9-3-2022 West Palm Beach 7th Day BAPTIST Pastor Garfield “The Other Side of Pain” Job 42;12-16

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9-3-2022 West Palm Beach 7^th Day BAPTIST Pastor Garfield “The Other Side of Pain” Job 42;12-16

 

 

Pain brings discomfort. I really don’t know anyone who welcomes pain. When you are in pain, you become distracted, you cannot function properly. The definition of pain includes struggles, disappointments, problems and things we worry about. If I was to ask you if you were going thru struggles, many of you would say yes. Pain alerts a person to the fact that there is a problem with their body. In a spiritual sense, it is the same. Discomfort alerts us to the areas of our lives that need attention. You look at the areas in your life and in your family that cause you discomfort. If we ignore these areas, we will end up in worse pain.

Pain sometimes makes us lose control. We cry out in pain and it doesn’t matter where we are. A pregnant delivering mother is a perfect example. They are in pain and they just want the baby out of them. When you are in pain, everything else seems to stop. We must realize that the pain can lead to something else. In surgery there is pain but that pain leads to you being better off then when the pain first started. We must be patient thru the pain and let God have His work happening thru us. God has you in the circumstance for a reason and there is a lesson, something you are to experience at the end of that pain. Now if you remove that pain then that lesson will need to be repeated for you in one way or another. If there is a certain area of struggle in your life that keeps repeating itself, then something is wrong with how you have been absorbing/processing the lesson and going thru the issue that causes the pain.

In our text with Job, it says that the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. Latter days can be defined as a time after your struggle, the time after your pain. It is the time after you have been thru something too hard to express in words. God said to Job that his latter days would be better than his beginning. There are three stages of life: the former stage, the struggle stage and the latter stage. The question is where are you? Are you experiencing the former time or are you in the time of pain and struggle? Or are you experiencing the latter days? There is an ultimate latter day that will come when Jesus Christ returns and then we will have ultimate joy. While we are on this earth, we go thru cycles of former days, struggles and then latter days. It ends then we think things are fine but here comes another problem. Brothers and sisters, it is time we understand that as human beings, we will forever be vulnerable. We are helpless. The Bible says we are to count it all joy even in the pain. We must change our perspective of pain and see the pain like we are volunteering for a surgery that will remove something form us that has not been beneficial for us. Or it may be to add something to us that will make us better.

We must remember while in the pain, Jesus is faithful and He promised that He would never leave us alone. Whether it is good times or bad times, Jesus is with us. We must believe that God is sovereign and this means that there is nothing that is outside of God’s control. Very often we say, why me Lord? But when we have the right perspective, the question is why not me? I want to remind you of John chapter nine where there was a man born blind. Back then it was believed that if you have struggles then you must have sinned or someone in your family had sinned. Jesus said no one had sinned but it was for God to be glorified. Some of the struggles you are going thru now is so that God will be glorified. We should hold on as our faith is tested, so that we can become perfect. Hold on so God can have His perfect and complete work in us. Jesus gave the blind man instructions to follow and then he was able to see. You may be going thru some challenges right now but it is only a matter of time before you move from those challenges to your latter day. It is only a matter of time before God will come down and make that difference in your life. Some of us have been going thru a struggle for years while serving God and have not seen a solution yet. You are not seeing the end. God told Paul that when he is weak, he is strong in God. In God, Paul became strong.

Brothers and sisters there are some challenges that you are having that will remain with you. What needs to happen is that you need to manage the circumstances you are in. You need to take control of that thing that is causing you pain. You are in charge and not your pain; not your disappointment, not your struggle and not your discomfort. You are in charge. Jesus told the blind man to go wash in the pool. When he did, he could see. This is also saying to us that many times what God has asked of us may appear impossible. But we must trust in the Lord with all our heart. It doesn’t matter how we are feeling. Allow God to have His perfect work in you. The Bible say Job was a perfect man in doing all the things that God required.

Job chapter one tells us about the plan of Satan to impact the people of God. Satan wanted to take away the glory of God. God told Satan that Job was in good standing and that Job would stick with God. Satan complained about the hedges of protection God had around Job. God said He would remove His protection and Satan could do x or y to Job, but he could not touch his soul. The lesson for all of us is that you must experience a latter day no matter what is happening to you right now. There is a time that will come where you will have joy, celebration and liberation. Job experienced in a day what some of us have never experienced in a life time. Trust in the Lord. Have faith in God and Jesus Christ.

 

AMEN