Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
Let’s take a little informal poll this morning.
Are you in a good mood?
Raise your hand if you are.
Are you having a good weekend so far?
Easy questions to answer for the most part.
How many of you would say you’re having a terrible weekend?
How many of you would say you’re suffering today?
Those questions are a little harder to answer.
And yet it can’t be that only two or three of us are having a hard time.
So let me put the question differently:
How many of you have a situation in your life involving your or someone you care about that is making you sad? Heavy-hearted?
Burdened?
If that describes you, then you are suffering.
Let’s not do the whole, “it could be worse” thing.
Of course it could be worse.
No one is saying no one has it worse than you do.
But when you say that, you’re diminishing your own pain.
True, others might be going through things that are harder and tougher and more painful, but that doesn’t make yours any easier.
God cares about you right now where you are just as you are, and that pain and heavy-heartedness and burden you’re carrying - God cares about that just as much as He cares about you.
He wants to meet you in the pain that you’re going through and heal it.
After all, it’s hard for the doctor to heal you if you won’t even admit that you’re sick.
I want to put some biblical tools in your hand.
I want to give you three insights from the Bible about God and suffering.
The things I’m going to say this morning may not seem very practical right now.
I’m not giving you five things you can do in the midst of your suffering to help you cope.
There are plenty of books out there that try to do that.
What I want to do is, I think, better than that – I want to arm you with the truth from God’s word that will equip you to face suffering, and to face suffering well.
There are three truths I want to share with you this morning from God’s word.
Insight #1: When it hurts, God understands
God knows what it is like to suffer.
When we suffer, when we hurt, our God comes to us as the God who knows what we’re going through; and He comes to us as the God who is present with us.
Why is this important?
This is important because it means that we do not serve a God who is detached, disinterested.
Have you ever met someone like this? Someone who’s detached?
They’re just kinda cold, they don’t really engage much, they definitely don’t ask how you’re doing.
Yesterday we took the kids to Carolina Raptor Center in Huntersville.
We saw all kinds of unique birds.
It was really fascinating.
And what was funny, though, were the owls.
Each different kind of owl had a different personality, it seemed.
Each owl had its own facial expression.
We had way too much fun with that, really.
Some seemed standoffish or angry.
There were a couple of owls that seemed like they were judging us.
But one owl was just cold.
Every time we would try to talk to him, he would immediately turn his head 180 degrees.
“I can’t even look at you right now”, he seemed to be saying.
They remind me of my fourth grade teacher.
She was tall, skinny, always wore skirts down to her feet, always wore a blouse buttoned all the way up to her chin, hair tied up in a bun, strict as she could be, struggled to have any compassion.
She ran a tight ship.
She could command your attention but only because she was intimidating, not because she actually cared about you.
(I think she did care about us, but had a hard time showing it).
That’s not the God of the Bible.
That’s not the Christian God.
God is able to identify with our sufferings.
How do I know Jesus understands my pain?
He took on a human body/human nature capable of pain
He endured the worst pain that humans can inflict
He bore the full weight of humanity’s sin to the cross
At the cross, He absorbed the wrath of God we deserved
How do we know that?
We know that because He came down here Himself, and took on a human nature and a human body capable of suffering, capable of death.
He endured the very worst this world can give.
Not only that, He took on Himself the enormous weight of the sin of humanity, along with all of the guilt and shame that goes along with that.
Not only that, as if that were not enough, He endured the wrath of God evoked by all of that sin.
“My God, My God,” Jesus cried out from the cross, “why have you forsaken me?”
Those words expressed a spiritual agony, deep emotional and mental anguish so intense and unbearable that the pain of the crucifixion itself didn’t even come close.
None of the suffering God will ever call us to endure can even begin to compare with the sheer terror and anguish the Son of God endured on the cross for us.
I read a story Friday about a young family who had their 12-month-old daughter and the rest of their children removed their home by Child Protective Services.
They had done nothing wrong.
Their baby girl, Jane, had leaned back in her chair and shifted the center of gravity so that the chair fell back and baby Jane slammed her head on the hardwood floor.
A trip to the ER showed there was no brain damage — only a small skull fracture.
The doctors said she would be fine.
They left the hospital.
A few days later, DSS showed up at their door.
Police officers were with them.
Turns out that a doctor at the hospital saw the skull x-ray — nothing more — and reported the parents.
Because Jane was under 12 months old, it was classified as a crime.
They were accused of “severe child abuse” and all three of their children were removed and placed in foster care for nine months.
This is what the mother says about her first night:
“I will never forget the first night away from our daughters.
I was raging, crying out to God, screaming in agony.
Then something powerful happened.
A calmness and warmth spread through me.
I was suddenly aware that God was right there, holding me, raging with me at the injustice, weeping with us, His children.
In that moment, I had never felt more protected in all my life.”
The mother said, “I certainly did not remain one hundred percent trusting or peaceful over the following nine months.
Every second felt like evil persecution.
Our children were suffering.
I was being false accused of “severely abusing” Jane.
I was also being personally and professionally attacked on many levels.
Their children were eventually returned and the parents were exonerated, all charges dropped.
But the parents said that was not the true miracle.
“I learned that God didn’t mind how strong or weak I was on any given day.
He was the same.
This was the true miracle — that my family lived and survived in the fiery furnace with God’s provision, not that God ultimately rescued us from it.”
[Keller, pp125-26]
Does God know how hard it is?
YES!
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