God's Love: Hope and Identity in Our Pain

1) "Have you ever felt like Jan Brady? You go through life and no one notices you or cares about you. You feel like you're a forever middle child as you struggle through life. You're stuck between the oldest and the youngest. Maybe you always played second fiddle to the beautiful marshals of the world and have been constantly overlooked. You ever felt like you couldn't measure up to the more intelligent, attractive, and more successful people? Worse yet, through all these struggles, you feel overlooked. Unloved. Unnoticed. You often feel like the underdog in every situation that you encounter. Constantly struggling compared to those who seem so successful and life seems to come at them so easily that whatever they do, they have this Midas touch. That whatever they touch turns into gold." [27:21] (51 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "Do you know what I love about the Lord? That God has a heart for the outcasts, for the unloved, and for the misfits of our society. God has a heart for the brokenhearted, the weak, the outcasts, and the unloved. Jesus demonstrated that in his ministry. When the religious leaders asked Jesus why he socialized with notorious sinners, Jesus replied in Luke 5, verses 31-32, It is not the healthy who are in need of a doctor, but the sick, have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Jesus didn't come to save the powerful, the proud, the arrogant, the self-sufficient, and the religious self-righteous. Jesus came to forgive, to give grace and hope for the least of these. Jesus came to give hope for the people who can't stand on their own. Jesus came to save the John Bradys of the world." [40:53] (55 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "Leah is miserable. She's lonely. She's heartbroken. No matter what she does, it's never enough to earn Jacob's affection. Being in love with someone who loves someone else has to be one of the most painful experiences in life. And Leah has hit rock. She's hit rock bottom. Have you ever hit rock bottom in life? That things in life just don't work out for you? That no matter what you try to do, the doors are closed and it just seems like life is just getting harder and harder and harder? Where you feel like you're in the bottom of this pit and don't know what to do. Dirt is just being thrown on you. What's worse is that everything is out of your control and your power. You're desperate, but you can't see a way out." [45:32] (52 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "But think about this. When you're a believer, maybe hitting rock bottom is not a bad thing. Maybe in God's eyes, it's a good thing. Biblical scholar Nabil Qureshi said this, there is one good thing about hitting rock bottom. You will be forced to rest on the rock. And you'll find he is at the bottom of it all. There's one good thing about hitting rock bottom. You will be forced to rest on the rock. And you'll find he is at the bottom of it all. Sometimes God allows us to fail and hit rock bottom to reach the depths of our heart. It's not pleasant. It's painful. But once we hit rock bottom as believers, we fall upon the rock. This is not Dwayne Johnson, the rock. We fall upon Jesus, the rock." [46:26] (57 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "Leah takes her focus off of Jacob to begin to fulfill her needs in God. And she praises God in the process. Leah takes her focus off, her children to fulfill her needs. And what does she do? She praises God. Leah finds her identity in a faithful God who sees, hears, and engages. It's just common for us to seek our identity and our purpose in people, and status, and money, possessions, and our careers, and our achievements. Through God's blessing, Leah's womb four times, Leah recognizes and she trusts her entire life, to Yahweh, the one and only God. She praises him and knows him as provider, as healer, and the only and one only God who loves her and cares for her. God heard her cries. God saw her heart. And although Jacob and Leah's marriage doesn't change, what changes? Leah's heart changes. And she praises Yahweh." [49:03] (73 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "Praise God in our pain for he has a greater purpose. Praise God because in our pain for he has a greater purpose. Because what you're going through, God knows. God is there and he's good and faithful. And at times he'll allow us to hit rock bottom because we don't want to hit rock bottom. No one wants to be on the bottom of a pit. We don't desire that. It's not natural for us. But God allows us to fall so that we can fully experience him in our pain. He doesn't just allow us to meander in this pain. There. There is a greater purpose to our pain. So during our pain, we can praise God for he guides us towards a greater purpose. From brokenness and despair, God acts with immeasurable love. From a heart for his people, God sent his son as an outcast, as a person who was rejected and despised and broken, who died for us so that we don't have to die eternally, separated from him, and die in our sins. From Jesus' suffering, God demonstrated a greater purpose." [52:31] (75 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "Through the trials we face, Jesus lovingly reminds us that we are His cherished and beloved ones and that we can rest in Him. And holding on to this truth should bring us comfort and strength in our journey through all these trials and sufferings that we go through. Because for some, for some of us right now, life is just hard. It's hard for you to get out of bed. It's hard for you just to do the most mundane task. It's hard for you because you're feeling this pressure and this stress and this strain. And a lot of these things are out of your control, out of your situation. And you don't know what to do. But God is lovingly right there when you give your life to Him. Through our trials, Jesus reminds us, that we are His beloved. And you hold on to that." [55:39] (60 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "I'm always comparing myself to other pastors. I'm always comparing myself to other people. I'm at the gym and I see these guys and they're like my age, but they're stronger and they're taller and they're better looking. I'm like, who cares? I'm almost 60 years old. Why does that make a difference to me? But my insecurities come out, right? I'm like, God, what are you focusing on? Where is your identity? And I recognize that I'm a notorious sinner that I struggle with these things. I made huge mistakes and experienced a lot of disappointments and pain. And I'm always trying to seek things of the world to satisfy those things. To build myself up. God says to me, am I not enough for you? Am I not enough for you? God should be enough for me. He needs to be everything for me. And I have to take my eyes off of those circumstances, my circumstances, and focus on the Lord. what I find there is a gracious, loving God who is forever faithful, who allows us to hit rock bottom, but He doesn't leave us there because we find them there. And we find His comfort, and His loving care, and His loving arms." [56:56] (81 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)