None of us likes to experience pain in our lives, and yet, some pain is inevitable. Sure. But other pain … well you know it and I know it … we bring it on ourselves, through the things that we think, say and do. And that pain is completely avoidable.

Some Pain is Inevitable

Hey, it’s great to be with you again this week. In fact, we are beginning a new series of messages that I’ve called ‘Pain Relief for the Soul’. There’s a whole massive global industry around pain relief. In fact, if you Google that exact term ‘pain relief’, you get millions of search results – all in about point one nine seconds. And of course, that makes sense.

Physically we can suffer a lot of pain. Someone who has been in a car accident; someone who has had an operation; someone who is suffering from cancer – the pain can be acute. And so it’s a fantastic thing that the medical professionals and the pharmaceutical companies are becoming better and better at treating pain.

None of us wants to see anyone suffering and none of us wants to suffer pain unnecessarily either. So yep, the whole pain relief industry is a good thing. On the whole! I mean, my hunch is that if we did a survey today and ask people the question: “if you had the power to remove one thing from this world; the power to wipe just one thing off this planet completely, what would that be?” Well, I suspect that ‘pain’ would be right up there on the list, wouldn’t you? Question is: “what would be the right thing to do?”

My dictionary tells me that ‘pain’ is physical suffering or discomfort caused by illness or injury, as well as emotional suffering or distress. And in a physical sense the one thing that we know is that pain is the body’s way of telling us there’s something wrong. If you or I have a sharp pain in the right knee, what that’s telling us: there’s something wrong in there; in our knee. And so hopefully what we do, is we go and see the doctor and have it looked at and either get some advice to rest it up, or have some physio or even have it operated on before we do any more damage – right?

Pain is the signal that there is something wrong and we need to get it looked at before it gets any worse. Sometimes pain comes too late. Generally by the time someone notices the symptoms of some forms of cancer – bowel cancer or lung cancer, are a couple of cases in point – by that time it’s too late to treat because the cancer is so advanced. But mostly, pain happens early enough for us to use that signal to make things better. Now, of course, when there is trauma – a road accident – well, it’s happened and pain is not something we can avoid. It’s happened in an instant and the pain is there.

I remember once about twenty years ago when I had boiling water spilled over my face and my chest. The pain was absolutely excruciating and what that terrible pain caused me to do in an instant, was to dive to the sink and pour cold water all over myself and call an ambulance so that it could be treated. That quick action means that I don’t have any scars as a result. Why did I act so quickly? Because I knew that cold water might help me avoid the scaring? Was it some stunning medical insight that I had? No! None of those things – I moved like a rocket because of the excruciating pain.

So as much as none of us likes pain; as much as we would like to avoid it if at all possible, well, pain actually plays an important role in our well being – I think that is the point. And if it’s true physically, well, it’s also true emotionally. Pain is a sign that there is something wrong. Sometimes it is completely outside our control: if a loved one dies – a wife or a husband of many years. It doesn’t matter what we do to try to avoid it – there is going to be grief; there is going to be pain and that is just going to take time to heal. And the sense of loss may never go away.

It’s a bit like trauma, in a physical sense – it’s introduced from the outside and it just hurts. In fact, God’s Word talks quite a bit about that sort of pain; pain that happens through no particular fault of our own; pain from the outside in. You see a lot of that sort of pain in the Bible. But sometimes, in fact, can I say this: often times the pain has so much more to do with the things that we do to ourselves. And let me take you to a verse that contrasts these two forms of pain.

It was written by Peter, the Apostle, to people, Christians who were suffering a great deal of persecution – I mean, really suffering – comes from the Letter First Peter chapter 2, beginning at verse 17. If you have a Bible, grab it – First Peter chapter 2, starting a verse 17:

Honour everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honour the emperor. Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that?

But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his footsteps.

Now, while I’m not about to endorse slavery or the beating of a slave, that’s what was going on in the first century and here we have two instances: self inflicted pain – the pain that comes through disobedience of the slave. And then trauma pain – the pain that comes through absolutely no fault of the slave.

See, here’s the thing with pain: when we are at a point of suffering pain; when we are in that place, we discover it’s a dark lonely place. My experience of pain, I mean, the real deep emotional pain; the pain of great loss in a relationship, on the occasion that I have been in that place – it is such a lonely place. And it doesn’t matter what other people say or do, it doesn’t seem to have any impact; they can’t seem to make it any better. That makes it even worse! You see other people getting on with life; living what appear to be normal happy lives – we see that when we are in pain and that makes our pain even worse, doesn’t it?.

My friend, here’s the point: some pain in life is inevitable; it just is – pain happens; it happens sometimes through absolutely no fault of our own. But on the other hand it happens sometimes as a consequence of our own actions. There is a clear cause and effect and we see that and then, on top of the pain that we are experiencing, we also experience the pain of regret. “Oh, if only I hadn’t done that!” You know the routine. We’ve all been there.

Pain happens and often when it does, it’s acute – it tears us apart. So here’s the thing: if pain is going to happen in life; if pain is inevitable, well, it makes sense to me to spend some time learning, discovering from God how to deal with pain – how to actually deal with it – and when at all possible, how to avoid pain. I wonder whether a lot of the pain we experience isn’t because we cause it in the first place or because we didn’t know how to handle something when it happened to us.

In fact, it seems to me, that in any or all circumstances that involve pain, we can either be the victim or a victor – someone who has it done to us; someone who struggles through pain with the attitude that, “I’m the victim and there’s nothing I can do and woe is me,” or someone who says, “You know something, whether I caused it or whether I didn’t, right now I’m in pain and not only do I have to live through it, I want to learn through it – I want to find some good in the middle of my pain and I am going to come out the other side of it. I am not spending the rest of my life in this pain.”

Actually, God talks a lot about pain in His Word and that … that’s what we are going to be chatting about over the coming few weeks. I hope it’s a journey that you can join me on.

Treating the Symptom or the Disease

I suspect that there’s not a one of us who doesn’t at least have one packet of painkillers at home in their cupboard somewhere and in fact, most of us probably have more than one packet. These days there’s the ordinary, everyday painkillers – aspirin or paracetamol based; the ones we grew up with. But then they came out with extra strength painkillers, often containing something much stronger – codeine or something like that. And the latest thing is the rapid action painkiller.

Well, let’s face it, none of us wants to have a headache longer than we need to, so we pay almost twice as much for half the number of tables on the basis that they are supposed to treat the pain more quickly. We don’t really know whether they do or not – we have never stopped to measure the pain relief response time but we do know we want the pain to go away so we will cough up the extra cash because, well, because of this strong felt need to get rid of the pain.

In fact, we have become a generation of pill poppers and whilst there’s no doubt that painkillers and other drugs are an absolute necessity as a part of medical treatment – no doubt about that at all I wonder whether we don’t go to that cupboard for the pills just a bit more often than we should.

Well, every now and then you and I have a headache and of course, it makes sense to grab a painkiller or two and when we have a cold or flu we will take a pills that minimise and mitigate the symptoms – bring the temperature down, dry the nose up a bit, reduce the coughing – good stuff and I for one am incredibly thankful these drug companies have done the research to bring me that level of convenience.

But here’s the bottom line: pills reduce the symptoms, they don’t treat the disease. Let me say that again – I know it’s obvious but often we don’t think about it and it’s really, really important: the painkillers reduce the symptoms, they don’t treat the disease. Of course, there are some drugs that do treat diseases; lots of them. Chemotherapy is still one of the very best ways of treating cancer. The drug in many cases does treat the disease but painkillers generally, in fact, almost always, don’t. They just help manage the pain.

Now the reason we are talking about this is that this week and over coming weeks we are exploring this whole thing of pain. Why? Because pain happens – in many respects it is an unavoidable part of life. We all travel through pain – emotional, physical, spiritual, in our lives – it’s a fact of life – full stop!

And so I have called this series ‘Pain Relief for the Soul’, and the easiest thing for you to think when you hear that title, ‘Pain Relief for the Soul’, is “Aw, great! I can just reach for this short ten minute message that Berni talked about or the half hour message, or that one – a bit like going to the cupboard and grabbing a couple of Aspirins for a quick fix.” But well, you know, I’m not sure that’s what God wants for our lives. I’m not sure that God is into the ‘quick fix’ by managing the symptoms.

My hunch is He wants to treat the disease. Pain is a sign that something is wrong and God wants to treat that thing inside us that is wrong. Pain is often a consequence of something that is wrong within us. Pain is God’s messenger oft time, to get our attention. And sometimes, as it was in Job’s case in the Old Testament, pain is God’s tool in our lives for reasons that we don’t quite understand.

When bad things happen to good people, as they did to Job, pain is the place of testing to prove our hearts. And in that case it’s not so much about avoiding the pain – it’s unavoidable – so what it’s really about is knowing how to live through that pain in a way that honours God.

Whichever it is – pain caused by us or pain that comes from a cause completely outside our control, God wants us to grow and to learn and to develop through that pain and come out the other side a different person. Have a listen to this on pain and suffering – Romans chapter 5, verses 1 to 5. Paul writes:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we now stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

You know what I love about this? The Apostle Paul experienced way more than his fair share of pain and suffering in his life. And what he learned through all of that is that pain and suffering leads us back to God, if we let it. Suffering leads to endurance and in fact, it’s only through the pain that an athlete learns to endure. And that endurance – it produces character, it changes who we are, it strengthens us, it gives us compassion for those in need.

And as our character develops, we learn to experience hope because instead of wallowing around in the ‘woe is me’ thing, all of a sudden, as our character grows, we can see above the pain and we can stop being the victim and we can place our hope in God.

And that hope never disappoints us. Why? Because God has poured His Spirit and His love into our hearts – we meet God in the middle of our suffering. In fact, as we grow through the suffering; as we leave the whole ‘me, me, me’ thing behind, we discover that God is already there, ready, waiting for us to live in Christ because He has poured His Spirit into our hearts.

Friend, let me ask you this: does that sound like a ‘quick fix’ to you? Does that sound like, “Well, I’ll pop a pill and in ten minutes the pain will go away”? No! Not at all! Pain is often a tool in God’s hands and how skilful and how loving His hands are to lead us through that pain – to develop endurance, character and a hope that never fails.

With all that I am, let me say this: the times of greatest pain in my life were the times when I truly discovered God. Pain was the greatest opportunity that God ever handed me to discover Him. And as much as I wouldn’t wish any of that pain that I have travelled through, onto my worst enemy, I wouldn’t swap it for the world.

I remember one particular time, a decade and a half ago, of great pain and it was in the middle of that pain that I decided to search out this Jesus. Looking back on it now, I know that it was by God’s grace that He put that desire in my heart but back then I didn’t realise that. I just went looking for God in my pain and ever since then I have discovered the powerful truthfulness of these words that Paul writes out of his own trials and pains and afflictions and sufferings.

God isn’t interested so much in treating the symptoms, He wants to deal with the disease. He is in the business of cutting the cancer of sin out of our bodies so that we can be free instead.

So as we look at this subject of pain over these coming weeks, please don’t expect a quick fix – we are not treating the symptoms through God’s Word, we are going straight to the disease.

God’s Answer to Pain

We all know about the ‘carrot and the stick’, don’t we? It’s this idea that you can either motivate the donkey by dangling a carrot in front of its nose or whacking it on the backside with a stick and you and I both know that sometimes it’s appropriate to use the carrot and other times the stick. It’s like that with us too.

We have seen in essence, there are two types of pain – the sort that we cause ourselves. In his first letter to Timothy chapter 6, verse 10 – Paul is writing about peoples’ love for money and how they chase after wealth and he says that: “they pierce themselves with many pains.” See, that’s what we end up doing – we end up doing, through our sin, to ourselves – “we pierce ourselves with many pains.” This pain is, in essence, self inflicted – you do this thing, you know it’s going to cause pain and yet, we go and do it anyway.

And then, there’s the sort of pain that comes naturally out of situations and circumstances that are completely outside our control – the sort of pain that happens through the death of a loved one or through rejection or through conflict – all sorts of things. And what we see in the Bible; what we discover about God is that He has this massive, unfathomable love for us but at the same time … at the very same time, He is a God to be feared.

On the one hand, God loves us so much – John chapter 3, verse 16 – that He gave His only begotten Son up to death on a cross so that whoever believes in Him; whoever put his trust in this Jesus, wouldn’t perish but instead, has eternal life. That’s how much God loves us.

And at the same time, Jesus said – Luke chapter 12, verses 4 and 5 – he says:

I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that cannot do anything more. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has the authority to cast you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!

Carrot and stick! And when it comes to these two types of pain, God’s solution sometimes comes in two parts – carrot and stick. My friend, self inflicted pain; the sort that we cause by the stupid, wrong things that we do to ourselves – it’s called ‘sin’ – that’s what God calls it ‘sin’. It’s when we rebel against God – it’s when we get into those very things that God tells us not to do – that’s going to cause, I suspect, about ninety percent of the pain in our lives.

Here’s God talking to His people who have sinned against Him – Jeremiah chapter 30, verse 15:

Why do you cry out over your hurt? Your pain is incurable because your guilt is great, because your sins are so numerous I have done these things to you.

People, let’s get a revelation today – let’s just call it what it is. Sin is rebelling against God and sin brings pain – that is the stick. I know that if I argue with people I am going to have the pain of rejection – I going to have the pain of broken relationships. I know that if I am full of pride and I don’t listen to people, I am going to go and make mistakes and that’s going to cause me pain.

Friend, when we go against what God tells us to do, we are going to suffer pain. There is always consequence to our sin and the solution, well, the solution is simple – it’s exactly what Jesus said:

Fear God; fear the one who after you are dead, can cast you into hell.

Fear God! Understand that He is good and loving and mighty and powerful. But if we turn against Him, then as sure as night follows day, pain will follow – both in this life and in the next. Listen to God’s warning today – pain is the natural consequence of sin.

You know, I know people who don’t forgive others who have hurt them. And as I watch people carry unforgiveness around in their hearts, I cannot begin to tell you the amount of pain that I have seen unforgiveness cause in those peoples’ hearts. The solution is to forgive; the solution is to turn away from the sin and back to God. Jesus constantly tells us to forgive.

Now the other side of the coin is this God who loves us in our pain; in pain that’s caused by other things out there and you know something? He loves us even in the pain we brought on ourselves. He loves us in our afflictions. It’s what Paul writes to his friends in Corinth – Second Corinthians chapter 1, verses 3 to 5:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we received from God himself. For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ.

God is a God who consoles us in the pain of our affliction. He never leaves us alone – He is always there; right there with us. This God who consoles us in all our affliction. Notice that – all our affliction! God is such a good God.

My friend, pain is a fact of life – it just is! And God has the answer, in fact, He is the answer. Jesus died to pay for our sin so that we could be set free from it and He rose again, He ascended into heaven and He sent His Spirit. In fact, Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as the ‘Comforter’, just like Jesus – this Spirit of God to dwell inside each one of us who would put our faith in Jesus – this Jesus who suffered pain for you and for me.

Friend, whatever it is that you are travelling through right now let me say this: Jesus Christ, the Jesus who died on the cross, who suffered for you; this same Jesus is the answer in the middle of your pain.

None of us wants to experience pain in our lives. We just don’t. But as much as we don’t want pain, it’s a fact of life. It just is. So … we can sweep it all under the rug and pretend that it doesn’t exist, or … we can learn to deal with it the best we possibly can.

Growing Pains

Can I tell you, one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life is growing up. Just stop and think about it for a minute. We come into this world completely helpless. Absolutely dependent on our parents for everything, in fact, for life itself. If they were to leave us completely alone, within just a few days we’d be dead.

And almost immediately the process of growing up begins.
Within a few months we’re smiling. By age two we want to throw tantrums to demonstrate our independence, we learn to use cutlery, we learn to take ourselves to the toilet. We go to school, we learn to read and write. And on and on it goes …

And I think the hardest part of that growing up is going through those teenage years, leaving childhood behind and becoming an adult. But have you ever stopped to wonder why it is that growing up is so hard sometimes. Why are those teenage years so difficult? What is it about growing up?

Well, here I think is the answer. Growing up is about moving from complete dependence on our parents to independence. And then from independence to interdependence. In other words, when we’re children we’re dependent on Mum on Dad for food, clothes, the place we live, travel, love, nurture, all those things. Little by little we learn to do things for ourselves and then once we know how, we’re expected to get on and do things.

When we think about it growing up is about shifting responsibility and effort from our parents onto ourselves.

We take on more and more to the point that one day we’re ready to go out there into that big cruel world and take a job and become part of society and for most of us, bring our own children into the world and start that whole cycle over again.

And the difficulties and the whole growing up process, the more I think about it, are in the transfer of that responsibility from our parents to ourselves. Sometimes we want to run ahead of it and sometimes we want to lag behind.

For instance, what teenage hasn’t rolled their eyes into the back of their heads when their parents have said, “You are not allowed to watch that movie, or go to that place or stay out that late or whatever.” See, we think as teenagers we know better. We want more freedom and that’s the currency of those who are immature. Freedom. But the parents are trading in a different currency, they’re trading in responsibility.

And sometimes we want to lag behind, sometimes we want to be lazy and have our parents server us hand and foot doing things that we’re more than capable of doing for ourselves. “Mum, can you get me a drink?” I have often heard teenagers say in our house over the years. To which I will immediately answer before Mum can get off the lounge, “Get it yourself.” Why? It’s time to take responsibility. It’s time for the kids to stop treating their parents as servants.

To each of my children somewhere along the line, I’ve said this. “Don’t expect to act like a child and then be treated as an adult. If you act like a child you’ll be treated like one. If you act like an adult, in fact if you demonstrate by what you say and do and your attitude is that you’re growing up, that you’re maturing, that you have the wherewithal to deal with things, then we’ll start treating you like an adult.”

Teenagers often want the best of both worlds. They want freedom and servants. It doesn’t work that way. At least it shouldn’t. And that one issue where 99.9% of the tension lies between teenagers and their parents.

Problem is, many parents don’t teach their kids that and so they never ever grow up. I know 30 year olds who live at home, don’t pay board and their mother still does their washing, ironing, cooking and cleaning. It’s time to grow up!

What, if anything at all does this have to do with pain relief, because that’s what we’re talking about on the program again this week and in fact over the next few weeks in this series called ‘Pain Relief for the Soul’.?

Well, here it is. Emotionally some people never grow up and when we don’t grow up, when we have immature attitudes, that causes us huge amounts of pain. Huge!

Have a listen to this. James chapter 1 beginning at verse 2:

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 endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

Do you see what growing up’s all about? Trials, tests, pain – all the things that come at us. We’re supposed to grow up through them. If we endure through them we become, listen to this, “mature and complete, lacking in nothing”.

I see many, many adults who are adults according to their age but are children in their emotions. They throw tantrums, they want their own way, they can’t draw boundaries so they become victims, they don’t learn from their experiences and so they are caught in patterns of behaviour where over and over and over again they repeat the same mistakes with the same consequences over and over.

Sometimes, in fact oftentimes, we experience pain because of our immaturity. We haven’t learnt to handle difficult people with love and compassion and firmness and security in who we are as adults. So therefore we experience emotional pain.

Now, we’re all different you and I. Perhaps you are more of an emotional person than I am or perhaps you are a logical thinker or perhaps you’re one of those happy go lucky personality types while I’m someone whose more focused on crashing through problems using my strength.

We all have a different brand or style of immaturity. A heart person can wallow in their emotions, a logical thinker hasn’t discovered that the rest of us aren’t like them, so they get all frazzled by us. A happy go lucky person who likes to be liked is more mortally wounded when the rest of us don’t pay them any attention. And me, I operate mostly from my strength, I’ll just roll straight over the top of you if I’m having a moment of immaturity.

Much of our pain in life is how we react to things. And if we come at life through our immaturities, if we haven’t grown up, if we don’t yet understand our weaknesses and just keep living them on, over and over again, it’s going to be a painful life.

For some of us it’s time to grow up. Growing up’s hard, but when we make the effort a lot of the pain just evaporates because we’re mature and complete and lacking in nothing.

Maturity is Growing Up

Okay, so maturity’s important, we’re supposed to be maturity. The question is, where do we get that? How do we grow up? A while ago I taught a series on air called ‘Wisdom that Works’ that was all about the getting of Wisdom and the core part of that in fact, the starting point, comes from the book of Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 9 verse 10:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

And I guess what that really says to me is that growing up, becoming wise, starts with honouring God, and that’s a huge comedown because our natural position is that we’re in charge of our own lives. It’s that attitude the caused us to turn away from God in the first place. The beginning of wisdom is a teachable heart before God.

I want to talk about having a teachable heart right now because this is a huge thing. When we’re open to learning, to God’s wisdom and His instruction and reproof and discipline, that’s when we’re in a position to mature and grow up. And when we do that a lot of the pain in our lives goes away.

Let me give you just one example before we dive into the teachable heart thing. I used to be very touchy, incredibly touchy about criticism. I always wanted to be right, I wanted to always win the argument, I wanted everyone to agree with me. Now I hope you’ll agree with me at this point that this is something of an immature position to have, right?

Wandering through life with that kind of immaturity, well, it’s kind of like painting a target on your chest. You’re going to get hurt because people just can’t help but take aim at that sort of stupidity and immaturity. Now that was my brand of immaturity and there are still some I’m working through, I have to tell you. I’m sure you have yours too, that place in your character where if, given a half a chance, you had the opportunity, you’d rather behave like a child than an adult.

Perhaps it’s a day by day victim mentality. Perhaps it’s always being hurt because people don’t meet up to your expectations of how you should be treated. It’s pretty much an endless list. But do you see how the immaturity opens the door to a world of pain? The world out there kind of expects us to be grown up and when inside we think and feel like a child it’s bound to hurt.

Maturity means growing up and it means a significant reduction in the pain we are going to experience. Question is, since we all have some specific flaws, specific areas of weakness in our development and our makeup, how do we go about growing up? Good question.

Let me bring you back at this point to the idea of having a teachable heart.

It dawned on me a decade and a half ago when I gave my life to Jesus, that as smart as I thought I was, and as much as I relied on my own wits and strength, and as much as I thought I had my life pretty well on track, if I was completely honest with myself, I had to admit that in many of areas I’d made a complete hash of it. Was I some kind of complete fruit cake, a complete failure? No. By the world’s standards I was pretty successful. But on the inside where I lived, in my relationships, I’d made a mess of things.

Can I tell you that wasn’t a happy realisation for me. It wasn’t something I enjoyed back then. But it was a realization that I’m benefiting from right now because it was a step of humility, it was a comedown, a step that would never have before been possible. The realization that I was making a hash of some of things in my life was what got me to step down off my high horse and admit to God that I needed help. That was the beginning of wisdom for me. God’s way is right, I was getting it wrong.

At that point I gained something that I really had never had before – a teachable heart. A heart that wasn’t primarily concerned with being right and what other people thought of me, that’s what kept me bound up in my immaturity in the first place.

Now it became a heart where I just, well I just want to honour God. A heart where I can do and relearn some of the things that were ruining my life. All of a sudden I wasn’t touchy any more about criticism. Criticism now is the opportunity to learn, to grow, to mature. Not all criticism is valid but some of it is. Have a listen to this, Proverbs chapter 17 verse 10:

A rebuke strikes deeper into a discerning person than a hundred blows to a fool.

Don’t you love that? When we have a teachable, a rebuke can be a blessing because we let it in. When we’re closed people can beat us over the head with something 100 times and it still makes no difference and we remain in our foolishness.

Admitting we’re wrong is never fun. It’s never easy. But when we do we’re open to a new way, a better way, a way that works, a way that leads us through trials, through suffering, into maturity. And as we mature we suffer less. Pride keeps us immature. Humility is the way to maturity.

Listen to this. A prayerful King David, when He was turning back to God having committed adultery. Psalm chapter 57 verse 17:

The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Contrition, a humble heart ready to learn from God. There is the beginning of wisdom, there is the beginning of growing up, there is the beginning of maturity, there is the beginning of removing a whole bunch of pain from our lives. And that contrition, that open teachable heart that hungers to honour God, that’s something that God blesses. Psalm 66:2:

All these things my hand has made and so all these things are mine, says the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look, to the humble and the contrite in spirit who trembles at My word.

You see God shows mercy to the humble, but He always opposes the proud. So how about it. Is it time to grow up? Is it time to open our hearts to God’s instructions? So often we listen to a message like this and we don’t let it land on us. I believe God wants this message to land in my heart and in yours.

Pavlov’s Dogs

Back in the 1890’s, Russian scientist Ivan Petrovic Pavlov was investigating the digestive system of dogs. He was collecting their saliva to see what response it had to food under different conditions. Not for everyone I guess, but it’s a living.

Now what he noticed was that dogs tended to salivate before the food was actually delivered to their mouths. He decided that this was far more interesting than the saliva itself so his research headed down a new path and he discovered what he called conditional reflexes. That is reflex responses like salivation that only occur conditionally upon specific previous experience of the animal. It’s all about stimulus and response. Dogs received a certain stimulus and they naturally reacted in a certain way.

Now those early experiments formed the basis of human behavioural research and therapies. There’s another well known experiment called the ‘Little Albert’ experiment. Here’s the Wikipedia entry on ‘Little Albert’:

John B. Watson, founder of behaviourism, demonstrated classical conditioning empirically through experimentation using the Little Albert experiment in which a child (Albert) was presented with a white rat. After a control period in which the child reacted normally to the presence of the rat, the experimenters paired the presence of the rat with a loud, jarring noise caused by clanging two pipes together behind the child’s head.

As the trials progressed, the child began showing signs of distress at the sight of the rat, even when without the frightening noise. Furthermore, the child demonstrated generalization of stimulus associations, and showed distress when presented with any white, furry object – even such things as a rabbit, a dog, a fur coat, and a Santa Claus mask with hair.

It’s fascinating stuff. It’s called dissociative learning and we do it all the time. I had a teacher, Miss Williams in the 3rd Grade who had a pair of these dark rimmed, severe looking bakelite glasses, over which she appeared to me to scowl down her nose at the rest of us. To this day and I’m just over the 50 year mark now, to this day, when I see someone with a pair glasses like that I have to work against having a reaction to them and being deeply suspicious of this person.

We learn these responses to the different stimuli and we repeat them over and over and over again. And so often those responses bring us pain. Let’s say you suffered rejection from someone you loved when you were a child, chances are that the moment that there’s a sniff of rejection from anyone right now that you’re an adult, all sorts of protective responses come trotting out.

Withdrawal or aggression – however you learnt to cope with the rejection back then – is bound to be repeating itself over and over in your life today. And one of the places where we learnt many if not most of our responses was through our parents and they learnt them from their parents, and their parents learnt them from … well, you get the idea, right?

Isn’t it obvious how bad behaviours get handed down from generation to generation. Stimulus – response, just like ‘Little Albert’. Call me crazy, and some people do, I just don’t think God wants us to live our lives that way, do you? I just don’t think that’s good for us, because it means that the pains of the past are alive and well and thriving in our lives, robbing us of the good lives that Jesus came to give us.

It’s one thing to know that it’s happening. A lot of people know that they’re caught in a repetitive trap of anger or the feeling of victimisation or disappointment, whatever it is. But the question is: is there some way out? Or is it going to be a lifelong trap?

I want to take you to two scriptures to show you that not only the cycle in God’s eyes already broken, but also that there is a way out. The first is the position that you’re in, if you put your faith in Jesus Christ. If you have a Bible grab it, open it up with me. This is an important passage. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verses 16-17 in the New Testament. It says this:

From now on therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view even though once we knew Christ from a human point of view we know Him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ Jesus there is a new creation. Everything old is passed away, see? Everything has become new.

In other words, stop looking at this from a human point of view. Stop looking at this from a natural perspective. Because if we keep doing that then we have to come to the conclusion that in fact, there is no way out. I’ll say it again: ‘from now on therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view’. And then in verse 17 it says ‘so’ in other words, ‘therefore if anyone is in Christ Jesus’.

So the first step is not to see this from a natural perspective but to see it from God’s perspective – a supernatural perspective. When we look at ourselves from God’s perspective through His eyes it becomes completely obvious. Anyone who believes in Jesus is a new creation. It’s as though we’ve been born again. “All the old things are passed away, and look”, says Paul, “Behold, everything is made new”.

In other words, I don’t care what it looks like from a human standpoint, the past is irrelevant. If we believe in Jesus, the past has no power, no hold, no dominion over anyone who believes in Jesus. That, my friend is God’s truth.

And the second thing – well, how do we appropriate that truth? How do we lay hold of it, how do we own it, how do we live it, how do we benefit from it? The answer, not surprisingly, is also in God’s Word. Romans chapter 12 verses 1-2. Paul writes:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God for you.

Two things: firstly give your life over to God holus bolus. Everything. Be a living sacrifice. Die to live. Die to the old self and live to the new self, this new person that we’re becoming, the new creation. And then instead of conforming to the old ways, to the worldly ways, instead of being squeezed into the world’s mould, the same as the old stimulus response, living life like Pavlov’s dogs, living life like ‘Little Albert’, instead of doing that, Paul’s saying, let God transform you by the renewing of your mind. You see, then you will figure it out. Then God will help you change your mind about the power of the past. Then you will know His good and perfect and acceptable will for your life.

My friend, without knowing it, that’s exactly what started to happen in my life a decade and a half ago. I went to God, I gave it all to Him. But then something else – I started spending time in God’s Word. I actually started reading it, not like a theory lesson but as though it’s God speaking to me. Expecting God to change my life as I came to see things from His perspective.

Reading the Bible thinking about it, listening to others speaking about it, hanging around people who were saturated in God’s Word and God’s Spirit. And that my friend is how God changed my mind.

I had a horrible past. Bits of my life that I wouldn’t wish upon anybody. Not saying my brand of pain is any worse than yours, but there’s some things in my life, in my past, that could be ruining my life today. But I’m utterly convinced, utterly convinced that I am a new creation. Old things are passed away and all things are new and I am living my life that way.

It’s not because I’m clever but it’s because God’s Word became part of my DNA. God’s Word is written on the very fabric of my being. Now I am a new creation. Do you get it? Old things have passed away, all things are new. The pain goes away. That’s how God does it.

Back in the day when I was in the Army, causing a self-inflicted injury was a serious offence. You could be locked up for hurting yourself. And yet, as I look around, there are so many people with pain in their lives. Self-inflicted pain. It just doesn’t make sense. Why would you want to live that way?

It’s My Toy

It’s great to be with you again this week. And today we are continuing our series of messages called, ‘Pain Relief for the Soul.’ In particular, we are taking a look at some of the self inflicted pain we put ourselves through because of our own immaturities – selfishness, stubbornness and being a people pleaser. Those are the three things that we are going to take a look at today.

Now selfishness begins quite early on in life. Two young children, not even old enough to walk, can fight over a toy, both wanting it for themselves. It’s an amazing thing to watch. Don’t know if you have ever done that – how early selfishness takes hold of us. In fact, when we watch children, what we discover is that selfishness is in fact, our natural state and part of growing up is learning to let go of selfishness.

The problem is many, many people never do and that simple immaturity – our own selfish desires – is one of the biggest sources of pain in life imaginable. You and I, we both have needs – physical, emotional, spiritual – and an important part of life is making sure that those needs are in fact, met. There’s nothing wrong with that! But we have turned looking after 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 that he planted back in the first Century, had this to say. If you have a Bible, grab it – Second 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 that lists is ‘selfishness’. So what is it? We think of other people as being selfish, but surely not ourselves – surely not me? Yea, right! So what is this selfish thing that so easily, so naturally, so unassumingly grips our lives? Well, ‘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 read from Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians – it literally means, well, it has the idea of electioneering; putting yourself forward, courting distinction.

In fact, the only other place in antiquity where we find that same Greek word used is by Aristotle, where he uses it to mean a ‘self-seeking pursuit of political office by unfair means.’ See, a selfish person is someone puts themself first – someone who promotes their own interest – someone who will pursue self-gain whatever the means – dishonest, unfair – to promote themselves. You see a lot of that in this world 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, our rights, our wants, comes naturally to each one of us.

So, why does it cause us such great pain, this ‘selfishness’ thing? Kind of weird because selfishness promises so much – it promises that when we pander to self, things will be better for us. If we are selfish and tread on the next guy to get what we want, then we win and they lose. “What a perfect outcome”, we think to ourselves in secret. And whilst my selfishness may hurt others, “Huh, so what? It makes me feel good when I get what I want.” Just like those two toddlers fighting over the toy. “It’s my toy. I want it. Give it to me.” And when the stronger one wins, he laughs and the other one cries.

That’s what’s supposed to happen, but it doesn’t! Selfishness is in fact, one of the greatest causes of pain on the planet because it draws fire from all directions. One of my favourite cartoons is a ‘Far Side’ by Gary Larson – the one of the two reindeers with the big antlers, and they are standing up on their hind legs in a forest and one of them has a big red and white bullseye painted on his chest. And the other one says to him, “Hell of a birthmark, Hal!” And funny as it may be, when it comes to selfishness, it’s a sobering picture because ‘selfishness’ is a birthmark; it’s something that we are each born with and when we live it out it draws the fire of hell on us and Satan, the enemy, just loves that.

Selfishness brings anger and strife and jealousy upon us because the whole of life becomes a competition to get the things that we want. “It’s my toy – I want it!” Selfishness is the pivot in that list that Paul writes to us in Second Corinthians:

I fear that there might be perhaps 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 that list called ‘selfishness’. Friend, those things cause us pain! Selfishness – it promises so much but it only brings pain and if we want to do away with much of the pain in our lives, then it’s time to get real and look at things that you and I are selfish about.

Again the Apostle Paul has a solution for you and me. Philippians chapter 2, beginning at verse 3. He says, look:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each 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, did not regard equality with God as something for him to exploit, but instead, emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself; he became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.

Now, because of that God exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every other name. You see, what Paul is saying here, is winning and being selfish, is losing. Losing by being selfless, on the other hand, is winning. God always turns things upside down and this is one of them. When we give up the fight – the 24/7 competition of meeting every selfish desire and friend, that is such hard work to do that.

Do you realise what hard work it is being selfish? All of a sudden that birthmark goes away and we stop drawing fire. And it’s that fire that hurts us; fire from the world, from people, from the devil. When we start putting others first, we build relationships, rather than destroying them. And when we put others first – “do nothing out of our own selfish ambitions”, then we are living life for Jesus.

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 – um, sometimes in the short term, it actually does. But ultimately, God’s way brings a joy and peace and a security that words can’t describe.

My Way or the Highway

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, well, let’s give it a name, it’s called ‘stubbornness’. Now, I know this really well because I’m one of those type ‘A’; achiever kind; more ‘outcome’ focused than ‘relationship’ focused. So that’s naturally how I can be, so I spend most of my life living in stubbornness – stubborn, always right.

And this whole ‘stubbornness’ thing promises so much! You know, it promises that by getting my way, I will win and therefore, my life will be good. It’s about winning – it’s all about winning. Strong people are also often stubborn people. And whilst winning promises a lot, actually it’s one of the things; one of the deep immaturities that many people carry around within themselves that cause a tremendous amount of pain.

I don’t know if you remember, last week we focused on this passage in James chapter 1, beginning at verse 2. James writes:

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 endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, 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 you.

In other words, as we travel through the trials of life, we are meant to grow up. As our faith is tested, it is meant to prove itself through endurance and that endurance builds maturity and wisdom. But I particularly love how the Apostle James sets out this ‘maturity’ thing. He says that: as a result of our experiences and learning through them, 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 are 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 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.

Second Chronicles chapter 30, verse 8:

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

And that’s just a few of them; there are dozens, where God talks about stubbornness and pride; this thing about being stiff necked. You know what it boils down to? “I’m going to do it MY way!” And that … that, my friend, is the attitude of a child! A stubborn person is filled with pride and gets their sense of worth out of winning – even when their winning 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 years, in my immaturity, I would drive hard at things against the good advice of people who had more experience than me; people who knew more than I did because I thought that in order for me to be ‘me’ I had to win. My way or the highway, Buddy! That was my maxim.

Sometimes it may have worked; other times; often times, it didn’t. No matter, my way was always the only way. But when I gave my life 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 a 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 will never, ever have.

Even if I live for a thousand years on this earth and that if I could just learn to humble myself, instead of being belligerent, I’d stop missing out on their gifts and abilities. I can benefit from them. 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 really difficult; sometimes that counsel involved people telling me that something I was doing was wrong and that I needed to change my ways. Sometimes that counsel involved criticism and reproof and correction. Proverbs chapter 3, verse 11:

My child, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof for the Lord reproves the one whom 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.

See, the more that my stubbornness and pride began to leave me, the better my life became. Let me say that again: the more my stubbornness and pride began to leave me, the better my life became. I used to think that only I could have a good idea.

Just recently one of the members of our Board, here at Christianityworks, Keith Henry, had a brilliant idea. He and I co-authored a book, not so long ago, called ‘My Personality GPS’. Keith is a teacher and an encourager – quiet, unassuming – I’m the leader – out there, making things happen. When Keith became a Board member, he said to me in his quiet, unassuming way, “Uh”, he said, “I’m not sure what value I can add here.” Well, anyhow, he comes up with this new idea, he calls me up, “Let’s have coffee”, we did, I listened to his idea.

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

The absence of the benefit of Keith’s idea would have been a huge loss to the Ministry. 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 and ‘my way or the highway’, that pain, friend, is self-inflicted. Yet when we humble ourselves before God and accept His way, the pain goes away. I mean, do you get it? James chapter 4, verse 6 says that:

God opposes the proud but he 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.

What will People Think?

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

As much as it is 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 limelight 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, well, we are in for a lot of pain in life.

Why? Because if ‘people pleasing’ is our gig, then what happens when no one notices the good things that we are doing? What happens when we do good for a person who has their own failings – maybe they are so insecure they can’t possibly acknowledge the good thing we have 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.

We have 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 wasn’t fair – you worked hard on a project but someone else got the gold star. You cleaned up your room but Mum and Dad didn’t even notice, let alone say anything.

And so we are discouraged and angry and we want to give up. That, my friend, is a child’s response! It’s not an unreasonable response for a child because a child doesn’t have the maturity yet – a child hasn’t travelled through the trials that teach them about life yet and developed wisdom and maturity with years. But here’s the question: is it a reasonable response for an adult? Should the absence of recognition or reward cause us pain and disappointment and discouragement, even immobilizing 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 through the known world in the first Century to tell people the Good News about Jesus Christ. People tried to kill him, on more than one occasion. There were riots and imprisonments and beatings and ship wrecks, he was bitten by poisonous snakes, he was criticised, he was rejected, they doubted his authenticity.

Today though, we are still reading the Books he wrote in the New Testament – almost half of the New Testament Books. But back then, in his Roman dungeon, which is where he wrote at least some of those Books, the guy didn’t always feel the warm glow of appreciation. You take my drift?

So did it discourage Paul? Well, let’s have a listen to what he says about this whole matter to his friends in Galatia – Galatians chapter 1, verse 10 – he said:

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

Ain’t that the truth? If he had 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, the Bible.

Get it? It’s great when we are appreciated but the ocean of life that we sail on won’t always be a ‘fair weather’ ocean. People won’t always have good intentions – sometimes we will be on the receiving end of their sin. And if we are still living in this childish way of being a ‘people pleaser’, it’s going to hurt – man, is it going hurt!

Jesus said exactly the same thing – John chapter 15, beginning at verse 18:

If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not 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, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.

People 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 a bit. If I have made a mistake or done something wrong or misinterpreted God’s Word on air, well, I’m the first one to say, ‘You know what, I got that wrong – I have to fix that.’ But you know something? Ninety nine point nine percent of the flack that comes my way is from the people Jesus was talking about. And once I’ve honestly and openly discerned the difference, that ninety nine point nine percent goes straight into the bin and it will not … let me say this again, it will NOT discourage me or slow me or prevent me from telling people about this Jesus who has given me a new life.

When I was a child, I did childish things, but God tells me that He wants me to mature; to gain wisdom through trials, to be complete and lacking in nothing. And sometimes … sometimes that means I can’t please the people who listen or the people around me. Sorry about that – it’s just the way it is.

Friend, as we grow up; as we mature we learn that doing what is right has its own rewards. Sometimes people will love us for it, other times they will persecute us for it. It’s just the way it is. And what I have discovered is that when the rest of the world turns against us for simply living out the love we have in our hearts for Jesus, there is a joy and a peace in our relationship with Him that is better … better than anything else the world has to offer.

So let me leave you with this thought:

“So let us not grow weary in doing what is right,” writes Paul in Galatians chapter 6, verse 9, “for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up.”

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

Life can be cruel can’t it? Sometimes it seems like it’s one thing after another that brings hurt and pain into our lives. I know many people are overwhelmed with the things that life keeps throwing at them. But here’s a thought. Jesus died and rose again to give you and me victory. Be of good cheer, He said, for I have overcome the world. Jesus died and rose again to make you a victor, not a victim.

A Victim No More

We have been talking these last few weeks about pain relief for the soul. Sometimes pain is completely unavoidable but here’s the sad thing and it’s what we have been chatting about these past weeks: much of the pain that we suffer is self inflicted. It has to do with our own immaturities – we come at things like a child, with selfishness or stubbornness or seeking the recognition of people and then we wonder why things hurt so much; why we are so disappointed; why there is so much argument and strife and conflict.

So last week in particular, we talked about those things and what God has to say on us growing up. And 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. But as I said, sometimes the world throws things at us that are way beyond our ability to cope – the death of a loved one, deep rejection, divorce maybe, maybe a sickness or an accident or something big and it just hurts.

Sometimes people plot against us – they turn against us and reject us and well, you know the things that have happened in your life and we can end up feeling like a victim – like we are on the receiving end of things that just aren’t our fault and it’s not fair and now I’m the victim. Sadly, whether it’s as a result of one really big thing or an accumulation of lots of little things, many people live their lives as perpetual victims. My hunch is that that’s not how God wants us to live our lives.

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 are almost seven billion people on this planet today and fully two thirds of them don’t have the basics of enough food, housing, clean drinking water or safety and security that they need to live their lives. In fact there are many, many more people listening to this message today around the world, who fall into that category than those who have enough of all those things.

And so whether it’s looking at it from a global scale like that or just looking at our own particular area of pain and suffering, that we might be going through right at this moment, sometimes we rock back and we ask God, ‘What were You thinking, God? Why do You let this go on?’ It feels as though God doesn’t care and it feels as though we are the victim in all of this. My hunch is that a lot of people today who relate to what I have just been talking about – maybe you are one of them – and you are wondering, ‘does God really have a heart for the weak and the downtrodden 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 in the Old Testament. If you have a Bible, grab it – its Ezekiel chapter 34, beginning at verse 1. Have a listen:

The word of the Lord came to me, writes Ezekiel: Mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel: prophesy, and say to them: Thus says the Lord God: Ah, you shepherds of Israel, you have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but 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 strayed, 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 leaders of Israel; the ‘shepherds’, as He calls them 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 read on, beginning at verse 11, in Ezekiel chapter 34:

For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, I will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks 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 from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 

I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, 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 with justice.

As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God to you: I shall judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and goats: Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but must you 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 must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have fouled with your feet? 

Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them: I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between the sheep and the sheep.

Doesn’t require much explanation, does it? God is a God who so loves His people, He rails against injustice; He rails against leaders who abuse their flock. Friend, whatever you are going through at the moment; whatever injustice; whatever pain; whatever that thing is that makes you feel as though you are the victim; it hasn’t escaped God’s attention. And His heart is very much for those who are weak – we have just read that! His heart is to reach out; to seek you out and to save you. And you know what? As you have heard His Word for you, right now, I believe that is exactly what He’s been doing. He has come for you through His Word today and it is for this reason that God sent 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, as was His custom. He stood up to read and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to Him. He unrolled the scroll; He found the place where it is 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 as much as He came for anyone else. He came not as some rich powerful king but as a carpenter’s Son, not with great riches according to the world’s measure, but with the riches of heaven – to pour them out on you and on me and on anyone else who will place their trust in this Jesus. Jesus came to set the captives free.

Sometimes that means a change in our circumstances but you know, sometimes it doesn’t. It 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 appears, this same Jesus suffered and died for us on a cross. He knows firsthand how injustice feels and He came to give us peace and joy and strength, right here in the middle of it all – the sort of peace and joy that you can’t put into words.

If pain relief for the soul is what you are looking for, then there is only one place that I have discovered it so far in my life and that place is Jesus. He came to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour, He came for you. And right in the middle of whatever we are travelling through; right in that place where we feel as though we are the victim – sometimes (let’s be honest) we even feel as though it’s our right to play the victim – right there, Jesus came so that we would be victims no more. Jesus came to give us victory right in the middle of life … the life we are leading now.

What Does Victory Taste Like

However it is that pain comes into our lives, whether as a result of something completely beyond our control or as a result of our own immaturity or selfishness, I believe that God wants to deal with it, to heal it, to give us victory right in the middle of the pain.

If it is a result of our own sin – and that’s what sin does – it promises so much but actually, it ends up causing us great pain. If you know some sin in your life right now; perhaps it is unforgiveness or pride or … whatever it is and you know it is causing you pain, then I want to encourage you to take it to God right now, ask Him to forgive you, turn away from it and turn back to Him because that’s the place where healing starts.

God means for us to learn through our trials – He means for us to grow in maturity. We have looked at this passage a couple of times but I want to read it again because it puts the whole ‘pain’ thing into context. James chapter 1, beginning at verse 2:

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 endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, 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 you.

And whether or not the circumstances causing the pain change straight away in our lives, God wants us to have victory, often 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 look like?

Now the Bible is a huge Book. Actually 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 Jesus praying alone – a prayer for you and 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 this moment. You and I would probably have been worried about saving our own skins – Jesus on the other hand was willing to lay down His life so that you and I could be forgiven our sin and have eternal life.

As He said earlier in John chapter 10, verse 17 and onwards:

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it 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 more I would have felt like a victim? But in the face of a brutal, painful, gruesome, torturous, lingering death, slowly suffocating as He hung suspended by nails through His hands and feet, Jesus prayed for you and me. Let’s listen to what He prayed – John chapter 17, beginning at verse 1:

He looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has 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 whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ 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 have made your name known to those whom you have given to me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and they know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; (see how Jesus is praying for us?)I am asking on their behalf, not on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you have given me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.

And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be as one, as you and I are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you gave me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am 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 do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, Father, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is the truth.

Isn’t that a beautiful prayer? Here is Jesus about to be crucified and He prays quite a few things for you and me but the main thing is that He has given us His Word; the truth and because of that, we no longer belong to the world. We are in it but we don’t belong to it. Aliens, if you will, in a foreign, albeit familiar land. And when we are suffering, the thing that we most want is to be taken out of those circumstances that are causing us the suffering. But that’s not what Jesus asked His Father to do. Let’s look at it again:

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 to the world, just as I don’t. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is the truth.

“Don’t take them out of it, Dad. Strengthen them and protect them through it”. And with that He heads 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,” (the cup being the suffering.) yet not my will but that 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 He suffered it anyway. Was He a victim in this suffering? No! On that cross and through the empty tomb, Jesus won the greatest victory in all history. He won salvation, eternal life, forgiveness for you and for me and for countless others, even though He suffered so greatly and hanging, dying there on a cross, He looked such a failure.

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

And here’s what I have experienced sometimes in the middle of suffering that doesn’t make sense: a peace that is so powerful, it’s so beyond anything I’ve ever experienced anywhere else. It completely surpasses any understanding or explanation. It just doesn’t make sense. And it’s exactly the thing that Jesus goes on to pray for you and for me in the rest of John chapter 17. I want to encourage you – go and read that chapter for yourself.

Friend, God doesn’t want you to be a victim. He wants us to be humble and strong; assailed, yet peaceful; right in the middle of the storm. That’s what victory … that’s what His victory … that’s what it looks like. And it’s that victory that is the sweetest victory of all!

Peace Follows Victory

Well, victory is one thing, but what’s meant to happen when we have the victory? Remember, I am not necessarily talking about changing things in our lives that are causing us pain. Sometimes that’s not possible – sometimes God chooses to leave us right in the middle of the circumstances causing us pain. Maybe a boss who treats us harshly or a spouse who doesn’t show the love that we want … whatever – God leaves us there because He wants us to discover His victory in the middle of the battle. That’s the sweetest victory of all and so often, once we learn that lesson, then He allows the circumstances to change.

Remember our trials; our suffering is the place where we grow into maturity; into that place where we are complete and lacking in nothing. James chapter 1 – we looked at that earlier. It always strikes me as a powerful lesson, that when God brought Israel, His chosen people, out of their slavery in Egypt, through forty years in the wilderness to the threshold of the Promised Land; the land that He promised to them through their father Abraham, centuries before. Instead of letting them just waltz in and inhabit the land, they had to go in and take it by force, starting with that famous victory at Jericho – battle after battle, town after town, kingdom after kingdom, God’s people had to take the land that their God had promised them.

Nothing has changed! God’s Kingdom is our Promised Land and we take it battle by battle in our lives. Sometimes the battles are going on and we wonder, ‘Man, have I wandered off course? Am I getting this wrong?’ Let me tell you: the moment that you and I step out, accept Jesus as our Saviour; the moment that we decide that our lives are going to count for His glory here on this earth, you and I have stepped onto a battlefield and all the powers of hell will be unleashed against us. But here’s what happened when they had taken the land – listen to this – Joshua chapter 21, verse 44:

And the Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their ancestors. Not one of all her enemies had withstood them for the Lord had given them all their enemies into their hands.

What happens after the victory is rest on every side – peace! And so often people win the battle but they lose the peace. Events in Iraq, over recent years, were a perfect example. It doesn’t end with a victory in the battle. The peace is there for our taking and we need to win the peace; we need to take the peace. That’s what comes next after victory.

Can’t tell you the number of times that I have been in the midst of a battle in life; struggling, wrestling with it, learning to live through it God’s way and when I do that; when I lay it down; when I repent of my own sin; when I turn the other cheek … whatever it is that God is calling me through His Word to do, what happens then is that I enter into God’s rest. We are meant to be in His peace but that peace can be elusive. We experience it in prayer, what seems like a fleeting moment and then it’s back into the day to day realities of life and all that peace seems to just kind of evaporate. Ever experienced that?

Well, we need to take the peace and to live in it and the only way that I have learned to do that is to spend more and more time with Jesus, praying and reading His Word. Reading those stories of old; reading about how God has saved His people over and over again, letting the Spirit of God write the story of God’s faithfulness onto my heart. And little by little, my friend, what happens is that we discover God’s peace. We start living in His rest. His peace, instead of being a fleeting moment, becomes something that abides in us; that dwells in us because the closer we draw to Jesus, the more we experience, not just His victory, but His peace and His rest.

Friend, I’m not speaking to you out of some theory book or text book, I’m speaking to you out of my life. God means for us to have His rest. Let me leave you with that truth right out of God’s Word.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff – they comfort me.

And that my friend, is what God wants for my life and yours – His peace, right in the middle of that deep, dark valley.