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00:00 Sadly, there are too many churches in our land
00:03 that kind of give us this vibe.
00:05 If we have enough faith,
00:06 if we receive Christ and serve and tithe,
00:12 then we're not gonna have any pain and suffering.
00:14 That does not hold biblical water, I hope you know that.
00:17 So I want an explanation in my humanity,
00:20 and the Bible gives me just enough,
00:23 but I need to rely on revelation
00:26 that reveal promises of God in pain and suffering,
00:29 not just on an explanation.
00:31 Because if I said, "God, explain to me,
00:33 "explain to me the what's and the why's in the house,
00:35 "explain to me the suffering,
00:36 "explain to me, explain to me,"
00:38 I would spend my whole life listening.
00:40 Have you ever been in a party, you're in a conversation,
00:48 and the conversation gets kind of boring, you know?
00:52 You're like, "This is just not going anywhere."
00:56 If you want people to really kind of freak out,
01:00 just bring up the subject of pain.
01:02 They'll go, "Screensaver on you."
01:07 Just say, "I wanna pivot, and let's talk about pain."
01:12 People will nervously laugh,
01:15 and they might look down at their feet.
01:17 Some will all of a sudden go,
01:18 "Excuse me, I have to go to the restroom."
01:20 We don't like to talk about pain, do we?
01:25 I mean, let's be honest, pain?
01:27 But if you ask people,
01:32 like these people in this conversation,
01:34 if you ask them several questions about their lives,
01:39 after a while, they'll reveal to you their pain,
01:43 the suffering that they have either gone through,
01:49 they're processing, or maybe they feel
01:53 that's on the horizon, pain.
01:57 I think the pain question
02:02 is definitely the biggest beef people have
02:08 against Christianity.
02:11 It's called a theodicy.
02:14 In other words, it goes like this.
02:21 How can a good God allow bad things
02:24 to happen to good people?
02:26 That's a question I've asked before.
02:31 People will ask me, "Ed, how about a school shooting?
02:37 "How about a child dying with cancer?
02:42 "How about a bad report from the doctor?
02:47 "How about," you fill in the blank.
02:51 How could a good God allow pain and suffering?
02:56 Now, on an intellectual level,
03:00 sometimes people are really honest
03:02 when they ask that question.
03:03 I mean, that's a good question to ask.
03:06 Other times, it could be a smoke screen
03:11 because the person throwing that at God,
03:15 they've never really taken a deep dive
03:17 into the nature and the character of who God is,
03:22 so they kind of use that as an excuse
03:25 not to go to church or not to read the Word of God
03:29 or not even open themselves to the things of God.
03:33 Still, others, when they say that,
03:37 it's kind of a cry for the companionship of God.
03:42 They feel as though God is unfair,
03:46 but they want Him and they want the presence of God
03:49 in their life.
03:50 Those are real issues.
03:53 Thankfully, the Bible is not silent about these issues.
03:57 The Bible talks about pain.
03:59 The Bible talks about suffering.
04:01 If you look at all the other world religions,
04:03 they don't even compare to how the Bible talks about pain.
04:08 Just think about Job in the Bible.
04:14 It's not Job, it's Job.
04:16 Job went through some hellacious pain.
04:21 Think about Joseph.
04:24 He was thoughtfully accused of a crime he didn't commit,
04:28 sold into slavery, and pain.
04:33 How about the apostle Paul
04:34 who wrote so much of the New Testament?
04:37 Paul had pain in his life.
04:39 He called it a thorn in the flesh,
04:41 and three times he asked God,
04:43 "God, deliver me from this pain."
04:45 And in the sovereignty of God, he didn't.
04:50 Then you have Simon Peter,
04:53 again, a major player in Scripture, pain.
04:58 Now, I'm not trying to be sadistic or like,
05:04 "Oh man, this is such a doggy downer pain."
05:08 I mean, yeah, pain is not fun.
05:10 It's not easy, but God allows it,
05:15 and God leverages it and uses it for his purposes.
05:22 The Bible is not a book full of explanations.
05:28 We have to understand that.
05:29 Now, it explains a good bit of stuff,
05:32 but it's really about revelation.
05:34 It's really about the promises of God.
05:40 Why is there suffering and pain in the world?
05:43 Short answer, our world is not perfect.
05:46 I mean, we live in a fallen, infallible place.
05:51 I am a self-centered sinner.
05:53 I'm a worse sinner than I think I am, and so are you.
05:57 And it's like when I ask God that question,
05:59 "God, I deserve to really know.
06:02 "I mean, give me the 411 here
06:04 "about why our daughter, two and a half years ago,
06:09 "suddenly passed from this life to heaven."
06:11 I mean, I'm a pastor.
06:12 You know, I've lived a, I think, pretty moral life.
06:18 Not perfect, I've only been with one woman,
06:20 Lisa and all that, and God, I mean, I preach sermons,
06:23 and what, what, what?
06:25 Why, why, why, why?
06:28 And that's a real question.
06:31 But we live in a place where the Bible says
06:34 it rains on the just and the unjust.
06:37 The Bible says in this world,
06:39 you will experience tribulation.
06:42 We're gonna go through pain.
06:44 We're all on a path, and that path will take us through pain.
06:49 The path, have you ever thought about paths,
06:52 just for a second?
06:53 A path, there are paths everywhere.
06:56 Paths are made of dirt, they're made of concrete.
07:00 I would probably say the entire freeway system
07:03 is a bunch of paths.
07:04 And man, in Dallas, do we have some potholes in the paths,
07:07 or what?
07:08 But we're all on paths, and Jesus said,
07:12 we're all on either one or two paths.
07:17 Either, you could call it path A or path B.
07:20 Jesus said in Matthew seven, that some are on,
07:24 in fact, he said most are on the wide path,
07:26 the popular path, the cool path,
07:28 and Jesus said that leads to destruction.
07:31 Then he said, the other path, my path,
07:36 the road less traveled, is a narrow path.
07:41 It leads to eternity.
07:43 So both lead to eternity, one in heaven, one in hell.
07:48 Jesus, though, talked about paths.
07:51 If you wanna talk about pain, think about Jesus.
07:56 The best ever, and the worst thing
08:00 happened to the best ever.
08:02 The symbol of Christianity is a cross, an instrument,
08:06 of pain.
08:08 So we live in a fallen place.
08:12 I've caused some bad things to happen to me.
08:14 So have you, because of my shenanigans.
08:18 Other times, I've been on the receiving end
08:20 of the pain or evil in other people's lives.
08:23 Yet, within it all, here's what's so amazing,
08:27 we have a choice, don't we?
08:29 We have a free will.
08:31 And I was thinking the other day,
08:34 if we didn't have a choice, life would be meaningless.
08:38 We'd just be robots.
08:40 I used to do that dance back in the day.
08:42 It's pretty good still, isn't it?
08:44 Thank you very much.
08:45 What do we do, though, when we're walking on a path?
08:52 What do we do when we're walking through a path of pain?
08:56 All of us deal with pain.
08:59 I was in the hospital a while back.
09:02 I had open heart surgery.
09:03 I was born with a mitral valve prolapse
09:05 and had to have that valve tweaked
09:08 and they had to cut me open to do it.
09:11 I remember in the hospital room,
09:12 there was this little sign and it had a pain scale,
09:16 which I thought was interesting.
09:18 One to 10.
09:19 You know, at the bottom, one, kind of a smiley face.
09:23 The top.
09:27 Well, there I am in a hospital
09:31 and I'm going like, ah, it all hurts, man.
09:34 I can't, I don't know, am I 2.5 or a 7.3?
09:39 I don't know.
09:40 It hurts.
09:41 And whenever we go through pain,
09:43 maybe you're going through a divorce,
09:45 maybe you're going through depression,
09:47 maybe you're fighting an addiction.
09:50 I mean, and you go,
09:53 no one understands the pain I'm going through.
09:56 I get it.
09:57 I understand that.
10:00 No one understands your pain.
10:01 I don't and I cannot totally identify with your pain.
10:05 You can't totally identify with my pain.
10:08 God though, can.
10:10 Jesus experienced the ultimate pain,
10:14 pain like we can't even wrap our brains around
10:18 and he did it, check this out, to secure our salvation.
10:22 So really, the pain, pain draws us to Jesus.
10:28 The pain of my self-centeredness,
10:30 the pain of my sinfulness, are you with me?
10:34 And then God sent Jesus to go through unbelievable pain,
10:39 separation from God for three days,
10:43 then he rose again and my pain leads me to the cross
10:48 and it leads to salvation.
10:51 I mean, that's a heavy thing to think about, isn't it?
10:57 So think about your pain, just do a pain audit.
10:59 What are you going through right now?
11:01 It's all pain.
11:03 What are you going through?
11:07 All right, I'm gonna challenge you to ask yourself
11:12 in today's opening session about pain,
11:14 just four simple questions about pain.
11:18 That's right, just four questions.
11:21 What?
11:24 I mean, what is the pain and what should I do?
11:27 Why?
11:29 Why the pain, God?
11:33 When?
11:35 I mean, when should I tackle this pain?
11:39 I mean, should I just continue to swim laps
11:42 in the pool of regret?
11:44 Would've, should've, could've.
11:46 And that was very much of a temptation for Lisa and I
11:50 when Leibeth died for us to just,
11:54 I don't know, you call it swimming the rivers of regret
11:58 or swim upstream and you just play out all these scenarios
12:03 of what I should've done and I could've done this
12:07 and that's real, you have to do that.
12:11 But we have to understand that Jesus is extending
12:15 his nail scarred hand out to us when we're in that pool,
12:19 when we're in that river and he wants to pull us out.
12:22 We have to have a time, and I'm gonna talk about this,
12:24 where we move on.
12:26 It's not that we don't still walk with the limp,
12:29 but we have to move through our pain
12:33 and that's one of the reasons why we wrote this book
12:35 not only about our pain but the pain
12:37 that everyone deals with.
12:39 So what, why, when, and where?
12:43 I'm like, okay, where is this pain taking me?
12:47 Where?
12:50 Because my outlook determines the outline of my life
12:55 and then that leads to the outcome,
13:03 if we do it God's way, that he desires
13:05 and that's the best outcome that we could ever, ever
13:08 dream of.
13:10 So my outlook, what's your perspective,
13:13 what's my perspective on pain?
13:17 Okay, and then when I say, okay God,
13:21 I'm gonna look at it the way you look at it,
13:23 then suddenly I see God's outline for my life,
13:27 his priorities, and as I've said and written about
13:30 many times, we don't even have to argue about priorities.
13:33 They're in stone, the Bible has them there.
13:36 So if I'm in the right outlook and then I'm living
13:41 by the outline, then the outcome is the outcome
13:47 is going to be awesome.
13:51 It might not be exactly the way I would script it,
13:54 but when I move from this life to the next,
13:58 I'll look back and go, wow, it was all for the glory of God.
14:03 I don't though understand why God allows
14:08 all of these things in our lives.
14:09 I can give you some reasons, but I don't understand it all.
14:14 If God did explain everything to us,
14:17 we don't have the bandwidth to even understand it.
14:20 And we think in our humanity, oh, I could understand it.
14:24 No, no, no, and we're gonna talk about that in a second.
14:26 So what, what should I do?
14:28 Proverbs chapter three, verses five and six.
14:31 What should I do?
14:32 Why, when, and where?
14:34 What?
14:35 Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
14:37 That's the first thing, trust.
14:39 And we all trust.
14:41 And this word trust means to lie helpless before God.
14:46 Isn't that crazy?
14:48 It's a picture of a defeated soldier
14:54 at the feet of a general.
14:56 And we've all tried to, to win our way.
15:01 We've all tried to do life our way.
15:03 I have, and self-sufficiency leads to self-deception.
15:08 And that just doesn't work because if we stay with it,
15:13 it'll lead to self-destruction.
15:19 That's why God says trust.
15:21 Trust in the Lord with all of your heart.
15:25 What does the word heart mean?
15:26 Well, I know this, the heart is the center of everything.
15:30 The heart here in the Hebrew literally means our will,
15:34 our mind, our emotions.
15:37 It's the totality of who we are.
15:40 We trust God with it.
15:43 Now Solomon was writing this.
15:45 Solomon had Elon Musk type money.
15:49 The guy had 40,000 horse stables.
15:52 Billions in this trust fund, billions in that trust fund.
15:58 He wrote over 3,005 Proverbs.
16:01 He was like the man.
16:04 He wrote this, most scholars believe,
16:06 in his late 30s, early 40s,
16:08 as a father writing to his son.
16:12 So he's saying, son, you're gonna go through difficulties.
16:15 Son, you're gonna go through great times
16:17 and difficult times.
16:18 What do you do?
16:19 You trust in the Lord with all your heart.
16:23 I don't know about you, but I'm emotional.
16:26 I'm kind of an emotional person.
16:28 I don't know if it has to do with ADD, but you know.
16:31 And when I trust my emotions,
16:35 they don't always take me to where I should go.
16:39 But it's so sexy these days to say, go with your heart.
16:43 I met this guy online,
16:48 and he has a full head of hair and a Rolex watch.
16:54 I'm just gonna trust my heart.
16:56 Well, I understand the romance.
17:01 I understand how cool that sounds.
17:04 In reality, we have to trust God with our heart.
17:08 Trust Him with our emotions.
17:10 Trust Him with our will.
17:12 Trust Him with our intellect.
17:13 That is what Solomon was driving at.
17:16 So what?
17:17 Trust.
17:18 Trust.
17:19 Okay, the next question, why?
17:23 Why should I trust God?
17:26 I'm a why guy.
17:27 I want explanations.
17:28 Why?
17:29 Why?
17:30 Well, because I don't understand.
17:32 The Bible says, "And lean not on your own understanding."
17:35 If I leaned on this lectern, it's gonna fall over.
17:38 And too many times I've leaned on my own understanding.
17:42 And when I do that, for example,
17:45 some of the pain and suffering
17:48 that Lisa and I have gone through,
17:49 when I do that, I can go down that rabbit hole
17:53 and stay in that rabbit hole.
17:56 Why?
17:57 Why?
17:57 Why?
17:58 Why?
17:59 Why?
18:00 And don't get me wrong.
18:01 It's fine to say why.
18:02 It's great to say why God,
18:05 but very quickly you have to move from why God to what now?
18:09 I mean, what do I do?
18:11 What do you have for me?
18:14 Because the enemy wants us to stay buried
18:18 in that rabbit hole, trying, as I said earlier,
18:22 to understand.
18:23 We're not gonna comprehend it totally.
18:26 And in fact, most things in life that we trust,
18:29 we don't even understand anyway.
18:31 I mean, do we really understand gravity?
18:34 Not really.
18:36 What?
18:39 Trust.
18:40 Why?
18:40 Lean not on your own understanding, okay?
18:43 When?
18:44 Okay, when?
18:44 When should I do this?
18:46 Now.
18:47 Like that move?
18:48 Now.
18:49 In all your ways, not some of them, acknowledge Him.
18:54 And this word, acknowledging,
18:56 you're probably talking about it today over morning coffee.
18:58 This word acknowledge is pronounced in the Hebrew yada.
19:03 I like that.
19:04 Yada.
19:06 Yada means I submit totally God to you.
19:11 Here's what's interesting about Jesus.
19:14 Jesus talked a lot about people who didn't trust.
19:18 And He said, man, you're missing it if you don't trust me.
19:23 He also talked about people who had one foot in
19:26 and one foot out.
19:28 One foot on the rock and one foot in quicksand,
19:32 which I'll talk to you about in a second, quicksand.
19:34 And He said, those people are almost as wheels off
19:39 as the ones that totally don't trust.
19:42 So this is like, this is like,
19:46 I'm putting all the chips on the table.
19:51 I'm playing all my cards.
19:53 I give it all to you.
19:56 So in all of my ways, I acknowledge you.
20:01 That's when, right now.
20:03 The Bible says today is the day of your salvation.
20:05 And where?
20:07 Well, He will make your path straight.
20:10 God will make your path straight.
20:12 And the picture behind this,
20:15 if you know anything about travel in ancient days,
20:20 the roads were really treacherous.
20:22 Again, like some of our roads here in Dallas, Fort Worth,
20:25 you know, potholes everywhere.
20:26 And there were robbers and there were all sorts
20:29 of just gnarly things that could happen.
20:32 So when a king would travel,
20:35 his posse would go before him
20:38 and remove all the roadblocks and stuff
20:40 and take care of the robbers so he could make,
20:43 the advance team would make the king's paths straight.
20:48 And I've got some good news for you.
20:51 Our great God is going before you.
20:55 He's going before me, making our paths straight.
21:00 And I don't know exactly how He does it, but He does.
21:03 And this word path, I want you to think about this word path.
21:07 It's a purpose that always takes us to Him.
21:12 God's purpose for your life,
21:16 it always takes us to Him
21:20 because we're here to glorify God.
21:24 There's some questions we need to ask ourselves about pain.
21:28 Let me go through them again.
21:29 What, what?
21:31 Okay, am I pain?
21:32 Trust.
21:33 Why?
21:35 Because we're not that smart.
21:36 When?
21:38 Well, in all my ways, I submit to you everything, God.
21:43 Where?
21:44 Well, in the paths of life,
21:46 you're gonna make the paths straight.
21:50 I've always been intrigued by jungles.
21:53 I don't know why, I just, I grew up watching Tarzan.
21:57 I love the Discovery Channel.
22:00 And a while back, I decided to go to a jungle.
22:02 I'd never been.
22:03 So I went to a jungle in Central America.
22:05 I mean, ooh, ooh, ooh, ah, ah, ah, the real deal.
22:08 Pythons.
22:11 There was a snake in this area called the fer-de-lance,
22:14 a two-step snake.
22:15 If it bit you, you have two steps, boom, you're out.
22:19 Saltwater crocodiles, quicksand.
22:21 I told you I'd bring up quicksand.
22:23 All of this stuff that would mess you up.
22:26 There was a plant called the chichen.
22:28 I mean, this thing's from hell.
22:30 If you just rub up against it,
22:32 it would rot your skin to the bone.
22:36 And I had this backpack on kind of thing,
22:39 and I fell, that's another story,
22:41 while I was walking down this path,
22:43 and I just rubbed up against chichen.
22:46 I knew I was in trouble when the little Mayans were like,
22:49 oh, they got the chichen, chichen, chichen.
22:51 And I watched it rot this bag right in front of my eyes.
22:55 Yes, anyway.
22:56 So I'm like, okay, I wanna hike in this jungle.
23:03 So again, I was with several Mayans,
23:05 and they didn't speak English that well,
23:09 but they were about this tall.
23:11 Strong as mules, man.
23:16 And these Mayans, in their way,
23:21 told me they were gonna take me through this path.
23:23 And one of the Mayans had a machete
23:27 and a car battery on his shoulder,
23:31 because we were going to this thing called a panga,
23:33 a wooden boat, and we're gonna travel in this swamp,
23:35 or whatever, at the end of this trail.
23:38 So I go into the jungle with the lead Mayan,
23:42 and the Mayan in the back,
23:43 he was carrying this electric motor.
23:45 Now I know why he was there.
23:47 He was there to kill snakes and crocodiles
23:51 and pull me out of quicksand or whatever.
23:54 So I'm just following these guys,
23:57 but I'm following the main guide,
23:59 and I knew he was telling me to step where he was stepping.
24:04 So I'm like, okay, I trust you, my man.
24:09 So I walk in, I'm just covered with mosquitoes,
24:13 and so he steps there, and I step there.
24:17 I'm thinking to myself, I would naturally step there.
24:20 That's weird.
24:21 And then I find out, well, it's quicksand there, okay?
24:23 It's pretty good.
24:25 And so then we step over here,
24:28 and that's when I kind of fell.
24:29 Remember the time when he got the chichén on me?
24:31 And he quickly pulled me up, you know?
24:33 And so I'm still walking, following him.
24:36 I'm in his footsteps,
24:38 and at the same time, he's carrying this battery.
24:42 He's just chopping these massive branches
24:47 and all this vegetation.
24:48 He's literally cutting a path out for me.
24:53 And we got to the end and got in the boat,
24:54 and everything was cool,
24:56 but think about what was taking place.
24:59 Was I trusting him?
25:01 You better believe it.
25:04 What if I just said, no, no, no,
25:05 I understand the jungle.
25:10 I've seen these television shows,
25:12 and just let me do what I want to do.
25:17 I could have gotten killed.
25:19 I mean, like that.
25:20 I followed him.
25:23 I submitted myself to him,
25:28 and he made the path,
25:32 as best you could in the jungle, straight.
25:35 This is what Jesus does.
25:40 In pain and in suffering.
25:44 That's what Jesus does.
25:46 Through sickness, through questions,
25:49 through death, through separation,
25:53 through addiction.
25:55 That's what Jesus does as we walk,
26:00 here's the key, through this path
26:05 that so often has pain.
26:11 So it's our prayer during this series,
26:13 today, this Wednesday, and next Sunday,
26:18 that we'll do that pain audit.
26:21 That we'll ask these tough questions,
26:27 and answer them God's way.
26:29 Because remember, God's path,
26:35 and God's purpose will take you places
26:40 that you never dreamed possible.
26:46 Lord Jesus, thank you for this message.
26:50 I thank you for every single person here.
26:53 God, you know the pain.
26:55 You know what we're all processing,
26:57 whether it be emotional, whether it be relational,
27:01 whether it be occupational, recreational,
27:04 whatever it is, God, we just trust you in it right now.
27:09 And I pray that we lean on your understanding.
27:15 Not that we check our intellect at the door,
27:18 but that we lean on you, and lean on your church,
27:22 your people, to walk with us.
27:26 May we submit, I know that's hard for us to do,
27:33 our lives once again to you.
27:37 And I thank you in advance for where you're taking us, God.
27:41 You're taking us through it,
27:43 to a place of glory, and honor, and power,
27:50 like our best plans can't even attempt to explain.
27:55 Hey, if you're here, and you've never asked Christ
28:00 into your life, I'm gonna challenge you
28:02 to give your life to him.
28:06 Give to Jesus all you know about you.
28:15 And he will give you all you know about him.
28:22 Just ask him to come into your life.
28:27 Just say, Jesus, I repent.
28:29 I know it's by the power of the gospel
28:32 that I have this ability to do this,
28:34 and right now I respond to that.
28:36 So Father, continue to guide us and direct us
28:41 as we worship you, and as we meet with you
28:47 in the middle of the week, and then next week.
28:50 We ask all these things in Jesus' name, amen.
28:55 - Hi guys, thank you so much
28:58 for watching the Ed Young YouTube channel.
29:00 - That's right, and if you wanna be inspired,
29:02 encouraged, and challenged like never before,
29:04 subscribe and click the notification button.
29:06 - We believe this channel can help change your life.
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