Sermon Details
- Pastor Name: Jonathan Cornell
- Date & Time: June 29, 2014 | 10:00am
If you were to take a look back on your life story, would you see moments that you’d prefer to be left on the editing room floor? Not necessarily those foot-in-mouth moments; I’m talking about those experiences of adversity and struggle we all face.
Or to put it in a different light, imagine that you had the opportunity to rewrite the story of your child’s life and you looked back at the struggle they faced in elementary school because you later learned that they had a learning disability. Or that time in high school when they were a member of the cross country team, only to have one of their close friends be diagnosed with terminal cancer. Or who after 10 years of what seemed to be a very normal and happy marriage, all of a sudden face a spouse who unexpectedly files for divorce, and has no way to stop it.
If this was the story you faced in your family and you had the chance to edit the past, to rewrite history, what would you do? Would it be right to remove those things? Would God be a good God if he were able to erase those bad experiences?
Psychologists Robert Sternberg and Jonathan Haidt both state that personal stress and the right amount of trauma at the right time in our lives can actually make us more compassionate people and enable us to have a greater level of empathy toward others.
Why do I ask these questions, especially since they’re pretty raw and exposing? Because I believe that every single one of us here in this room has some sort of wound, some pain in their lives that is causing them to hurt. And that without the interceding mercy and grace of Jesus Christ, who himself is—as Henri Nouwen says—the wounded healer, healing from his own place of brokenness by sharing our wounds. Without Jesus Christ I believe what we can hope for is self-administered healing at best, and at worst running or hiding from our struggles, or simply to medicate them away.
What do you do with that yearning? What do you do with that hurt? Do you run from it? Or do you face it? Because Jesus Christ is inviting you to so much more, he is inviting you to not only see the hurt, but to see the healing and restoration that has already happened and is available to you now through his grace and mercy.
Download the entire transcript here: 1 Peter 1 Nothing by Accident
