Today I’m going to share a message that no preacher who has faith likes to talk about!
Unfortunately many preachers on TV and YouTube are teaching that you always have to win and if you don’t win it’s because you’re in sin or because you don’t have enough Faith! This is not true and has no biblical foundation!
Even if you have great faith, you will still suffer!
You need spiritual maturity to understand and receive this message.
I want to read Hebrews chapter 11, the same chapter that talk about the power of Faith, but this time I want to read the last few verses which still talk about faith but most of us like to skip.
35 “Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. 36 Still others had trial of mocking and scourging, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented— 38 of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise,”
Hebrews 11:35-39 NKJV
Today I want to share about trials, struggles and tribulations. We need to learn to deal with certain disappointments we experience in life. Many people lose their faith when they go through trials.
We love to celebrate the good things that God does, but many churches don’t talk about the times when things don’t work and all we can do about it is learn how to deal with it.
I have seen many people being healed, I firmly believe in miracles, I always pray for it. But in 2019 we lost a missionary who died of cancer. This week we had the loss of our dear sister Susan, a warrior and a woman of faith.
How can you process such loss? How do you make sense of it? How do you explain it? Well, there’s no way to explain it!
When I was born again, I learned that when we don’t understand something, we trust God in spite of it. We don’t try to make of it because you can’t make sense of everything.
Why did Adam and Eve sin, why did God allow it?
Why did the first couple on earth (Adam and Eve) have a murder among their children (Cain killed Abel)
Why didn’t Moses enter into promised land?
We see in the Bible Jesus raising Lazarus from death after four days! But also we see a man of God Called John the Baptist being beheaded by an evil woman.
Jesus raises His friend from death but His cousin is beheaded. How can you make sense of it?
We see Apostle Peter being set free from prison by an Angel. Also we see Apostle James, John’s brother being killed by king Herod.
There are many things we cannot make sense of in this world; bones will break, car accidents will happen, bad things will happen, your child will hurt and we have to be honest, life is sometimes very hard.
There are seasons we walk through the valley of shadow of death (Psalm 23:4)
There are seasons we all go through tribulation!
“In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.””John 16:33 NKJV
But Jesus said, I have overcome the world.
Today I am not here to give explanations about why certain things happen. What I want is to teach you that you can go through difficult times and still have an unshakable faith!
When you have to face illness, to deal with family problems, live the abandonment of your partner, to deal with your parents’ passing away, go through an accident or one day wake up to losing your job or losing your best friend. Where is God in all of it?
First, I need to say that I’m a human being and I don’t have all the answers, I also have questions just as everybody else. Also, just because you are in church and have the Holy Spirit, it doesn’t mean that you will avoid all hard times.
Today you are receiving a great teaching from the Word of God, because we need to learn to not only celebrate our victories, but to walk through certain situations without our faith being destroyed.
We need to develop an unshakable faith!
We will never understand God’s ways with our limited understanding. Why? Because God is different!
He is God and you are human.
He is infinite and you are finite!
He is omnipresent and you are stuck to the present time.
His ways are higher than yours, His thoughts are higher than yours, He is God and you and I are not.
“It is impossible to please God without Faith”. Hebrews 11:6
You cannot do it with your rational mind.
God says: “I’m in a such different place , I’m in a such different dimension, I have no beginning and I have no end. I live in eternity, I’m eternal , I was never made , I was never created and You cannot deal with Me with your intellect but with Trust !
The question is: How do you live your life and make senses of things, how do you go through things that do not fit your understanding? The answer is in Hebrews 11:3
“By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”
Hebrews 11:3 NKJV
Our starting point as Christians is not based on understanding but on trust!
You cannot deal with God based on your own understanding!
God said: My ways are higher than yours, my thoughts are higher than yours.
If we don’t start from the point of “Faith” our understanding will became our God.
Hebrews 11:3 says : By Faith We Understand!
That means the starting point for understanding is not “understanding”, it’s trusting in God.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;” Proverbs 3:5 NKJV
God is saying: “Trust me in The Valley, trust me in the furnace, trust me in your healing , trust me in your sickness, trust me in your prosperity, trust me in your poverty, trust in me when your kids are healthy and trust me when your kids are sick.”
Trust me, says the Lord! God said: Trust in me!
Why do people of faith pass away? Why do you suffer? Why did my father pass away at such young age? Why do these things happen? There is no answer as to why!
Your understanding has to go back to the point of trust! By faith we understand!
If you try to understand by your understanding, you will go to a dark place, you will get disappointed, you will get discouraged, it will take you to unbelief and this will lead you to abandon faith!
If you don’t have faith, you are as good as blind! The only way to start seeing is to have Faith!
Otherwise, you will become bitter and it will leave you in darkness!
Because when you lose faith, you lose sight! When you lose faith, your mind is not in the light, but in the darkness.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding”
Proverbs 3: 5
If you do not trust in the Lord, you are trusting in your understanding! You need to allow your understanding to be enlightened by the scriptures!
Why have we suffer in this world?
1- Sin brought suffering.
2- God used suffering to bring salvation.
3- In the end, God will end all suffering!
All death, all pain, all rejection, all abuse, He will take away all the darkness by removing the night!
It will always be bright! The sun will never go down and will never rise again because He will be the source of light.
He will give us resuscitated bodies and you will never ever get sick again. You will never feel weak again; He will give you a brand new body.
4- God uses suffering to refine and purify us. He will use suffering to show His glory.
We need to align our understanding with the Word of God. And we need faith to understand all suffering.
The Bible reveals to us from the beginning that God never created death, He never created suffering and He never created sickness, He never created mental illness, He never created accidents, He never created disappointment
He created the world perfectly. But sin entered and through sin came death. Then God came in!
How do I know He loves me? Because He did not let sin run it’s final curse.
For God so loved the world! See that God’s love for you is not whether He answers your prayers or not.
Because some people say: If God really loved me, why would He allow this? If God loved me, why is my child ill ? If God really loved me, why did He allow me to go through so much pain? If God loved me, why did He not stop the abuser? If God really loved me, why did my parents get divorced?
The proof of God’s love is not based on your blessings!
The proof of God’s love is that He gave His only begotten Son!
The greatest proof of God’s love for you is that He died for you.
He died for your eternal salvation, He died for you to be forgiven, He died for you to be justified, He died for you to be redeemed, He died for you not to go to hell, He died for you to be saved! He died for you to be in His family!
This is the proof that He loves you! He loves you!
When you go through the valley of death, He does not stop loving you!
When you are faced with the death of a loved one, He does not stop loving you!
When you’re unemployed, He does not stop loving you!
When you’re suffering, He does not stop loving you!
Because the Cross still remains! He never stopped loving you!
To deal with disappointments, we first need to deal with some myths (things that are not true)
“God will take away all my present suffering!” That’s a myth! This is a lie.
In this world you will have tribulations! John 16:33
That’s a promise! Jesus keeps His promise: You will have tribulation!
“In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,”
2 Timothy 3:12 NIV
There will be suffering. People will suffer for following Christ. Sometimes suffering begins as soon as you give your life to Jesus. You suffer rejection, suffer being misunderstood, being mocked and some are even killed because of their faith.
The Bible says that Jesus is a man of pain (Isaiah 53:3)
Through His suffering, He redeemed the world!
When He invites us to follow Him, He does not invite us to pleasure, He invites us to denial!
He invites us to take the cross! The symbol of Christianity is not a “sandy beach” or sea of roses, it is a Cross!
You are here today in church today because of the blood of the apostles and many missionaries, pastors that gave their lives preaching the Gospel.
But because of small suffering, because of disappointments in the Church, many people abandon their faith and their church.
I believe in miracles, God will take away your loneliness, he will deliver you from demons, he will heal your heart, he will fill your mind with peace! But please understand that “This world is not yet a paradise.”
It says,
They had great faith and they suffered and they died because of their faith!
Hebrews 11:35-39
The Bible doesn’t give us the reason why they were homeless, the reason why some of them were cut in the half, the reason why some of them were beheaded.
Some people have enough faith to live through troubles, some people have enough faith to endure them.
Some people have faith to deliver them from death, others have faith to help them die victoriously like Stephen died.
Paul said that Timothy
“Endure suffering along with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.”
2 Timothy 2:3 NLT
I want to encourage you, always pray, always have faith for the miracle, always pray against suffering, but do not trust on your own understanding!
Faith is trusting God in every circumstances! Have an unshakable faith!
May the Lord bless you and keep you!