DEALING WITH ONGOING SINS AND THE POSSIBILITY OF CHANGE

Do you ever get angry, frustrated, and impatient with yourself and the way you are? I have long standing, default responses in my heart that I truly despise and grieve over. How about you. Whether you are in your twenties or sixties like me, you probably have some long-standing heart responses you don’t like. These are like reflexes. They are default responses. They are natural habits birthed out of sin. You don’t choose them or plan them. They spring up unintentionally from your heart, usually in response to the people and situations around you.

Your response may be anger, anxiety, envy, resentment, self-pity, disgust, frustration, pride, discouragement, lust, irritability, impatience, hard-heartedness, rudeness, unkindness, withdrawnness.
When any one of these attitudes springs up unbidden, you hate it.

Paul describes your experience this way in Romans 7

¹⁵ For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶ Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. ¹⁷ So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. ²² For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, ²³ but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:15-21)

There are battles I have fought it for years with the word and the spirit and prayer trusting in the blood of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit to cover it and conquer it. Yet, still it returns. You weep over it, resolve to change and be different, pray asking God to take it away, and ask your closest friends to pray for you. Sometimes there is a short season of reprieve and suddenly, there it is again stamping you. Telling you: This is who you are. You will never change. You say no. In Christ, this is not who I am. His stamp is on my life. True.

But on a personal, experiential  note, you would be thrilled to be completely victorious and be done with this! you want to be new, really new, through and through! Not in such a limited way.
Is there a remedy? Is there a key?

Yes! There are a thousand remedies and keys!
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That is because “every Scripture is profitable for training in righteousness” so that we might be “complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Every verse in the bible is exceedingly profitable. Thousands of them.

What does this mean? Do not be discouraged. Do not despair. Do  not doubt that you cannot change. Do not lose hope. Never give up.

Why?

Because you don’t know what word of God will suddenly (or gradually) be used by the Holy Spirit to give the long-awaited and long desired victory. God has his reasons for why he allows us to fight so long. Only He knows what they are (Deuteronomy 29:29). But he never intends us to give up on Scripture to be His primary means of changing and transforming us.

Don’t give up the fight. God’s designs are to bring a surprising verse into your heart in a surprising moment in a surprising situation and do a surprising work of transformation. I am thrilled that there is an immeasurable moment when the Word of God can suddenly change you.

For example, you may be reading one morning and see for the hundredth time Psalm 90:12, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” It happened to me after my near death and my Father's death the past two weeks. Suddenly, in a way that never happened before you feel how utterly short and fragile and uncertain and precious your life is. You feel, as never before, the connection between a wise way of life and the shortness of life, and in that surprising awareness of death,that deeply felt awareness, you recall what James says about wisdom. You have never made this connection before in your whole life. You recall that James says, “the wisdom from above is gentle and full of mercy” (James 3;17). Then you sense what God is doing. All your life, you have struggled with being critical rather than merciful. Your reflexes are not merciful, and now, God is touching you at a place you have never been touched before. He’s making a connection in your heart that you have never made before. The connection between your coming death and your unkindness. Suddenly, you are awakened to a new possibility, a new way of responding.

What is God is doing now? He is awakening in you a new possibility of life. He is opening you to a kind of mercy and gentleness and forebearance and peace and kindness that could actually begin to feel natural to you. The shadow of your own death is softening you. The numbering of your days is shaping in you a humble, gentle, heavenly wisdom. Your heart is actually softening.It s a miraculous work of the Word and the Spirit conforming you into the very image of Jesus Christ.

This long-standing struggle with the reflexes of hard-heartedness, and unmercifulness, is suddenly (or gradually) different. My closeness to death and my Father's death is doing a strange and sweetening and wonderful work.

Will it last? Perhaps. If not, there are 999 more verses waiting to do their surprising work. You do not know what victories await. Read on. Pray on. Believe all things. Hope all things. And know that victory and change is coming. “Every Scripture” is profitable. God is not done with you.

“O Lᴏʀᴅ, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!” (Psalm 39:4).

THOUGHTS ON MY DADDY'S DEATH AND MY NEAR DEATH

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.  ² Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.  ³ You return man to dust and say, "Return, O children of man!"  ⁴ For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as, a watch in the night.  ⁵ You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning:  ⁶ in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.  ⁷ For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed.  ⁸ You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.  ⁹ For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh.  ¹⁰ The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.  ¹¹ Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?  ¹² So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom." Psalm 90:1-12

 

The past ten days I was involved in a motorscooter accident, that should have either killed me or left in a coma, and my dear father, Colonel Don Robison, suddenly died three days later. I have been deeply reflective on the fact that last Monday was my father's last day on earth. Ten days ago could have been my last day on earth, but here I am writing this blog, a little beat up and bruised, but alive.

 

I am thankful that my father lived a long life of almost 84 years. It was his time to go. Spurgeon has given me great comfort in what he wrote about the loss of a loved one:

 

Suppose you are a gardener employed by another. It is not your garden, but you are called upon to tend it. You come one morning into the garden, and you find that the best rose has been taken away. You are angry. You go to your fellow servants and charge them with having taken the rose. They declare that they had nothing to do with it, and one says, "I saw the master walking here this morning; I think he took it." Is the gardener angry then? No, at once he says, "I am happy that my rose should have been so fair as to attract the attention of the master. It is his own. He has taken it, let him do what seems good." It is even so with your friends. They wither not by chance. The grave is not filled by accident. Men die according to God's will. Your child is gone, but the Master took it. Your husband is gone, your wife is buried—the Master took them. Thank him that he let you have the pleasure of caring for them and tending them while they were here. And thank him that as he gave, he himself has taken away."

  My own mortality and the loss of my father has made me realize the closeness of death like never before. Death snatches us all. In Hebrews 9:27 we are told, “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.” In Ecclesiastes 7:2 Solomon wrote, “For death is the destiny of every man.”

 

How do you feel about your death? Are you prepared for your own inevitable last day of your life?  Jonathan Edwards.lived his life by 70 resolutions to help focus his thinking. Several were in regards to thinking about his own death:

#7 Resolved, never to do anything which I would be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.

#9 Resolved, To think much, on all occasions, of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.

#17 Resolved, that I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.

#19 Resolved, Never to do anything which I would be afraid to do, if I expected it would not be above an hour before I should hear the last trump.

An entry in his diary reads: Monday, Feb 24, 1724. Let everything have the value now which it will have on a sick bed; and frequently, in my pursuits, of whatever kind, let this question come into my mind, How shall I value this on my deathbed? “   Jonathan Edwards lived with an awareness of his death. I’m asking myself I do this. I wonder if you live aware of your death as well? Does this affect your daily actions?

I have had a reality check, that has caused me to do some real thinking about my life. Listen to the insight God gave to Moses. Standing on THE SHORES OF THE Jordan River. Moses looks over the Promised Land and cries “Lord teach us to number our days!”  “Let me be aware of  the limitations of my life. Let me have a outlook on my death and my life. Let me remember.

 

"Happy is he that always has the hour of death before his eyes, and daily prepares himself to die." Thomas A. Kempis

“Teach us to number our days”  Moses paints a picture of life being like a book. Each day is a new page. Each night another page is turned. We don’t know when the final page will be turned. Moses says, “You return man to dust and say, "Return, O children of man!... You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning:in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers… The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away." (Verses3,5-6,10) Moses concludes: “Teach us to number our day’s.” Little children don’t number their days; they don’t think about the reality that they will die. Most teenagers don’t either; rather they are indestructible and immortal.  When someone close to us dies we are shocked, especially if they are our age or younger. Every day someone dies. We sneak a peak at the obituaries, we hear the news, we see it on T.V.. Yet we still deny it will happen to us. Though we deny it, it means nothing to it, since death doesn’t have to ask for our permission. Death is coming and everyday is someone’s last.  In spite of the prevalence of death, we prefer not to talk about it. Most of us recognize that we will eventually die, but this recognition is reserved for a distant event decades from now, not today, not this week, not this month, not this year.  Death is a foreigner, not a close neighbor.

William Law wrote that the living world's brilliance blinds us from eternity and the reality of death.  "The health of our bodies, the passions of our minds, the noise and hurry and pleasures and business of the world, lead us on with eyes that see not and ears that hear not."'

It is this unexpectedness of death that should encourage us to take a second look, to reconsider our pleasant denial, to admit that, yes, death might visit us as early as this week. Jesus tells a story that illustrates this. Luke 12:15-21, “Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' "Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."

General William Nelson, a Union general in the Civil War, was consumed with the hostilities in Kentucky when a brawl ended up in his being shot in the chest.  He had faced many battles, but the fatal blow came while he was relaxing with his men.  As such, he was caught fully unprepared.  As men ran up the stairs to help, the general had just one request: "Send for a clergyman; I wish to be baptized." He never made time as an adolescent or a young man and he was too busy as a general, with too many pressing concerns.  In half a second, the general's priorities had been turned upside down.  The war raged on, but suddenly his interest had been captivated by another world.  Who cared about Robert E. Lee now?  And it was too late to bother with a doctor.  Get me a clergyman!  With only minutes left before he died, the one thing he cared about was preparing for eternity.  He wanted to be baptized.

Thirty minutes later he was dead. How was this general served by the remembrance of death?  Hardly at all, because he remembered it too late. To help us avoid such a gross oversight, Thomas A Kempis urged, "Thou oughtest so to order thyself in all thy thoughts and actions, as if today thou were about to die. What ways shall I wish that I had taken when I am leaving this world?"'

When we find out we have only thirty minutes left to live, as General Nelson did, we can't do much more than prepare our own souls.  Even worse, the moment of death could prove that our whole life has been a lie.  The thought of  death came too late for the fool and the general.  Will it come too late for us? When confronted with the reality of death, it is amazing how we begin to see what is really important in life.  That is why young people give little thought to the significance of their lives, while the elderly think about it all the time.  In the face of the end of life, questions about its significance loom large.  There comes a time when we stop denying our death and start numbering our days.  Do you?

Moses goes on and writes, “that we may get a heart of wisdom.”  What is a heart of wisdom? Let’s look at the opposite. It is one who does not number his days aright. The fool who lives in denial of death! “The heart of wisdom is the one who lives his or her life in view of the reality of their death.”  I want to challenge us to look death in the face, to seize its reality, and make it the very tool that inspires us to live.

 

Deuteronomy 32:29, “If they were wise, they would understand this; they would discern their latter end!”  Psalm 39:4,  “O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!”  Ecclesiastes 9:10, “ Whatever your hand finds to do, do  with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.”  Ephesians 5:15-17, “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” What happens when we reflect on our death?

1. Reflecting on our death refocuses our perspective 

 

Remembering my death is acting like a filter, helping me to hold onto what is essential and to let go of what is trivial. Why let trivial things capture our hearts?  When we forget death we lose perspective. Eternity turns everything around.  On judgement day I suspect, the things that bother us now, that force us out of our agenda's and schedules-taking the time to help someone, reading our bibles-will be the very things we deem most important.  We may not remember the t.v. show we skipped, the surf session we missed to do God's will, but in eternity we'll be so g!ad we did.

 

A group of 50 elderly people over 95 years old were asked one question: “If you could live your live over again, what would you do differently?” The three most dominant answers were: I would reflect more, I would risk more, I would do more things that would live on after I am dead. When confronted with the reality of death, it is amazing how we begin to see what is really important in life. 

2. Reflecting on our death filters our passions and priorities

 

What person in his right mind would continue contemplating an affair if he knew he wasn't going to wake up the next morning?  What person would risk eternity in a drunken stupor? What fool would ignore his loved ones and his God for one last night so he could make an extra thousand bucks just before he died? "Death is the best rule which we can make for all of our actions and undertakings.” Fenelon When we schedule our priorities and follow our passions without regard to eternity we are essentially looking out of the wrong end of the telescope.  Instead of seeing things clearly, our vision gets distorted.  We miss the big picture.  It will cause us to continue rebelling against God thinking later on we'll set things right, then death comes and surprises us, because we soon forgot we were presuming.

 

Remember Jonathan Edwards 17^th resolution? "Resolved that will live so, as wish I'd done when come to die." Paul exhorts Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:5-8, “But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, and discharge all the duties of your ministry.  For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have kept the faith.  Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day- and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” 

 

Jesus teaches us in the parable of the talents that each person's perspective affected how they lived.  "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.  Come and share your master’s happiness!” (Matthew  25:21-30) John Maxwell says, "In order to hear well done from the Lord, we have to well do for the Lord.  John Mason says, “Do today what you would postpone until tomorrow.”  The only thing that comes to a procrastinator is death. Do it now! Start living for God, start serving Him and His people. Find out His will and do it.

How to keep death alive-“Remember”

 

When my dad died last week it reminded me in a way that nothing ever had that one day my body, my bones will be lying in a casket.  My work on earth will be done.  What will matter than?  What should matter now? What should matter in the light of my future death?  I would encourage you all to remember,

1. Remember in reflecting on those who have lived and died before you

Hebrews 12:1-4, “ Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.   In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”

 

We are here for such a limited time, and it may be shorter than I think.  What did their life mean?  What does my life mean? Paul said,

Philippians  1:20-21, "It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not at all be ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

Acts 20:24,  "But I do not count my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God."

2 Timothy 4:7, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

2. Remember Jesus death. 

 

John 19:30, “ When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

 What is your "it"?  What must you accomplish so that, like Jesus, at the Hour of your death you can look up to heaven and say.  "I've been faithful."?  Thomas Kempis said,  “Before night; and when evening comes, dare not to promise thyself the next morning.  Be thou therefore always in a readiness, and so lead thy life that death may never take thee unprepared …”  

3. Remember we glorify the Lord by our death 

 

"Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go." Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, "Follow Me!" (John 21:18-19)  Jesus told Peter about the fact that he would die in his service. It was indirect, but Peter probably got the message. And who knows what look was on Jesus' face when he said it. But such is the price of following Jesus Christ. This isn't so different from what he predicts for each of us. "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate . . . his own life, he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26). "He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal" (John 12:25). "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me" (Matthew 16:24). "They will put some of you to death, and you will be hated by all because of My name" (Luke 21:16-17). 

 

 John said Peter's death was to glorify God, "This He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God." The way John said this seems to show that he considers all our deaths as appointed for the glory of God. The difference is: with what kind of death will we glorify God?  Are you ready for this? Will you show God great in the way you die? Will you say like Paul, "To live is Christ and to die is gain"? Will you call this ugly, defeated, torturing enemy sweet names? Will the loss of all your earthly family, friends, and possessions fade at the prospect of seeing and being with Christ?

Are you ready for the end of time? Psalm 90:12, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. ”  Ecclesiastes 7:2 "Death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart" 

It’s been said, “When you were born,' he said, you alone were crying and everybody else was happy.  Live your life in such a way that when you die you alone going to be happy, leaving everybody else crying. ?  Jonathan Edwards resolved, “Resolved to live with all my might while I live!”Are you ready for the day of time?

 

JESUS SPEAKS TO MY WIFE'S DISABILITY Part 2

"As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. ² And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” ³ Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. ⁴ We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work." John 9:1-4 ESV

Last week I mentioned that I have a wife who suffers from a serious disability. I break down her daily experiences into 3 categories: really bad days, bad days, and good days. Most of her good days turn into bad days because on her good days she tries to do the things she used to do and pays the price in suffering for days. Living day in day out with her suffering has raised serious questions within my soul. Last week I wrote on what Jesus would have to say to her about her suffering.

We saw Jesus encountering a man who was blind from birth and Jesus noticed him. His disciples noticed Jesus noticing him and asked Him a question, "who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’”

How does Jesus answer it? Verse 3, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents.” He answers their question but not in the categories that they are using. They want an explanation for this man’s blindness and he gives it to them. But they ask for the explanation in the categories of cause. What is it in the past that caused the blindness? Who's fault is it? But Jesus says that won’t work, and he gives them an explanation in the category of purpose. Not what’s the cause of the blindness, but what’s the purpose of the blindness?

In other words, this blindness, this specific suffering, is not owing to the specific sins of the parents or the man himself. Don’t look there for the explanation. There are no pat answers to the question of human suffering. Then he tells them where to look.

Look for an explanation of this blindness in the purposes of God. Look for an explanation to your own disability, hardship, and suffering in the purposes of God.

Let me address an objection at this point. There are some pastors and teachers who dislike intensely the idea that God might will that a child be born blind so that some purpose of God might be achieved. One of the ways they try to escape the teaching of this text is to say that Jesus is pointing to the result of the blindness, not the purpose of the blindness. When Jesus says in verse 3, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him,” he means, the result of the blindness is that God was able to use the blindness to show his work, not that he planned the blindness in order to show his work. I understand emotionally why they would want the passage to say this. But to me there are at least three reasons why that won’t work.

1.One is that The disciples are asking for an explanation of the blindness, and Jesus’ answer is given as an explanation of the blindness. But if you say God had no purpose, no plan, no design in the blindness but simply finds the blindness later and uses it, that is not an explanation of the blindness. It doesn’t answer the disciples’ question. They want to know: Why is he blind? And Jesus really does give an answer. This is why he’s blind, there is purpose in it. There is a divine design. There’s a plan. God means for his work to be displayed in him.

2.Here’s another reason that suggestion doesn’t work. God knows all things. He knows exactly what is happening in the moment of conception. When there is a defective chromosome or some genetic irregularity in the sperm that is about to fertilize an egg, God can simply say no. He commands the winds. He commands the waves. He commands the sperm and the genetic makeup of the egg. If God foresees and permits a conception that he knows will produce blindness, he has reasons for this permission and those reasons are his purposes, His designs, His plans. God never has met a child from whom he had no plan. There are no accidents in God’s mind or hands.

3.And third, Any attempt to deny God’s sovereign, wise, purposeful control over conception and birth has a head-on collision with Exodus 4:11 and Psalm 139:13 “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?’” “You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” So what does Jesus say His purpose for suffering here in John 9? The meaning of Jesus in John 9:3 is not obscure. He is saying to the disciples: Turn away from your fixation on causality as the decisive explanation of suffering and turn away from any surrender to futility, or absurdity, or chaos, or meaninglessness and turn to the purposes and plans of God. There is no child, no blind man, and no suffering outside God’s purposes. “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents.” This blindness came about “in order that that the works of God might be displayed in this man.” This is not the whole explanation of suffering in the Bible. There are dozens of other relevant passages and important points to make, but this passage and this point are massively important.

 There is one main truth in the words of verse 3,The blindness is “that the works of God might be displayed in him.” That truth is that suffering can only have ultimate meaning in relation to God. Jesus says that the purpose of the blindness is to put the work of God on display. This means that for our suffering to have ultimate meaning, God must be supremely valuable and precious to us and that the manifestation of the works of God has a value, that in this case, outweighs years and years of blindness. It is more valuable than seeing, health, and life. Psalm 63:3 says, "Your steadfast love is better than life." Being loved by God, and being with Him forever, is better than having eyes, seeing, and being alive in this world.

Many things in the Bible will make no sense until God becomes your supreme value. For Jesus, blindness from birth is sufficiently explained by saying: God intends to display some of his glory through this blindness. In this case, and many times it happens to be in healing, the glory of God’s power to heal. But there is nothing that says that it always has to be healing. This is so important for so many who suffer and for whatever reason God chooses not to heal.

 

Let me say that I joyfully, passionately, prayerfully, and expectantly believe in the healing power of God like we see in our story. I pray for my wife Terri every day for Jesus to heal her and regularly am expectant for it to come, yet still no healing. I have already prayed twice today for her healing.

 

When Paul cried out three times for his thorn in the flesh to be healed, Jesus said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). I will put my power on display, not by healing you, but by sustaining you. Same power, but different manifestation. In other words, healing grace displays the works of God in John 9, and sustaining grace displays the works of God in 2 Corinthians 12. What is common in the two cases is the supreme value of the glory of God. The blindness is for the glory of God; the thorn in the flesh is for the glory of God. The healing is for his glory, and the non-healing is for his glory.

 

Suffering can only have ultimate meaning in relation to God. If we don't believe that, then saying God has good and wise purposes in Terri's suffering will bring her no comfort. But if we believe it , not only will God's purposes comfort and strengthen us in all our pain, loss, and sorrows, but they will make us able to patiently and gently help others through their own times of darkness. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen god display His grace in and through Terri in sustaining her in her pain. I have seen my wife in some of lowest moments manifest the works of God as she would minister to others going through dramatically lessor pain and suffering than her and bring them strength and comfort.

 

Only God knows why we go through what we go through, but the promise is that He brings good out of everything that befalls us (Romans 8:28) and uses the worst pain, the worst suffering, the most confusing events of our lives to bring about ultimately, His glory whether in healing or sustaining. The blind man's life is a classic illustration of days, months, and years going by until it finally resulted in glory! (Romans 8:18, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.")

 One last observation. Verse 4, “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.” This means two things: One is that the works of God referred to in verse 3, “that the works of God might be displayed”, these works of God will be done through the hands of Jesus. Jesus is going to heal this man’s blindness. The works of God are the works of Jesus.

Second, he must do this quickly, because night is coming, and his work will be over. Jesus will turn from a ministry of healing to a ministry of dying. He will turn from the day-work of relieving suffering, and do the night-work of suffering himself. He will finally submit totally to the plan of his Father that the Son be swallowed up by the sin and suffering of the world. And if you join the disciples in asking: Why? Who sinned that this man must suffer like this? The answer would certainly be: Not him. We did. That is the cause of his suffering. But it’s not the decisive explanation. The decisive explanation is: He is suffering that the works of God might be displayed in him. The works of wrath-bearing, and curse-removing, and guilt-lifting, and righteousness-providing, and death-defeating, and life-giving, and in the end suffering-removing, totally removing. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). And over every sorrow and every disability and every loss embraced in faith for the glory of God will be written in blood: “This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17–18).

May God give you eyes to see that the display of His works in his Son’s suffering and your suffering and others suffering are all expressions of his love  whether He displays His works in healing you or sustaining you.

Pastor Bill 

JESUS ADDRESSES MY WIFE'S DISABILITY Part 1

"As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. ² And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” ³ Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. ⁴ We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work." John 9:1-4 ESV

 I have a wife who suffers from a serious disability. Living day in day out with her suffering has raised serious questions within my soul. One of the hardest things in life is suffering that we both experience and see in those we love both in terms of intensity and duration. The suffering I observe in my wife has brought her many sorrows and has turned her past four years into loss of career, uprooted her life, financially drained her with her massive doctor bills and tests, emotionally taken its toll, and has turned her life into what she never dreamed or planned it would be. Her life will never be the same again unless the Lord heals her. As a pastor and her husband I have frequently been asked by Terri in tears "why?' What would I do as a pastor and her husband if I had to face that question without a Bible that said nothing about it? What if all I could do is think up ideas on my own about her suffering and disability? What if all I had was my or other human opinions? My wife has had plenty of that and neither mine nor others opinions have helped.

 One of the reasons I believe the Bible and love the Bible is because it deals with the hardest issues in life like my wife's suffering. It doesn’t sweep painful things under the rug, or complex things or confusing things or provoking things or shocking things or controversial things. The Bible is permeated with suffering and sorrow. This is one of the things that make it so believable. It is filled with things that God has said and done to shed light on these sufferings and sorrows. In this story, Jesus meets a blind man and sheds light on his and our suffering.

 I. The Reality of Real Suffering and Disability

 “As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.” (John 9:1)

 We meet a man who was born blind and life has not gone easily for him. We meet his parents later in verse 18, and learn that they were not able to care for him any longer. So he was a beggar. We know that because of verse 8, “The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’”So he was blind and he was desperately poor. Life for him had been very hard.

 Verse 1 says Jesus saw him as he passed by. Oh how I love that word "saw". Jesus sees. He sees you, me, and our pain. He is aware, He notices, and He is attentive to our personal,individual suffering and pain. notice that the disciples saw that he saw the blind man. Verse 2 says, “And his disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’” The disciples look at Jesus and ask Him a theological question. That question is crucial. But notice, the story did not begin with the disciples’ question, or with the disciples seeing the blind man. The story begins with Jesus seeing the man: “As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.” The disciples are engaged because Jesus is engaged. It challenges me to see people who suffer. Oh I want the "seeing" of Jesus stir and touch my own heart to see, to be aware, to be alive to the suffering and needs of those all around me.

These past three years in my own life I have been seen and touched in all my brokenness by an attentive, merciful Savior. It has caused me to "see" my wife in her sufferings with an awareness and attentiveness and compassion that I have never known before. If you want to be like Jesus, open your eyes and see people who suffer. See them and move toward them.

 II. Jesus Redeems Awkward Moments

 When the disciples saw Jesus’ attention to the blind man, they asked for an explanation of his blindness. Verse 2, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
So Jesus is gazing at the blind man and the disciples look at Jesus provokes them to ask a most uncompassionate question. How does Jesus answer it? He answers their question but not in the categories that they are using. They want an explanation for this man’s blindness and he gives it to them. But they ask for the explanation in the categories of cause. What is it in the past that caused the blindness? Who's fault is it? But Jesus says that won’t work, and he gives them an explanation in the category of purpose. Not what’s the cause of the blindness, but what’s the purpose of the blindness?

III. For Jesus, the Real Issue of Suffering That He Addresses Are Not Cause But Purpose

They say in verse 2, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” In other words, what is the cause of this blindness? The man’s sin? Or the parents’ sin? Is this blindness a punishment for the parents’ sin or a punishment for his own sin, some kind of inherited sinfulness already in the womb? I have heard this addressed in terms of some kind of generational cursing passed through the bloodline that has to be broken in some circles. The disciples assume a direct correlation between a specific sin and the man’s disability. Either he sinned in the womb of his mother, or his parents sinned. In short, the reason he suffers is because of his or someone else in his families sin. The disciples have reduced his suffering to two possible options. In logic we call it a false dilemma, an either /or proposition Those are the two explanations the disciples can think of. The notion that sin is the cause of suffering has been perpetuated through the years in many segments of the church. Even if this is not taught directly by the church, those who suffer often feel it is projected upon them by other Christians who delight in identifying the cause of their affliction. And even if we don’t hear this view from others it is a perspective that we hear continually from within ourselves. This kind of thinking is not unlike the way Job’s three friends thought about suffering. Jesus rejects both of them.

Jesus answers their question, but the answer he gives is not about the human who the blindness came from, but what it isleading to. This is of paramount importance. In other words, Jesus says the cause of this disability is not past sin, but future effects. The decisive explanation for this blindness is not found by looking for its cause but by looking for its purpose. Verse 3,Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him."

Ponder a moment the words, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents.” That is very significant. The point Jesus is making is not that suffering didn’t come into the world because of sin. Clearly, the bible says that it did. That’s plain from Genesis 3 and Romans 5:12-14; 8:18–25. If there never had been sin, there never would have been suffering. All suffering in one sense is owing to sin and part of the meaning of the physical horrors of suffering is to reveal the moral horrors of sin. But that is not what Jesus is saying here. Nor is he not denying it. What he is saying here is: Specific suffering is often, and in my humble opinion I would say most of the time, not owing to specific sin.

IV. Jesus Gives An Explanation in the Purposes of God

That is what Jesus is saying here in verse 3, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents.” In other words, this blindness, this specific suffering, is not owing to the specific sins of the parents or the man himself. Don’t look there for the explanation. There are no pat answers to the question of human suffering. Then he tells them where to look.

Look for an explanation of this blindness in the purposes of God. Look for an explanation to your own disability, hardship, and suffering in the purposes of God.

Verse 3, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

There is much to say and discuss on that statement and we will unpack this next week.

Pastor Bill