♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ [Applause] Have a seat. On this Memorial Day weekend we
honor those that have fallen, those that have paid the
ultimate price for our freedoms here in this country. I ask if you lost a loved one in
the military in any campus, would you please stand now and
let us honor you and thank you for your sacrifice. [Applause] Please stay standing for a
moment. Please stay standing. I want to pray for you. And thank you on behalf of all
of us here at Rock Church. God, we thank you for those that
stand amongst us, their loss is deep. The wounds are fresh on days
like today, God. But we pray that both you draw
near to them as you promised. That you comfort the broken
hearted. We thank you that you love them
Lord and we thank you that they represent such great sacrifice. That we could even gather today
freely and speak the name of Jesus, to give you praise and
honor because what their loved ones have done for us. As we thank them, we honor them
in this place. It's in your name Jesus we pray,
all God's people said amen. Thank you so much. [Applause] Hello and welcome, I am Jason
Mayer and I serve as pastor campus and I want to welcome
shout out to San Marcos and continuing our series when bad
things happen. And the question I have for us
today, what are you doing with your pain? Something very intimately with
bad things is pain and it's universal and we all feel it. The truth is what you do with
your pain determines what it will become. So before we begin, I want to
welcome to the stage a friend of ours, part of our Rock Safety
Ministry, we call him Sarge, would you welcome retired Army
Sergeant Daniel Casara, to the stage. [Applause] So I want to introduce my
service dog, Vick, great dog and does wonderful things and that
talks to the pain that Pastor Jason talking about. And a little about my testimony
and who I am. On September 3, 2005, I was in
Afghanistan and I served in the Army and those out there you
know that those things don't really take a whole lot of punch
and we rolled over an anti-tank mine and what that did is flip
our vehicle over and killed two of my guys. And four others including myself
were injured and I sustained fractures to tibia and
dislocated right hip and 24 surgeries later and countless
hours of therapy, I stand before you today -- [Applause] I will tell you -- [Applause] I will tell you that pain that I
went through physically, the pain that I went through
emotionally, even spiritually, I questioned God. Why me. And after you know months of
soul searching, he told me that the pain I am going through was
because he trusted me with that pain. And there are many of you out
there that he's trusting you with your pain. And for those gold-star families
that just stood up. Understand those gold-star
families are people that lost their loved ones and make sure
you show extra love to them today and tomorrow. And that pain that I went
through allowed me to go further in Christ. And to be able to understand
what God had for me. And same thing that God has for
me, God has for you as well. And so that pain you are dealing
with, you can turn that around. God has allowed me to see things
and meet people and go places I never would have been able to
experience without going through the pain I have gone through. As you go through this message
understand where your pain is the place that God has you now
and find that Bible verse that I can link to, like I did with
psalm 91 that linked me with my deployment. God bless you and have a great
day. [Applause] Pray for our time together. Lord, God, we thank you so much
that you love us and that we can gather freely now. And Lord we open our hearts and
minds to you and give you permission, to speak to us. Everyone of us familiar with
pain and some of us going through difficult things we are
suffering God and we thank you that we can come to you, and
understand our pain so well, Jesus. More than we can imagine, what
you went through and thank you. And that you speak to us a fresh
word and leave here forever changed and love you and praise
you in Jesus' name, amen. The idea that pain can become
purpose in our life is difficult, especially in the
midst of pain. On the surface it would be easy
to say that pain is not a good thing and I don't want it in my
life. Many of us have created our
lives avoiding discomfort and pain at all cost. We create inconvenience in our
life and everything not to be discomforted. But pain can have a purpose,
reminds me of Tony Dungy and he is a follower of Christ and
shares a story about his son, Jordan. When younger discovered he had a
rare autoimmune disorder that didn't allow him to feel pain. And you think on the surface not
a big deal but quite a problem. And an issue. Jordan when young and thought
that chocolate chip cookies are from the Lord, can I get
hallelujah and amen. Especially warm chocolate chip
cookies and we know they are better at room temperature and
this young boy's mind and if they are good when warm and must
be hot in the oven. And grabbed the pan without
gloves and put it on the stove and grabbed a cookie at 350
degrees and eat it and couldn't feel the pain and that the skin
was burned off of his hands and mouth and esophagus as he ate it
and they had to keep an eye on their son because not aware of
the pain around him. Pain is a symptom of something
not right. Something not working properly,
something malfunctioning or missing in our life. Physical or relational or
spiritual pain. I want to press in this idea
what we do with that pain will determine what it becomes. Last week pastor spoke from Job
1 and when bad things happen and we can't just praise him when
things are good but always praise and worship him. And that's what we are aspiring
to and so much on the human condition not touched in the
first chapter and look at Job and a lot of emotions happening. Job is feeling the pain and the
suffering. The question is what does he do
with it? For many of us we do lots of
things with our pain, most of which are not healthy. We ignore it and pretend it's
not there and stuff into a deep place and hoping it will go away
and it doesn't go anywhere and over time manifest in unhealthy
and more painful ways than the first place. Sometimes we minimize our pain,
it's not that bad, I'm okay, I'm fine. We try to numb our pain some of
us. We give ourselves behavior to
distract us from the pain. Some of us we even get to the
unhealthy pattern of blaming others and situations and things
for the pain we're feeling. But if we continue to allow our
pain in that direction it will become what we make it. It will become a debilitating
thing in our life. And put us in bondage and force
us in a victim mentality, no matter what we do destined for
bad things. And Job in the chapters in this
book and having arguments with the three guys, the Bible calls
his friends. And look at the response that
God has for him allowing Job to express himself over and over
and express his pain. And respond to him and a lot to
learn as we think of our own pain and respond to it. And 35 chapters Job complains
and says it isn't fair or right. And the first point in the
lesson plan, if pain is become purpose in our life, we have to
replace our grumbling with grieving. We have to get rid of the
grumbling and press into the grieving. God welcomes our grieving and
wants us to grieve. We will get in the reading plan
and reading the Bible and started Esther and in Job and in
a few weeks in Psalms, and that's another word for songs
and one-third are songs of lament. That means grieving and crying
out to God. And the authors are saying this
is terrible and can't believe these awful things are happening
and God please help me and another book called Lamentations
that talk about grieving. Jesus himself grieved. The night that he was arrested
and betrayed and given over to false trials and mock trials, he
cried out to God in the Garden of Gethsemane, Lord is there any
other way that the sins of the world can be forgiven, I don't
want to do it. He was so stressed and sweating
drops of blood in that moment. And when Jesus' close friend,
Lazarus died, what did he do? Wept. And I find in life I cry more
and more. Like I got married and crying
more. I am happily married by the way,
my wife is here. And then we had kids and I
started crying more. I have two girls now and I don't
know if it's the total amount of estrogen in my house and it's
contagious and I cry more. And good news I have a boy on
the way, testosterone coming, amen. And here's the weird thing and
fellas I don't know if you can relate to this. But this strange thing that
happens in my home and marriage and I cry and watching something
and the emotions get to me and my eyes water and I look at my
wife and she's got this interesting look on her face
like -- She's excited. And I am crying and emotional
and upset and giddy and happy like I won the lottery, and so
excited for me. Any fellas relate to this -- a
couple of guys, and it's a strange phenomena. I don't know what to make of it,
I have a welcoming environment to weep and cry in home. And that's an emotion and Christ
says to come to me heavy laden and cast your cares on me. But not okay with the grumbling
and complaining and not good with that. And see that from Job in the 35
chapters and here's the difference, and grieving and
grumbling is the same. Here's the thing, with grumbling
and complaining there is underlying current of discontent
and allocation and judgment, it sounds like this, this isn't
fair. Why is this happening to me? I don't deserve this. Why didn't it happen to
so-and-so instead of me. You see you have to be careful
with our grumbling. As we continue down this road,
if this is what we do with our pain, that grumbling turns into
complaining and then we are saying, God you are not doing a
good job of running the universe. In fact if I was in charge, God,
I would do things differently. Because this isn't fair what is
happening to me, this isn't right. You see God is not quite good
with that one, he's convinced as the one that created the
universe and everything in it, that he's the one that should be
in charge. You see here's the problem and
here's the lie that we tell ourselves that we would somehow
do a better job determining all the things that happen in our
lives. And we realize that we can't
control what is happening and how to respond to those things. Somehow we believe that we would
do a better job of deciding our fate in the world. But in our weakness and humanity
and the way that we dispense judgment through impatience
through force. Someone does something harsh to
us and we want to return that to them and something extra don't
we. We decide that justice is
throwing someone away for life. We have come up in society with
the death penalty. Something that we in humanity
do. And the way that we combat evil,
we do evil things ourselves. And by doing evil we become
evil. You see when we say, God we
would do a better job sitting on the throne of the universe, we
are saying you are not doing a good job. But the sad truth and irony
wouldn't become another God, we would become another Satan. You see this has played out once
before, the lie from the beginning, and that serpent
talked to Adam and Eve in the garden, God is holding out on
you. And every day we are buying that
lie and eating that fruit and thinking that we in our
knowledge know best and we and decide right and wrong and made
in his image, we think we know better. And to allow pain to be purpose
in our life, we have to start grumbling and allow it to be
grieving in our lives. And Job complains over and over
and God responds in chapters 38 and 39 he responds to Job, he
said you have asked me questions and now I ask you questions. Job get ready for the test, and
this is the part in the movie that EW, this is not going to go
well for Job. And the script is about to be
flipped and God says Job you have been asking me how bad
things are happening. Let me ask you a few questions
Job. Were you there when I set the
foundation of the earth? Are you there to tell the sun
when to rise and when to set? Did you put all of those
constellations in the sky, Job, those giant balls of gas that
emit light and heat to the universe. Did you do that? He takes him on a cosmic tour of
the universe. Do you control the weather and
tell the ocean when to stop? Do you do that Job? Job are you aware of the
mountain lions give birth and do you give them sustenance and
make sure they survive. Are you doing that? He doesn't answer all of Job's
complaints and what he does is shift, the second point in your
notes, we have to shift our perspective. We have to trust God's
perspective over our own. We are so limited in our focus
and what we can understand what is happening in our lives. And when you watch the war movie
and you have ground troops and fighting and they see around the
corner the target, the ridge they are supposed to take or the
town to occupy. And the leader says to give us
the order and we are good to go. And then cut to the screen and
dimly lit and maps everywhere and taking phone calls and
high-ranking officials in the room. And they take that call, their
response here's what I want to do. Stop and turn around and go
around the bend and this to proceed. And the guys on the ground,
we're right here and take time it's right there, we can see it. What that ground commander
doesn't know and realize right around the corner is an entire
battalion of enemy troops and lying in ambush and want to lay
waste to his men. And what that ground leader
doesn't know that command center has Intel from the group on the
battlefield and newer movie satellite imagery, they can see
on the ground, there they are. And it's the same way between us
and God. We see this bad thing that
happens, diagnosis of an illness and lost loved one and loss of
job and all we know is the suffering we are going through
in the moment. But God, God sees so much more. He sees what has happened in the
past for generation that is led up to this moment. He knows every cell in your body
and every hair numbered on your head and sees how things
happening now will ask you for the future. And he sees how connected to the
people around the world, what is happening to you is happening to
people around the world that you don't know and exist and don't
know their names. And God sees that and says, Job
take a look from my perspective. All of a sudden your problems
look differently don't they. And if they we allow God to use
that pain for purpose and good, as the Bible says, we have to
step back and trust God's perspective over our own. And we know this to be true, and
simple question, how many of you at this point in your life you
had something bad happen and in that moment it was bad. And fast-forward weeks and
months or even years. And you can look back and
honestly thank God for that bad thing that happened for all the
good that happened in your life. How many can say that. Look around the room. This is evidence that our
perspective is so limited and we can't trust it and step back and
say I trust how you see things and not how I see things. And we go through this
questioning, right and Job cries out to God and complains and in
chapter 40 Job responds. If you have your Bibles open,
chapter 40 of Job. What would you say if God said
let me ask you a few questions. I think that Job is a pretty
sensible of a guy. And Job 40:4-5, Job said, I have
said too much, I am not going to say anything else. Fellas, can you relate to that
statement. I know that the ladies never
have but we have, and if I say too much it will make it worse. That's a pretty appropriate
response to that line of questioning from God. You are right God, I didn't
create the earth and universe and I have no idea what is
happening around the world. Clearly you do. I am so sorry. And here's the crazy thing, he
responds saying I will not say anything else but he doesn't
apologize and repent or ask for forgiveness in the moment. And this is God showing that our
feelings are real and doesn't want to diminish it. And Job has lost everything,
livelihood and pain and suffering and some of you
experiencing those things. And God has let you for 35
chapters of life to complain to him. And saying hey this moment I
want you to shift your perspective. And of course our response
should be you are I right, I said too much. But Job's pain is real and I
still don't understand why. God I get it that your
perspective is more but this is hard. And God says I will ask you a
couple more questions. We're getting there, we're
getting closer. In verse 7, chapter 40, God
challenges Job again he says... Now you know it's serious when
someone says gird up your loins. If someone says I want to meet
you outside afterwards, don't worry about that but if someone
says gird up your loins, be careful. Put on your best suit Job, in
all of your majesty because I will test you. Verse 11... Here's what God is doing and the
question he is asking us and Job today. I want you to consider everyone
alive, this is thousands of years ago but today 7.7 billion
people on the planet. And consider all the evil things
they do to one another, the despicable things that we do and
consider that and execute perfect justice at the same time
to everybody. Now if you are a parent
inevitably you have had a situation in parenting and you
are doing something and the kids are in another room and all of a
sudden it goes quiet. And instantly your parent radar
goes off and this is not good. Everyone knows that silence is
not good in parenting. Right. And you hear out of the silence
this cry or whack or thud and you respond and part of you I
don't want to deal with this. But you go and you walk into the
room and here's what you don't get. You don't get one of your
children saying, daddy, I was selfish. I took my brother's toy. I am sorry, I repent. Would you forgive me. Like that's never happened in
the history of parenting. Instead what do you get, you
walk in and get the corporate salute. He did it.
Not my fault. I didn't do it. And he stole me toy and hit me. Back and forth. And now you have the
opportunity, the responsibility to step into the throne of the
universe, aka your house, and you get the opportunity to
execute perfect judgment. What do you do? Do you side with Timmy that got
hit or Tommy that got his toy stolen or maybe you are like
Solomon, and rip it out and no one will have that toy. And later there is a voice
inside that asks, did you make the right call? Did you execute perfect justice
there? Did you consider all the factors
of what happened and the emotional state of your kids and
did you exercise grace and mercy or did you do what you felt was
right? And that's just between two
little humans and almost K-people, you know what I mean. And what I got my eye on God
saying all 7.7 billion -- with a "B" on the planet and this is
messy and complex, and that is not fair. And in our limited perspective
that is probably a true statement but when allowing God
he can do perfect justice. In our limited capacity we
respond to evil to match evil. But only God, only God can take
good and evil and work it out for the good in our lives. For those that love God are
called to his purposes. The Bible says. He can transform that bad into
good in our lives and invited us in to replace our grumbling with
grieving and invited Job in the second time and see how to
respond. How would you respond? Challenge the world and if you
are qualified and you are wise enough to save yourself and take
care of the wrongs in your life and decide what is right and
wrong. In chapter 42, after all of this
we get a response from our man, Job. He considers all of these
questions from God and he answers the Lord and he says,
chapter 42:2... You see finally we get that
forgiveness, that request of repentance from Job to God. His perspective is shifted and
allowed God's perspective what he is facing and as painful and
bad as it may be, God can work it out for good in his life. The same opportunity that we
gave us today, to trust God and allow that pain to become
purpose. And don't miss, and caught what
Job said, he said, God I used to hear about You with my ears. Now that I have been through
this path of pain with You, God and You comforted me and showed
me Your perspective, I don't just hear but see with my eye
that You are good and faithful. And the final point if we trust
God with our pain we can allow pain to take us from a place of
believing to knowing. And there is power in knowing. What does that look like? What is the difference? Look at the disciples. They walked with Jesus three
years and saw the miracles and when Jesus asked who am I. And Peter replied you are the
Messiah and believed that you are the one to usher in God's
kingdom. And then Jesus arrested and
beaten and mocked and crucified and then he dies. And then what do the disciples
do in response? In their limited capacity of
belief, they ran and flee and denied knowing Jesus as a
friend. But then Jesus rose. He defeats death once and for
all, defeats sin once and for all and paid the price. And sees the resurrected body
and that pain that we lost everything and banked our lives
on is falling apart. But through that pain God worked
on them and went from believing to knowing. And starting with the church, we
wouldn't be here but for the disciples. And each of them sold out for
Christ no matter what happened and they were going to follow
Jesus and led them to a martyr's death. And there is so much power to
allow pain to be that pathway from believing to knowing. And here's the thing, none of us
given the opportunity would choose it. Because pain hurts and no one
raise their hand for heaping pain and suffering, please. And God says for many in our
lives the only pathway from believing to knowing is through pain. But I will be with you, as you
go through that valley of the shadow of death, I will be with
you and imagine more than -- and can do more than you imagine. If we allow pain to be that
path, we can go from afflicted and confirmed and from pain and
triumphant to victory to allow God to move through the pain. And we will do in a moment and
what God asked all disciples to do is celebrate in communion. And it's a confession to say,
Lord I need you and I trust through my pain that you with
work it for purpose. If I give it to you, that will
become a strength in my life. And it will become a testimony
and a battle cry of victory in my life. Before we do that, I want to
give everyone an opportunity and whatever campus you are at to
respond to the invitation today. And God is calling each of us
and the Bible says that He will work all things for good for
those that love God and called to his purpose. God has been calling you every
day, and we have to love God and obey Him and trust Him. So for some of you today that
trusting God looks like this, it says, God I am going to start
trusting You with this pain. This terrible situation I am in,
believing You, You can do something with it. And for others it's saying I
will give You my life, Jesus. I trust that you are the king of
the universe, you are Lord and Savior. And You paid the price so I
could be forgiven and made right with God. I ask everyone to close your
eyes and bow your heads, on all campuses. If that's you today, and you are
in a place and you realize that you need to trust God. You believe today that He can do
something amazing and miraculous through the pain and suffering
you are going through. Or your prayer of trust today is
that I trust You with my very life. And I want you to pray this
prayer with me in the privacy of your own heart. Pray, dear God, forgive me. I am so sorry for thinking
somehow I know better than You. That somehow I can decide what
is right or wrong better than You. So Father I confess and believe
that Jesus is Your one and only son. And Jesus, You died for me so I
could be forgiven. I believe Jesus that You rose
from the dead as You defeated death, You defeated sin once and
for all. I choose in an act of faith to
trust You today, God. I surrender my life to You. Jesus, be my Lord. Be my Savior. I give You my pain today. And the best way I know how for
the rest of my life, I will be follow You. With our eyes closed and heads
bowed in a moment I will count to 3. And invite those that prayed
that prayer to stand, if you are physically able. And by standing you are
declaring outwardly that you transformed inwardly. And from grumbling to grieving
and shifting your perspective today trusting God. And as I pray and invite you to
stand and to come forward and pray for you and with you and
celebrate communion together. So if that's you, if you prayed
that prayer. Saying, I trust You today God. And on the count of three, I
want you to stand right where you are. Find someone to stand with you,
grab their hand, they will stand with you. If that's you on the count of
three. One, two, three. God bless you.
Stand to your feet. If God spoke to you during that sermon and you feel like you want to ask Christ to be your savior, it's as simple as A-B-C. Admit and accept that you are a sinner. The Bible says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is Lord, that He died for your sin and rose from the dead. Then confess yourself a sinner and say, "Jesus, please forgive me of my sin." If you would like to ask Jesus Christ to be your savior, just look at me right now, and pray this prayer with me in the privacy of your heart knowing that God knows you and loves you very much. Say, "Dear God, I believe that I am a sinner. I know the penalty of my sin is death. I don't want to die and go to Hell. I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, that He died and rose from the dead for my sin. I confess myself a sinner and ask Him to forgive me of my sin. Jesus, please forgive me of my sin. Fill me with the spirit of God. In Jesus name', amen. If you prayed that prayer, if you just asked Christ to be your savior, we want to know. We want to email you some resources. If you just prayed that prayer with me, to accept Jesus as your savior, click on the link that just appeared. We want to send you some free resources. God bless you, and we will see you in Heaven.
