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WHERE IS GOD WHEN IT HURTS? FAITHFULNESS IN SUFFERING INTRODUCTION Once a week in the Janesville Gazette you will find pictures of smiling couples announcing their engagement to be married. On another day of the week you will find pictures of smiling couples who have recently been married. On yet another day you will find a list of couples who were recently divorced in the Rock County Courthouse. Every single one of those divorced couples has a wedding book full of smiling pictures. Every single one of those divorced couples at one time had hearts full of love for each other that prompted them to make promises to always love, honor and cherish each other. What happened? In every case either one or both of the partners in the relationship decided that what it was costing to stay married was not being made up for by the benefits being received. In short, someone in the marriage decided that the dividends of pleasure were not great enough to offset the debts of pain. It’s not just marriages that fail due to an unwillingness to bear the pain of being in the relationship. Friendships, relationships between parents and children, brothers and sisters, fellow Christians, pastors and their congregations all fail because one or both of the parties involved cannot take the anguish any longer. It is a simple and infallible fact of human relationships in this fallen world that when you decide to love someone you are volunteering for being hurt. The reason “love hurts” is because we expect that when we love someone we are going to receive love in return. It is this expectation and the resultant disappointment when our love is not reciprocated or appreciated as we believe we deserve, that is the cause of our abandoning relationships. It is fear that we will not be loved in return or that the benefits will not repay the costs that keeps us from loving others. In other words, it is suffering and the fear of suffering that short circuits love. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, then you have volunteered to live a life of love towards others. The apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians says, “Be imitators of God therefore as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us…” To be a Christian means that you are actively seeking to “gladly meet the needs of others”, to quote one author’s definition of love. Anyone who seeks to love others is going to suffer in and because of their acts of love. I can think of fewer things more important as a Christian than figuring out how to persist in paying the costs of love without receiving any repayment from those you love. If your love for others depends upon your getting back as much or more than you are putting into the relationship, you will not persevere in love. If you do not persevere in loving others, according to the apostle John, you will not go to heaven, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8) In 2 Corinthians 4, the apostle Paul talks about how it is that he persists in loving people in spite of the fact that most of the people he is attempting to love are indifferent to his love and some are even hostile to him. The details of his “service” to Christ were different than yours and mine but he had to answer the same question. How do I persist and not grow discouraged in loving others when the costs are so high and the benefits so low? Paul shows us in these six verses how to not lose heart in loving others. MAIN POINT Christians do not stop loving when their love is rejected because…I. We have been transformed by mercy (v.1) There are four clauses in v. 1 that most of the English translations try to smooth out, but in doing so they obscure, I think, the point of the verse. The NAS is the most literal and it says, “Therefore (or “for this reason), since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart.” The main point of this sentence is this: “For this reason we do not lose heart.” The clause, “since we have this ministry” shows us the conditions of Paul’s life. God appointed him to spend his time telling everyone who would listen to him about the gospel of Christ. He was to express his love for God and for people like a good doctor. He was to persuade people that they had a terminal disease called sin that was going to result in suffering in an eternal hell. Then he was to persuade people that Jesus Christ was the solution to their illness. Paul says that he never lost heart in this work of loving people by telling them the truth of the gospel, no matter what it cost him and no matter how little response he received for his efforts. It cost Paul dearly to love people. Chapter 11 is a list of the sufferings Paul endured for the sake of the elect. The circumstances of Paul’s life were different from our circumstances. However, while his circumstances were different he had to do what everyone of us have to do, if we are going to be followers of Christ. He had to love people. He did it as an apostle, and not as a dad or as a factory worker. What is the reason he didn’t lose heart in this life of loving people by declaring the gospel? It’s what he said in chapter 3. I want to just look at v. 18. Paul has been describing human blindness to the greatness of God and of his salvation and of the futility of trying to find God through human religious effort. Verse 18 is a description of what it is like to be a “saved” person. I’m going to quote from the ESV. “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” When the Lord, in mercy, takes away the veil from our heart so that we see Christ in all of his beauty, then we become like what we see. The Christian life is not my working hard to try to conform my life to a list of external rules but rather it is the Holy Spirit showing me Christ in such a manner that I love him and because I love him, I become as he is. Christ fills the vision of the Christian. He is the focus of our love, our admiration. Becoming conformed to him is the passion of our lives. This is not a difficult thing to understand. I know a number of preteen and young teen girls who love Mary Kate and Ashley Olson, the 16 year old twins who own a billion dollar media and marketing empire. These girls that I know spend hours on the MK & A website, looking at their magazine, watching their movies. These girls also wear their hair the same way MK & A wear their hair, they dress the same way they do, they have adopted a number of their expressions. They delight to talk about them and to be like them because they are so taken with them. MK & A are attractive to them and admirable. This is exactly what God graciously does to hardhearted sinners like us. He takes away the veil that is over our heart, that keeps us from seeing the glory of Christ and then when we see Jesus as he is, we eagerly seek to imitate him and be like him. Paul says that he doesn’t get discouraged in this life of loving others because he is so amazed at Christ and at his mercy in opening his eyes and enabling him to love him and become like him. He can think of nothing he would rather be or do, than to be like Jesus and to act like Jesus. So when he suffers, like Jesus, for the sake of loving others he rejoices that he is sharing in the sufferings of Christ. If I were to command any of these young girls to be like MK & A, would they feel that I was commanding them to do something they didn’t want to do? Would they feel that command as a burden? Of course not! They would be delighted that I was commanding them to do what they wanted to do. So it is with the Christian. We love Jesus and love to be like Jesus, because God has, in his mercy opened our eyes to his greatness and is now transforming us into his image, in part, through our sharing in his sufferings due to our love for others. Christians do not stop loving when their love is rejected because… · We have been transformed by mercy · And because… II. We only care what God thinks (v. 2) If your motive for loving another person is to have them love you back, to appreciate your affection and complement you for your devotion and they do not respond to you in this way, and yet you crave their attention, what might you do? If you haven’t yet come to plotting murder, what you will do is act like you love the person, so that they will love you. You adjust your behavior to appease them or convince them you love them, so that they will give you what you want. There is probably not a wife in here that hasn’t experienced this. The husband who has been distant and indifferent is suddenly attentive and interested but she quickly discovers that his motive isn’t her happiness but his sexual desire. This behavior tends to be obvious among children and teenagers. The kid who is not very socially popular gets the newest version of a video game and suddenly he’s being called by boys who barely acknowledged his existence before he got something they valued. Christ’s love, true love, finds its joy in the joy of the beloved, not in using the one who is loved to meet some other need. I want you to consider Paul’s circumstances. He is out to love people by giving them the best gift that can be given. He is out to make people infinitely and eternally happy by preaching the gospel of Christ. He is not preaching the gospel to get rich or to gain power over others. He is telling people of their sin and hell and of this great Savior, Jesus because he finds his joy in the joy of others. That’s exactly what he says in 2 Cor. 1:24, “Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith that you stand firm.” He is working so that they will be happy forever and the way to be happy forever is to trust in Christ to the end of your life. So he is working to create and strengthen the faith of others for their joy. Yet what is happening to Paul as he works to strengthen faith through the preaching of the gospel? Many people are indifferent to his message. Many people are hostile to his message to the point of beating him up and having him thrown in prison. Even those whom he thought were responding to his message prove to be fickle as in the case of these Corinthians. Men have come into the church at Corinth after Paul left and have persuaded many of these people that Paul is not a true apostle and that the message he has been preaching is not right. What we discover in v. 2 is that Paul’s persistence in loving people is not ultimately dependent upon how the other people respond to him. While he is seeking his joy in the joy of others, if others are not made happy by what he is doing for them he doesn’t quit because his ultimate desire isn’t pleasing men but God. If in every city you enter and preach the gospel of Christ you eventually end up being beaten up. If many of those who you thought were your friends abandon you because of what you are teaching, what is your temptation? If not getting beat up and being respected is what makes you happy then you may be tempted to use methods that are not as clear cut. You may engage in behaviors that are more pleasing to those you are trying to help and so avoid their wrath and gain their respect. If your goal is to gain their respect, you might try the old bait and switch. The musical “The Music Man” is a classic example of this kind of approach. The con artist comes to town and acts like he is concerned for the welfare of the children and youth in town. He wants to keep them out of the pool halls and keep them on the straight and narrow. He convinces the townsfolk that a marching band is the key to the salvation of the young people. So he sets out to take up a collection so he can purchase the uniforms and equipment. His real motive is to take the money and run. If people knew his true motive they would put him to shame by tar and feathering him and running him out of town. Paul says he doesn’t have ulterior motives that prompt him to use to deception to get their respect. Another way of avoiding hostility and gaining respect is to change the message so it’s not quite so hard-nosed and confrontational. You might simply leave out some of those lines about Jesus being the only way to God or about God’s hatred of people who worship idols or of God’s hostility to racists and the self-righteous. Paul says that he has rejected both of these methods. He doesn’t have false motives that he attempts to hide through deception or changing the message. He continues to love people by telling them the truth even though many of those he loves in this way hate him and reject him. But how does he do this? If he is working for the joy of others and what he is saying is not giving them joy but causing hostility, then how does he keep loving them in this way? The last 5 words of v. 2 give the answer. He is setting forth the truth plainly, “in the sight of God.” Paul’s ultimate motive isn’t his joy in the joy of others but his joy in God. What Paul values more than anything else is that God is pleased with him. He is really only living for an audience of one. When I was a teenager my mother regularly told me, when I was going out with my friends, “I won’t be there to see what you’re doing but remember, God is always watching.” Do you know how much affect that had on my behavior? Absolutely none, because I didn’t love God or care what he thought about me. What mattered to me is what my friends thought about me. So I behaved as I did to please them, not to please God because I wanted their approval, not Gods. I believed their approval would make me happier than God’s approval. This is the only way you will ever persist in loving your enemies or those who behave like your enemies. When your goal is to please God and enjoy God, then you will persist in loving others, no matter how they respond to you. Christians do not stop loving when their love is rejected because… · We have been transformed by mercy · We only care what God thinks · And because… III. We expect rejection (vv. 3-4) What Paul has just said in v. 2 is that he is always telling people the absolute truth from pure motives. He is not trying to manipulate people so they will give him their money or their respect. He is not doing what he is doing in order to get anything from people but in order to give people infinite and eternal joy. Now, wouldn’t you expect, that a person who is living this way would be dearly loved and admired and respected? Isn’t this the kind of person for which our culture is crying out? Aren’t we deeply offended by our political and religious and business leaders who pretend to be for us but whom we often discover are for themselves? Wouldn’t a man like Paul who is obviously not getting anything but trouble for all his efforts win us to his cause? Why is it that he keeps getting beat up and so many people remain indifferent to him and his message? Let me make this more personal. You’re a mom and you’re doing the mom thing as good as anyone could possibly do it. You’ve sacrificed a fulfilling career outside the home and the extra income it would bring to stay home with your children. You work diligently, night and day to care for your children. You read to them and care for their physical needs. You engage in wise and restrained discipline. You don’t scream at them or demand their unfailing loyalty. You do your parenting cheerfully, even though it is often exhausting work. You pursue Christ daily in his word and prayer and carefully teach your children the truths of God. Yet, your children still talk back to you. They fight with one another. Your six year old is still wetting the bed. They often are more interested in watching TV and playing with their friends than they are at spending time with you. They roll their eyes when you bring out the Bible or try to talk with them seriously. In short, they don’t seem to act any different from the children of your non-Christian neighbors whose home life doesn’t seem as orderly as yours does. What is going on here? In vv. 3-4 Paul, in a few, concise words, describes the fundamental problem that infects the universe and makes it hard to continue loving others. Why do people persist in rejecting the love of others, especially when that love is aimed at their eternal happiness? It is because we live in a world that has been cursed by God, is ruled over by Satan and in which men delight in evil, rather than good. It is not Paul’s purpose in these two verses to work out the relationship between God’s sovereignty, Satan’s power to deceive and human responsibility. He simply states that these three forces are at work in the world and the result is that human beings are blind to the glory of Christ and so even when someone is loving them for their eternal good they cannot see it but rather only see someone who is not loving them the way they want to be loved. In v. 3 Paul is saying what Jesus said in Matthew 11:25, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children.” It is God’s will that those who perish remain blind to the glory of Christ. In v. 4 Paul is saying what Jesus said in John 8:44-45 to the religious leaders, “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!” Satan is the great deceiver. He deceived Adam and Eve at the beginning and he continues to deceive humans to this day. He is out to convince us that God cannot be trusted to make us happy. Anything and everything is more trustworthy and satisfying than the great Triune God. It is Satan’s will that all humans remain blind to the great love and mercy of God in Christ. We happily agree with him. We are, in our natural selves, “unbelievers.” We delight to trust anything and everything rather than Christ. We cannot see what is blazing in front of our face, the glory of Christ held out in the gospel because we do not want to see it. It is our will, our desire to not see Christ but to demand to be made happy by creation, not the Creator. What we want are secure jobs, full bank accounts, loving spouses, and obedient children. It is not surprising to Paul, that despite his pure motives, honest work and truth telling, men and women do not view him as an agent of love in their lives. He knows that he lives in a world that is cursed by God, under the power of the evil one, and inhabited by humans who by nature don’t want to see the glory of Christ. It should not surprise us when we set out to love others in the sight of God for their eternal joy that they do not respond. When you give yourself in love to another and the one you love doesn’t appreciate you or love you back the way you want, you should not be surprised. But, this doesn’t give Paul a superiority complex. He doesn’t act towards others in a condescending way. He isn’t self-righteous, pious, and unloving. He persists in loving. How does he do this? That is what he next addresses. Christians do not stop loving when their love is rejected because… · We have been transformed by mercy · We only care what God thinks · We expect rejection · And because… IV. We expect miracles (vv. 5-6) In verse 5 Paul restates in a different way his determination to persist in loving people even though they often resist his love and are not made joyful by it, but reject him for his love. Notice how he does this. First he says that he does not preach himself. What he means by this is simply that he is not doing what he is doing because he is looking for them to meet his needs. “This isn’t about me”, is Paul’s attitude. I am not doing this so that you will meet my needs, so that you will love and respect me and take care of me. He then says, I preach Jesus Christ, who is the Lord. My aim and ambition is that you will see Christ and love him and submit to him so that you will be eternally happy and he will be glorified. I am after just one thing for you, I want you to be impressed with Jesus. Then notice how Paul views himself in relation to them. He views himself as their slave. They are the masters. He is their slave. Slaves don’t expect masters to meet their needs, they exist to meet the needs of their masters. He will give up every comfort, every right, every demand for pleasure in this world so that they will discover in his slavery to them, that Jesus is better than life. That’s what that last clause means. He is their slave “for the sake of Jesus.” He serves them so that they will discover that Jesus is better than sex, better than money, better than video games, better than vacations, better than alcohol, better than health, better than a good marriage, better than healthy and happy children, better than grandchildren, better than being admired by others, better than a beautiful garden, better than everything in the universe. Verse 6 tells us why he acts as their slave and preaches Jesus only to them. It is because God takes darkness and turns it into light. Verses 3-4 describe the darkness that every human naturally lives in. Therefore, if God is going to save anyone out of the darkness of this world he must accomplish three things. First, he must appease his own wrath against us. He must satisfy justice. He does this in the death of Christ for our sins. Second, he must destroy Satan’s power over us. He must eliminate his ability to deceive and enslave us to sin. He does this through his death, resurrection, word and the Holy Spirit. Finally, he must overcome our resistance to him. He must enable us to see Jesus as more valuable and trustworthy than everything in the universe. Look at v. 6. The God who saves us is the God who made light out of darkness. It is impossible for darkness to make light, yet God, by a word, made light out of darkness. Then notice what Paul says, this same God not only made the light of this world out of darkness but he made light out of the darkness of my life, my heart. He shone into my heart and when he did I saw Christ in all his beauty as the divine Son of God who is my Savior. I see and love God in seeing and loving Jesus the image of God, the glory of God. Do you see what Paul is saying? I keep loving by being a slave to others because I know that God does miracles. I know that he does miracles because he did a miracle in my life. I hated Christ and I hated every follower of Christ. I was determined to wipe out Christ’s church because I hated him and them. The story of Paul’s conversion in Acts 8 confirms that God never saves anyone because of anything they have ever done. God did not choose Paul because he saw something in Paul. Paul, by his own admission, was a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man. God took the initiative to confront and save Paul. Paul says that God shone into my heart when he confronted me on the road to Damascus. He shone into my heart through sending to me a simple Christian man, named Ananias. He came to me in spite of his fear of me. He knew that I hated Christ and Christians and yet, for the sake of Christ and out of his love for me, he made himself my slave by coming to me and telling me of the gospel of Christ, healing me of my blindness and baptizing me. He exposed himself to danger and at the risk of his own life he told me of Christ. God, in his great mercy, through this humble Christian revealed Christ to me so that I cannot love anything or anyone without reference to Jesus. He is my life and I want him to be your life. If you are a Christian, this is your chief ambition and your greatest passion, to know Christ and to live with him forever. Therefore, it is your ambition to so love others, to be the slave of others so that they too will love this Jesus. You will die to your own pleasures and rights in order to bring this Jesus to others because you know that God does miracles. You know that the only explanation for the fact that you see Christ as valuable and trustworthy is because God has shone in your heart “to give you the light of the knowledge of the glory of Christ in the face of Christ.” And so you know that God is able to do the same thing in the lives of others and the way he will do this is through your being the slave of others for the sake of Jesus. Christians do not stop loving when their love is rejected because… · We have been transformed by mercy · We only care what God thinks · We expect rejection · We expect miracles ©
Copyright 2002 John Swanson.
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