2023 Laborers' Conference- Session 6 The Christian

The Laborers Conference and the Authority of Christ in Christian Life

And just like that, we're live. I want to welcome everybody to the number six session of the Laborers Conference. And what a time we've had. We've had piles of encouragement given, everything from how we're to react, how we're to be in the home, how the marriage is supposed to be conducted inside a Christian home, how all of these things are supposed to be done.

We've also had encouragement on what we're to do with the government, how we're to react when the government is coming, either coming against the church or how the church is supposed to respond or be in the government.

What is the role of the church in the government? There's a lot of excellent, and a matter of fact, I haven't even gotten the chance to listen to all of it because the way our breakout sessions work, you can only be at one at a time.

So I encourage you to go listen to these brothers. They have spent a tremendous amount of time studying and preparing their lectures so that there can be continuity to how it all flows. Again, we've said this several times.

We want to make sure that we're transparent. Vertical Life Church has been amazing to sponsor and host the events that we've been having. Speaking of Vertical Life Church, here comes the pastor of Vertical Life Church.

They've been great, and they have really went above and beyond. And I don't know what next year's conference would look like, but that's a lot to live up to, I think.

No, man, we've been very blessed. This is something we wanted to do and very thankful for you guys. You've been very affirming, and we've learned a lot in this conference. I think so. I think we've learned a lot, even just scheduling.

Robert just said, one thing we're really good at today, we're consistent, we're consistently behind. So we've learned a lot in this conference, and I think we need to make more space to communicate and have conversation.

And things of that nature. Well, if we're being honest and being fair about it, the topics that's been covered from either behind the pulpit or even in breakout sessions, these are heavy topics. They are, they are, absolutely.

There's been entire ministries dedicated to one of each session. Absolutely, absolutely. And it is, in a lot of ways, it's impossible to do justice to the topic. It is, it is. And be cognizant of the time at the same time, because we realize the people that show up to be in person, this is not no small expense to them to take away a Saturday.

Ball games are going on. Sure. People have to work, and you've got a crew of musicians and a sound crew and IT guys that are around the clock, seems like here lately. Oh, yeah. And so I'm thankful, thankful for you.

I'm thankful for this church. I'm thankful for the things that I've learned.

It ain't often the Church of God boy gets to listen to a Presbyterian preacher. Well, any of us, as far as I know. No, it's been good, man. I think overall, I think it's been very encouraging. I'm looking forward to more morning.

You know, I don't know if you guys got it worked out to be here tomorrow morning.

Yeah, I've got it worked out to be here tomorrow morning. Good, so tomorrow morning,.

You know, still gonna be doing conference mode tomorrow morning. So Jesse's gonna preach tomorrow morning. And then actually during the Sunday morning service, we're gonna be doing a Q &A, you know, during that time as well.

So that'll be good tomorrow morning at 1030. You guys will be able to tune in on that. So Tyler's gonna be preaching on what it means to be a Christian, the authority of Christ in the life of a Christian.

I mean, what do you think about that, John? Like, what's your first knee-jerk reaction when you hear that?

It's one of the most foundational principles. I mean, if you're gonna identify with Christ, you need to understand how his authority is persuaded to you as an individual. Sure. I mean, it's easy to put it in context of the government or a home or an evangelism.

But when the doors close and you get home, you take your hat off and the boots come off, you sit in a chair, what's your integrity like? That's right. How authoritative are you allowing Christ to be in your life?

That's right, absolutely. That's it, man. And that's what it boils down to, because even though husband and wife are one, it's still gonna be a half a decision. You know what I mean? A husband has to decide to be a husband, a wife has to decide to be a wife.

And so that's what we keep boiling it down. We keep boiling it down in these topics through different things. Again, Tyler here in just a minute is gonna be preaching on the authority of Christ in the life of a Christian.

He's been digging on this. I'm sure he'll have some big words for us.

Big words. So. What Tyler likes in hype, he makes up for in vocabulary. That's right, that's right.

I'm sure that he's gonna do a good job. He did acquire some books for us in the mortification of sin and been talking about sanctification there and that. And so there are some resources that we have here on our resource table.

So if you didn't make it to the conference and you're able to make it tomorrow to service, those things will still be available. So we wanna give those things away. We want them all to go away. We want them in the hands of believers to be equipping you and shaping you and to grow in your faith.

So. So what time does the worship begin? 10 .30 a .m. Tonight. Oh, tonight.

Tonight, I don't wanna walk over time. I think we're ready right now. So I think it's about time to jump over.

So we'll go over and join our brothers and sisters in worship. One of the things that we wanna do, we're gonna leave the live stream going. Questions, prayer request, anything you can think of that I've said?

Any kind of questions, yeah, anything. Anything you see in the sermon that you got a question about? Sure. Go back and check out some of the breakout sessions in the sermons. I can't wait to go back and see what all I missed out.

I can't miss one place at a time. That's right, exactly. So I'm gonna go ahead and hit the mute button and I'll put this, we'll add them to, I said I was. There we go. Somebody's listening. Is that Brother Garrett listening?

I love it. I love it. So I'm gonna go ahead and mute right here.

On that day before heaven's dawn, what would we say? There with thanks to H .L. Stain, our God. If it had not been for the Lord.

Proverbs 3 and the Fatherly Discipline of God

All the authority he has given me through and on this earth, alive and living. We thank you, Lord. And pray that we would continually seek out that living God, seek out our Savior and follow him daily.

We thank you for your mercies that are new every morning. Lord, I pray that you would be with Tyler as he gives us a message now. Speak through him and use him, Father, for good work.

Well, good evening. Got a better response than my breakout group. There was more than two people. All right, let's go. You've got your Bibles and I sure hope you do. Turn to Proverbs chapter three. We'll be reading verses 11 and 12.

And as we have done throughout the rest of today, let us stand up out of honor for the word of God. Do not despise the Lord's instruction, my son, and do not loathe his discipline. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves.

This is the father disciplines the son in whom he. Father God, we are grateful for your word. We are grateful that you have revealed yourself to us, that you have been glorified to teach us, to correct us, to instruct us, to reveal yourself to us.

And guys, we dig into this Proverbs. Open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things in thy law. Those from the Truth and Love Network know that I have been with, I've been studying God with Solomon for about a year now.

I have, on the podcast, I have taught through Ecclesiastes and now Song of Solomon. And I have kind of fallen in love with the Solomonic books of the Bible, of Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, and the majority of Proverbs.

And one of the things that I love about Solomon, the way Solomon thinks, the way they see under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, conveys theology to us, is that it's theology that is in motion. It's not just empty doctrine, it's not facts and figures, but it is a theology of verbs.

This passage right here, every verb in this text is what grammarians call an imperfect verb, which means not something that's just done and it's over, but it is a verb that is initiated in the past and has ongoing effect, that it is a verb that has, it is an ongoing reality.

And that's largely how Solomon thinks when you get into the weeds with the Proverbs, which he wrote 3 ,000 Proverbs. I don't think they're all in here, but he wrote 3 ,000 Proverbs in 1 ,005 songs. And what we have here is a very small portion of that body of text that God has exhausted to preserve for the education of us.

And I think these two verses fit best when we take a step back and look at the context of the whole stanza. So back to verse five. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own understanding.

In all your ways, know him, and he will make your path straight. Don't be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. This will be healing for your body and strengthening for your bones.

Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first fruit, going King James on you, with the first produce of your entire harvest. Then your barns will be completely filled and your vats will overflow with new wine.

Do not despise the Lord's instruction, my son, and do not loathe his discipline. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights. And like I said, this is a passage of verse.

It is theology of verse. We have trust, honor, know, fear, and then do not despise. How does that transition take place? Do we go from trust in the Lord with all your heart and it will go well for you to do not despise the Lord's instructions.

Do not loathe his discipline. And how do we get there? What is the logic here? How do we get there? It seems almost like we entered into another passage, but it's just such a natural transition. I think part of it has to do with the way we look at discipline in the 21st century.

Growing up as a, I was once a child. I didn't like to be disciplined. That's not a fun word, I think, on how to spend a weekend. I once got sent out to rake leaves on a windy day. That's not fun. But in Hebrew, because one of the important things about Hebrew poetry is that it's said in twos.

Theologians call this parallelism. They want to say it again. It's like you're reading in stereo. And so we have do not despise the Lord's instruction, first line. Second line, do not loathe his discipline.

And so the subject here in the first line is the Lord's instructions. And in Hebrew, that literally means instruction. It's verbal reproof. While the second line is discipline. And in Hebrew, it's physical discipline.

That we have verbal reproof and tactile discipline. Two things, two aspects of the way God operates. And it's attached to the statement, my son. That this is a family term. This is the way God relates to us as a father and a son.

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves. Just as a father delights the son in whom disciplines, the son in whom he delights. And one of the harsh realities of God's sovereignty. We've been talking about sovereignty and Christ's authority all day.

One of the harsh realities of Christ's authority is that it means he has sovereignty over the bad stuff as well. Now when things get hard and things are difficult, that God is still sovereign. And it says that he disciplines every son that he receives.

And so how do we get here? What is being said here? What is the therefore as we talked about last night? What is the therefore? In the very beginning of the book of Proverbs, it says the Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.

So we understand this section. The first nine chapters of Proverbs, by the way, basically a sermon. We don't get into as much of the quote Proverbs as much as we have a nine chapter sermon from Solomon to his royal son.

But we as believers looking back on the cross and seeing how it all points to Christ, see it's not just as the wisdom of Solomon to his son, but we see it as the very wisdom of Christ to the sons of God.

The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel, for learning wisdom and discipline, for understanding insightful things, for receiving prudent instruction in righteousness, justice, and integrity.

We go down to verse seven. The fear of the Lord, it says, is the beginning of knowledge. The fool supplies wisdom and discipline. God disciplines his people. That is a fact. That is in fact, that is an imperfect, that is an ongoing reality that God disciplines us.

He chastens the son in whom he loves. But the reality of that is that God disciplines from his sovereignty, that when we are experiencing suffering, when we suffer, when we have difficulties, it comes first and foremost from the sovereignty of God.

Job 517, it says, behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth. Therefore, despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty, for he maketh sore and he bindeth up. He wounded, and his hands make whole. And among other things, the reality of suffering in the believer is understood that we are held in the palm of God's hand.

That is something the non-believer does not have when suffering comes, when there is difficulty. It's me against the world. When I have difficulty, it is circumstantial. It is this, it is that. But when the believer looks at suffering, we recognize that God is in control.

We recognize that God is sovereign, and that God has placed this in our life for good. Romans 8 .28, it says that God has caused all things to work together for the good of those who love God. And sometimes that hurts.

Sometimes the will of God hurts. But at the end of the day, God is sovereign in that. But he doesn't just discipline, solely because he's sovereign, but he disciplines for our sanctification. If you go to Deuteronomy chapter eight, it says he humbled you by letting you go hungry.

Yep, that's God, ouch. He humbled you by letting you go hungry. And then he gave you manna to eat, which you and your ancestors had not known, so that you might learn that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

That is actually one of the verses that made the bread of the word high task, that man does not live on bread alone but from every word from the mouth of God. And so when we read about manna in the Old Testament, we all know the story when God made bread and brought it down from the sky.

This is something we've heard in Sunday school since we were kids. But manna, it's a parable, I guess you could say. It's an object lesson. It goes on to say in Deuteronomy 8 .5, honor this in your heart, God is dealing with you as sons.

But there was a very distinct lesson in God giving the manna. But before he gave the manna, he let them go hungry. He exhausted their resources and said, okay, now you're going to go this way. This is how it's going to be.

He disciplined Israel, not just by letting them go hungry but by feeding them. It's two-handed here in the same way that we have the Lord's instruction and the Lord's discipline, that tactile discipline and the verbal reproof, the verbal instruction.

So we have it with manna. It's the same idea, it's the same model. That God is disciplining his people, not just in negative but in positive. But they are two sides of the same coin. He humbled you by letting you go hungry, then he gave you manna to eat.

Which you and your ancestors, being Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, never knew, in the same way that Moses knew God by the name Yahweh when Abraham did not. So the Israelites in the wilderness knew God as the bringer of manna when Jacob did not.

They experienced God in a very different way because he let them go hungry. There was a different lesson he gave to the Israelites in substance, that he was the same God. God does not change. But the way he dealt with the Israelites in the wilderness was unique in some ways because he gave them manna.

He fed them, he sustained them. In the midst of that hunger, he sustained them. Manna went bad after a day. So they couldn't store it up, they couldn't fall back on their own devices, their own ideas for how to live.

How they could preserve themselves. It became a only by God can we live. If it had not been for the Lord, as we just sang, if it had not been for the Lord to bring manna, we would starve. Because man does not live just on bread, but on God.

And one of the things that suffering teaches us is that we cannot live apart from God. When it comes down to suffering, you're gonna find out very quickly how out of control you are in this scenario. When things get hard, you'll find out very quickly that you have no play here.

There's not a playbook we can pull out and say, I'm gonna fix this. It is very humbling to endure discipline, to endure difficulty, to, quote, suffer. It may not be the extent of Job, but we as believers will suffer.

Jesus himself said, if any will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. We are believers of Christ, and our theology is a theology of the cross. It's a theology that implies we suffer.

But unlike the world, our suffering is not the end. Our suffering produces something in us that wasn't there before. Suffering brings us nearer to the heart of Christ. Because God brings suffering out of his faithful love and accompanies it with compassion.

Lamentations chapter three, it says, for the Lord will not reject us forever. Even if he causes suffering, he will show compassion according to the abundance of his faithful love. For he does not enjoy bringing affliction.

And to be painfully literal with that line is he does not afflict from his heart. That is a very difficult text to wrap your head around. He does not afflict from his heart. He does not enjoy bringing affliction or suffering on mankind.

And that's not to say that God is conflicted, that he is somewhere in this emotional turmoil over what to do with us, but that God afflicts, that God brings suffering and difficulty into the life of the believer for their good.

It's not just for the sake of suffering, for the sake of bringing bad stuff, for bringing calamity, but there is growth, there is sanctification. That's one of the ways that we grow as believers. We talked about this earlier today with the means of grace, but there is growth that we experience in the endurance trial.

In his commentary on Hebrews, John Owen put it this way, that the patient endurance of divine chastisement is of singular advantage to the believer. If you can find anything from John Owen, get your hands on it, read it.

This man knew what suffering was. This man knew what it was to be fully dependent on God. He had 13 children and not a single one of them outlived him. Some of his most profound theological books were written on what he believed to be his deathbed, one of which being an exposition about that thick on Psalm 130, on the reality of God's forgiveness that you may be feared.

Sidebar. So we are not to despise the Lord's instruction because we see where it goes. We see what it produces. It produces the same thing as we saw in the succeeding verses in Proverbs. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own understanding.

In all your ways, know him. He will make your path straight. Don't be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. This will be healing for your body, strengthening for your bones. Honor the Lord with your possessions and it's the first produce of your entire harvest.

Then your barns will be completely filled and your vats will overflow with new wine. In short, the idea of pursuing God, of trusting God is equally important when things are going well and when things are not going well from our perspective because God is sovereign and the reality is everything we say and do and think is under the sun, under God.

So what Proverbs lays out for us, it's easy for us to think that Proverbs is just morality, that it's a bunch of good ideas to live by, it's rules. But Proverbs lays out for us a disposition. We might use the old English word piety.

It's from the 1800s. It's only a few letters so I'm not sure it's a $5 word but it might be a $2 word. But the word piety in the Webster's Dictionary means the exercise of affections in obedience to a specific will.

It is ordering your affections according to a will. It is an inward disposition that turns into action. That is what we have in Proverbs. Not just morality, not just rules but the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Means everything that follows the fear of the Lord is the outworking of wisdom. Solomon goes on to say in Proverbs 15, I believe, the fear of the Lord is wisdom. You can't get away from the recognition that God is God.

That God is who he is, who he says he is, who he's revealed himself to be, whether we like it or not, whether it is easy or it is difficult. God is God. He is the God, as it says in Isaiah, who brings light and brings darkness.

I bring success and I bring calamity. I am the one who does all these things. But God brings suffering, when God brings suffering to his people, it is out of love and it's accompanied with compassion.

It is the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed for his compassion fell not, they are new every morning. And when we do experience difficulty, when we are under the rod of God's discipline, that there is mercy that meets us there.

There is comfort because we are God's child. He's dealing with us as sons, that he is developing us as believers, that he is sanctifying us even in the most painful circumstances that we are being sanctified.

Day by day, moment by moment, decision by decision, God is sanctifying people. And furthermore, when we do suffer, there's unity in it, twofold unity because it testifies to our unity, not just with believers, but with Christ.

One of the realities of suffering is that it's where we all go. And so in regards to church unity, there is nothing that unifies like having things go wrong. Some of you are laughing in the back, but the reality is when things go wrong, when we suffer, you find out very quickly just how little some of the other things matter.

It says in Romans that, I forget not the address actually, but Paul said that what is like one part of the body is like the whole. John Donne, famous poet, once put it that every man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind.

That when part of the church suffers because we're a body, it affects us all. When one is under the rod of discipline, we all see its effects, we all feel it. We grieve with those who grieve, we mourn with those who mourn.

We rejoice with those who rejoice. We pray with those who need prayer. And so it unites us as a body when we see suffering. When things are not rosy and happy and perfect, it brings the body together.

Because what does the church do when there is suffering? We pray, we gather, we co-labor, we serve. There's that beautiful passage in James, is any among you suffering? Then the elder should pray. Is any among you merry?

Quote the King James, is any merry? Then he should sing psalms. So it brings us together as a body, but it also unites us to the Christ who suffers. Isaiah 53 says, he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement, the same Hebrew word we see in Proverbs three, the chastisement for our peace is upon him. And with his stripes, we are healed. The reality of suffering is Christ suffered first. We are the people, we are Christians, we are quote little Christ, we are his offspring.

We are co-heirs of Christ in his life, in his death, and in his resurrection. Which means we will suffer. But Christ suffered tremendously more than any of us will ever suffer. And so when we do suffer, he draws us nearer to the heart of Christ who suffered for us.

Who was cut off from the land of the living, that we will be joined with him. Christ suffered to make us his. And sometimes being his means there is suffering, sometimes that means things get hard. But to say that we shouldn't suffer because we're Christians, to say that that is somehow now beneath us, would imply that we are held to a different standard than Christ, that Christ suffered, but I don't need to.

I'm good, that isn't a dangerous place to be. But it is very freeing when we suffer, when we endure difficulty in God's discipline. Because God didn't spare his own son, or poured it out on him. And so when we suffer, we are essentially invited further into Christ, further into the heart of Christ.

He is Alpha and Omega, that is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and the last. We are enveloped, we are bookended by Christ. And suffering is one way that we are. Suffering is one way that God continues to teach, admonish, and sanctify the church.

It may not be the big extremes. It might not be cancer, it might be very little stuff. It might be stuff as small as breaking leaves on a windy day. It might just be those little fires that just keep popping up that are frustrating.

It might be more extreme, but regardless, when things get difficult, God is sovereign, and it is for our sanctification. And number four, this prepares us for glory. One of my favorite passages in the entire Bible is Colossians 3, one through four.

I just blanked for a second. Colossians 3, one through four. I don't usually do this. All right, we're going into the book. I had it memorized, and then I didn't. It's behind me. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God the Father.

Set your affection on the things above, not on the things of earth, for ye are dead, and your life is hated with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, we shall appear with him in glory.

Lofty theologians call that union with Christ, that we are united with Christ in his life, in his death, in his resurrection. Those who are familiar with the bread of the Word podcast have heard the phrase memento mori, memento vitae.

It's Latin, and that's something I got, I became fond of saying. It means remember you must die, remember you must live. You must die and you must live, in Christ or in Adam. And we who are in Christ, we live in Christ, we die in Christ, and we will be raised in Christ.

And suffering, as a means of sanctification, prepares us for glory, and we will worship Christ in an environment where pain does not exist, where sin does not exist, where the things that now entrap us, the things that get in our way, the things that seem to hinder us, or annoy us, or frustrate us, will not be.

We will see him as he is, unfettered by the human body, unfettered by his sinful nature, by pride, or our own selfish tendency, but we will see God as he is. We will worship him in his natural environment, because he will make the whole world his natural environment, as it was in the garden.

But right now, the world is broken because of sin, and he is redeeming the whole world to himself, day by day, piece by piece, decision by decision. And there's gonna come a day where God makes us the only place of man, as he did at the beginning.

The last verse in Ezekiel talks about the city of God, and the name of the city of God is the Lord is there. And where we are as believers, in the midst of suffering, the Lord is there. In the midst of prosperity, the Lord is there.

In the midst of everything we endure, the Lord is there. You can't get away from that, you can't escape it. He is everywhere, he is there. And in closing, I direct us to Ecclesiastes chapter 11. Ecclesiastes has a lot of hard verses, we don't always know what to do with.

I am no expert on the book of Ecclesiastes, but it is a book I have kind of fallen in love with in the last year. It is so practical, it is so challenging, it is so Christ-exalting. But Ecclesiastes 11 .9 says, Rejoice, young person, while you are young, and let your heart be glad in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the desire of your eyes.

But know that for all these things, God will bring you to judgment. God will bring all things into judgment, whether they be good or evil. Remove sorrow from your heart, and put away pain from your flesh, because youth and the prime of life are fleeting.

12 .1, to remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of adversity come, and the years approach when you will say, I have no delight in them. In short, Solomon is exhorting the young person to remember your Creator while you are young.

While things go well, remember who God is, because there will come a day when things get hard, and you will find out very quickly just how precious Jesus is to you when things get hard, when the honeymoon is over, when the work begins and life is hard, when following Jesus is hard, when you're not surrounded by all the stigma that makes it so easy sometimes, when it is a fight to worship, when it is a fight to get on your knees and pray songs.

God becomes very real right there. And when all of this is said and done, there is a disposition that God is working in us for His good pleasure, that at the end of the day, it will all be worth it. You see, the good and the bad, the easy and the difficult, because it will make us more like Christ.

For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, just as the Father disciplines the Son in whom He delights. Happy is the man who finds wisdom and who acquires understanding, for she is more profitable than silver, and her revenue is better than gold.

She is more precious than jewels, nothing you desire can equal her. Long life is in her right hand, and her left riches in honor. Her ways are pleasant, and all her paths peaceful. She is the tree of life.

We talked about the garden a little bit ago. But through wisdom, who is personified as a woman, which is very interesting in the Old Testament, is likened as the tree of life, that we are going back to the garden.

Why? Because wisdom is from the fear of God. Wisdom brings us back to God. She is the tree of life for those who embrace her, and those who hold onto her are happy. So the Lord founded the earth by wisdom, and established the heavens by understanding, that we are, again, I say we are invited into the heart of God through the natural rhythms of our life, through the cycles, through the rhythms, through the day-to-day abiding in Christ.

We are further invited into his very heart. So let us see things from that perspective. Let us recognize that suffering, prosperity, all these things set our creator before our eyes as we live in this world that is under the sun, that is under God.

Let us live Coram Deo before the face of God, because God has, through Christ, all authority in heaven and on earth over the government, over the home, over the world, and especially over Christians. Let us pray.

Father God, may you instruct us as you do in the prophets. May you discipline us as you do in your words, with manna and with hunger. May you draw us nearer to your heart, to who you are and what you do.

When things go well and when things are hard, you are God, and we are your people. We are the sheep of your pasture. You are our shepherd. In the light and in darkness, we are yours. Burn that anew in our hearts today, God, that we take that back into the world next week, knowing that things are different.

We look at things different because you have made us.

Christian Suffering, Providence, and Glory

All right, we're back. Back at it. Back at it like mathematics.

So what'd you think? Man, there's several things that Tyler touched on when it comes to Christian suffering. And when it comes to suffering, John Piper helped me some years ago work through that, that especially if a man's gonna be faithful in missions, he better have a pretty solid theology and doctrinal perspective on suffering.