Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 20, 2019 | Patty Diliberto - Called To Surrender - Session 2

Transcript

March 20, 2019 | Patty Diliberto - Called To Surrender - Session 2 · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: You have been you have been camped out on misery this last week.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sorry.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: And I hope it hasn't been too depressing.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: And we're not going to leave it just today yet.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: So we have some more to understand and know about it.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: So unfortunately, if we're if we're going to wrestle at some points with some of these issues, if we're going to be surrendered women, then we have to get to places of acceptance and understanding of the suffering that we might we might probably will encounter.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: So let's pray and offer up this time to the Lord.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Father God, thank you so much for this time.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we invite you here.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: We want you to come here and to impact our minds with truth, impact our minds with who you are and a more clear picture of who you are so that so that we could be more surrendered to you.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: I pray that that you would just come and give us a demonstration of the Spirit's power today.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for this time, and we just offer it up to you in Jesus' name.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: I hate, hate, hate that suffering is part of life.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure that you hate that as well.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: The statistics are not encouraging, ladies.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: 100% of us will die at some point.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: 100% of the population will at some point die.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: And very few of us, we could probably say hardly none of us, will get through this life without some suffering and without some experiencing misery of one kind or another.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, some of us, more than others, it seems, encounter this.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: Let's see some of the whys behind why there is suffering.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: And we see the first one here in Romans 8.22.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: It gives us that first why, and it's because we live in a fallen world.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8.22 says, we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: Ladies, creation's default condition is one of groaning.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: It's one of groaning.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: All creation, including you and me, are in a groaning condition.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's so easy for us to groan when things are hard and things are bad, when we're suffering.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you tell your children to do something that they don't want to do, you hear a lot of groaning.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: When you have to do something that's really hard and you have to force yourself to do it, sometimes you're probably like, oh, I just have to do this.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: I just have to make myself get out there and walk.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: I just have to say no to that pastry, whatever.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: We have that ability to groan, and it comes very, very natural to us because we live, our condition is a groaning one.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you how many times I sighed and groaned as as I watched my my dear father die in November.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't realize it until I wrote that, but there were just all I could do was just take these deep breaths and these deep sighs.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: And you're nodding with me, and you understand that.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: It's hard.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to experience this stuff.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, the greater the loss, the greater the distress, the more groaning there is.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: We sigh for deliverance, we sigh and groan for relief, we sigh and groan to try to make sense out of it.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: We sigh because there's just nothing else to do sometimes.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Groaning in this verse denotes strong internal desire, that deep anguish of spirit when the heart is oppressed with anguish and it's needing some relief.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: That's what this groaning represents.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: I need some relief to the situation that I'm in.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: Globally, there are so many, many, many reasons for us to be groaning today, right?
4:21
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: You know, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, um, wars, tsunamis, all of it.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: And the misery of 20 million adults and children who are bought and sold each year as sex slaves or in forced labor.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: And let's not forget what our legislators are legislating that leaves us groaning inside.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: We have a groaning world, and because of that, it leaves us groaning.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: Since Adam and Eve, everyone that has lived has lived in a fallen, groaning world, and we'll continue to live in that kind of world until Jesus returns.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: The difference now is, like we've all been living that way that world, but the difference now is that because of the internet, it's in our face all the time.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: It is in front of us all the time.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: And we're the first generations to experience that.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they had the nightly news back in the day, but nothing compared to what we have now because we have the internet at our fingertips.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: It's it's a good thing because it leads us to pray instantly for situations and for people, but at the same time, it leaves a heaviness on us.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: Like if I just hear of one more person who is struggling, you know, it leaves you with that feeling.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: But notice in this verse that it is that creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: It's birth pains, not death pains, that's go that Paul is emphasizing here.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: Birth pains represent new life.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: Our suffering can produce life, and that is often an outcome of suffering.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the misery of an unbelieving person will lead them to turn to God and to receive Christ and to to or to return back to God and receive Christ.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes He uses those difficulties to bring others who are observing our suffering to bring them to Christ as as well.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: We live in a world of misery and death, and that is our reality.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: It is our reality.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: If a person doesn't receive Christ in this life, if they don't receive Christ in this life, this earthly experience will be the only heaven that they will ever experience.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: This will be the only heaven.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: They will continue in the death process and they will not see life after death.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: We all live in this state of death until we are born again into a spiritual life that is truly life, what scripture says, life that is truly life.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: And when a when a family or a person goes through the uh intense suffering and and um in their in the midst of their groaning, they are declaring the goodness of God.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: Many good things can come out of that.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: Life can happen.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: When Jacqueline and Chris Kazir had a terrible time releasing their son Blake up to heaven, they will tell you that many, many people told them that they had found faith or that their faith had been renewed because of watching and observing the suffering and the trials and the praising that they were doing in the midst of that.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: So life was being born from Blake's death.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: And that's a good, that's a good outcome.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's what that's that's a true benefit of it right there.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh they still suffer and they will always suffer.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: They will always mourn and grieve the loss, but yet it brings them comfort to know that his his death was not in vain.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8 23 gives us another why for the misery and suffering, and that's because we are fallen creatures.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: Not only so, the earth, that's my emphasis, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: These first fruits that it mentions here in this verse represent the foretaste of heaven, our inheritance.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: That's what it represents.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: If you are a believer in Christ, you have tasted that the Lord is good.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: You have seen that the Lord is good.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: You've experienced him in some way, and and it's just it's the ways that he lets us experience him is just to whet our appetite.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: It's like we get a little taste and and we want the whole enchilada.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: We don't just want a little taste, we want the whole thing, which also leaves us groaning because we want the whole thing.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: We want the whole total experience.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: That's what the first fruits are.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: We're groaning for our adoption.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Um we don't just we don't want just that initiation into the family.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: We want the rights and the the inheritance that comes along with all of that.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: We want all that God has for us.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: And so we wait and we groan because we haven't received it yet, and we won't receive it until we get to heaven.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: Um that adoption in verse 23 is talking about that it's talking about will not be experienced until we're given those full rights and complete possession in heaven.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: In Christ, our redemption has already happened and is fully accomplished.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: When he sat on the cross, it is finished.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: But for our redemption, it comes in different stages.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: The first stage of redemption takes place in the life of a person when they receive Christ, when they first are born again into God's family.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: That's the first stage.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: The second stage is of our redemption is at death, when the outer shell falls away and our soul goes up to heaven.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: And then the third final redemption happens at the resurrection when our body is reunited with our spirit.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that looks like.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Nobody knows what that looks like.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: And there are a myriad of questions in between all of those redemptions, but we can know that that that is our reality.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: We are redeemed, we are being redeemed, and we will be redeemed.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: And that denotes process, doesn't it?
11:00
SPEAKER_00: That denotes process.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: God is so much more patient with us than we are with ourselves.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: He knows that all of this is a process.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: He knows what he is doing with us, and we can trust him with that process.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: Timothy Keller says the resurrection is not just consolation, it is restoration.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: We get it all back.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: The love, the loved ones, the goods, the beauties of this life, but in new, unimaginable degrees of glory and joy and strength.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: We get it all.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: We get it all back when we are finally truly at the final redemption.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: Our fallen world, our sinful nature, and our degenerating bodies, the older we get, leave us longing and groaning for the redemption that is going to happen.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: It's a groaning of waiting for that adoption to sonships to where we can finally experience that.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but that comforts me.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: That comforts me because God is not up in heaven judging us because there's some groaning going on, right?
12:23
SPEAKER_00: Because we are groaning in the midst of some suffering that we go through.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: He gets it.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: We are the ones who put who put that false character trait on him.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: He's not up there frustrated with us.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: He knows and he understands.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: He has subjected this world to this fallen state, and so he knows that there's going to be some groaning.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it it brings us to a play point in our in our false expectations of him where we say, Is he even up there?
12:59
SPEAKER_00: Does he even hear me in the midst of suffering?
13:02
SPEAKER_00: Jesus totally understood this, right?
13:05
SPEAKER_00: He totally understood this.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: We see him in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, and we hear this.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: I have to just understand and know that when Jesus is saying, Father, let this cup of suffering pass from me, that there was some groaning, knowing the Father couldn't let the cup pass from him, that he had to endure the suffering.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: And and and there had to be some of that same kind of growing, groaning.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: He totally understood it.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Part of the reason God didn't want Adam and Eve to sin was because he knew it would put them in the groaning position.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: This is what we hear God say to Eve.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: I will make your pains and childbearing very severe.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: With painful labor, you will give birth to children, your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: Sounds like some groaning to me.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: And then he says to Adam, Cursed is the ground because of you, through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, from whence, since from it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you will return.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: God knew before he created Adam and Eve that the Son would have to suffer and die for all the sin of their descendants.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knew the agony of redemption.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: And he knew what it would cause, and he was steadfast to take it for us.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: John Piper says permitting Adam and Eve's sin was part of God's plan so that God could reveal his mercy and grace and justice and wrath and patience and wisdom in ways that could never be revealed if there were no sin and no savior.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: What a profound quote that is.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: Because it is so true.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: God was so committed to reveal himself to us that he allowed sin to enter the world, he allowed the savior and had the purpose of the savior being crucified for us to reveal all of these things.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: It was so important to him, to God, for us to know that.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: To know that he is gracious and patient and merciful and redemptive, that he allowed the Son to die.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: It's astounding.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: Ever since Adam and Eve fell and were excluded from the garden, from that perfect environment in the garden, every person born has lived in a fallen world and has desired, desired that perfect, idyllic place.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: Why then are we so surprised when when suffering happens, when misery happens to us?
16:14
SPEAKER_00: Why are we so surprised when it happens?
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Why are we so taken off guard when we encounter hardships?
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Timothy Kelly again says, in the secular view, suffering is never seen as a meaningful part of life, but only as an interruption.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: There is a purpose to suffering, and if faced rightly, it can drive us like a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you can even imagine.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: Most of us grow up anticipating that only good things are gonna happen to us.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: We don't really think that we're gonna have to suffer a great deal in this life, right?
16:55
SPEAKER_00: Did you grow up thinking you were gonna face a lot of suffering?
17:01
SPEAKER_00: We don't.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: We don't anticipate it.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: And probably if we did, we'd all be like little eeures with our head dragging the ground, going, oh no, all the time.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: That's where we would be.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: Everything the earth, the stars, the planets, plants, animals, humans are longing for something greater.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: Everything changed when sin entered the world through Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: And since that paradise was lost, we have been trying to get back to it.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: We live in a fallen world, and we are fallen creatures.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: Our environments are fallen and faulty, and that leaves our emotions damaged and displaced, and that leaves us ripe for some suffering.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: So, where does our help come from?
17:54
SPEAKER_00: Our help comes from our great God who gives us a good gift.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: We see it again in Romans chapter 8.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: This is where we're camping today, is Romans chapter 8, verses 26 and 7.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: God knows that we are going through hard times, and he knows that some of those times it's we're going to be in a place where we're just speechless.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: And he takes up for us when we're at that point, when we are speechless.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: He too joins in our groaning.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: Do you see that word?
18:45
SPEAKER_00: He groans with us, he takes up where words fail us.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit knows what we are feeling and it moves him to intercession for us.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: How cool is that?
18:58
SPEAKER_00: How amazing is that that the God of the universe knows when we are hurting.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: And the moment we get to that place where we are hurting, the Spirit takes over and intercedes for us.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: You don't even know it's happened.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: You you have there's nothing in you that's going to clue you in, really, that the Spirit has just started interceding for you.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: But it is true because Scripture tells us it's true.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: He's doing his part to help us in the groaning times.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: If you weren't in a con in a groaning condition, there wouldn't be a need for the Spirit to intercede for you, right?
19:37
SPEAKER_00: If you weren't in that position, there would be no need for him to intercede on your behalf.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: We see another good outcome in the verse that we all kind of have a love-hate relationship with, and this is Romans 8.28.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: Right?
19:54
SPEAKER_00: We all we love it, but we hate it.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: It says, and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose in all things.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: God works in joy, God works in death, God works in good times, God works in pain.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: God works when things are working out like you thought they would, and God works when things are not working out like you thought they would.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: God works.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: He works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: Sonic Light says, this is the only place in Romans where Paul wrote of the believer's love for God.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: Everywhere else he referred to God's love for the believer.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: That tells us something.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: That tells us that we can show, we can show God our love when we trust him and knowing in the suffering that he's gonna work things out.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Did you catch that?
20:58
SPEAKER_00: It it's a way that the only place in Romans that it says it this way that we get to show God our love is by saying, I don't like this.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: This is killing me, but I'm gonna trust you.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna trust that you're gonna work and that you're gonna work some good out of this.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: Very interesting.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: This verse doesn't say that God causes all things.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't cause sin or evil, he permits them, and that is different than causing them.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: This verse says that God brings good out of all things, even suffering and tragedies.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Sonic Light says the causes of tragedy are Satan, the sinful choices of people, and the consequences of living in a sinful world.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: So Satan, sin, and sinners, even though God permits or allows bad things to happen, Scripture never lays the blame for these things on God, and neither should we.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: What I have seen, and many of you have seen in this room, is how God comes along behind the bad things and he brings good from them.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: He brings good.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: It takes the eyes of faith to see the good that is coming along behind you.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: And good that that and the good that God is doing is from his perspective, right?
22:29
SPEAKER_00: He gets to determine what is good and what isn't good.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: So it's from his perspective.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: If you love him, have faith in him and look to him, he will work things out according to his will, his will and purpose for your life.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: We don't immediately see the purpose, but often when we have traveled down the road a bit farther, we can look in the rearview mirror and we can see, wow, there was some there were some good things that came from that.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: And it builds our faith even more.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: We may never see the good that God is bringing from the bad, but just because we can't see it doesn't mean it isn't happening.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: It just means we can't see it yet.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that some of us, that some of us only want the good we had before the bad.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: So we miss seeing the good that God is providing.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: That's a hard truth.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: That's a hard truth.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: We do have the God has the ability to bring something good from the bad.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: We need to know.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: We need to know that our suffering is producing something of value, right?
23:44
SPEAKER_00: We need to know that.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: This is happening and and it's because of this, or for this reason.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: We can endure the pain and the loss and the suffering better and more sanely if somehow we can connect the dots and say, and make sense out of it.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: It's just in our human nature to want to know the reason why.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: But when we can't make sense out of the suffering, we get frustrated, and it's at this point that some people just jump ship altogether and they fall away from God because they can't make sense of it.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: When we can't get the answer by looking at the horizontal and saying, why is God doing this?
24:40
SPEAKER_00: Then eventually we have to get to a place where we look vertical and say, God, I don't know.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: This isn't making sense.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: But all I can do is trust you.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: All I can do is place my myself in your hands.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: And looking up to God is the best place to look.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: It's where He wants us to look.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Romans again, chapter 8, verses 18 through 21 says, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that we will be revealed in us.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: Who subjected it?
25:30
SPEAKER_00: God.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: It was his will to subject the earth to frustration, to some groaning, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: Did Paul, who wrote those verses, who was the writer of those verses, did he know something about suffering?
25:55
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: Five times I received from the Jews the 40 lashes minus one.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: Three times I was beaten with rods.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: Once I was pelted with stones.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: That almost sounds like some kids throwing stones at him.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: The reality is he was stoned and left for dead.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: Literally.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: Three times I was shipwrecked.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: I spent a night and a day in the open sea.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: I have been constantly on the move.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from the fellow from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea, and in danger from false brothers, false believers.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: I think Paul has something to say about suffering that we should actually listen to.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: How many of us could come up with a list like that?
26:44
SPEAKER_00: No one.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: No one.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Paul's sufferings gave him opportunity to look up, just like our sufferings give us opportunities.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly we understand the context of suffering.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: There's something coming in the future that is going to make sense of the suffering that we have down here.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: There's an end point to this life, and there's a beginning point to the next life.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: And in and it is at that point that the why starts to make more sense.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: There's a greater purpose, there's a greater glory, there's a greater good that we don't see when our gaze is locked on the horizontal.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: Right?
27:34
SPEAKER_00: We don't get it if we only look at the pain-filled horizontal.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: There's a glory that we can't comprehend.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: There's a glory that our suffering is producing that's going to be profound when we get to heaven.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: And so it begins to make sense if we truly comprehended what was waiting for us up there.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: If we could look beyond the veil, our perspective on suffering would change.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Everything would change if we could see the glory that was waiting for us.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: Timothy Keller says, while other world views lead us to sit in the midst of life's joys foreseeing the coming sorrows, Christianity empowers its people to sit in the midst of this world's sorrows, tasting the coming joy.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: There is a coming joy.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: If you have Christ, you know there's going to be something greater, and it's going to be worth what we have to go through down here.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: Because we are in Christ, we can have confidence that the glory and the joy are going to be worth the pain.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: Unbelievers have no such hope.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: No hope.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: C.S.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: Lewis says God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, shouts in our pains.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that true?
29:05
SPEAKER_00: Because when we have natural disasters or times of crisis in this country, you see people immediately helping one another.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: They just start pitching in.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: People want the church doors open when something bad happens.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: I know because when there's a crisis, people will call and say, Will the church be open tonight?
29:25
SPEAKER_00: Will anybody be at the church?
29:27
SPEAKER_00: When these disasters strike, we're all immediately reminded that people are more important than things.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: And we are, we um, and that we absolutely need God.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: Our gaze goes from the horizontal to the vertical because that's our only hope in these in desperate times.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: I like what Dorothy Sayers, um, who was an author in the early 1900s, says.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't agree with everything or how she says it, but I like it.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: For whatever reason, God chose God chose to make people as they are limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: He had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: Whatever game he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: He can exact nothing from us that he has not exacted from himself.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: He has himself gone through the whole human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money, to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: When he was a man, he played the man.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it all worthwhile.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: It was worthwhile because he was doing it for us.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: Timothy Keller says, if we ask, if we again ask the question, why does God allow evil and suffering to continue?
31:02
SPEAKER_00: And we look at the cross of Jesus, we still don't know what the answer is.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: However, we now know what the answer isn't.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: It can't be that he doesn't love us.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: It can't be that he is indifferent or detached from our condition.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: What a comfort that statement is for those who have had to suffer because of another person's sin against them, right?
31:31
SPEAKER_00: God takes seriously that sin that is done to us.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: He takes it seriously.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: We might cry out and say, Where is God?
31:40
SPEAKER_00: When, where was God when that happened?
31:43
SPEAKER_00: The answer is he was on the cross, bearing the sin that that person did against you, for you.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: Does God want to produce, God does want to produce many good things from the misery and the suffering that we go through.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: Here are seven good things that he that he wants to come from the bad.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: The first one is suffering reduces us to a more authentic view of ourselves.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: That's what we see with with Job and in the book of Job.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: God's encounter with Job.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: He comes to him and you know, Job is Job is uh really struggling and having a hard time, and then God shows up and he says, Where were you when?
32:26
SPEAKER_00: Dot dot dot.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: And he demands some answers from him.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: And and his Job's encounter with God left him realizing that he was unworthy, that he was unworthy to even speak.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: He says, Once I open my mouth, I will not open my mouth again, kind of thing.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, it left him feeling unworthy.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: Why?
32:48
SPEAKER_00: Because he was unworthy.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: Our suffering really should show us that we are unworthy, but that we have a very worthy God.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: Suffering produces a more authentic view of God.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: When God shows up in the midst of our suffering in big ways and in small ways, it proves his existence to us, right?
33:11
SPEAKER_00: When you see him really show up, you're like blown away by it.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: His love and his care are seen.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: Intense suffering is an opportunity to see the sufficiency of Christ.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: The more intense the suffering, the more sufficient you see God, the more you can experience him.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: God wants you to have a more realistic view of him because he knows that when your view of him changes, your view of you and your circumstances will change.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: Number three, suffering produces a profound longing for heaven.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 1.21, for me to live as Christ and to die is gain.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: All the things we thought were important take on a new perspective through suffering.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: The eternal reality takes priority over this earthly reality in our hearts and our minds, and we're changed.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: Change is what happens as a result of suffering.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: We're either going to change for the better or we're going to change and be bitter.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: But change happens.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: We can be, we can become more heavenly minded than we were before we were suffering if we turn to God in the midst of it.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: Number four, suffering allows us to participate with Christ.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: 1 Peter 4, 12 and 13.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice in as much as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: Not only do those who suffer participate with Christ, but when you come alongside another person and help them, you also are entering into and participating with the sufferings of Christ, right?
35:01
SPEAKER_00: Has that ever happened to you?
35:02
SPEAKER_00: When you just feel the agony of another person, you know you're feeling the agony because Jesus is suffering with them.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: And so you participate in that way with him.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: Fifth, suffering develops character, spiritual character in our lives through perseverance.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: Romans 5, 3 through 5.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character hope.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Strength of character is shown when, um not when all is well with your world, but when things are falling apart and you are still there saying, God is good, I'm okay, I'm in his grip.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's those times that you get to demonstrate the character.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: I have heard people give thanks for the cancer that they have gone through.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: Why?
36:08
SPEAKER_00: Because it brought them to a deeper relationship with Christ.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: It was a good outcome because they let it be a good outcome.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: That's character right there.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: Number six, suffering purifies us by consuming the dross and making our faith genuine.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: 1 Peter 1, 6 and 7.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith, of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: Suffering has a way of revealing what is in our heart.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: Love, mercy, anger, envy, and pride can lie dormant in us until it's awakened by some stress and stressors and trials and troubles.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: Our strengths and weaknesses will be more clearly evident when we are going through difficult times, right?
37:08
SPEAKER_00: As gold is refined by fire and heat, so the human heart is refined by the pressure of misery and suffering.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: I understand this very well right now.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: My father's passing brought out some really nasty, sinful things in me that I have had to deal with in me.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: Deep, deep, deep thoughts and attitudes that I that I have been convicted of and have had to confess and repent over.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: I feel kind of like I've been under a magnifying glass since my dad died.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: And when you wrestle with those difficult things of your life, when God reveals the really ugly stuff and you deal with it, good things can come from that.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: It is a purifying experience.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: And seventh, suffering births compassion so we can comfort others.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: Second Corinthians 1, 3 through 6, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: Each time we experience God's comfort in our own suffering, our ability to help others is increased, right?
38:39
SPEAKER_00: And we can never underestimate the value of that.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: God can do amazing things through us when we share with another who is struggling in a similar way.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: From God's perspective, these things are all good outcomes, right?
38:54
SPEAKER_00: They are good outcomes.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: That He is bringing from the bad, from the suffering, from the misery that we sometimes have to endure.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: God is good and he's able to leave a trail of good behind us when we respond the way he wants us to respond.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: Timothy Keller again says, Jesus lost all his glory so that we could be clothed in it.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: He was shut out so we could get access.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: He was bound, nailed, so that we could be free.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: He was cast out so we could approach.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus took away the only kind of suffering that can really destroy you.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: That is being cast away from God.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: He took that so that now all suffering that comes into your life will only make you great.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: A lump of coal under pressure becomes a diamond, and the suffering of a person in Christ only turns you into somebody gorgeous.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: A deeper understanding and appreciation for God is not just a good outcome, it is a great outcome in the suffering.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: If we do not let the suffering and misery take us to the place where we know and understand more about God, then they have been wasted opportunities.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, God will probably give you another opportunity to learn it.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: Paul sums it up well again in Romans chapter 8 in the very last verses 37 through 39.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
40:34
SPEAKER_00: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: There is a purpose, there's a reason that we go through some of these things.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: And it is for our good and for his glory.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: We thank you so very much that you are so committed to us that you will allow us to go through some hard things.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: That you are so committed to revealing yourself to us that you will allow us to undergo some hard things so that we can see your grace and your mercy and your patience and your long-suffering and the ways that you can work things out.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: I thank you that you're that committed to us.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: God, you know from from our perspective, sometimes it doesn't feel like commitment from you.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: It feels like just pain.
41:43
SPEAKER_00: And like and and at its worst, God, it separates us from you.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: And that's a tragedy.
41:51
SPEAKER_00: That is a tragedy when we allow suffering to separate us from you.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: God, thank you that you are that committed to us.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that that um that this is just a small part of surrender.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: When we really give it up and give it over to you and say, God, I don't understand it, but I want you to have your work in me and accomplish what your will is.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: That's just a form of surrender.
42:21
SPEAKER_00: So, God, we thank you.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that you are that committed to us.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: It shows your great, enormous love for us.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: And we praise you and thank you for that today.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name, Amen.