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00:00:03 good morning church today's scripture reading will be taken from the book of Isaiah chapter 5050 veres 4 to1 The Sovereign Lord has given me a well instructed tongue to know the word that sustains the weary he W he wakens me morning by morning wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears I have not been rebellious I have not turned away I offered my back to those who beat me my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting because
00:00:43 the Sovereign Lord helps me I will not be disgraced therefore I have set my face like flint and I know I will not be put to shame he who vindicates me is near who then will bring charges against me let us face each other who is my accuser let him confront me it is The Sovereign Lord who helps me who will condemn me they will all wear out like a garment the mths will eat them up who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of his servant let the one who walks in the dark who has no light trust in the name
00:01:20 of the Lord and rely on their God but now all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches go walk in the light of your fires and of the Torches you have set Ablaze this is what you shall receive from my hand you will lie down in torment this is the word of the Lord good morning every let's commit the time to the Lord in prayer dear Lord we thank you for allowing us to come and hear your word Lord L today we want to talk talk about suffering and to see your servant Lord Jesus Christ how he suffered for us
00:02:07 and how we are to learn from him and what is our response to him Lord I pray that you help us Lord to internalize what we hear and help us to be doers of your word in Jesus name we pray amen okay good morning everyone today we are talking about God's response to suffering and before that I think uh there are some uh slide on the sermons maybe you can show that first okay so next week Dr Peter will be continuing the series on asaiah on Pierce for transgressions and after that uh Edan will be on the maker is your
00:02:48 husband Isaiah 54 and William will be sharing on sick the Lord while he may be found on 1 December so we're going through the seven songs and so there are a lot of passages that we be covering to understand who who this servant is why do he come and how does he live and what does he do for us as well so coming back to where we are today today we are be going to be talking about our favorite topic suffering I think everybody doesn't like suffering yeah everybody doesn't like suffering in fact if you go for Alpha
00:03:22 you go for apologetics you when people search for meaning of life the question that always comes back on the start is why is there suffering why is there suffering in this world what's wrong why is there suffering okay so the first one you want to really explore today is why is there suffering why is there suffering in this world and this is Bucky Bailey uh when he was born he only had half a nose and also only one nostril uh by the time he was 7 years old he actually has gone undergone about 30 surgeries 30
00:03:58 surgeries before he even reached 7 years old and when he was born the doctor told the mother I don't think your son will make it through the night even the first night the the doctor said I don't think his son can make it because he has deformity and so he can't even breathe properly and when he sleeps he needs to sleep on a baby chair instead on the bed because his mouth is actually hindering his uh breathing do you need any help on my audio let me know other I can use a hand also okay so Baki is a person that goes
00:04:31 through a lot of suffering and the question that sometimes we ask is what's wrong why is baky going through so much suffering the answer is well is it his fault is it his parents fault what happened the mother Sue actually worked for this uh company called dupon in West Virginia and what she did was she was in charge of taking care of some chemicals and apparently these chemicals are the ones that's causing a lot of U um uh effects to the to her when she was uh pregnant so she had to take care of this
00:05:13 chemicals and because of that Bucky was born like this and this chemical that we're looking at is none other than Teflon or rather it's actually pfoa it's a substance that's actually in the entire world so I'll share more about it but if you look at it the if you look at it you see that suffering is something that happens everywhere is it really the mother's fault is it really the child's fault the answer is if you look at Aire okay sorry it clickers a bit I'm not working today okay just move let me
00:05:45 do it okay so if we look at Isaiah 50: 1 to3 God actually talks to Israel and tells Israel why they are suffering what is going through so let's go through them together first one where is your mother's certificate of divorce which which which I sent her away or to which to of my creditors did I sell you is Israel says that God has abandoned them God has sold them away God has divorced them if you use energy of U marriage God has divorced them God no longer wants them and so God answers and say if you
00:06:18 say I have divorced you show me is there certificate divorce did I give you a certificate divorce if you said I S you to somebody else I S you to creditors show me which credit did I sell you to God is saying that no I did not divorce you I did not leave you alone I'm still here for you and why are you going through difficulty why are you going through sufferings the answer is over here because of your sins you were so because of your transgressions your mother was sent away aah is actually saying
00:06:47 that Israel is going through all this difficulty because of their own sins because they decide to abandon God to not listen to him to worship other idols and so they're going through the pain and suffering that's caused by them themselves continuing from that when I came why was there no one when I called why was there no one to answer God has always been there trying to reach out to Israel but when he came nobody answered nobody was there to answer to reply to God and God is asking was my arm too
00:07:18 short to deliver you am I too weak do I like the strength to rescue you Israel by a mere rebuke I drive the sea I turned Rivers into a desert God is saying that I I have full capability of of actually helping you of saving you but when I come nobody is there to answer nobody wants to answer me nobody wants my help anymore what is really happening so the the point I want to focus on over here is why is Israel going through suffering the answer is because of the sins of Israel sorry the clicker is not really working
00:07:55 okay it's because of the sins of Israel and if you see the sins of Israel we are very similar to that we are all culpable we all have done something wrong if you see Bucky Bailey example perhaps we are not dupon who cause this uh chemicals that go into the waters and uh causes the employees actually get um affected and there and their children uh being Bor born deformed but we all have done our own mistakes we have all sinen we have all fallen short of Glory of God we have scolded our colleague
00:08:30 our managers maybe we have not done our things properly and sometimes when we go to work and things are difficult or when we're having a hard time the ones that always we let on are our children because they are ones who are the weakest and we can actually when we have a lot inside us we actually let on them as well so this is what we do to start off the whole passage the answer is we are just like Israel we are all going through suffering because of our own sins because we like Israel have gone
00:08:58 astray and we do not not go to God for help we try to solve our own TR problems we try to find a way to deal with what we have and a lot of times we have also come to the point where we think that we are Beyond Redemption we are people who God will no longer love God will no longer love me because I've done all these sin in my life so some of us we think that yeah it's true you know I've done so many wrong things and many things in life cannot be reversed and so God doesn't let love me anymore God has
00:09:30 forsaken me we are Beyond Redemption so what does God say in this circumstance what does God say in the circumstance when he sees Israel the answer is we expect God to say that he will abandon us he will no longer care for us because that's how the world works if you live in society you realize that if you want a salary what must you do you must go to work right you must deliver you must hit the kpis you must be able to achieve certain things and the world Works basically in a trade manner which
00:10:07 means that you must give something to re receive something there is no free lunch there's no free lunch in this world you must give something in order for you to receive something and we expect God to treat us the same way to say that if we were to go to God we must have something to give to him we must be a certain caliber we must be a certain person we must be holy we must actually be sinless only then God will accept us but if you look at it who is God how does God describe himself in chapter 50:2 it says
00:10:40 by a mere rebuke I dry out the sea I turn rivers in the desert God is saying that he is really powerful he is amazing he can do anything he can save you but as we look at it again we say that yes there are a lot of people out there who's very successful who maybe are able to help us but will they help you will they help you if you're going through difficulty will the politicians really come to your house and help you or is it just for photography for publicity purposes if you're going through difficulty will your manager just say hi
00:11:11 to you just to check whether you're coming to work tomorrow or does do they really care but when you look at it as we shared two weeks ago a lot of times we see God as really powerful like Superman like C St over here but when God described himself to Israel he said the Lord the the Lord the compassionate and gracious God slow to anger abounding in love and faithfulness these two pictures as we have described two weeks ago doesn't really match and so when we come back to this question again we will say that why
00:11:44 would God love us why would God actually care about us and if in our minds God looks like this it doesn't work it there's no reason why Rambo will come and save you there's no reason at all but the answer is the better way for us and the more correct way for us to view God is that to view that God is our Father God is like our father if you view God like this then you understand why would he save because if you have children and all of us we are parents we understand that no matter how much you
00:12:16 messed up no matter how deep you fall your parents will never give up on you your parents will never give up on you they'll always be there they always try and try if they don't give up their lives for you they will do it so just like Jesus ask us to pray to God he ask us to address God as the father and this is something that is groundbreaking people don't pray like this last time but Jesus ask us to pray Our Father in heaven and as you look at the Lord's Prayer it is saying that whatever we have whatever we need we can
00:12:50 ask God and God cares for us as well so why would God actually answer is because he is our father and so this call from the father wanting to help us has been from Genesis 3 almost until now from the day that human sin God has been asking where are you after human sin they went to hide but God has been searching for us all this well where are you where are you it is not a tone of angriness it's not God being angry and trying to punish you but God wants to come and save you God wants to come and be with you and go through
00:13:28 the suffering with you and and help you through this and so why is there suffering there suffering because of sin because of ourselves because of our own doing but the second point I look at is what is God's response to a suffering because of God's nature because if I just go back real quickly you see over here who is God we really explain that God is compassionate God cares like a mother God cares for us but the other thing for us know is God is gracious what does gracious mean these are terms
00:13:58 that we use so much sometime you don't even understand what it means anymore but gracious means that God is good just because he's good God is good to you God gives you something not because of your marit not because you deserve it it's just because of who he is it's just because who he is and the next thing next one you see is God is abounding in love a different word to use is he has this loyal love for you the the term in Hebrew has said which means that no matter what he is loyal to you there's
00:14:29 an enduring love that no matter what happens no matter how much you screw up he is still there for you he'll still love you he'll still be there steadfastly waiting for you because of this God will respond to a suffering there is suffering in this world but God doesn't sit there and just let you mess up and watch God will always respond to suffering so how does God responds to a suffering and so verse four comes to answer verse four says that the Sovereign Lord has given me a well instructed tongue to know the word that
00:15:00 sustained to VAR he weakens me morning by morning wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed now who is this person that verse four is talking about is it talking about Israel as you read continuously you realize that no it's not talking about Israel God is sending a servant to come and be what Israel cannot be this servant obeys so he actually has is being discipled he is an instructed tongue which means he has learned he knows the word that sustain the when he comes he comes to sustain those who are
00:15:34 tired those who are brokenhearted those who are going through difficulties every morning he listens he obeys and the S law has opened his ears he has not been rebellious like Israel whatever that God asked him to do he obeys the key explanation and description you see over here is this servant of the Lord obeys he's exactly what isn't he obeys and verse six Contin to say that when he obeys sometimes things can go wrong sometimes because of your obedience suffering comes and when suffering comes verse six says I offered
00:16:13 my back to those who beat me my cheeks to those who pull out my beard I did not hide my face from mocking spit and spitting this suffering servant does not shy away from pain he does not shy away from suffering if he needs to go through suffering he will why because verse 7 it says because the Sovereign Lord helps me because he's sure of who God is the character of God he knows that he will not be disgraced and therefore in his mind in his life he has set his face like fln and he knows that he will not be put to shame Flynn
00:16:48 is one of the hardest rock in Israel whereby it's very hard so what he's saying is this Ser servant of the Lord is determined on what he does no matter what pains what comes his one comes in his life he continues to say that I will obey I will live according to what God wants me to do and so as we continue on verse on chapter 53 we know that this suffering servant is our Lord Jesus Christ and it explains what Jesus has done for us he took up our pain bore our suffering we consider him punished by
00:17:21 God we misunderstand him and yet he continues to serve and he was pierced by transgression he just crushed for us and we continue and he continues to do so God is actually a God Jesus is determined to help to be here to live for us and this is something that we all know that and but the question is when you see this sometimes we need to understand that when we see suffering in this world yes suffering comes because of our sins because of other people sin because we live in the Fallen World but as you
00:17:57 obey there are times whereby obedience may cause suffering and lot of times for us as Christians when we hear this we say that we are willing to serve we willing to give so much to God as long as there's no pain in my life when there's pain I stop when serving is a bit too much I will stop it's too much already okay so we will always say that life is supposed to be comfortable even when we serve we put it into our empty time that we have we try to we have this picture in our mind that life is supposed to be comfortable but we see
00:18:34 the suffering servant in chapter 50 he says that I've set my face like flint and I will not and he knows that he will not be disgraced and he continues obeying no matter what happens he is never rebellious so God's response to a suffering is that he doesn't sit there and just wait he comes into the world to save us from the suffering so that those who are willing to obey those who willing to listen will have him to live together with him to live life through him the third point we talk about today
00:19:09 is our response to suffering what is our response to suffering no matter what there will be suffering if you not suffer in life is because you're too young I think I never understood that but it's true if not suffer it is really because it just to young life is like the stock market it goes ups and down but we all expect that we will continue going up yes but the truth is it doesn't always go up many people's life crash and they die because you are in reality that's how life is but what is our response to
00:19:51 suffering when suffering comes into our lives whether is because of our own sins or because of us being obedient to God what do we do do we shy away from suffering do we say that when there's pain in life we stop we change CA we say no because life is about Comfort life is about the pursuit of happiness what do we do when they suffering in verse 10 it says who among you fears the L and obeys the word of his servant if you if you fear the lord if you obey God let those who walk in the dark who is no light Trust In The
00:20:28 Name Of The Lord and rely on the God and verse 11 it continues but now all you who light fires and pro provide yourselves with flaming torches go just go walk in the light of your fibers and of the Torches you have set a blaze this is what you should re receive from my hand you will lie down in torment Isaiah 50 here gives us two paths he's saying that as you suffer as you're living in life and as you're going through different decisions in life there are two choices you can make option one even though you're suffering you're
00:21:02 walking in the dark you have no light and you don't know what's going to happen to you tomorrow you don't know what holds for 2025 you you just can't tell you don't know what is going to happen my children just came up from hospital just one minute ago thank you Dr C for helping me and uh when when my cats kids get sick I am really I can't do things I have a big trouble with that because they are very dear to me but the thing is you never know when suffering will hit you never know where pain will
00:21:31 come to you but God is saying when you are suffering you have two choices one is you trust in him you continue to rely on him the second one you have is you go and fight you're going to light your own fires you're going to find your own solutions to life and so these are two choices we have how we respond to suffering so for us we always will look for help we look for deliverance as Israel looks for help in the old days we look for help and this photo was taken I think all of us will have this in our
00:22:04 memory the day that we were so happy and so proud to be called Malaysians yes to say that there's hope in Malaysia all your prayers for years and years there is hope and you see that we put our hopes in people and so tun Dr M became the prime minister at the age of 90 plus breaking all possibilities and we say that There's Hope but if you look at it has it really turned out well is do we still hold him in the same regard do we say that he is our fire he is our light he is able to help us is it still true and after turn Dr Mar as you
00:22:44 know the guy next to him becomes a prime minister and so we're three prime ministers in 5 years and we we are not the only country that's going through this in UK they had I don't know how many five prime ministers in don't how many those from UK you can find as well so and so we all always look for someone to deliver us someone to help us uh aside from maybe looking for leaders maybe we say that don't look at leaders look at ourselves we become strong ourselves and I like this quote from Will Smith and this is what Will Smith
00:23:15 say I will not be outworked period you may be more talented than me you may be smarter than me you may be sexier than me you might be all of those things but if we get on a treadmill if both of us go get on trade Mill and we compete there's only two possibilities first possibility you get off first second possibility I die so so real me is saying that I depend on myself I know who I am I am capable I don't depend others I depend on myself and I can do it and I will put all my effort to make sure that
00:23:52 I will win no matter what I will always win if you get on tratment with me and as we compete there's only two possibility one is you get so tired you get off the second possibility is my heart stops I will do it so we try to save ourselves as we go through sufferings we cannot sometimes we cannot depend on others we depend on ourselves and other times we put our salvation and our hope in other things we put our hopes in careers we put our hope in our spouses we put our hope in money in finances in Bitcoin these are new things
00:24:29 new generation is going after or we put our hope in the children to say that maybe my life has not been great but my children will do better and see a lot of parents who do that they send the children to the best schools out there and their pride is in their children and so when you talk to them they tell you about the children that's what they do because we put our hope in all these things we try to light our fires our own fires and say that we will find Salvation in something other than God because these are tangible things that
00:24:57 we can see because these are things that we can see and we can do something about but when you trust in God he doesn't always reply on you know trusting in God obedience requires you to just be quiettime and just listen and just wait but these things you see here you can do something you can go after somebody you can choose which one to in invest in if Bitcoin no good invest in Tesla if Tesla no God you invest in Dogecoin and all these different things there's so many things we we are busy people who always
00:25:22 try to light our own fires and save ourselves so what is the solution in life to greet our to say that we can do it we can take it we can put all effort and the answer is if you go any self-help books they tell you the same thing they may not tell you to look for help outside they tell you to look for help inside to say that you become the salvation of yourself you help yourself but we know that the answer is never the case when you try to light your own fires when we try to light our own fires these things will
00:25:52 always disappoint people will always disappoint us and this is what uh T Dr M said he admits that Pak haran made promises without expecting to win election when the election was won he said we said it because we didn't think we will win so now we really cannot do it you know and these are the leaders we have can you imagine they commit to you they promise to you all these things but after election they said I didn't know I was going to win so I cannot deliver for you and this may happen in many
00:26:22 different circumstance in your work they prom the boss promis you you when you do this for me I'm going to deliver this I'm going to give you bonus I'm going to give you a race increment but when you have done all this they said business not doing well business not doing well you know economy not doing well Trump now is actually in power because of that I cannot pay you happens people will always disappoint us and so you see Will Smith and he was such an amazing person don't you think so he did so many things he's famous
00:26:50 he's respectable his shows are good and you see his previous quote Yeah you know we can do it just go on treadmill either he he goes down or I die but recently two years ago he went and slept Chris Rock and everything in his reputation all fell apart because of one action if you put your hope in yourself just through one action your career can just be destroyed one action and so these things are not stable these things are not stable you you put your hope in people they're not stable you put your
00:27:21 hope in yourself you know you are not stable you are a person that changes that cannot even commit to what you promis and if you look into your job you can be fired you look into you put your hope in your spouse some of you say that you marry a very good husband very good wife your spouses can get sick if you invest in stock market or in money things can fall apart very quickly and your children that you put so much hope on one day will leave you whether we like it or not one day one day my children will leave me it is they
00:28:03 will need to start their own family they need to go apart they need to go different places and so how do we live well how do we choose and how do we know what to do in life what we're saying over here is if you look to the Heroes of Faith in Hebrews 11 and see how they live how do you really live a good life you see that these people in life they don't live based on what they see with them their eyes they live based on faith they don't live based on the current circumstances they don't say whether it's painful or
00:28:37 not they do not choose their career based on whether there's pain or whe they're suffering they choose what to do based on faith and so over here it says by faith Abraham when he was tested offered Isaac the child that he loved most he and he who had received the promises offer up his only begotten son of whom it was said Isaac in your seat shall be called coning that God was able to raise him up although Isaac was to be sacrificed on the altar Abraham concluded that this God that we deal with can be trusted he is faithful the
00:29:13 word Faithful is AMT which actually means it's something that is strong it's like a rock it's something that if you step on it it is solid you can depend on it it is stable and as we talk just now ction politicians cannot be stable your career your health all these things that you put your Hope on they one day will crumble but God is stable God is faithful he is dependable and so when you have faith you are not just having something in your mind where you wish for God to help you you are testing you
00:29:51 are asking you actually considering what he has done in throughout the ages and as you consider as Abraham consider what God has done how God has delivered him through the ages he comes to conclusion God will keep his promises that Isaac will still be the son whereby his descendants will come from and God if God really wants me to sacrifice Isaac he will even raise him up from the dead and if you continue reading and see many of these people like Joseph like Moses their life is not easy when they finish
00:30:28 whole story and you look at it wow so fun you know so nice you go and cross the Red Sea but you look at Moses when he became of age he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter which means that if he was a billionaire he could kill people and just get get away scot-free he decided to say that I don't want any of this he rather chose aive to suffer Affliction with the people of God rather than enjoy all these passing Pleasures instead of choosing Comfort what they choose is they see with the
00:30:55 eyes to us to see that God is is calling them for something there's something in this world that I should live for and that's God to say that God is Dependable God is faithful and so even Joseph can you imagine I'm actually the prime minister of Egypt the most powerful country in the whole world at the time the superpower and when he was dying what he was telling everybody he gave instructions concerning the barrial of his bones to say that one day you will leave this space why day you leave this
00:31:24 space if you're Liv in luxury he doesn't say you know we're going to stay here and you just continue being good for Pharaoh going to build your connections you can do well he looked to God and said that in faith we know that one day God will deliver one day God will call us away from here and so life if you're going through suffering the way to choose whether what to do in life is not to choose which one has less suffering which one has more Comfort but is to really consider if God is faithful is
00:31:54 God faithful is God Dependable like this stage here that no matter how how I stand I will not fall God has been described many times in the Bible as The Rock as a fortress as somebody they can depend and no matter what comes in your life you can continue to depend on him because he is solid and through his track record he shows you that he is solid and he is dependable and so this is what I was sharing just now God when he explains himself and he actually described himself he uses the word faithfulness to say that he is
00:32:26 Dependable to you and so you see this is a quite a good illustration from bi project we we are like this uh woman floating in the sky and not knowing what to do but consider consider the gospels consider what God has done for us and through the encouragement of fellow Believers together we encourage each other to consider is God faithful is God trustworthy you don't believe just because you believe you believe because you read the Bible you discover and you explore who is Jesus Christ and from there you come up and answer to say that
00:33:02 yes I will come on this rock and stand on this rock because he is faithful he is trustworthy why do we say he is trustworthy because the suffering servant Jesus Christ offered his back to those who beat him he offered his cheeks to those who pull out his beard he did not hide his face from the mocking and spitting whatever pain that needs to come he says that I will endure it because of my loyal love to you because of my faithfulness because of what I've committed to you no matter whether you do your part or not I will do my part
00:33:39 for you that is Christ he said that he set his face like fln and he will do and deliver you even though you didn't do anything and so life is actually very hard to measure I I discussed this with my friends recently and we find that how do you define whether you are having good career how do you define whether in a good business how they Define you look at T Dr M when during before 1995 in China in Malaysia it was called one of the Asian tigers 1997 came what happened Asian financial crisis everybody said lousy bad management he
00:34:15 he packed the ring everybody said good job after why said good job you did the right thing you packed the ring to make sure that we didn't suffer like other countries and you continue looking at then you have different things happening and at this point then we said he's our hero and after this now he's in Oblivion and nobody really cares about it as well so life is very hard to measure if you to measure it according to the standards of the world you will be disappointed and if you follow the the standards of
00:34:43 the world you find that the standards of the world will always change it will shake and it will continue to change even in business even in your devices that you at one time this Motorola device would be one of the best things to have you say motor is such a a good company smartest company in the world then came Nokia the phone that no matter how you throw it it will not get destroyed and then we said noia is amazing noia is good and then after that they lost to Blackberry Blackberry was so famous it's
00:35:13 called crackberry you cannot get your hands out off it and after a while we no longer think that Blackberry is good we think that the iPhone is the best thing ever in the in the world but there's no buttons I can see so many things but what where are we at now we at this now we're saying that iPhone not good enough look at Huawei can fall and open one phone can become tablet can use your laptop can do everything so life is really hard to measure and what I'm trying to share with you is if you're
00:35:43 going through sufferings in your life now if going through pain or if you're going through a good time you cannot measure your life just by what people say you need to measure your life based on are you lighting your own fires or are you trusting in God are you doing what God wants you to do or are you finding your own way because at one point in time everybody said Blackberry was the best thing I invested in them also I lost money but that's life you cannot put your trust in these things and so if you
00:36:18 see Bucky Bailey over here his life is a life that is filled with suffering now he's grown up ready um but he still looks like that that and goes through a lot of difficulty as I told you is 7 years by the Year by 7 years old having 30 surgeries how do you do something like that that the reason why we know about B Bailey is because of this guy called Robert bot there's a story called Dark Waters if time you go online I think Netflix you can find it I can't remember where I watch it from but this story is about this guy
00:36:53 who was just a lawyer now allow me to share a bit of his story for you so you understand what is pain and how do you live your life in pain he's a successful lawyer became partner in this company called T is a legal firm high flying do really well doing very well and suddenly his grandmother grandmother's neighbor came to him and said I need your help because all my cows are dying all my cows are dying can you please come because I think that there's pollutant in the water causing all my cows to die being
00:37:26 a good Grand son he went to check out and see what happened and he found that he thinks that actually this chemicals by by tupon is causing all the cows to die but in his job actually is not normal for him to go and defend a normal civilian he works for TEF who actually defends all these chemical companies his job is to defend Theon not to defend the normal civilians but when he saw that there's Injustice in this world when he saw that something is not right when the cows are dying and this guy called
00:37:57 tenant the the farmer is also dying is's getting cancer he decided to say that he can do something about it but for us who wants to be heroes we think that yeah this going to do it going to achieve amazing things but it never happened like this for him life was totally difficult dupon own the whole town every single person over there they the largest employer in the states in this uh town over there and so every body shun the lawyer and this farmer and because of these things is doing can you imagine fighting gol do you know how
00:38:30 much money they have billions of dollars and you're one lawyer what can you do because of the fighting that took so long his company said you are liability you're lousy this doesn't really work I need to cut your pay his pay got cut he p a cut so much that he could not afford to send his kids for Education anymore at first they going for a Catholic private school and they found that now because of all this pay cuts because of him sticking his neck out for the farmer his kids are affected and because of the
00:39:01 stress and all this that comes and he was thinking people are going to kill him he things that people trying to poison him he went through illnesses as well he was being threatened his marriage was beginning to have signs of crack because of the stress and the strain over there and worked hard for more than 10 years but even though he put in all this effort it didn't work for a long time it took him about maybe 10 years or 15 years for results to come and results came let me ask you what will you do if
00:39:30 you were in his shoes the first thing that happened was he managed to win a lawsuit to said that he helped his this farmer to get 16.5 million settlement so if you wi really should be happy right you help the farmer yes but he said no this is not just this his research found out that not only did the farmer that is actually going through uh this poison because this chemical leeches in the water and everybody drinks it from the water source and so he found out not only the farmer is affected and the
00:39:59 Lifest affected the entire town is affected and so he continue defending and continue to actually plead for this case and at this point in the story an hadway was actually the wife uh she said something she said he was actually in a very difficult time and he was crying he was he was saying why should I do this thing but the wife was there the wife said you saw a man hurting and you did the Christian thing and lot of times for us that's life that you see a man hurting and you know life is if you stick your neck out
00:40:41 to help people there will be pain for you there'll be suffering for you but for him he did the Christian thing he actually went to help this person and so not only did he help this one farmer he found out that the entire town is affected he contined pursue this for years and years until there's a 753 million fine to dupon and there's more than 3,000 F individuals affected in fact if you test anybody's blood uh even if you test polar bears in the North Pole or South Pole wherever they stay they have PFO inside their body because
00:41:15 of dupon because of this forever chemicals they bind to your body and so all of us here have this chemical in our bodies and it causes cancer it causes a lot of problems so if you have don't talk for your pants at home okay never mind let's continue so but the answer is when you see pain when you have ex when you have knowledge others don't have when you see something that God shows to you what do you do about it do you stand aside and just said that this is my comfort level I only can do so much God
00:41:48 only gives me so much only the rest never mind I cannot do so much F what do we do but God ask us to be like this a chick-fil manager over here when a homeless person comes and ask for food he gives the food and not only does he give the food he prays with this person in the front of everybody to minister to this person without being ashamed and in America it's a big thing because if you show your faith you will actually uh will be affected people don't like it it's a bad perception but this person is
00:42:22 willing to stick his neck out to pray for the homeless to help those who were in need and and so in Hebrews 11:13 it says God is not ashamed to be called their God for those who obey who are faithful to the end all these heres of faith God is not ashamed to be called their God and God has prepar City for them because for us we don't look for the current Comforts we look for one day knowing that we can be with Christ to be able to be with our savior who died for us and so you see all these people whether is Noah who a
00:42:58 crazy man go on a mountain and build a boat you know how much how people laugh at you and the crazy man you know you bu Bo buil on on at the beach right going build on a mountain the stupid one is it you know how much ridicul he actually suffered Abraham Joseph Moses oh look at this Robert B even William bber Force 46 years before the slave trade and this um slaves are being free when you serve you may not get a thank you immediately you may not even see anything in your lifetime 46 years and God I don't know
00:43:33 what timeline God has for you but the way to evaluate how you respond to suffering how you respond to life is not to say why is it suffering but to know that God has responded to a suffering and because God has responded to suffering we can respond to a suffering to say that instead of looking at suffering look at do we obey or not are we doing all we can to continue to obey God so when we listen to all this what do we do to say that because Jesus and do all the mocking and spitting and therefore
00:44:06 we can be like him to say that Jesus is a great example if we to do that we will live a very difficult life and they asked the to come up it we will live a very difficult life because Jesus will crush us we can never leave to his standards he cannot just be a great example we cannot just say get our act together and work hard and be like Will Smith we said either you get off the tread mail or I die that life is not possible you will not have energy to last for lifetime because if you do that you will become jaded and you become un
00:44:44 and Jesus give up we do not have the the ability to live like Christ what we need is Jesus as our great deliverer to know that he is faithful to know that God has his loyal love for us that no matter what we do even when we are not faithful even when we're faithless he remains faithful and to know that we just need to come to him to receive to know that God Jesus has offered his back to those who beat him his cheeks to those who pull out his beard so that we can have salvation so that we can hear the gospel
00:45:21 so that we know that there is love in this world and because Jesus has done all this for us and he went all the way to the cross for us we can say that because he loves us we can live in love not because we need to become like him but we try our best in every single day moments whether it's a homeless person coming to you or your career or your family or your child being difficult you're able to say that I will surrender I will kneel down I will give up my rights I'll give up my comfort because
00:45:54 God has given up his comfort for us I'll pass the time over to uh Brandon after short prayer father we we want to thank you for reminding us of your faithfulness that Lord you are Dependable like a rock and because of your loyal love for us because of what you've done and what you have promised even when we fa even when Israel fa you did not sit there and just watch in your good time you came and Sav and similar to that in our own suffering in the times when if we suffer because of our sins we don't come to you and say that
00:46:38 Lord we repent repent of our sins and Lord we don't come back to you and we follow you or for us if we are suffering because of obedience we want to say that Lord we want to set our face like flint and follow you no matter what comes we measure our life not by our comfort our success and what people say but we measure our life by our faith by obedience to you because as we have faith in you you want us to live it out to obey you and to live according to what you come and we know that you're good God we know that you're good God
00:47:19 and so whatever comes our way we can continue living a life that is obeying you because no matter what comes we know that you are there with us and you continue to empower us through your spirit to live we thank you for this Lord in Jesus name we pray amen
