I think CS Lewis was spot on when he wrote these famous words, he wrote God whispers to us in our pleasures speaks in our conscious, but shouts in our pain for the next few minutes. I want to talk about how he completes this thought. You may have read this before. It's talking about pain. He says pain is God's megaphone to Rouse a deaf world. And maybe that's your story. Maybe you're going along kind of minding your own business. And you hadn't really given God a thought in many years or maybe ever. And then you got that call or you felt that pain, or you got some bad news. You realized your life would never be the same. Again. You found yourself looking up and then you found yourself face-to-face with God, a God that you never believed in before. And perhaps you had abandoned in childhood ever since you believed that pain was in fact, a megaphone that got your attention, or maybe your story is the opposite of that pain in the world, or maybe personal suffering caused you to doubt God is the thing that caused you to lose faith. Isn't it interesting that people with identical experiences or near identical experiences can arrive at different conclusions about faith and God when it comes to their experience with pain. That's what I want to talk about for the next few minutes. Uh, abnormal Jim Stockdale, you may be familiar with his name Admiral Jim Stockdale actually ran for vice president back in the nineties , uh, for those who view who were alive in the nineties. But what he's actually most famous for was his time as a pow, he was actually a vice Admiral in the Navy and he was the highest ranking. This is amazing. He was the highest thinking United States, military officer to be imprisoned and handle Hilton prisoner of war camp during the Vietnam war. In fact, he was a pow for eight years. He was tortured over 20 times. And one of the reasons he was tortured , uh, was because he refused to participate in the Northern VMs propaganda machine. He actually took a razor and disfigured his own face so that they wouldn't put them on camera years later after he was out and accomplished some extraordinary things. Jim Collins interviewed him , uh, when he was writing this book. Good to great. And in an interview, of course, Jim Collins asked the question that we would all ask. He said, how in the world did you survive eight years in a pow camp? And here's what he said. I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never lost faith in the end of the story. That is such a powerful statement to me. In fact, I thought about just reading this and then we could just close in prayer and that'll preach on , on its own. Right? But he continued to explain. He said, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that it would prevail in the end. And in turn the experience, I would get to turn this whole experience into defining a defining event in my life, which in retrospect, I wouldn't trade. That's amazing. Colin's then asked him this question. He said, well, you made it out. Tell me about the people who didn't make it out, who didn't make it out. His answer surprised everybody. He said, oh, that's easy. The optimist, the optimist Jim said, what, what do you mean by the optimists? Here's what he said. The optimists were the ones who said, well, we're going to get out of here by Christmas. And Christmas would come and then Christmas would go. And then he said, well, we're going to get out of here by Easter. And Easter would come and then Easter would go and then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas over again. He said, those men died of a broken heart. Then he turned to Jim Collins and he said, what I'm about to say is so very important. What I'm about to say next is a lesson to take away from all of this. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end, which you can never afford to lose with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality. Whatever that might be. Let me say that again. And I want you to read it on the screen here right now. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end, which you can never afford to lose with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever that might be. Okay . This statement is sometimes referred to as the Stockdale paradox, a paradox is like a , a statement on the surface that doesn't really seem to make any sense. Then you explore it further and it actually proves to be true. The paradox he's pointing to is this never give up hope, but don't lose sight of the current reality. You never give up hope, but at the same time, you don't refuse to face the things that you don't want to face. The things that would cause you to possibly lose hope you hold both of them. You never give up hope and you never deceive yourself about what the current reality he is . The reason I bring that up is, is that Christianity, our faith actually comes pre-packaged with a similar paradox. Here it is. We have a future hope and it's tethered to a brutal fact to use this term , um, that we have a future hope that's tethered to it comes complete with a brutal fact. The problem is, is that for many of us as Christians, we get so focused on hope that we try to pray away, faith away, obey away. The brutal fact that is part of this package. In fact, some versions of Christianity, maybe you were raised with one of these versions, some versions of Christianity just deny the brutal facts. So let's begin with what that is. It's one that's easy to lose sight of, especially when things are going good. But if you lose sight of it, when things are going well, it creates confusion. It creates faithlessness. It creates despair. When things turn upside down here is the brutal fact. There's a cause and effect relationship between sin and suffering. And we know this on a personal level because all of us have done things that we consider bad and we've suffered because of it. We all have experienced the pain that is associated with certain behaviors. If you're a Jesus follower and you use the word sin, you know that you have experienced the consequences, the personal consequences of personal sin. So we all get that. But the brutal fact, the fact is so difficult for so many people to get their mind and their hearts around this, the cause and effect relationship between sin and suffering goes beyond personal behavior. It's a global reality. The brutal fact is that there is a global relationship between sin and suffering. This is the part that we resist and the reason that we resist it is because it's not fair and it takes everything out of our control. But the fact is that when sin entered the world, it held the door open for sorrow, death, illness, divide, racism, and despair. They snuck right in behind when sin entered the world, death came along with it. Here's the interesting thing. When you read the new Testament, Jesus assumed this worldview, Jesus assumed this brutal fact, the message of Jesus was a message of hope that never lost sight of the brutal fact that sin was making its way through the world and would touch every single human being. This was built into the paradigm that he lived with and that he embraced and that he left us with. And the gospels. Here's just a couple of examples that might help. John tells us about a time that Jesus and the disciples were going along and well, here's how John wrote it. He said he went along and he saw a man who'd been blind from birth. And his disciples asked Jesus rabbi who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind. See, they understood that there was this relationship between blindness or illness and sin, but they thought it was a one-to-one correlation. Their assumption looks something like this. Good things happen to good people, bad things happen to sinners. But what they did not understand, or the loss side of was the fact that there is a global relationship between sin and suffering between sin and sin , sorrow, and death. They didn't seem to understand that connection. So Jesus responds this way. He says, well, you're wrong. Neither this man, nor his parents sinned, not meaning they've never sinned, but that no one's personal sin was responsible for this man's blindness. This man was not blind because personal sin, this man was blind because sin was wreaking havoc on the world that the presence of sin in the world resulted in the illness that resulted in this man's blindness. It was the consequence of the global consequence of sin of the city and of the world. He goes on and says this, but this happened, this blindness happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. Jesus said this, the purpose for this blindness that was called by this global effects of sin is going to turn into an illustration of the fact that I , the son of God have power over global consequences of sin, which that I have power over sin here . This Jesus is saying, I am the solution to the world's greatest problem. The problem that plagues every single one of us, every single day, that God would use his power over the global consequences of sin to draw attention to himself. He goes on and says this. He preaches this little sermon. He says, as long as the day, we must do the works of him who sent me talking about God. But that day is coming to an end night is coming when no one can work. And of course they look at each other and they're all like, does anyone even know what he's talking about? So Jesus, clairs it clarifies it for them. And he makes this statement. Well, I am in the world. I am the light of the world. While I am in the world. I am the light of the world. I'm going to demonstrate my power over global consequences of sin because I have power over all of it. While I'm in the world, I'm going to show you that I have come to address the root issue. There is hope, but in the meantime, there's this brutal fact that you must never lose sight of because if you lose sight of the brute fact, you will eventually lose your faith. On the other occasion. In fact, this is really a familiar story. We actually talked about this just a few weeks ago. Jesus is in someone's large home and he's teaching. And there's so many people that people are outside, actually, just trying to listen, trying to get in. And some men show up with a friend of theirs that was paralyzed. They want Jesus to heal their friend, but they can't get in. And then through all of the crowd. And so they climb up onto the roof of the house and they start to dig in the roof and they dig through the roof. And then they lower this man down on a cot, right at the feet of Jesus. They had faith that Jesus could heal their friend. When Jesus saw their faith. He said something, no one was expecting. He said to the paralyzed man, son, your sins are forgiven to which I might've responded. That's not what we do drop them in for here for right. And his friends up on the roof were like , uh, that's not what we dug a hole in the roof for. We brought them to you here, not to be forgiven of his sins, but we wanted him to be healed so he can like walk again. So why would Jesus say this? It's because Jesus was pointing to the fact that there is a relationship between sin and illness, sin and sickness, sin and brokenness, not personal sin, but the existence and the presence of sin in the world. Now, when Jesus said this, the religious leaders immediately kind of went berserk. They were like, wait a minute. He's blaspheming who can forgive sins, but God alone, Hey here. He was putting himself in the place of God and Jesus smiles at this point. And he smiles and he asked them a question he asked, which is easier to say to this man, your sins are forgiven or to say, get up, take your mat and walk because the two are related sin and illness and brokenness and pain are related. Not this man's personal sin, but the presence of sin in the world as why this man is paralyzed. And Jesus continued with this, but I want you to know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. I want you to know that the son of man has authority on earth to reserve the consequences of the global impact of sin on the world. I want you to know who you are dealing with, but how does he prove that? How do you prove that you have power over forgiveness of sins and the consequences associated with sin? Well, you reverse the consequences of sin, not the man's personal sin, the sin that impacts all of us, the sin that touches everyone. And he said to the man get up and go home. And he did. And the crowd was in awe because something greater than the temple or the religious rulers and the rules that they had in place had been that they had been following was here. Someone, someone more powerful than the global consequences of sin had arrived. Then years later, the apostle Paul comes along and the apostle Paul kind of teases this idea out for us instead of illustrating it like Jesus did, he explains it. And here's how he explains it. And what we call the book of Romans, a letter, he wrote to Christians living in Rome. He said, here's the big idea, Christians. Here's the idea. You dare not lose sight of. We have hope tethered to a brute fact that sin has impacted the entire world. Here are Paul's words. He wrote this. Therefore just as sin entered the world through one, man, and I have to pause and just make an observation. This is, this is so helpful. The apostle Paul talks about sin as an entity. He personifies it. He treats when like we talk about energy or information, you can't see energy, you can't see information, but they're everywhere. You can't put them in a box. It's undeniable, right? You can't deny energy or information. They affect everything. And so the apostle Paul kind of talks about sin in the same way. It's like , uh , an entity that you can't see, but it impacts everything. And it impacts everyone. And he goes on and he says this, therefore just as sin entered the world through one man. And this way, death came to all people right on the heels of sin. As soon as sin entered the world, sin held the door and right behind sin came death through sin. Death came to all people because all sinned death and its allies March through the world, right ? You cannot pray it away. You can't faith in a way, and you cannot obey it away. This is the brute fact. This is the reality. That is hard for us to get our minds and our hearts around. But if you divorce your hope in Christ from this brute fact , you run the risk of losing your faith and anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who promise you, promises you that there's a way around this as either trying to sell you something or they've never read the news Testament. I have certainly never followed Jesus through the gospels. And we don't like this. We don't like this because it's not fair, but facts. Aren't fair. Facts are facts. And this brute fact is absolutely true. And you've experienced the reality of it, right ? Some cases you've experienced the reality of this every single day we want there. And I get this. I'm the same way we want there to be a one-to-one correlation. We want good things to happen to good people. And we want bad things to happen to not so good people. So there'll become good people, but you're an adult. You've lived long enough to know that that's not how this works. And here's what you need to know . Jesus assumed Jesus taught. That's not how the world works. And if you, I lost faith. This is so huge. If you lost faith because somehow sin and suffering did not line up with your Christian theory . Perhaps you had the wrong theology. If you clean to the myth that somehow only good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. If you cling to that myth, your faith will eventually be ground into dust. But here's what I to in . You need to know Christians. Christians have never believed that God doesn't allow bad things to happen. Then the good people. In fact, our hope is in the person who came to address the ultimate issue, which is not illness. It's not sickness, it's not pain. The ultimate issue is sin. And the brute fact of Christianity is there's a relationship between sin and sorrow and ultimately death. The apostle Paul continues . He says this if by the trespasses of one man, death reigned through that one, man, and don't miss this. The apostle Paul says, look, Hey, I'm not pulling any punches. You live in a world where death reigns death reigns , but here's the good news. How much more will those who receive God's abundance provision of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through one, man, Jesus Christ. Let me define these terms for you. This is huge. And the context grace is a reference to the ability to endure and righteousness is the reference to the fact that our relationship with God is secure. He said that if death reigned through the one man, Adam who brought sin into the world, how much more will those of us who have the ability to endure in a relationship with our heavenly father that is secure? How much more than what we reign in the life through the one man, Jesus Christ. But we reign in life by embracing facing this paradox. Embrace the paradox that sin will have its way today, but not forever. That sin will have its way today, but not forever or to prayer phrase, Jesus, to kind of put a spin on Jesus's words. We did not reign in life by devoting our lives per , per serving our lives. If that's the wind and you can never win, we reign in life by following the one who offered real life and the ultimate and final solution for sin. The new Testament authors were so clear and they were so consistent on this, that Jesus didn't offer himself as the final solution to sin from the comforts of home, that he became one of us to experience exactly what we experience the gospel writer. John begins the gospel with these words, famous words. He said this, that the word became flesh, talking about Jesus and made his dwelling among us. He faced what we face. He felt what we felt, the apostle Paul. He puts the spin on it. He says it this way. Jesus being invaded nature of God. Think about this. That Jesus was God and a body did not consider equality with God. Something to be used to his own advantage. Jesus never cheated. Jesus never played the God card. Jesus experienced the wife, just like you experienced , just like I experienced it. But he went even further. The apostle Paul elaborates, he says he humbled himself by becoming obedient. How obedient to death, even death on a cross that your savior faced the ultimate consequences of sin death, but not just any death, the worst kind of death, the author of Hebrews will come along later and give us a spin on it. Here's how he says it. He says for, we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weakness. The implication being that the weakness is a permanent part of the human condition. You can't pray it away, faith or obeyed away. You can't go beyond it. But he says that the good news is that your high priest, the one that you go to in prayer understands and can empathize. And he continues and says this. But on the contrary, we have a high priest who has been tempted in every way, just as we are. And then here's the best part he says. In the meantime, in the meantime, here's what you're to do in the meantime, you're to do exactly what your first century brothers and sisters did as they lived in this conflict of the future hope, but in a world that was racked by pain and illness and suffering and death. It's the same thing that I've seen dozens and dozens of parents do when their children are sick or when they've had to bury a child. It's the same thing I've seen when dozens and dozens of brothers and sisters do when they had to bury a parent too early. The thing I've seen hundreds of people do when they're faced with extraordinary suffering or were surprised by grief or surprised by loss. Here's the, here's the invitation. Here's how to live in the messy, messy middle. Here's what the author of Hebrews says here is God's promise to you. He writes, let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence that we may hear this receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. The new Testament. Authors had their feet firmly planted on the soil of suffering. They understood the world that we live in and the author of Hebrew says this. When your going through the, and the pain, when you realize I'm caught in the messy, messy middle, and there's a hope, but there's this brute fact that I can't get around. He says, you can come to your heavenly father with confidence and here's, God's promise to you that you will receive mercy and you will receive grace. You will receive grace and mercy in your time of need. And then once again, the apostle Paul. Yeah , I think about this, the apostle Paul, who himself was awakened by a megaphone pain on his way to the mastics to inflict pain on first century Christians. Again, he puts this into context for us when he writes these powerful words, he says, I consider that our present sufferings, no, one's avoid this. No one is escaping this what's happening right now. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory. That future tins will be revealed in us because we know that we have the confidence that we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time. And then it continues not only so, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit and others , even those of us who are Jesus followers, we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption to our son ship the redemption of our bodies. And then these next words are so powerful. He says with that as a backdrop, with all this in mind, for, in this hope, for, in this hope, not in the hope that everything's going to work out today, not in the hope that everything's gonna work out for us, eventually not in the hope that everything is ultimately going to be fine nine now, but in the ultimate hope that Jesus came to earth, not only to die for our sins, but to demonstrate he has the power over the global consequence of sin. And we live in that tension. We live in the messy middle of a future. Hope that we , you can have confidence. And while at the same time in bracing and acknowledging the title type of world that we live in, we don't like this, but it's true. When sin entered the world, death was right on its heels. And this is the age of the consequences of sin, where they run their course. And no one, not even your savior was an exception to that rule. Did Cod cause it, no we'll use it. Absolutely Willy use it as a wake up call to Rouse this world, to get us to look up and Regaine or find for the first time, our hope. It's a wake up call for anyone who has ears to hear. And one day one, the world will be, as we know, it should be one day. The world will be, as we know, it should be one day. There will be no more sin, no more sorrow, no more death, no more brokenness, no more racism, but not yet. Not you. And not me again. CS Lewis says it so eloquently when he wrote these words, he said, if I find within myself a desire that no experience in this world can satisfy the most probable explanation. The most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If I find myself a desire, which no experience in this world can satisfy. That's it. If I'm able to imagine a better world, and there is something in me that longs for that better world, the most probable explanation is, is that I was made and that you were made for another one world. Admiral Stockdale was exactly right. We must never lose faith in the end of the story and my friends, this is not the end. This is just the messy, messy middle. And then the messy middle. We can have the confidence that the new Testament authors had when they said that we can have confidence in God. We can have confidence that God loves us, that God has for us. And he cares for us and the God will judge sin, but he loves those of us left in the wake of his judgment on sin. That as we've seen, he had every right to just walk away. But in fact, he chooses to Wade and experience this life. As we experience it with us, our present sufferings, our present sufferings are nothing to be compared with our future hope, our present sufferings. They're just another reminder of the global consequences of sin. They're just another reminder of our need for a savior of the world's need for a savior. Our current circumstances are just another reminder that one day God will in fact make all things new. If I find within myself a desire that no experience in this world can satisfy the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.