Mar. 1 – Genesis 29:31-30:24, “This Time I Will Praise the Lord”

Mar. 8 – Dr. Frank Lewis, Mark 4:35-41, “And a Great Windstorm Arose”

Mar. 15 – Genesis 30:25-31:55, “Return to the Land of Your Fathers”

Mar. 22 – Genesis 32:1-32, “Unless You Bless Me”

Mar. 29 – Genesis 33:1-34:31, “And They Wept”

            

I knew a pastor who was great at his job – a gifted preacher, a gentle counselor, an adept administrator. But one Sunday morning, he stood before his large congregation and told them through tears that his child was in the throes of addiction. This pastor and his family had been walking this incredibly difficult road for some time, and it had taken its toll. But a strange thing happened. Instead of scandalizing his church, the pastor’s honesty about his family’s struggles helped to create an environment in which others began to open up about their own issues. Walls of pretense came crashing down. Vulnerability led to confession, comfort, and healing. Many remarked over the years how that trying time had actually made this man an even better pastor and moved his church toward maturity in Christ.

            

No one wishes for trials. No one naturally is inclined toward pain and suffering. And yet, the Bible is clear that Christians will experience tough times just like everyone does. The difference is that Christians have had our perspective on suffering shaped by our doctrine of who God is and how he operates.   

           

I have a friend who pastors a small church in northern Alabama. Their church building burned to the ground a couple years ago. They’d been renting space in a warehouse where they stored all their equipment to set up for services each week. Last week, a thief broke into their storage area and stole everything of value. The pastor emailed his congregation informing them of the news and asked them to pray for four things – 1) that the perpetrator(s) of this crime would come to saving faith in Christ as Lord, 2) that justice would be done, 3) that their equipment would be found and returned, and 4) “pray for our congregation, that we would rejoice, being found worthy to suffer for the name (Acts 5:41). Through many trials, toils, and snares, we press on.” 

            

Billy Graham used to say that mountaintops are for views and inspiration, but fruit is grown in the valley. Most of us know from experience that the truly transformational times in our lives are not easy times. They are often filled with grief and pain. In his love for us, we know that our God allows us to go through hardships in order to make us more like him and bring us more fully into his loving plan for our lives. 

            

In his book The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis observes that “the proper good of a creature is to surrender itself to its Creator,” but points out that “to render the will to which we have so long claimed for our own, is in itself, wherever and however it is done, a grievous pain.” After discussing the “necessity to die daily”, Lewis continues:

 

The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it. Now error and sin both have this property, that the deeper they are the less their victim suspects their existence; they are masked evil. Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt… And pain is not only immediately recognisable evil, but evil impossible to ignore. We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities; and anyone who has watched gluttons shovelling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating, will admit that we can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

 

Thus far in our series in Genesis, we have seen Jacob, the chosen offspring of Abraham, endure many painful situations. His twin brother is bent on killing him. He had been tricked into marrying a woman he did love. He had spent twenty years laboring under the deceptive and selfish oversight of his uncle, Laban. And yet, we who believe that God is sovereign can know that the Lord is working out his good purpose, lovingly and powerfully shaping Jacob into the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. In our sermon texts for this month, we see the most dramatic transformation yet – Jacob encounters God in a life-changing (and name-changing) way. Jacob, who had struggled with so many others over the course of his life, would now struggle with God in such a way that would leave him limping, but blessed. After Jacob wrestles with God through the night, the dawn breaks with divine blessing. His earthly walk would now be marked by his injury, but his heavenly walk would be marked by relationship. The God of his father now becomes Jacob’s God. 

            

My prayer is that, throughout this month, we would learn to persevere through the night of pain until we see sunrise of God’s grace in our hearts. May we all learn, especially when we find ourselves in the valley, to depend solely on the boundless provision of the Lord. “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). 

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Grace and peace,