- Pastor Kory Labbe
- Apr 28, 2024
- 14 min read
One of the Most depressing, defeating, discouraging phrases I hear people say so often is
“I just don’t see the purpose!” –
"What's the point?" It might be in their marriage, it might be in their finances, it might be spiritually when it comes to the church, they'll say, "What's the purpose? "I just don't see the purpose. "I'm exhausted. "Why should I keep trying? "Why do I try to do what's right "when it doesn't seem to make any difference at all? "It just doesn't seem to matter. "I don't see the purpose."
There is a reason There is a purpose. I've heard it said that people hate pain. I wonder if I asked you guys, do you hate pain? How many of you would say I hate pain? I think most people would say I hate pain. If that's you, you just go and type it in, I hate pain. I'm going to argue, though, that that's not completely accurate. It's my opinion that people don't hate pain, what they hate is they hate pain without a purpose. People hate pain when there's no reason they see attached to the pain. For example, if something bad happens and they don't see a reason, there's a car wreck and someone gets hurt, or you lose your job, and you wonder, God, where are you in this? This week, there was a plane crash on the Tanana River, what’s the purpose? I don't see a reason. What's the purpose, God? I'm trying to do what's right, I'm a good person and I try to help people, but I just don't see the point.
I would argue that people don't hate pain, what they hate is pain without a purpose…pain when there is no reason for it.
Because the truth is people can endure a lot of pain if there's a purpose. This is kind of crazy to me, but some people would actually pay money to experience pain, as long as there's a purpose. For example, I know some people who would pay good money to run a marathon. Now, I've never run in a marathon before, but in my mind, I imagine about mile one it starts to get painful. Then there's mile 2, 3 4 5 6 7 8 9…all the way to 26. And people will pay to run a marathon even though it's painful because the payoff, the satisfaction, the fulfillment, and the sense of accomplishment are worth the pain personally I don’t get it. A friend of mine gave me a treadmill and I will walk on it… it’s not bad, but I have tried running on them or just running in general and I think it is a great form of torture…and the runner’s high…I’ve never seen that, I just want to collapse and wait for someone to find me and carry me home…Running to me is awful and then I have some friends who enjoy crossfit. And they will tell me about it... 4,000 pushups, 4,000 air squats, 4,000 burpees, and that was just the warmup. Then the workout starts and it’s incredibly painful, but people will pay to endure that kind of pain because there's a payoff. There's a sense of accomplishment. You feel better, you have camaraderie, you enjoy the people that you're with, and you get in better shape. I work with a whole group of people starting the path of sobriety. So many of them endured the pain of detoxing and withdrawals, but they did it for the payoff.
My wife Joy has blessed our family with 2 kids. She gave birth 2 times and also endured losing 2 babies in the process. I was there for all 4 of them, of course. Of course, I was there for both live births, supporting her, cheering her on, holding her hand and it is one of the most painful things I have ever witnessed, but my hand recovered just fine.
And then there was the actual birthing of the babies, and she will kill me for telling you this, but Joy…can scream…loud…at the birth of Josiah I did not think my wife could scream so loud. But when you hold that baby, the baby is worth it.
People don't hate pain, what they hate is pain with no purpose. People can endure a lot of pain if there is a purpose. I wonder how many of you right now that you're living in a season that just feels completely uncertain. I think everybody would say this is not easy. I don't see a whole lot of good in this. There's a lot of frustration. There's a lot of pain. The title of this message is "There's Purpose In Your Pain."
I want to share with you a verse in the Bible, it's actually the words of Jesus, that used to bother me. It's in Luke's Gospel, Luke chapter 22, verse 31, and Jesus was talking to Simon whose name became Peter, so this is Simon Peter, and Jesus says, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat.”
So Jesus is saying to Simon Peter. "The devil wants permission to attack you, "to try to hurt you, "to test you, "to put you through some trials." Jesus could have said, Peter, you're going to be embarrassed, you're going to be humiliated, because you're not going to succeed, you're going to fall short, you're going to fail, and this is going to be a season that's more difficult than you could ever imagine.
Let's look at it again. “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.”
And then Jesus says, "But I've prayed for you, Simon, "that your faith may not fail." That bothered me. The devil wants permission to attack and Jesus says, "Okay, you can have permission, "but I'll be praying for you." I would rather He skip the prayers and just run the devil out of town. Just tell him, no, I mean, tell him no! The devil's asking Jesus, "Hey, can I attack?" And notice that Jesus didn't cause it, but for whatever reason he allowed it and said, "I'll be praying for you."
In John 16:33b Jesus says: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Jesus does not guarantee a pain-free life, what he guarantees is victory over this world. But to have victory you have to go into battle…you have to be tested.
Whenever it feels like the devil is attacking, when he's testing you, it's important to remember that sometimes God's preparation comes packaged as pain. Sometimes God's preparation, comes packaged as pain. In other words, there is a purpose in your pain. God might be using the pain that we're enduring to do something IN US before he does something THROUGH US. The pain that we're experiencing may be preparation for the purpose that God has prepared for us.
I want to show this in the story with Simon Peter. Now I don't know about you all but Peter makes me feel good because the guy continues to mess up. How many of you have a friend that you keep around like Peter just to make yourself feel better and look better? Like, yeah, you're my friend. No matter how stupid I look, you always are stupider. Everybody needs a friend like this. The devil comes after Peter and attacks him, and I want to show you just the high points of Peter's failures. There are so many of them but we'll just look at some of the bigger ones that we see in Scripture.
Let me give you these scriptures. One of them is found in Matthew 16, this is one of my favorite scenes with Peter
Matthew 16:13-20:
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
“Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.”
Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus replied, “You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.”
Then he sternly warned the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
Peter must have been feeling AWESOME! On top of the world! Jesus just said that on the rock of Peter on the Petros…a little name play…Here I build my church, not only that, Peter I’m giving you the keys to my daddy’s house!
Matthew 16:21-23
From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead.
But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!”
Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”
Well that was a short lived victory for Peter…I bet peter was thinking to himself…Stupid…stupid….stupid…if I could only keep my mouth shut!
I mean think about it Jesus actually predicts his death. He says, "God sent me to give my life. "On the third day, God will raise me from the dead." And what does Peter do? Peter essentially rebukes Jesus for clearly defining his mission. "This is why I came," and Peter says, "No!" Jesus is like, "This is why God sent me," and Peter says, "No!" And Jesus looks at Peter and says, "Get behind me, you're a stumbling block," and then he calls Peter Satan. "Get behind me, Satan." Now, here's the thing, any time Jesus calls you Satan, that means what you did was not good, okay? He calls Peter Satan!
Matthew 26 is another failure… verses 36-45:
Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, “Sit here while I go over there to pray.” He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed. He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
Then he returned to the disciples and found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!”
Then Jesus left them a second time and prayed, “My Father! If this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, your will be done.” When he returned to them again, he found them sleeping, for they couldn’t keep their eyes open.
So he went to pray a third time, saying the same things again. Then he came to the disciples and said, “Go ahead and sleep. Have your rest. But look—the time has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus was wrestling with his calling, he tells Peter and others, "Stay on guard, just stay awake, keep watch." And Jesus comes back a little while later and Peter's taking a nap. He's sawing logs, he's sleeping away. Come on Peter…If Jesus says stay awake so that you can avoid temptation…I’d be trying to stay awake, pacing, jumping whatever it took!
John 18, later in that very same story. Jesus is arrested by some Roman soldiers, he's going to do what he clearly explained he was called to do, and Peter again tries to stop it. He draws his sword, this is funny to me, he swings for the Roman soldier's head, and he doesn't even hit the target. He can't even accomplish what he's trying to do. He misses the guy's head, he clips his ear, he cuts off the ear. And Jesus is kind of like, "Peter, calm down, calm down. "Put your sword back, "you're getting in the way of my purpose." This is funny if you read the text. Jesus is like, "Find the guy's ear." I can just imagine, where's that ear? It rolled off somewhere. Find the ear, it's in the bushes, give me the ear, and then Jesus goes and heals the ear.
Then there's the big one,
Read Luke 22:21-34:
“But here at this table, sitting among us as a friend, is the man who will betray me. For it has been determined that the Son of Man must die. But what sorrow awaits the one who betrays him.” The disciples began to ask each other which of them would ever do such a thing.
Then they began to argue among themselves about who would be the greatest among them. Jesus told them, “In this world the kings and great men lord it over their people, yet they are called ‘friends of the people.’ But among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant. Who is more important, the one who sits at the table or the one who serves? The one who sits at the table, of course. But not here! For I am among you as one who serves.
“You have stayed with me in my time of trial. And just as my Father has granted me a Kingdom, I now grant you the right to eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom. And you will sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.”
Peter said, “Lord, I am ready to go to prison with you, and even to die with you.”
But Jesus said, “Peter, let me tell you something. Before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny three times that you even know me.”
This is whenever Jesus prophesied that Peter would end up denying Jesus three times even before the rooster crowed, and Peter boldly said, "That will never, ever happen. "I will always be in your corner, I'm your guy. "If you can count on anybody, you can count on me."
Continue down on verse 54-60:
'So they arrested him and led him to the high priest’s home. And Peter followed at a distance. The guards lit a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat around it, and Peter joined them there. A servant girl noticed him in the firelight and began staring at him. Finally she said, “This man was one of Jesus’ followers!” But Peter denied it. “Woman,” he said, “I don’t even know him!” After a while someone else looked at him and said, “You must be one of them!” “No, man, I’m not!” Peter retorted. But Peter said, “Man, I don’t know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. About an hour later someone else insisted, “This must be one of them, because he is a Galilean, too.” '
The pain felt like it was more than he could take. I'm just such a failure. I let God down. I haven't lived up to my potential, I'm such a failure. In life there is pain, there are times when we just don’t understand and so we don’t want to keep going. I often hear people say why am I going through this, in other words, why is there all this pain?
And here I am. I'm supposed to have the fruits of the Spirit, I'm supposed to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control, and the only fruits I have are anger, anxiety, frustration, fear, and worry.
Where was God in the middle of Peter's failures? Where was God in the middle of his pain, his regret? There was a purpose. There was a reason.
Sometimes God's preparation comes packaged as pain.
That's why I try to tell myself not to just look at life from a perspective of pain. This is so easy to do, just to look and say, well, here's what I've lost, and here's what's not fair, and here's what I used to have, and here's what I was going to do. Here's what I was seeing is now here's what I have. Don't just look at life from a perspective of pain, but see your pain through a perspective of purpose.
Realize that God may be doing something in you before he does something through you. That the difficult thing that you're going through right now is not without purpose. God may have allowed it to strengthen you in a way that only this pain could strengthen you. In fact, I love what the apostle Paul said in Romans 8:28, one of the most quoted verses in the Bible with good reason. He says, "We know that in all things." Somebody say, in all things. We know that in all things, that means that in the promotion or in the layoff. That means in the blessing of the relationship or in the breakup. That means when you make great decisions and you're proud of them or you make the decisions that you regret. "We know that in all things "our good God works for the good "of those who love him." And….are you ready for this next part? "Who have been called according to his purpose."
Somebody say purpose. He'd been called according to his purpose. God works in all things, everything, whatever you're going through right now, in this season God works in all things for the good according to God's purpose, not according to your pain.
If you don't understand the purpose behind the creation of a thing, you're very likely to misuse and abuse the purpose of the thing. And that's the very reason why people are frustrated. You don't understand your purpose.
When I was in Highschool, I was on the swim team. One of the things we did was what we called dry land exercise, it’s what everyone else just called exercise. We do push ups and sit ups, but one of the hardest exercises were the static body lifts or the foot flutters. We would lay on our back and lift up our feet about 6 inches off the ground and hold it there. I remember my coach saying to us, “You need to push through the pain, PAIN is just weakness leaving the body.” You see the physical pain that we were going through was helping us to develop endurance for the race that was to come.
Romans 5:1-5
'Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory. We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. '
Pain (trials and Tribulations) lead us to devevlop endurance as we read in Romans 5 this will lead to the hope of the Holy spirit being poured out on us. Pain is often the preparation and refining that we have to endure in order for God to purify us into what he desires us to be.
'He will sit like a refiner of silver, burning away the dross. He will purify the Levites, refining them like gold and silver, so that they may once again offer acceptable sacrifices to the Lord . '
Malachi 3:3
When a refiner is refining silver, he places it in a crucible and heats it with fire until it becomes liquid. And as it becomes liquid, he pulls out the dross, the impurities. The refinery knows the silver is pure when he can see a perfect image of himself in the silver. This is what God does when he is working in our lives. When we face trials and tribulations, when we face pain, that pain has a purpose, bringing us closer to the reflection of God, and preparing us for the things that God has planned for us.
To understand your pain, you must understand your purpose in Life.
God has a purpose for your life!
'For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord . “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. '
Jeremiah 29:11