God's Goodness in Your Pain - John Piper, David Platt, Matt Chandler

so the goodness of God in suffering is what we want to talk about for a few minutes so we don't need to go straight to our experiences but I'm sure that should be a part of it sure um how have you discovered God to be good to you in measures of suffering I think people think of you as probably walking through the deepest water and people are I don't know your personal life is as well but whichever yeah I one of the one of the biggest mercies of God and in one of the ways I really understood His goodness as as we as the cancer was discovered and the prognosis was given really took place long before the suffering got there and that was that that God had intervened in a pretty spectacular way early on to let me see his bigness and I've often I've often kind of tried to get my head around how people manage and deal with suffering who don't who lack that kind of robust view of who God is and so when I got to the church it was it was we were very young and so even now Here I am 10 years into pastoring the village and have done dozens and dozens of funerals affect David and I were just talking that even in the last week I did the funeral for a one-year-old and an eight-year-old minutes don't do funerals for 70 year olds I would love to do faithful 70 year old man that went home to be with the Lord his hand and so what became apparent is that that the church that God had asked me to shepherd had no real no real kind of frame to hang suffering on and in a way that that they understood God to be good and and yet could do something with the reality that the world's broken and we see it all the time and so I just steadfastly tried to prepare them for suffering which you know I don't know if maybe I should feel shame or chuckle about it but all the while God's getting me ready and I think I'm trying to get them ready and so one of the ways and I think one of the ways that really made my heart as I began to walk through the chemo and radiation is that God had really prepared me as I had set out to prepare others and and I don't know I mean obviously people do but I don't know how you rejoice in suffering without an understanding of the size and and and magnificence of God in it and would you say the bigness you talk about the bigness the majesty the sovereign you Gaggia helps it's not not mainly problem mainly help is not only help unnecessary like a high view of God as I think is the only thing that does sustain in the middle of suffering it's the confidence that not only does he allow these things but he even ordains these things for our good that we have a loving father who gives us what works together for good and that didn't trust in that better news then God didn't have anything to do with that that's that's horrible news because if he didn't then he's not in control and and he's not he's not able to ensure that this is going to work together for good the fact that he is sovereign over at all is the rock anisette sovereignty the only foundation for praise for confidence in the middle of pain well it enabled me to rejoice and I think that's where the ability to rejoice when on what I'm going then I don't I don't get to walk my daughter down the aisle I mean I don't get to watch my son graduate from high school I don't get in fact the jury's still out on a lot of those things and and to be able to rejoice in that it's because my my understanding from the Word of God is that more than I need to just think right now I need to think what God has promised to me in the gospel and what glory has for me and then if I'm thinking ten thousand years from now then I can say with Paul this light momentary right if I'm not the if all I'm thinking is I don't get to walk my daughter down the aisle that's devastating if if I see that all things are made new and as Lewis said the sad things come untrue if I'm thinking a billion years from now then I can just join with Paul go you don't me laying on the floor vomiting that's like me not getting to watch you know Noren Audrey walk down the aisle to officiate their weddings to see my son become a man the only way you can say that's like momentary is if you understand the bigness of God in redeeming men unto himself by the power of the gospel and then seeing into glory and then you can rejoice it then I can join Paul I mean I don't think until I walk I could join Paul until I got that until I cross the threshold from just kind of a theological idea to entry into this might be reality for me so that I'm jumping right there walking through suffering ourselves enables us to experience things Paul has talked about which until then that we read about that but then hear it the way I put it was just pick up the death of my mother at 28 years old get the phone call till Noel she's dead walk back to my bedroom kneel down by the bed cry for two hours and experience for the first time sorrowful yet always rejoicing I mean that phrase at that moment was so manifestly real manifestly real because I'm crying I'm just crying like I never cried before just on and on because there's sudden she's 56 years old she's not supposed to be gone I my wife is pregnant she'll never know this kid she's gone and all the while my heart's leaping with Thanksgiving she was a great mom she loved me I had her for 28 years God has taken care of her and and these emotions that were in many people's minds diametrically opposed of sorrow and joy so now for for me to say to our church we need to be a people who are sorrowful yet always rejoicing is not gobbledygook and I say so one of the goodness of God it seems for our people as they walk through is they taste that and they taste it any other things they taste what other things or where we going to go well I'll tell you that you quoted a text that just immediately popped the rest of the text into my head one of the things I've tried to lay before our people are in that same line he's perplexed but not driven to despair and so there is this element when I met Chase's funeral 1 year old little boy went to take a nap didn't wake up that that I can say it's okay to be perplexed here but we're not perplexed to the point of despair all right we know there's a sovereign that we put our confidence and then that goes back to that big God theology that and I think I've heard you say before or do it where you you just kind of cover your mouth and raise your hand that that there's a part of me that's perplexed I don't know how the death of a one-year-old brings you glory I don't know I'm not going to figure it out I can't answer that question but what I can do is trust that that you're sovereign and you're good regardless of what I can see in this little dew on the grass in the morning and and I'm not going to be driven to despair despite the fact that I am allowed I mean even pulsing perplexed this perplexing but it's not going to drive me to despair and so I've always found that to be a great comfort in that texels and there's no question that in that and the way we've talked about as we've studied through Ruth or job or I think about my own life how God uses sorrowful tragedy to set the stage for surprising triumph and it's not I want to be careful in saying that because it's not that we're guaranteed okay a year from now things are going better or two years from now things are better we do know we have an eternal weight of glory that is awaiting us and our present sufferings are not worth comparing with that glory but at the same time the Lord does delight and showing surprising triumph in the middle of sorrowful tragedy when I think about my own personal journey and the journey my wife and I went on for five years of not able to have kids and really wrestling through that just a month after month wrestling with why do we have this desire in our heart you're able to provide you're not providing we don't understand this but the way the Lord has has used that time and sank sanctifying us and then the triumph he's brought on the other side of that through adoption and other other means it's just I look around my table right now and it's Ephesians three immeasurably more than all I could ever ask or imagine I don't even know to ask for the position I'm in right now as a that I couldn't have even dreamed up seven years ago and so and I'm not saying everybody's story's going to end up a certain way but I am confident that sorrowful tragedy in this end this life the Lord ordains it to set the stage for surprising triumph whether in this life or in the life to come yes good thank you guys you

Channel: Sheila L.

Views: 80,314

Rating: 4.9250426 out of 5

Keywords: Matt Chandler (Person), John Piper (Author), David Platt (Author)

Id: -7_E_fZGVrI

Length: 9min 14sec (554 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 03 2013