We Must Suffer With the Suffering Christ

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins in salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St.

John, the 16th chapter. Jesus said,

A little while, and you will see me no longer. And again, a little while, and you will see me. Some of his disciples said to one another,

What is this that he says to us? A little while, and you will not see me? And again, a little while, and you will see me?

And because I am going to the Father, so they were saying, What does he mean by a little while? We do not know what he is talking about.

Now Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, Is this what you are asking yourselves?

What I meant by saying a little while, and you will not see me? And again, a little while, and you will see me?

Truly truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.

You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come.

But when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus, Amen. All right, we are going to set up our text today, our gospel text.

Jesus says, You are going to see me for a little while, then you are not going to see me, then you are going to see me. And in the part where he says you are not going to see me, he says that you are going to mourn, you are going to lament, you are going to have sorrow.

And then when he returns, you are going to have joy. So let me kind of put it this way.

Today's sermon will absolutely rule me out of ever being qualified to be a megachurch pastor.

The reason why I say that is because this is not an ear -scratching sermon. This is a tough one that we need to take into consideration.

Think back to when Jesus, on the night that he is betrayed, there he is in that upper room, he is having a

Passover meal with his disciples, and he says, The Scriptures must be fulfilled.

The shepherd will be struck, and the sheep will scatter. And you all are going to betray me, well, deny me.

And Peter says, Lord, I'll never do that, right? And Jesus pushes back and basically says,

No, the Scriptures must be fulfilled. So all of that being said, take this into consideration.

If you've been told that Christianity is all about how you're the head and not the tail, how God wants you to be healthy, prosperous, influential, and all this other kind of nonsense, this is going to just be a rude awakening.

Because Christ is telling us that it is his will that we suffer.

Just let that sit there for a second. It's his will that we suffer. Let me give you a text to kind of help out with this.

In Hebrews chapter 12, the author writes, My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the

Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord, let me put this in air quotes, disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. Now, the Lord disciplines the one he loves.

Let me give you a better translation. That is just way too polite. The Greek here is mastigas.

The Lord scourges the one he loves. Say what?

Yeah, you remember that passage in the Proverbs, spare the rod, spoil the child?

Do you think it not applies to you? You sit there and go, I'm an adult. I haven't been a kid since decades ago, right?

No, it really does apply to us too. It's not merely talking about how to raise a child.

It's talking about how God the Father treats us. And so what I thought I would do today is since this is a, well, the best way

I can put it, this is a tough passage to consider and a tough concept, one that we are just not keen about.

That being the case, I thought I would ease our way into this today. So here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna start in the types and shadows. Since it's Mother's Day and we don't have Sunday school, I thought maybe a little more

Bible study today in our sermon would be good. We'll start in the types and shadows. We'll start in the types and shadows.

And so Exodus chapter 15, the children of Israel, they have just crossed the Red Sea on dry land.

God has opened up the sea and a wall of water on the right, wall of water on the left.

As we've noted before, this is the initial inspiration for aquariums, right? And they pass through the

Red Sea. The Egyptian army tries this. They fail because God kills them, causes the sea to crash in on them.

And then they sing that glorious song. Ah, the Lord is mighty in battle. The horse and the rider he has cast into the sea.

And no sooner does that incident end, now we get this really odd little text.

I mean, just a weird kind of thing. You've probably read it before and thought, oh, what do we do with that, right?

So here's the text. Exodus 15, 22. Moses made Israel set out from the

Red Sea and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days into the wilderness and they found no water.

When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter and therefore it was named

Marah. In Hebrew, Marah means bitter. And so the people grumbled against Moses saying, what shall we drink?

And he cried to Yahweh and Yahweh showed him a log, piece of wood. He threw it into the water and the water became sweet.

Clear as, you guys see it yet? Okay, think of it this way. In the types and shadows, this is not a throwaway detail.

The church fathers extensively write about this. They preach on this text a lot. And so what did the church fathers believe about this?

What is God getting at? What's it mean? Well, after we've been baptized into Christ, that's what the

Red Sea crossing was. It was a baptism. Once we are baptized and we begin our wilderness water wanderings, as we head towards the real promised land, the new heaven, the new earth, well, we are made to drink bitter water.

And the church fathers, they saw that piece of wood that Moses threw into the water to make it sweet as an allusion to the cross itself.

And so think of the theme. You're not gonna see me for a while. You're gonna weep, lament, have sorrow, but then your sorrow will turn to joy.

I'm coming back. That's the idea. Let me give you another concept here.

Types and shadows, 1 King chapter six, when Solomon is building the temple.

David is dead now. Solomon is building the temple and we hear this little detail.

And you just sit there and go, well, that's odd, but here's the detail. When the house was built, talking about the temple of the

Lord, it was with stones prepared at the quarry so that neither hammer nor ax or any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built.

Okay, it's an odd little thing. Well, Johann Gerhard, the famous Lutheran theologian, he has an interesting spin on this and I like his take.

He basically puts it this way. We, according to scripture, Christians, we are all stones being built into the temple of God.

The world we live in is the quarry, all right? And so you'll note, have you ever seen big, large rocks?

Okay, do they look like you just grab them and throw them into a building? And no, they have to be broken. And so what do these guys do at the quarry?

They take these pegs and these sledgehammers and they drive them into these huge rocks.

Tink, tink, tink, and finally they split, crack, right? Well, now you've only got one smooth edge.

Now you gotta do it again. And then you gotta break it again. And then you gotta break it again and again.

And then you've gotta get it into the, this stone needs to be a particular size. And so they pull out chisels.

Tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, right, and they go to work on these stones. What began as a blob of rock turns into a perfectly good stone to be built into the temple.

And here's what Peter says in 1 Peter 2. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves are like living stones.

You are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

So since we are living stones, you'll note then Christ has to chisel us.

And while the stones are not prepared at the site where the temple is built, they're prepared in the quarry.

This is the quarry. And you'll note that the breaking work of suffering has to be done on each and every one of us, me included.

And then if you remember the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Paul, when he was Saul of Tarsus, he was on his way to Damascus, right, and the

Lord appeared to him, blinded him, sent him into Damascus, he was there for three days, he didn't eat for three days, and then the

Lord appears and has a conversation with a disciple by the name of Ananias. Ananias, Ananias, here

I am, Lord. And he tells him to go to Straight Street to find Saul of Tarsus and to preach the gospel to him, to heal his eyes.

And Ananias is like, Lord, haven't you heard about this guy yet?

It's like he's killing us, right? And what does Jesus say? I will show him what he must suffer in my name.

And indeed, the Apostle Paul does suffer horrifically.

Now, in one particular passage, which I find really always so interesting, in Acts chapter 14,

Paul and Barnabas, they're on one of their missionary journeys, and they come to a city, a town by the name of Lystra.

And this is a pagan town, there's not a lot of Jews here.

It says this, at Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and he never walked.

He listened to Paul speaking and Paul looked intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made, well, he said in a loud voice, stand up on your feet.

And he sprang up and he began walking. And when the crowd saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices saying in the

Laconian language, the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men. Well, that kind of rules out the

Bethel concept. Well, you have to perform signs and wonders to get people to believe in Jesus. This sign and wonder seem to have been the distraction.

They think that the Greco -Roman deities have come down. So Barnabas they called Zeus, Paul they called

Hermes because he was the chief speaker. And the priest of Zeus whose temple was at the entrance to the city, he brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifices with the crowds.

But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments. They rushed out into the crowd crying, men, why are you doing these things?

We also are men of like nature with you and we bring you good news that you should turn from these vain things to a living

God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations,

God allowed all nations to walk in their own ways, yet he did not leave them without witness for he did good by giving you rains from heaven, fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.

Even with these words, they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them.

But then the Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and having then persuaded the crowds, they stoned

Paul and dragged him out of the city supposing that he was dead. No good deed goes unpunished.

Paul went quickly from being hero to zero, to offering, we wanna offer sacrifices to you, to I kill you, right?

And what's going on here? This is part of the suffering that we Christians go through. And so they thought he was dead.

They carry his corpse, throw him into the trash heap, but when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and then entered the city and then on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe.

And when they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples.

Could you imagine how fun that would have been for Paul walking through the city of Lystra going, hey guys, good to see you, you thought

I was dead. Well, guess what? Cat came back the very next day, right?

Sorry. But there he is and it says, what's he going to do here? He's going to strengthen the souls of the disciples and he's going to encourage them to continue in the faith.

And then he says this, saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.

If you're looking for a religion that's going to ease your suffering, you're in the wrong place.

The reason why is that Jesus, our Christ, the Messiah who suffered, he wills that you suffer with him.

And it is through our suffering that God is working things in us that we need work.

And we may not even be cognitive, we may not even be aware.

There we go, I want to make sure I use the right word. We may not even be aware of how deep our sin runs.

In this capacity, consider what Psalm 119 says. Starting at verse 65, the psalmist writes, you have dealt well with your servant.

Good thesis statement, right? Oh Lord, according to your word. So teach me good judgment and teach me knowledge for I believe in your commandments.

And then verse 67, before I was afflicted, I went astray.

But now I keep your word. Let's be blunt here. The suffering that Christ is calling us to is not the kind of suffering that people write 10 -page papers about in college.

I would like you all to write a 10 -page paper, double -spaced, make sure to get your footnotes and your end notes and the

MLA -style thing all worked out. And I want you to explain to me the concept of suffering according to the

Bible. And right, okay, so we all write our paper and turn it in, good job. That's just academic knowledge.

That's not gonna help you and it doesn't help us. And so you'll note, the psalmist says, before I was afflicted,

I went astray. But now I keep your word. You are good and you do good, so teach me your statutes.

The insolent, they smear me with lies. But my whole heart, with my whole heart, I keep your precepts.

Their heart is unfeeling like fat, but I delight in your law. It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.

I've said it before and I'll reiterate it, I'm not a fan of pastors who go straight from high school to college, from college to seminary, to seminary to the pulpit.

These guys can't even grow a beard properly because they're so young, right? And these guys are just a little too idealistic in their thinking.

And when people say, you know, my pastor, he's a young guy and stuff like this, and they say, what should I do about this?

I say, just give it some time. He hasn't suffered enough yet. After he's suffered, that nonsense will be knocked right out of him.

And it's true. And so you'll note then, Christ wills for us to suffer.

Peter says it in this way in 1 Peter 4. Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with this same way of thinking.

For whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. So as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for human passions, but for the will of God.

You'll note that our suffering causes us to think really hard about our life. Think hard about our own sin.

Because so many times, you know the reason why you're suffering? Is because of you. I suffer because of me.

Stupid decisions I've made. Sins that I've committed. The ways in which

I've hurt other people. Yeah, I've been made to suffer dearly. The Lord scourges all of his sons.

It is for discipline that he is doing these things. So the time that has passed suffices then for doing what the

Gentiles want to do. Living sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking, parties, and lawless idolatry.

With respect to this, they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery. And they malign you.

But they will have to give an account to him who's ready to judge the living and the dead. He then goes on to say in verse 12.

So beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you.

Notice that Peter doesn't say, beloved, if a fiery trial comes upon you. No, he says when.

The word of God cannot be broken. It cannot. You will suffer.

So do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you.

Instead, rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings so that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

Kind of tongue in cheek. I don't know if you guys have noticed, but I get a lot of hate mail in my email account.

I get some really terse comments directed at me. I get slandered publicly from time to time. It's all part of being a

Christian in the big marketplace of ideas on the internet. And I remember one time, one fellow had put out a video accusing me of all kinds of weird things that I'm just not even closely guilty of at all.

And Josh had informed me about the video. And I said, well, at least now I've got another lane in my

Olympic -sized swimming pool in heaven. Because I'm blessed, we're blessed when we are made to suffer, when people persecute us, when they slander us.

We're even blessed in the sufferings we go through in our bodies. So the idea then, if you are insulted for the name of Christ, you're blessed because the spirit of the glory of God rests upon you.

So let none of you then, though, suffer as a murderer or a thief. If the reason why you're suffering is because you're in prison, because you murdered somebody, well, it's because you murdered somebody.

That's the proper way that discipline happens. You get the idea here? But yet, if anyone suffers then as a

Christian, let him not be ashamed. Let him glorify God in that name. It is time for judgment to begin in the household of God.

And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel? So if the righteous is scarcely saved,

Peter says, what will become of the ungodly and of the sinner? Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will, let them entrust their souls to a faithful creator while continuing to do good.

And you'll note then that the reason why the ear scratchers, the prosperity preachers, and those who don't preach about sin and repentance and the crucified

Lord, whom we need to suffer in our place so that we can be forgiven, they don't preach those messages.

They just say, you do these things and you're gonna have better outcomes in your life. Are your kids misbehaved? Well, there's a reason for that because they're sinners like you.

Are you struggling in your finances and toiling at work? Well, there's a reason for that.

It's because of your sin and mine. This is the consequences of our sin. Is your body failing and falling apart?

This is also because of sin. And you'll note God then is this wonderful father who takes this evil and turns it and works it for good.

And listen to what Paul says in Romans 5. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ. And here we would note, Christ is the one who suffered, bled and died in our place, took on the wrath of God so that we would not have to suffer the wrath of God.

He took that suffering in our place so that we can be forgiven, reconciled, and pardoned to God all by grace as a gift through faith.

And you'll note then when we have peace with God, now we are at war with the world.

We have peace with God, we're at war with Satan. We have peace with God, we're even at war with our own sinful flesh.

In fact, this is what Paul says, that our sinful passions war with our souls to make us do the things that we ought not to do.

We're at war with everything else when we're at peace with God. But when we're at peace with the world, we're at war with God.

This is how this works. You have to pick a side. You don't get to say you're neutral and you, well, I love

God, I love the world. That's not how this works. But then note this. Having been forgiven and reconciled through the sufferings of Christ, by grace justified, declared righteous, and having peace with God, through him we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and in which we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

But not only that, Paul says, we now rejoice in our sufferings.

Yeah, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that, and watch the verb here, suffering produces.

I'm gonna finish the sentence for a second. Suffering produces. God uses suffering to do something very important in our lives.

And here's what it is. Suffering produces endurance. Isn't it

Christ who said, the one who endures to the end will be saved? How does one get that endurance?

Through suffering. You think of, if somebody were to say to me, like next week, say, hey,

Pastor Rose, bro, in two weeks there's gonna be a marathon. Here in Grand Forks, you wanna do it?

Don't laugh at me. Don't just, haters gonna hate. You're in the haterade. Okay, I don't know what's going on here.

Okay, you guys don't look confident that I could run a marathon. And I can't. And there's a reason for this, because I haven't trained for it.

I don't have the endurance to run a marathon, all right? I have presently the endurance to walk a 5K.

Praise the Lord, okay? And after that, I'm done. I ain't running that, no way.

But the whole point is, is that how does one prepare themselves for an endurance race like a marathon?

They've gotta train. And have you ever noticed that training is a lot like suffering? In fact, it is, right?

It is. And if you haven't trained, you don't have the endurance necessary.

And so note here, this is why we rejoice in our suffering, because God uses our suffering to produce in us endurance.

The one who suffers is then able to no longer have confidence in their own flesh, to realize their own sinfulness, recognize the pain they've inflicted on others as they've had pain inflicted on them, and cry out to God.

And God grants them then, through suffering, the endurance necessary so that they can endure to the end.

You see, my goal right now is not to sit there and say, oh, you guys, you have faith in Jesus, way to go. You know, let me punch your ticket, you're all going to heaven, right?

The one who endures to the end will be saved. The devil's trying to knock that faith out of you. And so my job as a pastor is to get you safely in the grave.

That sounds a little weird, right? Okay. My idea of safety is a little different than how the world works, right?

Yeah, and don't worry, I have no plans to do you, and we will not be serving Kool -Aid afterwards. That's not what

I meant. Okay. Okay. But the idea then is that through our suffering,

God is producing in us endurance. And endurance then produces character.

Character produces hope. Hope doesn't put us to shame because God's love now has been poured into our hearts through the

Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Suffering is an important thing.

Not only embrace it, rejoice when it shows. And when it does, it is not that God hates you.

He's treating you like his sons. Our true Father disciplines us through this so that we would have endurance.

And so Jesus says to his disciples, a little while and you will not see me. And again, a little while and you will see me.

So truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep. You will lament. And Christ did both.

He weeped and he lamented. He wept over the destruction of his good creation, the creation that he declared tov ma 'od, very good, blown apart by this attack of Satan in our participation in sin and the death that followed.

Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. He lamented over Jerusalem who wouldn't repent.

And he also suffered greatly. He suffered in his body for your sins and mine so that we can be forgiven.

And he says this to his disciples, and you are his disciples, you will be sorrowful.

And who of you who've lived a little bit of time on this earth cannot say, yep, I know exactly what this is?

Been there, done that, and have the scars to prove it. One of the things I found to be one of the most surreal experiences of my entire life was after the death of my best friend,

Ken Silva. It was a surreal experience. That one hit me hard, and I went into deep mourning, even practically a depression.

And what was the most surreal part about all of that was I made the mistake of logging into social media and reading the

Facebook feeds of the people who follow me and my friends on Facebook. And everything they were writing about and talking about just seemed so empty and stupid.

This one woman put up a recipe for muffins. Another person was talking about politics.

Another person was talking about how they washed their car. And another person put a photograph of the breakfast that they had that morning.

And all of it just seemed so empty and hollow. And it was weird. My whole life came to a grinding halt, and I was in deep mourning and suffering over the death of my friend.

And everyone else was just going along their merry way, talking about nothing. That's what suffering does.

It gives you a different perspective altogether. And Jesus says, you will be sorrowful.

But remember, the word of God cannot be broken. Just like what

Christ said to Peter and to his disciples, the shepherd will be struck and the sheep will be scattered, just like he said that and the word of God cannot be broken,

Christ's words cannot be broken either because it doesn't end with the sorrow that we experience in this life.

Christ also says, but, but your sorrow will turn to joy.

When Christ returns, all of this pain that we go through will give way to joy.

And then he gives this example. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow. I would even note sorrow, fear, anxiety, pain, that's all there.

I've saw my wife do it three times because her hour has come. But when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for the joy that a human being has been born into the world.

So also, you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you.

You'll note that Christ, on two occasions, uses the metaphor, the analogy of a woman giving birth.

Here, he's talking about the sufferings that we go through. In Matthew 24, Jesus uses the analogy of a woman in labor to talk about the pains of birth that the world and the travail that the world will go through as we get closer and closer to the return of Christ.

Ultimately, this world dying and the new world, the new heavens and earth being given birth to.

I think it's fitting that he uses this analogy in two different ways. For those who are persistent in sin and unbelief,

Christ's death and the tribulations that are to come are going to undo them. For we who are in Christ, the tribulations, the sufferings that we go through, these are the birth pains for the hope and the joy and the arrival of what has been promised, the consummation of time.

When Jesus returns in glory, not to judge us because we have already been found innocent by the shed blood of Christ.

And so on that day, when Jesus returns, we will not be looking for rocks to hide under. We will not cower in fear.

Instead, we will look up and see the sign of his coming and we will rejoice. And on that day, we will finally see our

God face to face. We'll see Jesus in his splendor, his glory and might.

And we will hear him say to each and every one of us, well done, good and faithful servant.

But in the meantime, arm yourselves with this idea. Christ wills for you now to suffer, so suffer we must.

And suffer then rejoicing, knowing that at the end of all of this pain and agony that we go through,

Christ who is working good in us, teaching us to follow his commandments, teaching us to hate the things of this world, that one day this world will pass away and we will have joy inexpressible and eternal and it will never be taken from us because Christ, he suffered and he did this for the joy set before him, the hope of saving and redeeming even you and I.

In the name of Jesus, amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

Avenue Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota, 56744. And again, that address is

Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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