CONSIDER IT PURE CRAZY part 3

We continue to look at 10 biblical truths to encourage and equip you to both endure afflictions, and to offer comfort to those around you who are persevering through difficult times and experiences. In the last post, we covered that:

1) God is Sovereign

2) God's aim in everything is His own glory

3) God has compassion on the afflicted

4) Affliction is always the result of sin

5) Your understanding of affliction is always distorted by sin

Today, we look at 5 more important truths that will serve us well in the midst of pain.

6) Your Affliction is not God’s Punishment

I talk to so many people who question if God is punishing their past sin with current heartache and difficulties. This line of thinking is a fundamental misunderstanding of the gospel. God is absolutely angry at sin. The penalty for sin is death and God, in his justice, punishes all sin. At the cross, Jesus satisfied God’s wrath against the sin by paying the penalty that sin demands. He took upon himself the punishment that our sin deserves. Therefore, for all who receive forgiveness of sin through repentance and faith in Christ, and who receive his perfect record of righteousness, no further punishment is forthcoming. Our identification and union with Christ includes our identification with him in his death and resurrection. (Rom. 6:5-7) For God to punish a Christian for their sin would violate His justice because Christ has already received that punishment. God is not a petty father who punishes our every mistake, he is a loving Father who disciplines us as His sons. While there may natural consequences for ongoing sin in the life of a believer, God is not out to make His children pay. If you are in Christ, whatever affliction you may encounter you can be sure that it is not punitive.

7) Affliction is Sometimes the Right Response to Sin and its Effects

James tells us, “Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.” When you survey the landscape of the world and see the effects of the sinfulness of humanity, it should arrest us and afflict us. When we confront our own sin which grieves the heart of God and harms others, we should be afflicted. We live in a world that foolishly seeks to avoid “feeling bad” at all costs. We use a range of things such as alcohol, illegal narcotics, prescription drugs, pornography, video games, movies and television, clinical counselors and self-help books all to numb our emotions, lift our spirits, escape our reality, feel good about ourselves and medicate our pain. Solomon in all his wisdom said that, “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.” Nothing makes you appreciate life and puts things in perspective like being confronted with death. Nothing makes you appreciate health like being sick. No Christian should be in a perpetual state of affliction but all Christians should experience a measure of affliction when they are faced with both the general and particular effects of sin. Ecclesiastes and Lamentations are both biblical books dedicated to honest assessments of life in a fallen world. All is not right in us or in the world and while we should never give way to hopelessness, neither should we ever hide from reality.

8) God Uses Afflictions to Reveal our Affections

John Piper is known for his often repeated statement “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” The unfortunate truth is that most of us struggle to be satisfied in Christ alone. Instead, we seek to be satisfied by the approval of man, the accumulation of wealth, the attainment of status or the acquisition of influence. We are more satisfied by worldly comfort than our union with Christ and that becomes obvious when we despair in losing comforts even though we gain Christ. When Paul considers having gained Christ, he all of his massive worldly successes are rubbish, trash and dung. For some of us, our afflictions reveal that we have been satisfied with rolling around in the manure. That’s why C.S. Lewis rightly says that “we are far too easily pleased.” God’s goal is that He would be uppermost in our affections and he uses our afflictions  to show the futility of hoping in anything else.

It’s worth noting that in Hosea 6:1-3, referenced earlier, God is said to have “torn” his people that He might heal them; He has struck them down that He might bind them up. This idea is like medical surgery, when a doctor might cut open your chest cavity, which hurts you, but he is doing so to remove a deadly disease, which would kill you. God’s expressed intention for us in our injured state, is that we would “press on to know the Lord.” God is drawing us to Himself through our afflictions. J.I. Packer writes that "He seeks the fellowship of His people and sends them both sorrows and joys to detach their love from other things and attach it to Himself."  God deeply desires for the longings of our hearts to be met. As our Creator, those desires were placed there by Him to point us to Him because they can only ultimately be satisfied in Him.

9) Afflictions Conform us into the Image of Christ

Romans 8:29 says, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son...” All Christians are somewhere on the continuum between being made alive in Christ and being conformed into the image of Christ. As we consider our own afflictions it’s important to remember the most afflicted of all men was the man we trust in as Savior, submit to as Lord and worship as God. To be his disciples we must take seriously his invitation. “If any one would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” Affliction is in the job description. The Apostle Peter heard that invitation in person and accepted it with the same naivete that many of us do. He later wrote to scattered Christians who were afflicted on account of their faith in Christ, saying “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. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings...” (1 Pet. 3:12-13). He knew that ultimate joy was in union with Christ and that union with Christ meant sharing in Christ’s afflictions. 

10) Afflictions Do Not Get the Last Word

Romans 6:5 says “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” Our union with Christ may take us on a road of affliction but the destination is glorification. How can a God of love let so much pain and suffering and affliction endure? How can God stand by and not deal with all the chaos and turmoil around us? The answer is clear, simple and certain. He will. The day is coming very soon when sin and unrepentant sinners will be judged, when God will put all things right, when everything sad comes untrue. On that day all forms of affliction will suffocate, breathe their last and the resurrected and ascended Lord will return “with healing in His wings,” to remove the sting of sin and death once and for all. We find our hope and our rest in the promise of God that He will get the last word. Affliction will be swallowed up by joy. Isolation will be swallowed up by intimacy. Brokenness will be swallowed up by restoration. Pain will be swallowed up by peace. The old will give way to the new and death will be swallowed up by life.

In conclusion, Romans 5 says that, “we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” It’s only after that that Paul declares “we also rejoice in our sufferings.” That’s because joy amidst suffering is only possible if we leave the shallow wells of worldly wisdom and drink deeply from the reservoirs of grace made available through the gospel and fix our gaze on the glory of God which will one day fill the whole earth like the waters cover the sea. There is no joy in afflictions apart from seeing through the lens of eternity. Church, we must recover the eternal perspective of the early church in order to recover our joy. Until He returns, may you know and experience intimately “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Cor. 1:3-4)

CONSIDER IT PURE CRAZY part 2

In yesterday's introduction, we established the "afflictions" is a biblical term that refers to pain of various degrees and kinds that are caused by external circumstances that are beyond our control. We further illustrated how afflictions significantly marked the lives of God's people through the pages of the Bible, and we acknowledged that no degree of righteousness or maturity in Christ can insulate you from the reality of afflictions in a fallen world. In other words, nobody escapes afflictions in this life. My hope is to help biblically orient our perspective of pain so that we might find hope amid our afflictions and offer hope to others we influence. Here are 10 truths to form your understanding of pain and transform how you endure pain.

1) God is Sovereign

You are not in control and that in no way means that things are out of control. God is sovereign over all things, even over your affliction. Hosea 6:1-3 goes so far as to say that God has “torn” and “struck down” his people. There is some debate about weather God actively causes or passively allows affliction, but that God is neither surprised nor overwhelmed by our afflictions is certain. Weather it is a physiological condition, relational conflict, financial difficulty, emotional turmoil, or spiritual oppression your particular form of affliction is not above God’s pay grade. You are not in control. God is absolutely in control. And that’s good news.

2) God's Aim is His Own Glory

Jesus speaks in John 9 about a blind man whose blindness came neither from his own sin nor from the sin of his parents. Instead, Jesus says blindness afflicted this man in order that the glory of God might be displayed in him. Similarly, we see Jesus delay going to minister to a dying Lazarus and interrupted en route to healing a dying little girl. In both cases Jesus was motivated by His love and the desire for those he loved to see the glory of God.

John the Baptist is another example of someone who endured great hardship, yet his affliction ended in execution rather than resurrection. Having prepared the way for Jesus' ministry, he was so confounded by his imprisonment and impending death that he began to question if Jesus was the Messiah like he had thought. Jesus confirmed his identity to John as the Messiah but rather than freeing him or saving him, he told him "Blessed is the one who is not offended by me." While John's head ended up ingloriously on a platter, his life and testimony bear witness to this day to the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And Jesus' testimony about his cousin is that he is the greatest man to ever live this side of Jesus himself (Matt. 11:11). There is no indication that John understood God would be glorified by his affliction and death. He struggled, as we do, to make sense of how God can gain glory through his affliction. But on the other side of eternity, John knows it is far better to endure affliction and bask in the glory of God than to be spared pain and remain ignorant of God’s glory.

3) God Has Compassion on the Afflicted

While God’s aim is His own glory and not your comfort, he is still a God of compassion who comforts us in our affliction. Exodus 2 tells of a people who cried out to God for rescue from their slavery. And we are told that, “God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant... God saw the people of Israel—and God knew” (Ex. 2:23-25). When you cry out to God in your affliction, He hears you. He knows you and every detail of your situation. He knows your pains and your fears. He knows what has caused them and what will alleviate them. He loves you and his own heart is afflicted by your affliction. Hebrews 4:15 says, "we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with ourweaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin." God's compassion runs so deep that he entered human history and endured affliction at the hands of sinful men. He identified with us and our afflictions so that, through his affliction, we could be identified with him.

4) Affliction is Always the Result of Sin 

Don’t get mad. I don’t mean that your affliction has been caused by your sin. What I am saying is that sin entered the world through Adam and it effected everything. All pain, suffering, fear, sickness, tragedy, pain and death itself are caused by sin. Most Christians are familiar with 1 Corinthians 15:55 which says “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” Many use this Scripture as a sort of taunt toward death as if it does not sting at all. But it’s not as if the sting of death can’t be felt. The sting of death is all around us. The odds are you have been stung by sin and death this week. In Christ and through his resurrection, death is definitively defeated but it has not been done away with just yet. Jesus will destroy death finally and fully upon his return but for now, even though we have eternal life in Christ, we live with the effects of sin and death all around us and until Christ's triumphant return the effects of sin will remain. Furthermore, we have each personally contributed to the brokenness in this world through our own sin. None of us are innocent and all of us are effected.

5) Your Understanding of Affliction is Distorted by Sin

Because sin has corrupted everything, we must recognize that how we see our own affliction is distorted and corrupted. You may see it as unfair and undeserved. You may see it as punishment for something you have done. You may not see how anything good could possibly come from your situation. You may think you have a right to revenge, unforgiveness, bitterness or a better reward. It’s important to understand in the midst of adversity that your perspective is limited and God’s is limitless. You see things only for how they are affecting you in the moment while God sees them for what they are producing in you personally and in others through you (Rom. 8:18, 28, 2 Cor. 1:3-12). God does not promise that we will fully understand HOW our afflictions will result in His glory, he only promises THAT they will. The question is will trust your affliction and pain to make sense of God or will you trust God - His word, character, power and promises - to make sense of your affliction? Will you trust that God is good only when life is good? V. Raymond Edmond wisely says, "Don't question in the dark what God showed you in the light."

We will conclude with 5 more important truths to form how we think about afflictions and transform how we walk through them.

CONSIDER IT PURE CRAZY part 1

Joy is supposed to be a defining characteristic of the Christian life. More specifically, and frankly a bit more ridiculously, joy amidst suffering is supposed to mark the life of a Christian. You have probably read or heard that somewhere already so you may be casually nodding in agreement right now like all good Christians do when they fail to think deeply about or take seriously what they have signed on for as disciples.

Jesus wasn’t in a campaign spin room trying to garner votes from a gullible, unsuspecting constituency when he said “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me... For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.” There are not a lot of democrats or republicans running for congress on the promise that a vote for them seals your own death. But Jesus has real guts.

The New Testament writers, who were the first to throw their lot in with him, and while still enduring the difficulty of their devotion, guaranteed that a life following Christ would be a life of suffering and not a life of ease. They even go a step further, as mentioned above, and essentially communicate that, “not only are you going to suffer, but you are going to like it.” Fewer people are nodding their approval at this point.

The Practical Implications of Rejoicing in Pain

Understand that functionally, James 1 admonishes the cancer patient to consider their condition and chemotherapy treatment “pure joy”. In Romans 5, Paul tells the mom who just miscarried to celebrate the loss of her baby. In Philippians 4, Paul also tells the recently fired husband and father who is facing foreclosure to rejoice in his unemployment and displacement. Anybody putting their name on the sign up sheet?

If you are like me, joy is hard enough to come by when things are going swimmingly, so the admonition to rejoice in the face of suffering should book a room in the asylum for the apostles. The most natural response is to consider them pure crazy for suggesting we should consider trials "pure joy." Yet, it's in God's word so there must be something to it.

A Biblical Classification for Pain

The Bible has a catch-all word for external circumstances that are beyond our control and cause us pain of various degrees and kinds. They are called “afflictions.” Your affliction may be physical, such as sickness, disease, injury or weariness. Your affliction may be emotional, caused by betrayal, abuse, isolation, loss, failure, or unfulfilled dreams. Your afflictions may be the result of circumstances such as natural disaster or a depressed economy, or they may be the result of sinful choices of others, such as persecution for being a Christian or someone deliberately deceiving you. Afflictions may come in the form of spiritual oppression that causes chaos, confusion and discouragement for no observable or definitive reason.

The Reality of Afflictions Throughout Scripture 

Abraham and Sarah were afflicted when they used Hagar to try to force God’s hand, unable to wait for Him to fulfill His promise to give them a son (Gen. 16). Joseph was so afflicted when he faced his brothers who had sold him into slavery that he sent them away so he could weep in private (Gen. 45:1). Hannah was afflicted over her barrenness, which caused her deep distress and to weep bitterly (1 Sam. 1). David was afflicted when he wrote “Why are you downcast, oh my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me?” (Psalm 42:6). Jeremiah was afflicted when he cried out to God “Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive?” (Jer. 12:1). Job was afflicted when he asked, “Why did I not die at birth, come out from the womb and expire?” (Job 3:11). Habakkuk was afflicted when he wrote, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save?” (Hab. 1:2). John the Baptist was afflicted when he sat in a prison cell wondering if Jesus really was the Messiah. Jesus himself was afflicted to the point of sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he asked the Father, “if you are willing, remove this cup from me” (Luke 22:42). Jesus was further afflicted as he hung on the cross, crying out, “Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?”

One of the priceless treasures in Scripture is the testimony of faithful men and women throughout human history which give authentic and often raw expression to their grappling with sorrow, confusion, pain, loss and suffering. While the biblical narrative engages these realities, overly sanitized religion leaves little room for such wrestling. Many of us were sold a simpleton’s gospel that promised happiness, comfort and ease of life in exchange for outward compliance with a particular standard of morality, sometimes cloaked in spiritual language and sometimes not.

Some church sub-cultures respond to suffering and pain with “let go and let God”, which sounds spiritual on the surface, but is more likely to incite a brawl then offer genuine comfort. Heaviness of heart, sorrow and grief are too often seen as signs of immaturity. These tendencies ignore legitimate questions and insult those who pose them, exchanging transformational truth for trite platitudes that are unhelpful at best. Employing cheap religious cliches as a fix for afflicted souls also squanders an opportunity to offer real wisdom from God and real hope from the gospel to those whose hearts are cracked open to Him through the suffering and sorrow that inevitably confront all men.

Some Good for What Ails You 

Peter warns us against such wasteful stewardship of the gospel when he instructs believers to be ready “in season and out of season” to offer an explanation for the hope that we have. If we are to offer such an explanation we must first possess such a hope and then we must be able to articulate the reasons for that hope. So, whether you are enduring affliction or positioned to encourage someone who is, over the next 2 posts, I will offer 10 truths, well supported in Scripture, that should help orient our perspective of pain and offer hope amidst affliction.

THE TRUTH ABOUT FULL-TIME MINISTRY

I talk about us being a missional church, a people who would live all of life with intentionality, building bridges that take us outside the comfortable, safe walls of the church to display and declare the truth of the Gospel. I say we want to see people meet Jesus. We want to see individuals, marriages, families and our community transformed by the power of the gospel. We want to be a church that brings hope and reconciliation to the people in our community. I preach these things from the pulpit, I talk about them in personal conversations, I promote this way of life in our small group. And yet, I talked to someone in our church last week who is trying to live that way, but he feels like his work is outside the church and it disqualifies him from leadership inside the church. I would love to dismiss the conversation and chalk it up to a guy who just isn’t listening and who doesn’t get it. But what if I’m the guy who doesn’t get it? And if I’m the guy who doesn’t get it, then it means that our church is probably filled with others like this friend, who feel, at worst, that their vocation and ministry “outside the church” doesn’t count in God’s eyes, or at best, their vocation and ministry “outside the church” doesn’t count in their pastor’s eyes.

I felt compelled to clarify for myself, and for our church, how God sees our vocation and relationships “outside” the church, not as separate from Christian ministry but rather as essential to Christian ministry.

In Genesis we find that God created man in his very own image. This is exceedingly important because God establishes, from the beginning, that man’s activity doesn’t establish his identity but rather emanates from his identity. Work is not a consequence of sin but an essential component to our lives as image-bearers of God.

In Genesis 2:15, in a still pre-fall creation, we are told that the “The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it.” Adam did not pursue a career, he received a calling from God. He didn’t select a vocation, God sent him. Adam’s calling and placement by God was not as a pastor or ministry leader in a church. God called Adam to bear His image to all of creation by diligently working a blue collar job, cultivating God’s creation and making a valuable contribution to the ongoing work of creation. This calling is a high calling even if it seems a common calling. Performing common tasks with an uncommon perspective is one way that God’s people are to be distinct from all other people on the earth. But like everything, our understanding of work has been corrupted through sin.

In His infinite wisdom, God designed our work to be fruitful and fulfilling but sin introduced frustration and futility to our labors. As a result, rather than reflecting the image of God in our work, by cultivating and creating as an act of worship for God’s glory, our understanding of work is distorted. In his book, Work Matters, Tom Nelson  considers 3 specific distortions of work.

Workaholism

Workaholism distorts the design of work by elevating work to the place of ascendency. Work becomes an idol when we seek to derive our identity from the accumulation of wealth, the ambition of status, the achievement of success or the more palatable pursuit of the assurance of significance. Workaholism further justifies itself as loyalty to the organization or supervisor, a deep sense of duty and responsibility, or as the necessary sacrifices on the path to promotion and security. A workaholic grounds his identity solely in his productivity and places his ultimate hope in his own performance. For a workaholic, work isn’t a way to worship God. Instead, work is the object of worship and the office is the place of worship.

Slothfulness

Slothfulness distorts work as unimportant and yields the throne of one’s life to the idol of leisure. A sloth only does as much work as is necessary to survive at their job or as much as is required to fund their next fun activity. They are likely to hide behind a facade of rightly prioritizing relationships and rest in relation to work. The reality is that they are experts at finding any reason not to work. A sloth may also resist responsibility and foster low expectations so that he never has to break a sweat. Slothfulness is what drives the work-for-the-weekend mentality of so many and the modern day retirement mentality that amounts to culturally sanctioned version of slothfulness - it’s just a much longer week followed by a much longer weekend. A sloth distorts the image of God by completely divorcing work from his identity. Instead of approaching work as a gift from God and worship to God, a sloth views work as an enemy of the one true god, their idol of a Good Time.

Dualism

Dualism distorts work by drawing an unbiblical distinction between full-time work in the secular sphere and full-time Christian work. This distortion is every bit as common as workaholism and slothfulness, but sadly, it is much more broadly acceptable among Christians. Dualism considers vocational ministry, either in a church, religious or ministry organization, as a higher calling than work in the business world. Dualism distinguishes between the sacred nature being a pastor and the secular nature of being a plumber. In the American church culture, it is common language to speak of a pastor or missionary being “called” into ministry, to proclaim Christ to others and to love and serve people for the glory of God. We elevate the importance of such roles. But to our peril, we neglect the importance of this common call of all Christians to full-time ministry.

"All vocations are intended by God to manifest his love in the world.” - Thomas Merton

As a pastor, it is my privilege to have God demonstrate His love by showing care, concern, patience, devotion and compassion for others, by teaching biblical truth and proclaiming the gospel, by giving leadership and vision to our church, by opening our home and lives to others and by countless other means entrusted to me by God. In the very same way, before I was called to be a pastor, I was called to be a pool service technician, a job through which God also demonstrated his love for people. Swimming pools certainly don’t seem sacred at first glance, but if you have ever seen families, and children in particular, enjoy a swimming pool, then you know God is loving those people through providing such an avenue for fun, fellowship and enjoyment.

When pools are dirty, pumps are broken or pipes are leaking it is a reminder that nothing has escaped the effects of sin, that everything is subject to decay. Both my parents, and my wife’s parents have swimming pools and I can tell you that the futility and frustration that stems from the fall in Genesis 3, extends deep into maintenance of swimming pool. The calls around summer celebrations such as Memorial Day, Graduations, Brithdays, Independence Day and more, would flood in because the pool is essential to pool parties. People would call, stressed and worried that their pool wasn't going to be ready or working for that party a day or two away and I was often God's way of showing them that He was in control and He would take care of it. 

With responsive and patient customer service, product knowledge, quality workmanship, diligence and integrity, God used me often to show his love for people. I certainly didn't have a perfect track record in that vocation, neither in practice or in perspective, but as I grew to see a job I once resented through a biblical grid I came to understand, and even delight in God's calling on my life to be an expression of his love and care for the people he positioned me to serve. People of course don't always recognize God's love expressed through the work of one of God's children. However, we aren't called to govern the responses of men to God's love, only to be a channel of His love. 

Clarifying Your Calling

Despite what you may have thought, or what messages have been sent by pastors, church leaders and even well-meaning Christian business people, if you belong to Christ, you are called into full-time ministry. Like Adam, our activity is supposed to flow from our identity. You are called and placed by God in your particular vocation to worship Him and to manifest His love in the world. You are in full-time ministry. You are a missionary. Your job is sacred. 

Dorothy Sayers writes that "The Church's approach to an intelligent carpenter is usally confined to moral instruction and church attendance. What the church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.... Let the church remember this: that every maker and worker is called to serve God in his profession or trade - not outside of it... The only Christian work is good work well done." The role of pastors is not more sacred than the role of engineer, accountant, physician, educator, contractor or software developer. Neither is the role of pastors to recruit men and women out of their ministry context of the workplace in favor of ministry in the church. The role of pastors is to equip God's people for the work of ministry in order that the body of Christ might be built up, not used up (Eph. 4:12). Too often the message we send is that people must do more for the church and in the church rather than giving great vision for and recognition of that which they are doing as an extension of the church. 

Monday through Saturday are sacred days, involving sacred activities like work and recreation. It's time that church leaders and lay people alike started to see all of life as such. If you you have a job, then you have a calling. Your calling is to see approach your vocation as an opportunity to image God the way He intended, through working with excellence, as an expression of God's love to others, for His glory and for your own joy. And as you do, know that you are not working apart from or outside the church, but you are working from the church as an extension of the church into our culture that desperately needs their own distortion of work reshaped and restored by the hope of the gospel. So go... do good work and do it well.