Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:07 Welcome to village church, sermon Q and a pastor Michael and pastor Alex we're with you
Speaker 2 00:00:11 On June 20th, 2021, we both preach a sermon on practical evangelism and a hurting world. And, uh, the question that came out of that pastor Alex is how do I avoid becoming a victim when I've actually been hurt? And really one of the things we talked about is one of the apostle Paul's most strategic evangelism tools is, is, um, weakness shared and authenticity. Um, and we talked about victim hood and we basically said, we're not victims are overcomers. Right. But what if I've actually been hurt? So what would you say?
Speaker 3 00:00:43 So, uh, your pain, the thing that you experienced, the thing that you have hurt from, uh, in the truest sense of the word you are a victim, right? You have been victimized. The question though, is, uh, what are you going to allow that reality to do to you? Yeah, so, uh, so it's really interesting. The world today has kind of become like church camp. Uh, let me tell you what I mean by that. Um, so in church camp, you know, you're a high schooler with other high schoolers, you go away for like, let's say five days and you have these amazing experiences in worship and people share teaching and, uh, you get to do things and interact with like the same group of people every day for five days. And then inevitably at some point there is testimony, time, testimony, time. It's exactly right. And the ducklings
Speaker 1 00:01:39 Would flock and
Speaker 3 00:01:41 Then people start sharing the stories of their life. And what's really interesting is that the person with the most impactful story at church camp was the person who had the worst thing happened to them.
Speaker 2 00:01:55 Oh my gosh. Do you know, as you're saying this, so many stories are flooding through my brain and I remember getting there and it was like, okay, there's like three people who are ultimately going to go, you me
Speaker 1 00:02:06 That's right. Like, can we outdo each other love? And I love, but in having the worst thing happened to us, right? How can we tell
Speaker 3 00:02:16 Our story in such a way that people will believe we have been
Speaker 1 00:02:18 Victimized? Yeah. My, my home was broken into, by intruders. My home was broken into, by 13 and tutors. My home is located two by 40 inches and they took our home, all the lumber inside too. And the wall stayed up. I'm like, what is happening right now? Now, as I say,
Speaker 2 00:02:33 Even as we just a little bit, like there were actual legitimate, like terrible, terrible pains and things that happen. But like, if you weren't in the upper echelon of pain, you kept your mouth shut, right? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, but you didn't have
Speaker 3 00:02:44 Anything to say during testimony time, if you didn't have that worst
Speaker 2 00:02:48 Paint. Totally. And the dumbest looking get in the room as the kid who started off and they're like, yeah, my parents have been fighting and then some kids, like I've been addicted to drugs,
Speaker 1 00:02:58 You've gone to the nth. You know, it's interesting.
Speaker 2 00:03:02 We talk about, um, becoming a victim that in the Christian life, we would never look at somebody and say, you know, that thing done to you, but the thing you did, that's now your identity. Yeah. Right. But it's interesting in the world. What they want to do is take the thing done to you or the thing you did and say, this is not who you are. What's most important is the most important thing about you. And that's why we say as Christians, whatever has been done to you, your identity is not victim. Your identity is overcomer and child of God. And so there's a huge difference here. So, um, pain is pain is I found often used in three primary ways. So if I have been victimized, whether it is by another person or just, I'm a victim of unfortunate circumstances, it could be a car accident that left me in a ton of pain and hurting crippled, et cetera. I mean, all these terrible things legitimate, right? So pain is used number one for self exaltation. And this is what we see in the church camp, right?
Speaker 1 00:03:54 Yeah. And in church camp world, now the whole world, like you just said, the whole, world's a church campus. Now
Speaker 2 00:03:59 You are the most powerful person. You have all the control. If you have the worst pain. So young people particularly are learning to leverage their pain for self exploration, social clout to increase her social status. And that's a real thing, but number two, and this is historically how it's been used, which is for, self-loathing not Excel facilitation. Uh, we go into our brains and we just hate ourselves. It's amazing that when somebody can violate us, how that makes us hate ourselves, like what an evil twist, um, that the world or our flash or the devil's putting our brain, but there's a third, there's a third, um, uh, use of pain, which is God exaltation. And, um, God wants us to use our pain, uh, in a way that brings him glory and shows his healing and redemptive power in our life. And it doesn't mean we don't feel, it doesn't mean we're cold. It doesn't mean we're not empathetic. It doesn't mean we have times of just honestly loathing and like, whoa, like this is hard and sackcloth and ashes like that can all happen. It doesn't mean we don't talk about it.
Speaker 1 00:05:05 I mean, we don't share in church camp time. And I feel like,
Speaker 3 00:05:08 I feel like sometimes there can be a bifurcation between these things, like, uh, I can't experience weakness. And at the same time, oh no, you just need to like, look at God. Like somehow having joy and God and, and experiencing the weakness of your pain are somehow challenged against each other. Whereas like actually no, in the middle of your pain, in the middle of your weakness, it can cause you actually like to turn to God, you can have joy in God in the midst of your pain. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:05:36 Which is a crazy thought. Yeah. All right. So Alex, we, you and I penned for reasons about why God would even allow pain and what it means for us to use his pain in a way that glorifies God. So what's the first one.
Speaker 3 00:05:47 Yeah. So the first one is to actually to lean on God and not push him away. There's a really strong temptation, uh, when we're in the midst of our pain to want blame that on God. But that like the, if our pain can actually direct us to find God, to be the one who sustains us, that we see the Jesus who entered into our pain, the pain of human existence, and like took that pain on himself. Right. We see a God who empathizes with us and is with us in the midst of pain. And he becomes kind of the sustainer of life for us. That is a really God glorifying attitude.
Speaker 2 00:06:24 So I'm paying, God wants you to lean on him. The second one we put is to worship him, which is so counterintuitive because to lean on somebody says, um, I think you can help me. You can provide comfort me to worship somebody, uh, is, is next level. And the opposite of worship is to wag your finger at them. And so a lot of people run from God. And, um, but there's a whole bunch of people who are like, you could have stopped this and you didn't. And it's interesting because there's not even an implicit, there's an explicit accusation. You, oh, you did this right. You did this. You could have stopped this. You're responsible for this and whatever you are. I don't want that. And so you pull a job who's somehow found in him to worship God, despite the fact that God could have stopped what happened? What's the third
Speaker 3 00:07:14 One. All right. So, uh, the third one could be to provide comfort. Now, uh, we've been talking about how your pain can direct you towards got your pain actually can also be a tool to direct you, to love others, to direct you towards others. So, uh, typically what you can do is you can go internal, go to self-loathing, right? Let your pain and understandable response. Right? But your pain gives you glasses that you did not previously have. You have the ability to see other people's pain and, and understand what they're going through to the extent that you could not previously, which gives you the ability to enter in and sit with them in that pain. Yep.
Speaker 2 00:07:54 Yeah. Yeah. That glasses thing, like there are, there are things you can't see until you've experienced it and that's powerful. Here's the last one. Um, God allows us to go through pain and, and what he wants for us is to learn, to show forgiveness and not bitterness. When you have been hurt by someone, um, the world will tell you, the devil will tell you, your flesh will give you the impulse to be filled with bitterness. All that does is corrupt. You it's crazy how a person can harm us. And then the harm just doesn't stop because internally we continue the harm by corrupting our own cells. And then the Bible, the Hebrew says that when we become bitter, we defile others. It's interesting. So now this harm done to me. I take this harm and I amplify it. And then I am like contagious, CR gang green, put it, I give it to you. And it becomes this, this event becomes this event. And that is, that is not the way God wants it to be. And, and if anybody understands this, Jesus is on the cross, the greatest victim in the truest sense, the word ever. And somehow he is modeling for us. Like I will not let these people corrupt me. Um, I will, I will work to forgive them
Speaker 3 00:09:04 Father, forgive them for, they know not what they do. It's
Speaker 2 00:09:06 Powerful. So, um, so Alex, our Christian, everybody's leaning on God, worship, God provide comfort. Now that you have the lenses to see things and show forgiveness bitterness. So, all right, well, I want
Speaker 4 00:09:17 To thank you for joining us in sermon Q and a. And I know there are a lot of you who are watching, who have probably had some pretty frustrating, terrible things done to you, or you have done some really terrible things. And I just wanna encourage you in Christ. Those things are not your identity. You are an overcomer, you're a child of God. That is who you are. And so we love you. We love just being your pastors and serving you in this way. So join us next time and sermon QA. We got more questions.
