Pain

I was reading my Bible recently, when I bumped into something that grabbed my attention. And being the curious person that I am, I pursued that thought for a bit. And the result of that is this sermon, another in the series about challenging parts of the Bible.

What grabbed my attention was the word ‘afflicted’. At the time I was reading through Psalm 119. It seemed to me that this word occurred more than once or twice in that Psalm. And I found that it occurs seven times. Looking at each of the verses that contained that word in that Psalm I found a theme that is worth bringing to your attention.

Before we consider those verses in Psalm 119 I have to clear something up. Unfortunately, ‘afflicted’ is something of a church word. So, I need to translate it. An option might be the word ‘suffering’. But that also is somewhat similarly tainted. I want a word that will capture what affliction is actually about. And I think that the Spirit provided the right word. It’s the word ‘pain’. You all know what pain is. You’ve all experienced it. I’m sure that there have been times when you’ve experienced too much of it. The pain you experienced might have been physical or emotional or spiritual. But whatever kind of pain it was, you felt it. It hurt. And because we are not compartmentalized creatures, there are plenty of times when the pain we feel includes all of those aspects of who we are, physical, emotional, spiritual. So, today I’m going to talk to you about pain from those seven verses in Psalm 119.

The first verse that I’m going to comment on is the most basic. Here’s its first part.

It is good for me that I was afflicted… Psalm 119.71

Now, that grabs your attention. Who thinks that being afflicted, being in pain, is good? I think that it’s fair to say that if there is anything that our divided nation agrees on it’s that pain is to be avoided. And yet, here’s a saint who says the opposite. What’s going on here? Why would he say such a thing?

The second part of the verse explains.

It is good for me that I was afflicted that I might learn your statutes.

The psalmist is reflecting on a time when he experienced pain. As part of looking back at what he experienced, he acknowledges that one result of what happened was that he learned something about God’s Word. Now, you might be thinking that it would have been a lot easier on the psalmist if he had just spent a little more time reading his Bible. Isn’t that a good way to learn God’s statutes? However, thinking that way ignores an important aspect of this life that we lead.

We are all handed much information about life. This is what other people tell us, in one way or another. And much of that information really is important. But just accumulating information isn’t enough. You haven’t really learned it until you are put in a situation where you need to use it. That’s when you can actually apply some tidbit that was simply handed to you. That’s when you really learn it. Living what you learn drives it home, makes it real. That’s one big difference between the naive and the wise. Both may have accumulated much good information about life. But it’s only the wise who have put it into practice.

It’s also when you are experiencing pain that you can get to know yourself better. Those kinds of situations reveal what’s going on in your heart, whether you really believe what God has to say about life. Your choices reveal your heart.

Now, don’t jump to the conclusion that that is always bad, that you are always shown to be a failure. Painful experiences can make quite clear that you really do believe the Gospel, that your hope really is in those many promises that the Father has blessed you with. Pain can reveal that your heart is the good soil that Jesus talked about. We’ve been told so frequently that we get things wrong that it’s good to find that there really are times when we get things right. Painful experiences can reveal that to you.

And that’s the time when real growth can happen. It may be that during that time when he experienced pain, our psalmist friend was able to see further into the promises of God. It may be that that is what he was talking about when he said that he learned God’s statutes.

Here is the main idea that I would like to get across to you from this verse. There are reasons to look on a time of affliction, a time of pain, as something good. It can be a time of significant growth. And believing that will make it possible to rejoice in what Jesus is doing during a time of pain.

That’s the main idea that I would like to convey to you. The other verses that I will mention build on it.

Next verse:

I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me. Psalm 119.75

This is an aspect of facing pain that is forgotten by too many Christians. Those times of pain that we experience all come from God. He uses a multitude of ways to bring that pain into our lives. In Job’s case, He even used Satan. But the pain that you have experienced and will experience all comes from your God.

The psalmist is so very helpful when he explains why God does this sort of thing. It’s a matter of God being faithful to you. That might sound a bit odd, but a moment’s reflection will show that it’s absolutely true.

The Father is committed to seeing you flourish. That’s basic. And it’s important that you know that. It’s because of that commitment that He sends pain your way. He does that because He knows that there are things learned when you are in pain that you won’t learn as well in any other way.

Something in Hebrews fits here.

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. Hebrews 12.6

That word ‘chastise’ means ‘to beat with a whip’. That’s painful. But He does that to you because He loves you and wants you to flourish. So, it is in faithfulness that He sends pain your way. And it will make a large difference if you believe that when you are in pain.

Here’s the next verse.

I am severely afflicted; give me life, O Lord, according to your word! Psalm 119.107

Please note that word ‘severely’. One way to understand that is in terms of intensity. But it’s not just about how much it hurts. It can also be about how long it hurts.

One way people try to handle pain is to tell themselves to hang in there for just a little longer. They say that sort of thing hoping that it will stop hurting soon. But what if it doesn’t? Sometimes the pain lasts a long, long time. Sometimes it lasts a lifetime. That’s when the hope of a quick solution fades. And when that happens, what takes its place? What does hopelessness look like?

That leads to this.

Look on my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law. Psalm 119.153

It is foolish to hope like unbelievers hope. We are to hope in God, to wait for Him to keep His promises. And doing that will show in your prayers.

I cannot stress enough the importance of prayer. And that’s not because of the nature of prayer. It’s because of the nature of the one to whom we pray. If anyone thinks well of prayer simply because it seems to be a good religious practice, that person will give up on it sooner or later. It’s only as a Christian embraces prayer as a way of embracing God Himself that prayer becomes a joy and a lifeline, something that that person will never give up on.

Last week I preached on prayer, and I told you that you can pray with great certainty and great power if you know what to expect of the Father. The psalmist calls on the Father to deliver him. Does he know that God will do that? Can you know that? Can you know that the Father will deliver you from the pain He has sent your way? Absolutely. It is a biblical expectation that you can have of the Father.

But that leaves other questions: How will He do that? When will He do that? And many get all twisted up thinking about those kinds of questions. But is it important for you to get an answer to those questions? It will be only if you have no faith. God will act in a way that He thinks best. What you need to do is simply trust Him. You need to trust His wisdom and trust His love. He always acts in faithfulness to you. So, the how and when questions don’t need to be answered. But the question about whether He will is clearly answered. All you need do is hold on to that. And that is something to pray for, the grace to trust Him, to hope in His promises.

Next verse.

If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. Psalm 119.92

Here is another response of the psalmist to his experience of pain. He sees that a key to his survival was his delight in God’s Law. For him, it’s not that God’s Law was pretty good. It was his delight.

I looked up some synonyms for ‘delight’. This is some of what I found: glee, ecstacy, delectation(!), enchantment, relish, rapture. That’s what the psalmist meant when he called God’s Law his delight.

Now, why did he think of God’s Law in this way? Or to say that from a slightly different perspective, what is it that the Law of God gave to him that delighted him so? It gave him the ability to understand life.

A word that pops up every so often in my preaching is the word ‘reality’. There’s a reason for that. My goal as a pastor is not to help you manage the religious aspects of your life. No. My goal as a pastor is to teach you about reality. What is reality about? How does it work? How do you live according to reality and not against it? The Bible isn’t about how to be religious. It’s about living wisely in the reality that God has created. And that’s what I want you to be able to do.

Our psalmist friend understands this. And because he does, he delights in God’s Law. Reality is discovered there.

He recognizes that it was this delight, a delight that led to God and His gift of wisdom, that kept him going while in the midst of pain. That’s why he didn’t quit.

So, here’s something to pray about. Pray that your delight in God’s Word would grow so that those synonyms would increasingly describe your feelings toward the Bible.

Sixth verse.

Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word. Psalm 119.67

It would be good to remember that we all go astray. Our hearts are so incredibly deceptive that we usually don’t notice when we do or even that we do. But we do. If we are convinced that those who go astray aren’t ‘them’ but also us, then we will welcome, actually welcome, those times when God brings pain into our lives. We will welcome them because those are the times when our hearts can learn God’s statutes, God’s way of wisdom from which we have strayed.

What do you do now? How do you put this into practice? I have a couple of thoughts.

There is one more verse in Psalm 119 that uses this word, ‘affliction’.

This is my comfort in my affliction, that Your word has revived me. Psalm 119.50

It would be good for you to spend some time this week meditating on this verse. Use the other verses that I have commented on to help you do that. Consider the notion of comfort. What could that mean when you are in pain? How do those other verses that I have spoken about fill out what it means to be revived? As usual, I’ll email the manuscript of the sermon to you this afternoon. You might want to review certain portions of it to help you to meditate on this verse. The goal of a sermon is not simply to be heard. The goal is for it to be understood and believed. Use this last verse to do that.

Here’s something else for you to do. Connect this with Jesus. That’s always a good thing to do.

For one thing, He’s the reason why the Father sends pain your way. The point of the Gospel is to free you from the obstacles that get in the way of your flourishing. It’s because of Jesus, our Savior, that the Father, in faithfulness, sends pain your way.

The Scriptures tell us in more than one or two places that the wicked do not suffer pain. You could look at Psalm 73 where the writer struggles with that fact. But they don’t suffer pain because they don’t have a Father who cares. Their father, the devil, hates them. That’s one reason why he protects them from so many of the hard edges of life. But, because of what Jesus has done, we have a Father who wants to see us flourish. And to do that He sends us pain, pain that redeems. And also bear in mind that because of these blessings of pain, you will have a glorious forever while the children of Satan will have a horrendous forever. That’s something that Psalm 73 also describes.

Here’s another thing about Jesus. He’s been where you’ve been. He’s experienced the pain.

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. Hebrews 5.8

Isn’t that at least part of what the psalmist was getting at, learning obedience through pain? Jesus has been where you’ve been. He understands the pain. Don’t think of Him as distant and unfeeling. He knows what you’re dealing with when pain fills your life. And that makes Him a very sympathetic High Priest as He intercedes for you.

Last thought. Nothing good happens without prayer. And that’s because nothing good happens without the blessing of God. There are things tied up with this word, affliction, that you probably need to pray about. You may need to repent of sinful ways that you have responded to affliction in the past. Or you may need to give thanks for the blessings of God that have made it possible for you to respond well in those times. And along with praying about those things, things rooted in your past, you’ll want to pray about your future. More pain is coming. Remember, that’s God being faithful to you. Pray now about how you can be prepared for that so that you will respond well to a hard situation. Pray now to know your God better so that when the pain comes you will be able to see it as something that is good, something sent to you because of the faithfulness of God, something that will cause you to flourish as the child of God that you are.