Sometimes pain happens in our lives – it just does and we can’t avoid it.  Other times, it’s self-inflicted – sad but true.  And one of the ways we manage to do that is through our own selfishness.  Selfishness promises a lot – but actually what it does, is it causes us pain.  

It’s great to be with you at the beginning of another week and today, today we’re continuing our series of messages called ‘Pain Relief For The Soul’. We all experience pain as much as we wish it wasn’t true. Some pain in life is inevitable, a loved one dies, unemployment, children suffering.

There is some pain that comes our way that we simply cannot avoid but and this is a big but many people live in much of their lives in self inflicted pain. Let me say that again, many people are living much of their lives in self inflicted pain. The sort of pain that happens because of our own immaturity.

Something happens, they react more like a child than an adult and as a result of their reaction they experience pain. Stimulus – response, stimulus – response over and over again just, as we saw last week, like Pavlov’s dogs, that famous experiment on behaviour.

And one of those immaturities, the one we’re going to look at today is our selfish desire. It begins quite early on in life. Two children not even old enough to walk will fight over a toy both wanting it for themselves. It’s an amazing thing to watch, I don’t know if you’ve done that, how early selfishness takes hold of us as children.

In fact when we watch children what we discover is that selfishness is our natural state and part of growing up is learning to let go of that selfishness. Problem is that many, many people never ever do. And that simple immaturity, our own selfish desire is one of the biggest sources of pain in life imaginable.

You and I, we both have needs. Our physical needs and emotional needs and spiritual needs and that’s part of life, it’s an important part of life making sure that our needs are met. There’s nothing wrong with that but in our society we’ve turned looking after ourselves, looking after our own needs, protecting ourselves into something of an art form.

And that art form has a name, it’s called selfishness and it’s nothing new. The Apostle Paul writing to the Church in Corinth in the 1st century he had this to say. 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 20:

For I fear that when I come I may find you not as I wish and that you may find me not as you wish. I fear that there may perhaps be quarrelling, jealousy, anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, conceit and disorder.

It’s quite a list isn’t it? And right smack bang in the middle of this list is selfishness. So what is it? We think of other people being selfish, not ourselves. Surely not me, yeah right. So what is this selfishness thing that’s so easily, so naturally, so unassumingly grips our lives?

Well here’s a dictionary definition of selfishness:

It’s a person, action or motive lacking consideration for others. Concerned chiefly with our own personal profit or pleasure.

That’s what my dictionary tells me. And in that passage that we just read from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, it literally means, the word ‘selfishness’, well it’s the idea of electioneering, of putting yourself forward, of courting distinction, of getting other people to vote for you.

In fact the only other place in antiquity where we find this same Greek word used by Paul here for selfishness is by Aristotle where he uses it to mean ‘self seeking pursuit of political office by unfair means’.

A selfish person is someone who promotes themselves. It’s someone who puts themselves first. Someone who promotes their own interests. Someone who’ll pursue self gain whatever the means, dishonest, unfair, to promote themselves and to put themselves first.

You see an awful lot of that in this world don’t you? And if the truth be known this selfishness thing is something that grips us all too easily. It’s so natural because protecting our needs and our rights and our wants comes very naturally to each one of us.

So why does it cause such pain this selfishness? It’s kind of weird because it promises so much. Selfishness promises that if we pander to ourselves we’ll feel better, we’ll get what we want. If we’re selfish and tread on the next guy to get what we want then we win and they lose and that’s what it’s all about. A perfect outcome we think to ourselves.

And whilst my selfishness may hurt others, so what? It makes me feel good when I get what I want. Just like those two toddlers fighting over a toy. “It’s my toy, I want it, give it to me”. And when the stronger one wins he laughs while the other one cries.

That’s what supposed to happen. That’s the promise that selfishness holds out but it’s not what happens. Selfishness is in fact one of the greatest causes of pain on the planet because it draws fire from all directions.

Gary Larson is perhaps one of the funniest and most irreverent cartoonists who’s ever been. One of my favourite cartoons is Far Side cartoons, it’s one of the two reindeer with big antlers and they’re standing up on their hind legs in the forest and one of them has a red and white bulls eye painted on the chest and the other guy says, “Hell of a birthmark Hal.”

You see I think that’s funny but you know when it comes to selfishness it’s exactly the picture and it’s exactly the right one because selfishness is a birth mark, it’s something that we’re each born with and when we live it out it draws the fire of hell on us.

And satan, the enemy, just loves that. When I’m selfish I tread on other people, I destroy relationships. My selfishness then brings anger and strife and jealousy upon me because the whole of my life becomes a competition to get the things I want. It’s my toy, I want it, I have to get it.

Selfishness is the pivot point in that list that Paul writes in 2 Corinthians. Here’s the list again:

I fear that there may perhaps be quarrelling, jealousy, anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, conceit and disorder.

All the others, quarrelling, jealousy, anger, slander, gossip, conceit and disorder fall out of that one right smack bang in the middle of the list, selfishness. Friend, those things cause us pain. Selfishness promises so much but it only brings us pain. Again the Apostle Paul has a solution for us. Philippians chapter 2, verse 3:

Don’t do anything from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each one of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus who, though He was in the form of God, didn’t regard His equality with God as something He should exploit.

Instead He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave being born in human likeness and being found in human form He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

And because of that God exalted Him and gave Him the name that’s above every name. See winning is losing and losing, on the other hand, is winning. When we give up the fight, the 24×7 competition of meeting every selfish desire and friend it’s such hard work.

Do you realise what hard work it is being selfish? When we give it up all of a sudden that birth mark goes away. We stop drawing fire and it’s that fire that hurts us. Fire from the world, fire from other people and fire from the devil himself.

When we start putting others first we build relationships rather than destroying them. And when we put others first, do nothing out of your own selfish interests, then we’re living life like Christ.

It costs us something to put others first, it cost Jesus His life, a brutal death on the cross yet He humbled Himself for our sakes. That’s the model, that’s where freedom is. It seems that giving up selfish desires is going to cause us pain in the short term, sometimes it does but ultimately Gods way brings a joy and a peace and a security that words can’t describe.

Sometimes pain happens in our lives – it just does and we can’t avoid it.  Other times, it’s self-inflicted – sad but true.  And one of the ways we manage to do that is through our own stubbornness.  We think by getting our own way – we win, but actually what it does, is it causes us pain. 

Many a person lives their life by the maxim ‘it’s my way or the highway’. You’ve heard that right? Now some people are more prone to that than others. Leaders, achievers, those go getters are particularly prone to it. Well let’s give it a name, its called stubbornness.

I want to do things my way. I have an idea, I know what’s right, I know how to get there and we’re going to do it my way and the rest of you can do it my way or you can go away. Don’t go away angry, just go away. I know this really well because I’m one of those Type A achiever kinds, more outcome focused than relationship focused.

And in the natural, in the flesh that’s how I can be. And so I spent most of my life living life just that way. Stubborn, always right. And this whole stubbornness thing promises so much. It promises that by getting our own way we’ll win and therefore our lives will be better. It’s about winning, it’s all about winning.

Strong people, they’re often stubborn people and whilst winning promises an awful lot actually it’s one of the things, it’s one of the deep immaturity’s that many people carry around with themselves that cause them a tremendous amount of pain. Believe you me, I know. And that’s what we’re chatting about on the program this week in a series called ‘Pain Relief For The Soul’.

So much of the pain we experience in life is self inflicted. As I’ve said a few times over the past few weeks some pain, sure we can’t avoid. Something happens and it hurts and we have to live through that pain and by God’s grace, with His love and comfort come out the other side of it.

But you know much of the pain we experience in life is in fact self inflicted. Selfishness, pride, being a people pleaser, all those things are about our own immaturity, never having grown up and so we live out these immaturities and they cause us pain.

I don’t know if you remember, last week we focused on this passage from James chapter 1:

My brothers and sisters whenever you face trials of any kind consider it nothing but joy because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let that endurance have its full effect so that you may be mature and complete and lacking in nothing.

If any of you is lacking in wisdom ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly and it will be given to you.

In other words as we travel through the trials of life we’re meant to grow up. As our faith is tested it’s meant to prove itself through endurance and that endurance builds maturity and wisdom.

But I particularly love how it sets out here in this passage the maturity thing. The writer says that as a result of our experiences and suffering we should be mature and complete and lacking in nothing. Doesn’t that say it all? Mature and complete and lacking in nothing.

In other words we’re growing into who we were meant to be with everything we need to cope with life. And one of the things that we should learn in life is that this attitude of pride and stubbornness simply doesn’t work, it causes pain.

Have a listen to just a couple of things that God has to say about stubbornness and pride. Proverbs chapter 3, verse 35:

The wise will inherit honour but the stubborn fools disgrace.

Proverbs chapter 29, verse 1:

One who is often reproved yet remains stubborn will suddenly be broken beyond healing.

And another one, 2 Corinthians chapter 30, verse 8:

Do not now be stiff necked as your ancestors were but yield yourselves to the Lord and come into His sanctuary which He has sanctified forever and serve the Lord your God so that His fierce anger may turn away from you.

See these are just a few, there are dozens of them where God talks about stubbornness and pride and being stiff necked. You know what it all boils down to? I am going to do it my way and that my friend is the attitude of a child. A stubborn person, as it said in Proverbs chapter 3, verse 35, a stubborn person is a fool filled with pride and they get their sense of worth out of winning.

Even when they’re winning that doesn’t work. Let me give you an example. I am, as I said earlier, one of those Type A outcome oriented people. For many, many years in my own immaturity I would drive things hard against the good advice of people who had more experience. People who knew more than I did.

Because I thought for in order for me to be me I had to be right and I had to win. My way or the highway buddy, that was my maxim. Sometimes I may have gotten away with it but most times it didn’t work. No matter whether it worked or it didn’t my way was the only way.

But when I gave my life over to Jesus a decade and a half ago I started to learn a new way, a better way and it was this way that set me on the path to growing up. God opened my eyes and I started to see that other people have skills and talents and abilities and experience and perspectives that I could never have.

Even if I lived on this earth for a thousand years I could never have those things that all those other people around me have. And if I could just learn to zip my lip, to humble myself, instead of missing out on those abilities and skills and gifts I could benefit from them.

See I was hurting myself by failing at things I didn’t have to fail at if only I could learn not to be stubborn. Proverbs chapter 15, verse 22:

Without counsel plans go wrong but with many advisors they succeed.

And sometimes this was the really difficult bit. Sometimes that counsel involved people telling me something that I was doing was wrong and that I needed to change my ways. Sometimes that counsel involved reproof. Proverbs chapter 3, verse 11:

My child don’t despise the Lords discipline or be weary of His reproof for the Lord reproves the one He loves as a father the son in whom he delights.

Proverbs chapter 1, verse 7:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction.

And the more my stubbornness and pride started to leave me, you know what? The better my life became. I used to think that the only way I could have a good life was to have a good idea and to do it myself.

Just recently one of the members of our Board here at Christianityworks, a man by the name of Keith Henry, had a brilliant idea. He and I had previously co authored a book not long before that called My Personality GPS. Now Keith’s an encourager, quiet, unassuming.

I’m a leader, out there making things happen. When Keith became a Board member he said to me in his quiet, unassuming way, he said, “I don’t know Berni, I don’t know if I can make any difference here. I don’t know if I can add value on the Board”. Well he comes up with this new idea, he calls me up and he says, “Let’s have coffee”. We did and I listened to his idea.

Can I tell you? It was just a stunning idea. It’s had a huge impact on Christianityworks and our ability to do God’s work and I was sitting praying about it the other day and God reminded me how much He’s been working on me and in me. Imagine if I’d been that immature Berni of the past, unable to take Keith’s idea on board because I was stubborn and I was full of pride.

The absence of the benefit of Keith’s idea would have been such a huge loss. It would have caused me so much pain. Friend, let me come back to it. Some pain in life we can’t avoid but much of it is self inflicted and the pain of pride and stubbornness in my way or the highway, the pain is self inflicted.

But when we humble ourselves before God and accept His way the pain goes away. Do you get it? James chapter 4, verse 6 says:

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

That is absolutely the truth. Stubbornness and pride are marks of immaturity. Humility, collaboration, submission, those are signs of maturity. They are indeed pain relief for the soul.

It’s nice to be liked – isn’t it?  But sometimes we’re not.  Sometimes people don’t appreciate who we are or how much effort we’ve put into something – and that can cause us hurt and pain.  Turns out – that being a people pleaser – a lot of the time – is a painful way to live.

You know something; it’s really nice to be liked. It’s so nice when we have friends and people encourage us and they all like us. It’s so nice when our boss at work appreciates us and encourages us and rewards us. Those things are fantastic but you know, here’s the thing, we can end up becoming addicted to the praise and recognition of other people.

As much as it’s nice to serve others, if what we hang out for is the reward of recognition, if that’s why we do what we do so that someone will shine the lime light on us for a while and make us feel good as we bask in the warmth and the glory of our achievement, if that’s what makes us tick we’re going to be in for a lot of pain.

Why? Because if people pleasing is our gig then what happens when no one notices the good things we do? What happens when we do good for a person who has their own failings, maybe they’re so insecure they can’t possibly acknowledge the good we’ve just done for them?

Do you see the fine line between being a great servant and helping people on the one hand and being a people pleaser on the other? And that line, that line in the sand between the two is all about our level of maturity. It’s about doing what we do for the right reasons rather than the wrong ones.

Some personality types are naturally inclined to becoming people pleasers. In fact next week I’m going to have my good friend Keith Henry on the program. Keith and I co authored the book My Personality GPS which is all about the God given personality types we’ve been given.

And we’re going to look at the Achilles heal if you will, the particular immaturity that each of the personality types in the Bible is prone to. And it’s the heart people, the carers and the givers who are most prone to being hurt for a lack of recognition. Of course that’s not unique to them.

I don’t care who we are or what our God given personality type is, we’ve all experienced the disappointment of a lack of recognition or reward. I’m sure you can think back to some situation in your childhood that was like that. It just wasn’t fair, you worked so hard on that project but someone else came first, someone else got the prize.

We cleaned up our room at home but mum and dad didn’t even notice. They didn’t say anything. And so we became discouraged, even angry and often we just gave up. That my friend is a child’s response. It’s not an unreasonable response for a child because a child isn’t yet mature, a child hasn’t yet travelled through the trials that teach them about life and develop wisdom and maturity inside them.

But here’s the question. Is it a reasonable response for an adult? Should the absence of recognition and reward cause us pain and disappointment and discouragement? Even immobilising us from doing good again. Well should it?

Paul the Apostle was an out there kind of guy. He went through so much in his quest to travel throughout the known world in the 1st Century telling people the good news about Jesus. People tried to kill him on more than one occasion. There were riots and imprisonments and beatings and ship wrecks. He was bitten by a poisonous snake.

And for the most part people criticised him and they rejected him. In fact they accused him, they said you’re not really one of the Apostles and you can often read in his letters how he has to justify the fact that he is in fact an Apostle of Jesus Christ. And yet today we’re still reading the books he wrote in the New Testament, almost half of the Books in the New Testament are written by Paul.

Back then in his Roman dungeon which is where he wrote at least some of them, Paul didn’t always feel the warm glow of appreciation, if you take my drift. So did it discourage Paul? Well let’s have a listen to what he said about this in his letter to his good friends in the Church in Galatia. Galatians chapter 1, verse 10:

Am I now seeking human approval or God’s approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people I would not be a servant of Christ.

Ain’t that the truth? If he’d listened to the people who tried to kill him, the people who beat him, the people who rioted against him and drove him out of town. The people who criticised him and derided him and denigrated him. Had he been pleasing those people he simply wouldn’t have remained a servant of Christ.

And we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about the things God inspired him to write which are now part of the New Testament. Do you get it?

As I said right at the outset it’s great when we get on with people and they appreciate us but on the ocean of life that we sail it won’t always be a fair weather ocean. People won’t always have good intentions. Sometimes we’ll be on the receiving end of their sin.

And if we’re still living the childish ways of being a people pleaser then it’s going to hurt. Man is it going to hurt. Jesus said exactly the same thing. Come with me please to John chapter 15 beginning at verse 18:

If the world hates you be aware that it hated me before it hated you, said Jesus. If you belong to the world the world will love you as it’s own but because you don’t belong to the world but I have chosen you out of the world therefore the world hates you.

Remember the word that I said to you, servants are not greater than their master. If they persecuted me, said Jesus, they’re going to persecute you. If they kept my word they’d keep yours also. But they will do all these things to you on account of my name because they do not know Him who sent me.

If I had not come and spoken to them they would have no sin but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me also hates my Father. If I had not done among them works that no one else did they would not have sin but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.

It was to fulfil the word that was written in their Law, ‘they hated me without a cause’.

They hated Jesus so much they nailed Him to a cross but that didn’t discourage Him from doing what He was called to do. From doing what was right.

I listen to all the criticism that comes my way and as you might imagine I cop quite a bit of it. If I’ve made a mistake or done something wrong or misrepresented God’s word I am the first one to say, “You know what, I got that one wrong. I have to fix that”.

But you know something, 99.9% of the flack that comes my way is from the people that Jesus was talking about in that passage in John chapter 15. And once I’ve honestly and openly discerned the difference that 99.9%, I’ve got to tell you, goes in the bin and it will not, let me say that again, it will not discourage me or slow me or prevent me from telling people about Jesus and living my life for Him.

Albeit that I don’t have to do that perfectly every day. Just the best way I know how, given where I am on my journey with Him.

When I was a child I did childish things but God tells me that He wants me to mature, to gain wisdom through the trials, to be complete and lacking in nothing. James chapter 1. And sometimes that means I can’t please the people who listen or the people who are around me.

I’m sorry about that, it’s just the way it is. Friend, as we grow up and mature we learn that doing what is right has its own rewards. Sometimes people will love us for it, other times they’ll hate us for it. That’s just the way it is.

And the thing I’ve discovered is that when the rest of the world turns against us for simply giving out the love we have in our hearts, there is a joy and a peace in our relationship with God that is better than anything they have to offer.

So let me leave you with this thought, Galatians chapter 6, verses 9 and 10:

So let us not grow weary in doing what is right for we will reap at harvest time if we don’t give up. So then whenever we have an opportunity let us work for the good of all and especially for those of the family of faith.

That’s maturity and when we live life that way the pain of rejection, the lack of appreciation, all that stuff, that pain simply goes away.

When things aren’t quite going our way, the easiest thing of all, is to play the victim.  Woe is me.  And some people spend far too much of their lives – being the victim.  And that hurts.   Turns out – no matter what it is that’s not going our way – you and I, we don’t have to be the victim anymore. 

We’re talking over the course of this week and last week too about ‘Pain Relief For The Soul’. And a lot of it has to do with our own immaturity. We come at things like a child, selfishness or stubbornness or seeking recognition from people and then we wonder why things hurt so much.

Why we’re so disappointed, why there are so many arguments and strife and conflict. So this week in particular we’ve been talking about those things and what God has to say about growing up. For some of us in some areas of our lives we just need to do some growing up.

And when we do that growing up, well I have to tell you, a lot of the pain goes away. Sometimes though the world throws things at us that are way beyond our ability to cope. The death of a loved one, deep rejection, divorce perhaps, maybe a sickness or an accident or something really big and man it just hurts.

Sometimes people plot against us, they turn against us and reject us. Well you know the things that have happened in your life and we can end up feeling like, like a victim. Like we’re on the receiving end of things that aren’t our fault and it’s not fair and now I’m a victim.

Sadly whether it’s as the result of one of the really big things in life or an accumulation of a lot of little things. Many, many people will live their lives as perpetual victims.

Sometimes bad things happen to good people.
Good people sometimes die young or suffer from illness.
Good people are sometimes betrayed by their wives or their husbands.
Good people sometimes lose their jobs and suffer financially.
Good people sometimes watch their children die.
Good people are so often innocent victims of war and strife and greed.

There’s almost 7 billion people living on this planet today and fully 2/3rds of them don’t have the basics of sufficient food or housing or clean drinking water or safety and security that they need just to live life. In fact there are many, many more people listening to this radio program right now today around the world who fall into that category than those who have enough of all of those things.

And so whether it’s looking at it from a global scale like that or just looking at our own particular little area of pain and suffering that we maybe going through right at this moment, sometimes we rock back and we ask God, ‘God what are you thinking? Why do you let this go on?’

It feels as though God doesn’t care and it feels as though we’re victims in all of this. My hunch is there are a lot of people today who relate to what I’m talking about. Maybe you’re one of them and you’re wondering does God really have a heart for the weak and the down trodden. Or do they need to live the rest of their lives as victims?

There was a time when God was speaking to His people Israel through the Prophet Ezekiel. Have a listen; it comes from Ezekiel chapter 34, beginning at verse 1:

The word of the Lord came to me (writes Ezekiel). Mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to them, to the shepherds, ‘thus says the Lord God, are you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves? Should not the shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with wool, you slaughter the fatlings, you do not feed the sheep.

You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the stray, you have not sought the lost but with force and harshness you have ruled over them. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd and scattered they became food for all the wild animals.

Seems that God wasn’t pleased with the shepherds, with the leaders of Israel who were making victims out of common ordinary people through their own misdeeds. Well in a sense words are cheap. Question is, was God prepared to do anything about it? Let’s keep reading from Ezekiel chapter 34 beginning at verse 11:

For thus, says the Lord God, I Myself will search for my sheep, I will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flock when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.

I will bring them out of the people and gather them from the countries and I’ll bring them into their own land and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the water courses and in all the inhabited parts of the land. I will feed them with good pastures and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture.

There they shall lie down in good grazing land and they shall feed on the rich pasture in the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep and I will make them to lie down, says the Lord God.

I will seek the lost and I will bring back the stray and I will bind up the injured and I will strengthen the weak but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them justice. As for you my flock, thus says the Lord God, I shall judge between the sheep and sheep, between the rams and the goats.

Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pastures but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water must you foul the rest with your feet?

And so God goes on to talk about what He is going to do for His people. It doesn’t require a huge amount of explanation does it? God is a God who so loves His people. God is a God who has this amazing heart for those who love Him, who are down trodden, who don’t have enough, who aren’t safe. God is a God who loves His people, who rails against injustice and who will act to shepherd His people.

Friend, whatever you are going through at the moment, whatever injustice, whatever pain, whatever that thing is that makes you feel that you are the victim it hasn’t escaped God’s attention. And His heart is very much for those who are weak. His heart is to reach out, to seek you out and to save you.

And you know what, as you’ve heard His word for you today that’s exactly what He’s been doing. He’s come for you through His word today and it is for this reason that God sent us His Son, Luke chapter 4, verse 16:

When Jesus came to Nazareth where He had been brought up, He went to the Synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was His custom, He stood up to read and the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah was given to Him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free. To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

Friend Jesus came for you just as much as He came for anyone else. He came not as some powerful king but as a carpenter’s son. Not with great riches according to the worlds measure but with the riches of heaven to pour out on you and me and anyone else who will place their trust in Him.

Jesus came to set the captives free and sometimes that means a change in our circumstances but sometimes it doesn’t. It always, always though means a change in who we are. No matter what’s going on, no matter what’s happening to us, no matter how unfair it seems, this same Jesus suffered and died for each one of us on the cross, He knows how it feels.

He came to give us peace and joy and strength right here in the middle of it all. The sort of peace that can’t be put into words. If pain relief for the soul is what you’re looking for then there’s only one place, only one place that I’ve discovered so far to find that and that place is Jesus.

He came to proclaim the year of the Lords favour. He came for you.

Often times God lets us travel through things in life that we wouldn’t choose for ourselves.  Things where it looks like – we’re losing.  And yet – it’s in the middle of these places and those times – that we’re meant to discover what victory – really is.  Victory … right there in the middle of the pain. 

We’ve been chatting these last couple of weeks about getting some pain relief for our souls. Some pain comes to us in ways we can’t control. Through circumstances way beyond our control. That happens in life, it happens no doubt in your life and it’s certainly happened in mine too.

Other times though, as we’ve seen, and if the truth be known most times pain is inflicted by us, it’s self inflicted. It’s our own immaturity that brings the pain crashing down on our lives. Selfishness, dishonesty, pride, stubbornness, trying to live our lives as people pleasers and then being hurt when not everyone bathes us in the warm glow of their appreciation.

So often we approach life as a child and we wonder why we get hurt. When all along God wants us to grow and mature and gain wisdom through our trials. James chapter 1 beginning at verse 2:

Brothers and sisters whenever you face trials of any kind consider it nothing but joy because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let that endurance have its full affect so that you may be mature, complete and lacking in nothing.

So if any of you is lacking in wisdom ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly and it will be given to you.

Whether or not the circumstances that are causing the pain change straight away in our lives God wants us to have victory, oft times right in the middle of those circumstances. Right in the face of the adversity that’s confronting us. Question is, what does that victory actually look like?

The Bible’s a huge book, well its sixty six books if you add the Old Testament and the New Testament together. And there are thousands of stories and situations set out in the seven hundred to eight hundred thousand words in the Bible. But none grips me more than when Jesus was praying alone for you and for me just before He was betrayed and crucified.

If anyone at anytime in history had a reason to be concerned for himself rather than others it would have been Jesus right at that moment. You and I would probably have been worried about saving our own skins. Jesus on the other hand was willingly about to lay down His life so that you and I can be forgiven our sin and have eternal life.

As He said earlier in John chapter 10:

For this reason the Father loves me because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it away from me but I lay it down of my own accord, I have the power to lay it down and I have the power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.

In other words, Jesus was no victim here, He was going to the cross of His own free will, suffering for you and me out of His great love. I wonder had I been in His shoes how much I would have felt the victim?

But in the face of a brutal, painful, gruesome, tortuous, lingering death, slowly suffocating as He hung suspended by nails through hands and feet, Jesus prayed to His Father for you and me just before He was given away to be led away and crucified.

This is what He said to God, His Father. John chapter 17 beginning at verse 1：

He looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hours come, glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you since you have given Him authority over all people to give eternal life to all to whom you have given Him. And this is eternal life that they may know you the only true God and Jesus whom you have sent.

I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed. I’ve made known your name to those you gave me from the world. They were yours, you gave them to me and they have kept your word.

Now they know that everything you’ve given me is from you. For the words that you gave me I’ve given them and they’ve received them and knowing the truth that I came from you and they have believed that you sent me.

I’m asking on their behalf, I’m not asking on behalf of the world but on behalf of those whom you’ve given me because they are yours. All mine are yours and yours are mine and I have been glorified in them. And I am now no longer in the world but they are in the world and I’m coming to you, Holy Father protect them in your name that you have given me so that they maybe one as we’re one.

While I was with them I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost so that your Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I’m coming to you and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.

I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world just as I don’t belong to the world. I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, I’m asking you to protect them from the evil one. They don’t belong to the world just as I don’t belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth, your Word is truth.

So here’s Jesus about to be crucified and He’s praying for you and me. And the main thing is that He’s given us His word, the truth and because of that we no longer belong in the world. We’re in it but we don’t belong to it, aliens if you will in a foreign albeit familiar land.

And when we’re suffering the thing that we most want is to be taken out of the circumstances that are causing the suffering. But that’s not what Jesus asked His Father on our behalf. Look at it again at verses 15 and 16:

“I’m not asking you to take them out of the world but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong in the world just as I do not belong in the world. Sanctify them in truth and your Word is the truth.”

See, Jesus is saying, ‘Dad, don’t take them out of it. Instead keep them there and strengthen them and protect them through it’. And with that He headed off to Gethsemane where He prayed, in effect, exactly the same thing for Himself. Luke chapter 22, verse 42:

“Father, if you are willing remove this cup from me. Yet not my will, let your will be done.”

Suffering what He was about to suffer wasn’t His first choice but He bowed down His will to His Father and suffered it anyway. Was He a victim in His suffering on the cross? No. On that cross and through the empty tomb Jesus won the greatest victory in all history.

He won salvation, that is forgiveness of our sins and eternal life for you and for me and for countless others. Even though He suffered so greatly and hanging there dying on a cross, He looked like, He looked like such a failure.

Friend sometimes we are called to suffer. Often times it doesn’t make sense. It’s not our choice. Our first choice would be to be taken out of the place but that’s not always what God does. Jesus didn’t ask His Dad to beam us up, He asked Him to protect us and strengthen us and set us apart by His power and His Word.

And here’s what I’ve experienced sometimes in the middle of suffering that doesn’t make sense. A peace that is so powerful, it is so beyond anything I’ve ever experienced anywhere else, it completely surpasses understanding. It defies logic, it doesn’t make sense. It’s exactly the thing that Jesus goes on to pray for you and for me in the rest of John chapter 17.

Let me encourage you to go and read that chapter for yourself. It’s Jesus prayer for you and for me. I want to encourage you with something; God doesn’t want you to be a victim. Sometimes He chooses suffering and sometimes He chooses to leave us in the suffering but He wants us to grow humble and strong and understand what peace is right in the eye of the storm.

Friend, that is victory. That’s what it looks like. That’s His victory for you and for me.