Lessons from Sunday Sermons - July 9, 2025

I realized something about my faith this weekend.

I was confronted with the way I respond to God when suffering, inconvenience, or disappointment comes.

I’m talking about the response I have after all the normal emotions of anger, frustration, tears, or sullen silence have passed. When I’ve come to the place where I accept the outcome, when I’ve reached the point where I understand God is in control, and I am not. I’ve let go of trying to make it work the way I want it to, and I’ve accepted the circumstances for what they are. This is the moment I have to adjust expectations or actions accordingly. I’ve made the decision to move forward because it’s clear at this point that what I originally expected is different than what God intended. Or at the very least, I have reached the point where I can either continue to fight what is happening or I can accept it, and I’ve chosen acceptance.

What does that kind of acceptance look like?

In his sermon on Sunday, our Pastor proposed three options:

Bitter Brokenness

This is the acceptance that sees suffering and disappointment as God being un-willing or un-able to do anything. It usually ends with us walking away from God, or putting Him on a shelf of nice ideas that don’t change anything. We stop reading our Bibles, we stop praying, because why bother? He won’t answer anyway.

It is a place of deep hurt that blames God for what happened, and wants to hold Him accountable for the horrible things that happen by giving Him the silent treatment.

Sad Acceptance

In this case, we believe God is able and willing, but our efforts were not good enough for God to notice or chose to intervene. It causes us to dwell on our failings and how we let God down. He couldn’t answer us because we are not worthy of His answer.

This is a place of self-loathing and pride. We put all the accountability on ourselves and set God up as a Father who expects perfection from us before He will listen.

Worshipful Waiting

Here is where we understand that suffering and disappointment is part of life, but God is with us in it. We trust that He has our best interest in mind. We draw strength in knowing that the fallen world we live in will be redeemed one day. When the worst happens, we look to Him for strength and wisdom to guide us through it, because we know with His help we will make it.

We worship Him as we work with Him through the outcome. Or we worship as we release the outcome to Him. This is a place of deep seated peace that can not be stolen, no matter what happens. It is a state of mind that trusts God knows more than we know, and trusts that He loves us more than we can ever comprehend - no matter what we’ve done or how we’ve failed Him. It is a place of submission to the One True God.

Which category do you most relate to? I can tell you which one I land in most of the time.

It’s the sad acceptance for me. I fall into the trap Job’s friends tried to set up for him. If I’d tried harder, if I hadn’t looked at that or read that, if I hadn’t gotten upset or forgotten to pray.

My slightest misstep disqualifies me from being able to ask anything of God, as if I deserve to be taken outside the camp and stoned. When something goes wrong or things get really hard, I must have done something to cause God’s favor to leave me. If I’d had only been perfect, God would have done what I asked.

As if Jesus never died for me. As if His sacrifice wasn’t enough.

I’ve always been hard on myself, probably because as a child, I was repeatedly made to feel as if I wasn’t good enough. Every victory came with a, “Good job, but how much better would it have been if you’d worked a little harder.” Every failure came with a disappointed look and an I-told-you-so statement.

God doesn’t work that way. He knows exactly how He created us, and He loves us more than we can ever hope to understand.

That’s the whole message of the Cross. To do for us what we COULDN’T do for ourselves, and to bring us into a relationship with the Father we AREN’T worthy of on our own.

If God was willing to send His only Son to suffer, die, and raise again to bring us into His family, why would He abandon us to figure it out on our own, or expect us to earn His favor?

In the first two options, pride gets in the way. We expect God to be at our beck and call and do exactly what we want Him to do. That’s not God, that’s a genie in a bottle who grants wishes.

Instead, I want to learn to look to the God who chose to step down from heaven, suffer in a way I will never understand, who gave up His life so He could snatch the power of sin and death from the enemy. Who was called back to heaven to sit at the Father’s right hand - silencing the accusations of pride, sin, and the devil against me. I want to offer Him the best I have, even when it falls short, and trust that He will take my little and make it much.

He sees you. He hasn’t abandoned you. He isn’t waiting for you to measure up.

He’s waiting for you to trust Him. To love Him. To worship Him in the midst of this broken world.

What are you waiting for?

Things to Think About:

Which response do you most frequently cling to when suffering comes?

How can you move toward Worshipful Waiting?

Playlist:

You Keep Hope Alive by John Riddick

Hymn of Heaven by Phil Wickham