God’s Possible Purposes in our Suffering from John 9

This Sunday was Pentecost, the 50th day after Easter (the Resurrection of Christ) and the 10th Day after the Ascension of Christ. This is the Sunday when Christ from Heaven poured out His Holy Spirit on the Apostles and the church in Jerusalem. Much of Sunday’s service was built around Pentecost and the work of the Holy Spirit in building Christ’s Church. Then the sermon was from John 9:1-7 on God’s purposes in our suffering. In the passage, the disciples see a man who had been born blind and they assume that he is suffering because of sin. God’s Word tells us that suffering falls upon us for several possible reasons, and in this case it was not because of sin but so that Christ could display his Divine power in his being healed. This passage should be a great encouragement to us: tp know that our suffering is never random. In every case, God has sent it or let it happen for his purposes, which will prove with time and perspective to be good because He is good. On the theme of God’s providence, our hymn of response was the powerful and old hymn (written in 1676) that Matt Merker set to a new tune in 2018: Whate’er My God Ordains is Right. The bulletin is posted here. We regret that the video of this service is not available. The bulletin is posted here.