We're gonna once again be in Psalm 119, so if you have your Bible and want to turn there That would be the place to go inside your bulletin. You'll find the scripture sheet Which contains all the scriptures we'll look at in our time and God's word This morning and on the flip side. There's an outline that will help you stay with me with some blanks That you'll need to fill in so you can track with me that way and keep your kids following along filling in those blanks as We go this is gonna be our third and I suppose our final installment unless Jim gets stuck in Kenya and Doesn't make it back in our look at Psalm 119 and the themes from that Great psalm the longest chapter in the Bible all 176 verses of it can't imagine doing a Verse by verse exposition of the psalm, but it's a wonderful psalm to take according to themes. I Am I have been for a few months now 50 years old which brings up the subject of affliction Actually I was supposed to mention that that's our subject today then I'll get back to me being 50 but We've looked the last couple of weeks at the subject of revival the psalmist petition that God revive his heart Then last week at resolution is resolved to be obedient to the command Today we're gonna look at the subject of affliction as it's addressed in the Psalm Now back to me being 50. I am and I have had a relatively speaking a pretty easy life certainly a very happy one as a pastor for over 25 years it has been my calling and my privilege as well to share with many people in those moments of deepest grief and sorrow in their lives, but for me personally The suffering has seemed very light Compared to what I have seen watched others go through at least until about a year ago That was when I reluctantly and agonizingly laid down the position of pastor which I had held for over 24 years my entire adult life was spent in one place with one people One job one singular passion in my life and within a few weeks it all came Unraveled and I felt my world turned upside down. Oh, it was not comparatively speaking That awful. I mean I was healthy I was loved I was financially stable, but I entered About a year ago a season of grief like I could not have imagined in the month of October of 2006 I think I wept more than I had wept in all the years of my adult life put together times probably seven or eight my heart ached Like it had never a before in fact the first time I worship Here at Covenant Presbyterian of Ovedo It was the first Sunday after my public resignation and I sat right over there and wept through a worship service that Seemed to be peculiarly designed to address my own needs Your past what is going on in here by the way? Oh
Okay, I thought the lights were gradually getting dimmer It was all gonna be over
Doing a note that your pastor has been particularly kind to me has been very Understanding he knows in a lot of ways. I am still in a season of trial most of you You've had you've had a period in your life like that, right? For many of you it's been much deeper than anything I've walked through maybe Maybe you're there today We would love to pretend that ain't so but this life is fraught with affliction I Thought of that scene and the movie princes bride in which Wesley the hero looks at his beloved and says Life is pain my dear highness and Anyone who tells you different is trying to sell you something Well the salesman are not hard to find are they even within the church There are many who are offering a supposed shield against suffering against affliction But the Bible doesn't in fact the scriptures describe the lives of saint after saint Replete with suffering and in Psalm 119 we read of it as well look there the scriptures with me verse 107 I am exceedingly afflicted Verse 157 many are my persecutors and adversaries And you know there are strong adversaries and there are weak ones the psalmist says his were of the strong variety Verse 161 princes princes Persecute me without cause And our first observation then this morning is the reality of affliction The reality of affliction. It's real. It's here. It's not going to go away this afternoon Someone said that we are born wet naked and hungry and things get worse from there If you want to life in a world that is Easy to explain that is predictable and understandable what you're living on the wrong planet last week as as I watched my son's joy at his wedding and especially at the reception that followed it I ponder the reality that there's many fathers whose sons are not experiencing that right now many fathers whose sons are overseas Somewhere in places like Iraq in places of great danger There is genocide in a place called Darfur. There is starvation in other parts of the globe and it hit me that if my religion cannot handle The hard times if it's only suitable for the happy pleasant moments They can't handle the hard times and it's not worth much at all my faith must inform my perspective on affliction and it does so It doesn't say that Christians aren't exempt from it not at all in fact it sort of promises More affliction in a way if you're serious about your Christian faith second Timothy 312 All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus Will be persecuted he brews 126 those whom the Lord loves he disciplines CS Lewis in his wonderful book God in the doc writes about his own experience and he says this and I quote I didn't go to religion to make me cheery. I always knew that a bottle of port could do that If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable I certainly do not recommend Christianity in quote no no no Christianity is true And a truth that will not always eliminate affliction, but will interpret it for us Our God our book do speak to the afflictions that we experience in this life I heard of a man who had been slipping in and out of a coma for several months and his wife of many years Was staying right there beside him day after day next to his bed and one day when he was in a more lucid moment He came to he motioned for her to draw near and as she sat beside him He he whispered to her his eyes full of tears He said this he said you know what You've been with me in all the bad times When I was fired you were there to support me When my business failed you were there When I got shot you were right by my side When we lost the house you you stayed right with me When my health started failing You were still by my side Do you know what And his wife her heart feeling very warm Drew close and she said what honey And he said I think you're bad luck
Now here's my point there is a point Some people just don't know how to interpret their afflictions They don't know how to process what they're going through to make sense of it and to understand what it's all about 12 years ago I began experiencing pains in the back of my upper leg and I thought there was some kind of pulled muscle or something and for weeks I didn't do anything about it and then eventually it got bad enough that I went to see a doctor about it And my doctor told me that that pain in the back of my leg was actually resulting from a herniated disc in my back You see I knew the pain was there But I Without his counsel had no capacity to interpret it properly and so many of the there are in that camp They feel the pain but they have no perspective on it And by God's help we can do better than that The word of God addresses our pain and we need to learn it and thereby learn how to interpret Our pain biblically in a biblical way in a Christian way So this morning we're going to proceed to look at four affirmations from Psalm 119 about this subject of affliction Four truths to give us perspective and the first is that God's position With respect to our affliction is one of sovereignty God's position with respect to our affliction is one of sovereignty And what I mean to convey here is that God is not in the position of a helpless spectator or an innocent bystander God is in control before during and after our trials Psalm 119 verse 75 I know, O Lord That your judgments are righteous and that in faithfulness Look at the next word in faithfulness you Have afflicted me According to that verse who is responsible for your afflictions Huh God is God is responsible There are some elements of the Christian church that would seek to deny God's involvement in our affliction But the Bible consistently rejects the notion of a passive weak deity who is surprised or disappointed by our suffering I spoke to a brother Omar this morning who shared about what he's been through with his young Son he shared of knowing my daughter who's a nurse at the Arnold Palmer hospital She too was a leukemia patient when she was four years old and I remember one day going into the waiting room of the That time it was a different place for the waiting room for the What do you call it the oncology area the pediatric oncology area there where she got her treatments and on the table Next to me in the waiting room was a book One book a bunch of magazines but one book and that was the book by rabbi Harold Kushner entitled When bad things or why bad things happen to good people for me with this best seller I guess about 15 years or so ago and in the book rabbi Kushner wrestles with the story of Joe And that question of how can a God that is all powerful and all good exist in a world where there is so much suffering And how do we process that individually and Kushner came to the conclusion That the solution to the problem is that God is not in fact Sovereign That he is not able in fact to present go prevent our Suffering and that our response to our suffering must be to forgive God as we recognize his impetus Now such a teaching is utterly contrary To the points of the book of Job not to mention all the other 65 books of the Bible the whole plot of Job is built on the notion That God is a sovereign God that he has been one who has sent a flixion upon his servant Job and Job is asking the question God why are you doing this to me And nowhere in Job is God that ever point to finger back somewhere and say no, no, it's not me No God never does that and Isaiah 45 verse 6 he says in fact I am the Lord and there is no other the one forming light and creating darkness Causing well-being and Creating calamity. I am the Lord who does all these God takes credit for all the stuff we like And all the stuff we don't like to And if we're going to have a biblical perspective on suffering We need to see what the psalmist see is that God is involved in and in control of my affliction his position is one of sovereignty Secondly, we see that his motivation is one of love God's motivation in our affliction is love in that 75th verse we just read it said I know, O Lord, that your judgments are righteousness and that in faithfulness In faithful love you have afflicted me in faithfulness It's a story of a little Dutch boy whose home was very near a windmill That had long Long fans on it that reached very close to the ground The little boy was fond of playing near that windmill and his parents hated that his parents had forbidden him to go near that windmill And when his stubborn will did not submit to them they sought to frighten him from playing there by Sort of working with his imagination to the terror of being struck by the arms of that great windmill Then carried up into the air to have the life beaten out of him by their ceaseless strokes The one day he listened to his parents warnings The little boy straight again under the dangerous arms of the windmill and got all absorbed in his play And suddenly as he was playing he was violently smitten from behind and found himself swinging all at once with his head Downward up Up into the air and then the blows came Swift and hard and oh What a sinking of his little heart what a whore of great distress it had come then that of which he had been warned And he was doomed and in his terrified writhing he twisted himself about and he looked up And he saw Not the expanse of the sky But he saw the face of his father And at once he realized he was not caught in the windmill at all But was only receiving the threatened punishment for his disobedience and he melted into tears not of pain But of great relief and in that moment he understood the difference between falling into the grinding power Of a machine and falling into the arms of a loving father Even a loving father who was disciplining him You see one's perspective on affliction makes a huge difference in one's response Do you see it your affliction your suffering as the severe mercy of a loving father So the Bible says it is Hebrews 12-5 says you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons my son Do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor faint when you are reproved by him For those whom the Lord loves he disciplines and he scourges every son whom he receives God's intention and sending affliction is for our good. He loves us Remember what Joseph said when he was there in Egypt having been sold into slavery Having wound up in prison and yet when the Lord delivered him out of and he met with his brothers again He said to them that great line you minute for evil but God Minute for good and that's the Christian perspective It is a faith perspective God means something good in what we see as miserable the affliction He sovereignly dispenses flows to us from a heart of love And that's the Lord's motivation behind your affliction
Now quickly if that is your motivation What is your purpose or what is God's purpose in our affliction What is this loving Lord out to do for us and with us and God It had better Be Good You ever thought that So many times I thought that in the last year Lord Whatever it is you bring me through this war Better be good And it is our psalm tells us plainly verse 71 it is good for me that I was afflicted That I may learn your statutes the school of affliction Suffering Academy that's that's what it's all about learning So precious is his education So valuable is this teacher that our psalmist can say Affliction is a good thing for me because it brought me learning Not just learning the painful realities of life But learning to do something What is it that suffering is designed to build into a child of God
Look at verse 67 again Verse 67 Before I was afflicted I went astray But now I keep your word
This is the purpose plainly affirmed in the New Testament in Hebrews chapter 12 as well They're speaking of God the Father it says in verse 10 But he disciplines us for our good so that we may share in his holiness All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful But sorrowful yet to those who have been trained by it It afterwards yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness Look at that and meditate on that That is profound and powerful God brings pain into our lives to produce holiness To produce obedience which yields eventually joy in verse 11 there you have the word yields And that's a word many of you know from your labors in the kitchen right You could work through certain recipes and tells you you mix these ingredients And it talks about what it will yield what it will produce Now God's working us is sort of like cooking When you cook you take several ingredients Maybe flour, salt, sugar, oil, baking soda You mix these things together Most of those things in that list and many other lists of ingredients You would never think of eating alone would you I mean by themselves they wouldn't taste very good But when you mix them together they yield something very wonderful And the end product of God's work in you Which includes the ingredient of suffering is your obedience Incredibly the scriptures even say this is how it happened With Jesus Although he was a son he brews five eight He learned obedience from the things which he suffered Psalm 71 20 is also interesting You have shown me many troubles and distresses We'll revive me again And bring me up again from the depths of the earth May you increase listen to this May you increase my greatness and turn to comfort me The Psalmist insists or invites God's work through affliction Somehow when we suffer we are broken and we are humbled And our foolish resistance to God's will is crushed And that's a precious thing That's a hard thing but it's a sweet thing in the end And so the Psalmist says to God Go ahead and make me great even if that involves my suffering But then comfort me I like that Make me great then comfort me Build my character then soothe my soul That's a good prayer That's a good prayer someone who learned this lesson well Wrote this this is a lovely point Written by someone who had fought in the civil war Was injured suffered massive injuries lived as a disabled man the rest of his life And at the end of his struggles he wrote this I asked for strength that I might achieve I was made weak that I might obey I asked for health that I might do greater things I was given infirmity that I might do better things I asked for riches that I might be happy I was given poverty That I might be wise I asked for power that I might Receive the praise of men I was given weakness so that I would feel the need of God
Now having seen that the Lord's purpose in our reflection is learning Let's consider finally God's provision for affliction God's provision for affliction which is his holy word This is how he gets us through it Psalm 119 verse 50 this is my comfort in my affliction that your word has revived me He says that is hard find comfort find find find comfort in knowing that the word of God that has lifted him up in the past Is still around to lift him up in his present affliction the devil cannot keep us down When we simply remember that good word Psalm 11 or 19107 107 verse I am exceedingly afflicted Revive me O Lord according to your word And again he looks to the word for help and in verse 92 he says if your law had not been my delight Then I would have perished in my affliction You follow that what do people do What do people do who don't have a word From God There's there's nothing to pick up. They're sinking soul There's no rock bottom in their lives. They just keep sinking and sinking into the pit The psalmist says without your law my affliction would have destroyed me the life preserver Our hope with a capital age is the word of God Those who don't believe in a God who is spoken are utterly left without meaning in the in the context of their sufferings all they can live for is their next sensual thrill and when that is gone when the hope of pleasure is removed the equation of life takes on a negative The only answer for a person in that situation Is suicide That's the story of my
It is mid-60s
He reached a place where the pains of life exceeded the pleasures of life He was a man living without faith sadly and when he reached that point where the pains had increased and the pleasures had decreased He put a gun to his head and ended it all
I think of this when I watch people reach a point where All there seems to be is pain And I wonder what you do at that point if life is just a balance between pleasure and pain then Bring on to work him But if God is true and his word is real then we have more to live for than that and we have more to die for as well Garfield Not the president of the cat Garfield once said I live for three things Eating sleeping and self-pity And you can only rob me of two of those Well if you live for the Lord and for his word your treasure my friend cannot be taken from you Not by men not by angels not by death itself when you go through affliction There is a help supplied for you in the word of God When you are sinking into the waters of trouble you need something solid and stable to latch onto And that stable thing is the word of the living God You know it says the grass withers and the flower fades but the word of our God abides forever So reach out and lay hold of that word for the health of your very soul In the day of distress turn to the riches of God's truth Hold on to it meditate upon it God may allow the devil to rob you of a great deal But he will not let this be taken from you cling to it in your affliction and you too We'll be able to say with the Psalmist verse 92 If your law had not been my delight Then I would have parished in my affliction To review we've seen God's position in our affliction which is one of Sovereignty His motivation in our afflictions which is love His purpose in our affliction which is to teach obedience God's provision in our affliction which is His word The challenge for you today is to cooperate with God in his purpose and learn the lessons he is sending Your way Affliction It makes some people bitter And some people better Which will it be with you? You're going to hurt You are going to hurt guaranteed pain is coming your way But where that pain takes you I cannot say But you have a place in determining that God chooses what we go through You have a you have a role in choosing how you go through it bitter Or better Does your affliction increase your greatness or just your griping We close with a story about a mule Mules of course are known for their stubbornness So most of us should be able to relate to a mule And this particular mule was in a real fix grown sort of blind at his old age and fallen down a well And having fallen into the well the farmer discovering it there Felt sorry for his old mule but didn't know really how to get that mule out of the well And really didn't think the mule or the well were worth saving So he called together some of his friends and They dug up some dirt and brought it over to the well and began to fill up that well That was the plan just cover the mule over Fill the well in be done with it And as that mule began to feel the dirt landing on his back as initial thought was to panic He went hysterical, but then but then he had an idea
Maybe he could just shake the dirt off And step up and so he sought to do that As the dirt landed repeatedly and ceaselessly upon his back He'd shake it off and step up Shake it off and step up In fact, he began to say that to himself over and over again Shake it off and step up Shake it off and step up. What'd you join me in that? Shake it off and step up Shake it off and step up. Good. Good And as he did this you know what happened Low and behold he fought off the panic and he persevered And that which was meant to bury him eventually became his deliverance And as they filled that hole with dirt that mule shook it off and stepped up and after sometime he walked out of that well in part Because of the manner With which he had faced the affliction had the mule known Psalm 119 He could have said it was good for me that I was afflicted What a perspective on affliction the word of God Supplies to us and with it the heart and with it the energy to shake it off And step up Step up to the obedience to the holiness the Lord is planned for all who he calls his own Let's pray Savior in our God we're very aware that there's some here this morning For whom this message is more than theory they're living very much in pain today And Lord I would pray especially for these That they would be able to hear your voice Not just mine, but hear your voice speaking to them through the word Encouraging them giving them hope Reminding them Lord that you're in control. This is not This is not just the power of a ruthless machine in which we're caught but we're in your hands and no one can snatch us out of your hands We thank you gracious Savior that you love us and that everything that comes our way is filtered through that love We thank you that your purpose is that we might grow in our obedience and no more of your likeness And we thank you that in the midst of our sufferings your word is there to give us comfort and hope to remind us of your purpose Lord we pray that you would make us wise men and women boys and girls to interpret our afflictions well And to learn even from the example of that Mule Lord to To shake off the things that life throws our way that you bring our way And to step up all those afflictions all those trials Into into into into a life that is more abundance And more real and more deep and more meaningful and more of a blessing to others We thank you Savior most of all That your afflictions your suffering on our behalf resulted in our salvation as we come now to remember your love In the sacrament of your suffering Lord be amongst Thrall our hearts by your presence and by your promise. We ask in Jesus