Here you can find the video script written for our fourth session as a reference.
Welcome back to our Treasure of Darkness devotionals. It’s a title we’ve borrowed from Isaiah 45 looking at the unexpected things God has for us — things of real value — hidden down the in depths.
Sometimes these treasures are hidden deep underground, where we would never normally choose to tread. But at times, God, in his wisdom and purpose, leads us there nonetheless.
Isaiah 45:7 says “I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things.”
This, I believe, is actually a verse of real comfort. However chaotic and out-of-control life feels, it isn’t. God is in control, behind all things — the ultimate Creator, and nothing can escape his gravity. While he allows lots of freedom, for us all to choose right or wrong, he takes responsibility.
He works all things to his purposes, engineering exact outcomes when required. Chaos and calamity are under his command — as are all the dark things. They cannot exceed the limits he sets in place. And he can use them, completely without their knowing, to bring about his good plans.
This is one of the big themes in Isaiah, which is an incredible book when you dig into it. We have a God we can’t predict, who does the unexpected. He works things out in ways we just can’t fathom — it’s beyond our understanding — and it often just isn’t what we’d expect.
The Redefinition of Purpose
In the last video we talked about how God loves you just for you, that if we can set our hope in him alone — and not in the value of our own achievements — it’s incredibly good news.
And in this video, I want to pull the thread a bit more, and see how purpose can unfold in our lives somewhat differently to what we might expect. Especially when you’re walking through the valley.
The Art Gallery
Just a little observation — I’ve often noticed, when people around me, have hit hard times, their faith seems to go on display like a work of art in a public gallery. The substance of their faith becomes much more visible, and you can see it with real clarity. You can see it in a way that you just couldn’t when they had everything going well.
For some people I’ve unfortunately seen their faith evaporate in an instant, and they’ve walked away. Others have struggled and panicked, but they held on and made it through.
And yet others — somehow — despite the trials, really seem to come alive. Something inside of them seems to ignite, and they have a kind of radiance about them. They’ve got something of real substance, some sort of light burning within them, and it really shines out.
It is like that diamond displayed on a dark black cloth. And we all have the potential to have faith like that. As 1 Peter 1 says, even though we are grieved by trials — and that word “grieved” is very good — these trials result in the tested genuineness of our faith, which is more precious than gold.
Don’t miss that. The trials that grieve us — that feel life death — actually serve to refine our faith into something extremely precious. While we often focus on our works and finding purpose in the things we do, the most precious and beautiful work is happening inside the very core of our being: our faith.
Marriage
Sometimes you get a real close up view of this in action. For me, it’s been my marriage. When you’re on the receiving end of those amazing wedding vows, where someone’s committed to you “for better or worse, in sickness and in heath, till death do you part” it’s so, so beautiful. It can honestly bring tears to your eyes.
My trial with my sleep disorder over these last six years has very much been my wife’s trial as well, but in a different way. She’s had to deal with a sick husband, kids and a very busy life. She’s been an absolute trooper, and real treasure.
Her wedding vows went from being something she said to something she put in action. I’ve been blessed immeasurably through it, and she didn’t hold it against me. She didn’t abandon me, leave me or forsake me.
We still laugh every day and she’s my best friend. These last six years have actually revealed the love that she had, as she put it into action.
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2)
Though I became a burden to her, the trial revealed the substance of her own faith and character, and I might never have seen it with such detail and clarity if we hadn’t been through this. And I know her demonstration of faith has been a real witness to others.
By the way, she doesn’t know that I’m saying any of this, and she would probably make me delete it if she knew! She’ll won’t like the attention, but it’s too late. It’s in the video. Lynsey, you’ll just have to take one for the team!
But the point here isn’t really about marriage or friendship, but that “when one part of the body suffers, the whole body suffers with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26). Even when you feel like you’re a burden to others — which is just the worst feeling.
As a guy I’ve found it quite emasculating at times, as a husband and father who wants to take care of business. But even when you feel like a burden, don’t forget that God can bring beautiful things out of it. Your trial becomes their trial, and their trial serves to both reveal and refine their faith as well.
You’re actually being used to test and refine the faith of your local church. And this is a big part of our witness:
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35).
It’s how the church cares for the poor, the weak, the vulnerable and the elderly that shows if our faith has substance. It may very well speak louder than all our preaching and all the songs that we sing.
And I have to remember to be humble in this. While we’d all prefer to play the part of hero, I have to remember I may instead be the person who’s in need.
And why shouldn’t I be?
That’s a big question. Why shouldn’t I be?
Am I too good for that? Am I above that? Am I tempted to look down on people in need as if I’m somehow better than them — that they must be experiencing some sort of karma for past mistakes? Do I hate being grouped in with that?
I don’t know about you, but I know for me it’s like “wow — God’s got so many lessons for me down in the valley”. Things I wouldn’t otherwise notice or see. And even down here I’m still caught up in his purposes; even if it’s only through humility that I can accept them.
Jesus Stepped into a World of Suffering
But Jesus himself stepped into a world of suffering, and allowed himself to die in it. What looked like utter humiliation and defeat, became his greatest victory. God is in the business of flipping these valleys inside out, and turning them into mountains.
There’s something about following Jesus that leads us down similar paths. To share in his sufferings (Romans 8:17), and to step into the world of suffering around us.
To feel how deep it can cut, and experience it firsthand so that we can sympathise. We understand it, an can relate to it, and can comfort others with real focus and clarity.
When you Listen to Yourself Pray
I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced this — the self-awareness you can sometimes get when you listen to yourself pray.
When suffering hits, I’ve noticed in my own life that it can sort of force you back into your shell, where all you can see is yourself. All your prayers become about you, and your problems. The more you struggle, the more you pray, and the more you realise that all your prayers are just about you.
Somehow that narcissism living within you gets quite pronounced. At least it’s been that way for me; and it’s uncomfortable.
But you’re there, your head spinning with your own problems; and then maybe you switch on the news. Some disaster. Some earthquake or a war taking place. Children suffering, and starving. Families ripped apart. People hit with life-changing injuries and trauma. And you catch yourself, in the midst of your own storm. A little moment of clarity…
“Why shouldn’t I suffer? Why should my expectations be set on having a good life, filled with good things — when there’s so much suffering out there?”
The world absolutely needs Christians who’ve suffered, who’ve been through things just as devastating, yet know just where to find hope and strength.
The world needs suffering saints, much more than it needs comfortable Christians. Comfortable in the sense of being absorbed with the pursuit of ease and material freedom, and well-being.
Take a look at 2 Corinthians 1:
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves received from God.” (2 Cor 1:3-4)
It’s quite clear that God allows us to go through many troubles, specifically so that we can comfort others. This is where your faith is sharpened through experience, where you’ve learnt the knack of placing all your hope in God, and can start to share the technique, hands-on with others.
Whatever it is you might have been through, or are going through — if you can experience these things and still have your eyes transfixed on the goodness, the grace and kindness of God — I believe you’ve been armed with something extremely powerful.
It’s the ability to share your faith, to connect with people on a deep level, and reach right into their lives. You may be able to talk about the hard things in a way no one else around them can.
You may be able to encourage and comfort others in a way that sparks their faith back to life. You might even see people saved as they see the real substance of your faith worked out in front of them, as you share hard-won, costly truths that sparked your own faith back to life.
As much as I hate my sleep disorder and find it very painful and disabling, I’ve often asked myself “would it be worth it if just, at some point, one person got saved, or one person came back to Jesus?”. The answer has to be “yes”.
And who knows, what God does through your faith and obedience in this may be way more than you could ever accomplish on your own, through all those goals and dreams you originally set your heart on.
And it may be that your demonstration of faith actually does more to advance God’s kingdom than a quick fix or healing might — as wonderful as that would be.
But we can pull the thread still further. There’s something more…
Willing to Suffer
I don’t know if you’ve ever had that experience of reading the Bible, but not really taking it in. You’re reading the words but your mind is somewhere else.
Well I was doing exactly this as I was attempting to read 1 Peter 4. But then the words just leapt off the page: “Whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin”.
And it’s like “wow — hang on! Did I just read what I thought I read?” “He who suffers has ceased from sin”. Those are massive words.
I know I’ve suffered, and quite possibly have not quite ceased to sin. But there’s something about suffering here that’s the pathway to what seems incredible.
So you back up and think “I better read something of the actual context. Maybe even the entire verse”, which says:
“Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.” (1 Peter 4:1-2)
Something about that just felt amazing. If you know what it is to suffer, you also know something of how to survive it and keep on going. It’s almost like you’re halfway to grasping this.
Here we find that a willingness to suffer is the very thing that turns us away from sin and towards the will of God.
Turning our back on sin, and all the passions of the world, here, is seen as a form of suffering, and something we need to be willing to do. But as we do it, we start living for the will of God, and see all his purposes unlocked.
And so you arrive at a wonderful truth:
Christians who are willing to suffer are a nightmare for Satan.
They’re a nightmare for our enemy. All the forces of darkness. And they’re beautiful to our Father, who can use them in all sorts of wonderful ways. They’re open, and available to his will.
All of this leads to a question: what would happen if I went from being a victim of suffering, to being someone who was willing? Willing to face it and push through it, to what’s on the other side. What could God do through that?
I think in here we hold the keys to a recreated purpose. And again, to an invincible Christian.
This is the type of unstoppable Christian you see in the book of Acts, in the Apostles and of many in the early church. It’s where we learn to delight in our weakness, because when we are weak, he is strong.
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