We have had thousands of years of human civilization and the world that we have built indicts, all of us collectively. I've talked about this before. We have the medicine to cure diseases that are still killing millions around the world. Do we do it? No.
Why not? One reason. We love money more than people. We've created incredible new technologies, ways to move goods from one side of the world to the other. But do we use it to solve poverty around the world?
No. We use it to find a new class of slaves in another part of the world where we don't have to see anything and people work for a dollar a day or less so that we can have horse stuff. That's what we did with the miracle of modern travel. New ways to enslave and exploit mankind. I was thinking about this this week.
Remember when social media was starting, and it was going to create better, more connected relationships? Remember that classic? Oh, man, what is it now? It's a tool for brainwashing the culture. It brings out the absolute worst in us.
It raises children to be violent, attention-seeking, narcissistic, depressed, anxious, and insecure. It rewards antisocial and selfish behavior and praises the ugliness in us. It invades our lives, learning all about us so we can be sold more things that we don't need and manipulated by those who want to change the way we think. We don't use any new technology to do anything noble. Hardly ever.
I've talked about this before. Our culture is so obsessed with sex, and its connection to technology is I just wait. Anytime there's a new technology, I just know they're just going to try and figure out how to use it for sex. The Internet? Oh good, we can have porn everywhere, all the time. Virtual reality goggles? Let's use it for porn. Robots? Oh good, we can help disabled people. Or we could make sex robots.
This is just the world we live in. So depraved. And it happens over and over and over again, and it's so glaring. The world that we have built is a mountain of evidence proving that collectively, humanity is not good. We are not naturally good.
We haven't just made a few little mistakes here and there. We're not good, and we can't make ourselves good. And technology does nothing to make us more good. On the contrary. In Psalm 53, David observed those about humanity the fool says in his heart, there is no God.
They are corrupt and they do vile deeds. There's no one who does good. God looks down from heaven on the human race to see if there is one who is wise, one who seeks God. All have turned away. All alike have become corrupt.
There's no one who does good, not even one. That's what David saw when he looked at the world around him. By rejecting God, we broke ourselves and we broke our world. And we can see the effects of our collective sin every time we read or watch the news or hop online or just pay attention to the lives of those around us. God is perfect.
Jesus doesn't say, what are you talking about? You don't own the kingdoms of this world. Jesus doesn't object because Satan did own the kingdoms of this world. They were his to offer because he held the title deed of the earth. Now, before any of us get mad at Adam and Eve for ruining our perfect start, we need to understand that the Bible makes it clear that not only would we all have done the same thing, but we have all done the same thing.
Isaiah 53 six says it like this we all went astray like sheep. We all have turned to our own way. What Isaiah was saying is that every single one of us has rejected God and done our own thing instead at some point and many times over. And while it may not sound like a big deal at first, the first time that we decided we wanted to do what we want instead of what God wanted us to do, in that moment, we were rejecting God just like Adam and Eve did. In that moment, we Derbe choosing to be our own God instead of serving and following God.
God gave us the right to choose. He gave us free will. Because love cannot be a forced action. It must be a choice. And every single one of us has chosen to reject God at some point in our lives, and some of us are still doing it right now.
So make a note of this at some point, we have all made the same decision Adam and Eve made. We've all made the same decision. And when Adam and Eve sinned, sin came rushing into the world, and with it came disease and sickness and pain and suffering and violence and all these things that we know deep down are wrong with the world. And here's the mind-blowing brutal truth. God has only given us what we wanted.
We wanted to rule over ourselves and be the masters of our universe. We wanted to reject God and set the rules for ourselves. But we can't sustain the universe by the breath of our mouth. And so, the universe is dying. We can't change the heart of a man from evil to good, and so evil persists in our world.
We were hopelessly corrupted by sin. And we cannot go back in time and undo our sinful choices because we would just make them again in another way. Where does pain and suffering come from? It comes from humanity, comes from people. It comes from the sin of the human race.
Because the downside of free will is the option to choose evil over good. If you want a universe in which love exists, then free will must exist too. And wherever there is free will, there will be those who choose evil over love and their decision will inflict violence, pain, horror, and suffering upon other people. And our collective sin has brought brokenness and sickness and disease to everyone. It's the price of free will.
It's the price of having the option to choose love. Genuine free will requires not only the option to choose but also that the consequences of our choices be allowed to unfold and affect the lives of others and indeed the world around us. And that is exactly what God gave to Adam and Eve. He gave them genuine free will, the ability to make choices that have consequences, repercussions that have resonated throughout history as a result. Write this down if you're not tracking with me yet.
At the time of the evening breeze and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. So, the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, Where are you? And he said, I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid. Then he asked, who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?
The man replied, though the woman you gave to be with me. She gave me some of the fruit from the tree and I ate. So, the Lord asked the woman, what have you done? And the woman said, the serpent deceived me, and I ate. Write this down.
This is what happened. Adam and Eve chose to believe Satan, the deceiver over Jesus, their creator.
Even though God had only ever been good to them, only ever done good for them. In a moment, they chose to believe that God was the liar and Satan was the one telling the truth. In a tragic irony, Satan deceived man with the same lie. He was deceived with the belief that he should be God. It led to the downfall of Satan and the same wicked desire, the desire to be one's own God led to our downfall.
And immediately things began to unravel. Adam and Eve became self-conscious and ashamed of their nakedness. They felt guilt over their sin and the mess they had made. And so, they ran away from God, hid from him. Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed Satan and both refused to take responsibility for their sin.
Sin moved fast through creation, and everything began unraveling. Physical death entered the world for the first time because the universe was now subject to entropy -decay - and everything began slowly dying. People, animals, the earth, the universe itself, everything. Pain entered the world as pregnancy and childbirth became physically traumatic. Strife between husband and wife entered the world as their selfish pride and desires created constant difficulties in marriage.
Man now had to work and labor and strain to get the ground to produce food. It now felt like the earth was working against him as he battled thorns and weeds and thistles and felt his body ache. At the end of the day, animals began to eat each other, and man began to eat animals. And Adam and Eve would have to deal with the first murder, their son Cain, who would later murder their son Abel. Everything began to unravel when man invited sin into God's perfect creation.
Death has entered everything. It's entered our thinking, our actions, our DNA, everything. You remember how earlier I shared that God gave the title deed of the earth to man, so to speak? Well, when man chose to submit to the council of Satan rather than the council of God, something happened with that. In some mystical but very real way. We gave the title deed of the earth to Satan by choosing to obey him instead of God.
In that moment, we collectively, as the human race, gave our rights over the earth and over our own lives to Satan. Write this down humanity's rejection of God transferred ownership of the earth to Satan and caused its fall into sin. Humanity's rejection of God transferred ownership of the earth to Satan and caused its fall into sin. Many Christians have never heard this, and they don't understand that the Bible teaches this, but it does. Paul called Satan the God of this age, and Jesus called him the ruler of this world three times in the Gospel of John, when Satan comes to tempt Jesus in the wilderness.
At the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry, do you remember what the final temptation was? Matthew's gospel says this the Devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. And he said to him, I will give you all these things if you will fall down and worship me. You can read that account in Matthew, Mark, and Luke's Gospels in each one. Jesus does not object to the validity of Satan's offer.
Jesus doesn't say, what are you talking about? You don't own the
At the time of the evening breeze and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. So, the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, Where are you? And he said, I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid. Then he asked, who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?
The man replied, though the Romans you gave to be with me. She gave me some of the fruit from the tree and I ate. So, the Lord asked the woman, what have you done? And the woman said, the serpent deceived me, and I ate. Write this down.
This is what happened. Adam and Eve chose to believe Satan, the deceiver over Jesus, their creator.
Even though God had only ever been good to them, only ever done good for them. In a moment, they chose to believe that God was the liar and Satan was the one telling the truth. In a tragic irony, Satan deceived man with the same lie. He was deceived with the belief that he should be God. It led to the downfall of Satan and the same wicked desire, the desire to be one's own God led to our downfall.
And immediately things began to unravel. Adam and Eve became self-conscious and ashamed of their nakedness. They felt guilt over their sin and the mess they had made. And so, they ran away from God, hid from him. Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed Satan and both refused to take responsibility for their sin.
Sin moved fast through creation, and everything began unraveling. Physical death entered the world for the first time because the universe was now subject to entropy -decay - and everything began slowly dying. People, animals, the earth, the universe itself, everything. Pain entered the world as pregnancy and childbirth became physically traumatic. Strife between husband and wife entered the world as their selfish pride and desires created constant difficulties in marriage.
Man now had to work and labor and strain to get the ground to produce food. It now felt like the earth was working against him as he battled thorns and weeds and thistles and felt his body ache. At the end of the day, animals began to eat each other, and man began to eat animals. And Adam and Eve would have to deal with the first murder, their son Cain, who would later murder their son Abel. Everything began to unravel when man invited sin into God's perfect creation.
Death has entered everything. It's entered our thinking, our actions, our DNA, everything. You remember how earlier I shared that God gave the title deed of the earth to man, so to speak? Well, when man chose to submit to the council of Satan rather than the council of God, something happened with that. In some mystical but very real way.
We gave the title deed of the earth to Satan by choosing to obey him instead of God. In that moment, we collectively, as the human race, gave our rights over the earth and over our own lives to Satan. Write this down humanity's rejection of God transferred ownership of the earth to Satan and caused its fall into sin. Humanity's rejection of God transferred ownership of the earth to Satan and caused its fall into sin. Many Christians have never heard this, and they don't understand that the Bible teaches this, but it does. Paul called Satan the God of this age, and Jesus called him the ruler of this world three times in the Gospel of John, when Satan comes to tempt Jesus in the wilderness.
At the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry, do you remember what the final temptation was? Matthew's gospel says this the Devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. And he said to him, I will give you all these things if you will fall down and worship me. You can read that account in Matthew, Mark, and Luke's Gospels in each one. Jesus does not object to the validity of Satan's offer.
And this is what the Lord told Adam about that tree. The Lord commanded the man. This is Genesis 216. You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die. So, God created man truly good, innocent, pure, righteous.
And God placed man in a truly good world and gave him authority over it. And through the presence of the two trees, God gave man free will. The choice to love, obey, trust, and serve God or not. In the warning God gives to Adam, he doesn't say, if you eat the forbidden fruit, I will resent you forever and make your life miserable. He doesn't say, if you eat the forbidden fruit, you'll be enlightened by the whole truth.
And I can't have that? No. What does God say? He says on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die. At this point, Adam and Eve could not know what that meant.
But they knew it would be terrible. The result of disobeying God. Rejecting God would not be a telling-off or a slap on the wrist. The result would be catastrophic death. Inevitable and unavoidable.
Death would enter creation and affect everything. So, make a note of this. God gave humanity the free will to follow him and choose life or reject him and choose death. Reject him and choose death.
And you might think that this is going to be God inflicting death upon them, but that's not what God is saying. God is the only source of everything good, including life, love, peace, joy, hope, goodness, all these good things. But the only way to be connected to the source of those things is to serve Him and worship Him and follow Him as Lord. When you say, I don't want to be connected to you God, you become disconnected from the only source of everything good. And all there is on the other side is death.
God doesn't have to inflict death upon you. Death is all there is outside of God. You choose death when you choose to reject God. Those are the only two options. That's what God is saying.
He's saying if you choose to reject me, if you choose to disobey me, you are by default chosen death. And it will come for you, and you will not escape. The Bible says that God is love. God is the supreme being and his supreme ethic, his supreme characteristic is love. And God is so devoted to the ethic of love that even the angels in heaven, in a way we can't fully understand, have free will.
He gives them a choice. How do we know that? Well, because one of only two archangels in heaven was a being named Lucifer. And with his free will, Lucifer attempted an insurrection, a coup to make himself equal with God. To make a long story short, it did not go well.
He was cast out of heaven by the other archangel, Michael, and fell to the earth as Satan. And you know what happened next. Here's what the Bible says. Genesis three, verse four. No, you will certainly not die.
The serpent said to the woman. In fact, God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So, she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew they were naked. So, they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Suddenly, by disobeying God, their eyes are opened to all the ways they could disobey God that they had never considered before. Sin enters them and, in that moment, they become ashamed and aware of their nakedness, and their innocence is lost. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden.
They're not saying, you know, I was thinking, like, we're banking a solid 8 hours of sleep every night. We got to do something about that. Let's have some kids. They're not doing that. They're not saying, man, I am so sick of all this free time.
We got to do something about this, babe. Let's have some kids. Nobody even thinks that. But there's something inside us that wants to share our lives with our own children. There's something that says, wouldn't it be cool to have little versions of ourselves to bless and to share life with?
Wouldn't it be wonderful to invest in them and watch them grow and love them? We don't need kids. But kids are a blessing to us, and we get that from being made in the image of our Heavenly Father, because that's why God made Adam and Eve, and that's why God made you and me. He doesn't need us, but incredibly, he can be blessed by us. So write this down.
We were created because God wanted to share Himself and His goodness with his children. That's why we're here. God wanted to share Himself and His goodness with his children. And let me tell you, my kids are a blessing to me. Their hugs, hearing them say, I love you, dad, or when they're teenagers, settling for it.
What's up, Dad? Watching them grow, sharing experiences with them, watching them love and serve others. They bless me so much. I'm so grateful for them. But you know what wouldn't bless me?
If instead of six kids, I had six robots who were programmed to hug me and say, I love you, dad, regularly. Even if they did all the same stuff that my kids do. Now, why wouldn't that bless me? If they were doing all the same things my kids do, what would be the difference? We all know intrinsically, don't we, that the difference is free will.
The difference is choice. Affection and relationship with a being who has free will is significant on an incalculably higher level than affection and relationship with an automaton. A being that has no control over its behaviors or actions. A being that is simply following its programming. For love to exist, there must be the choice to not love.
If the option to not love does not exist, then the option to love cannot exist. There has to be a choice. If affection and relationship are to have any meaning at all, a person must have free will. We all get this, even if we've never been able to articulate it with words. God gave Adam and Eve free will by creating what Genesis 29 describes - the Tree of Life in the middle of the garden as well as the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
So, God placed two trees in the middle of the garden that we commonly call Eden. One was the Tree of Life. They could eat from that all they wanted and assumedly experience benefits we cannot imagine. We don't know what those benefits were, but we can trust that they were amazing. But there was also a second tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
What the Word of God, the Bible, says about it? The scriptures describe a world created by Jesus free of pain and suffering. A perfect world. So, we can compare the world that God gave us to the world that we experience today. The Bible begins with Genesis, chapter one, verse one.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And it goes on to describe Jesus creating everything the sun, the stars, plants, animals. And as he's doing this step by step, he's looking at his creation and he's declaring, this is good. And we can't even begin to fathom the depths of what it meant. When God said of the earth, this is good, he was saying that all of creation was in a state that the Hebrews call shalom.
It means a state of peace, a state of balance, a state of rest, a state of beauty. Everything as it should be - shalom animals were herbivores. There was no savagery in nature. It was good on a level and in a way we cannot comprehend.
No mosquitoes go swimming in the ocean. There's no sand hidden somewhere in your body when you get out the water. Everything's perfect. And into this beautiful, perfect creation, God places the whole point of his creation, man and woman made in his image to be his sons and daughters. And when he looked at them, he declared, they are good.
There was apparently no death and there was no work in the sense that nothing was laborious or cumbersome. The only tasks that they had to do were interesting and joyful and life-giving. And they felt like they had more energy when they had completed the task than when they had begun. And they didn't have to work to eat. They would just grab fruit off whatever tree was near them.
And it was all good. It was all satisfying. It was all nutritious. This was a world so good, they didn't even need pants. I say that jokingly.
But this world was a world without body issues as well. It was a world without self-consciousness. It was a world without lust. It was completely free of all that junk. So, write this down.
The world Jesus gave humanity was good. And when we say good, we mean perfect. The world Jesus gave humanity was good. It was perfect. And God's only instructions to Adam and Eve were to have dominion over the earth and to multiply.
God created man to steward and rule over all the creatures and resources of the Earth. God put man. He put us in charge of the earth. He gave it to us. Jesus gave the title deed, so to speak, of his creation to us and said, Rule over the Earth, be blessed, have lots of babies, which is a wonderful assignment in a world where pregnancy and childbirth are completely painless.
And I want to make sure you don't miss this, so I'm going to say it again. The world Jesus gave humanity was perfect. It was perfectly good. So, if I give you something precious and beautiful to take care of, and I go on a journey and I come back and it's broken, what does that mean? Well, it means something went wrong on your watch.
Something went wrong on your watch. But before we get to what happened, I want to remind us of why God chose to create us. The Bible tells us that God is complete in every sense of the word. He lacks nothing. He needs nothing.
And he's not made more complete by having anything added to Himself. He's not lonely. He's not insecure. He's not bored. He is entirely self-sufficient within the Trinity.
Now, think of a married couple that doesn't have kids yet. Can I tell you what converging they're not having? They're not saying, you know what? We've got too much spare money. We need to have some kids.
They're not saying, you know, I was thinking, like, we're banking a solid 8 hours of sleep every night. We got to do something about that. Let's have some kids. They're not doing that. They're not saying, man, I am so sick of all this free time.
Series: A Theology of Suffering...Speaker: Jeff Thompson
One of the most frequently raised objections to Christianity is the problem of evil. How can a good God exist if there is so much pain and suffering in the world? I this message, we’ll explore what the Bible says about this classic existential dilemma.
If you're not aware, our church has a disproportionately high number of people who are dealing with infirmities, diseases, illnesses, and sicknesses. There are many suffering in our church in other ways as well. And suffering, as I just indicated, takes many forms. In fact, it's pretty much a guarantee that everybody is going to deal with suffering in their life and will do so many times.
But not everybody deals with suffering the same way. Some handle it better than others. For some, it brings out the best in them, making them more like Jesus and serving as a positive witness to those around them. For others, it brings out the worst in them, embittering them, filling them with anger, resentment, depression, and making them just someone who's toxic to be around. The question we want to tackle in this new miniseries is what should suffering look like in the life of a Christian?
What should it look like? What do Jesus and His Word tell us about how we should view suffering and how we should walk through it? And to answer the question, how should we view suffering? We need to begin by tackling one of the most frequent objections to theism to the existence of God, commonly referred to as the problem of evil. It's the question behind questions like why does suffering exist?
Why is there pain and evil in the world? If God is good, then why does he allow all the suffering and evil that we see in the world? Either he must not be powerful enough to do anything about it, he must not be real, or he must not care. Those are big questions. They're really big questions.
If you're a Christian, you need to know the answers to these kinds of questions. Perhaps you still have these questions as a Christian, but you're afraid to ask them. You don't need to be, because there are really good answers. Not easy answers, but good and true answers. Clear answers.
Pain and suffering feel inherently wrong to pretty much everybody when they show up in a major way in our lives or the lives of those we love, there's this underlying feeling that things should not be this way. Something has gone wrong. And so, we mourn, we lament, we grieve, we get angry when suffering interrupts our lives and the lives of those we love. When you think about it, that's very odd, because in the secular worldview, pain and suffering have been part of life since the world began. They are, by definition, normal, unextraordinary.
And yet, as a species, we have not adopted the attitude of "C'est la vie," that's life another day, another tragedy. When it comes to pain and suffering, isn't it strange? When someone we love is suffering, we don't say, hey, you know, statistically this was inevitable. We don't do that. But it makes no sense for us to view pain and suffering as tragic when it is, by definition, normal to be expected.
I suggest the reason pain and suffering feel so wrong to us is because pain and suffering were never meant to exist. Our soul knows deep down that things were not meant to be like this. Something has indeed gone very wrong with humanity and with our world. This is going to be your first fill-in. We're going to go on a journey today.
Write this down. Our souls testify that pain and suffering should not exist. And something has gone wrong in our world. Our souls know deep down that things should not be this way. So, let's talk about why suffering exists.
Seek the Lord, pray fast, seek wise counsel, get into the Word, and discern why you may be suffering, if indeed you are presently. Remember, the goal is not comfort; the goal is becoming more like Christ. We want to come out of our trials purified, more like Jesus, better prepared for eternity wiser, more free from the control of sin, and full of the unshakable hope of heaven.
We want Christ to be glorified in the way we respond to suffering. So, if you need to repent, repent. If you need to become wise, ask the Lord for wisdom and search the Scriptures with the appropriate level of urgency. If you need to trust God, rest in Him, and cast Your cares upon Him, do that, and no matter what kind of suffering you're going through, praise God for the comfort of his spirit, the power of his blood, and the hope of heaven. With that, would you bow your head and close your eyes.
Let's pray together. Jesus, we are so thankful for the truth of Your Word and for the guidance of the Scriptures. Lord, our first desire, Lord, is that we would not deceive ourselves in any way. And so, Jesus, we want to invite you by the power of Your Spirit to examine our lives, to search the depths of our spirits, and as David prayed, see if there is any impure way in us, any area of our lives that is not submitted to you as it should be. Jesus, please speak to us and please convict us if we are in sin anywhere.
And Lord Jesus, if any among us are stubbornly holding on to sin, Lord, I pray that you would convict them powerfully by our Spirit. Not so that they can feel bad, but so that they can be set free from the power of sin so that they can cease sowing seeds that we know will lead to destruction in their lives. We don't want that for our brothers and sisters. So, Lord, speak to us and where we need to repent, Lord, help us to do that. Give us the faith to do that.
Remind every person here of Your goodness, of Your kindness, of Your grace, and that everything you call us to do is for our good. Lord, I pray as well for anyone who is just wrestling with making foolish decisions, unwise decisions. Lord, help us to be humble in our need for you, in our need for wisdom that comes from Your Spirit and from Your Word. Help us to seek it with the desperation warranted and help us to seek it from those who are wise, Lord, that we might live as wise men and women. And then, Jesus, for those who are suffering from living in a fallen world, for those who have repented and turned away from their sin, but are still dealing with the natural consequences, for those who are being purified and prepared through suffering.
Right now, Lord, I think of Your Word and Peter's exhortation to cast all our cares upon you because You care for us. And Lord, I recognize that so often we just don't know how to do that. We don't know what that means. And so, Holy Spirit, would you minister to us as we seek you in this coming time, and just as we desire to be full of Your Spirit, would you help us to release burdens that we should not be holding on to. Would you help us to receive your comfort, to receive your peace, to find our load lightened as the one who bore all of our sin and shame carries our burdens as well?
Thank you, Jesus, that by Your stripes we are healed. And so, we pray that you would help us to receive that healing and to receive that peace. Jesus, we love you, we bless you. It's in Your name we pray. Amen.
And God does the same thing with us if we're rebelling against Him, if we're rejecting what his word says, he knows that we're sowing destruction that we're going to reap in our lives. And he doesn't want that for us, so he will lovingly discipline us. Solomon gave his son this counsel in Proverbs Three do not despise the Lord's instruction, my son. Do not loathe his discipline, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves, just as a father disciplines the Son in whom he delights. The new living translation puts it like this: "My child, don't make light of the Lord's discipline, and don't give up when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those he loves and he punishes each one that he accepts as his child." If you know that you're living in disobedience to God in an area of your life and you find yourself suffering, you should not be racking your brain for answers and seeking counsel from other people for insights. It's not rocket science. You just need to repent. You need to get right with God before you do anything else.
Because even though you're probably loving, it's not that sin issue. Even though you're probably working really hard to convince yourself it's not that sin issue, it's that sin issue. That's what it is. And know this a good parent doesn't drop the issue when they know it's bringing destruction into their child's life. God is the perfect father, and so he's not going to drop the issue either.
He's not going to just move on if you choose to be stubborn in your sin, and he's not going to run out of energy. He's not he can do it all day. So, if you're experiencing suffering because the Lord is disciplining you, welcome His correction. Receive it, repent, and change where he's calling you to change. As I mentioned earlier, becoming more like Jesus means you'll be entrusted with greater responsibilities when you reign with Christ in eternity.
And God is working now to purify and prepare us for those responsibilities that await us in 2 Timothy, it says, "If we died with Him, we will also live with Him. If we endure, we will also reign with Him." Church, we really are going to reign with Christ. It's really going to happen. First, we will reign on the Earth for a thousand years when Jesus rules as King, and then we will reign with Him into eternity in a way more glorious than we can imagine.
We all understand the reality and necessity of temporary pain for the sake of greater benefit. Later examples abound in our lives. The temporary pain of exercising for greater health. The temporary pain of loving for retirement to have a financially secure future. The temporary pain of a burn on a child's finger, a small one, so that they learn that fire is serious and dangerous.
We all understand that not all pain is bad. Sometimes pain is necessary and important. It's for our benefit. And yet we also understand none of that makes the pain any less real in the moment. It's just that we recognize the future benefits of that temporary pain make it worthwhile.
And our earthly loves are like a grain of sand compared to the beach of eternity. And knowing that, let me ask you would a genuinely good God prioritize our earthly present or our infinite eternity? What would he do? If he wants the best for us, the answer is obvious. In the same way, a good parent raises their child with adulthood in mind.
Our perfect and loving Heavenly Father parents, his children, you and me, with our spiritual adulthood, our eternal destiny in mind. And when the Lord parents us with eternity in mind, my prayer is that our response would be, do it, Lord. Do it. Because I would rather benefit in eternity than this earthly temporary life. I would rather be great in Your kingdom than here on the earth.
And I always tell people, if you struggle with trusting God in difficult circumstances, if you're paying any attention, sooner or later you'll get tired of putting your foot in your mouth. Sooner or later, you'll get tired of saying, "This is it. I'm going under. This is the time God doesn't come through," when every single time he's faithful. And eventually, you get to the point of saying, "I'm just tired of being wrong. So, I'm just going to call it this time. God's going to come through." And He will. He always, always will.
Before Jesus was arrested, he told Peter, "Look out. Satan has asked to sift you like wheat." And the implication was that permission had been granted by God Lord. Peter told him, "I'm ready to go with you both to prison and to death." Peter would soon learn that wasn't true. The Lord allowed Peter to be squeezed so that Peter could get a reality check of where his faith really was.
And you know, Peter would deny even knowing Jesus three times at the time when Jesus was most alone. After his resurrection, Jesus forgives and restores Peter. But how did Peter get over the shame and embarrassment of that failure? By knowing there would be another chance, there's going to be another trial, another test in the future. And Peter determined that next time he would be faithful to Jesus to the very end, whatever it cost.
And he was. He was. Church tradition holds that Peter died by being crucified for refusing to disown Jesus, except that Peter asked to be crucified upside down because he didn't consider himself worthy of dying in the same manner as his Savior. God will use suffering to remove impurities from our lives and from our character. Write this down.
God may use suffering for the purpose of preparation. Preparation. When Jesus told Peter that Satan had been permitted to sift him like wheat, Jesus also told Peter, "But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail and you, when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." Jesus told Peter he was about to go through a difficult trial, but he would come through it in the end. And when he did, he would have learned something.
He would have been changed in a profound way that would enable him to strengthen and encourage his brothers in a way that he couldn't before his trial. As Peter learned more about his own weakness, he would become more gracious in dealing with others in their weaknesses. And as he experienced the grace and forgiveness of God after a spectacular failure, he would be able to encourage others with the grace and forgiveness offered by God. Peter was being prepared through a trial. In 2 Corinthians 1, Paul writes, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.
He comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. God will use suffering to prepare us for future ministry. God may cause us to experience suffering. For discipline. For discipline.
You know, when I take my kids to the park, I don't step in and discipline somebody else's kids. I really want to sometimes, but I don't. I might think, really?
Okay, but I don't. You know why? They're not my kids. They're not my kids. But if one of my kids is being unkind or having a bad attitude, I'm going to step in and discipline them.
Why? Because I care about who they are becoming. I want them to have healthy, fulfilling friendships and relationships in life. And so, I want them to know how to treat people the right way, so they sow good things and then reap good things. A loving parent disciplines their children for the good of their children.
As we talked about last week, we know from Scripture, we know from the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. We know from his work in our lives that God is good. And when he uses suffering as a tool in our lives, he does so for a good reason. That is what Paul called in Romans 828, our ultimate good. Remember, this is huge if you don't know this.
God's greatest concern is not our comfort. It's making us more like Christ. God's greatest concern is not our comfort. It's making us more like Christ. And that process is called sanctification.
And sanctification is good for us. Being made more like Jesus is good for us because becoming more like Jesus means more joy, more peace, and more love in my life. Scripture says that Jesus, when he was on the earth, was anointed with the oil of gladness more than all his fellows. He's the happiest man who ever lived. It's the path to the most fulfilled life you can have on the earth.
Becoming more like Jesus - sanctification - means you'll live more profitably. You'll live with greater purpose because you'll be serving God, storing up treasure in heaven, devoting your life to things that will matter for eternity. And becoming more like Jesus means that God will entrust you with greater responsibilities when you reign with Him in the ages to come. Now, God may cause us to experience suffering for the purpose of purification. We know that God wants us to become more like Jesus.
But how do we actually know if we're becoming more like Jesus? You've probably heard the old illustration that we're all like a tube of toothpaste. When the squeeze is on, what comes out? Whatever is inside the tube. And I have to just ask here just to know if I'm the only one. Does anybody else go to war with their spouse over getting the last bit of toothpaste out the tube so that you're not the one who has to get the new tube?
Or is this only me and my wife? It's just us. Okay, I'll let you know. It's serious in our house. Like, you will hear, like, grunting from the bathroom, because the winner is the person who forces the other person to get the new tube of toothpaste.
So... We really are that cheap? Yes. But when the squeeze is on whatever is in the tube, that's what comes out. And so too, for us, when we are placed under pressure and under stress in life, whatever comes out of us in those circumstances reveals what's really inside of us. The Bible talks about this process being like gold.
That is purified. And the way gold was traditionally purified is by being passed through a fire heated up to incredible temperatures where the impurities, called "the dross", they rise to the surface as the gold melted, and then the goldsmith can just skim them off, loving only purified gold. We need seasons in life where it is revealed whether we truly believe what we claim to believe. And those seasons come when the squeeze is on.
And these are not tests from God so that he can learn where our faith is really at. He's God. He knows. These are tests to allow us to see ourselves clearly, to take stock of where our faith really is, to find out what we truly believe. I've had trials in my life that I've handled well.
I've walked by faith unwaveringly and I've seen God inevitably come through, and I treasure those experiences. But I've also had trials that I had to look back on with shame and embarrassment because I had little faith. And I allowed myself to be overwhelmed with worry and anxiety. But those times built in me, and they can build in you a determination to walk through the next trial with faith. Those failures put a resolve in me because I didn't want to be a man of weak faith the next time.
In those situations, I think we need to allow ourselves to be broken over the pain that sin causes. When we're reminded by the consequences of our old sins, the devastating effect that sin has on our lives, that should make us grieve over how prevalent sin is in our world. It should make us hate the sin that is inside of us and want to do everything we can to not be ruled or led by it in our lives. We want to learn from experiencing the fallout of rejecting God's ways in favor of our own. And when we allow the pain caused by the consequences of our sin to break us, it stirs our love for Christ because we grow in our appreciation that he died to set us free from the power of sin.
He died so that we could have the option to not just fall into it over and over and over again and have our lives destroyed by it. And he died to lead us into an eternity where we will be completely free from it. So, if you're suffering from the natural consequences of sins that you've already repented for, you've already turned away from, let that suffering remind you of the devastating effects of sin. Let it cause you to hate sin in your life and grow in your love for Jesus, who sets you free from the power of sin to control your life and let it grow. Your longing for the time and the place where you will be completely free from sin.
Now, other times, the issue isn't sin, it's just foolishness. We just make dumb decisions sometimes. And those dumb decisions, bad decisions that aren't necessarily sinful, well, they also have natural consequences. If the check engine light comes on in your car and you ignore it for nine months, we've got no business questioning God when the mechanic says, yeah, this is really bad. If you had brought it in when the light first came on, it would have been a much smaller repair.
Oh, Lord. Why me? The Lord has a word for you. It's maintenance. That's the word.
Okay? If you get fired from your job because you're late 80% of the time, you're not a victim of living in a fallen world. You shouldn't look up to the heavens and say, "Why me, God? Is it because I'm a Christian?" You're just a bad employee.
That's why you got fired. Okay? If you're suffering because you keep making foolish and bad decisions, then stop doing that. Stop hanging around with people who help you make bad decisions. Stop going to places where it's easy to make bad decisions.
Stop listening to people who give bad advice. Become wise. And how does one become wise? Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived other than Jesus wrote, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and discipline."
Wisdom begins by submitting your life to Christ as Lord, meaning that what he says goes. David, whom the Bible calls a man after God's own heart, wrote, "The instruction of the Lord is perfect. Renewing one's life. The testimony of the Lord is trustworthy. Making the inexperienced wise..." I love that.
Making the inexperienced wise. Here's what that means. It doesn't matter if you're ten years old. Wisdom is found in the word of God. It doesn't matter if you were raised with parents who weren't all that great, people in your life who didn't set a good example.
Read the word, study the word, learn it, know it, understand it, apply it to your life, and you will become wise. God promises it. And our brother James wrote, if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given to him. Ask the Lord for wisdom. If you desire to please and obey the Lord and walk in his ways, and you ask Him for wisdom so that you can do that, he'll give it to you.
He will give it to you. Now. Thirdly, suffering can be caused - write this down - by the will of God. Suffering can be caused by the will of God. While we may not like it, God will sometimes use suffering as a tool.
And if we think it does, then we will be horribly confused when certain bad things happen in our lives. Because we will think, why would God make this happen? The Bible doesn't teach that everything happens for a reason. But praise God. The Bible does teach that God does something good in every circumstance of a believer's life.
In Romans 8:28, our brother Paul tells us that all things work together for the ultimate good of those who love God. In other words, whether we're going through a good time or the worst time of our lives, God can and does do something good practically, spiritually, emotionally, in your life, or in the life of someone around you. God will do something good even when things are bad. And that's profound because it's a promise from God that the believer's suffering is never meaningless, never meaningless. Nothing is wasted.
The non-believer has no such promise. And unless their suffering leads them to Christ, their suffering is meaningless. It's meaningless. When we suffer from living in a fallen world, we should take heart that God is working something good in every circumstance. We should rejoice in the hope of heaven and follow the counsel of our brother Peter to cast all our cares upon Jesus because he cares for us.
Our God is as Paul described him, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.
Secondly, suffering can be caused - write this down - suffering can be caused by the natural consequences of our actions. Ouch. Suffering can be caused by the natural consequences of our actions. The Bible talks about the principle of loving and reaping. This is what Paul told the Galatians: "Don't be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever a person, sows he will also reap." This is a law that God has established in the universe. Our actions have consequences for better or worse. The Bible teaches that sin leads to death. And not only does sin lead to death eternally for those who reject Christ, but sin produces death in any area of our life where we allow it to reign any area of our life where we allow sin to call the shots. Even if we're a Christian.
If we're experiencing suffering and pain in any area of our life, we must honestly examine ourselves and ask questions like, "Am I obeying the Lord in this area of my life? Is there sin in this area of my life that I need to repent and turn away from?" If we're not obeying the Lord in that area of life, if we need to repent, we're fooling ourselves by looking for an alternative explanation for our suffering. Because the truth is, we're just looking for a way to have the suffering end where we still get to hold on to our precious sin. That's what I'm really looking for. A second opinion? Yeah. Is there a version of this where I can just keep loving this sin, but also have the suffering it's causing stop. That's what I'm really looking for. Because if our sin is the cause of our suffering, then only dealing with that sin will alleviate our suffering.
If we're suffering because we are experiencing the natural consequences of our sin, we need to repent. It's that simple. Don't grab someone and say, "Oh, can you pray for me, brother or sister, that the suffering would end?" Don't do that when you know the reason it's happening is because you're sinning. The solution is to repent and turn away from it.
Sometimes we have repented of that sin. We have turned away from it. But those natural consequences don't just vanish when we repent. Wouldn't that be great if they did? Right?
But they don't. Repentance brings rest and peace to our souls and comfort to our minds. It draws us closer to the God who comforts us. It prevents there being this barrier of sin between us and God. But oftentimes the natural consequences of our sins are felt for a long time, sometimes even the rest of our lives.
Series: A Theology of Suffering...Speaker: Jeff Thompson
It is critical that we correctly diagnose the cause of our suffering so that we can respond appropriately. In this message, we’ll look at the four primary causes of suffering in the life of the believer, and how we should respond in each instance.
So, as I mentioned last week, we're taking a break from our study through the Book of Acts to talk about the subject of suffering. We have a much higher percentage per capita than most churches do of people in our church who are suffering in some way with a trial, emotional, mental, physical, infirmity, something like that. And so, we wanted to tackle the question, what should suffer? Suffering loved like in the life of a Christian? And last week we learned that humanity's collective sin is why pain, suffering, and evil exist in our broken world.
And we were reminded just how good God is, because instead of leaving us in the mess that we had made, he entered our suffering, laid down his life to provide hope, restore our relationship with Him, and offer a gloriously different eternity from the death that we were destined for. Next week, we're going to talk about some practical steps we can take as individuals to endure a season of suffering. Well, as a follower of Jesus, but also as part of a local church, this week we're going to talk about diagnosing the cause of our sufferings. And while talking about remedies and solutions for suffering is good, any doctor will tell you it's vital to first diagnose the problem before you begin to treat it. Otherwise, you may end up taking cough drops for a headache or a sleep aid for tendinitis in the same way.
And this is going to be your first fill-in. When we are suffering, it is wise to identify the specific cause of our suffering. When we are suffering, it is wise to identify the specific cause of our suffering. Last week, we talked about why suffering exists at all. This week, we want to talk about identifying the specific cause of our individual sufferings.
Because how we need to respond to our suffering depends entirely upon the cause of our suffering. And I want to suggest today there are four primary causes of suffering in the believer's life. First, suffering can be caused by living in a fallen world. If you missed last week's message, I hope you'll go online and listen to it, because it's important we live in a fallen world. And because we do, things like cancer exist, car crashes happen, people do evil things to other people, spouses cheat and walk out on each other. Hardworking people lose their jobs. Stuff breaks down. I've seen many Christians experience angst as they try to understand why something bad has happened in their lives when sometimes the answer is just that we live in a fallen world where bad things happen. And there's nothing more to it than that Christian. We must understand that this is not heaven.
This is not heaven. We should not expect this to be the place where everything is right and good and goes the way it should. It's not. We're not there yet. Praise God.
One day we will be in that place and that's why for 2000 years heaven has filled the heart of the believer with hope. For those who belong to Christ, this life is not the end. And so, when things don't work out great down here, that's okay. That's okay because we know where we're going. There's a reason that slaves who loved the Lord didn't write songs about overcoming in this life.
They wrote I'll fly away, O glory, I'll fly away when I die, hallelujah. By and by I'll fly away. Many Christians also don't realize that the Bible does not teach that everything happens for a reason. Do you know this? The Bible doesn't say that.
That's why they call coping mechanisms. And as we talked about last week, we're like a tube of toothpaste when the squeeze is on, when we're under pressure, what comes out of us, what comes out of our lives, is whatever was truly in us. Do we actually believe that there's more peace to be found in Christ than anything the world offers? A trial will reveal what you believe. Do we actually believe Christ is better than anything else?
All we have to do is look at where we run for relief when we're struggling to cope. Parenthetically this is why I counsel anybody who has wrestled with any type of coping mechanism that isn't Christ to build defenses in times of peace. You can't build your defenses when you're under attack, it's too late. You must build your defenses in times of peace. And when it comes to coping mechanisms, that means doing everything you can to strip them of their power in advance.
Paul counseled the Romans to make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. In other words, what Paul is saying is, "Don't prepare things for when you know you're going to want to sin in the future. Don't set aside provisions so that you can sin using them later in the future." If you have a history of alcoholism, don't keep alcohol in your house anywhere, for any reason. Don't make any provision for the flesh if you've wrestled with porn addiction in the past, don't have any device in your home that doesn't have accountability software on it.
Don't keep that old software in a drawer for a rainy day just in case you want to sin and indulge the flesh later. Build your defenses in times of peace. Ask yourself this question. This is a brutal question that I will ask people sometimes, and it's brutal. The question is, "So, if you were loving to try and indulge your sinful coping mechanism today, later today, tomorrow, how would you do it?"
"How would you do it?" And then figure out what you can do to make that impossible or as difficult as humanly possible. That's building your defenses in times of peace. Why? Because you know and understand that sooner or later an assault is coming and when it comes, it'll be too late to build your defenses.
Then watch out for sin when you're struggling to cope and you're going through a trial. Build your defenses in advance. Get around. Fellowship with your church family as much as possible. Get prayer as much as possible.
Confess when you're struggling with temptation and be disciplined. We will not be exempt from the natural consequences of sin just because we're going through a trial. Please hear me on this. I'll say it again: We will not be exempt from the natural consequences of sin just because we're going through a trial.
Neither God nor Satan is going to be like, you're going through a lot right now. So, I'm not going to cause you to deal with anything from that sin. We'll just let it go. It's not going to happen. Christ will forgive you if you repent.
But repentance does not include the alleviation of the natural consequences of your sin.
I'm going to close. I know it's semi abruptly, but we're going to continue next week. Just talking through some practical issues about suffering, but I'm going to close by just reminding us of some key points from today's study. Number one, more than anything, invite your church family into your suffering. Invite them in.
If that doesn't come naturally to you, you're like, oh, I'm not that kind of person. You're not special. It doesn't come naturally to anybody. Let me share something potentially sensitive and embarrassing about myself and put myself in a highly vulnerable position. That's not a personality type.
Nobody does that, okay? Anytime you do this, you are acting against our fundamental human nature. That's why humility is so hard. It doesn't come naturally to any of us. That's why vulnerability is so hard.
We spoke earlier about not isolating yourself when you go through a trial, and that issue is deeply connected to a bigger issue. Write this down. It's this issue when going through a trial. This is true for any time, but especially in a trial. Do not let your emotions rule your decision-making.
Do not let your emotions rule your decision-making.
General George S. Patton, Jr. Paraphrased Shakespeare when he famously wrote, "Fatigue makes cowards of us all." When we're going through a trial, we're tired, we're beaten down. And in that state, it is so easy for us to lose discipline.
And yes, discipline is the right word. It is the root of the Word disciple. The Christian life is disciplined in that Christian living is, at its core, constantly saying no to the momentary desires of the flesh and instead saying yes to the leading of the spirit. It is that discipline over and over and over and over and over again. But when we're fatigued, we just want to give in to our fleshly emotions and desires, don't we?
The mature Christian understands that discipline is refusing to allow our actions to be dictated by your emotions. Refusing to let your actions be dictated by your momentary desires. "I don't feel like going to church. I don't feel like sharing this difficult thing with my brothers or sisters, but I know it's what I need to do. I know it's good for me, so I will do what I know is good rather than what would feel good in this moment."
That's discipline. That's mature Christian conduct. And here's a lie that Satan loves to tell you in those moments: "You don't want to go to church or home group. You'll just have to put on a happy face and pretend to be excited. And we both know you don't have the energy for that right now."
And it's a lie because you don't have to put on a happy face. You should spend some time with me. I'll model this for you, OK? You can be honest. You can be real.
God already knows you're not fooling Him in your life. There will be some Sundays when all you can do is get yourself to church. You're such a mess, you can't even sing. That's okay. We'll sing for you.
All you have to do is just agree in your spirit. With what we're singing, you won't be able to focus for the whole message. That's okay. God's word is supernatural. He will build your faith and minister to you just because you're in the room while His Word is being declared.
And the Holy Spirit will speak to your soul regardless of the subject of the message. You can ask for prayer and just say, "I'm a mess right now. I'm just going through it. That's all I can bring myself to share right now." Do that. Humble yourself and remember God's promise. He'll pour out His grace on you. He'll pour out His grace upon you.
And by the way, that's yet another reason why we sing the praises of God together, why we declare his goodness and celebrate his faithfulness with song out loud. It's because there are always brothers and sisters among us who desperately need those reminders. Sometimes it'll be you. So when you have the strength to sing, sing because you're not just singing for yourself. You're singing for those who are too weak to sing in that moment, you're singing over them.
It's not just about you. What we do when we get together is about the Church family.
When we're fatigued and we're going through it, isn't it so easy to justify sin? It's so easy, man, I deserve to indulge in this sin. How else am I supposed to cope with this? Nobody can judge me. They don't know what I'm going through.
They're not going through what I'm going through. Watch out. Peter says, "Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary, the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for anyone he can devour." Our coping mechanisms are never more tempting than when we're struggling to cope.
But no, no. I'm going to ignore what Jesus says I need to do. I'm going to ignore people in whom he's put gifts for the specific purpose of building me up in this time because I know better, and I'm just going to get by myself, and that's going to bring me healing. 'Delusional, delusional.
Don't be your own counselor. Why? Because we give ourselves terrible advice. Terrible advice. We convince ourselves that everything's going to get better if we somehow isolate ourselves.
But all that happens is that Satan comes after us like a lion chasing down a zebra who's been separated from the herd. Oh, a straggler one on their own, ripe for the picking because now they've got no protection. And then when we're isolated, satan attacks us with baseless thoughts like, hey, nobody cares about you. Nobody can understand what you're going through. Nobody's missing you.
It's never going to get better. And in our weakened, suffering state, our thinking becomes distorted far more easily when we're isolated. So please hear me on this - stop doing that. Stop doing that.
Grow up and become mature in Christ. Lean into fellowship. This is what mature Christians do. Lean into fellowship when you don't feel like it because you're actually mature enough to understand that you need it. Don't be someone who skips church and Paul's back from fellowship at the time when you need it the most.
Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived other than Jesus, said, a fool's way is right in his own eyes. But whoever listens to counsel, to wise counsel, is wise. Seeking counsel and sharing your sufferings in a vulnerable way, it requires humility - a lot of it - which is probably why it doesn't come easy for most of us. But there's a promise in God's word that has haunted me in a good way over the past few years and that has profoundly impacted my life. In James four six, we read, o"Gd resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. I have a choice. You have a choice. We can be proud, and we can hold on to our false image of having it all together, and God will resist us. Now, what does that mean?
I don't know exactly, but I know it's not good! I know I don't want God resisting me. And I know it means things aren't going to get better. Or we can humble ourselves, admit we need the help and support and ministry of our church family, and God will give us grace. And my goodness is the grace of God amazing when he pours it out on you.
It does miracles for the state of your spirit and the condition of your mind. Can I tell you from experience that God always does something good? When I humble myself and choose to share a struggle I'm having with a brother in the faith? Always. I don't have one time where I'm like, oh, man, I regret doing that.
It's always good. And it's not because they have the perfect response, it's not because they have the perfect advice, or they have an answer available right away for me. It's because they point me to Christ. They lead me to Christ in prayer, and Christ our out his grace on me, and I find myself able to hear Him with greater clarity. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. When we humble ourselves and go to God's Word, seek Him in prayer and seek counsel from mature believers and prayer from them.
Because sometimes we very intentionally choose people who are at arm's length from our daily lives, who don't see us multiple times a week like our church family does, and because we know that they're not as involved in our lives on a regular basis. So, it's easier for us to hide from them when we're not doing well. And so, we intentionally choose to share and confide in someone who's not going to see us regularly enough for it to become really difficult for us to hide how we're really doing. Don't do that. You want to see a counselor or share with a friend in another church?
Praise God. That's great. But do it in addition to someone in your local church who sees you regularly and can pray for you and check up on you and care for you.
Because being your own counselor can be very, very dangerous. 'Anybody want to be honest enough to say Amen? Yes, the Lord desires to speak to each of us directly, but sometimes we're unwilling to hear. Sometimes we're unable to hear. And for those reasons, it is wise to walk through challenging seasons of life with mature brothers and sisters.
It's especially wise. Remember Jeremiah 79. It says, "The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable. Who can understand it?"
If you are a mature saint, then you have realized it's never good. When you say, I'll just deal with this myself. I'll just figure this out myself. I don't care what kind of personality type you have. I don't care how brilliant you think you are.
Let me tell you a universal truth, and you can write this down. Our thinking becomes distorted far more easily when we are isolated. Our thinking becomes distorted far more easily when we are isolated. Don't deceive yourself. Don't lie to other people.
Don't coat it as like, "Oh, just me and Jesus are going to work through this."
Your thinking becomes distorted when you become isolated because you don't think about Jesus all the time. You don't think about Him twenty-four-seven. And, unbelievably, sometimes we even latch on to ideas that aren't from God and convince ourselves they are because we really like how they sound. "Oh, I love how that word from God is exactly what I wanted to be true in this moment." It's just amazing how that happens.
Have you realized this about yourself yet? I pray you have. And if you haven't, I urge you to recognize this about yourself. Have you recognized how easy it is to convince yourself of ridiculous things for which there is no evidence? When you isolate yourself, how many arguments have you won in the shower?
Right, should have said this. Then I'll tell them, I'll do this. You know, if anyone heard you, they'd be like, you're out of your mind. And yet, no matter how many times we preach it, we see believers do this over and over and over again, over and over again. And I say this in love, it drives BJ and I crazy.
It drives us crazy. And I'll tell you why. We hear this from Christians all the time. "Yeah, I'm dealing with a lot, so I won't be at church on Sunday." "Oh, where's so and so? I haven't seen them around." "Oh, they're just going through some stuff right now, so they're not coming to home group or church for a while." "I've had a lot going on, and so I'm going to rest instead of being part of the life of the church." Here's why it's frustrating, out of love...
Please hear me. It's frustrating because this is ground-level, Kindergarten-level Christianity that we're talking about. Kindergarten-level. Do not isolate yourself. God - are you hearing me? God says you need fellowship. God says you need your church family. God says that if you seek Him, he will give you what you need rest, energy, peace, hope. How do you seek him? By doing what he's called you to.
They find themselves drawn closer in relationship to their brothers and sisters and they feel more accepted than ever because they shared something difficult that they thought might make people draw away and withdraw. But instead, people drew closer. And that's a different depth of confidence and love in relationship. When you say no, now somebody knows something about me that I thought would be repulsive to them, but they actually just love me even more. That's profound when that happens.
Some people don't share their suffering with their church family because they've been given bad counsel in the past. And this is very, very unlikely to happen if you do what we just talked about and share only with mature believers with a track record years-long of walking faithfully with Jesus, those who know His Word and are led by His Spirit, but additionally understand that God's Word reveals things clearly. And so, if we think we're hearing from the Holy Spirit, we can test it against the Word of God. And if someone shares counsel with us, we can test it against the Word of God, because anything that's truly from the Lord is not going to contradict His Word. I've heard people say, "Well, I was given bad counsel." But the reality is they weren't in the Word.
They wanted somebody else to be in the Word for them and they weren't checking out what the Word says for themselves. If you want to know if what you're being told lines up with the Word, you have to be in the Word. You have to be a man or woman of the Scriptures. You can't outsource that. "Well, why don't you read it and you tell me?" You can't outsource it.
I've said it many times before. The best protection a church can have against false teaching is a congregation that knows the Word for themselves. The best protection you can have against bad counsel is to know the Word for yourself. Remember what David wrote in Psalm 119? He said, "Your Word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path."
And praise God. Be in a church like Gospel City where people know the Word and unbiblical counsel is not able to thrive or survive. Some people don't share their suffering with their church family because they don't think there'll be any benefit. This is simply a faith issue. What's that going to do but to believe that it's not going to accomplish anything.
You must believe that prayer accomplishes nothing, and that God's Word has no power, and neither of those things is true. There is unspeakable power in both. Do not ever forget who God is. He's the Lord of heaven and earth, the beginning and the end. The Almighty God, the creator of all things.
Do you not think he is powerful enough to help you in your suffering? He is. Do you not think he cares about you? He does. He does.
He's the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. If you don't think there'll be any benefit to having your brothers and sisters bring you to that God, then you don't know Him. He's mighty, he's good, and he's rich in mercy.
Those are some of the reasons people don't open up and share, but also some things that we need to understand if we're in that place right now, we're not opening up to our church family about a suffering that we're in the middle of right now. Sometimes we want to share our struggles with people who are at arm's length from our daily lives, people we don't see a few times a week. Sometimes we intentionally peter a counselor, a friend from another church, a friend or family member who lives further away, and there's nothing wrong with that. But let me say this - there's nothing wrong with it if it's in addition to someone or multiple people in your local church. Now, why do I say that?
If you're not sharing your sufferings because you're embarrassed for people to know that you don't have it all together, you're failing to grasp the reality of our desperate need for Christ, a reality that is understood by all mature believers.
Some people are embarrassed because they think people won't understand why they're having such a hard time with this thing. They think people are going to look at that and be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you're all torn up over that. And Charlene and I have experienced this with parents who are having a hard time with one or two children, and they won't tell us because they're thinking, "They've got six kids. They're just going to roll their eyes at me when I tell them I'm having a hard time with one kid or two kids." But can I tell you something else mature believers understand?
Suffering is relative. Suffering is relative. It's relative to whatever you've experienced in life up to that point. When we got married, it was the hardest thing we had ever done. When we had one kid, it was the hardest thing we had ever done.
When we had two kids, it was the hardest thing we had ever done. When we had four kids, it didn't help us or make anything easier to know that some people have twelve kids, it doesn't help. It was still the hardest thing we had ever done. Suffering is relative, and mature believers understand that. What you're going through might not seem like a lot to me, but I can appreciate it might be one of the hardest things you've ever been through.
What I'm going through might not seem like a lot to you, but you can appreciate that it might be one of the hardest things I've ever gone through. It's not a contest. It's not a contest. You don't come up here for prayer at the end and BJ and I say, well, tell us about your suffering, and we'll tell you whether it's valid or not. Or let's just hear everybody's different prayer requests, and then we'll judge who has the most impressive suffering, and the rest of you guys can wait till another week, and maybe you can climb the boards.
That's not how it works. It's not a contest. We don't compare people to one another. We point one another to Christ. So don't be embarrassed if your suffering isn't as significant as someone else's.
Your church family loves you and wants to love you through our trial. Others are embarrassed by the nature of their suffering, and there are all kinds of sensitive issues that we might not want to share with others. Might surprise you, but in 21 years of vocational ministry, I've never once received a prayer request for hemorrhoids. And yet, statistically, please don't ask me for prayer for that after the service. Okay, I'm joking, of course, but there are some sensitive issues that are significant in that they cause us significant suffering, but we're just too embarrassed to share them.
And so we suffer in silence, and we suffer alone, but we don't have to. When I talk about sharing and inviting people in, I'm always talking, by the way, about mature saints inviting mature saints in. And when I say mature, I don't mean close to your age or older. I don't mean that they've necessarily been through similar experiences as you're going through. I mean, they have a track record years-long of walking faithfully with Jesus.
I mean that they know His Word and they are led by His Spirit. And when you share an issue, even an embarrassing one, with a mature saint, you won't find judgment, you'll find compassion. And they will do what mature saints do they'll point you to Christ and they'll lead you to Christ. And I'm proud to say I know multiple people in this church who have opened up on very difficult issues that are causing them suffering. And I think they'd all tell you that they're so glad they did because they didn't find themselves ostracized.
God wants you to share your sufferings with your church family because they can point you to His Word. They can counsel you from His Word, and they can pray with you. The Lord may be gracious and cause you to cross Paphos with someone who can relate to what you're going through or has some knowledge in that area, but it's not necessary for them to have that expertise in order to bless, encourage, and strengthen you in your suffering. Write this down - Christians point other Christians to Christ, and Christians bring other Christians to Christ.
And can I tell you, it is such a load off your shoulders as a Christian when you realize that you can bless your brothers and sisters in Christ by simply reminding them of God's Word and praying with them. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that when a brother or sister shares those struggles they're having with you, like you're supposed to counsel them from a place of expertise and just invent stuff up. Don't do that. If the Lord brings any scripture to mind, share it. If there's nothing, then you say, hey, let's go to the Lord together with this.
Let's pray. Let's ask the Lord for his help. That's what they need more than anything. But stop lying to yourself because that's what you're doing. Stop lying to yourself by saying, I'm not going to share because nobody has the expertise to help me in the area of my suffering.
It's just an excuse. It's not a good one. You're lying to yourself. Some people won't share their suffering with their church family because they're embarrassed. Some people are embarrassed because they feel like they're supposed to have it together all the time, and they're not supposed to be troubled by suffering like other people.
They're too mature, too experienced, too together. And what would people think if they knew what a rough time they were actually going through? Here's what I've learned about people myself, very, very much included. You cannot simply put your pain in a box and hide it. Whether you realize it or not, it is profoundly affecting your life and your relationships, and you are delusional.
If you think you're hiding it, you're delusional. People may not know the specifics, but it's affecting your thoughts. It's affecting your interactions with others. It's affecting your perceptions of others. It's affecting your relationship with Christ your whole life.
I heard a great quote recently. It says, "All pain that is not processed is transferred." If you do not process your pain by bringing it to Christ and allowing your church family to help you work through it, you will transfer that pain to others in the way that you treat them, think about them, speak to them, et cetera. All pain that is not processed is transferred. The only person we're truly fooling is ourselves.
When we refuse to share our sufferings due to embarrassment, we misrepresent ourselves and the gospel. We misrepresent ourselves by trying to act as though we are somehow not affected by earthly trials that's disingenuous. And we misrepresent the gospel by acting as though we don't desperately need the grace and strength of the Holy Spirit. We pretend to be better than we are, and we pretend to need Christ less than we do. I'm going to say it again.
We pretend to be better than we are, and we pretend to need Christ less than we do. I hope you know that we need him desperately, desperately. And I hope you know that this knowledge is shared by every mature follower of Christ. And so it's ironic, tragically ironic, that a believer would not open up to their church family because they want to appear mature, when in reality, such behavior is immature. Because all mature followers of Christ understand how desperately we need him.
But many people don't share their sufferings for various reasons, so let's talk about them. Some people don't share their sufferings with their church family because they don't want the attention. I don't like being the center of attention. I don't like people fussing over me. The problem with this type of thinking is that it prioritizes our pride and our preferences over our faithfulness to Christ.
Let me explain how, when we're suffering, we need encouragement. I don't care if you think you do or not. You need encouragement. We need to be reminded of God's faithfulness and the promises in his word. We need the prayers of others.
And God intends that we would receive these good things in part through his people, the church. And when we do receive them, we are strengthened. And we are empowered to endure our trials in a way that brings greater glory to God. So, when we refuse to share our sufferings with our church family, we're saying, I don't need any of those good things that God has deposited in my church family to bless me. Other people might need them.
Not me. I don't need them. I'm fine, thank you very much. And we're also saying that we'd rather go through our trial in a weakened state, bringing less glory to God than share it with others. Be strengthened, encourage them, and bring more glory to God.
Some people don't want to inconvenience people, and I know this is hard for some people to grasp. I don't mean this facetiously. But people who genuinely love Jesus genuinely love his people for real. And they desire to grow in their love for the people of God. Remember how central this whole love thing is to the Christian faith?
In John 13, Jesus told his disciples, I give you a new command love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. And by this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. The radical way in which Christians are called to love their brethren is to be the defining characteristic of the church. So let the people of God love you.
When you're suffering, you're not an inconvenience.
Some people don't want to share their suffering with their church family because they don't think anybody's qualified to help. They're too young. Oh, they're too old. Well, they can't relate to what I'm going through. They're not educated in the area of my suffering.
I just don't jive with their personality. And there are many other excuses some people come up with. But at the end of the day, they keep their suffering to themselves by convincing themselves that nobody is qualified to help them in their suffering. And if this is you, here's what you need to understand Christians point other Christians to Christ, and Christians bring other Christians to Christ. Here's where I'm going with this.
I hope none of you are under the impression that I have mastered everything I preach. I hope that none of you are like, "Well, I guess Jeff mastered everything in Acts 22 personally in his life, and that's why he's teaching it this Sunday." I haven't, not even close. One of the most humbling aspects of my calling is that I must stand up and exposit parts of the Scriptures that I'm personally struggling with and sometimes failing at spectacularly. I do not teach from the place of mastery.
My goal is to point us and myself to Christ. That's the goal. And that's why 90% of the time I teach expositionally. I teach verse by verse through the Bible because I don't put a lot of weight in my own opinions. God doesn't want you to share your sufferings with your church family because they're experts on whatever you're going through.
Series: A Theology of Suffering...Speaker: Jeff Thompson
If we’re going to suffer, how do we suffer well? How can we bring glory to God and experience as much peace, hope, love, and life as possible in our trials?
We're taking a break from our study through the Book of Acts to look at a couple of issues that are just big in the life of our church right now. And the issue that I'm teaching on is suffering. And the key question, "What should suffering look like in the life of the Christian?" In our first study, we looked at why suffering exists. In our second study last week, we looked at the different causes of our individual sufferings.
And today we're going to look at some practical pointers that will help us navigate seasons of suffering well. And that might sound like an odd sentence to you. What do you mean, suffer well? That seems like an oxymoron, but what I mean when I say suffer well is I mean to suffer in a way that brings as much glory to Jesus as possible and as a natural byproduct produces in us the most peace, joy, and hope possible during the most challenging times of our lives. These messages are intended to be studied and processed in the order that I teach them in.
And it's important because last week we talked about diagnosing the cause of your suffering. And I want to be very clear once again that if the cause of your suffering is sin, if you're disobeying God, you need to repent and turn away from that sin. End of discussion. Not any other practical pointers, though. Jeff.
Yes. Repent. Repent. Repent. Repent.
Repent. Repent. That's it. If the cause of your suffering is foolishness and bad decisions that are not necessarily sinful, you need to gain wisdom and get foolishness out of your life. And we talked about how to do that last week.
So, if your suffering is being caused by sin or foolishness, these pointers are not for you. We must not view ourselves as victims. If the cause of our suffering is sin or foolishness, we're not victims. If you are suffering because you live in a fallen world, you're still experiencing the natural consequences of sins that you have repented of and turned away from. If you're suffering because you're being sanctified by the Lord or because you're serving Jesus, then it's my goal to help you today by pointing you to Christ in some practical ways.
Let me remind you of the compassion of our Lord by sharing with you a couple of my favorite verses in all of Scripture. If you've been around a while, you've heard me share it many times. It's on your outlines. In Hebrews 4, it says, "We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are yet without sin. Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need."
I don't truly know what you're going through or what you will go through in the future. Nobody does. Except Jesus. And if there's one thing I pray we take away from this series, it's this invitation, which is also a command. Approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.
Our first overarching practical pointer is this - write this down on your outlines - Invite your church family into your suffering. Invite your church family into your suffering. God created us to live in community, and one of the reasons he created the church is so that we could experience community as the family of God. The New Testament is full of commands to this effect, such as Galatians 6:2, which commands us, "carry one another's burdens. In this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ."
So don't live like this if you don't want to, don't give with a scowl on your face. Give with a smile, and only practice a life of giving if you want to. Do you dream with me for a second though? Can you imagine what life would be like if everyone lived like this? We'd get to experience a taste of heaven.
That's what it would be like. How does a person live the blessed life? A life characterized by giving the way that Jesus gave. Receive Jesus, remember Jesus, and replicate Jesus. You pray with me.
Let's pray; Jesus, I'm so thankful that when you saved us, you didn't just save us to hand us a dead religion, lifeless and impotent, that had no potential to transform our lives. We are so grateful that we're going to heaven when we die. Jesus, we thank you for the cross. We thank you for your resurrection. We thank you that you're coming back to get all of your people and to live with us forever and ever and ever.
We thank you that that day is coming. But we also thank you, Lord, that we don't have to wait for you to come back till we can experience you. We can experience you anytime we want to because you've given yourself to us. We've received you. And my prayer, Lord, is that a spiritual light bulb has gone off in our hearts and our minds and our souls here tonight, that there's so much life in all of us that have been left on the table, life that we can live blessed as we walk in your footsteps, I pray, Lord, that you'd give us a sweet conviction, a sweet inspiration to live the way that you've saved us to live, to live the way that you've made possible for us to live with you in us and with us.
Do this, Lord, one person at a time in Gospel City. Start with us. Do it one moment at a time as we practice living a life that's blessed. Change our lives, change our church, change our city, and change our world through this kind of living. Do it, Jesus, we pray.
We want more of you. We want to walk like you did. We want to walk with you, Lord. So please, please make that happen. Your name, we pray.
So what are we supposed to do with this? Some of you might be thinking to yourself, that's cool, but do you know who I am? I am not Jesus. And I am not Paul. Those are pretty high standards to hold ourselves up to.
Well, you're right on both counts. You are not Jesus, and you are not Paul. Neither am I. And the standards that they gave to us are the highest. But do you know what I have to say to that?
We should aim high. We should set the bar high in our life. We should have the highest standards for ourselves. I loved basketball growing up. I loved watching it and playing it.
And do you know that I never had a poster of John Koncak to yourself? Who's John Koncak? Exactly. Nobody had a poster of John Koncak on their wall growing up, because growing up I had posters of Michael Jordan in my room. Now, because I daydreamed of playing basketball like Michael Jordan, was I ever able to actually play exactly like him?
Of course not. But with him as the model that I looked up to, I bet you that motivated me to improve my game way more than if I had watched highlights of John Koncak. If you're by chance watching this, I had to pick one person from the era and the lot just fell to you. I'm sure you're happy now and living a great life, but aim high. Aim high.
Remember Jesus. Look to emulate him, follow in his footsteps, say the things that he said, do the things that he did. Love people like he loved them. And look at Paul, too. And look at any other good examples we have of men and women in the Bible who gave their lives away and were blessed for it.
Aim high. But as you aim high, also always know, accept, and embrace who you are and who God has called you to be, where he has called you to be it. You can be like Jesus, you could be like Paul. But you're not them. You are you.
But be the best version of yourself that God has made you to be. If you have received Jesus and you are consistently remembering him, then you can replicate him wherever you find yourself to be. At home, at work, at school, in the grocery store, with family or with friends or amongst strangers. In good times, in difficult times, wherever you find yourself and there are other people around, you have the opportunity to replicate Jesus' blessed life in those arenas. Wherever you find yourself, amongst other people, train yourself to be.
Always asking these kinds of questions. How can I serve? What can I say? Can I defer my preferences here for the good of another? Can I help carry someone else's load
Can I say a tough truth that someone needs to hear? Can I go without so that someone else can have WWJD? Right? What would Jesus do? Or WDJD?
What did Jesus do? Or I bet you've never heard this one before. W-I-J-A-M-T-D-I-T-S - what is Jesus asking me to do in this situation?
Whatever he asks of you, I'm sure that it will involve giving some part of yourself away. That's because Jesus wants you to be blessed. You won't do this perfectly. You will find yourself kicking against living this kind of life from time to time. The old person called the flesh in the Bible doesn't want this.
Your new spirit wants it though. Well, am I supposed to give all the time? Well, Jesus said it's more blessed to give than to receive. So I guess you should give in relation to how much blessing you want to experience in this life. If you want more blessing, give more.
If you want less blessing, give less. God's not going to make any of us live this kind of way. He makes this kind of life available to us. He invites us into this kind of life, he calls us to it, and he empowers us to live this kind of life. But the Bible says that God loves a cheerful giver.
Verse 24 but I considered my life of no value to myself. My purpose is to finish my course in the ministry I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of God's grace. Paul gave his life away. In his mind, his life was of no value to himself. He put his whole life on the table and said, Jesus, do what you want with me.
Paul gave himself to doing God's will, whatever it was, wherever he was. Verse 25 and now I know that none of you among whom I went about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again. Paul made some amazing friends while he ministered in Ephesus. You can tell by how deep the fields got when he told them he would never see them again. There were waterworks crying.
If Paul lived by the mantra that it's better to receive than to give. He would have stayed in Ephesus. He would have spent the rest of his life enjoying the sweet friendships that he made there. But he didn't do that. He gave up those relationships for the sake of obeying Jesus and following Jesus wherever Jesus led him.
Verse 28. Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as overseers to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Men will arise up from even your own number and distort the truth to lure the disciples into following them. Therefore, be on the alert, remembering at night and day.
For three years, I never stopped warning each one of you with tears. If Paul lived for himself, he wouldn't have given himself to only. Sorry. If Paul lived for himself, he would have given himself to only talking about nice, comfortable things. But because he loved his brothers and sisters in Ephesus, he gave himself to warning them about the dangers of false teachers that they'd have to look out for.
Paul said, he did this, get this. Every day for three years, night and day, with tears, Paul gave himself to the church in Ephesus, passionately. 'Verse 33, he says, I've not coveted anyone's silver or gold or clothing. Paul gave himself to being satisfied with whatever the Lord had given him. This takes effort, you know.
Takes effort to train yourself to be content with what you have, instead of longing for what others have in their life. Paul gave himself to this kind of contentment while he was in Ephesus. Verse 34, you yourselves know that I worked with my own hands to support myself and those who are with me. He didn't rely on people giving to him. Instead, Paul gave himself to work, to earn a paycheck, to pay his bills, and to pay the bills of those who were with him and to have something left over so that he could give to those who were in need.
Paul worked full-time in Ephesus and ministered the gospel there every day for three years. And then, verse 35, in every way, he says, I've shown you that it's necessary to help the weak by laboring like this. And I've shown you what it looks like to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, because he said, it's more blessed to give than it is to receive. Paul didn't just lie in bed daydreaming about the words of Jesus in secret. Paul showed the Ephesian elders what it looked like to remember the words of Jesus.
Paul poured his life out for God and for the people in Ephesus. He gave his life away at every turn, he embodied the words of Jesus, where he said, it's more blessed to give than it is to receive. Paul was becoming like Jesus. And since Jesus is the most blessed person that has ever lived, due to the way that he gave his life away, Paul got to experience the blessed life of Jesus, because Paul gave his life away, too. Paul received Jesus.
Paul remembered Jesus. Paul replicated Jesus. And not just in Ephesus, but we read of him doing this everywhere he went in his missionary endeavors.
Paul says, I've shown you to remember the words of the Lord Jesus. Paul told the Ephesian elders that his own remembrance of Jesus' words wasn't confined to his private, invisible thought life. It flowed into his physical life. The things that Paul did in his life were influenced by what he remembered about Jesus. Paul didn't remember Jesus in his own little personal thought bubble, where those thoughts didn't impact anyone else's life.
When Paul remembered Jesus saying that it's more blessed to give than it is to receive, that remembrance of those words fueled the way that he lived. It's such a powerful connection. Paul gave his life away everywhere that he went. We can see a lot of examples of his generosity as he recalls the time he spent in Ephesus with the elders of the church there. If you have your Bible still open, hope you do to Acts chapter 20.
We're going to take a look at the way Paul gave himself away during his three years in Ephesus. Starting in halfway in verses 18, he says, you know, from the first day I set foot in Asia, how I was with you the whole time, serving the Lord with all humility, with tears. And during the trials that came to me through the plots of the Jews, Paul gave himself to a life of humble service. He gave himself to difficult situation that the Bible says produced tears in his eyes. He gave himself to experience trials at the hands of his fellow countrymen, the Jews.
He began to give himself away from the very first day he set his foot in Asia. This is only verses 18 and 19, and we can already see how much Paul gave in these two verses. He didn't have to give himself this way. He could have hunkered down and hiding somewhere and just remembered Jesus privately to himself, just Paul and his own personal little thought bubble filled with the things of Jesus. But he didn't do that.
He gave his life away. In Ephesus, verse 20, you know that I did not hesitate to proclaim anything to you that was profitable and to teach you publicly and from house to house and then down to verse 26. Therefore, I declare to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you because I did not avoid declaring to you the whole plan of God. Do you know why some people would hesitate to share some part of God's word with others because it's costly to share some things with people that would get them angry or upset with you. But Paul said he didn't hesitate to proclaim anything that was profitable.
He gave himself to teaching the whole council of God, and he did this from house to house. You have to give a lot of physical and relational energy to do that. Paul didn't divvy up the work. He didn't send Barnabas to some houses and Silas to others. Paul taught publicly, and he personally went house to house, teaching people the word of God.
He gave himself a way to do this. Verse 21 I testified to both Jews and Greeks about repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus. Paul gave himself to the work of evangelism while he was in Ephesus. Paul didn't just give himself to spending time with people who wanted to hear him. He didn't only spend time with fellow believers.
He gave himself to sharing the gospel with people who had not yet received Jesus. This is hard work. I'm not sure if you've ever tried sharing the gospel with someone who didn't want to hear about Jesus. It's hard work. It's challenging, it's frustrating, it's demoralizing at times.
And Paul gave himself to this task of calling people to receive Christ while he was in Ephesus. Verse 22 and now I'm on my way to Jerusalem, compelled by the spirit, not knowing what I will encounter there, except that in every town the Holy Spirit warns me that chains and afflictions are waiting for me. Paul didn't know what was waiting for him in Jerusalem, but he gave himself to going there anyway. He didn't shy away from persecution. He gave himself up to the possibility of suffering for Jesus' name wherever he went.
God says these things are bad for you, but I'm here to tell you that these things will give you the best life. Doesn't that message sound familiar? It is if you've ever read what Satan said to Eve in Genesis, chapter three. Satan lied to mankind back then, and he's been lying to us ever since. Now, how does the world go about spreading its doctrines in an attempt to fit us into its mold?
TikTok, YouTube, and Netflix movies - these things aren't bad in and of themselves, but have you ever stopped to consider how much of these things we consume on a daily basis where there is zero Jesus in them? And it's not just that there is zero Jesus, it's that they are loaded with messages that are completely contrary to the words of Jesus. And what do you think is happening to you when you consume hours of this content each and every day? Paul tells us what will happen. We will be conformed to the pattern of this world.
We are always coming to a fork in the road where choices have to be made. Will we give ourselves to becoming like the world that Jesus saved us out of? Or will we give ourselves to becoming more like the one who has saved us from out of it? We are called to remember Jesus' words because we can forget his words so easily. We are so easily distracted.
And it's not an innocent distraction. It's a distraction that will rob you and me of being able to experience the blessing in our life that Jesus has made available to us. How are you doing in this area? Do you have a plan in place to not only learn Jesus' words but to remember his words? Are his words on the forefront of your mind throughout the day?
Are his words informing the way that you navigate through all of life's challenges and opportunities that you face each and every day? Is the reality that giving is actually better than receiving consistently on the dashboard of your mind? Is this reality concrete in your mind? It can be, but only if we give ourselves to remembering Jesus. If you and I can grow in our practice of remembering Jesus, that will set us up to experience the blessed life that Jesus wants us to have.
The blessed life is not realized at the end of step two, but if we make it this far, the pump is primed for blessing. The blessed life, though, is realized when you start practicing step three because step one is receive Jesus. Step two is remember Jesus. Step three, write this down. Replicate Jesus.
Replicate Jesus. Replicate him in my life and through my life. Remember what Jesus said and did in his life so that I know what to say and do in my life. This is why we remember Jesus. We don't remember Jesus so that we can enjoy nostalgic memories of him that don't translate to having any bearing upon our lives.
We remember Jesus so that we can say and do the things that Jesus said and did. And what was one of the things that Jesus both said and did? It's more blessed to give than it is to receive. If we remember how Jesus gave his life and all that he did, we will be able to better walk in his footsteps and enjoy the same kind of blessing in our life that he did in his. If we remember Jesus, then we can replicate Jesus.
Paul did this. He modeled this, and we see him give an example of this kind of life to the Ephesian elders in Miletus. In verse 35, Paul says that he showed them it's necessary to remember Jesus's words. Now we use the CSB here at Gospel City. If you have your Bible open, I'm going to get you to underline a couple of phrases.
If you use a different translation, that's fine. It'll sound maybe a slightly different, but in verse 35, Paul says in every way. Now underline these next three words. I've shown you. And then I'll keep reading that it's necessary to help the weak by laboring like this and underline this part to remember the words of the Lord Jesus because he said, it's more blessed to give than to receive.
This is very important to know. Romans twelve, verse two. Christians do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. Paul is telling Christians in Rome, those who have already received Jesus, that there are two different kinds of experiences Christians can have in this life. You can be a Christian who is transformed to become more like Jesus, or you could be a Christian who is conformed to the pattern of this world.
Transformation into Christlikeness happens when our minds are renewed, and this renewal takes place when you learn the words of Jesus and you continually remember the words of Jesus. This is the power of the word of God, the living word of God, washing over your mind, your heart, and your soul, cleansing you, refreshing you, nourishing you, transforming you spiritually, making you into a new person. The power of the word of God is experienced when we remember the word of God. And when we give ourselves to remembering the words of Jesus, we will be able to know God's will, understand how life is designed to work. We will experience change desires in us.
We will begin to want different things in life. We will experience power that transforms us. We will be transformed from one degree to the next into the likeness of Jesus, the most blessed one. We will learn what a life marked by giving looks like. We will learn how to give, what to give, when to give.
This is what Paul is calling believers to experience in Romans twelve two. He's calling them to be transformed by the renewal of their minds. He calls them to this because this renewal unto transformation does not take place automatically. We have to give ourselves to it. We do this in part by remembering.
But what if we don't give ourselves to remembering Jesus' words on a regular basis? Well, the apostle Paul says we won't stay in neutral. Paul warns the believers in Rome what can happen if they don't give themselves to having their minds renewed. He says in the first part of the verse, he tells them, do not be conformed to this age. Do not be squeezed into this world's image.
Don't become like this world. Remember, he's telling this to Christians. That means Christians can be conformed to this age. Paul wouldn't warn them against it happening to them if it wasn't possible. That means Christians can receive Jesus and then go on to live lives that look nothing like Jesus.
We can receive Jesus and then actually go on to live lives that look like the world instead. That's what Paul is saying to them and to us. How does this happen in a Christian's life? Well, it's simple. If you are not fixing your mind on the words of Jesus, continually learning them and remembering them, then what else do you think you're spending your time filling your mind with?
The lies of this world, things that are the polar opposite of what Jesus says. Jesus says it's more blessed to give than to receive. The world tells us at every turn that it's more blessed to receive than it is to give. God says to us in 1 John chapter two and verse 15 to not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For everything in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one's possessions, is not from the father, but it's from the world. That's what God says to us. And then the world comes along and preaches to you and to me nonstop. These things that God tells you not to love will actually make you happy. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one's possession will bless you.
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What Makes Jesus Unique? No one else made the claims that He did, He is alive...............
We have had thousands of years of human civilization and the world that we have built indicts, all of us collectively. I've talked about this before. We have the medicine to cure diseases that are still killing millions around the world. Do we do it? No.Why not? One reason. We love money more than people. We've created incredible new technologies, ways to move goods from one side of the world to the other. But do we use it to solve poverty around the world?
No. We use it to find a new class of slaves in another part of the world where we don't have to see anything and people work for a dollar a day or less so that we can have horse stuff. That's what we did with the miracle of modern travel. New ways to enslave and exploit mankind. I was thinking about this this week.
Remember when social media was starting, and it was going to create better, more connected relationships? Remember that classic? Oh, man, what is it now? It's a tool for brainwashing the culture. It brings out the absolute worst in us.
It raises children to be violent, attention-seeking, narcissistic, depressed, anxious, and insecure. It rewards antisocial and selfish behavior and praises the ugliness in us. It invades our lives, learning all about us so we can be sold more things that we don't need and manipulated by those who want to change the way we think. We don't use any new technology to do anything noble. Hardly ever.
I've talked about this before. Our culture is so obsessed with sex, and its connection to technology is I just wait. Anytime there's a new technology, I just know they're just going to try and figure out how to use it for sex. The Internet? Oh good, we can have porn everywhere, all the time. Virtual reality goggles? Let's use it for porn. Robots? Oh good, we can help disabled people. Or we could make sex robots.
This is just the world we live in. So depraved. And it happens over and over and over again, and it's so glaring. The world that we have built is a mountain of evidence proving that collectively, humanity is not good. We are not naturally good.
We haven't just made a few little mistakes here and there. We're not good, and we can't make ourselves good. And technology does nothing to make us more good. On the contrary. In Psalm 53, David observed those about humanity the fool says in his heart, there is no God.
They are corrupt and they do vile deeds. There's no one who does good. God looks down from heaven on the human race to see if there is one who is wise, one who seeks God. All have turned away. All alike have become corrupt.
There's no one who does good, not even one. That's what David saw when he looked at the world around him. By rejecting God, we broke ourselves and we broke our world. And we can see the effects of our collective sin every time we read or watch the news or hop online or just pay attention to the lives of those around us. God is perfect.