Manchmal schmerzt das Leben einfach. Tod, Krankheit, Arbeitslosigkeit oder eine schwierige Beziehung können unser Leben unerwartet verändern und alles infrage stellen, was wir zu wissen glaubten. Doch inmitten all dieses Schmerzes und dieser Verwirrung sind wir nicht allein.

In diesem TGC-Klassiker, aufgenommen 2019, verknüpft Paul Tripp seine persönliche Geschichte, seine Erfahrung im pastoralen Dienst und biblische Erkenntnisse, um Gläubige zu ermutigen, in Prüfungen an Gottes Verheißungen festzuhalten und mit der Hoffnung des Evangeliums voranzuschreiten.

📝IN DIESEM VIDEO:
0:00 – Einführung und Eröffnungsgebet
1:37 – Persönliche Gesundheitskrise und erste Erfahrungen im Krankenhaus
5:28 – Das Evangelium und das Leiden: Den Nowismus verstehen
10:28 – Die Universalität des Leidens und seine verschiedenen Formen
16:30 – Die Rolle von Theologie und Interpretation im Leiden
25:33 – Fehlende Theologie und ihre Auswirkungen auf das Leiden
41:07 – Das Kreuz Jesu Christi und seine transformative Kraft
50:56 – Die Rolle der Gemeinschaft im Leiden
54:37 – Hausaufgaben zur Vorbereitung der Seele auf das Leiden
58:20 – Schlussgebet und Segen

———

Kapitel 1: Introduction and opening prayer
0:000 – [Paul Tripp] I just want to thank Crossway as we begin. They’re the sponsors of this workshop.
0:088 I want to thank them too for my own partnership with them.
0:1111 I’m very thankful to be working with a publisher that is committed to the gospel and gospel resources, and that partnership has been wonderful for me.
0:2323 Let’s pray as we begin.
0:3030 Lord, we thank you for the stunning wisdom that we find in Your Word.
0:3939 We wouldn’t know how to think were it not for the wisdom on its pages.
0:4646 But we thank you most of all for the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the center of the wisdom of scripture.
0:5555 We thank you that he is, in this moment in us and for us and with us and that gives us a right here, right now, hope.
1:061 Minute, 6 We pray that you’d open our hearts that we would be ready to receive what you have for us.
1:121 Minute, 12 Remove the distractions that are always around us.
1:161 Minute, 16 And I would be so bold to pray that this would not just be the dissemination
1:211 Minute, 21 of biblical information, but would result in heart and life transformation.
1:291 Minute, 29 We pray this in Your sweet and strong name. Amen.
Kapitel 2: Personal health crisis and initial hospital experience
1:371 Minute, 37 August… Or October of 19…2014.
1:471 Minute, 47 Wow. I’m old but I am not that old.
1:541 Minute, 54 Well, my life changed. I didn’t want my life to change.
2:002 MinutenI didn’t plan for my life to change, but my life changed.
2:062 Minuten, 6 I was experiencing some minor, what I thought were physical symptoms and so I called my physician.
2:132 Minuten, 13 He said, „You live in Center City, Philadelphia, right close to Jefferson Hospital, just go to the hospital there.
2:212 Minuten, 21 They’ll check you out.“ We went on a Sunday afternoon. We were quite relaxed.
2:262 Minuten, 26 We stopped at Starbucks on the way for worship.
2:322 Minuten, 32 And went to the emergency room. It was a Sunday afternoon. We watched the Eagles play football.
2:412 Minuten, 41 In 2014, the best place to watch the Eagles was in an emergency room. And I was quite relaxed.
2:502 Minuten, 50 I thought that I would be an outpatient. They would give me some medication and I’d be on my way.
2:572 Minuten, 57 They took me back into the emergency examining room and within a half hour there were heads of five different departments in that room with me.
3:113 Minuten, 11 I could hear conversations that made no sense to me, conversations that were very serious.
3:173 Minuten, 17 And I knew that something was going on that was way, way more dramatic than anything I thought I would experience.
3:293 Minuten, 29 What I didn’t know was that I was in acute renal failure. My kidneys were dying and I did not know it.
3:383 Minuten, 38 The doctors told me if I’d waited seven days, I would have died.
3:453 Minuten, 45 They took me up into my room. And for reasons we still are not sure of, my body went into trauma.
3:563 Minuten, 56 I went into full body spasms that were uncontrollable. That lasted for 36 hours.
4:064 Minuten, 6 It was the most horrendous experience of uncontrollable pain that I could imagine.
4:144 Minuten, 14 I literally screamed for 36 hours. The only thing I could pray was, „God, help me.
4:244 Minuten, 24 God, help me. God, help me.
4:254 Minuten, 25 God, help me.“
4:284 Minuten, 28 My son, 36, would hold on to my feet, trying to just keep my body from literally writhing out of the bed.
4:434 Minuten, 43 That started a 10-day hospital stay because they were trying to save my kidneys.
4:524 Minuten, 52 I thought when I went out of the hospital, that that was a horrible experience. But praise God, I had lived through it.
4:574 Minuten, 57 I had lost 65% of my kidney function, never to return.
5:035 Minuten, 3 Little did I know that was the beginning of two years of travail, followed by six surgeries, a surgery every four months.
5:135 Minuten, 13 If you have a surgery every four months, you don’t recover from the last surgery before you’re in surgery again.
5:235 Minuten, 23 The awareness came along the way that I would never be healthy again in my life, that the strength I once had would not return.
Kapitel 3: The gospel and suffering: understanding the nowism
5:375 Minuten, 37 That I would live forever with a very damaged body. That almost everything in my life would have to change.
5:475 Minuten, 47 The way I approach ministry, just all my daily habits, the way I ate, everything.
5:555 Minuten, 55 Now, here’s what I want to say to you.
5:565 Minuten, 56 When that happens to you, when the unexpected, the unwanted,
6:056 Minuten, 5 the unplanned, the hard and the difficult enters your life, you will always preach
6:186 Minuten, 18 some kind of gospel to yourself, always. Everybody in this room is a theologian.
6:276 Minuten, 27 Everybody in this room is a philosopher.
6:296 Minuten, 29 Everybody in this room is an archaeologist who will dig through the mound of his or her existence in order to make sense out of life.
6:376 Minuten, 37 And so I want to think with you about the gospel, the gospel right here, right now and suffering.
6:496 Minuten, 49 What I want us to focus on is the nowism of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
6:566 Minuten, 56 I think often, we have a pretty clear understanding of the Gospel past and we have a pretty clear understanding of the Gospel future.
7:057 Minuten, 5 But we have a muddy, unclear understanding of the nowisim,
7:107 Minuten, 10 the right here, right now, present benefits, present reality of the person and work and presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.
7:227 Minuten, 22 And my whole mission in ministry, mission in writing, is to connect the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life.
7:317 Minuten, 31 How does the gospel give you a radically different lens on suffering?
7:407 Minuten, 40 And I’d like you to turn in your Bibles, if you have a Bible with you or your iPhone or iPad or whatever weird sad off-brand you’re carrying.
7:527 Minuten, 52 Hopefully, anyone in here is still not carrying a Samsung Note 7, because you’re about to explode.
8:018 Minuten, 1 SekundeAnd turn to Psalm 27.
8:058 Minuten, 5 My attention is not to exegete the Psalm, I just want to anchor our discussion in this wonderful Psalm.
8:138 Minuten, 13 This Psalm has been a friend to me in these days.
8:228 Minuten, 22 “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom should I fear? The Lord is a stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?
8:318 Minuten, 31 When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall.
8:388 Minuten, 38 Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.
8:458 Minuten, 45 One thing I have asked of the Lord, and that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple.
8:578 Minuten, 57 For He will hide me in His shelter in the day of trouble. He will conceal me under the cover of His tent.
9:059 Minuten, 5 He will lift me high upon a rock.“ Scholars that study these things say that this psalm was written in one of two
9:159 Minuten, 15 dramatically significant moments of suffering in David’s life.
9:209 Minuten, 20 Some say that this psalm was written when David was fleeing from the jealous wrath of King Saul.
9:309 Minuten, 30 You know the story that David had been nothing but a loyal servant of Saul,
9:359 Minuten, 35 but the anointing of God was on David, and David was doing amazing things, and Saul was murderously jealous and was out to do David harm.
9:459 Minuten, 45 It was a situation of gross personal injustice.
9:529 Minuten, 52 Or other scholars say that perhaps this psalm was written when David was fleeing from his own son, Absalom, who had conspired to take his father’s throne.
10:0210 Minuten, 2 And if it’s a monarchy, it probably is going to mean the death of the king.
10:0810 Minuten, 8 It’s a situation of horrible family betrayal.
10:1310 Minuten, 13 Now, in one of these two dramatic, difficult moments of suffering, these words are written.
10:2410 Minuten, 24 I want to come back to Psalm 27 in a moment, but I want to begin to get us to think about this topic of the gospel and suffering.
Kapitel 4: Universality of suffering and its various forms
10:3610 Minuten, 36 And here’s the first thing I want to say to you. You can’t escape the reality that the Bible teaches that suffering is not a unique experience.
10:4710 Minuten, 47 It’s not a strange experience. It’s not a surprising experience. It’s not an episodic experience.
10:5410 Minuten, 54 Suffering is a universal human experience.
11:0311 Minuten, 3 In Romans 8, beginning with Verse 18, when Paul discusses suffering, he assumes the universality of suffering.
11:1111 Minuten, 11 He assumes that somehow, someway, all of us will suffer. I can say this to you. This may not be a happy thing to hear.
11:2011 Minuten, 20 But if you’re not suffering now, you’re near someone who is. And if you’re not suffering now, fasten your seat belt. You will, someday.
11:3011 Minuten, 30 And I think when we speak of suffering, we ought to be thinking about and we ought to bring the gospel to the full range of these experiences.
11:4311 Minuten, 43 Suffering can be this 11-year-old who is being bullied in his school so he has his
11:5211 Minuten, 52 heart beating with fear every time he walks into a school building that should be a safe place for him.
12:0212 Minuten, 2 Suffering can be dramatic, physical, body-damaging sickness.
12:1112 Minuten, 11 Suffering can be systemic racism that I have to deal with all the time just because of the color of my skin.
12:2212 Minuten, 22 Suffering can be human betrayal, where wife, one morning, looks at her
12:2912 Minuten, 29 husband’s computer and realizes he’s had a long-term relationship with somebody other than her.
12:3712 Minuten, 37 Suffering can be the encroaching weaknesses of an elderly person’s body as the body begins to fail.
12:4612 Minuten, 46 The Bible says, „You will suffer because God has determined between the already
12:5512 Minuten, 55 of our conversion and the not yet of our home going.“ We are living in a world that’s dramatically broken, that will
13:0513 Minuten, 5 not operate according to the original plan.
13:1013 Minuten, 10 That means, because the Bible says God is sovereign, He chooses the exact place
13:1613 Minuten, 16 where you live and the exact length of our days that the presence of suffering in your life, oh, you got to get a hold of this, is not a failure of God’s plan.
13:2713 Minuten, 27 It’s somehow, someway, contrary than we would like to think part of God’s plan.
13:3313 Minuten, 33 God has chosen this world to be your address. And somehow, someway, suffering will enter your door.
13:4413 Minuten, 44 Don’t think that somehow you can lock out suffering.
13:4913 Minuten, 49 Don’t think somehow, because you’re a child of God, that you have a ticket out of suffering. God knows the address He’s made for your address.
14:0414 Minuten, 4 And we leave people unprepared for the experience of suffering when we don’t treat suffering with the universality that scripture does.
14:1714 Minuten, 17 Suffering is a universal human experience.
14:2114 Minuten, 21 Peter said, „You should not be surprised as if something strange is happening to you.“ Now, there’s a second thing we want to say, is that suffering is never neutral.
14:3914 Minuten, 39 Because you always bring something to your suffering.
14:4514 Minuten, 45 That’s why I said to you earlier, „When you’re hit with the kinds
14:5014 Minuten, 50 of things that David was hit with, you will always preach to yourself some kind of gospel.“
15:0015 MinutenI say this all the time. and when I say it people laugh but I’m really quite serious.
15:0815 Minuten, 8 No one is more influential on your life than you are, because no one talks to you more than you do. So you laughed.
15:1615 Minuten, 16 Some of you did. Some of you are too deeply mature to laugh. You’re way more spiritual than the people who laughed.
15:2715 Minuten, 27 You’re always talking to yourself.
15:2915 Minuten, 29 Most of us learned it’s best not to move our lips when we do that, because they’ll think we’re crazy. And when you’re debating something with yourself, don’t change places.
15:3815 Minuten, 38 They’ll put you away. But you’re always talking yourself.
15:4215 Minuten, 42 And that conversation is profoundly important because the things you say to you about you, about life, about meaning, purpose, about God,
15:5315 Minuten, 53 about his plan, his purpose, are formative of your thoughts and your desires, and your actions, and your words.
16:0116 Minuten, 1 SekundeYou’re always theologizing with yourself. It’s impossible not to.
16:0716 Minuten, 7 Because you were wired by God’s plan to be an interpreter.
16:1516 Minuten, 15 There’s a principle for you here.
16:1716 Minuten, 17 Human beings, made in the image of God, do not live life based on the facts of their experience but based on their interpretation of the facts.
16:2516 Minuten, 25 Let me say that again. Human beings, made in the image of God, do not live life based on the facts
Kapitel 5: The role of theology and interpretation in suffering
16:3316 Minuten, 33 of their experience, but based on their interpretation of the facts. Let me give you… Some of you have heard me elsewhere.
16:4216 Minuten, 42 You may have heard this illustration, a little silly family example of this.
16:4616 Minuten, 46 When my youngest son was three years old, he knew that his daddy had a doctor in front of his name and he knew that I saw people for appointments.
16:5316 Minuten, 53 And he thought that I must be a medical doctor, but I’m not one of those.
16:5916 Minuten, 59 And he’s out in the backyard, wandering around the backyard like three-year-olds do. They live by the Christopher Columbus method, land and discover.
17:0817 Minuten, 8 And he wandered in front of his older brother who had a broken rake handle and was hitting stones over the fence into the neighbor’s yard.
17:1717 Minuten, 17 I always asked him to do that before I mowed.
17:2117 Minuten, 21 And Ethan took a great big swing as Darne walked in front of him, hit him full-swing in the forehead, knocked him down on the ground.
17:2917 Minuten, 29 He began to bleed profusely.
17:3017 Minuten, 30 I knew that something had happened because older sister was acting as the familial siren.
17:3717 Minuten, 37 She just began to scream and she’s running laps around the backyard screaming.
17:4217 Minuten, 42 You know how you can hear the siren go by your house, it’s soft and then loud, then soft again? That was her scream.
17:4817 Minuten, 48 „Daddy, daddy, daddy.“ I ran to the backyard and there’s the perpetrator of the crime holding his bleeding brother, pleading his legal case, „Daddy, am I in trouble?
17:5917 Minuten, 59 How much trouble am I in, Daddy?“ I told him to put little Darne down on the floor. I called for paper towels because he’s bleeding.
18:0718 Minuten, 7 Nicole is screaming. Older brother is now plea-bargaining. „I’ll never go in the backyard again. I’ll never pick up a rake handle again.
18:1518 Minuten, 15 How much trouble am I in?“ I’m thinking, „This is a very bloody scene.
18:2018 Minuten, 20 I may have to call that emergency number, 911.“ I cannot form this number in my mind. I have 999, 111, 919, 119.
18:2818 Minuten, 28 I have all the different combinations but that one. Ethan is now crying. Nicole is screaming.
18:3518 Minuten, 35 I looked down at little Darne. He’s utterly placid at peace. And I notice his little mouth is moving.
18:4218 Minuten, 42 So I put my ear down to his little mouth, and I hear him saying over and over again, „I’m just so thankful my daddy is a doctor.“
18:5718 Minuten, 57 Poor, deluded boy.
18:5918 Minuten, 59 This man can’t even think of a three-digit number, let alone provide for you medical assistance. Now, notice what he’s doing.
19:0719 Minuten, 7 He’s not responding based on the facts of his experience, but his interpretation of facts.
19:1619 Minuten, 16 Write in your notes, „I am a God-ordained interpreter.“ And the way you interpret life is very important.
19:2619 Minuten, 26 Now here, stay with me here.
19:2919 Minuten, 29 I’m afraid this sets up a difficulty for us because often it means that your
19:3719 Minuten, 37 confessional theology, your spontaneous interpretations of life does not agree with your functional theology.
19:4719 Minuten, 47 Your formal, systematic theology does not agree with those spontaneous interpretation of life, your functional theology.
19:5919 Minuten, 59 Listen, I think the enemy of our souls will gladly give us our formal theology if he can capture our hearts.
20:0920 Minuten, 9 Your spontaneous interpretations (are you ready for this?) are actually the theology that is shaping your life.
20:2520 Minuten, 25 So you’re always interpreting, This means for suffering, we never just suffer the thing that we’re suffering.
20:3320 Minuten, 33 We always suffer the way that we’re suffering the thing that we’re suffering. I’ll say that again.
20:4020 Minuten, 40 Some of you are looking at me thinking, „Please.“ We never just suffer the thing that we’re suffering.
20:5120 Minuten, 51 We always also suffer the way that we’re suffering the thing that we’re suffering.
20:5820 Minuten, 58 We have a profound ability to trouble our own trouble.
21:0721 Minuten, 7 Turn back with me to Psalm 27.
21:1621 Minuten, 16 I just want to look at Verse 1. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?
21:2321 Minuten, 23 The Lord is a stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?
21:2721 Minuten, 27 You will notice that Psalm 27, although it’s a psalm of trouble, doesn’t begin with trouble.
21:3621 Minuten, 36 It begins with theology.
21:3921 Minuten, 39 Nothing is more important in a moment of trouble than the true, crisp, reliable theology of the Word of God.
21:5521 Minuten, 55 And the way that David is holding on to his theology here is very important.
22:0122 Minuten, 1 SekundeThe Lord is light.
22:0522 Minuten, 5 In the broadest sense, that word-picture means what is pure, and true, and righteous, and holy.
22:1422 Minuten, 14 The Lord is salvation. In its biggest, broadest term, he delivers from evil.
22:2122 Minuten, 21 The Lord is stronghold, a place of safety.
22:3022 Minuten, 30 The Lord is light. The Lord is salvation. The Lord is stronghold. Now, I’m about to confuse you here.
22:3622 Minuten, 36 But what I’ve given you is bad, unbiblical. It will hurt your theology. Do you know why?
22:4322 Minuten, 43 Does anybody know? Because I’ve left out a word. I left it out three times in Verse 1.
22:5322 Minuten, 53 Do you know what the word was? Anybody? My.
22:5922 Minuten, 59 David is not saying somewhere off out there, there is a God who’s light, somewhere out there there’s salvation.
23:0923 Minuten, 9 Somewhere out there there’s stronghold. He’s not saying that.
23:1423 Minuten, 14 He’s saying, speaking better than he knows, „Glorious grace has connected me to this one who is light.
23:2123 Minuten, 21 Glorious grace has connected me to this one who is salvation. Glorious grace has connected me to this one who is stronghold.
23:2923 Minuten, 29 The Lord is light for me. The Lord is salvation for me.
23:3423 Minuten, 34 The Lord his stronghold for me.“ There better be a my in the middle of your theology.
23:4423 Minuten, 44 Because good theology doesn’t just define who God is. Listen to me carefully.
23:4923 Minuten, 49 Good theology redefines who you are as a child of God.
23:5623 Minuten, 56 You don’t get your identity from your friends. You don’t get your identity from your experiences. You don’t get your identity from your performance.
24:0424 Minuten, 4 you don’t get your identity from your possessions. You don’t get your identity from your health. You get your identity from your theology.
24:1224 Minuten, 12 From what it tells you about who God is and therefore, the glory of who you are as one of his children.
24:2324 Minuten, 23 We cannot hold our theology in an abstract, distant, and personal way. That is a violation of the theology of the Word of God.
24:3724 Minuten, 37 Theology is a shorthand for the story of the Redeemer, who is now in you and with you and for you.
24:4824 Minuten, 48 Theology always connects you to grace. It always connects you to Jesus. It always connects you to his promises.
24:5624 Minuten, 56 And in that way, always defines your identity.
25:0525 Minuten, 5 Now, I’ve already begun talking about this. But I want to I want to talk more about this. One of the ways we trouble our trouble is bad theology.
25:2025 Minuten, 20 Bad theology that doesn’t bring the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the kinds
25:3125 Minuten, 31 of ways that are needed when you’re going through these difficult experiences that expose you to all kinds of temptation.
Kapitel 6: Bad theology and its impact on suffering
25:3925 Minuten, 39 Let me say this. Suffering is spiritual warfare.
25:4725 Minuten, 47 Suffering exposes you to particular seductive and attractive, but devastating temptations.
26:0026 MinutenYou could argue that suffering will always either deepen your faith and your rest
26:0726 Minuten, 7 in God and your affection for your Redeemer, or it will weaken the same.
26:1626 Minuten, 16 Suffering is a battleground. It’s a warfare.
26:1926 Minuten, 19 And so we want to arm ourselves for that battle with the beautiful theology of the Word of God.
26:3126 Minuten, 31 Bad theology doesn’t do that. So I want to want to talk a little bit about that bad theology.
26:4126 Minuten, 41 One of the battlegrounds in suffering is the temptation to doubt God.
26:5426 Minuten, 54 Now, I want to make this more nuanced than what I just said.
27:0027 MinutenI believe there are two kinds of doubt of God that are very, very different and they need to be distinguished.
27:0927 Minuten, 9 The first is the doubt of wonderment.
27:1327 Minuten, 13 That is the normal life of a believer because God is now central for you,
27:2027 Minuten, 20 because you’ve attached your identity to his existence, his grace and his plan.
27:3127 Minuten, 31 You are always referencing what is going on in your life to God.
27:3727 Minuten, 37 God has become your ultimate hermeneutic. You know what I mean by that?
27:4427 Minuten, 44 God is the key way that you make sense out of life.
27:4927 Minuten, 49 And because God’s ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts,
27:5627 Minuten, 56 and because what God understands is good for us, we don’t always think
28:0228 Minuten, 2 as being good, there will be moments where we’re confused, moments where we wonder, moments where we are surprised.
28:1328 Minuten, 13 That’s not weak faith. That’s just faith. That’s the normal ebb and flow and struggles of faith that everyone has.
28:2328 Minuten, 23 God doesn’t tell me things ahead of time. Listen, we need to say it. God’s secret will is called his secret will because it’s secret.
28:3428 Minuten, 34 And I don’t get the script ahead of time. And so I’m going to be surprised. I’m going to feel at moments unprepared.
28:4228 Minuten, 42 I’m going to wonder how this is good. How does this agree with the promises of God?
28:4828 Minuten, 48 That wonderment is part of running to God in faith and trying to hold on to him in moments of confusion.
28:5728 Minuten, 57 There’s nothing to be ashamed of in that. But there’s a second form of doubt.
29:0729 Minuten, 7 And I would call this the doubt of judgment.
29:1129 Minuten, 11 It’s when because of what I’m going through, I have brought God into the
29:1829 Minuten, 18 court of my judgment and I have judged him as being unfaithful, uncaring and unkind.
29:3329 Minuten, 33 Now, here’s the theological process that has been inverted in that moment.
29:4029 Minuten, 40 It’s tempting when you’re going through dramatic things that you cannot escape
29:4729 Minuten, 47 to let those function in your mind and heart as a way of understanding God.
29:5729 Minuten, 57 Danger, danger, danger.
30:0030 MinutenYou don’t ever allow your experiences to interpret who God is. You let who God says he is to interpret your experience.
30:0930 Minuten, 9 And that’s warfare. You’ve got to hold onto your mind. You have to run back to the Word of God. You have to do what David does.
30:1630 Minuten, 16 You have to speak words to yourself, speak gospel to yourself, speak God’s identity to yourself.
30:2430 Minuten, 24 Again, let your surety of who God is then become a tool for interpreting what you’re going through, not the other way around.
30:3730 Minuten, 37 Now, here’s what’s devastating about doubt of God.
30:4330 Minuten, 43 If you allow yourself to begin to entertain the thought that God
30:5030 Minuten, 50 is, in fact, not good, He is, in fact, not kind, He is, in fact, not caring,
30:5430 Minuten, 54 He is, in fact, not a faithful keeper of his promises, that will begin to weaken your trust of Him.
31:0431 Minuten, 4 Stay with me. And because your trust is weakened, you will quit going to Him for help.
31:1431 Minuten, 14 You will, in ways, stop running to Him and start running from Him,
31:2331 Minuten, 23 because you don’t go for help in a time of need to someone you no longer trust.
31:3231 Minuten, 32 And so, you see this when people that are suffering. They quit having devotions. They say, „What difference it make?
31:3731 Minuten, 37 It doesn’t change anything.“ They quit praying. They quit meeting with their small group.
31:4331 Minuten, 43 Maybe they become infrequent in attendance to worship services. There you have it.
31:4931 Minuten, 49 Somehow, someway, experience has began to reinterpret who God is for them.
31:5631 Minuten, 56 And because of that, it’s hard for them to hold on to the goodness, and holiness, and faithfulness of God, and because they don’t trust Him as much, they’re not running to Him for help.
32:0932 Minuten, 9 There’s a piece of the great spiritual war that is suffering.
32:2132 Minuten, 21 We trouble our trouble by unrealistic expectations of life.
32:3032 Minuten, 30 If you’re going to be prepared for the suffering that will surely come, you better have a robust theology of the fall.
32:4132 Minuten, 41 Because if you don’t have a robust theology of the fall in the Garden of
32:4732 Minuten, 47 Eden, and the results on everything about the environment in which we live, you will not be prepared.
32:5732 Minuten, 57 I love the way that Paul talks about this in Romans 8.
33:0333 Minuten, 3 He says, „The whole world is groaning, waiting for redemption.“ You live in a groaning world.
33:1233 Minuten, 12 You groan when you’re in pain. You groan when you’re in distress. You groan when you need help. You groan when you long for something better.
33:2033 Minuten, 20 The world you live in groans. It’s not just us that are waiting for redemption.
33:2733 Minuten, 27 This world, the environment in which we live, is crying out for redemption.
33:3433 Minuten, 34 And to live in a world where you can expect hardship, you can
33:4233 Minuten, 42 expect difficulty, you can expect pain, you can expect sorrow because this world is dramatically broken, not functioning the way God intended.
33:5933 Minuten, 59 And see, if you don’t embrace that theology, you leave yourself
34:0734 Minuten, 7 with unrealistic expectations, here’s a second thing, naive to the temptations that will come.
34:1434 Minuten, 14 Because you’re expecting things to be way different than they’re ever going to be.
34:2434 Minuten, 24 I can’t tell you how many people I’ve counseled, how many people have approached me, how many people have talked to me, who are shocked
34:3134 Minuten, 31 at the fact that suffering has entered their door, surprised at the things that they’re facing.
34:4434 Minuten, 44 A third thing. Selfism will get you into trouble.
34:5134 Minuten, 51 Now, what do I mean by selfism?
34:5334 Minuten, 53 Well, 2 Corinthians 5:15 says that Jesus came so that those who live would no longer live for themselves.
35:0135 Minuten, 1 Sekunde“Here’s what sin does to me.“ Sin is essentially selfish.
35:0735 Minuten, 7 Sin inserts me in the middle of my world making it all about me. That’s one place for God and God alone.
35:1635 Minuten, 16 Sin causes me to reduce the field of my concern down to the claustrophobic confines of my wants, my needs, my feelings.
35:2435 Minuten, 24 Sin is self-absorbed and self-focused, selfish in the normal sense of what it is.
35:3135 Minuten, 31 You could argue that Paul is teaching that the DNA of sin is selfishness. The chemical composition of sin is selfishness.
35:4035 Minuten, 40 That’s what it is.
35:4135 Minuten, 41 It’s my world, it’s what I want, when I want it, how I want it, where I want it and who I want to deliver it.
35:5235 Minuten, 52 Now, it’d be great to be able to say that we’re all free of this.
35:5835 Minuten, 58 But, hear the Gospel, yes, the power of sin was broken in the justifying mercies of Jesus but the presence of sin is being progressively eradicated.
36:1136 Minuten, 11 We call that progressive sanctification. So that means there is still sin living inside of me and as long as sin is living
36:1836 Minuten, 18 inside of me, there will be that draw to put myself in the center to make life all about me, all about my comfort, my pleasure, my ease, a predictable life.
36:3236 Minuten, 32 You want to know if there are any vestiges of selfism in you?
36:3936 Minuten, 39 Just think about your behavior in traffic.
36:4836 Minuten, 48 I don’t know about you, but I want to drive on roads paid for by other citizens who choose not to use them.
36:5736 Minuten, 57 Some of you will get that later. Selfishness of sin.
37:0237 Minuten, 2 You see, although in my confessional theology I sing of God’s glory and I say
37:1037 Minuten, 10 I want to live for God’s glory, there are ways in which I stick myself in the middle of the world. I make this about me.
37:1837 Minuten, 18 Why do we get mad at God when we suffer?
37:2637 Minuten, 26 Because we are too important to us.
37:3137 Minuten, 31 You could argue that the four most important words of the Bible are the first four.
37:3637 Minuten, 36 „In the beginning God.“ If God is on site, this whole story is about him.
37:4637 Minuten, 46 And it’s hard to tolerate anything that is uncomfortable if you are in the center of your world.
37:5837 Minuten, 58 I mean, if you get mad when somebody disagrees with you, if you are irritated
38:0638 Minuten, 6 because somebody has a distracting habit, if you hate to wait a little bit in
38:1738 Minuten, 17 the line at Starbucks, how ever are you going to deal with your life being turned upside-down by suffering?
38:3438 Minuten, 34 Selfishness of sin just expands the drama of suffering.
38:4338 Minuten, 43 You’re not just suffering the physical thing you’re going through, you’re suffering that has hooked your love of self.
38:5338 Minuten, 53 Listen, the idol of idols is the idol of self.
39:0039 MinutenThere is no idolatry more attractive, more seductive, more deceptive than the idol of self.
39:0639 Minuten, 6 The idol of self is the idol that exposed us to all other forms of idolatry.
39:1439 Minuten, 14 And if there are ways in which you are still worshipping at the throne of self, you will find suffering intolerable in every way.
39:2539 Minuten, 25 Let me mention one other thing in this catalog of bad theology, materialism.
39:3239 Minuten, 32 I don’t mean money here. I don’t mean objects here. I mean too much confidence, too much trust in the physical self.
39:4639 Minuten, 46 Listen, I have been confronted with this thing. I’m quite willing to confess this to you this afternoon.
39:5439 Minuten, 54 Much of what I thought was faith in Christ wasn’t faith in Christ at all.
40:0140 Minuten, 1 SekundeI was strong, an avid exerciser, had lost a lot of weight, was as fit as anybody my age would be.
40:1340 Minuten, 13 And because of that, I had lots of strength and ability to produce.
40:2140 Minuten, 21 And all of a sudden, I got sick and would never be that strong person ever again.
40:3040 Minuten, 30 That’s when you know what you’ve been trusting. It’s been very, very hard to take in that experience of weakness.
40:4340 Minuten, 43 it’s been very humbling to realize, it’s in this moment of weakness that God has built a deeper and more biblical and
40:5340 Minuten, 53 more Christ-resting faith than what I thought I had.
41:0441 Minuten, 4 Now, here’s what I want to say to you next.
Kapitel 7: The cross of Jesus Christ and its transformative power
41:0741 Minuten, 7 It’s the cross of Jesus Christ that radically transforms the way we think about suffering.
41:1741 Minuten, 17 The cross radically transforms your thinking and your experience of suffering.
41:2441 Minuten, 24 Here’s the first way.
41:2741 Minuten, 27 Because the cross is your most dramatic measure of the true values of your Lord.
41:4141 Minuten, 41 The cross is the clearest and most dramatic measure of the true values of the Lord.
41:4741 Minuten, 47 You learn from the cross what is important, most important, to the one who created you.
41:5641 Minuten, 56 I’m going to connect this to suffering, so stay with me.
42:0042 MinutenGod was willing to do this amazing thing to harness the very forces of nature and
42:0642 Minuten, 6 to control the events of human history so that at a certain time, His son would come
42:1342 Minuten, 13 and live the life we could not live and die the death that we should have died,
42:1942 Minuten, 19 and face the very rejection of his father and then conquering sin and death in his
42:2842 Minuten, 28 resurrection so that… Are you ready for this?
42:3442 Minuten, 34 Not that our lives would be comfortable, not that our lives would be pleasant,
42:4042 Minuten, 40 not that we would have temporal happiness every day, not so things would be easy, but so something way more glorious would happen.
42:5142 Minuten, 51 We would be the recipients of spiritual rescue and restoration. There’s His values.
43:0643 Minuten, 6 God cares about your body. He’s the creator of it.
43:1643 Minuten, 16 But His primary purpose is to rescue you from your bondage
43:2543 Minuten, 25 to sin, from your slavery to self,
43:3243 Minuten, 32 To do the thing that you cannot do for yourself, because you can run from a situation, you can run from a location, you can run from a circumstance, but you cannot run from yourself.
43:4243 Minuten, 42 You and I we’re not just in need of comfort, not just in need of predictability, not just a need of temporary happiness.
43:5143 Minuten, 51 We were in need of a redeemer. Redemption is His primary value.
44:0344 Minuten, 3 And of course, these things are important. Of course, there’s a whole theology of your physicality in scripture. Of course, there is.
44:0944 Minuten, 9 But you have to have your values in the right place. If God’s sovereign attention is to make life comfortable, He’s a massive failure.
44:2344 Minuten, 23 He’s not delivering to you less. He’s delivering to you much, much, much, much more.
44:3844 Minuten, 38 The Cross teaches us something else. It lets us know. I love this, I love this.
44:4644 Minuten, 46 This is hinted at in the first sermon of Peter in Acts 2.
44:5244 Minuten, 52 The Cross teaches us that God is able and willing to bring the best things ever out of the worst things ever.
45:0345 Minuten, 3 The best things ever out of the worst things ever.
45:0745 Minuten, 7 What was the worst thing that ever happened in the span of human history?
45:1245 Minuten, 12 It has to be the unjust torture and murder of the one perfect human being that ever lived.
45:2345 Minuten, 23 What could be worse than the killing of the Messiah?
45:2945 Minuten, 29 What could be better than the cross of Jesus Christ? What is more a victory?
45:3745 Minuten, 37 What is more a glory?
45:3845 Minuten, 38 What is more a delivery system of everything I need than the cross of Jesus Christ?
45:4445 Minuten, 44 Peter says it this way, that Jesus was delivered by the hands of evil men. It was evil. He doesn’t minimize the evil.
45:5245 Minuten, 52 But then he says, „according to the foreordained plan of God.“
46:0146 Minuten, 1 SekundeIt’s my experience of the beauty of what God has burst out of my suffering.
46:1346 Minuten, 13 Thus, by far, these years of weakness have been by every estimation, the most productive ministry time in my life.
46:2346 Minuten, 23 Some of you have read my parenting book. This is not an advertisement.
46:3246 Minuten, 32 But I want to talk about that book because that book was written under horrendous suffering.
46:3946 Minuten, 39 I did what God had called me to do. I didn’t know what else to do and I did it under great duress.
46:4646 Minuten, 46 People think I’m exaggerating when I say this, but I’m not, actually. When I got the first copy of that book, I took it upstairs to my dear wife, Luella.
46:5646 Minuten, 56 I opened up the book and with tears coming down my cheeks, I said, „Luella, I don’t remember writing this book.“ That wasn’t an exaggeration.
47:0747 Minuten, 7 It was literally true.
47:0847 Minuten, 8 And for the first time in all the years that I’ve been writing, I sat down and read my book from cover to cover.
47:1547 Minuten, 15 That’s what God is able to do. The weakness of suffering is a workroom for grace.
47:2647 Minuten, 26 The weakness of suffering is a workroom for Grace.
47:3147 Minuten, 31 Why do you think that David in Psalms 27 says in the midst of the horrible things
47:4047 Minuten, 40 that he’s going through, „One thing I desire that I could dwell in the house the Lord and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord?“ Why would he say that?
47:4947 Minuten, 49 Because suffering lays bare all your other idols. It lays bare your trust in self.
47:5547 Minuten, 55 It lays bare all those other things you would trust and you’re left stripped bare and say, „All I have is my redeemer and his grace.
48:0548 Minuten, 5 There’s not a better place in the universe to be than there.“ That’s me.
48:1448 Minuten, 14 I have nothing but you. All the things I trust are gone.
48:2348 Minuten, 23 You see, David had come to realize that there’s one who sits on a throne of the universe that’s way more beautiful than any ugly thing he would ever face in life.
48:3448 Minuten, 34 He’s beautiful in sovereignty. He’s beautiful in grace. He’s beautiful in faithfulness. He’s beautiful in wisdom. He’s beautiful in love. He’s beautiful in mercy.
48:4248 Minuten, 42 He’s beautiful in power.
48:4348 Minuten, 43 He’s beautiful, He’s beautiful, He’s beautiful, He’s beautiful, He’s beautiful.
48:4948 Minuten, 49 And you will only ever properly understand the dark things you face in this broken world when you look at them through the lens of the stunning beauty of your Redeemer.
49:0249 Minuten, 2 Weakness drives you there, strips away your self-reliance, strips away your self-righteousness, strips away all of those crutches that
49:1149 Minuten, 11 you lean upon, strips away your dependence on substances or whatever and drives you in humility to your Redeemer.
49:2449 Minuten, 24 This was the king of Israel.
49:2849 Minuten, 28 He’s now faced with his weakness, faced with his total lack of control, not in a palace, in a cave.
49:4149 Minuten, 41 He says, „One thing I desire, my Lord, that I could gaze upon His beauty.“
49:5449 Minuten, 54 Remember that beauty doesn’t just tell you who God is, but redefines who you are as his child.
50:0150 Minuten, 1 SekundeWeakness, the weakness of suffering is a workroom for grace.
50:1250 Minuten, 12 You see, as I run, I don’t run to one who is unable to understand.
50:2050 Minuten, 20 I love what it says in Hebrews 4 that our high priest is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, because he’s lived the life that we live.
50:3650 Minuten, 36 Don’t be mistaken, the suffering of Jesus didn’t begin with the cross.
50:4250 Minuten, 42 The suffering of Jesus began in a manger where shards of straw pushed against his tender, infant skin.
50:5450 Minuten, 54 He suffered as an infant. He suffered every day of his life. He suffered willingly.
Kapitel 8: The role of community in suffering
51:0151 Minuten, 1 SekundeHe suffered substitutionarily. He understands. I love, the word for weakness is there.
51:1051 Minuten, 10 I don’t usually quote Greek words, but it’s asthenia.
51:1651 Minuten, 16 It’s a broad word for weakness. It’s all kinds of weakness.
51:2351 Minuten, 23 There’s a way in which you could translate that word, the human condition.
51:3051 Minuten, 30 He’s able to sympathize with our humanness, our weakness, our
51:3851 Minuten, 38 frailty and how that gets exposed in these moments of suffering.
51:4651 Minuten, 46 The range of Jesus ranged from thirst that he could not independently quench
51:5551 Minuten, 55 to his father turning his back on him, to his body being brutally tortured, to his closest followers running away from him.
52:0552 Minuten, 5 It’s the full range of a suffering that you and I would face.
52:1352 Minuten, 13 I want to say one final thing and then I want to give you homework.
52:2252 Minuten, 22 Suffering well is a community project.
52:2852 Minuten, 28 One of the things you must have in your theology or you’ll not suffer well is the essentiality of the sanctifying ministries of the body of Christ.
52:4052 Minuten, 40 Let me say that again. You must have, in your theology, the absolute essentiality of the
52:4752 Minuten, 47 protective, rescuing, sanctifying ministries of the body of Christ.
52:5952 Minuten, 59 My experience of suffering was dramatically impacted by the body of Christ.
53:1153 Minuten, 11 And by God raising up instruments to speak into my struggle and speak into my weakness in moments when it was hard for me to speak myself…
53:2053 Minuten, 20 I have a dear Irish friend and the spirit of God would put him, put me
53:2653 Minuten, 26 in his mind and he would text me a link to a great hymn of the faith, sung by an
53:3453 Minuten, 34 Irish choir, a psalm, and I would put on earphones and listen to that, tears
53:4053 Minuten, 40 streaming down my face, luxuriating in the grace of the Redeemer remembering my identity again. Praise God for that.
53:4953 Minuten, 49 Don’t be proud. Don’t suffer in isolation. Don’t suffer in silence. Don’t suffer as a hero.
53:5753 Minuten, 57 You’re not a hero. You’re not a hero. You’re not a hero. There’s one hero. His name is Jesus.
54:0654 Minuten, 6 And the reputation of Jesus doesn’t need to be propped up by you faking it.
54:1854 Minuten, 18 Your running to him and running to fellow believers in weakness actually preaches the gospel.
54:2854 Minuten, 28 So make yourself, make available to yourself, the wonderful resources of the body of Christ. Well, here’s the homework.
Kapitel 9: Homework for preparing the soul for suffering
54:3754 Minuten, 37 I want to give you four things to do every morning. You can do these briefly.
54:4354 Minuten, 43 That will prepare your soul for suffering, for the kinds of things, the unexpected, the unwanted, the unplanned when it enters your door.
54:5454 Minuten, 54 I’m going to give you four words. Everybody get out something, get out your phone or something.
55:0255 Minuten, 2 Write this down.
55:0355 Minuten, 3 I think that what you do after a workshop is more important than what happens during the workshop, with whatever the workshop was about.
55:1255 Minuten, 12 Here’s the first word, gaze. Every morning take a few moments to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.
55:1955 Minuten, 19 You say, „Paul, I don’t know how to do that.“ Well, let me help you. Read Isaiah 40 again, a few verses.
55:2655 Minuten, 26 In Isaiah 40, the Prophet stretches the human language to its furthest elasticity trying to capture the stunning glory of the Lord.
55:3955 Minuten, 39 Last few chapters of Job, where God rips back the curtain and shows his creative glory.
55:4755 Minuten, 47 Ephesians 1, where you see the sweep of the redemptive plan.
55:5255 Minuten, 52 Take a few moments, whatever else you’re studying, whatever else you’re reading, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.
56:0156 Minuten, 1 SekundeSecond word, remember.
56:0456 Minuten, 4 Remember that that beauty doesn’t just define the Lord but redefines who you are as a child of God.
56:1356 Minuten, 13 Remember your identity as this one of a believer.
56:1756 Minuten, 17 And that’s the moment, just for a couple of moments, remind yourself, a couple of moments speak gospel identity to yourself.
56:3056 Minuten, 30 Third word, rest. Teach your heart to rest.
56:3856 Minuten, 38 Not because things around you are easy, not because people like you,
56:4356 Minuten, 43 not horizontally-driven rest, but rest because you’ve been connected by grace to this one of such awesome beauty, vertical rest.
56:5356 Minuten, 53 Teach your heart to rest. That takes some instruction. That takes some learning. Grow in your ability to rest.
57:0457 Minuten, 4 Fourth word, now act. Act, A-C-T.
57:1157 Minuten, 11 Learn to live based not on your feelings about your situation,
57:2157 Minuten, 21 but on the existence of God, your identity in Him and the rest that that gives you no matter what is going on.
57:3257 Minuten, 32 Rest. Suffering is universal.
57:4257 Minuten, 42 Suffering is never neutral.
57:4657 Minuten, 46 We will either trouble our trouble and grow distant in our confidence of God or suffering will be used of God to deepen our faith.
57:5657 Minuten, 56 Suffering is a workroom of grace.
58:0258 Minuten, 2 God in suffering reveals us and reveals himself and draws us ever closer to him.
58:1258 Minuten, 12 Let’s pray. Lord, we, again, thank you for the majesty of your Word.
Kapitel 10: Closing prayer and blessing
58:2558 Minuten, 25 We thank you that you love us and you’re with us and you are for us and that
58:3158 Minuten, 31 in your grace you take the darkest things, things that are unthinkable to us and you can do the most wonderful things in them.
58:4558 Minuten, 45 May that be our experience and may we not give in to bad theology.
58:5458 Minuten, 54 May we not run from you but run to you when suffering enters our door.
59:0159 Minuten, 1 SekundeAnd may we have habits of faith that prepare us for when the day will come.
59:0959 Minuten, 9 So that we would experience in the breaking down of ourselves and things around us, the building up of our confidence in You.
59:2359 Minuten, 23 In Jesus‘ name, Amen. You’re dismissed. The doors will open at 6:45. God bless.