, pummeled with rocks once. I’ve been shipwrecked three times, and immersed in the open sea for a night and a day. 26 In hard traveling year in and year out, I’ve had to ford rivers, fend off robbers, struggle with friends, struggle with foes. I’ve been at risk in the city, at risk in the country, endangered by desert sun and sea storm, and betrayed by those I thought were my brothers. (This can’t be happening to me. I am a Christian.) 27 I’ve known drudgery and hard labor, many a long and lonely night without sleep, many a missed meal, blasted by the cold, naked to the weather. 28 And that’s not the half of it, when you throw in the daily pressures and anxieties of all the churches. 29 When someone gets to the end of his rope, I feel the desperation in my bones. When someone is duped into sin, an angry fire burns in my gut. 30 If I have to "brag" about myself, I’ll brag about the humiliations that make me like Jesus. 31 The eternal and blessed God and Father of our Master Jesus knows I’m not lying. 32 Remember the time I was in Damascus and the governor of King Aretas posted guards at the city gates to arrest me? 33 I crawled through a window in the wall, was let down in a basket, and had to run for my life.
As far as I am concerned Paul is the greatest convert that has ever lived but even in his life we find him suffering.
Paul didn’t suffer these things because he was living wrong. He suffered them because he was living right.
Every one of us at some point or another in our Christian life has questioned God and asked Him why we are going through some of the things we go through.
One of the biggest lies of the devil today is that you must have sinned because and you are paying for it.
Please listen to me this morning, you don’t have to sin in order to suffer. All you have to do is live right.
Some of you are walking under the shadow of God’s wings and are still going through some things that cause you to hurt.
And I dare to say to you, that sometimes you will suffer more living right than you would if you were living wrong.
The difference between suffering while you are living right and suffering while you are living wrong is that if you are living wrong, trouble can last you a lifetime and beyond. However, if you are living right your sufferings are only temporary.
I want to preach this morning on the question “If Jesus loves you and I, then why do we hurt?”
I. For your own GOOD
Some of us are hard headed and have to learn Godly character through pain.
Ps 119:71
71 It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.
(Romans 8:28) And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Even when we don’t realize it God is working for our good.
II. For our GROWTH
A. If you will triumph over trouble, it will be because you have learned what it means to utilize the prayer closet, navigate through the Word of God, apply it and trust. When trouble comes back the second time your spiritually ready for it.
2 Cor 2:11
(Because we learn)….for we are not ignorant of his devices.
Get familiar with this process because you will be going through it many time as you grow in God.
III. For the GLORY of Christ
(2Corinthians 12:9) And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
(2Co 11:30) If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities.
How often do we read, that when Christ healed, delivered, or raised someone from the dead that everyone who witnessed it glorified God through worship and praise?
I quickly counted 11 times in the New Testament alone.
God does not normally do things in secret, but if he does something personally for you, He intends for everybody to know about it through your testimony, worship and praise so that everyone will be blessed and faith will be strengthened and they will glorify God for His goodness.
When we are in the total will of God, then He is glorified.
When we are at our weakest point, and we are putting our trust in Him, He is glorified.
Remember, its all about Him, not you and I. We are just blessed in the process.
IV. For our GAIN at the end.
1 Peter 5:10
10 But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.
Job after all his suffering gained at the end
(Job 42:12) So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning:
Ps 34:19
19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.
1 Peter 3:12
12 For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.
Ps 30:5
5 For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
(The Message)
5 He gets angry once in a while, but across a lifetime there is only love. The nights of crying your eyes out give way to days of laughter.
Ps 9:9-10
9 The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.
10 Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you. NIV
Ps 61:2
2 From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
2 Peter 1:3
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. NIV
James 4:7
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Rom 8:35-39
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
