The Goodness of Affliction

The Goodness of Affliction

(Frasers background) It matters little what the work is in which we are engaged so long as God has put it into our hearts. The faithful doing of it is of no greater importance in one case than in another. The plain truth is that the Scriptures never teach us to wait for opportunities of service, but to serve in just the things that lie next to our hands.’ -- James O. Fraser – Mountain Rain

Looking back over the years, we see how true these words are in our life and ministry. We can get distracted by the future potential of our aspirations that we miss the present opportunities to which God has called us to pursue. And that is true for advantageous opportunities as well as times of opposition and hardship. Even in suffering and trial, God calls us to be faithful to trust Him, and to do the next right thing. Faithfulness in the thing God calls you to is simply what he asks.

As we reflect on our 32+ years of marriage and ministry, we are in awe of how God has used so many unexpected sorrows to grow our understanding of His faithfulness and wisdom. When we have shared the lessons learned through those valleys with our national partners, they have had a far greater influence than we could have imagined. And we often don’t know until years later the impact our responses have had.

Nothing more than affliction and sorrow, grief and despair, and gripping fear exposes what rules us in the inner man. Our hearts desires are most disclosed by pain. But this is a good thing. For our heart is what God is after in our redemption. It is the control center of our lives.

The existence of suffering and pain is a global reality. And no matter where you are in the world, the cries and prayers of the Psalmist ring true and give direction. This morning we’ll look into the mindset of the Psalmist who embraced hardship and trial as a redemptive tool in God’s hands.

Author: Ezra, David, even Daniel…all acquainted with affliction/poverty/pain/hardship/persecution.

In this Psalm we read about the surpassing excellence and treasure of God’s Word. And one particular theme laced throughout this Psalm reflects how God sovereignly uses what we suffer to accomplish His perfect and greater purposes. These passages don’t reflect someone who blindly puts their head in the sand, but rather a person who through the fires of human suffering have proven the character and word of God so much so that they are able to persevere through the storms of life.

‘It is good that I was afflicted that I might learn your statutes (binding nature, and force).’ Psalm 119:71

God’s word is referred to in this Psalm by 8 different terms. The Law, testimonies, precepts, statutes, commandments, ordinances, Word, promises. The Psalmist is reminding us that it is God’s word, His truth which reveals the functional design, if you will, of how humanity is to live in God’s world in relation to Him, and in relation to other image bearers. This is the moral and ethical foundation of how any society can flourish. To try and live in God’s world any other way will result in brokenness and defeat, ultimately leading to not only physical but also spiritual death.

The way in which God’s Word has comforted and directed our lives through hardship have prepared us to teach, counsel, and encourage our national partners in ways that no book or course could provide.

Not only is what we teach important, but how we live out those truths before others. It is sobering to realize just how much others are paying attention to our reactions, responses, and attitudes.

This morning I want to encourage you with some of those treasures of wisdom by looking at a few select passages on affliction. We’ll mostly be in Psalm 119, but look at a couple of other passages as well.

1. The Word of God prepares us for affliction.

Psalm 119:89-92 – If you law had not been my delight I would have perished in my affliction

CCC Aug- 95 – Lukewarm…Prayed - ‘Do whatever it takes to make our hearts yours’.

§ Ensuing loss of Jonathan

§ Our response was solely from the Gospel – We grieved, but not as those without hope.

§ We knew that God was just, good, and had a perfect purpose in our suffering, though we did not know what it was.

Corrie Ten Boom – ‘Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.’

2. Affliction opens our ears – Gets our focused attention!

Job 36:18 – (Eli-hu) He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity.

• Field-team 2006 (Keep generalized) – Within first 20 min of first team mtg – something is wrong. First few months sorting through things, weeping, struggling with the fear of man, sorting through my priorities.

• Psalm 119:50 - This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.

• God’s word reoriented my self-loving, conflict fearing heart to love God’s glory more, and their conformity to Christ became my loving desire. We also grew in how to help national pastors facing similar conflicts in their churches.

3. Affliction returns us to God’s pathways.

Psalm 119:67 Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.

• Wayward child (2003) Where is our confidence? – in our parenting methods, or in God.

• Poured into God’s Word and reoriented my heart around the grace-abounding truths that God brings about the new birth (John 1:12-13; John 3).

• Galatians 1:13-16 – God’s timing is perfect, and reliable.

4. God’s faithfulness is behind our affliction.

Psalm 119:75 I know, O LORD, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.

• It was likewise unsettling to the Psalmist who wrote this (Ezra/Dan). His nation has suffered judgment by the Lord via various other nations. He was swept up into captivity, and yet saw the Lord restore Israel according to God’s promise to the prophets prior to their exile.

• This stanza begins by these admissions: Psalm 119:73-74 - Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments. 74 Those who fear you shall see me and rejoice, because I have hoped in your word.

• Ka*** story – Gospel was preached, and he grew to trust God even more.

• Ultimately, God’s faithful purpose in these afflictions is to transfer our reliance on ourselves to God alone.

• Sometimes our afflictions are self-inflicted. Consequences of our own sin. And God uses them to break our enchantment with sin to be restored to the wellspring of His living water.

Ezekiel 33:10-11 – 10 “And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, Thus have you said: ‘Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?’ 11 Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? But our afflictions are not always b/c of our sin and rebellion… sometimes we suffer for righteousness.

2 Cor 1:9 – Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death but that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.

• Whatever the reason, God is faithfully restoring us to our ‘right minds’, to the goodness and righteousness of a life lived in the fear of the Lord. Trusting and reliant upon Him.

5. Entrusting our Afflictions to God

Psalm 119:153 - Look on my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law. God sees!

He knows God is just. He knows God is trustworthy, and delights in redeeming the broken to Himself.

The psalmist is acutely aware of his affliction. In fact, earlier in v. 107 he writes, ‘I am severely afflicted, give me life, O Lord, according to your word!’ He is mindful of God’s attentive care!

During the first century, the church suffered violent persecution under Nero, and the persecuted church was dispersed around the Mediterranean. Peter encouraged them: Therefore, let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good.’ (1 Pt 4:19)

In this letter he pointed them to Christ, who as God incarnate suffered for them in such a way that they could look to Him to suffer with them. (1 Pt 2:21-25). Just as Jesus prayed and trusted the Father in His greatest sorrow, so can we as we draw upon the truths that remind us of His faithfulness.

What are we entrusting God with? His promise to use everything in our life to accomplish His stated purpose (Rom 8:29). He is conforming you into the image of the one who saved you.

Some closing thoughts:

Just like we saw from 2 Cor 1, how we suffer reveals what or who we rely upon, who we trust. And our responses are putting on display to a watching world either the truthfulness and reliability of our faith, or the emptiness of it.

Trust that God sovereignly is using affliction to transfer your hope back to the only reliable place in the universe – Himself! He sees, and He is working!

1. Be a student of God’s Word…study the life of Jesus and watch how He lived out His trust in the Father’s counsel. God is good, His ways are wise, and His word is the only source that shows us how to live as He designed

2. Know what God says for every category of life so that you can set your mind to His and retune your affections in his direction. It is only through his Word that the Holy Spirit renews the mind so that we function as He designed. (Col 3:10). Then you will be better equipped to give your life away in His wisdom.

3. Know that God will use your life to bring Him glory as you seek to ‘serve in just the things that lie next to your hands.’

When we set our mind on the things of God, as revealed in His wisdom, we will not be controlled by the context or characters contributing to our affliction, but will learn to look to God who controls our situation and seek his counsel in how best to respond.

Thomas Manton (Puritan):

The law of the Lord is a love letter to the soul, The saints put it in their chests and it gains upon their heart.

If you have not trusted in Christ to save you from your sin and to renew in you a heart by His design…I encourage you to consider that this morning.

Let’s pray.