Pain, Purpose And Kingdom - 1st Session - Wofbec 2026 by Apostle Emmanuel Iren: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Why Pain Shocks Believers

One of the things that makes pain almost irrecoverable for many believers is shock. The assumption is: I go to church, I give, I serve, I am faithful — therefore this should not be happening to me. It is the shock that does the damage.

But Jesus said plainly: "In this world, you will have tribulations." This is not an exception clause for the unfaithful. It is part of the fabric of existence. Matthew 7:24–25 — "He that hears these words of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock. The rain will come and the storm will come — but his house will still be standing."

The variable is not whether the storm comes. The variable is the foundation. Many charismatics spend their energy rebuking the rain and the storm. But some storms you will face regardless. The difference will be your foundation — not the absence of difficulty.

Paul told the church in Thessalonica: "I write about those who sleep so that you do not mourn like those who have no hope." We mourn differently. We react to pain differently. There is a curriculum for this. You need it.

What Must Never Happen When You Are in Pain

Things to Know About Handling Pain

1. Pain Must Never Change Your View About God

   Consider the woman with the issue of blood. The miracle gets celebrated, but the dimension of her story that rarely gets examined is this: she had been hemorrhaging every single day for twelve years. Twelve years. And then she heard that a miracle worker was in town. Without anyone persuading her, on her own conviction, she left her house and said to herself: "If I but touch the hem of his garment, I will be made whole."

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   That level of faith in the face of prolonged contradiction is extraordinary. Not everyone has the stamina to still believe God after twelve years of evidence to the contrary.

   Smith Wigglesworth is honored for his faith and miracles. But what is equally striking is that he had a daughter who was deaf. Consider what it means to hold the anointing for miracles while living under the weight of a contradiction in your own home — and to not allow that contradiction to redefine your theology.

   Don't change your view about God while you are waiting for the pain to change. Make sure the pain doesn't change you.

   Pain is subtle this way. You may keep coming to church, keep nodding at the messages — but there is a part of you that has stopped throwing itself into the will of God with full expectation. You are playing it safe. That is already a change. Abraham, who believed God and was counted righteous, was the same Abraham who years later, under the weight of waiting, laughed at God's promise and said, "Let Ishmael live before you." Don't go there.

2. Don't Change Your Passion for Service and Ministry

   One of the things pain does immediately is expose priorities. The things a person drops when difficulty hits reveal what they were truly building on. Many pull out of service units, leave accountability structures, withdraw from fellowship — and expect everyone to understand.

   Matthew 6:33 — "But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."

   This text is frequently misread. Many encounter it while trusting for a child, a spouse, a job — and begin to seek God first as a strategy to get those things. But if you are seeking God first so that something can happen, you are not seeking God first. You are seeking those things first.

   What it actually means: if God were to x-ray the heart of a person who genuinely seeks him first, he would find that towering above every desire — above marriage, health, children, career — is a passion for the will of God, for souls, for the advancement of the kingdom. The other things are desired, but they are not the crown. God is the crown.

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   Apostle Emmanuel Iren

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   The benefits must never become the condition. Some people treat God as if he is on probation — testing him, giving him timelines. That relationship is already broken.

3. Agree That God Doesn't Have to Do It Your Way

   Both Mary and Elizabeth gave birth at the right time. Mary thought she was too early. Elizabeth thought she was too late. Both were wrong.

   If God answered every prayer exactly as requested, it would be disastrous. If Joseph were given the chance to pray in Potiphar's house, he would have prayed to go back to his father. That prayer, if answered, would have cost him everything his destiny required.

   Part of trusting the providence of God is admitting that you cannot see far. There is one who is lamp unto your feet, light to your path. In a supernatural navigation, bends will appear that were not anticipated. That is not failure. That is the route.

   There is a powerful lesson in Jesus at the Garden of Gethsemane. Many assume that the prayer of faith requires having everything figured out — full specificity, no doubt, no alternative entertained. But Jesus said: "If it is possible, let this cup pass." Was he in doubt? No. He was modeling something. God does not require that you have it all worked out. He requires that you trust him with what you cannot see.

   Be honest: looking back at past prayers — is there any prayer point you are glad God did not answer?

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4. Throw Yourself Into the Service of God

   This is the counterintuition of faith: when you are in pain, do more, not less. All the things the enemy calculated you would abandon if the pain got bad enough — do those things.

   The devil is not interested in either poverty or riches in themselves. He is interested in anything that causes a person to jettison their purpose. Some people are driven closer to God by poverty. Those people the devil attacks differently — through prosperity. Know your pattern and guard against it.

   The biblical illustration is Abraham in Genesis 20. He had waited decades for the promised child. During that waiting, he ended up in Abimelech's territory, passed Sarah off as his sister, and God intervened — protecting the lineage of the promise by closing every womb in Abimelech's household. Then God told Abimelech: "He is a prophet. Let him pray for you and you will be healed."

   Abraham laid hands on Abimelech's wife and servants — people trusting for children — and their wombs opened. His own wife still had not conceived. He was ministering in the very area he was trusting for. It was after he blessed others in the area of his own pain that the Lord visited Sarah as he had promised. Genesis 21:1 follows immediately.

   This is not coincidence. It is the pattern of the kingdom. Job looked away from his own suffering and prayed for others — and God turned his captivity. Joseph, rotting in prison, saw the baker and the cupbearer looking sad — and chose to ask why. It was that act of hospitality in pain that unlocked the interpretation of the dream that brought him out.

   What the devil is cursing in many lives is the ability to use pain as a reason to abandon the purpose. When you are in prison and still do ministry, that is the secret. Ministry is the way out.

5. Celebrate Others. Pray for Others. Thank God for Others.

   When you are trusting for something and you encounter someone who already has it, celebrate them — not as a performance of faith, but as an act of alignment with the generosity of God.

   A group of women who had been trusting for children for years heard on the radio that a woman had given birth to triplets and her husband had fled — unable to handle the financial pressure. They went to the hospital, paid the bills, and put the children on scholarship. Months later, one of them noticed she had missed a period. By the third scan, they had confirmed four children in the womb. After a decade of barrenness.

   The pain is the way out. When God wanted to heal the Israelites who had been bitten by serpents, the instrument of healing was a brazen serpent — the very thing that had wounded them. Sometimes healing requires daring the wound in the face and looking toward Jesus. And sometimes the way through the pain is to serve others in the same pain.

The Mentality of the Cross — Philippians 2

Philippians 2:5–9 — "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself of no reputation, was obedient unto death — the death of the cross. Wherefore God also has highly exalted him."

Everything you believe in order to be saved is also a mentality to embody. The message of the cross is not just a fact to believe — it is an example to emulate. Christ, knowing the full plan, willfully surrendered to pain and trusted in the power of God to raise him. David prophesied it: "You will not leave my soul in hell, neither will you allow your holy one to see corruption. Therefore my soul rests in hope."

To trust God so much that even in death he can raise you — that is the perspective that makes pain bearable. Nothing — not life nor death, nor angels nor devils, nor any present or future thing — shall be able to separate from the love of God. This is why believers count it joy in diverse tests. Not because pain is pleasant but because the arsenal of the devil contains no weapon that can obliterate the plan of God.