The Purpose of Pain
by Justin Horton
September 25, 2022 · Cornerstone Apostolic Church (Chattanooga, TN)
Kind: sermon
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 12:7, 2 Corinthians 12:10, Romans 5:3-5, James 1:2-4

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/justin-horton--the-purpose-of-pain
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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there is a process in everything that we do there is a cycle of life that we go through there are steps and decisions that we make as a church as a family as an individual as a human being but through those steps through our processes and things that we take control of that we determine to ourselves whether or not we can feel during this process or get numb through the decisions that we make it what i'm talking about today is pain and the purpose thereof pain is a single signal in your nervous system that sometimes may be wrong it is an unpleasant feeling it is an unpleasant feeling that the body feels like telling me i must have done something to hurt myself has anybody gone through a physical pain there are other situations in life that we go through that we have no control over the decisions that other people make or that we make there's fear there is anxiety there is stress there's pain in the system of our minds that we go through through our endorphins that release us through our brain to understand the concept of i might not be feeling well in the inside today i am talking about pain and the process thereof we process pain by the sensory receptors in our skin sending a message to our nervous fibers to the spinal cord and the brain stem that the brain well since the sensation of pain is registered this information is processed and the pain is perceived the pain that we go through physically we start to resemble that with high blood pressure we resemble that with the anxiety that comes to our body that we constructurize our bodies to bring our breath quickens our stress and our hormones are released our anxiousness is rises but our body responds to pain in a way towards crippling in the mind to where you feel like you need to box yourself into a corner the anxiety that we go through through physical emotions are different completely you box yourself through a place that not just physical but when you have emotional feelings and heartbreaks you quicken yourself into a place you want to be alone and not put yourself in a position around people research has shown that women and men perceive experience pain differently it includes an acute and a chronic pain it's been proven that women experience greater levels of pain than the reaction of men with the same situations that take place so in other words you might get a splinter and your wife gets a splinter and you look at your wife like man this hurts and your wife looks at you and says try having a child there are things in life that we go through as men that we accept pain at a greater level than women in reaction women also experience more distress and suffering in relation to the pain than men do women relate better than us men we all go through pain in different ways we all go through situations in different ways everybody say amen we are all different if we were the same that would be very difficult in second corinthians chapter 2 verse 7. at least i should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations there was given to me a throne a thorn and the flesh the messenger of satan to buffet me at least i should be exalted above measure verse 10 therefore i take pleasure in the infirmities and reproaches in the necessities and persecutions and the distress for christ's sake for when i am weak then am i strong the word buffet in the verse 7 means in the scripture is to struggle the blows of the hand or fist to force one's way to fight it is ironic to me that the lord allows satan to buffet our relationship to a thorn in the flesh to make a blow in our life to where the situations we have no control over but when the thorn is in our flesh we get a anxiousness in our place to where we feel physical pain or emotional pain it is when we understand the thorn as when we understand the pain the enemy tries to make struggles through the pain to break us let me back up a little bit in 2020 we went through a situation here at the church where there was some emotional pain and then april of 2020 a tornado came through chattanooga and tore down our facility that we have physically built by hand some of us pastor i know for sure went through some physical pain waking up and the next morning with pain in the body and working 12 to 15 hours just getting the building ready for us to worship in we went through some emotional pain when there was things in life to where we know that we have no control over since then we lost amazing people in the church that have gone with the lord in 2019 we went through some issues with my son dawson when he was born through tc thompson children hospital there are times in life we have no control over even though he was going through some physical pain the appearance and the grandparents were having some emotional pain you have no control over the situation you have no control over the pain that can cause him to relieve in 2020 we went through some situations with my other son denver he went through some breathing treatments some breathing his shoes and we understood that we got to fight to where we need to be and be with my son no matter what it takes i know i'm talking to myself today but i want you to know i'm also preaching to myself because we go through some pain in life that we have no control over if we go back to what i was talking about the research men take pain differently we develop in a way to where there's a situation is greater than the levels that we can understand in mid-2020 in june we went through some time with chesney with the surviving of the laser extractions to the heart that created blood clots through her body we did not understand the situation at 2 a.m i'm getting a knocking at the hospital door in my room getting doctors everywhere throwing me across the room what is going on alarms go off situation is a chaos three to four doctors nurses uh texts are all around me and i'm not understanding what's going on it was that time and place where we understood the situation is at hand and god needs to take control at that moment i called my father-in-law and i said we need to pray you could just see what's going on we were talking to this situation and at that time a nurse came in and took me into a level five or four or five with the neurologic neurologists at that time we knew that the emotional pain is different than what my wife went through we developed things differently we react things differently in 2021 we lost a great man that looked up as to his grandfather to me in 2022 i lost the hero dear to my heart and this year pain there is a purpose for pain the development into a human body that was growing into a lovely little baby child that was into my wife we'd have learned that it was perfectly healthy and understanding that the concept of development was at its process and god takes control of the situation but day after day was a testament to where my wife had a connection with god that i do not have because that relationship is more intimate but i work daily as a man to react in a way to where i can understand that she says something is not right we went to the hospitals everyone knows the situation that day we lost our baby but it was the fact that everything was textbook perfect we don't know the day nor the hour and all the time but the situation at hand let me tell you there's a thorn in the flesh that gets us to a place of worship and it gets into a place of praise there is a purpose for your pain the purpose is why are you going to stay or are you going to go and fight the good fight or are you going to stay there and let the devil defeat you and let the enemy control your life some people are conditioned by the pain and live that life as a style to where they want to feel comfortable in you see the pain has to go through and glorify god the purpose of pain is to love christ in romans 5 30 through verse first three through five and not only so but we glorify in tribulations also knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience experience hope hope maketh not a shame but because of the love of god is shed abroad and our hearts by the holy ghost which is given unto us there's experience and there's patience in the experience the pain that you develop through the experience is the patience you develop further with your relationship with god and james verse 1 through two through four my brethren count it all joy when he fall into the diaries of temptation knowing this that the trying of your faith worketh patience but let patience have her perfect work that he may be perfect and attire wanting nothing it is so funny how god reacts to places and makes us laugh about it in life years from now we'll look upon this and say the situation at hand was dire but now that we can look up on the stepping stone to get closer in the foundation of god we can look forward to the experience and glorifying god through the experience of the purpose of the pain the purpose of the pain is to show that you are having a testimony at hand don't to be defeated by your pain develop through your pain there is a process in each set that we go through in life there is a process that we go through in life god show me when in job that we have to understand he did not go through some physical pain not once to the enemy touch him but everything around him was destroyed and taken to a place of a foundation to where he had to start all over people were yelling at him saying what are you gonna do talking to your god what is your god going to do now no matter what he went through he went to a place of an altar to worship him and to praise him and to lift him up there's another man in the bible named jeremiah that went through that he was crying and weeping for the people of jesus for the people of christ we had to get to a place to where there's a purpose of the pain but if you allow yourself to be conditioned by the pain you don't understand that you're numb of the pain we can be callous by the situations and understand that we are rough and tough as men but we understand there's an interest to me it's an intimacy with god that we got to take forth and the temptations of pain there are situations that are dire to me that i will not go forth because i know it's painful so when i go to myself or go to my wife and i'm like honey this hurts i need to watch my words sometimes because i know she has a lot of pain there's pain in life that we go through that we have no understanding god did not put pain in situations to allow us to hurt god did not put pain in our life it's the sin that we allow in our life to cause the pain we have to be dire to god and close to god to where we can endure the pain and suffer not to endear the situations and learn from the true aisles and tribulations as a lesson in life god has a situation for all of us we have seen and people have gone through such situations from the pain they have left the church they have left their family because they cannot take or understand the temptation in their life and give it to god there are things in life that we go through that we don't give to god and we allow it to defeat us and to take us and to attempt us and that pain is still there today what it formed is in our flesh today what thing can get out of our flesh to allow the situation and the relationship of god to be loved by him back in the romans 5 it says patience experience and experience hope it is when you have experience and you have experience through christ and the hope is with them through the pain you develop hope why hope is there because you had a last time you developed it when you have the hope in your life you understand my wife looks at me honey no matter what you just got to give it to god i'm a man i don't understand what you're talking about i'm fighting her mentally because emotionally i can't take it as a man we understand there's pain but i know what's going to happen in the long run if i don't give it to god we allow ourselves to get lost in the temptation of the enemy but don't allow ourselves to exceed ourselves and drive ourselves through christ knowing that god has it in his hand as i was going through my lesson i woke up at 4 00 am this morning i was understanding and listening to god and worshiping him and trying to understand what was going on as the sun was lifting up i see it in the window my wife said did you ever go to bed last night i said i was tossing and turning but i had to get up because god put this one line in my life and you don't understand sometimes people go through trials and tribulations guys church you might think you are going through the pain every single day every single hour you go through some situation you can never get a break why in the world are my finances like this why can i not have a great relationship with people why can i not be committed and have a foundation and commitment to god to where i know i'm doing wrong but lifting up the life of him and he put this in my mind our purpose my purpose is in my pain i said god why'd you give me that he said because without the pain you wouldn't have purpose it's because of situations you go through the pain develops the character in your life it makes you stronger it makes you bigger but it makes you humble it makes you have love it makes you have peace god is the purpose but our purpose is through our pain and that relationship of hope and experience through god pastor asked this morning at 10 30 prayer have you had a miracle this week this miracle might not be anything to you but i feel like i need to attach to it i was at work i'm put on a new line i'm in a robotic area to where i get in the robot in this about eight feet tall robots on each side a neutral zone to where i got a set or stand and put something in place of a window seal and at that time tuggers are coming by with five trailers ten feet long five feet tall and about five feet wide through each lane and these tuggers are carrying about a couple thousand pounds to weight and at this particular time and moment i am walking across the robots to get into back to the next robot to put the seal on and all i hear is something rotating behind me now the noise of the factory is loud you you get used to it but something was abnormal noise that i've noticed the tugger that was driving by did not lock his trailer in place and as i was walking by i turned and i was literally inches away and i felt a brush of a wind brought my back of my hair and i'm like god what was that turned around the tugger lost control of the tugger and the trailer and trailer slammed right to the robot inches from my face i said god that out could have been hospitalized i could have broke my legs this it was not stopping there was a fence beside me and it stopped it you see the experience that we overgo and we're praying take that back by that time in the morning at 8 a.m i always have a little talk with jesus by the way i'm not joking people think what are you doing you're talking to yourself he's crazy nice preacher i'm like who's preacher you what i'm glad i'm the freak on the line amen why because when a sinner comes to you and says hey i hear something that i hear you would go to church can you pray for my family i said yeah let's do it now and they said what no no just pray for i said okay sure i pray with you it is when there's experience it is when there is trials and tribulations in your life when you take place when you see someone kneeling at the altar at work you're developing a hope for other people for their miracle our purpose is in our pain the things that we go through in life the things that we develop through christ we understand through our testimony don't let the pain be the cause of your death but let the pain be the purpose in your life can we worship him right now in the name of jesus oh come on let's lift our voices a little bit right now and thank him for the times that we look back and we see pain in our lives and we don't understand maybe what god is doing come on can we thank you for just a moment right now hallelujah lord jesus you are great oh god we may not understand your ways god we may not understand what's going on lord jesus but i thank you lord jesus that there's a purpose in what you're doing god that there's a purpose in what's going on in my life hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah jesus amen