Wisdom in the waiting room

Main Idea: When despair rolls in start exalting God’s wisdom and stop exalting man’s.

1. Good news: God is infinitely wiser than you (11:33)
   • Ephesians 2:4
2. Relax: God doesn’t need your expertise. (11:34-35)
3. Praise him—his purposes are the best (11:36)
   • 1 Corinthians 1:26-31
   • Ephesians 3:9-11

Build a praise list

• List 10 ways you have seen God’s mercy in the past.
• List 10 ways God has helped you in unexpected ways. 
• Keep searching God’s treasury of wisdom the Bible for his good purposes.

• Automated Transcription

• 0:13
  Well, good morning, friends. It's good to see you all this morning, and I am just so thrilled I was in on watching some of the openings each night of VBS. I am so thankful for Joe and his team and all the volunteers, you know, the the cooks that fed all the volunteers to the volunteering, and the kids, every age, every segment of our church was represented there. What a, what a great opportunity that is. You know, when you, when you come to faith, Bible Church, and you get connected with faith, Bible Church, not only do your kids and your grandkids, if you can drag them with you and yourself, get the truth centered on Jesus, not only do you get that, but you get examples. I think of your second, third, fourth, fifth graders watching 1213, 1415, year olds serve them like that's a really encouraging and good thing. So if you love being in a place and want or want to be in a place where not only will you get the truths of God's word, but you will also have examples like they they're here. It is so encouraging. So I'm thankful for all of those of you who who did that for us. This week, we are in our series on the sovereignty of God called trusting God, even when life hurts. We have paralleled that with Jerry bridges Book Trust in God, and we're in our series. This is part four in the series on trusting God. Bridges defines God's sovereignty this way. It's his constant care for and absolute rule over all his creation for His own glory and the good of his people. And that's a really helpful definition of sovereignty. Today we're going to be focusing on his wisdom. You can trust God because he is wise. You could trust God because he is wise. Stand with me for the reading of God's Word. Turn to Romans chapter 11. It is one of these Pinnacle moments in the New Testament, after Paul expounds what the gospel is, he bursts into praise, and this leaves us an example of what we do when we reflect on the amazing things that God does in ways that our response to God. How is this a good idea? Have you ever said God, how is this a good idea? Yeah, I bet you have. And Paul gives us a model of trust and praise in that Romans, 11, verse 33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor, who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid For from him and through him and to him, are all things to him be glory forever. Amen. This is the word of the Lord God. We thank you because you have given us Your Word, which highlights our Savior, Jesus Christ. And from the stories that the kids learned this week about Moses, your plan through the Scripture from Moses words from Genesis on have been pointing to Christ and here Paul reflects on your sovereign plan with great praise. And we want to be those kind of people too. We want to give you praise. We want to give you praise, whether life is easy for us or whether life is hard for us, help us trust your wisdom. We have descriptions of your wisdom that can really help us today. Do that? Pray that you give us ears to hear, eyes to see, a heart that would be ready mark these truths on us. Help us carry them into the next difficulty or in the current difficulty, Father, I pray for churches around our city. I pray for New Hope, Bible Church just off Argonne. I pray that You would help Jeremy, their worship pastor, their new pastor. Pray that You would help that congregation be a faithful light to the gospel in the valley, along with Trinity Church of the valley. Pray for Paul Funches and Jeremy and Dan Ferguson, another elder there, that You would help them faithfully lead. And then we pray for the congregation to be a faithful witness to Christ, God. We want your work trumpeted. We want Christ proclaimed. And we want you, Lord Jesus, to continue to. Save and transform your people into your image. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated 2021 Lynn and I joined Paul and Christy Funches and Jeremy and Stephanie coon at a church planting Conference in Washington, DC. We wanted to support the guys and their wives of Trinity Church as they were getting ready to plant. One afternoon, the girls went on a walk in the National Mall. I got a call from Linda, and she was deeply distressed. She was crying. She was 100 yards from the White House, and she looked up to look at the White House, and she caught her foot on a crack in the sidewalk, face planted, broke the top two front teeth. Needed stitches in her lower lip. It was rough. Well, the guys get the call, I get the call. And Funches hails an Uber. The Uber comes, and it is a high speed break all the laws through Washington, DC to the White House. While we were going, I was using Google Maps to figure out what emergency room we go to, and if there's a dentist. It's 330 in the afternoon on a Friday. Lynn needed stitches and a dentist. We were 3000 miles from home. We we make the choice of going to the ER first we get in, and they said it could be 10 hours before you're seen. Worth thinking, Lord, we're here to serve you and support church planters. How? How is this a good idea? Have you ever? Have you ever had a trial pounce on you and you ask that question in your heart? How is this a good idea? I bet you have. You're in the waiting room for a long time. The cycle of anger, doubt, despair add to the already massive weight of pain and emotions. You know that that could be hour five in the waiting room, it could be month five in a lawsuit. It could be year five after being abused. And here's what we so often do we so often do this. We get caught in this, this swirl. We focus on the person to blame. We redouble our own efforts to fix it. We anxiously search for an expert when we can't fix it, only to find that a few hours or a few days, we're just back in this. In fact, you're questioning the goodness and wisdom of God at these times. You're asking, How is this a good idea? All you want to do is love your family, your friends, your church, but now you find yourself swirling in a cycle of bitterness and despair. Romans 1133, through 36 gives us the best, but also the most unexpected answer. It's our big idea. We need to start exalting God's wisdom and stop exalting man's. We need to start exalting God's wisdom and stop exalting man's. That's what Paul models for us here. If you go from questioning to praising the wisdom of God, you can find peace in the waiting room, if you'll listen and apply those times, will actually foster a deeper relationship with Christ, and you will actually become a source of compassion, of wisdom with others who are also in the waiting room, and if you fail to bring God's wisdom into the waiting room, you're going to get repeatedly pummeled by waves of anger, doubt, despair, anxiety. Does that sound fun? I want to go to trials and make it worse. That doesn't sound like a good idea. Start exalting God's wisdom. Stop exalting man's one of the questions Paul's dealing with in Romans is he's seeing people with objections, and he's answering them, and a lot of them, one of the major ones is about suffering, the How can any of this be a good idea kinds of questions, and he answers those. We don't have time to go through all of Romans, but early in Romans, he answers how the gospel. Gospel helps suffering under sin and judgment.
  
  10:05
  The gospel is the answer to suffering and disease, disaster, persecution. Romans, chapter five, Romans. Chapter Eight, the Gospel answers the suffering of interpersonal conflict. In the next chapter we don't have time to get to it today, but in chapter 12, the Gospel answers the suffering of racial and religious division. In chapters 14 and 15, underlying a lot of what's going on here are how God, in His wisdom, answers our suffering with the gospel. This chapter we're in, chapter 11, shows how the gospel answers everyone's waiting room for the final day. For the final day, it is a picture of Jews who have held God off, finally seeing the light by the faith of the Gentiles. And then God bringing everything to redemption. And when Paul demonstrates that God has a good plan for Jews and Gentiles, that one day there will be a new creation and a unification, Paul bursts out in this praise. His soul is satisfied. This doxology comes off his pen, masterfully written. God's wisdom is unfathomable, displaying the glory of His justice and His mercy. Stop exalting God's wisdom. Start exalting God's wisdom. Stop exalting man's let's walk through this. Let's look at how he models for this. First thing I want to tell you is good news God is infinitely wiser than you. That is good news for you. It's good that you can't get your mind around God's wisdom. And it's actually quite dangerous when you think you can. Man's so small in the important issues of life that it will always fail us. But God's wisdom will never fail us. His wisdom will never fail us. Verse 33 he says, Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments, how inscrutable his ways. Paul begins this praise to God linked to the verse just in front of it. We have time to look at that one verse context, which is a summary. It says this, For God has consigned all to disobedience that he may have mercy on all and here what he's doing is referring to Jews and Gentiles. All sin against God, all sin against others, both Jews and Gentiles. That's how Romans starts. Now I want you to circle the word consigned, or at least note it in your mind, consigned. It says God's consigned all to disobedience. The Bible, especially Romans describes it in two words, one is giving over. Another is hardening. But essentially, what this idea means is it goes like this, you have rebellion and sin, and God says, Okay, you want to rebel against me, all right, then I will give you over to your rebellion so that you can experience the full misery of your sins. I will actually lock you in the prison of your own sinful thinking, consigned all people have been. This is the state of sin. You want your sin. I'll give you your sin. In fact, I'm going to put you in a prison of your own sin. I mean, how does it sound to you to be put in a prison, maximum security prison with no jail cells and the most violent offenders on the planet? That sounds horrible, but this is what we're asking for when we sin. God consigns now, he says, and this is a sign of His justice. So he's highlighting his justice in order to do this. But that's not the end. That's just the first stage he has consigned all to disobedience so that he may have mercy on all Jews and Gentiles. He's not talking about all comprehensively. He's talking about representatively, Jews and Gentiles. God will display His mercy
  
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  all sin against God others, all sin against and then all receive mercy and forgiveness through Christ, we back. My lights on, we're back. Are we? Ian? Are we on? Can you hear me? Oh, yeah, how about this one and this one and this one, I can also yell,
  
  15:21
  yes, no, it's all down.
  
  15:31
  If we go long, it's not my fault. All right, I'm going to go. I'm going to go. Paul begins, there we go. Paul begins to praise God with this exclamation, and it's linked to God's displaying his universal plan for salvation everybody sins. God is going to choose to have mercy on all kinds of people, Jews or Gentiles. And this is according to God's infinite wisdom and mercy. And he burst out and prays. He says, oh the depths, look at it. Verse 33 oh the depths, which is a ship going word, it's a navigation word, the idea of depths is something that has no bottom, swirling, whirling, ominous, fearsome. This word picture of unreachable, fearsome wonder, Oh, the depths. And then he lists out three things. The idea is that there's no anchor rope that could ever reach the bottom for these three things. And these are the three things you have to scoop up into your bucket. First, riches, riches, which point back to God's justice and judgment and His grace and mercy and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. This points right back to verse 32 everything that he's been talking about mercy is God's feeling of compassion toward those who suffer, especially in their sin. God sees sinners in their suffering. He feels compassion. Paul has referred to the riches of God's mercy in Ephesians two, four. But God, being rich in mercy made us alive. In Christ, there are ocean depths of mercy for the suffering sinner who turns to Jesus Christ, then he takes us to our wisdom. Word, wisdom, oh, the depths of the wisdom. Now, wisdom is a skill. Word. Wisdom uses knowledge effectively. I've heard this definition. I wish I could footnote it, but I don't remember where I got it, but it's something like this, and I want you to repeat it in a minute. God knows what is best and does what is best always. God knows what is best, does what is best always. Let's say this together. God knows what is best and does what is best always. God's wisdom is deep, unfathomable. John read it for us in our first scripture, reading from Psalm 104, 24, very often, scriptures point to God's wisdom in creation. Psalm 104, 24 says, O Lord, how manifold are Your works in wisdom you have made them all. The earth is full of your creatures. When we look at creation, we marvel at the wisdom of God. Daniel refers to it in God's wisdom over empires. Daniel 220 says, Blessed be the Name of God, forever and ever, to whom belong, wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings. God is over all political happenings in the world, and he always has been. Paul is working. God is working it out for his good plan. Here, Paul extols God's wisdom in his grand plan of salvation, from Christ on the cross to the new creation. In that new creation where we are perfected, there will be no racial division. There will be full unity and perfection. He is wise. The third depth that he talks about is knowledge. Knowledge. Knowledge is God's absolute and comprehensive understanding of all things past, present and future. In fact, God's knowledge is so great. He not only knows what has happened in the past, what is happening now and what will happen in the future, but he would know every possibility of every different outcome like he can imagine. He can know. Now with a comprehensive knowledge all possibilities, it's unsearchable. This is God's knowledge now connected to the fact that he is present everywhere. I want you to think about what this means he's sitting in your chair with you. He's sitting in your chair with you. That means he's present everywhere, and he has that knowledge personally, personally, he knows every situation, from the hospital room to the Pentagon's war room. He uses this word, unsearchable and inscrutable. They're both ways of saying it's more than anyone can understand. A lot of times, I was looking up the two Greek words for it, and they both use the same word to translate. It's two different Greek words. And they both use, you know how the best way to translate each of these words unfathomable, which is another ocean word they used to measure depths of ocean by fathoms. There was marks on a rope, and a sailor would lower it down to know how deep it was, if they could weigh anchor or not. And they would measure it by fathoms. Well, there's no measuring. It's unfathomable. It's beyond your comprehension. I mean, that's good news. It's good news. It's more than anyone. It's more than even chat. GPT can handle. Paul applies this unfathomable reality to God's judgments and God's ways. Every decision he makes, every action he takes, every judgment or decision that he arrives at, all justice is according to his unimaginable or unfathomable wisdom. His ways have to do with his practices, his plans, his paths. It's all beyond your comprehension, and that's really good news. That's really good news he knows far better than you, far more than you, when you're in hour five in the ER month five in a lawsuit, or year five after being abused, there's good news you can start exalting God for wisdom, for his wisdom, and you can stop exalting man, and you can find peace in that. God knows better. God knows best. Second, so first, you can say there's good news God. God knows better than you. God's wisdom is superior than yours. It's unfathomable. Second. Relax, relax. God doesn't need your expertise. God doesn't need your expertise. I know you want to give it to him. I know as soon as you get into trouble, you're going like, where was I in the brainstorming session that led us here. If you've ever said to God with frustration in your heart, what are you doing? I mean, you're taking the same bait as Eve and Adam did in the garden, the same bait, the same bait Job did in his suffering in the garden Satan deceives Eve questioning God's wisdom and his good plans of restricting what they ate. Job, Job had friends who challenged him, and eventually he starts CHALLENGING GOD when we ask and we question God's wisdom. What are we doing? We are elevating ourselves to God like status. I can handle all my problems. I can handle everybody else's. Paul quotes three Old Testament sources, and they all get at the human issue of pride. They all get there. The first one is from Isaiah 4013, and I would just encourage you a little pause. We started the series. Ian started us with it, and he was working out of Isaiah 40, if you have a friend. If you have a friend, I have a friend, or if you need it, and you're new, but if you have a friend, go back to our podcasts, which have our sermons, and send this to somebody who is in bad need of comfort and help from God's sovereignty. In the middle of that Psalm. That chapter Isaiah, 4013 that's quoted here For who has known the mind of the Lord, who has searched out God's wisdom and found its gaps? Have you found the gaps in God's wisdom?
  
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  Well, of course, the answer is no. What's the answer to every one of these questions? No one who has known the mind of the Lord, no one who has been his counselor, no one who has given him, given a gift to him that he might be repaid. Answer from everybody is no one. No one has Who does God turn to when he doesn't know what's best, he turns to no one. He always knows what's best, who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid. This phrase is kind of interesting. The idea is that somebody thinks they can lend something to God, and then God would have to pay them back for it, like a prepayment or a down payment, or, you know, let me, let me, God, can I help you out a little bit? I have something that I might give to you, as long as you pay me back with some interest. Have you ever made a deal with God, the kind of deal that was, in retrospect, God, I did this for you. Now you have to do something for me. You ever done that you probably have businesses today make big money. They actually pay big money for know how, in management, in marketing, in systems, God has never hired a consultant. He's not looking at LinkedIn. He's not you relax. God doesn't need your expertise. He has it all handled.
  
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  Listen, you're hardwired for why questions, but almost always your why questions, or very often your why questions, are tethered to the wild stallion of pride in you. Here's how it often goes. You want to find who is to blame. When Linda tripped by the White House, I pulled out the Trump playbook every president's ever played it, and I said a little humorously, it's Biden's fault. It's his sidewalk by his house. I mean, does this work really? I mean, you don't want to do it again. You might need reconciliation in a relationship. You might need justice and protection, like all those things are important in the Why did it happen? But focusing on fault fighting finding is riding the wild often is riding the wild stallion of pride, because it just makes you feel good to have somebody to blame, somebody to be mad at. And if you, if you link up the why question, question to your wild stallion of pride, you're going to get bucked off your ropes, going to be tied and you're going to get drug along, broken on the ground. You have to tame pride is your enemy in adversity. Pride is your enemy in adversity. You have to tame it. You have to tame it by acknowledging God's just justice, His mercy and His wise plans. We look for experts. I mean, we need help. You need experts, but tethered to your pride, our search can become angry, fearful, anxiety filled, fear filled that God won't be good, and worse, it may never get fixed. You know, we, we got on the roller coaster 15 minutes after checking into the ER finding out that it was going to be 10 hours, I did what everybody does. I searched Google Maps for a dentist. Nearby dentist. I found a dentist that was willing to see us right away. It was 345, Friday afternoon in Washington, DC. There was a dentist who was willing to see us. She said, I'm going to hold my staff here. I was just about to send them home. Hospital staff told us to go. We had plenty of time. We took another high speed Uber ride. I mean, all Linda has to do is, like, Look at my face, and they're like, Oh, we feel so bad. We got the. Best rides in Washington, DC ever. She gets us in her team, preps her within two hours. Lynn is back in the ER with two beautiful new front teeth. Still need stitches. The next eight hours felt like constant disappointment. About an hour later, Linda's name was called, yay. We're getting moved up in the line. We go in triage. Nurse, do you have any broken bones? Do you have any broken wrists? You need stitches. Just stitches. All right, back in the waiting room. A couple hours go by, we hear our she gets her name again. Oh, we're going to move to the front of the line. We're going to get treated, no hospital registration and payment. They wanted to make sure they were going to get their money back in the line. You know, here's the reality, if you give an expert the power to give you hope and peace. You are giving a mere human, God like power, God like status, and you are set for constant disappointment, relax. God doesn't need your expertise, start exalting God's wisdom. Stop exalting man's especially your pride. And third move to praise, praise him. His purposes are best for humans. There are selfish purposes, there are well meaning purposes, but for God, there are only good purposes. Last week, John plesnick preached on the goodness of God. There are only good purposes. God's justice is good. Crimes will be judged. God's grace and mercy are good. So start exalting God's sovereign plan for his good purposes. Stop trusting man's selfish or even well meaning purposes. He says this in one of the most concise and yet thorough statements on the sovereignty of God in the whole Bible, verse 36 notice the prepositions four through two. They summarize for us the full sovereignty of God. For from him and through him, and to him are all things to Him, be glory, forever. Amen, these three little prepositions summarize God's sovereign power and work from him. God is the source of all things, all material things, especially in terms of making and initiating a plan through Him. God sustains all things. He keeps the plan on track. Your plans get off track. You are derailed. Whatever happens to you that derails your plans has never derailed God's plans. God's plans always stay on track. He is sufficient. He supports. Everything comes from him. Everything is sustained through him. Everything is to him. That is, he is the end and the goal. A few verses in Colossians, chapter one, give this same sort of thing to Jesus, who, by his wisdom and word, created all things. Through Him, all things hold together so that he might have preeminence in all things. That's this idea of to him, he is the end and the goal. And let me illustrate, while you have all why you have always agreed with this principle. You have always agreed with it, that everything should be to God in His glory. Let's say you buy the Lego Ferrari, you pull it out, you organize the pieces. You follow the step by step, plan experiencing the joy and satisfaction of every component. When you're finished, you put it on the shelf to enjoy who faults you for doing that? Nobody does. Nobody faults you for that. You bought it, you followed the plan. You finished. You put it on this and, man, there's the Lego Ferrari. Let's say you cross stitch. You buy the fabric. Actually, what you do is you buy a plan. You. Yes, then you buy the fabric and the thread according to the plan, and you stitch away for weeks. It's so satisfying to watch the image come together like you'd think that I've cross stitched I have not, but I have watched people do it and they love it. You frame it, you hang it on the wall. Who faults you for enjoying what you made? No one does in the Bible. God made the plan. God manufactured the pieces. God manufactured the fabric and the thread. God is sewing it together. He is sustaining his plans. God's bringing them to completion. God enjoys as he uses his justice, His mercy, His power and His wisdom, as he carries out the plants in the world, and he is going to enjoy the final product at the end, especially in saving his people. The New Testament points to two peculiar things that point to this wisdom. Just turn a couple of pages to the right to first, Corinthians. I'm going to read verses 26 to 31 for consider your calling brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. Here we have God's wisdom, and it's not like man's wisdom. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even the things that are not to bring nothing, to bring nothing, bring to nothing, the things that are now I asked my team this week give me one of your favorite Bible stories where God's ways were totally surprising
  
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  and everybody had on their list the story of Joseph. Story of Joseph. Joseph is given prophecy by God that his family, including his parents, will one day bow down and serve him. He tells everybody about the prophecy, all of you will judge him when we get to that passage. How dare he tell people God's prophecy? Like, really? Like, why are we hard on Joseph? He just, like, I had this dream. It was God's prophecy. You're all gonna worship Me, which none of the olders liked. God's wisdom was to take child 11, not child one, child 11, and make child 11 a very important person in his plan. Well, his brothers hate it, and they they sell him to the Egyptians as a slave and tell their father he's dead. Now you can imagine this goes on for 20 years in Joseph's life. You have to imagine, after various scenarios which we don't have time to get into, punctuated a time Joseph is remembering the dreams, and he is looking at the situation. He's going like, how is this part of the plan? He goes into jail for supposedly raping Potiphar, his wife. He stays in jail, even when he helps a couple of friends get out of jail. Eventually, though the famous story, has another dream and God, exalting Joseph to the right hand of Pharaoh, rescuing all of Israel and all the Jews, all Jews, all Gentiles, through a lower s savior, Joseph. What did Joseph say at the end of this? His brothers thought you're going to kill us now that dad's dead, right? Joseph says you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring about, bring it about that many people should be kept alive. See, God takes a slave and makes him second in charge of the world. Jews are saved. Gentiles are saved. This is, this is the way God works, surprising ways. He says this in First Corinthians, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God, and because of him, you are in Christ, Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. How did Jesus become wisdom to us through the cross, through. His rejection by Jews and Gentiles through his crucifixion, by being laid in a tomb. And there's nothing weaker than dead, and God raised Him from the dead, securing our forgiveness from the sins the cross paid. The resurrection proved, and all who call on Jesus Christ can be forgiven of their sins and be given the promise of new life. That is God's wisdom, and it is foolishness to men. God's glory is the goal. This is what he says, so that, so that all who boast, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. The
  
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  second example I want you to look at is in Ephesians. Three. Ephesians three. It's over to the right just a little bit. This is why, one of the reasons why I'm a pastor, I love the local church, because God promised to do something through the local church that is absolutely stunning and surprising, so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might be made now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. There's something else going on in the story that in the story that you have no idea about, but God is showing his his wisdom to demons and angels. They are watchers of God's great story. This was according to the eternal purpose that He has realized in Christ, Jesus, our Lord, God saves the church, misfits, misgreens in the waiting room. You must remind yourself to trust God, because if we use our Ferrari illustration, God never misses a piece, he never misses a part. If you use our cross stitch illustration, God never misses a stitch. He has them all. And he has his good purposes in saving, in Christ and creating, in creating the church. You know, if you were to get a group picture of any Bible believing local church, you know, if I were to take one and I'd do that piano, and I had a special filter on it that showed your spiritual past, your sinful past, if I were to do that, and it had this X ray, as soon as you all smiled, you'd be missing a bunch of teeth. It's not really pretty. And yet God, in His mercy, brings us together. I marvel at the wisdom of God through the church, the back stories of what we were and what God has made us to be. God by the mercy of Jesus Christ transforms us back to Romans. Marcus is going to Marcus Danny is going to preach for us in a couple of weeks, a missionary in Czech Republic, and he's going to preach on Romans eight. I'm going to preview, and this is a verse that's really familiar to you, but I want you to understand what God's doing. Want you to understand what's God's doing. In this wisdom, this very familiar verse, we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to His purpose, some network made a series using this bizarre airplane story, God's working all things to good, and they keep quoting all things work to good, as if everything's going to turn out, well, that's not it. What's the good defined for us in Romans eight, it is defined for us like this. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, the good that God is ultimately doing in you is transforming you in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. There it is back to Jesus getting preeminence. Because what happens as we suffer like Jesus suffered, is we are perfected. One day we will be finished, and there will be a whole sea of people in the church who reflect back Jesus, and Jesus will be preeminent. There's always three things happening in your trial and suffering. One is that God is calling you back. You are so much like a butterfly in the wind in the summertime, just flitting from flower to flower to flower that looks pretty, that wouldn't look sweet. I want to go to that sometimes God's got to get our attention, and he does that a lot of times by yanking with trouble. I. God, He calls us to himself, very often, calling us to Himself through our suffering. Second is he conforms us. He conforms us to his image. He changes us. That's what happened with Jesus. Romans or sorry, Hebrews two said that Jesus was perfected through the things by which He suffered. That's why Paul says, I want to share the sufferings of Christ, because I'll be conformed to be like him. He transforms us mindless, little butterfly from flower to flower to stable, patient, godly Christ honoring character, and
  
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  he turns us into caregivers. He calls us, He changes us. He turns us into caregivers. That's how Second Corinthians opens about the God of all mercy, giving us mercy and comfort through Jesus Christ, so that we may be able to comfort all who are in any affliction. You become a comforter in the waiting room as you suffer with peace, relying on God's wisdom, His grace and His power. Ian
  
  46:47
  you know, we try other, other things. I think it was about hour two. Linda's like, they've got to know, I've got a split lip. So she goes up and it's like, can I get first in line? I've got stitches. I need stitches. Nurse looks at her like, sorry, honey, it's just stitches. We see 1000 of those like we try. At some point we need to rest and trust who we sit and we settle in, we start thinking about the funny stories. And here's just a little recipe for you. You could do this in 30 minutes today and have something to keep with you. List out 10 Ways You have seen God's mercy in your life. Can you list out 10 ways you've seen God's mercy? I bet you easily can second list out 10 ways God brought you unexpected help. I mean, in the middle of that time, a dentist was open, stayed open at four o'clock in the middle of that time, Paul Funches shows up. Says, Are you guys hungry? To which Lynn is like, Oh no, I don't feel like eating. I'm like, I'm hungry. I could eat. He goes and gets me. I don't want the best burgers we've ever had. I was so hungry. Unfortunately, I ate it in front of my wife. I'm a horrible person, but God brings these little bits of Mercy into us. You know, for years we have built treasury of wisdom. This is what you want to do, is search a treasury of wisdom. Long time ago, I just made this little page. Ray Hannah has the full page. Like, don't leave without Ray Hannah's version of this list. He made a really good one. But it's it's psalms in Scripture for the sick and suffering. Like I was just tired of going to the hospital and not knowing what to say, so I made myself a list. If you want to snap a picture, I'll leave it on the chair, and you can snap a picture. Make your own list. You need to search the treasury of wisdom for God's good purposes. And so she starts reading from her phone. I start reading to her. And you know, it's a long time, a long time, fungises prayed for us. Coons prayed for us, little signs of God's mercy. At about midnight, we were finally brought back. They were ahead of schedule. It was only nine and a half hours, a resident saw us first needed to clean out the wound, he couldn't even, like, the water was just gonna pour out on Linda's lap. So I, like, had to hold the bucket there, the little tray. Then a young ER doctor came and had to give Linda the most excruciating shots. You know, you have more nerves in your lip than you have anywhere in your body, and she's got to get these numbing shots so that she can get her stitches. I mean, the pain was excruciating.
  
  49:55
  I still wince. I. So I was holding her hand. That was not the time to cry, that was the time to be strong. I cry now for whatever reason, but I was holding her hand and the ER doctor, like gets done with the shots, is waiting for the numbing to work. It's like, okay, what's with you two? Are we in trouble? It's like you obviously love each other. Like, how is this? Lynn, this says, without pause, if it's Jesus.
  
  50:35
  He said, My dad has been encouraging me to get back to church for months, but I just haven't done it since I moved here. So we were sharing the gospel with him. We said, Where do you live? He lived blocks from the church that was hosting the church planting conference we were at. And I said, I know where you need to go. And we gave him the connection information right away, God has surprising plans, and we're allowed to appoint, to appoint a doctor to Christ and a good church. I don't know how those things are going to work out, but God, in His goodness, does good news. Christ is wiser than you. Relax. You don't need to give God any of your wisdom. He doesn't need your expertise. Praise him for his plans are best. Let's pray God we thank you for this word. Hear Your grace and mercy in our lives. We thank you for conforming us to the image of Christ through adversity and through Your Word. And I pray that we would use your word, that you would prepare us. I know there are some who are in the waiting room right now, and I pray that they could take this and use it today to receive your peace, your power, answers for purpose and meaning. It's often we often feel purposeless or meaningless in suffering, but God answer those things for your glory, as we know you are working all things to a good and sovereign end, it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Dan Jarms

Dr. Dan Jarms is lead pastor at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.

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