The Suffering Saint | Sermon 06/02/2024

Alright, if you would, please turn with me in your

Bibles to 2 Corinthians 4.

We're going to look at verses 7 through 18. The title of the sermon today, church, is

The Suffering Saint. The Suffering Saint, starting in verse 7 of the second letter to the

Corinthians, chapter 4. Hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true

God. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.

We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always caring about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

So death works in us, but life in you. But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written,

I believed, therefore I spoke, we also believe, therefore we also speak. Knowing that He who raised the

Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God.

Therefore we do not lose heart. But though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.

For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. And for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Thus ends the reading of the word of God. Let's pray once more as God's people.

Lord, we come before you today. God, we pray that you would show us your word, that you would,

God, help us to challenge our presuppositions about suffering and what it means to be afflicted and what that produces.

Lord, we come to your word with so many ideas. We come to you,

Lord, with things in our past, and past hurts and current hurts, and even in the future, things are going to happen to us.

We know, Lord, it's inescapable. And so God, help us to put all these things in subjection to your word,

Lord. God, I pray that your people would be encouraged today. I pray, Lord, that this wouldn't be a moment of solemnity, but this would be a moment of,

God, just so much joy knowing how you're redeeming every little thing.

Not one thing won't be redeemed. And so, Lord, please build us up, encourage us, and help us to be focused on your word today.

Please help me, Lord, as the preacher, and to deliver this word with power and with the

Holy Spirit. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, church, as you know,

Pastor Andrew was going to preach on a biblical apologetic for family integration, but today

I am preaching on suffering. It was a last -minute topic.

It was something that I just had on my heart that the Lord was working in me, even in my prayers, even before yesterday night when

I was working on this. So, let's talk about it.

We've been seeing a lot of suffering in our body. We've been seeing a lot of different afflictions and trials in various ways.

And we get these questions that we ask ourselves, why? Why is this happening?

How could this thing benefit my life or my spiritual walk with Christ? Lord, how can this one turn out for good this time?

Surely this one won't turn out for good. What's this all doing? And we have these questions in our mind.

Maybe you've thought that when the Messiah became the suffering servant, there would no longer be any suffering.

If there's a suffering servant, why are there suffering saints? I remember when

Christ rescued me and saved my soul, I was at the lowest, one of the lowest parts of my life.

And I had this terrible back injury. I had this herniated disc from shoulder to foot, you know, my sciatica nerve was just lit up.

I could barely move in my bed. I could barely take a shower, lift my arms. I could barely go to the bathroom without needing help.

I was, you know, I don't know, 25 or 26 years old. This was, you know, 13 years ago, 12 years ago, and one of the worst times of my life.

I really thought like surgery was my future. I was even thinking, goodness, do

I have like a disability? What's going on here? And the point is, when

Jesus saved me in the middle of that with that terrible injury, it wasn't just like poof. You're healed.

It's gone. It didn't just go away. I still had it. And I had to reconcile with the fact that in my past,

I grew up in going to a charismatic church and people would come around in a circle and pray for you, which that's good.

But then there was this expectation that once they spoke tongues over me in that prayer, that all of a sudden my ailment would be gone.

And if my ailment wasn't gone, then I was the problem. Right? And I didn't have enough faith.

Things like that. And so I was wondering, as a new believer, what's going on? Some of you,

I've shared this with a few of you, years ago, again, at the beginning of being a believer, I had debilitating anxiety.

I had these panic attacks. In fact, I was so unaware. Everyone talks about anxiety every day now.

Everyone's an expert on anxiety. Everyone's got anxiety. This kid has an anxiety. You know, and it's, I'm sure a lot of it's true.

There's a lot of stimuli and, you know, a lot of hard things going on in the world. A lot of it is probably true, but, you know, it was so bizarre to me that all of a sudden my heart could just rev up and all of a sudden

I was thinking that I was about to die. It was such a strange sensation, but I had that even after the

Lord saved me. And that just didn't go away either. That took time. And that took leaning on God.

And it was really, honestly, learning the sovereignty of God over everything that helped me to get through that.

And it is gone. It is gone for me. And I praise God for that, but that took time.

I've seen, since then, hardships in my family's life, in my extended family, in friends, and in my church.

I've seen those close to me suffering. There's sickness. There's diseases. There are injuries, depression, persecution, betrayal, times of financial sorrows.

There's poverty, baby miscarriages, barrenness, loneliness, despair, right?

Many saints in the world go hungry even to this day. And we'll see even in two weeks when we go over Ruth that you have women whose husbands have died.

People are made widows today. There's a pastor who just died recently and he leaves behind his whole family and his wife.

Faithful people are left widows. And these things happen, you know, death of all kinds.

Death of a child. Death of a parent. Death of a spouse. Death of a friend. Death of a sibling.

Death of unsaved loved ones. Boy, is that hard. That's difficult. Pain accompanies all these things.

You have physical, emotional, spiritual pain. Many Christians, like I said, believe that these occurrences are happening to them as a result of lack of faith, of punishment.

You're being punished for not trusting God. And where does that come from? If that's true every time, if that's an ultimate truth, that suffering comes from punishment from God, then you look at the life of the

Apostle Paul, one of the most faithful brothers in history who was afflicted in so many ways.

And we would have to look at him and say, you're afflicted, Paul, for all your sin. For all your lack of faith.

One of the most faithful men in existence. And so that's not true, right?

That can't be true. Suffering and prosperity have never been the ultimate measures of God's favor toward anyone.

Sure, they can be an indicator, but they're not the ultimate indicator of prosperity and suffering.

The Bible says the wicked prosper on the earth, but their end will come. Job. Job is a case study of someone who is righteous and yet suffers greatly.

You of course know the Luke 16 parable where the rich man and Lazarus, you have the rich man whose storehouses were completely full.

Prosperity, wealth, good health. He had everything. He had every luxury that life could offer.

While Lazarus, it says, begged. He was covered in sores. He laid there and stray dogs would come up and lick his sores and he would beg for alms.

And that was Lazarus's life. And those two lives are contrasted in Luke 16.

But we know that while the rich man, when he died, was in Hades, in agony,

Lazarus was taken to Abraham's bosom paradise and he experienced blessing. You see, some of us are somehow so sure that when we're suffering, it's a result of our sin.

And that can be true. Hebrews 12 talks about that. But some of us always come to that.

God, I must have done something. God, this is negative. God, you're doing something negative to me because I've done something negative to you or against you or to someone.

And a lot of us default to that, right? And honestly, we've got to examine ourselves daily.

But how can we be so confident to say that? How can we be so confident to say that suffering is always because of a negative reaction of God towards a negative sin that we've committed?

What we have a hard time with saying, actually, is this is happening to me because God does love me and I am enduring this because of His favor.

We have a hard time saying that, Lord, I'm going through this. I know because you love me,

I'm enduring this trial because you have favor over me. And that's not the way the world views things, does it?

The modern American believes in a karma -like system. They're like Job's friends.

Evil befell you because you've committed evil. Apply that to Jesus and His suffering on the cross and you have blasphemy.

You have a recipe for blasphemy. Oh, Jesus must have done evil. That's blasphemy. And so obviously, that's not the correct barometer.

That's not always a reliable barometer. The modern atheist will look at suffering and say, it's meaningless.

It's just cells and these things bouncing against each other.

It's meaningless. It's futile. It's vain. It really does nothing. It's survival of the fittest.

It ultimately means nothing, suffering or prosperity. But the

Christian can turn to God's Word and see good comes out of affliction.

But we often lose sight of that. We think bad is always bad.

So the question is, why doesn't suffering stop as soon as salvation comes to each of us?

And what does suffering accomplish according to the Bible and how can we get through it?

Let's answer those questions together now, brothers and sisters. What we first must understand is that suffering is a normal occurrence for the

Christian. You can look in your Bible with me or you can go to your printout there. But 1

Peter 4 .12 says, Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you.

Peter's like, this isn't out of the ordinary. This is part of the Christian life. In fact, we talked about this quite a bit when

Jesus gave that private and loving instruction to his disciples. John 16 .33,

he says, These things I have spoken to you so that in me you may have peace. He says, in the world you'll have tribulation.

But take heart, I have overcome the world. And that's in the indicative form. It's a statement of fact.

While still in the world, you and I will have trouble. He says it.

We'll have tribulation. And we have various forms of tribulation and trouble.

And here's a radical one. After Paul has been discussing his imprisonment and potential pending death, he tells the brethren at Philippi in Philippians 1 .29,

get this, he says, For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.

It has been granted to you. For to you it has been given to suffer for Christ's sake.

That's radical. Paul's saying it's like a gift. In fact, this word granted in the

Greek has the same root word for the word grace. Same root word for grace.

And so the connotation behind this is that it has been graciously bestowed upon you to suffer for Christ's sake.

It's a privilege. It's been given to you. Meaning the same grace that saved you from eternal torment and eternal suffering is the same grace that allows you to experience suffering while still in this world.

That's radical. The grace that saved you from eternal suffering is the grace that allows you to go through temporal suffering.

Unbelievable. And it says here,

Hupere autu, on behalf of. Your suffering is on behalf of Jesus.

It's for Christ's sake. And that's the first clue to some of our questions.

Going through trials is like an offering to Jesus Christ. But do we sully that offering?

Do we spoil that offering? Do we mix it with sin? We'll go through that a bit more later.

The point is, church, you and your suffering, it's not unique.

It's not unique. It's not even rare. We always think we're the only ones going through what we're going through.

Sure, no one can experience what you're experiencing. But we're not the only ones suffering.

Suffering's not even rare. But what that also means is that you're not alone in it. You're not alone in it.

If you suffer, you're in good company. You're in the company of Abraham who suffered. You have

Joseph who was thrown into the pit. Then he was thrown into the prison for years.

And he gave that prophetic interpretation to Pharaoh's cupbearer and the baker.

And he's like, hey, by the way, tell Pharaoh when you get back up there that I can do this.

And it's like God didn't have the guard come back down the next day and bring him up.

Joseph was in the prison for years and years. And we just moved past that because it's just one verse.

And it's like, oh, he got out. He suffered. You have the

Jews who were in bondage for 430 years. Job in losing his children and his health.

You're in the company of most of the major and minor prophets of the Old Testament. You have

Jeremiah who's faithfully giving the Word of the Lord. And he was thrown into a cistern.

Prophets and priests faithful to God killed for speaking the truth. If you suffer, you're in the company of the apostles.

If you suffer, you're in the company of the disciples. And even so, most of all, if you have ever hurt, if you've ever bled, if you've ever been reviled, if you've ever been betrayed, if one day you die, which you will, you are in the company of Jesus Christ the righteous.

If you suffer, know that Christ suffered too. Don't think it's strange, Peter says.

Don't think it's strange. Don't think it peculiar when the fiery ordeal comes to you and it tries you.

It's normal in the Christian life on the path of faithfulness. So, now that we know that we do suffer, there's the guy who's like, no, my life is great.

If it's not hitting you now, it's going to hit you later. But now the why question's coming to the picture.

And so why do we suffer? First thing I have to say is you must know, it's kind of like our catechism question today, suffering of any kind was not part of God's original creation.

When He said, let there be light, there was no intention for suffering then. We can talk about sovereign decree and stuff like that another time, but at least in that moment, everything

He created He said was what? Good. And then He said nay, very good.

Very good. This is a very good creation. We are shown that the sin of Adam and Eve brought about corruption to the world.

And not only is the world fallen, but humans are too. And we add to this already existing fallenness with our rebellion, with our selfishness, with our terrible decisions.

It's like a ripple effect, right? You have this earthquake out at sea.

All of a sudden, a ripple effect happens and tsunamis are headed in every direction. That's what happened with original sin.

It impacted everyone. No one escaped the fallenness of sin that impacted our world.

Being a follower of Christ doesn't insulate us from the negative effects around our world and the people in it.

Do you get that? We're not insulated from the evil that takes place in this world.

Now, we're saved in a different way. We'll talk about that. But you and I will feel it.

We'll get it. Calamity can come our way. Death can come our way. Persecution can come our way.

It can happen. Remember, the son said to the father, he prayed in John 17,

Father, I do not ask that You remove them or take them out of the world, but that You would keep them in it, but keep them from the evil one.

That is to say, they're going to go through suffering, but my Father, don't let the evil one take them.

Don't let them apostatize them. Cause them to persevere. And that's what Jesus prayed. We're going to feel it.

And so if we aren't removed from the world, and this world has sin, and sin causes suffering, then suffering's going to impact even the

Christian. So, one of the first reasons why we suffer is that we would need

God. That you would recognize your dependence on Him.

Jesus said in John 15, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

God wants you to see your need. If anyone is to think they are self -sufficient, they are blind, they are ignorant, and they're often godless, the

Bible says only of God that He did not make the world and all that is in it in such a way as if He needed anything.

God is the only One that has what's called self -aseity. He needs nothing outside of Himself.

He didn't need to create anything. We need, though, we need, and we need

Him. If we think we don't need spiritually, emotionally, physically, then we are our own gods.

In your current suffering, you may see your need and therefore go to God who gives generously without reproach.

That's what the Bible says. Think about it this way. Most of you are parents.

You're sitting there. Your kids are outside. Junior is running and then all of a sudden he trips and he falls and he skins his knee and there's blood coming down his leg and he runs up to Mom and he's crying,

Mom, I hurt myself, right? And Mom picks up Junior and gives him a hug and reassures him that everything will be alright.

Well, you know what? That consolation would not otherwise happen in that moment if he didn't suffer.

It's like, well, Pastor Wade, the mom still loves the son. Yeah, but what he experienced there was something that he wouldn't otherwise receive.

He received nurture. He received reassurance. This builds trust. When I get hurt, there's someone there for me.

And that's what happens in our suffering, right? You have a son or a daughter who's getting bullied at school or a lot of us are homeschoolers,

I don't know, in some sort of Reach Kids event or whatever.

That would be horrible. It's probably going to happen though, I'm going to be honest. You have this bullying happen and this kid comes home and says, they all targeted me.

They all made fun of me. They all did this. And the father this time goes to the child and gives advice.

It's going to be okay. And not only that, I'll do my best to give you protection.

And I'll give you reassurance. And now this child gets to see a side of their father that they've never seen before.

Wow, when people go against me, I've got someone there who's got my back.

And if that never happened, they could go their whole life without being bullied. And maybe, of course, they have this built up in them that their father protects them and loves them.

But do you see what I'm saying? If it's never tried, if it's never stressed, then ultimately, you never fully know completely.

This experience builds that. That means that every time you suffer and you see your need and you go to God, you will experience

Him in a new way, a deeper way. If you do it that way, if you see your need and you go to God and He reassures you, you will see a side of the

Heavenly Father that you have not seen before. There are so many different needs that we find that we have in life.

You see, if you never saw death or one day experienced death, why would you long for eternal life?

If you've never cried, then God would never be able to wipe away every tear.

If you never knew loss, there would be no such thing as gain. You would just have. If you never got hungry, you would never know the taste of delicious food.

You wouldn't need it. If you never had questions, you'd never receive the answers.

If you never saw a storm, you'd never see a rainbow that comes after, right? If a woman never went through labor pains, she'd never receive the joy and relief of her baby who arrived.

I've been reading through Exodus in my morning devotion, and so I'm thinking of even the

Israelites when they needed water in the wilderness. And you know what's interesting?

God didn't provide them water until they were first thirsty.

God didn't provide them water until they were thirsty first. They experienced the suffering first.

Right? You know, and what mom tells you all the time, if you're already thirsty, it's too late.

You're dehydrated. I hear that in Utah all the time too, by the way. It must be the elevation thing.

The arid dryness or something, right? If you're already thirsty, you're dehydrated.

And God let the Israelites suffer first before He provided the water.

Unfortunately, when they cried out to God for water, they grumbled, they complained in their need, and the

Lord wasn't pleased with that. The crying out to God? Absolutely just fine.

The grumbling along with the suffering? He doesn't want it. And when we grumble over our suffering, we're making ourselves the judge and we're pointing back to the

Lord and saying, I'm not sure if what You did was good here. I'm putting You on trial,

God. Let Me determine whether Your choices here were right or wrong.

We become the judge. When you're in your need and you go to the

Lord, go expecting good and go believing the need was good.

Because it brought you to Him. The need brings you to God. And some of us have been walking away from God.

And some of us have been neglecting His Word. And some of us have been just going on with life like we don't need

Him. Watch, if you're His, He'll bring you to your need one day.

You're walking away. You're just fine. You're going through the motions. You're complacent. One day you're going to see your need and that's good.

And God will bring that. It brings you to Him. Next, we suffer so that we'd long for eternity.

We suffer so that we'd long for eternity. We suffer so we would not become so attached to this world and the so -called comforts it presents us.

Sometimes we worship money. And so the best thing for us to have happen is that we would lose it.

When we make success and idol in our lives, oh, my job is my everything.

I love the accolades and the honor I get. And I love the appreciation. I love even working hard.

A lot of that's good stuff. But if we can make our success an idol, watch us lose that career.

Sometimes when we always want things to go our own way, the best thing that can happen is for us to not get our way.

And these things show us that it's folly to take eternal stock in temporary things.

We're putting eternal stock in temporary things, expecting eternal results.

In fact, the Apostle Paul saw losing temporal things as a key to desiring heavenly things.

Go to your printout or go to your Bible. Philippians 3 .7 -11

It says, but whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as lost for the sake of Christ.

More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing

Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain

Christ and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, and that I may know

Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Paul says if there's anything keeping me from gaining Christ, let they be gone.

Let them be lost. He says I count them as rubbish.

If your health is more important to you than Christ, if your wealth is more important to you than Christ, if your family or your own life is more important to you than Christ, then you don't realize the true treasure of the

Christian life. It's not those things. It's worth it to lose everything in order to gain

Christ. It's worth it to lose everything in order to gain Christ. It's worth losing the temporal and all it contains for the eternal.

Verse 10 said that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the participation in His sufferings, being conformed to His death in order that I may lay hold of the resurrection of the dead.

There it is again. Your suffering is for Christ's sake. Your suffering is participating in Christ's suffering.

And all of it will bring you to the point of your own resurrection. Christ suffered.

Christ died and He rose again. And don't we get that? We get to share in the sufferings it says.

We get to share in His death. And for these reasons, because we share in His suffering, because we share in His death, we will share in His life.

In fact, His life is now our life. Now by the way, this is not to be mistaken for longing for death.

Some Christians have thought, well, good. My release from these issues is death.

That's not what this is saying. That's not true. Your suffering, participating in Christ's suffering, is not just longing for death.

It's longing for life. Our hope isn't in death.

I can't take this anymore. Release me. Bring me to death, God. Hope isn't in life ending.

It's in Christ. You think of Paul in Philippians 1 when he says, to live is

Christ and to die is gain. You know that text? To live is Christ and to die is gain.

And he didn't mean that death was the gain. What makes death gain for the believer?

And he says it a verse later. He says death is departing to be with Christ. And that is very much better.

So to live is Christ and to die is Christ. It's Him. This life is

Christ. This life is giving ourselves to Christ. And what makes it gain is that we gain the presence of Christ, the salvation of Christ, the glory of Christ.

Let me give you an example. Think about this. When King Saul was on the battlefield with the

Israelites, he saw that the battle was waning. They were losing. They were about to be defeated.

And what does Saul do? King Saul asked for his armor bearer to thrust him through with the sword.

And it said that the armor bearer was too afraid to thrust a king through with his blade.

And so it says that Saul propped up his own sword and it says he fell on it and he thrust himself through.

He committed suicide. His hope wasn't in God. His hope was in death.

It was in leaving. What's Paul saying? His hope is in the

God who conquered death. Not in death itself. Now why do we suffer?

So that we would need God and that we would want to be with Him in eternity. Another reason why we suffer is so that we would be able to comfort those who likewise suffer.

You look at that especially in 2 Corinthians 1. Pastor Andrew preached on this last year.

It says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.

But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. And if we are comforted, it's also for your comfort.

Now, while we don't always have the same experiences and suffer in the same exact way, it says here that because of what

Christ has done, we'll be able to comfort one another. You ever meet someone like that? You ever meet someone who's going through a specific type of suffering and they're like, look,

I get your advice, but you'll never know what I'm going through. It's like according to this, as Christians, yeah,

I may not know exactly what it's like. Jesus doesn't physically know what it's like to miscarry a baby.

But He can comfort someone who's miscarried their baby. We have the ability to comfort one another.

And of course that's there. But also, I'm not saying that it's not also sometimes a wonderful benefit when someone's going through the same exact thing as you.

That can be very helpful as well. That can be very helpful. It's very powerful.

Think about the ways that you've suffered. In your specific type of suffering, are you able to go to people who have suffered likewise?

That may be something that God could be calling you to. Another reason why we suffer is for the furtherance of the

Gospel. You could say the Gospel came by the suffering of Jesus Christ, and it is carried by the suffering of the church.

All to the resurrection of both. Everyone knows that famous quote from Tertullian typically, right?

Have you heard this before? The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. A Christian's willingness to suffer or even die for their faith can lead to the conversion of many all throughout the

Gospels. Jesus says, you will be hated for My namesake. You will be killed for My namesake.

In Revelation, Jesus says, you've been bearing all things for My namesake.

We are seeking to make Christ's name known and our trials can do that. It's for His sake.

I think of the times that the apostles and even the disciples throughout the centuries have been wrongly imprisoned and while suffering, more prisoners and even guards come to faith in Christ.

You hear it all the time. You could go to any generation. There are people who have been persecuted for their faith, thrown in prison, and all of a sudden, more prisoners turn to faith in Christ.

I was reading a couple of years ago what is that? What is that Romanian pastor?

Yeah, Wurmbrand. Wurmbrand and him suffering for Christ and how so many people came to faith because he was in that prison.

In fact, there's been so many different missionaries who've called their cell their church. And boy, the rats even join in they've said.

But they share the Gospel. People come to faith in Christ. And it's incredible. God uses suffering that way.

God redeems it. And not only...

Paul says similarly in Philippians, he says that my imprisonment turned out for the greater progress of the

Gospel. And not only did people come to faith, but he says that Christians who used to fear imprisonment became more courageous to speak the truth and word of God without fear.

Paul would be the chosen instrument of God to reach the Gentiles. And the Lord Jesus said, I will show you how much you have to suffer for My namesake.

He says that to Paul on the road to Damascus. And for all that Paul suffered, all the more the

Gospel went out through him. You know, Christians in Utah could have a lot easier time if we just left

Utah. We could go somewhere, I don't know, Texas or Kentucky. Maybe go to one of those places where you could get an acre and a big house for $2.

We could go there and no one would be as hard on us as we are. We wouldn't be the minority.

We could do all that, but it wouldn't work out for the furtherance of the Gospel here in Utah.

We were to bring the Gospel everywhere, even to the places where it is difficult.

And everything you do here can work out to the furtherance of the Gospel. Every conversation.

Your job. Your interactions. Things with your neighbor. We are in this ripe opportunity.

Jesus looks out in Samaria and He tells the disciples, the fields are white.

They're ripe, ready for the harvest and we only have to act. God's saving people left and right here.

Every opportunity of suffering. Notice I just called it an opportunity.

Every moment of suffering is an opportunity to show that we have a peace that surpasses all comprehension.

That we have a Savior that is with us and will not forsake us. Church, do you and I suffer like the world?

When COVID was happening, I saw Christians who were so fearful of death.

I saw Christians who didn't suffer well and I get it, I've been there too. But do we suffer like the world?

Do we suffer in complete despair? Or do you suffer like a Christian should?

Full of hope. Full of expectation. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4 .13,

but we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as the rest do who have no hope.

This is the word for distress. Don't be in hopeless distress. This is not saying don't grieve, by the way.

Oh, Christians don't grieve. Christians pretend it's all fine. No, that's not true either.

But we are hopeless in our grief. My own rendition of this would be don't suffer as those who don't have eternal life.

We have every single sin forgiven us. What can man do? What can move me?

What can move you? What can take you and me from the Good Shepherd's hands? He said, no one will snatch you out of My hands.

No one will cause you to perish. Let your suffering further the Gospel and not hinder it.

And to do this, we need the right perspective on suffering.

So let's go back to the passage we started with. Those were some of the reasons why we suffer.

Now this is the right perspective on suffering. Why we suffered.

Now the right perspective. 2 Corinthians 4 v. 7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.

This treasure, by the way, is Christ. It's the glory of God. And He says it's in us.

And He calls not just our bodies, but our whole existences. We're earthen vessels.

Other translations say what? Jars of clay. We're jars of clay.

When you think about a jar of clay, when you think about an earthen vessel, it's made with clay, it's made with dust. It's plain.

It's sometimes ugly. A jar of clay is prone to cracking.

It can suffer chips and breaking. But God has chosen to store

His treasure in that. And that's you and me.

It's in us. Those who suffer, we're jars of clay.

We're earthen vessels. But God has chosen to store His treasure in you so that when we suffer, the surpassing greatness of the power will be shown to be of God.

From God and through God and not from us. You see, if you and I were beautiful, treasured vessels with treasure in it, there would be no comparison.

Then you wouldn't know it's of God. But the world looks at us and knows we're just jars of clay.

We've got treasure in us that was put there. It was deposited in us. It's not inherently from us.

God has given us something that we didn't originally have. We're jars of clay. We're earthen vessels.

You see, no glass case in an art exhibit is as beautiful as the piece of art inside of it.

Then there would be no distinction. You think about even a beautiful flower.

What does a beautiful flower grow out of? Often, animal refuse composted and dead leaves and dirt.

But you have this beautiful thing and you compare it to the dirt below it and boy, does it shine when you see the difference.

And that's what we do for God. That through us, in just earthen vessels, you would see this immense power of God, this treasure.

Earthen vessels made from the dust. By using this analogy, there's an image of something that's common, something that's temporary, something that's weak, something that's inexpensive and not special.

That's now. So many more will come to faith in Christ and one day, the treasure in us will be seen not just on the inside, but on the outside.

You're not going to stay regular jars of clay. You are right now though.

We are right now. And this is just in keeping with what

Paul says. God uses the weak things to confound the wise and the strong.

Does He not? God uses jars of clay to store treasure. No king, no leader, no one's ever done something like that.

You put treasure behind bars. You put treasure in depository boxes. You put it behind locked guard, but we're just earthen vessels, and that's what

He puts it in. The Bible shows us that hardships are not to show what humans are made of, but what

God's power is like. Verses 8 and 9, we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed.

Perplexed, but not despairing. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed.

Afflicted in every way, but not crushed. This word means to confine something. Crushed is to put it into a corner and confine it.

To keep it trapped. But a Christian is never static. A Christian is never trapped.

When you press in on us, you can't stop us. Because we've got the power of God in us.

We've got the treasure of God. We are perplexed, but not despairing. And these are the exact same words.

It's like saying sometimes we're at a loss, but we're not lost. We can be in despair, but we're not in a state of despairing.

Stressed, but not stressed out to the point of quitting the race. Sure, we're stressed, but we're not stressed out to the point we're going to quit.

We're despairing. We despair, but we're not in a state of despairing and hopelessness.

The earthen vessel is persecuted, but not forsaken. And that word persecuted literally means in the

Greek to be pursued by someone. Persecuted. Pursued. We may be pursued by others for our hurt.

But get this, you are equally pursued by God. Who's going to win the race?

You're pursued by others for your hurt, but you're equally pursued by God for your good.

Who's going to win the pursuit? God, every time. We're never abandoned.

We're never struck down. Yeah, we can be laid low by a blow. We can be laid low by a weapon.

We can have a sudden calamity. We can be stricken with illness, or even killed. But He says, but not destroyed.

That's what's crazy. But not destroyed. This is the same word for perish in the

Greek. The same word in which Jesus claimed when He said in John 10 in the

Good Shepherd passages, He said, no one can snatch you out of My hands, and not one of you will perish.

And He knew they were going to physically die, but this is different. You can die, but you'll never perish.

He'll never let you perish. All this to say,

Christ crucified is not just our message in this life. It's also our model.

Christ's suffering brought about the greatest good, and God will always use yours for good too.

That's the promise. V. 10, always caring about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

Our weaknesses will manifest the life of Jesus. V. 11, for we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

So when we sacrifice, people see the sacrifice of Christ. And this is intense.

The thing that we often consider the worst, our deaths, can result in the life of Jesus to be manifested.

That's what He said. He said, always caring about in our body the dying of Jesus, so that even in our deaths, we're constantly being delivered over to death, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our flesh.

We die so that Jesus may be shown to be alive to other people. That's crazy.

But it's true. It's true. Because even if we die, we rise again.

We're only crushed if we lose that which we no longer have. We're never crushed because you can't take eternal life away from the believer.

Go to verses 13 -15. But having the same spirit of faith according to what is written,

I believe, therefore I spoke. We also believe, therefore we also speak.

Knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with You for all things are for Your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God.

Church, what is there to lose when there's everything to gain? The One who raised the

Lord Jesus will raise us also. How can you face one more trial? How can you face one more ailment?

How can you face one more tragedy in your life? Paul says,

I'll tell you how, there's a resurrection. There's a resurrection. You're going to live forever.

Listen to this. The resurrection was the biggest driving force for the Apostle Paul to keep going day by day.

There's a resurrection. I will live and be in the presence of my Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse 16. Just a couple more verses. Therefore, for this reason we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day, because we will be resurrected and all our suffering is redeemed in good ways, we do not become discouraged.

We do not lose heart. And he's not even talking about facing death.

He means he doesn't lose heart while living this Christian life and preaching the

Gospel while all these afflictions come out at him. He's talking about the things that you go through.

He doesn't lose heart. You don't need to lose heart while all these things come at you. And the rest of our verses, by the way, will show these amazing opposites.

So if you look at your printout or if you look in your Bible, verses 16, 17, and 18 have these incredible opposites that Paul is trying to use for a purpose.

So you have outer man and inner man. You have decaying and you have renewed.

Those are just in verse 16. And so what Paul is saying is you and I don't need everything to work out perfectly with the outer man.

The external things of life. The material stuff. Believe it or not, the health.

The job. All those things. All those things that we go through.

We don't need them to work out perfectly in the outer man. Suffering can't stop our inner man from being renewed.

That's what it is. You see, you and I often act like the only... This is huge.

You and I act like the only way our inner man can be renewed is if the outer man is no longer facing decay.

We do that all the time. If only I didn't have this affliction, whatever it is, fill in the blank, then my inner man could be renewed.

Paul says that's not true. That's a lie. And we've been believing it for far too long.

You can have in the midst of your suffering in your trial, you can be renewed in the inner man.

You're not waiting for the outer man to get better. But we believe it.

And we keep thinking it. Oh, once I get through this, I'll be back and good with You again,

God. God, once this ends, I'll start reading the

Word again and I'll start believing it, right? Lord, if You just give me this with what

I need and I'm no longer in this great need, if You just do this, then I'll be renewed.

Then I'll be fine on the inside. I'm only fine if the outside is right.

That's wrong. You can have the inner man okay while everything else is a storm,

Paul says. Garland says the outer person is what belongs to this world.

It's temporary. Our bodies are crumbling. And what those who only evaluate things from a fleshly perspective can see, by contrast, the inner person belongs to what has ultimate significance and is being transformed and prepared for resurrection life through God's matchless power.

Your inner man is being renewed day by day. Your inner man is being prepared for eternal life.

And then the outside will match the inside. And here's the good news. Being renewed day by day, these words point to a continual process.

It's every day. It keeps going. It won't stop. Some of you have been going through something for so long, you can't see the fact that there's been ways that God has renewed you day by day.

And you see how He gives it? He says the word day by day. Don't we say that often? And that's what it is.

Today, it's being faithful with what's in front of you. Today, it's remembering

God's promises. Maybe you'll doubt tomorrow, but today, have faith.

Maybe it'll get worse tomorrow, but today, you can trust God with it. Today. Day by day.

Renewed day by day. Tomorrow, His mercies are new for you. I love how one commentator puts this verse.

He says, as our outward lives conform ever more closely to the crucified, suffering

Christ, our inward lives conform ever more closely to the glorified Christ.

Do you get that? As Christians, our outer man is looking more and more like the sufferings of Jesus, but then our inner man is more and more becoming like the glory of the eternal

Christ. It doesn't matter what happens on the outside when that is our reality.

V. 17 For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.

You have more opposites here. You have momentary, and then you have eternal. You have light, and you have weighty.

You have affliction. What's the opposite? Glory. Paul has suffered.

In various letters of his, he's demonstrated all the ways that he's suffered.

You may have been afflicted in great ways yourself. God knows that. God knows that you've been hurt.

God knows what you've gone through. And this isn't meant to minimize any of that. However, it is overcome.

Your suffering, Paul's suffering, is overcome by the eternal weight of glory.

The trying things we go through often feel like they're never ending, do they?

While the enjoyable times seem to go by so quickly, does it not? The good times, they go by quickly, but when we're in the seasons of trial, they feel long.

They feel never ending. But from God's viewpoint, from the true viewpoint, the true vantage, our affliction is but a moment.

And it is light. Paul says it's not even worth comparing to the eternal weight of glory.

It is an image of this forever fullness of glory. Brother, sister, that trial, that affliction, that hardship, that death, that sickness, that condition, that persecution, all of it according to this will not last forever.

Do you know what's forever though? The eternal weight of glory. The eternal weight of glory.

And what's crazy is Paul says right here that that momentary and light affliction, it says the word producing.

It's producing. You've thought, how can this do anything?

But the word here, the root word for producing is the word ergon. That is work.

All that stuff that you consider bad is going to bring about good.

It's producing for you an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.

That's Genesis 50, right? What they intended for evil towards me,

God intended it for good towards me.

The it is the same in both categories. What they intended for evil towards me, that it,

God intended it towards good. That same thing, that same it, that thing that you think is negative,

God will turn for good for you. You see, here's what it is, guys.

God is not simply working alongside your suffering. So here's your suffering, and then

God's parallel, and He's working alongside you. The image we have here is in your suffering,

God's working through it. He's not working alongside it. He's working through the suffering.

Through your trials. For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.

V. 18, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.

For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

You see, if we try to look for a remedy of things that we can see, we won't have eyes for eternity.

This is very much like when Paul says in Romans 8 .24 -25, for in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope.

For who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

Church, if you got the healing for the condition you have, you'd see it.

If you got the money that you need to finally get out of poverty, you'd see it.

If you stopped having so much hatred for your beliefs, people stopped hating you for what you believe, you'd see it.

And this is our fundamental problem with suffering poorly. We continue to look for remedies that we can see.

And I'm not saying that it's wrong to ask for good things like this. But they are not the objects of our hope.

Don't look at, don't hope for the things that are seen, but for the unseen. Your hope is not in what can be fixed right here and right now.

Your hope isn't in the remedy for your current trial. Our hope is in Christ, who rose from the dead, and we didn't see that.

Did you see Christ rise from the dead? Did He appear to you? We didn't see that, but that's what

He says. He says, put your hope in what you don't see. We look to Him who sits in heaven, who will bring us to Himself, and who has prepared a place for us in His Father's house.

Have you seen the Father's house? Have you seen where Jesus is where He's preparing a place for you that you'd be with Him forever?

Can you see it? I can't. But He says that's what you hope in.

You hope in not what is seen, but what is unseen. We have decaying bodies.

Our bodies are wasting away. I'm not looking for the fountain of youth in some obscure corner of the earth.

I'm looking forward to what I can't see. A day of resurrection wrought by the power of God that rose

Christ from the dead. That's our problem with suffering. We keep looking for remedies that we can see.

Well, get this, I'm telling you guys, once you get the healing, you'll see it. Do you get what

I'm saying? You're saying, well, I can't see my healing now, so I'm hoping in something

I can't see. But that's the thing. Once you get it, it'll be seen. So it's something that you can't put your hope in.

Paul says to put your hope in something you can't see, that you can't until Christ takes us there.

Never put your hope in what you can see. And so let's wrap this up.

If you're praying for deliverance and it's not happening, then we've got to be praying that we would see the unseen and pray for patience.

Pray for endurance to get through it. If you keep praying for the remedy that you can see and it's not happening, pray that God will put your focus on what you can't see.

If you're suffering and you feel hopeless, and it's making others question if God exists, and I mean this with so much sympathy for what you may go through.

If you're suffering and you're so hopeless and in despair, and you're causing other people around you to go, yeah, this is so hopeless, there can't be anything better.

If you're doing that, then repent. I say this with as much sympathy as I can. Repent from suffering that way.

Suffer righteously. There is a way to suffer righteously. For the believer, suffering always, not sometimes, always produces good.

Romans 8 .28 And God is working all things together for our good.

And that's true. But we keep going on in this Christian life and acting like we don't have hope.

Don't suffer unrighteously. Don't go to the operation showing all the doctors that you believe when you die you won't go to heaven.

Don't do that. When someone in your life has passed away and you know that there's a hope for the resurrection, don't sit there and go,

I'll never see them again. There's no hope. Don't tell people that. Suffer righteously.

When you're sick and your whole family gets sick and your family's feeling the unending virus that's been happening all winter, don't sit there and act like it's never going to end.

Don't sit there and act like it's not good. Like God's not working something good out of it. You don't know.

What if you've been so busy forever and ever and you've been running around and you've been running around and the only way to bring you guys back again is make you all sick, right?

You might watch a movie and be home together and read the Bible together and just be home.

You don't know all that God is doing. You don't see all the things that God is doing through that.

So suffer righteously. Suffer as people who have real hope.

Regain your hope. Be renewed day by day. And baffle people in your affliction. I dare you.

I dare you. Don't be fake. But I dare you through true faith to baffle people in your affliction.

May they think the only way that you're getting through this is because there's something supernatural happening in you.

And as James 1 .2 -4 says, consider it all joy. Do you do that?

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

And he says, let endurance have its perfect result so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Do you hear that? Your trials have joy in them because they're producing in you endurance from the testing of your faith.

And you're going to need endurance, church. Metals that are never heated and pounded are weak.

If you never enter the crucible, you will never become what God intended for you to be.

Suffering produces endurance and we need endurance to get us to the end. So when we will be complete and brought before our

God, we need to change our perspectives. Here's what it is with that verse 17.

You can't put suffering on a scale and compare it with the eternal weight of glory.

You can't. The suffering will never compare. It's rendered to nothing.

The eternal weight of glory is always far beyond whatever suffering you ever have gone, are, or will go through.

And lastly, at the end of this same letter, 2

Corinthians 12, Paul speaks of after having these amazing visions, he has a thorn in his flesh.

By the way, we often think of a thorn as very small, a splinter. In the Greek, this can be as large as a big wooden stake in the

Greek language. And so Paul talks about having a thorn in his flesh. Something he left unidentified

I believe for our sakes. Verses 8 and 9. And he says after he implored the

Lord to remove this thorn from his flesh three times, Christ actually speaks to him and says,

My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. And Paul resolves then, most gladly therefore,

I will rather boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

That's the earthen vessel. So what does this mean? Even if the scene that you want never comes, the scene, the remedy, if that never comes, the

Bible says here that Christ's grace is sufficient. It alone. It alone is enough for you and me.

There have been people who lived awful lives. Awful lives.

Especially you think of Christians in the first century when Christ saved them and they were faithful people.

Some people after Christ saved them in the first century endured 40, 50, 60 long and unimaginably trying years for knowing

Jesus in that first century. But for 2 ,000 years, they've experienced the fullness of His grace and glory.

And for them, it's no use to even keep track. They don't know anything about 2 ,000 years, for it will never end.

That suffering that they went through for decades is nothing compared to what they've experienced now for thousands and thousands of more years.

And so, my challenge to all of us is to live like this is our reality.

Suffer with hope knowing Christ suffered for you. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You, Lord, for the way it challenges us.

The way it speaks to these things in our lives, Lord. God, we repent for not suffering righteously.

God, so many times we've been taught by the world in our own flesh wants us to grumble. We want to be discontent in what we go through.

We've conditioned ourselves, God, to think that all the bad that we perceive is always going to be bad.

God, help us to see it today. Help us to see the unseen. Lord, that they're there to produce endurance in us.

That they're there to test our faith and to produce for us this faith of gold,

Peter says. That the impurities would be skimmed off the top of the crucible, Lord.

That we would be rendered beautiful. That we would be treasure. That we would resemble the treasure that's inside of us.

We would no longer be the earthen vessels. No longer the jars of clay, Lord.

That's what You're doing in us. And so, Lord, we repent from thinking all these things will never produce good.

They'll never produce right. And God, we pray that You would help us to see that what we go through isn't even worth comparing to the eternal weight of glory that's there for us.

Help us, Lord, to focus on the unseen moving forward. Not that which we can see.

Not that which can change right now, Lord. Help us to not be so focused on the outer man, but on the inner man.