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"Selected to Struggle"
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Dear Friends in Christ, I’ve been a pastor now for 29 years and I can honestly say that of all the years that I’ve been in the ministry, last year was the toughest for me. Why? Not because of conflict in our church or Voters meetings that got out of hand or financial difficulties that hung over our head – the kinds of things that so many of my fellow pastors seem to struggle with. Rather, last year was so tough because of the very serious and extended health problems that so many in our congregation found themselves dealing with. For example, there was Don Sheppard who eventually died from his, Erlene Hahn, Jenni Balis, Jan Tyberendt, Mary Alice Wright, Margaret Heminover, and many others who faced major health problems that had Vicar Karl and me spending a lot of time at a lot of different hospitals. And leading the pack, there was Jerry Broom who went through something like 9 surgeries in a little over a year, most of which were necessitated by a stubborn fungal infection that the doctors just could not seem to get under control. And though we prayed and prayed for his healing and recovery, those things were slow in coming. And I can remember in one of my many visits with him sharing the story of the man born blind that we’re going to be looking at this morning and talking to him about what it means to be selected to struggle. It’s not the kind of position that any of us would choose for ourselves. I’m pretty confident of that. But it’s a position that most, if not all of us, are going to find ourselves in sooner or later. So I believe this story is definitely worthy of our time and attention this morning as we continue with the sermon series on Jesus that I am currently preaching entitled “The One and Only.” Now in this story we are introduced to a blind man that Jesus and his disciples encountered one day begging alongside the road. In fact, we’re told that this man had been blind since birth. Imagine that! He’d never seen a beautiful sunrise or sunset. He’d never seen his parents. He’d never seen a baby smile or a puppy wag its tail. And when the disciples saw him, they asked Jesus a rather curious and insensitive question. They said: "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" To which Jesus replied: "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” Those were hard words for that man to hear, don’t you think? While the disciples thought along with so many others back then that such an affliction had to be some sort of judgment from God for some terrible sin that either the man or his parents had committed, Jesus sets the record straight. He says, “No, this man has been selected to struggle for the glory of God.” Now for just a moment, I want you to put yourself in the place of that blind man. If you were he, can’t you just imagine yourself thinking, “Great…What an honor…I’d rather have been selected to sing to God’s glory or teach to God’s glory or serve to God’s glory. But to be blind for God’s glory?” That’s a tough pill to swallow, isn’t it? But you know what I see in that, my friends? I see something positive. I see that as an indication that there is purpose in our pain, whether that pain lasts a lifetime or whether it is of short duration. Now let’s be honest with ourselves. We don’t like pain. And most of us will do everything that we can to avoid pain. And yet if we understand that there can be purpose in our pain, if we see our pain as something that God can use for his glory and for the good of other people, that brings a whole new dimension to our suffering, doesn’t it? I remember reading once about some prisoners of war who were given an assignment by their captors to move a pile of wood from where it was sitting to an area probably no more than 50 feet away. The next day they had to move it back to its original spot. The following day they had to move it to where it had been 2 days before. Day after day they were forced to carry out this absolutely menial and meaningless task. And as the days passed, one by one the men began to lose their minds. Since there was no purpose to what they were doing, they could not handle it mentally or emotionally. Well, sometimes when we’re suffering, in fact I would say most of the time we’re suffering, we see no immediate purpose to our pain. All we know is that we hurt and we want to do whatever it takes to get past that hurt. But if we understand that anything that happens to us has to ultimately pass through the loving hands of our sovereign God, what a difference it would make if in the midst of our pain we were to ask ourselves not the question that most people ask, namely, Why? as in Why me? but the question How? as in How can God receive glory through this? Perhaps nobody understood this better than the Apostle Paul. Talk about one who had been selected to suffer for the glory of God! In 2 Cor. 11:24-28 he gives what I like to call his catalog of sufferings that he had endured ever since he went from persecutor of the Christian faith to preacher of the faith. You think your life has been tough lately? Listen to what Paul says about his. He says: “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.”
As if all that wasn’t enough, in the very next chapter of 2 Corinthians, chapter 12, he makes reference to what he calls a thorn in the flesh. He describes it as a messenger of Satan that had been given to him to torment him. Though we don’t know what this was, most Bible scholars believe it was most likely some physical affliction that Paul felt was hindering him from being an effective witness for Christ. So he says: “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’”
That’s God’s way of saying to Paul, “I know that it’s tough to hurt. I know it’s no fun to struggle. But sometimes I can use you in greater ways while you are suffering than if you had never suffered.” And as Paul comes to grips with that, he says: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Paul understood that there was purpose in his pain. But he also understood something else, namely, that there was promise in his pain, God’s promise that through Jesus, the One and Only, the pain would one day end, not in death, but in life, the eternal life that Jesus had purchased and won for us through his pain, through his own suffering and death that took place on the cross. Keeping in mind all those sufferings that we heard Paul enumerate before in 2 Cor. 11 and 12, he writes these incredible words in Rom. 8:18: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.” You know what we call that, my friends? We call that living life with an eternal perspective. That’s what Paul did. He lived his life with an eternal perspective. He kept his eyes focused upon Jesus as the one and only one through whom eternal life could be his. And he kept his eyes focused upon his eternal home which the Apostle John describes for us in Rev. 21:4 when he says that God “will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." And listen, my friends, because there is purpose in our pain and promise in our pain, you know what else we can find? We can find peace in our pain. One person who illustrates this so well for us and serves as a modern day example of one who has been selected to suffer is Joni Eareckson Tada. Some of you have heard of her. A diving accident at the age of 17 left her a quadriplegic for life. Nearly ¾ of her 60-plus years have been spent in a wheelchair. And though at first she was not happy about this, in fact, she was very angry and upset with God that he had allowed this to happen to her, now she praises God that he selected her to struggle because she knows that she has been able to reach far more people with the saving Gospel of Christ than what she’d ever been able to reach had she been healthy and lived a normal life. Though her handicap is major, it doesn’t keep her from writing to the glory of God, painting to the glory of God, and speaking and singing to the glory of God. Nor did it keep her from marrying Ken, though it almost kept her from experiencing the joy that every bride longs for on her wedding day. As she tells the story, a ramp had been constructed in the church where they were married so that she could guide her wheelchair down the aisle and up to her groom at the appropriate time. But as she was waiting her turn, she happened to look down and she saw that across the bottom of her beautiful bridal gown there was a big black grease mark, courtesy of her wheelchair. About that time her bouquet of flowers that had been perfectly placed on her lap slid down between her leg and the chair, her paralyzed hands unable to do anything about it. Then it was time for her to begin her procession down the aisle. As she inched her chair forward and looked down the aisle, it happened. She caught sight of her groom. She describes what that moment was like in one of her books: “I spotted him way down front, standing at attention and looking tall and elegant in his formal attire. My face grew hot. My heart began to pound. Our eyes met and, amazingly, from that point everything changed. How I looked no longer mattered. I forgot all about my wheelchair. Grease stains? Flowers out of place? Who cares? No longer did I feel ugly or unworthy; the love in Ken’s eyes washed it all away. I was the pure and perfect bride. That’s what he saw, and that’s what changed me. It took great restraint not to jam my ‘power stick’ into high gear and race down the aisle to be with my groom.” Did you catch that, my friends? When she saw her groom, she forgot about herself and all her problems. I believe the same will hold true for you and me, my friends. When we finally behold our Heavenly Bridegroom Jesus, the struggles that we once thought were so big and ugly will no longer be noticed as he will receive us into that perfect, pain-free, problem-free life that we earthbound human beings can really only dream about and long for, a life that he is even now preparing for us, a life that the Apostle Paul describes for us in I Cor. 2:9 with these incredible words of anticipation that I would like to end with: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” May these words find a place deep in your heart and be at the center of your thoughts those times in your life when you are selected to struggle. Amen.
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