Responding to the Suffering of Others

Good morning! Sit down or stand up; those who are already standing can stay standing. Take out your Bibles if you have them. If you don't have a Bible, you can raise your hand, and one of our ushers will bring you one. We are in the book of Job, which is in the Old Testament. If you open to about the middle of your Bible, you'll be in the Psalms. Then turn to the left, and you'll find Job; it's the book that comes right before that.

How many of you feel a little bit more rested today than normal? An extra hour of sleep is so good! We are in Job chapter 2, and we began looking at this book a couple of weeks ago. We're going to pick it up today at verse 11. As we're going through the Scriptures today, if you have questions about the message or the Christian faith, text your questions to the phone number up on the screen, and we'll answer those on the questions podcast this week.

Job chapter 2, verse 11: "Now when Job's three friends heard of all the adversity that had come upon him, each one came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. For they had made an appointment together to come and mourn with him and to comfort him. When they raised their eyes from afar off, they did not recognize him. They lifted up their voices and wept, and each one tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head toward heaven. So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was great."

God, I pray that you would give us wisdom from this passage of Scripture. Lord, teach us the principles that become clear from this text, especially how we are to respond to the suffering of others. It is certain that as we're gathered here...

Good morning. There are people in our midst who are going through a difficult time. They are experiencing what we might call a trial; they are experiencing suffering. For those who aren't, we can be so thankful, and we can rejoice that we are not experiencing that. But I pray, God, when we see someone who is going through a trial, that You would stir our hearts in some way to minister to them in their time of need.

So, God, would You teach us? Speak to us from the text, we pray. We ask this in Jesus' name, and all those that agreed said, "Amen." You may be seated.

How do you respond when you walk into the house of a family whose son has just taken his life? What do you say to the mother whose oldest son is lying dead on a gurney in front of her in a hospital room? What words do you have for the person when they say to you, "Well, the doctor said it's terminal. I have maybe six months to live"? How do you answer the man who is laying in the hospital bed when he asks, "Is it okay for me to be afraid of death?"

These are some of the challenges that we find ourselves facing from time to time. It is very clear that we live in a world that is broken. That is a statement that pretty much everybody can agree with, even the person who doesn't believe in the things of Scripture or doesn't believe that there is even a God. They will admit to you that, yes, this world is broken. I would assert that the fact you can recognize that the world is broken testifies to the fact that there is a God, but that's a whole other discussion.

Job, as we have seen if you've been with us the last couple of weeks, was the most righteous, the most pious, the most wealthy, and the most blessed man of his time. In a very short period of time, a

In a matter of days, Job lost everything. He lost his children, his business, his wealth, and his health. Everything was gone in a moment. As we continue to examine the book of Job over the next several weeks, we will see that according to the worldview of his day, several thousand years ago, the mindset of the people was that Job was clearly suffering because he was not as righteous as he appeared.

We will see this in the conversations that follow. As Job interacts with the three individuals mentioned in the verses we just read, their view—and not just their view, but the view of all the people observing Job's predicament—was that he would not be going through this if he were not a wicked person. They believed he was receiving his comeuppance; this was his just desserts for the wickedness and sin he had so well hidden from everyone else. The assumption was that the righteous do not suffer, and if one is suffering like Job, they must be unrighteous.

However, given the perspective we have as readers of this story, we know that this is not the case. This knowledge makes it all the more difficult because it conflicts with our worldview. We are given insight into the true perspective of Job, and even God's perspective. God states twice—once in Job 1 and again in Job 2—that Job is the most upright man in all the earth. He shuns evil, fears God, and maintains his integrity through difficulty. When everything fell out from under him, he continued to uphold his integrity.

The book of Job challenges our worldview. It is such a difficult book that many people, including many Christians, read it once and never return to it. Not only do they avoid it, but they also find the story presented here to be really challenging. However, if you have been with us for the last couple of weeks, I believe there is a lot that can be gleaned from this text.

The story may reveal things we do not like about God. I have shared over the last couple of weeks that one of the things the Book of Job seems to reveal about God is complex. I say "seems to reveal" because it has to do with some of the events that happen in Job chapters one and two. Many people have a hard time with how God is presented in the Book of Job.

Not only do people struggle with this portrayal of God, but they also grapple with what the book reveals about us. Job addresses one of the most challenging aspects of life for conscious beings: the recognition that the world is broken. The awareness of suffering and pain, along with the ability to imagine a life in a world without suffering, indicates something about our nature that separates us from animals.

I know many of you think your dog is just like you and has a personality similar to yours, but it does not. I hate to break it to you, but everything we can tell, even through scientific examination, suggests that we are, as far as we know, the only conscious beings with the kind of consciousness we experience. This points back to the reality of how we were made. The Scriptures say that God created us in His image. He fashioned man from the elements of the dust of the ground, but He did something miraculous: He breathed into us the breath of life and made us living souls.

There is something different about us; we have consciousness. We are called sentient beings, and because of that consciousness, we realize the brokenness of this world. We are confronted with what has been referred to as the problem of pain, which is one of the most faith-shaking realities of life.

Many of you know that one of the things I have done for many years is work as a chaplain with the fire department. One observation I have made as a chaplain working with EMS personnel is that many individuals enter this field—whether in healthcare, emergency medical services, or law enforcement—because they have a desire to make the world better. They enter these career fields with core beliefs and aspirations.

These core values are meant to make the world better, but it often takes about 12 to 24 months for many of them to be broken down. This breakdown occurs because people see suffering on a scale that the average person cannot really comprehend. Not only do they witness suffering, but they often see suffering that results from evil malevolence. They see children who are shaken to death, people who are stabbed, and all sorts of horrific events. As a result, their core beliefs and values are shattered.

Consequently, they can find themselves in a place that we now refer to as post-traumatic stress disorder. A lot of times, post-traumatic stress disorder results from a worldview that struggles to comprehend or explain the wickedness they are confronted with. Some of you here may even experience the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder from your time in the military. Sometimes, it is not just about witnessing horrible things happening in the world; it is also about seeing yourself do something you could never have imagined doing, which further breaks down your belief structure.

I was listening to a conversation last week between a theist, a person who believes in God, and an atheist, someone who asserts that there is no God. The topic was the issue of consciousness. Consciousness is a real struggle for the scientific community because we can explain many things about the universe through empirical evidence and scientific observation. However, the scientific community has a hard time with consciousness.

Even when we examine brain function using fMRI technology, we can see the pleasure centers of the brain and the areas that light up when someone experiences fear or anxiety. We can empirically identify where these reactions occur, but we cannot explain why or exactly what that person is feeling. This is an issue of consciousness, and science has a real challenge with it.

During this conversation, there was a philosopher and consciousness researcher from the United Kingdom who was an atheist. A little into the discussion, he stated, "I positively believe that faith in God is false. I am definitely an atheist about God as traditionally conceived."

The problem of evil is the reason I positively believe that faith in God is false. I do not believe in God as He is traditionally conceived. The traditional conception of God in a Western Judeo-Christian mindset is that He is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful. I don't believe in that God because of the problem of evil.

This issue is known as theodicy, and it is the central theme that the Book of Job addresses more than any other book in the Bible. I am grateful that the Book of Job exists because the problem of pain and suffering is one of the greatest challenges we face. I believe this is part of the reason why I have received more feedback on the last two messages than I probably received in the last twenty messages combined. The problem of pain and suffering is indeed one of the greater problems we face.

I made a statement last week that some people argued against, but there is truth to it: we live in a society where we have mitigated suffering more than any other society in human history. As a result, we are not affected in the same way. However, one of the other sides of that coin is that we see the suffering of the world in a greater capacity than perhaps any other culture or people at any other time.

Not very long ago, if there was an earthquake in Indonesia, you might never hear about it, or it would take weeks for you to find out. Today, we can watch live-streamed video in HD content as tsunamis hit Japan. We can see it happen in real-time as people are being swept away. You don't even need news helicopters; every single person becomes a broadcaster with live feeds.

We see the problem of pain and suffering, and it is one of the greatest problems we face. I would suggest that one of the reasons people in the West today are losing faith at a very fast rate, and the growing number of people who have no identification with religion, is because they cannot conceive of a God who is all-powerful, all-knowing, and yet...

This world is as broken as it is now. Again, there are theological answers for that. Joe begins to touch on some of those, but it doesn't give perfect answers, which makes it all the more difficult for people in response to pain and suffering.

A Jewish rabbi named Harold Kushner wrote a book in the early 1980s called "When Bad Things Happen to Good People." It became a New York Times bestseller, and he talks about the Book of Job in that book. The book was written in response to the suffering that he and his wife experienced. At two years old, Harold Kushner's son, Aaron, was diagnosed with an incurable genetic disease. He and his wife were told that he would die from this. Twelve years later, when Aaron was 14 years old, he died. Kushner wrote the book in response to that event and the things that he learned through the midst of it.

The first sentence of the book reads, "There is only one question which really matters: Why do bad things happen to good people?" He goes on to say that virtually every meaningful conversation he has ever had with people on the subject of God and religion has either started with this question or gotten around to it before long. Many people, and maybe a number of you, began their true search for God because of suffering. You ended up here at church because of the loss of a relationship, the loss of a job that you worked so hard for, the loss of a child, the loss of a loved one, or the loss of your own health. Whatever it may be, that's what led you to church. Not necessarily a bad thing in the long run, but that's one of the reasons why you ended up sitting in these chairs.

The problem of suffering is a challenging one. Some of the greatest minds have sought to address this issue. The list of authors who discuss this is impressively long, and the names on that list are pretty phenomenal. Some of the greatest minds include C.S. Lewis. Some of these names may not mean anything to you, but maybe some of them will stand out. C.S. Lewis wrote a couple of books on it: "The Problem of Pain" and "A Grief Observed." Other notable authors include R.C. Sproul, John Piper, Timothy Keller, Gregory Boyd, Joni Eareckson Tada, Norman Geisler, D.A. Carson, David Bentley Hart, and N.T. Wright. Many people have written books on the topic, but the problem of pain and suffering remains one of the most profound challenges we face.

The greatest problems we face, and the fact that the problem is a problem to us, indicate something fascinating about our nature that points to God. But that's for another discussion. For our purposes today, I want to consider just these last three verses in Chapter Two, because I think they open our eyes, or at least they give us some important instruction as to how you and I should respond to the suffering of other people.

Job 2:11 states, "Now when Job's three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, each one of them came from his own place. Their names were Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite." They had made an appointment together to come and mourn with him and to comfort him.

Now, there is a lot that could be said about Job's friends and the things they did wrong, and we will get into that in the next couple of weeks. However, it should be noted that their first response to Job's suffering was a good response. I would suggest it was the right response. They did well in what they did at the very beginning, and it teaches us some important lessons about how we can and should respond when we see the suffering of others.

Because we live in a broken world, we will see other people suffer. We will hear reports of others experiencing difficulty. We will find ourselves in the presence of broken people, and we will have the desire to respond to help alleviate their suffering. All of these are good things. This desire to minister to or help someone in the midst of suffering is a noble and good thing.

Point number two is that the problem of another's suffering should motivate our compassion. When we see people go through trials, when we see them devastated by the brokenness of this world, it should motivate us to move towards them with compassion. This is one of the reasons that people go into the healthcare industry or emergency medical services; they want to alleviate suffering and somehow fix it.

They go into these things to try and fix the problems of this world. Sometimes, the reason people go into politics or law is because they believe they can fix an issue or a problem.

In Job 3, we hear about Job's friends who heard of all the adversity that had come upon him. Each one came. Circle those words: each one came. Not only did each one come, but they made an appointment together to come. For all that can be said about them, they did that right. They came to mourn with him; they came to comfort him. Their aim in coming was to show their grief and to console their friend. It was an admirable ambition.

I love the fact that it says they made an appointment together to come to him. They heard about Job's problems, and they reached out to one another, saying, "Hey, we have to go help our friend and deal with this problem." They didn't just happen to be in the same place; they made a purposeful decision to minister to their friend Job.

It's important to recognize this because sometimes, when people suffer, there are those in their lives who make the decision to stay away. We can justify the reasoning for staying away with all kinds of different thoughts. Some people stay away out of fear of being in the way. They think, "I don't want to be there because I might just be in the way of everything." Others might stay away because they believe someone else will reach out to them, or they might be too busy.

Do any of you feel a little too busy lately in this society? None of you? Just me? They make a point to stay away because being around people who suffer is hard. If you've been around someone who's suffering, you know that it can be very hard and sad.

I see this with my wife, who works in the intensive care unit as a nurse. She is confronted by the harsh realities of suffering. There's not a shift that goes by without her facing it, and it affects the way you see the world. What happens? Life is going wonderfully; everything is great. Then, all of a sudden, you have this weird stomach ache. You go to the doctor, and they say, "Well, it's not just a stomach ache; you have terminal cancer." The next thing you know, you're in the ICU, and within a matter of weeks, you're...

Dead. I may sound kind of flippant about that, but when you're in the ICU, as my wife is, and you see that every single time, what do you begin to think? When you have a stomach ache, everybody who gets a stomach ache dies quickly. It affects the way you see the world. It can be very hard to be around people who are suffering. People make a point to stay away because they just forget.

But Job's three friends made an appointment together to come, and in so doing, they did exactly what the New Testament exhorts. When Paul, in Romans chapter 12, says to weep with those who weep, that is one of the characteristics of a Christian: to weep with those who weep. In that same verse, he says to rejoice with those who rejoice, and we like to rejoice with those who rejoice. That's why we like to go to weddings. We don't like to weep with those who weep; that's why we don't go to funerals.

I have done dozens and dozens of weddings and funerals over the years, and weddings are always more attended than funerals. Part of the reason is that we don't want to be confronted with suffering and death. When these three friends of Job saw him from afar off, they raised their eyes. In verse 12, it says they saw him from afar off and did not recognize him. He was not the man they remembered. Surely, they remembered him as strong, powerful, wise, wealthy, and having everything going for him. Every time they saw him, they probably loved to be around him.

Now, they lift their eyes from afar and see he is a shell of what he was; he is not as they remembered him. They lifted their voices and wept. Each one tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head toward heaven.

Point number three: sympathetic compassion identifies with the sorrow of those who suffer. I use that word "sympathetic" very purposefully. It's fascinating because, in the last, I don't know how many years—maybe 40 years or so—the word "sympathy" has often been replaced with the word "empathy." It's kind of an interesting replacement or change that has taken place in the use of language.

Empathy is often considered more important than sympathy, and there are even people who have written on the topic, arguing that empathy is far better. What’s really fascinating is a tool that Google has, which allows you to look at the usage of words in history and literature. It provides a graph showing how words have been used over time, having digitized books going back hundreds of years.

Interestingly, the word "empathy" does not exist in English literature at all until the late 1800s; it is a created word. In contrast, "sympathy" has a long history. There is a significant difference between these two concepts. Sympathy and empathetic compassion identify with the sorrow of those who suffer. I make this point because one can never fully comprehend the weight of suffering that a person is facing unless they have personally experienced that suffering.

So, what is the difference between sympathy and empathy? Empathy falsely assumes that it can understand the feelings of the person going through a difficult time. It often leads to saying things like, "I know how you're feeling," which is not true. No one can fully comprehend the weight of the suffering that someone like Job is experiencing. His friends, however, took specific steps to experience, at some level, what he was going through and to come alongside him in support.

They lifted their voices and wept; they tore their clothes, a sign of grief and mourning, the same actions Job had taken when everything happened to him. They sprinkled dust upon their heads and sat with him on the ground. They saw Job's suffering and expressed their sorrow through these actions. They identified with his brokenness by humbling themselves.

This is what it looks like to do what Paul exhorts in Galatians 6:2, where he says, "Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ." What is the law of Christ? It is to love one another. As He said, "As I have loved you," this means coming alongside someone and bearing the burden of their suffering, lifting it up so that they can carry it a little more easily. This is what Job's three friends exemplified.

I would like to fulfill the exhortation of 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 18, where it says, "Comfort one another." What is the word "comfort"? It's "para Kaleo" in the Greek. It means to come alongside someone (para) and to uplift or to call them up. Here’s what it means; this is what it looks like to love your neighbor.

If you would turn in your Bibles to the New Testament, the Book of Luke, chapter 10, we find a familiar story in our culture, not just among Bible readers or churchgoers. It’s a familiar story, at least the heading is, because it’s called the Good Samaritan story. The Good Samaritan story is fascinating because it’s not like Jesus just came up with a story one day. It was actually a story that He told based upon the question of an inquisitor.

A lawyer came to Jesus, and we read in verse 25 of Luke chapter 10 that he stood up and tested Jesus, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to the lawyer, "What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?" The lawyer answered and said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind," quoting from the Shema in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 5. Then he said, "And love your neighbor as yourself," quoting from Leviticus chapter 19, verse 18.

Jesus said to the lawyer, "You have answered rightly. Do this and you will live." Now, being a really good lawyer, he was looking for a loophole. Wanting to justify himself, he said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

Jesus answered in verse 30, "A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead." Would you say he’s suffering? Now, by chance, a certain priest, a religious man, came down the road, and when he saw him, he passed on the other side. Likewise, a Levite, who was from the tribe in Israel that was given the priestly duties of taking care of the temple, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, but he also passed by on the other side.

But a certain Samaritan does not hit us with the same weight that it would hit the hearers of Jesus in the first century in Israel. When Jesus said, "a certain Samaritan," if you were a Jewish individual listening to Him tell this story, the next thing you would have thought was that a certain priest or a Levite came. Instead, He says "Samaritan," and the Samaritans were hated by the Jews of the day. They used the word "Samaritan" as a term of disgust to apply to people they hated.

So, Jesus says a certain Samaritan came, and as he journeyed, he came to where the man was. When he saw him, he had compassion on him. He went to him, bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, which is two days' wages, and gave them to the innkeeper. He said to him, "Take care of this man, and whatever more you spend than this, when I come again, I will repay you."

Now, Jesus asks the lawyer, after telling him the story, "So which of these three do you think was a neighbor to him who fell among thieves?" The lawyer said, "He who showed mercy on him." Jesus replied, "Go and do likewise."

There is the application: go and do likewise. What does a child of the Kingdom of God look like? Someone who is moved with compassion, as Jesus was moved with compassion. The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 9, at the end of the chapter, says, "And seeing the multitudes, Jesus was moved with compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd; they were weary and scattered."

The children of the Kingdom of God are moved with compassion to minister to those who are suffering. Jesus says, "Go and do likewise." Job's friends showed love by having mercy on Job. In Job, chapter 2, you can jump back to the Old Testament. The last verse of Job, chapter 2, states that Job's three friends sat down with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was great.

Point number four: most often, compassion is shown through presence and silence in times of suffering.

That brings the most comfort, says much by saying nothing. Job's friends sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights and said nothing. I can hardly imagine this because I have a hard time sitting on the ground for like seven minutes. Seven days and seven nights they sat with him, and they said nothing.

Not only do I have a hard time sitting on the ground for seven minutes, but I also have a hard time with silence. Does anybody else have a hard time with silence? You'd have to raise your hands. I don't like silence, and we've been kind of trained to not like silence. One of the ways I know this is that maybe you've had this experience: you've got the radio on in the car, and you're driving along. Suddenly, there’s dead air for like a second and a half, and you think, "Oh, something's happened. What's going on? Have aliens come and abducted the people at that radio station?" Then they come back on, and you realize everything's okay; there was just silence for a moment. I don’t know what to do with that. That's why I talk so fast; I can't stand silence. I just need to always be saying something.

But why did Job's friends remain silent for seven days and seven nights and sit with him? The text says they saw that his grief was great. They saw that he was in severe anguish. The intensity of what he was going through was something they could not comprehend. They couldn't understand what he was experiencing; they couldn't put themselves in his shoes entirely, so they remained silent.

Too often, when we see people close to a sufferer, we feel compelled to say something. Very many times, we say not helpful things. We're going to see that because Job's friends didn't stay silent, they ended up saying some things that ultimately were not helpful. A lot of true things—many of the things they will say are true—but not helpful in that moment. Frequently, we say some of the worst things possible to someone who is suffering. "I know how you feel." "This is happening because God knows that you can handle it." "Remember, God would not give you more than you could handle." That's not a verse.

By the way, it could be worse. That's helpful, isn't it? Everything happens for a reason. Maybe that's true; maybe you can give scripture and verse to point to the truth of that. But is that helpful to the person who's suffering?

Or how about this: everything's going to be okay. Well, maybe not. Maybe they will not recover in this life or in this situation. Job's friends saw that Job's grief was great, and so they sat silently on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. They tore their clothes and covered themselves in dust. I believe that this teaches us one of the more important lessons about responding to the suffering of others.

Point number five on your outline: the problem of pain is addressed most completely through connection with the people of God. It is fascinating to realize how this is true. The problem of pain is addressed most completely through connection with the people of God. This is true in the sense that when the people of God come and minister the grace, mercy, and compassion of God to those who are suffering, their suffering may not go away, but their ability to walk through the suffering is increased.

It's true in that sense, but it's also true in a very fascinating historic sense. When you look at history over the last 2,000 years, who has it been that has gone out into the world to alleviate the suffering of people? Who has it been that has traditionally gone out to establish hospitals, build orphanages, and deal with the pain of a broken world? Hands down, bar none, it is the people of God.

God, who have traditionally gone out and done these things, now you will hear someone like Christopher Hitchens, who has passed away, say that the religious community is the cause of so much pain and suffering in the world. There is truth in that; sadly, throughout history, religious people have done atrocious things. However, it is also true that the vast majority of hospitals, orphanages, and institutions dedicated to feeding the sick and showing mercy and compassion to those who are suffering have been established by the people of God. Almost never do you see a first atheist General Hospital.

There are many atheists working in compassion industries, helping people, and I don't discount that. But if you look at history, it is filled with the reality that it is the people of God who hold a core value and belief that every human being is intrinsically valuable and has dignity because God created them in His image. This belief compels people to minister to the least of these.

What does Hinduism say about the least of these? It suggests that they are getting what they deserve and advises not to help them. What have some of the most ardent atheists said about suffering? They argue that a person with spina bifida or a person with Down syndrome shouldn't live because they would be a tax on society and would only experience pain, so they should die.

Do you want to argue with me about whether or not Christianity has value and worth for society? I would love to have that argument any day of the week because history stands very stacked against you. The problem of pain is addressed most completely through connection with the Lord.

The people of God, Job's friends, did the right thing when they showed up to weep with their friend who was suffering. The people of God should be the first to respond to suffering. We should be the first to respond with comfort and mercy. Why? Because we represent this God.

In 2 Corinthians 1, verse 3, it says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comforts, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort wherewith we ourselves have been comforted." The Holy Spirit in the Bible is called the Comforter, and God calls us His children and sends us forth to be His hands of mercy, compassion, and grace, reaching out to a broken and fallen world.

When we respond to those who are suffering, we would do well to take the cues of Bildad, Zophar, and Eliphaz, at least in the first seven days of what they did. I kept going round and round this week about how to end this message because I couldn't quite figure out how to do it. However, I wanted to leave you with one final exhortation.

The exhortation to us who are not suffering, when we see someone suffering, is clear: we should reach out with the comfort and mercy of God to those who are suffering. But I also wanted to give one exhortation to the person who is suffering. In a room this big, with this many people, there are a number of you who are in the midst of a trial. Maybe, comparatively, it's not as bad as what others are facing in different places, but you are still in the midst of a trial.

My exhortation to you would be to allow the people of God to minister to you in your time of suffering. Ask for their prayer and ask for their help. One of the things I have been so blessed by within our church over the last many years—actually, I have been a part of this church since I was 11, so I have been around here for a little while—is to see the body of Christ come to the support of those who are suffering and to come alongside them.

One of the most distressing things to me is when I hear about someone who was a part of the church who left.

Because they didn't help me in my suffering, we often hear, "We didn't know you were suffering." One of the temptations of suffering people is to isolate themselves. We have these cards for prayer requests, and I would say that 90 percent or more of the suffering that we, as a staff and leadership team, know about comes from those prayer cards. There have been so many times when we received news that someone was upset because we didn't come and visit them in the hospital. We had no idea you were in the hospital. You can ask my wife; she'll tell you I'm not very good at reading minds. In fact, I'm quite horrible at it. I try, but I'm really bad at it, and I don't really want to know what you're thinking anyway.

One of the temptations, I think, is something that the enemy feeds us—a lie that says, "Don't call them; they won't help. You’ll just be a drain." There are people who want to minister the love and grace of God to you as you go through this. We want to, at the very least, pray for you. One of the things that prayer does is connect you to God and to the people of God, allowing us to pray with and for one another.

I don't really know how to end from there other than to say, "Let's stand and pray." Those exhortations are important. God, I pray that you would help us to be good representatives of You. There are co-workers, neighbors, family members, and friends that every single one of us has. Some of these people don't know You, some are angry at You, and some are suffering right now with nobody in their life to minister to them. How wonderful it is when You, God, reach those people through Your people!

I pray that You would move us with compassion. As Paul said, it is the love of Christ that compels us. God, would You move us by Your love to reach out to those who are going through trials? Not that we would tell them what to do or give them the right word, because oftentimes the thing we think is the right word is the wrong word. So, Lord, just help us to be there to minister.

Grace to them, Your love. Lord, I'm so grateful that when we get to know You, the God of all comforts and the Father of mercies, we discover that ultimately You are preparing a place where there is no suffering. We look forward to that.

But God, here in this place where there is suffering, would You help us to know how to minister Your compassion and love to those who are hurting? For those who are going through that trial, I pray that You would stir their hearts to lift their hands and say, "I need help." Bring Your love and Your grace through Your people.

God, we thank You for Your grace. Help us to be conduits of it, bringing it to other people, we pray, Jesus.