Daniel, Dr. Mays, what a beautiful
song. We appreciate you leading us
this morning. If you have your Bibles with you, open up to John
chapter 9. We're going to do a part 2 this
morning of something we started last week, a sermon out of John
chapter 9. We'll just be looking at the
first three verses, and I've entitled this morning's sermon
as a part 2 again of last week, Why do bad things happen to good
people? Why do bad things happen to good
people? Part 2, John chapter 9. We'll just be looking at verses
1 through three. The Apostle John writes this
as he passed by he saw a man blind from birth and his disciples
asked him Rabbi who sent this man or his parents that he was
born blind. Jesus answered it was not this
man send or his parents but that the works of God might be displayed
in him. Let's pray together. Father,
thank you for our time of worship, and as we continue worship through
the word, pray that you would open our eyes to see what you
want us to see from this text in a way that would enable us
to see Jesus, to see your point, to your purposes in our lives,
and that we would be conformed to the image of your son. And
we pray it in Jesus' name, amen. Well, I read an article this
week by Rabbi Harold Kushner, which in his famous book, it
was entitled, Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? Where
I took the sermon title from. It is a common question, but
there's also books written with that question and articles written
with that question. It was written back in 1981.
Kushner has been on Larry King Live. You might have seen him
there along with John MacArthur and others from time to time
as different world events would happen after 9-11, after certain
tragedies. Oftentimes, they would be on
that show talking about, well, what happened? Why did this happen?
And where are we to see God in all of this? The history behind
that book that Rabbi Kushner wrote was this. Aaron, he had
a son named Aaron. He was three years old. And when
he was three, he was diagnosed with progeria. And progeria is
a devastating disease that causes rapid aging. Most victims die
in their early teens. Aaron died two days after his
14th birthday. Up until Aaron's death, Kushner,
a Jew, believed that the world was a fair place. He believed
that God rewarded and protected good and punished evil. He believed that God controlled
every moment of our lives, that God had the power to make anything
happen. But after Aaron's death, it became
impossible for Kushner to continue to hold on to those beliefs.
He then pieced together a new system of faith and he worked
that out in his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
The book was published to great acclaim and people of all religious
beliefs could relate to it though it spoke most strongly to Jews
and Christians. After much thinking and much
studying Kushner came to the conclusion that God is not omnipotent
meaning that God is not all powerful. He felt like God cannot intervene
in the day-to-day affairs of life. Instead, God created a
world, Kushner says, that has immutable natural laws. For instance, if the weather
conditions are right, a tornado occurs and people might get hurt
or killed. If a fault line moves, there
is an earthquake, and God cannot intervene to save one person
while another person dies. People do not live or die based
on good or bad behavior. So what good is God if he can't
stop bad things from happening? Some have asked of Kushner. According
to God's purpose, Kushner says that God's purpose is to provide
solace and strength during difficult times. He writes, quote, that
God, I believe in, does not send us the problem. He gives us the
strength to cope with the problem, close quote. Well, you can see
after Reference like that why so many people would be drawn
to Kushner's teaching in a sense He's trying to get God off the
hook saying well, there's no way God causes anything evil
to happen So in order for evil to happen, he must not be powerful
enough to prevent it So let's take God's power off the hook
and things just happen like they happen And the only thing God
can do is try to comfort people in the pain Well, don't be sucked
in to that humanistic way of thinking. I don't agree with
Rabbi Kushner, and neither should you. First of all, he rejects
Jesus Christ as the Messiah and the only way to heaven. Second,
he rejects the God of the Bible, and he claims that God is not
all-powerful and that God is not necessarily all-loving, and
he doesn't really understand why evil even exists. Third,
Kushner rejects the Bible itself as being the only source of authority. He rejects its inerrancy, its
infallibility, and the fact that it's inspired by God. He rejects
the entire New Testament. He rejects the idea that all
we need for life and godliness is found in the scripture. Well,
I believe that the Bible does teach that God is all-powerful
and all-loving and it is sovereign over all things, even evil. Matthew
10, 29 states that not a bird falls to the ground apart from
our Father's will. Proverbs 21, 1 says that the
king's heart is like a river in the hands of the Lord that
he directs it wherever he wills. Isaiah 45, 7, God says, I form
light and create darkness. I make well-being and create
calamity. I am the Lord who does all these
things. Psalm 135, 5 and 6 says the Lord
is great and that he is above all gods, that he does whatever
he pleases in heaven. And on the earth, Psalm 148,
7 and 8 says, Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea
creatures and all the deeps, fire and hell, snow and mist
and stormy wind, which is fulfilling his word. Proverbs 16 says that
the die is cast into the lap and it's every decision is from
the Lord. That chapter also says, Proverbs
16, a man designs his way, but the Lord directs his steps. Mark 4, 37 through 39 talks about
how there arose a fierce gale of wind and waves upon the Sea
of Galilee and the waves are breaking in over the boat. And
Jesus got up and he rebuked the wind and he said to the sea,
hush, be still. And the wind ceased and there
was a great calm. See, Kushner's God couldn't do
that. He has no power over the elements
of the earth and he has no power over the events of mankind. Whereas
all of these verses point to the power and to the might and
to the sovereignty of our God. We don't have to take God off
the hook for anything. And rather we can praise him
for who he is. I love that great hymn by Isaac
Watts. I sing the mighty power of God. The third stanza of that great
hymn says this, there's not a plant or flower below, but makes thy
glories known and clouds arise and tempt us blow by order from
thy throne. While all that borrows life from
thee is ever in thy care and everywhere that we can be, thou
God art present there. It's truths like that that we
hang on to in the midst of difficult times. And yes, I am afraid that
Rabbi Kushner is wrong, that the Bible teaches us that God
is all powerful and he is sovereign and he does rule over all things. I appreciate John Piper, who
writes on this topic often in his books and preaches on in
his sermons. He writes this, quote, There
are emotional reasons as well for believing in God's absolute
sovereignty. If I rejected the sovereignty
of God over all things, including my will and my life, I would
lose the very God, the very power that stands behind all the promises
that make my life livable in pain. He goes on to say, so when
you surrender the sovereignty of God in order to get him off
the hook of calamity, you also lose him. at the point where
you need power to endure the calamity and see all the calamity
turned for good. If God is going to be rejected
here, then what have I got except a godless calamity? You hear what Piper's saying.
He's saying that if you try to get God off the hook by saying
that he has no power to intervene, then you're saying that God is
impotent and that he's powerless and he's just as susceptible
to nature as you and I might be. If you say that God doesn't
have the power to intervene, then you're saying that man is
stronger than God. If you're saying that God doesn't
have the power to intervene, then you're saying that the Bible
is not true. and that God is a liar. Who wants
to stand with Kushner now? I would say no, Rabbi Kushner. I would say no to the philosophies
of this world, no to any other religion. Your ignorance and
your soft words offer no hope in the end. Your foundation is
false. and the consolation you offer
does not satisfy the God-given passion for truth and for meaning
and for purpose in the midst of pain. As I said last week,
eternity makes a difference in how we interpret pain. Pain is a gift that awakens us
to our need for God. Without pain and heartache, we
might not be asking these hard questions. And God shows us a
way through the pain. When we look to the cross of
Jesus Christ who suffered at Calvary, there are more verses
in the Bible that prepare us for the pain of life than there
are verses in the Bible that comfort us. I would say. God does want us to be comforted
by his love, but the idea is it's not about a comfortable
life. It's about dealing with trials and hardships in life
and learning to trust God in the midst of it. So yes, bad
things do happen to good people, but instead of complaining about
how we can't understand how a loving God would allow that to happen,
we should instead be saying, why do good things happen to
bad people? We're all bad. We're all sinners. We've all fallen short of the
glory of God. We all deserve His wrath and
His judgment. The wages of sin is death. The
only way to correct this problem and what's fair is to realize
that grace isn't fair. And He gives us grace. And the
fact that He gives us grace changes everything. And the fact that
I can be born again and saved. shows us that we have a good
God who gives good things to bad people. And so, this morning,
we want to continue to just look at the fact that God is a good
God and he is all-knowing and he is all-loving and he is all-powerful. And I want to give you two truths
this morning about trials that will help you to process trials
as they come into your life. So, the first part, kind of a
rerun of last week, number one, trials in life are inevitable. They are inevitable. Look at
verses 1 and 2. As he passed by, he, that would
be the Lord Jesus, saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples
asked him, Rabbi, who sent this man or his parents that he was
born blind? All we're saying with this first
point that trials are inevitable, blind people are everywhere.
Sick people are everywhere. Problems in life are everywhere.
They didn't even see this man born blind. It was as Jesus had
to stop. It's as if they were walking
by and nobody saw this man because they were so accustomed to him
just sitting there at the temple begging for money. And Jesus
stopped. And it just reminds us that if
we stop and look around us, there's pain everywhere. Every home has
a hurt. Every heart has a difficulty
that you struggle with. It's everywhere. It's inevitable.
So we shouldn't be surprised. Your first blank there. You're
taking notes. Don't be surprised. It's just a part of life. First
Peter 4.12. Beloved, do not be surprised
at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though
something strange were happening to you. I did tell you that in
context, that verse is talking about persecution for the gospel's
sake. But in principle, it's still
the same. We shouldn't be surprised when
someone cuts you off on the freeway. We shouldn't be surprised when
the milk gets spilt. We shouldn't be surprised when
your kids wake you up in the middle of the night. You shouldn't
be surprised when at the end of the month, there's no more
money there, because you spent it all, all month long. Don't
get to the end of the month and be like, oh, what happened? Check
your credit card. That's what happened, right?
So I'm just saying don't be surprised when the difficult things happen.
It's part of life. Instead, in that moment, ask
God to help you respond with a way that will grow you in your
character and allow you to be a blessing to someone else and
how you can glorify God in that moment. Listen, the difference
between a Christian and a non-believer is that Christians, when they
face trials, show strength. and they show trust, and they
don't crumble, and they don't necessarily even become stoic.
They say, this really stinks, and this is real hard, but I
serve a God in heaven who's in charge of it all. And I serve
a God in heaven who will get me through. So don't be surprised. Number two, don't make assumptions.
Don't make assumptions that you know exactly why that trial is
there. We talked about the question
that the disciples asked rabbi who send this man or his parents
and that he was born blind. They had reduced this particular
episode of what happened in the Gospels to where it had to be
one of two things. It was either this man's sin,
or it was his parents' sin. And we spent a long time unpacking
that for you last week, but at the end of the day, Jesus says
it's neither. It's neither. It's so that the work of God,
look at verse 2 again, or verse 3, it was not this man's sin,
or his parents', but that the works of God may be displayed
in him. And so the idea here is don't
come to conclusions that you know why somebody's going through
a hard trial. We did discuss that certain sins
like drunkenness over a period of time lead to cirrhosis of
the liver. We get that. So there is a connection
with some sin and some physical sickness. And there are stories
in the Bible about people who sin and they drop dead or they
get leprosy. So it can happen. But we also
talked about be careful that you don't just assume if somebody's
baby's born blind that you walk up to them and say, what did
you do? What's wrong with you? Have you got sin in your life?
How disgusting that would be, right? And if you're that kind
of person here at our church, that would require a pastoral
visit. I would show up to your house if I ever hear you say
something like that and say, brother, sister, let's sit down
with the word of God and let me help you work through this.
You are not allowed to go up to people and say, the only reason
this difficulty is in your life is because you sinned or someone
else sinned against you or your parents sinned. No, that's not
accurate to the scripture. And yet at the same time, we're
learning this morning that sometimes God wants to do something greater
than what you assume. You might assume you're going
through it for this reason or that reason, and it may be a
totally different reason. It might not even be for you.
It might be for somebody else who's watching you go through
what you're going through and God ends up saving them through
it as they see your faith. And so the idea here is that
Jesus reveals himself in a whole new way. And throughout the story
of John 9, as we unpack it over the next several weeks, we'll
just see this incredible evangelistic opportunity that now this man
has and his family has to point to Christ as the Savior. And
so the first truth about trials is we must learn that they are
inevitable. And the second truth about trials is that trials in
life are for your good. They are. They are for your good.
God is going to be glorified in your trial when you respond
the right way and he's doing it for good. Your next blank
says trust God that your trial was predetermined. Trust God. that your trial was
predetermined. There's something about the grammar
in verse 3, or even the syntax we could say, the immediate context,
that gives us this idea that it wasn't about this man's sin,
it wasn't about his parents' sin, it was that God might be
glorified. And you kind of get the sense
that God had this planned all along. In other words, there's
no surprise in the text where Jesus is like, I have no idea
what's going on here. Just by the fact that he quickly answers
it so that God might be put on display and his work and his
glory might be made manifest. And this situation kind of clues
us into this idea that this was predetermined. Jesus's answer
to his disciples gives the real reason why this man was born
blind. And it wasn't because of someone's
son. It was just simply that God's
glory could be put on display. Jesus points us beyond any faulty
theological assumptions which would tempt us to speculate.
God has a sovereign plan in mind and this man's blindness was
neither personal nor parental. It was providential. It was God's
providence that this would happen. That God wants to glorify himself
in this trial. God had determined to do his
work in this man. God planned to bring about this
trial at this time in this man's life to put the works of his
father on display. And this is true. throughout
the whole Bible. Maybe nowhere better can this
be seen. than in the life of Joseph. Turn with me, if you
will, to Genesis chapter 50, and we'll look at verses 19 and
20. As you're turning there, let me just remind you about
Joseph, who was beat up by his brothers, thrown into a pit,
sold into slavery, accused of doing something he never did,
was put into prison, forgotten while he was in prison, and then,
through the God-given supernatural ability to interpret Pharaoh's
dream, he became second in command of all of Egypt. And after his
brothers were in Israel, had faced a famine, they came to
Egypt to buy grain. And they eventually found that
Joseph was in a position of power. And in fear, the brothers fell
down before him and begged him for forgiveness. And in response
to this, Joseph says this, Genesis 50 verse 19. But Joseph said
to them, do not fear. Excuse me. Do not fear for am
I in the place of God? You know what we're being hinted
at already? God put me here. Don't be afraid. We're not in
the place of God. God's doing this right here,
right now. Verse 20. As for you, you meant
evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring about that
many people should be kept alive as they are today. These brothers
meant it for evil. All along, God meant it for good.
God knew about the famine. He knew that he needed Joseph
in Egypt. This was his way of providing
enough grain to sustain not only Egypt, Israel's arch enemy at
the time, but grain for Israel, namely these people. He knew
that this family of Joseph would come for grain. He knew that
they would eventually all move there, all 70 of them. He knew
that they would multiply and become a great nation. He knew
the whole story that we know of Israel. And this is part of
that story. Excuse me. What I like about
verse 20 is it says, what you meant for evil, God meant for
good. Have you ever noticed it's the
same word? It doesn't say, well, what man
meant for evil, God allowed for good. What man meant for evil,
somehow God will figure out a way to make good of it. No, no, no,
it's the same word. What man meant for evil, God meant for
good. And that word meant, according
to Halot, a Hebrew lexicon, that word meant means to devise. It means to invent. It means
to plan. It can also mean to do something
for good. It means, get this, it means
to weave. And if you put all this together,
this word means to plan to weave for your good. I remember as a kid, Growing
up, watching my mom cross-stitch. Mama, what you doing? She'd be
sitting in her chair, cross-stitching away. And for those of you who
don't know, that's like if you're not really good at sewing, you
can just put some X's in that canvas, right? And just X, X,
X, X. So she's doing that deal, and
I'm sitting there on the floor looking up. Mama, what you doing? Mama, what is that? And I remember
my mom taking it and turning it around. I said, look at him.
It'd be like this pretty picture of a barn with a cow and the
sunshine. I'm like, oh, mama, you're so
good. She's like, thank you. She keeps cross-stitching. But
you get the idea. From the bottom, probably even
more so on a tapestry, it looks like a mess. And you see all
the threads. And they're just kind of running
all together. And they're all uneven. And they're kind of all
over the place. Thanks, JR. Let's give this man a hand, shall
we? Come on. Let's give this man a hand. That's what I'm talking
about. That's service right there. My apologies. So in the illustration
again, right? The idea is the tapestry. It's
a mess on the bottom and you can't see clearly until you take
it and you look at the top side and you're like, how beautiful,
how amazing. That's incredible. And that's
what we're talking about when we see that what man meant for
evil, that's a mess. You're just seeing it from the
bottom side. This is so ugly. And yet you see it from God's
perspective. Have you ever heard that incredible poem from Corrie
ten Boom on this? As you know, it was the Dutch
lady, the daughter of the clockmaker who spent time in a German concentration
camp for helping Jews escape, right? And she was there for
a while at the concentration camp. She learned so much. She
talks about forgiveness, but she also wrote a poem about this
idea of weaving. The title of her poem is Life
is But a Weaving. Do you remember? My life is but
a weaving between my god and me. I cannot choose the colors
he weaveth steadily. Oft times he weaveth sorrow and
I in foolish pride forget he sees the upper and I the underside. Not till the loom is silent and
the shuttles cease to fly will God unroll the canvas and reveal
the reasons why. The dark threads are as needful
in the weaver's skillful hand as the threads of gold and silver
in the pattern he has planned. He knows, he loves, he cares. Nothing this truth can dim. He gives the very best to those
who leave the choice to him. What an incredible reminder of
the truth that we're talking about, that from all this, we
learned that none of us are in the place of God. He ordains,
he orchestrates, he oversees all that happens in our lives.
We could trust that he's weaving a beautiful picture that he wants
us to see at the time he reveals it to us. It might be in the
pain. It might be later after the pain. It might be when you're
in heaven. But at some point you will be able to have a better
understanding. In the meantime, we have to trust
him. It's for our good. And as you look over the scope
of your life, all of your successes and all of your failures and
all of your good days and all of your bad days and all the
blessings and all the difficulties in your life, God means them
for for good. We read the same thing in Romans
828. Turn there with me if you will
because I want to make sure that you also see verse twenty-nine.
Romans 828 and we know that for those who love god, all things
work together for good. For those who are called according
to his purpose or if you have an NASB, it for good. Look at verse 29, for
those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to
the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn
among many brothers. Here's what I want you to see
in verse 28 and 29. God causes all things to work
together for good. And you say, what? I don't see
any good from getting cancer. I don't see any good from my
beloved family member dying in a car wreck. I don't see any
good from my dad dropping dead of a heart attack. What in the
world is good in that? And that's why we need verse
29 as well, that reminds us God foreknew that and He bravest
in that and He wants to conform us into the image of His Son. That's the good. The good is
He's using your trial to make you more like Jesus. He's using
your difficulty, your hardship, your circumstance as a tool in
His hand to say, I'm going to use this to help my son, my daughter,
look more like Jesus, to conform them into the image of Christ. God is working in your triumphs
and in your trials and in your faithfulness and in your failures
and in your ups and in your downs, all according to His purpose.
And His purpose is that you would be comforted with the love of
God, and as you're comforted with his love, that you're conformed
into the image of his son. Do you believe that God is holding
you in the midst of your trial this morning? Do you sense his
care for you today? What God has planned with that
trial, what he has allowed and even ordained with that trial
to be brought into your life, are you trusting him, that he
is weaving a tapestry Are you viewing the tapestry from the
bottom? Or with God's help through His Word and by His Spirit, would
you like to take a peek at that tapestry from the top? Well, in addition to trusting
God that your trial was predetermined, you can also, your next blank,
praise God that your trial has a purpose. It has a purpose.
And some of these thoughts overlap a little bit, but God had a purpose
in allowing this man to be born blind from birth. We would say
what man meant for evil, God meant for good. He meant for
this man to be born blind from birth. And one of the reasons
was that this is an opportunity for us to see something in Jesus
showing himself right here in a special way, unique in all
of the Gospels. And that is this. Nowhere else
in the Gospels does Jesus heal a man with a congenital defect. This is the one place in the
Bible where there's a congenital defect, meaning born with birth,
where Jesus does this miraculous miracle. That clues us into what
are called the messianic miracles that only the Messiah would do.
Only the Messiah would cleanse a leper. And only the Messiah
would cast out a demon of a man who was dumb, meaning he couldn't
speak. And only the Messiah would heal
a man born blind. And these three messianic miracles
all pointed to the fact that the man who did that would be
the Messiah. And so Jesus is revealing himself
in a powerful way by saying, hey, you see that man over there?
Bring him over here to me. I'm going to heal that man. It's
going to be another sign pointing to the fact that Jesus is the
Messiah. This is a special miracle where
Jesus is showing himself to be God with the power to create
sight for this man. This was the work of God displayed
in this man who would become a witness for Christ. Have you ever considered the
fact that in your trial, God wants to show you something special
about his love for you? And maybe you couldn't see it
without the trial. Maybe he has allowed you to be
afflicted so that you could see his affection and his love for
you. God's purpose in your trial is
that you would glorify him, and there's no better way to glorify
him than to repent and to rejoice in him. So God's purpose in your
trial is that you would repent and that you would rejoice. Let
me show you each one of those. Turn to Luke chapter 13. Let's
first talk about in your trial there's the opportunity for you
to repent. for you to repent. In Luke chapter 13, Jesus is
interacting with some and they're talking about two coincidences. We know that those things were
ordained by God and what the point of them was. Luke chapter
13 verse 1, there were some present at that very time who told him
about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their
sacrifices. And he answered them, do you
think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other
Galileans because they suffered in this way? No. I tell you,
but unless you what repent, you will all likewise perish. Second story or those 18 whom
the tower in Siloam fell and killed them. Do you think that
they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?
No, I tell you, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. With these two tragedies, it
may be easy to think that those who died somehow had sinned in
a worse way and therefore they died a more tragic death. But Jesus says that it is not
that which happened. What happened is everybody's
a sinner. We're all guilty of God's wrath. These people didn't
sin necessarily in a worse way. They just died. And that's what's
going to happen to us all one day. And unless we repent, we'll
all suffer in hell forever. And so the fact that death happens,
whether it appears to be by accident or appears to be something that
happens, you know, late in your life and you just kind of die
of old age, the idea is we all die. And when we die, it's a
reminder for those of us who are living, one day I'm going
to die. And if I'm not right with the
Lord, that I'm not going to heaven. And so Jesus pleads with his
listeners to say the reason these things happen is to remind you,
you need the gospel. You need the love of God. Life
is bigger than trials. Eternity is bigger than trials.
These are just little things in this life. But I want to talk
to you about eternity. And Jesus says, you need to repent.
Every time you hear about a trial and someone dies, you need to
think, but for the grace of God, I could also die. And but for
the grace of God, I could be going to hell. But because of
the grace of God, I have an opportunity to go to heaven. And because
of the grace of God, I want to be a better evangelist to tell
other people that while they're startled about this scary mass
shooting or plane crash or whatever else we hear about in the daily
news, that you say, you know what? I'm going to give hope
to people and remind them they don't have to ultimately be afraid
of death because death can be a doorway to eternal life. But I've got to tell them about
repentance, not only The trials come for salvation, repentance,
but they also come for sanctification. That would be our rejoicing. Turn with me to Romans 5. So
trials come that we can repent. Trials come that we can rejoice.
Romans chapter 5, the first two verses talk about we rejoice
in the fact we've been justified by faith. And then down in verse
3 he says we rejoice in our sufferings. So not only do we rejoice in
our salvation, we rejoice in our sanctification, we rejoice
in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance
and endurance produces character and character produces hope.
And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured
into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given to us. This is actually unbelievable.
We're told right here in the Bible to actually rejoice in
our sufferings, maybe not in the pain itself, but in what
the pain produces. And it produces endurance, and
it produces character, and it produces hope. You know, a few
years back, there was a great experiment in the desert called
the biodome. This biodome created a living
environment for human plant and animal life. A huge glass dome
was constructed to house an artificial controlled environment with purified
air and water and healthy soil and filtered light. The intent
was to afford perfect growing conditions for trees, fruits
and vegetables as well as for humans. People lived in the biodome
for many months at a time and everything seemed to be going
well with one exception. When trees grew to a certain
height, they would topple over and it baffled scientists until
they realized that they forgot to include the natural element
of wind. Trees need wind to blow against
them because it causes their root systems to grow deeper,
which supports the tree as it grows taller. Too often, We long
for a perfect growing environment for our lives with no disruptions
and no trials. And we strive to avoid the times
of contrast and tension when life's daily challenges push
against us. But God knows what is best for
us. The creator of all of life also creates trials that allow
us to grow stronger and to grow our roots deeper. We can learn
a great deal from God's wisdom at work in creation. Watch how
a tree bends and sways gracefully when the wind blows against it.
It does not stand rigid, resisting the trial opposed against it. It does not push back. The tree accepts the strong wind
as a blessing that helps it grow. I wonder what you're like when
the wind blows. Do you bend? Do you stand rigid? Do you break? It's only by the grace of God
that we can realize that God's intention behind the trial is
to allow us to grow deeper. to grow stronger, to be more
dependent on him, which is why we read in James 1, 2 through
4, count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various
kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces
steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you
may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Are we rejoicing in our trials
this morning? Do we count them all joy? Do
we see God's purpose in making us steadfast in refining us and
completing us to the point where we lack nothing? I think almost
all of you are probably aware of Johnny Erickson Tada, who
has been a quadriplegic for 50 years, and she recently said
he has chosen not to heal me. But to uphold me, the more intense
the pain, the closer his embrace. God could remove all pain and
suffering, but he doesn't. God could pull you out of your
predicament. But what if he chooses to leave
you in it? If he does leave you in your
trial, he will hold you tight. He will comfort you. He will
reveal himself to you in ways you cannot imagine. Regardless
of our numerous accomplishments, Johnny Erickson Tata admits that
her day-to-day life of almost total dependence on others has
been difficult. Many times when Johnny wakes
up in the morning, she wonders how she is going to make it through
another day in a paralyzed body. But Johnny explains that because
she has pushed up against God and God has shown her some deep
things about his purpose in himself, which are so satisfying in her
words, so pleasurable that she wouldn't trade the wheelchair
for anything. Johnny has allowed God to use
her tragic situation to accomplish things she would have never accomplished
had it not been for her accident. How can you rejoice in your trials? Because they led you to God,
led you to a deeper faith. Your trials, are they strengthening
you or are they crushing you? And it all depends on our perspective
of how we see. If we just see the tapestry from
the bottom, it's going to always be a mess and you will get bitter
at God. But if you learn by faith, to
realize God is up to something good, then I'm going to learn,
this last point says, ask God to show you how your trials can
lead to praise. How your trials can lead to praise. We don't have time to adequately
share this point, but I think you already know it. Job had
the worst day of his life. He lost all of his possessions
and all of his children. And in that moment, he tore his
robe and he shaved his head and he fell on the ground and worshipped. He praised God in the midst of
his trial. And he said, naked I have come
from my mother's womb and naked I shall return. The Lord gave
and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And in all of this, Job did not
sin by charging God with wrongdoing. That's chapter one. Chapter two,
it gets worse. He loses his health. and he's
got sores from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet.
Do you know what happens in chapter 3 through 38? Job eventually
loses his grip and he begins to complain against God. And he tells God he wishes he
was never born. And then at the end of the book,
God confronts him and rebukes him. And Job says, I put my hand
over my mouth. I had heard about you but by
eyes had never seen you. But I see you now Lord. I see
you now after God had spent chapters in the end of Job reminding him
that God is all powerful. And it is all loving. Job finally
fully gets it. He did well in chapter one, but
I'm just saying sometimes it's easy in the short run to do well
with trials. But how do you do with trials
when they go on day after day and week after week and month
after month and year after year? At some point, we're human. You
will crumble and you will complain to some degree, right? Not fully,
because God was gracious with Job even though he rebukes him
at the end, he also shows him, he reveals his omnipotence and
his omniscience and he basically says, Job, you just have to trust
me with this one, big guy. I'm God, you're not. All you
can do is trust me and that's when Job covered his mouth and
he says, therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things
too wonderful for me which I did not know. I heard of you, with
the ear, but now I see you. I despise myself and repent in
dust and ashes. Job came to the place where he
struggled, but at the end, he still trusts God. He still praises
God. And maybe you're out there today
and you say, well, Adam, you don't understand. My trial is unique
and it's different than anyone else's trial. My heart goes out
to you. and I would give you that. Maybe
your trial is unique, and maybe it's worse than anything I've
certainly experienced. And maybe you might even challenge
Job and say it's worse than what Job's experienced, though I think
this is pretty bad. But let's say that that's where
you're at. I have some encouragement for you this morning, and it
comes through Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who on that type of
thought writes this. Our Lord Jesus did for him, the
man born blind, what he had never done for anyone else before this
man. This pleasing fact seems to me
to be full of consolation to any persons here present who
labor under the idea that theirs is a most peculiar and hopeless
case. It probably is not as solitary
and special a case as you think. But even if we grant you your
supposition, There is no room for despair since Jesus delights
to open up new paths of grace. Our Lord is inventive in his
love. He devises new modes of his mercy. It is his joy to find out and
relieve those whose miserable condition has baffled all other
help. His mercy is not bound by precedence. He preserves a freshness and
originality of love. Don't you love Spurgeon? God
is showing us through maybe this quote that no matter your plight
and no matter your predicament this morning, there's a freshness
of God's love for you. And if you believe you are beyond
the bonds of mercy, the bounds of mercy, you are not. If you
believe that your faith is dried up, he will renew it. If you
believe your despair has gotten the best of you, he will direct
new channels of grace. Receive the life-giving mercy
of our Lord. Drink from the fountain of living
water. Come to the outstretched arms
of Jesus today, who will hold you tight. So why do bad things
happen to good people? So that in Christ you can see
that good has come to you who without him are bad. Why does God allow you to suffer?
So that you might know the sweetness of the satisfaction that only
comes from intimacy with the Savior. Have you repented of
your sin? If so, tis a grace that only
comes from a loving God. Are you rejoicing in Christ through
your trial? If so, tis evidence of the one
who has been touched by the love of the Savior. And all of this
has happened to you that the work of God might be displayed
through you. Three quick questions at the
end. How do you respond when you face trials in your life?
Do you get bitter or do you get better? It all depends on the
response that you have looking to Christ. Number two, have you
learned to see trials as God's tool for good? Hopefully by now,
and as you continue to grow and mature in your life, when you're
in the midst of a trial, you can say, God's up to something
good. I don't know what it is. I'm
a little bit anxious, God help me, but I know he's up to something
good. Lord, help me see the top of the tapestry. I'm not going
to just view it from the bottom side and throw up my hands in
despair. I'm going to trust the Lord.
Number three, are there works of God being displayed in your
trials? That's what he wants to do. Nothing
else. He wants you to be just like
this blind man, that whatever he does and however he ministers
to you, to whatever degree, that you could be a witness for the
Lord Jesus Christ and tell others about his goodness and about
his grace. Let's pray together. Father,
thank you for the opportunity to deal with a very challenging
subject. And yet there's great hope for
us who know Christ in the scripture of how to deal with trials. And
I just pray, God, that this would be a great reminder to so many
of us today and maybe a brand new thought for others. Either
way, God, we don't ever want to be assuming that we know and
we certainly don't want to hit people over the head with God's
up to something good in the midst of pain. We need to just sometimes
weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn. And
we need to listen sometimes more than talking. And yet, Lord,
at the same time, at some point, we want to be able to answer
the hard questions using the scripture, which is sufficient
for all that we need for life and godliness. And we want to
shepherd our own hearts so that we can have good answers to step
up to the rabbi kushners of the world. We have something more
truthful and more satisfying in the scripture to help us answer
some of these difficult questions. And so I pray you'd be glorified
in our hearts and our lives as we consider these things from
your word. And it's in Jesus name we pray.