The garden of Gethsemane reveals encouraging truths about suffering that can transform how Christians navigate their own pain. Two profound insights lie hidden in this familiar passage: Jesus knows the solution before we even encounter the problem, and God deliberately preserved the details of Jesus' suffering so we would know our pain is never foreign to him.
• Jesus went to pray "as was his custom" even facing his darkest hour
• An angel strengthened Jesus, yet he remained in agony
• Supernatural support from God doesn't always end our difficulties but enables us to endure them
• Five elements of a (non-exhaustive) Christian doctrine of suffering: it's promised, unites us with Christ, equips us to comfort others, deepens our dependence on God, and produces spiritual growth
• Suffering has purpose—it produces endurance, character, and hope
• Jesus moved from confidence to conflict and back to confidence again
• Peter's denial was met not with rejection but with Jesus' gaze of love
• God specially preserved the intimate details of Jesus' suffering that no disciple witnessed
• Jesus understands our suffering firsthand—he has carried every grief and sorrow
• Our Savior holds the fix before the failure ever occurs
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Will Hawk (00:00):
opening part of our text this morning.
Callie Wizieck (00:10):
Good morning everybody.
We will be in Luke 22 (00:11):
39 - 34, which is on page 881 in the Pew
Bibles.
I'll give you a couple seconds.
It's a good passage.
Give you a couple seconds, it'sa good passage.
"And he came out and went, aswas his custom, to the Mount of
(00:32):
Olives and the disciplesfollowed him.
And when he came to the place,he said to them pray that you
may not enter temptation.
And he withdrew from them abouta stone's throw and knelt down
and prayed, saying Father, ifyou are willing, remove this cup
from me.
Nevertheless, not my will, butyours be done.
And there appeared to him anangel from heaven, strengthening
(00:55):
him and being in agony.
He prayed more earnestly andhis sweat became like great
drops of blood falling down tothe ground.
And when he rose from prayer hecame to the disciples and found
them sleeping for sorrow.
And he said to them why are yousleeping?
Rise and pray that you may notenter temptation.
And while he was still speaking, there came a crowd and the man
(01:17):
called Judas one of the 12, wasleading them.
He drew near to Jesus to kisshim.
But Jesus said to him Judas,would you betray the son of man
with a kiss?
This is the word of the Lord.
Will Hawk (01:34):
Amen.
I think it's easy to look atthis passage and to sort of
assume man, this is gonna be abit of a heavy Sunday.
We've got Jesus in the garden.
He's praying.
He's asking the Father is thereany way other than this that I
am going to be able toaccomplish this?
(01:55):
God, is there any other way?
Will you take this cup from me?
But can I just tell you I thinkthis is gonna be one of the
most encouraging Sundays wespend together in a couple of
weeks.
As I've been spending time inthis text and praying over it
and thinking about us as afamily, I feel like there are
two Easter eggs hidden in thetall grass of suffering that we
(02:15):
are about to walk through, andthey're not hidden that hard,
they're not that difficult tofind.
I think that Christians oughtto be the best sufferers in the
world, and I think we ought tobe the best sufferers in the
world and I think we ought to bethe best celebrators in the
world.
But our celebration is a fewweeks out, easter's coming,
april the 20th, when we kind ofhit the high watermark of the
Christian season, celebratingthe resurrection and the reality
(02:39):
of the songs that we havealready been singing this
morning.
So, as we sort of walk throughthe tall grass, I want to point
out two eggs, two little Eastereggs, that I want you to be on
the lookout for.
One I want you to look forsomething that is promised, that
you may not even realize is apromise that God has for you if
you are a Christian.
And the second thing that Iwant you to look for is
(03:00):
something that God has speciallypreserved, almost like when I
was in Mr Little's zoology classand we would sneak into the
back hallways between theadjoining rooms.
You could go through and he hadall of these specimens in jars.
You remember the smell offormaldehyde when you would like
work on a frog or on a whatever.
All of these like perfectlylittle preserved things that you
(03:24):
can look in and study.
There is something in this textthat God has made sure never
gets missed, but you're gonnahave to keep your eyes open to
see it.
As we sort of look.
Oh, that's a good start.
There we go, as we sort of lookat this text, let me point out
a couple of things that Calliehas already read for us.
(03:47):
The Bible says and he, beingJesus, came out and, as was his
custom.
These four words tell us thatJesus is doing something he has
always done.
There's an entire sermon inthose four words, because Jesus
knows he is in the shadow of thecross and he might even hear a
(04:11):
blacksmith sharpening a nail ona grindstone and know he may be
walking past brambles of thornsand realize he is hours away
from incredible pain andsuffering, the kind of suffering
that you go to God for and sayis there any way?
Is there any other way?
Is there some way around thisdifficulty?
(04:32):
But in these four words, jesussays me going and quietly,
frequently spending time withthe Father is something I do,
whether I'm in the midst ofsuffering or in the midst of
celebrating.
This is just who Jesus alwayswas.
(04:54):
And he walks away a distance.
We don't know exactly how far.
The Bible just says a stone'sthrow.
I don't know if Peter wasthrowing with his hardened
fisherman net, throwing muscles,or if Matthew the tax collector
just gave it his best.
I have no idea.
But Jesus goes off at a distanceand he begins to pray, a kind
(05:17):
of prayer that some of usstruggle to pray, even though we
know we ought to.
Hey God, is there any other waythan this?
Do I really have to remain here?
Does this big portion of mylife have to be characterized by
this teacher, or this season,or this marriage, or this loss,
(05:43):
or this suffering, or this pain?
God, is there any other way forme to still trust you, for me
to still walk with youfaithfully?
And yet, god, not my will, butyours be done.
And as Jesus is praying thesethings, an angel from heaven
(06:06):
shows up to strengthen him.
Do you realize?
You have to read it slowly toappreciate it.
And there appeared to him anangel from heaven, strengthening
him In your lowest of lowmoments.
How much of a difference wouldit have made if an angel visibly
(06:33):
appeared to you, can I argueYou'd have faith for a minute,
wouldn't you?
Right?
It's like, okay, I can do this.
Now, eight hours later, youmight be struggling Like did I
actually see that?
Did that actually happen?
The doubts will always creep in.
Please don't miss this, becauseit will help you suffer.
Well, christian.
And there appeared to him anangel from heaven, and the angel
(06:56):
did his job fully,strengthening him and being in
agony.
Even after an angel appears,even after an angel strengthens
Jesus, he remains in agony.
(07:20):
Christians, supernatural supportfrom God will not always end
our difficulty.
Rather, it will allow us tosuccessfully endure it.
And if you don't understandthis, you're going to feel like
God doesn't see you.
If you don't understand this,you're going to feel like God
doesn't love you, you're goingto feel like he doesn't care,
(07:41):
you're going to feel like he'snot all powerful.
Keep in mind all right eyes onme for a minute.
This is not your world,Christian.
This is not your life, this isnot your kingdom, this is not
your hope.
This thread, that grass, thisoxygen, is not enough for you.
Never was intended to be, neverwill be on this side of
eternity.
And so what God will do, hewill always, always give us the
(08:06):
ability to endure.
If you were here last week,logan was getting baptized and
he was sharing struggles that hehad had with lust for ages
we're not talking about weeks ormonths for years, and he had
this beautiful little piece inhis testimony.
He shared a scripture and hehas said what is amazing to me
is, over the past number ofmonths, with a 100% success rate
(08:31):
, when I have quoted thisscripture to myself, when lust
has threatened, I have alwaysendured the temptation and made
it through.
What I want you to realize asan angel shows up to Jesus and
yet he remains in agony.
In fact, if you keep looking inthe verse, it says he prayed
all the more earnestly.
He didn't even get the angeland say got what I needed, let's
(08:51):
get back to it.
He's strengthened by God and hesays I gotta pray harder, I
gotta lean into this more.
Why?
Because supernatural supportfrom God is not always gonna end
our difficulty, but rather itwill allow us to endure it.
God will always give you theability to endure and he will
sometimes give you a full-onescape.
(09:13):
We all want the escape, butthere's a reason he doesn't
always give it.
The reason that Christ, thatGod, that the Holy Spirit, does
not always give it to us isbecause there is a robust
theology of suffering for theChristian.
Now let me hit pause for just amoment.
I'm not going to say I'm goingto go through this real quick
(09:36):
and some of you note takers getvery frustrated at me.
I know that I talk fast.
I can't do a thing about it,nothing.
I've tried for years.
This is who I am, who God madeyou to be.
I'm sorry in advance for that.
When you talk fast, you movefast, slides go fast and then
you don't get them.
I will never hold back anyslides from you.
If you come and ask me for themafterward, all right, I am
(09:57):
going to fly through this.
But I also wanted you to knowthis If you're a Christian, you
need a doctrine of suffering.
If you are a Christian, you needa little tablet, a living note,
a postage stamp size, somethingin your world, a tattoo, a key
chain.
You need a doctrine ofsuffering because 99 times out
(10:20):
of 100, you are going to be insome way, shape, form or fashion
.
It might be that you slit yourhand open when you were trying
to fix something and it might bethat you get a cancer diagnosis
.
It could be anywhere in between, but 99.9% of the time there's
going to be some level ofsuffering.
You need a doctrine for it.
So here is a non-exhaustiveChristian doctrine.
(10:43):
My assumption was y'all didn'twant to stay until 9 pm tonight,
so I'm just going to give you afew highlights.
There are way more realitiesthan just these.
By the way, you should alsohave a doctrine of celebration.
Some of you have this down patand you don't know how to laugh
or throw up a high five orcelebrate.
We'll work on that in the weeksto come.
(11:04):
First thing that I would pointto is this is a scriptural
reality For this, and when theBible says this it's referring
to, for this life is a light,momentary affliction that
prepares it, has a purpose forus an eternal weight of glory
beyond all compare.
So number one suffering ispromised, christian.
(11:28):
By the way, if you're not aChristian, if you're a seeker,
if you're just trying to figureout the claims of Christ, if
you're skeptical about theclaims of Christ, it's still
great for you to know, becausethis is going to show you the
kind of Savior that Jesus claimsto be.
He never calls us to walkthrough stuff he hadn't walked
through with deeper mud bootsthan we're going to go through.
(11:49):
Number one suffering is promised.
Indeed, all who desire to livea godly life in Christ Jesus
will be persecuted.
If you want an easy life, justdon't try to live godly, okay.
If you don't wanna be, I'llgive you the key.
Just don't try to live godly,okay.
If you don't want to be, I'llgive you the key.
Just don't try to live godly.
And all of a sudden, this worldis going to lean itself to you.
It will.
(12:09):
The enemy would love nothingmore than for you to traipse
through life enjoying all of thelittle I don't know special
things that this world can offer.
It'll cost you your soul.
It will never be fullysatisfying.
You will have an emptiness thatyou cannot explain.
But oh, I've just screwed up myslide.
There we go.
But if you are going to live agodly life, step one, you ought
(12:34):
to expect this Suffering ispromised.
Number two suffering unites uswith Christ.
When I was growing up in thechurch I never appreciated this.
I don't know why, but maybeit's because when I was a kid I
felt real buddy-buddy with Jesusanyway.
And then I got older and my singot older and I realized how
(12:59):
gross and despicable I was.
And the older and the more Irecognized my own sin, the more
surprised I was that Jesus wouldwant to hang out with a guy
like me.
And so if you're like, well, ofcourse Jesus wants to be close
to me.
Praise God for that.
But for those of us whoquestion why a holy God would
want to be near us, oursuffering unites us with Christ.
Rejoice in so far as, in otherwords, as much as you share in
(13:24):
Christ's sufferings, you willrejoice and be glad when his
glory is revealed.
There's this beautiful littlepromise in this.
Those of us who suffer well forJesus will appreciate Jesus
more than those who do not, andthis is what unites us with him.
The world that we live in isconstantly going to be fleeing
(13:45):
suffering and trying to findcomfort.
When a Christian can build thiskind of a theology, it allows
you to use something sufferingand difficulty that the world
has no clue how to use.
It's like a tool in granddad'sshop that you have no idea what
that thing does.
And as soon as you figure itout all of a sudden what that
thing does, and as soon as youfigure it out all of a sudden,
(14:05):
life changes.
Number three I'm giving youfive.
Suffering equips us to comfortothers.
Blessed be the God of allcomfort who comforts us in all
our affliction Christians.
So I just want you to pick adifficulty that you have walked
through in your life up to thispoint that God has stepped into.
(14:28):
If you can't, you need to comeand talk to us at the end of the
service.
Okay, if you can't come up withone time that God has stepped
in to walk through difficultywith you, I wanna talk to you
before the day is done.
But for those of us who arewalking with Christ and you have
seen God step in I just wonderif you have believed that here
(14:51):
Paul is blessing God, callinghim the God of all comfort not
some comfort even though Jesusremains in agony at the end of
this prayer, even though heremains in agony after the angel
shows up, that he's the God ofall comfort.
He comforts us in all ouraffliction so that we may be
able to comfort those who are inany affliction.
(15:14):
I love this verse.
I love this verse so much.
I'll tell you why I love thisverse Because when people are
suffering, the thing that I hearmost from Christians is I don't
know what to do.
I feel like I'm gonna say thewrong thing.
I feel like I'm not actuallygoing to encourage them.
I feel like I'm gonna make itworse if I'm quite honest.
(15:34):
But do you notice this?
What God is saying is you havewalked through difficulty, being
comforted by God so that youwould be able to comfort those
who are in any affliction.
Now look, if you have walkedthrough cancer, you're gonna be
able to support those who get acancer diagnosis better.
(15:55):
Capital T, true, but do youknow what this verse also tells
me In some very real ways.
Suffering is just suffering,and it doesn't matter if it's an
eight-year-old who lost hisfavorite hat the day before the
big dance, or if it's thethree-year-old who can't find
his teddy before the storm comes, or if it's the single who has
(16:17):
been praying for a spouse, or ifit's somebody who has lost
their spouse, whom they lovedeeply.
In some ways, thatthree-year-old can look into the
eyes of a 78-year-old who issuffering with pain and meet
them in it.
Christians, that is so cool, socool.
(16:38):
But if you don't know this,you're not going to utilize the
affliction that you have gonethrough as an opportunity to say
I may not be walking throughwhat you've walked through, but
I've gone through my valleys.
And can I tell you how Godshowed up?
Can I tell you that I didn'texpect God to show up?
(16:59):
And here is what he showed me.
Number four a non-exhaustivedoctrine of Christian suffering.
Suffering deepens ourdependence on God, for we were
so utterly burdened.
Why To make us rely not onourselves, but on God, who can
raise even the dead?
Why are you suffering,christian?
(17:19):
One of the reasons may beyou're really good at trusting
in yourself, and God loves youtoo much to leave you that way.
God doesn't want you to feellike you can figure life out.
He don't want you to feel likeyou can figure business out
marriage out, children out theneighborhood out.
He don't want you to feel likeyou can figure business out
marriage out, children out theneighborhood out.
He don't want you to feel likeyou can figure your front yard
out.
He don't want you to believethat you can figure your
transmission out.
(17:40):
God wants you to constantly say, like Mr Incredible in the
opening scene of Incrediblesevery time I fix this place,
something breaks.
And the Holy Spirit's like thatis so good for you.
Do you realize how great it isfor you that you can't keep
things fixed, that lifeconstantly feels bigger than
your arms can hold?
(18:00):
Why, oh God, how am I gonnamake it one more day so much
better for you than a day whereyou don't need him?
And finally, number fivesuffering produces spiritual
growth.
I would have you just notice twowords out of this, though I'll.
Suffering produces spiritualgrowth.
I would have you just noticetwo words out of this, though.
I'll read all of them.
We rejoice in our sufferings.
(18:21):
I told you there's more to itthan just these five.
But we rejoice in oursufferings, knowing.
Bank on it, count on it.
That suffering producesendurance, that's a good thing.
Endurance produces characterI'll take some of that and
character produces hope.
But what I would actually haveyou simply notice here is this
Suffering produces.
(18:41):
Suffering produces good things,and Jesus knows it.
He knows that sufferingproduces good things and I
promise you this too.
Jesus is not down in the gardenof Gethsemane, at the Mount,
faking this prayer.
He's not saying I want them tothink I know what it's like, so
(19:04):
I'm just gonna really lean inthe way some of us lean in when
we feel like we just need morefaith to believe we have any at
all.
No, jesus is feeling every bitof this.
This is not fake suffering.
This is not robotic.
This is not fatalistic.
This is not Jesus just readingthrough the script.
This is Jesus saying God, areyou telling me there's no other
(19:25):
way?
I love every one of themcreated in my image, and Stokes
is right when he says every oneof our sins.
When we look at it, we ought tolook to Christ five times more
than we look at our own sin.
But Jesus looks at this.
The creator of the universe,looks at the wood that he
created, at the iron that hemade, at the creature he made in
(19:47):
his own image, and he saysFather, is this really the only
way Suffering produces thingsTrue suffering does?
And this, in the case of Christ, produced confidence,
incredible confidence.
(20:09):
This is the next part of thetext.
Jesus has been praying, anangel has appeared and while he
was still speaking, there came acrowd, and the man called Judas
one of the twelve, don't forget, he's one of them was leading
them.
He drew near to Jesus to kisshim.
I just want to stop at this,but for one moment I don't want
(20:31):
to read any further.
Judas has returned from exactlywhat Jesus said he was going to
do.
Here's what I want you to say.
If you were here last week, Iwant you to remember the
confidence that Jesus had.
If you weren't, let me justgive you high watermarks,
because Jesus goes fromincredible confidence to the
(20:51):
kind of conflict that you and Iunderstand so deeply, right back
to incredible confidence.
Confidence, conflict,confidence.
What kind of confidence?
Well, last week, judas isliterally walking filled with
Satan.
The Bible says and Jesus sayshey, go, do what you need to do,
(21:11):
go.
Confidence.
Peter is looking at himselfwith the worst self-assessment
you can probably have hey, I'llgo to prison, I'll die for you,
jesus.
And Jesus is like no, you won't.
I'm pretty sure before I hearthat rooster three times, you're
gonna say you don't even knowwho I am.
And Jesus looks at him.
He says hey, peter, when youhave turned again.
(21:32):
And Jesus looks at him.
He says, hey, peter, when youhave turned again.
I want you to strengthen theseguys' confidence.
The disciples spend their timearguing in the last meal they
have with Jesus about how greatthey are.
And he looks at them and hesays guys, we're about to go
into a time that is different.
I've been telling you to begenerous.
Store up a little bit of money.
I've been telling you to giveaway your cloak.
Hold on to it.
There are gonna be some coldnights.
I've told you not to get intofights.
(21:54):
Let God fight your battles, butstick a couple of swords by the
corner.
I need people to know that youare protected, because I am not
going to be here.
This is how you are to operateconfidence.
And then, with the greatestamount of conflict we ever see,
jesus have, maybe outside of myGod, my God, why have you
forsaken me God?
(22:15):
Life maybe outside of my God,my God?
Why have you forsaken me God?
Is there any other way?
And then he gets up from prayerand is already confident again.
This is what intimacy with Goddoes.
This is what a theology ofsuffering does.
This is what trusting thatsuffering produces something
good does.
And Judas draws near to kiss him.
(22:35):
But Jesus said to him Judas,would you betray the son of man
with a kiss Confidence?
Jesus knows he's about to getdragged out and he looks Judas
in the eye and he's like really,this is how you want this to go
about.
And when those who were aroundhim saw what would follow
everybody can see this comingthey said Lord, shall we strike
with the sword?
(22:55):
And then one of them fivedollars to the camp store.
If you can guess which one ofthem did this?
The yeah, yeah, the impulsiveone.
You gotta love the fact thatone disciple's like Jesus is now
the sword, time Is it, is itnow?
And Peter's like it must beright, like it's just how he
plays it out Watch theconfidence of Christ.
Jesus says no more of this, cutit out.
(23:18):
This is not what I want.
The guy who's about to bedragged out, is telling both
warring parties stop and theylisten to the confidence of
Christ.
Not only that, he touched hisear and healed him.
Jesus has to bend over near thesame dirt that he just covered
(23:40):
with his tears and pick up anear and, using no command strips
at all, nor an impressivesurgeon, stitch, sticks the
thing back on.
How do you drag the guy off?
After that?
A lot of hate, a lot of sin,and it's in a lot of us.
And Jesus said to the chiefpriests and the officers of the
(24:01):
temple and the elders he says toevery big, impressive person
who had come out against himhave you come out as against a
robber?
He gives them this incredible,logical statement You're coming
out with swords and clubs.
Don't you guys remember?
I was with you day after day inthe temple?
You didn't lay hands on me.
Confidence.
(24:22):
Jesus looks at the most powerfulpeople who were coming to him
at night with clubs and torchesand he says timeout, flag on the
field.
I've been doing this for threeyears.
If you had a problem with me,why didn't you just come while I
was in the midst of teaching?
Confidence, do you not wantyour life to look like this?
(24:42):
Confidence, honesty with yourconflict and then bounce right
back to confident.
That's how I want to live.
Is it just because it's Jesus?
I don't think so.
And Jesus turns at him and hesays but this is your hour, this
is the power of darkness.
(25:04):
Look at, the confidence ofChrist Speaks right to Judas,
tells them no more of thiswarring, when Peter's little
kerfuffle would have been thebeautiful distraction for Jesus
to sort of slip away into thedarkness of the night.
But he doesn't.
He looks at those who werewarring against him and he heals
them.
(25:25):
He has a theology of sufferingand he looks at them and he says
here's the deal, this is yourhour.
If I were going to give you afifth theology of suffering for
the Christian, it's temporary.
Jesus says hey, this is yourhour.
If I were gonna give you afifth theology of suffering for
the Christian, it's temporary.
Jesus says hey, this is yourhour, this is your minute.
Don't waste it.
This is all you're gonna get,because ever since Genesis 3.15,
we've been looking for this.
(25:45):
Do y'all remember Genesis 3.15?
Adam and Eve.
The serpent is going to strikethe heel of the Savior.
He's going to bruise.
So be it, strike away, give ityour best shot.
Bruise me as much as you can.
(26:06):
This is the only chance you'regoing to get, and they do.
Christians, this life is yourhour to suffer.
This life is your time to bebruised.
Christians, this life is yourtime to be bruised.
Christians, this life is yourtime to limp.
(26:26):
There is an eternity where10,000 years pass by.
In a moment where you will notlimp, there will be no splinter
in your hand, there will be nopainful thought in your mind.
Limp well, christians, becausesuffering produces good stuff.
(26:47):
Jesus went from conflict toconfidence, and we can too.
The most important thing is foryou to make sure it's not your
own doing.
Scripture makes it very clearto us in 1 Peter.
By the way, note takers, I'mnow going to tell you how you
(27:11):
can suffer.
Well, all right, you need tofirst make sure it's not your
own doing.
It doesn't make sense for you tointentionally sabotage your
life with sin and poor decisionsand then say, oh, woe is me
suffering for the Lord.
The Bible has some thoughtsabout this as well.
What credit is there if, whenyou do wrong and are beaten I
(27:35):
know we don't like that, we'lljust say the word punished for
our sensibilities what credit isthere if, when you do wrong and
are punished, you endure it?
What sense does that make?
If my kids do not clean theirroom and I say no TV tonight,
and then I walk past theirbedroom, the door closed,
(27:55):
hearing sobs from the other side.
Oh Lord, see my suffering, seehow I am laying down this time
for you, how I am coming to youwith lack of the beautiful
electric glow that tends tocomfort me in the eve of the
night.
No, that is not a prayer thatGod is taking very seriously.
You should have cleaned yourroom, all right, you're being
(28:17):
punished because you were aknucklehead.
That's what's going on.
Look, when you do wrong and yousuffer, doesn't make sense for
you to get credit for that.
But hey, when you do what isgood and you suffer, if you
endure, and what percentage oftime will God allow you to
endure if you come to him 100%of the time.
(28:38):
This brings favor with God.
To put another way, let none ofyou suffer as a murderer, a
thief, an evildoer or a meddler.
If you feel like meddling inthe affairs of other is no big
deal, sorry, little free sermonfor you.
Just know that God's word tucksit in with murder, thief and
evildoer, all right.
So maybe don't meddle in theplans.
(28:59):
Encourage one another, shootfor unity.
That's a freebie.
But if anyone suffers as aChristian, let him not be
ashamed.
Let him glorify God in havingthat name.
I am suffering because I am aChristian.
My knees are in the dirtbecause I'm trusting in Christ.
My tears are falling because Iam trusting in Christ.
(29:22):
Do you feel yourself beingaligned with your Savior?
You ought to, because that'sexactly what God wants.
So if you have made sure thatyour suffering is not your own
doing, here's how you can use it.
Number one show the world thatyou expect it.
This is toolkit type stuff.
This is people saying hey, Ireally struggle with evangelism.
(29:43):
I'm about to make it very easyfor you.
I do not know how to point myneighbors to Christ outside of
inviting them to church onEaster and Christmas.
Go for it.
Let me give you another way.
How am I supposed to live forJesus on the soccer field?
How am I supposed to live forJesus around the water cooler?
I'm about to show you Numberone show the world that you
expect suffering.
(30:04):
Now there are a couple ofdifferent ways that you can do
this.
Let me tell you the wrong wayto do this.
Everything was going just fine.
I knew this was going to happen, because everything was going
good.
I knew that something bad wasgoing to come.
Might I argue with you?
This is not a very good witnessfor an onlooking world.
I'll tell you what is what is.
(30:24):
And, guys, again, it doesn'thave to be the biggest stuff.
It can be small.
It can be your kid because of astorm getting rained out from
going to the trampoline park andlooking at him and saying,
buddy, we knew this stuff wasgoing to happen.
God's not surprised by this.
This world is not going tosatisfy us, and that is okay.
(30:47):
It is okay for us to bedisappointed.
It's okay for us to be let down, so long as, when we are, we
realize God is not the one whois disappointing or letting us
down.
He's allowing us to say thisworld is never really going to
satisfy me.
And I now am going to read toyou the longest quote I have
ever read on a Sunday.
(31:08):
Apologies in advance.
Glasses on nerds.
We're going to hit Spurgeon, bythe way.
We're just going to hang outwith Spurgeon for the next 10
minutes while we close thispuppy out.
When you know difficulty by theway, my words are on the top,
they're not nearly as good asthe paragraph to follow when you
know difficulty is coming, itis less likely to shake your
confidence.
When you know difficulty iscoming, less likely to shake
(31:34):
your confidence.
But please don't be the, ofcourse here.
It is no duh.
This world stinks.
Be the.
Hey.
God's giving me some good stuff.
I'm going to walk throughdifficulty too.
This world is never going tosatisfy me.
Now know this.
You Christian people especiallyknow this.
And then it will preventdisappointments.
If you begin your Christian lifeimagining that, because you are
a Christian, everything is togo smoothly with you and that
(31:55):
you are henceforth never to haveany more troubles, you will be
bitterly disappointed when thethorns and thistles begin to
spring up.
But expect them, look forwardto them.
Why?
Because suffering producesChristian.
Squeeze the suffering untilgoodness comes out and then,
(32:16):
when they do come, half of theirsting will be gone.
You will say well, when I tookthis farm, spurgeon is just
imagining that he bought a farm.
Sorry, I'm bringing you halfwayinto his sermon.
Well, when I took this farm, Iknew that thorns and thistles
would spring up.
I calculated upon seeing themNow that they have come up.
To be forewarned is, in a greatmeasure, to be forearmed.
(32:39):
If I know disappointment iscoming in this life, if I know
this life cannot satisfy me, ittakes half the sting away
because I never expect it to bemore than it can, I shall not
sit down and weep with bitterdisappointment, for what I
suffer is no more than Iexpected.
Christians, show the world thatyou expect it, but do so
(33:00):
positively.
Secondly, another way to useyour suffering thank God for its
absence.
Thank God when you are in aseason when you are not
suffering.
If this world was neveractually made to satisfy us and
we find ourselves in asatisfactory place, thank God
for that moment.
And if you are in that momenttoday, next week or a month from
(33:23):
now, take a little of the extrafull measure of the cup of how
enjoyable your life is and shareit with those who might not be
in that place.
Take that endurance, take thatenthusiasm, take that
expectation of God's goodness asthe absence of suffering is
around, and share the overflowwith those who are in the midst
(33:45):
of it.
Additionally, thank God for thepurposes of suffering.
Charles Spurgeon quote numbertwo.
Significantly shorterAffliction is God's black dog
that he sends after wanderingsheep to bring them back to the
fold.
Oh, that's good stuff.
Put a black dog on your keychain.
(34:06):
It'll help you.
It'll help you every time itcomes.
You're just bringing me back in.
Now, listen, sheep.
Let me tell you two ways torespond to a black dog.
Fight it if you want.
Push against it, show it yourscary little sheep teeth and
roar at it with your scarylittle sheep roar.
Or just turn around so thatyour legs don't need to be
(34:28):
nipped much and just walk in theway you knew you were supposed
to in the first place.
God sends difficulty because heloves you too much to allow
difficulty to continue.
This, by the way, is what manyof us in the church are praying
for in the life of someone whois walking through church
discipline as a church right now, I am praying that the black
(34:48):
dog of God's affliction andprovidence will nip at the heels
of this man, whom I love, thathe would turn and that he would
walk toward the path ofrighteousness.
Number three I'm only givingyou four.
Here's how to use your suffering.
Add on to number one.
Show the world that you expectit to end.
(35:09):
Show the world that, no matterwhat suffering comes, this too
shall pass.
There is only one lifetime thatI have to navigate this, and I
fully expect that this will goto the wayside.
This suffering may pass in amoment.
This suffering may pass in amoment.
This suffering may pass in amonth, or this suffering may
pass in this lifetime.
(35:30):
Either way, it is minuscule inthe light of the eternity that
God has invited me into.
And finally, if you want to useyour suffering, look to Christ,
not this world, and bring othersalong with you.
If you're going to look toChrist in your suffering, grab
somebody by the arm and dragthem in.
(35:51):
I'm not saying drag them intheir suffering.
I'm saying drag them into yours.
Hey, I hadn't told you what'sgoing on in my life.
In a little while I've beenembarrassed, ashamed, I haven't
navigated this real well, but Ijust wanted you to know that I'm
really suffering in fill in theblank and I'm only letting you
(36:12):
know because I'm hoping that youwill walk with me through it.
I don't have high expectations,I don't expect you to fix this,
but I'm looking to Christ and Iwould love to have a partner in
that.
But I'm looking to Christ and Iwould love to have a partner in
that and maybe in a number ofmonths, when I am alleviated of
suffering and you are walkingthrough it, we can, brother to
brother or sister to sister,show the world that we fully
(36:35):
expect this.
To end, final Charles Spurgeonquote for the day the Lord does
not mean believers to besatisfied with this world If you
are his child, however fairyour portion here.
He means you to be alwaysrestless until you rest in him
and never be fully satisfieduntil you wake up in his
(36:58):
likeness.
Now the two Easter eggs I wantedyou to find in the tall grass
of suffering as we close out ourtime in this text.
Then they seized him.
Let me explain a couple ofpronouns.
They would be the mob.
They're gonna come up againhere.
This is the mob and him isJesus.
(37:18):
Then the mob seized him and ledJesus away, bringing him into
the high priest house and Peterwas following at a distance.
And when they the mob kindled afire in the middle of the
courtyard and sat down together,peter sat down among them.
I just want you to realize, Iwant you to see where everybody
(37:40):
is.
Jesus has been taken at night.
It's probably four or fiveo'clock in the morning, based on
some historical markers that wecan find in other corroborating
scriptures Four to five o'clockin the morning, most likely.
Jesus is now taken intosomebody's private home to be
put on trial in the most illegalcourt case that the world has
probably ever seen, against themost innocent man that the world
(38:03):
has ever seen.
And Peter, who raised his handto go to jail and to die for
Jesus, is still walking that outto this point.
He is with them.
He is with the mob that draggedJesus off, sitting around a
campfire with their faces onlypartially seen in the darkness
of a night that is not inhibitedby electric light.
(38:26):
Then a servant girl.
All right, remember Jesus.
Confidence conflict, confidence, peter, confidence conflict.
Let's see anybody wanna guesswhere Peter's going.
He's not getting more confident.
Then a servant girl, a big,scary servant girl with immense
amounts of power and prestige.
(38:47):
No, it's a little kid whowandered out of the room looking
for a donut that's what'shappening here; Looked at Peter
and says this man was also withhim.
I'm not sure about it, but Ifeel pretty confident.
And Peter can't handle it.
But he denied it, saying woman,he gave her a little more
(39:08):
credit than it seems like therest of the text does.
I do not know him.
Denial one, and a little latersomeone else saw him and said
you also are one of them.
But Peter said man, I am notwith him.
And after an interval of aboutan hour, still another insisted,
saying they've been hanging outat the campfire for a couple of
(39:29):
hours.
At this point, certainly thisman also is with him.
He too is a Galilean.
But Peter said man, I do notknow what you are talking about.
I don't know this guy.
And immediately, while he wasstill speaking man, I do not
know what you are talking about,the rooster crows.
(39:54):
I didn't think that was goingto be funny.
That's like the reason I saythat it says, as he was still
talking, he can't even get thelast sentence out of his mouth.
To me, one of the biggest gutpunches in all of scripture is
what we're about to read this isa soccer ball hitting you in
solar plexus whatever that'scalled your tum-tum and the wind
(40:16):
is completely knocked out.
You hit your knee and you can'tbreathe.
Here it is Immediately while hewas still speaking, the rooster
crowed and the Lord turned andlooked at Peter, and Peter
remembered the saying of theLord Jesus I'll go to prison and
(40:38):
die for you.
Not yet buddy One day, but notthis day, not this night, how he
had said to him before therooster crows today you will
deny me three times.
And Peter went out and weptbitterly.
What did the eyes of Christlook like to Peter in that
(41:00):
moment?
He wasn't angry, he wasn't fullof rage or wrath.
There certainly wasn't an, Itold you.
So he's looking at Peter andhe's saying buddy, I've loved
you.
I've loved you before you wereborn.
I've known every sin you'dcommit.
I've listened to every bit ofyour confidence and I have known
(41:22):
you're going to turn away fromme.
And this moment is going towound Peter.
It is going to wound himgreatly, but suffering for the
Christian produces good things,and this very wound is going to
be the thing that builds himback up Easter egg number one in
(41:46):
the tall grass of suffering,something that was promised.
I just want you to notice this.
The Lord turned and looked atPeter and Peter remembered Simon
.
Satan demanded to have you thathe might sift you like wheat.
I've prayed for you.
You know what my prayers looklike that your faith may not
(42:08):
fail.
And when you have turned, jesusknew the fix before the failure
ever happened.
Jesus turns to Peter at thesame moment Peter turns from
Christ.
He told him this was going tohappen and he then told him
(42:29):
something incredible.
He told Peter not only that hewould turn away from him, but
that he would turn back as well.
Which means this is the firstEaster egg hidden in the tall
grass of suffering, means thisis the first Easter egg hidden
in the tall grass of suffering.
Jesus knows the fix before thefailure ever occurs.
(42:50):
We were playing soccer lastweekend.
Ames is wearing glasses.
He's getting used to his newcontacts.
The kid's a rock star.
He can put them in, doesn'tneed any help, never complains
about it.
I'm super impressed with it.
I don't like touching myeyeball.
He walked into the doctor andwas like is it good that I can
do this?
And they're like you're goingto be set kid Like awesome, but
we ran out of contacts for hissoccer game, so he's got this
(43:11):
old pair of glasses on.
He runs onto the field andwithin 45 seconds gets tackled
by a bigger kid.
His glasses fall to the ground.
The soccer ball of all theplaces it could go, because
suffering is used by God rollsright over his glasses and snaps
the little thing off.
What do we do?
The kid literally can't playwithout him.
(43:32):
Okay, like vision's not great.
So what do we do?
My wife, a mother of three boys, says there's super glue in the
car and dad takes off and I runlonger and faster than I've run
in like years.
And I get there and then I haveto be steady and I'm like don't
(43:53):
screw them up, these areexpensive, don't want to wreck
it, come on, you can do this.
Dad, get them together, runback, run around to the sideline
, give them to the coach.
Coach calls the kid here you go, puts the band on and back into
the game he goes.
You know what that's being agood dad, that's being a good
mom.
But do you know what it wouldhave looked like if Jesus was on
the sideline?
(44:13):
Amos would have run out ontothe field, he would have been
tackled, his glasses would havefallen, the soccer ball would
have rolled right over, wouldhave rolled right over.
He would have looked up likewhat am I going to do?
And Jesus would have beenholding the super glue in his
hand.
This is why Christians Cansuffer so well, because your
(44:39):
savior, your savior, knows thefix Before the failure Ever
happens.
Hear me on this the failure youare in today, christ already
holds the fix for, and thefailure you don't see coming
(44:59):
tomorrow is just as ready in hishands.
Why fix yourself?
Why run to the car?
Why hope that the glue hasn'talready dried out?
Why get your fingerprints allover the glasses?
Just turn to Jesus.
Every time we fall, every timewe scrape our knee in this world
, every time splinters getpushed deep into our calloused
(45:19):
skin, every time we wanderaround in the darkness and bump
into things, jesus has the fixbefore the failure ever occurs.
That is Easter egg number one.
Jesus saw it coming before itever happened.
Easter egg number two,something specially preserved it
was so important to God that weknow that Jesus enters into our
(45:43):
suffering.
It is so important to God thatyou know that Jesus enters into
our suffering.
It is so important to God thatyou know that Jesus will not
reject you because of yourweakness or fear or failure that
I want to ask you this oh, bythe way, no, it's fine, bump it.
(46:06):
All right.
Here's my question how do youknow Jesus prayed a prayer like
this?
How do you know that Jesuscried like this?
I'm not being rhetorical.
You're okay to get answerswrong in this place.
(46:27):
Wrong people come in.
They never stop coming in.
The goal is not to have theright answers, it's to know the
one who does.
How do you actually know this?
Happened Anybody?
All right, well, let's go home,since you have nothing to bank
on.
How do we know that thishappened?
It's in Scripture.
Who wrote it down?
Who wrote this down?
(46:50):
No trick questions.
Come on Luke.
What was Luke doing when thishappened?
So how does Luke know thishappened?
Okay, check this out, becauseit's beautiful.
Who saw Jesus pray like this?
Nobody.
How far away?
Were they?
A stone's throw?
Was it Peter?
(47:10):
I don't know?
Was it Matthew?
But it was at distance.
What time was it?
It was the middle of the night.
You can't see.
Not only are they at distance,what are the disciples doing
while Jesus is praying like this?
Sleeping?
How well are they sleeping?
They miss an angel.
That's a pretty deep sleep.
Some of you guys woke up for astorm last night.
They didn't wake up for anangel, you think.
(47:32):
If they saw an angel 30 minutesbefore, they wouldn't have said
, when people show up with clubsand torches, hey Jesus, how
about some more of that angelaction?
Can we get one of those?
That'd be pretty great.
Right now, this exists.
Put your eyes on the screen orin the book, or in your phone.
The reason this exists isbecause God chose to preserve it
(47:53):
for you.
Nobody else saw this.
Seemingly, the Holy Spirit,christ, after his resurrection,
had to tell them I know whatit's like to suffer.
You never saw me suffer.
You saw this, but you didn'tknow I was suffering before it
even happened.
This moment is speciallypreserved for us.
Why?
(48:14):
Because our struggle withsuffering is not foreign to
Jesus.
It is familiar to him and Godwants you to know it.
How familiar Stokes or Bennett,whoever come on up, how familiar
(48:38):
is it, this familiar?
Surely, he, being Jesus, hasborne our griefs, every grief
you have ever felt Christ hascarried.
He has carried not only ourgrief but our sorrow as well.
I don't know how many nightsyou have walked through the
darkness, I don't know how manystruggles you have been through,
but Christ, christian, hascarried them all.
And yet we esteemed him, notimpressive, not as a savior.
(49:00):
Humanity looked at him with allof our brokenness and all of
our sin.
And do you know what we said?
He's smitten by God and he'safflicted.
This guy, just like the blindguy that I started our service
with, must have done somethingwrong.
If God really had this guy ashis son, he would never end up
here.
Why?
Because we, like sheep, havegone astray.
(49:22):
Every one of us we have youready to enter into this story
Turned just like Peter did.
Jesus told us about our sin.
We knew it was going to happen.
We thought we'd be able tomanage it and just as Peter
turned away, we turn away, everyone of us.
(49:42):
And instead we decided to do itour own way and even as we did
the promise that was made beforeyou realized you needed to fix,
the Lord went ahead and laid onJesus the iniquity of us all.
(50:03):
As Peter turns from Jesus, jesusturns toward Peter, and as we
turn from Jesus, jesus turnstoward us.
This is the beauty of thegospel, this is the good news of
the invitation of Christ, andit has zero expiration date, so
long as you are breathing.
If you do not believe this,jesus is going to feel
(50:25):
inaccessible or robotic.
It's going to feel like afather that you can never please
and a hamster wheel of attemptsthat seem endless, rather than
a relationship of covenantallove.
But if you do believe this, it'sgoing to look not just like a
model that Jesus sets for us.
It's going to look not justlike a model that Jesus sets for
(50:48):
us.
It's going to look likerealizing that God knows that
conflict is real and normal andthat he expects you to walk
through it, and that, whileJesus was walking through this
something that no one couldexperience there are going to be
times when your best friend andwhen your family will not be
able to understand, they willnot be able to step in and they
will not be able to bring enoughcomfort, but Jesus can.
(51:09):
There's not a soul who ever hassuffered more than him, and if
our theology of suffering tellsus we suffer so that we can
support those around us, you arenever going to out.
Suffer Christ, and there is nosuffering that he will not be
able to remedy because he isholding the fix in his hand.
Every one of us has turned fromJesus, but what would it look
(51:31):
like for you to turn toward himtoday?
And this question is the samefor the believer, the unbeliever
, the skeptic and the seeker.
What would it look like for youto turn back to Jesus today?
Take a moment and think.
Look over Isaiah 53.
If you want a moment of silenceto just pursue the Lord, please
(51:54):
take the back porch.
If you want to share, celebrateor receive prayer, we'll have
folks on the side and we'll goto the back, or eventually,
stokes will get us to stand upand sing songs to a Savior who
deserves every one of them.
Let's worship together.
opening part of our text this morning.
Callie Wizieck (00:10):
Good morning everybody.
We will be in Luke 22 (00:11):
39 - 34, which is on page 881 in the Pew
Bibles.
I'll give you a couple seconds.
It's a good passage.
Give you a couple seconds, it'sa good passage.
"And he came out and went, aswas his custom, to the Mount of
(00:32):
Olives and the disciplesfollowed him.
And when he came to the place,he said to them pray that you
may not enter temptation.
And he withdrew from them abouta stone's throw and knelt down
and prayed, saying Father, ifyou are willing, remove this cup
from me.
Nevertheless, not my will, butyours be done.
And there appeared to him anangel from heaven, strengthening
(00:55):
him and being in agony.
He prayed more earnestly andhis sweat became like great
drops of blood falling down tothe ground.
And when he rose from prayer hecame to the disciples and found
them sleeping for sorrow.
And he said to them why are yousleeping?
Rise and pray that you may notenter temptation.
And while he was still speaking, there came a crowd and the man
(01:17):
called Judas one of the 12, wasleading them.
He drew near to Jesus to kisshim.
But Jesus said to him Judas,would you betray the son of man
with a kiss?
This is the word of the Lord.
Will Hawk (01:34):
Amen.
I think it's easy to look atthis passage and to sort of
assume man, this is gonna be abit of a heavy Sunday.
We've got Jesus in the garden.
He's praying.
He's asking the Father is thereany way other than this that I
am going to be able toaccomplish this?
(01:55):
God, is there any other way?
Will you take this cup from me?
But can I just tell you I thinkthis is gonna be one of the
most encouraging Sundays wespend together in a couple of
weeks.
As I've been spending time inthis text and praying over it
and thinking about us as afamily, I feel like there are
two Easter eggs hidden in thetall grass of suffering that we
(02:15):
are about to walk through, andthey're not hidden that hard,
they're not that difficult tofind.
I think that Christians oughtto be the best sufferers in the
world, and I think we ought tobe the best sufferers in the
world and I think we ought to bethe best celebrators in the
world.
But our celebration is a fewweeks out, easter's coming,
april the 20th, when we kind ofhit the high watermark of the
Christian season, celebratingthe resurrection and the reality
(02:39):
of the songs that we havealready been singing this
morning.
So, as we sort of walk throughthe tall grass, I want to point
out two eggs, two little Eastereggs, that I want you to be on
the lookout for.
One I want you to look forsomething that is promised, that
you may not even realize is apromise that God has for you if
you are a Christian.
And the second thing that Iwant you to look for is
(03:00):
something that God has speciallypreserved, almost like when I
was in Mr Little's zoology classand we would sneak into the
back hallways between theadjoining rooms.
You could go through and he hadall of these specimens in jars.
You remember the smell offormaldehyde when you would like
work on a frog or on a whatever.
All of these like perfectlylittle preserved things that you
(03:24):
can look in and study.
There is something in this textthat God has made sure never
gets missed, but you're gonnahave to keep your eyes open to
see it.
As we sort of look.
Oh, that's a good start.
There we go, as we sort of lookat this text, let me point out
a couple of things that Calliehas already read for us.
(03:47):
The Bible says and he, beingJesus, came out and, as was his
custom.
These four words tell us thatJesus is doing something he has
always done.
There's an entire sermon inthose four words, because Jesus
knows he is in the shadow of thecross and he might even hear a
(04:11):
blacksmith sharpening a nail ona grindstone and know he may be
walking past brambles of thornsand realize he is hours away
from incredible pain andsuffering, the kind of suffering
that you go to God for and sayis there any way?
Is there any other way?
Is there some way around thisdifficulty?
(04:32):
But in these four words, jesussays me going and quietly,
frequently spending time withthe Father is something I do,
whether I'm in the midst ofsuffering or in the midst of
celebrating.
This is just who Jesus alwayswas.
(04:54):
And he walks away a distance.
We don't know exactly how far.
The Bible just says a stone'sthrow.
I don't know if Peter wasthrowing with his hardened
fisherman net, throwing muscles,or if Matthew the tax collector
just gave it his best.
I have no idea.
But Jesus goes off at a distanceand he begins to pray, a kind
(05:17):
of prayer that some of usstruggle to pray, even though we
know we ought to.
Hey God, is there any other waythan this?
Do I really have to remain here?
Does this big portion of mylife have to be characterized by
this teacher, or this season,or this marriage, or this loss,
(05:43):
or this suffering, or this pain?
God, is there any other way forme to still trust you, for me
to still walk with youfaithfully?
And yet, god, not my will, butyours be done.
And as Jesus is praying thesethings, an angel from heaven
(06:06):
shows up to strengthen him.
Do you realize?
You have to read it slowly toappreciate it.
And there appeared to him anangel from heaven, strengthening
him In your lowest of lowmoments.
How much of a difference wouldit have made if an angel visibly
(06:33):
appeared to you, can I argueYou'd have faith for a minute,
wouldn't you?
Right?
It's like, okay, I can do this.
Now, eight hours later, youmight be struggling Like did I
actually see that?
Did that actually happen?
The doubts will always creep in.
Please don't miss this, becauseit will help you suffer.
Well, christian.
And there appeared to him anangel from heaven, and the angel
(06:56):
did his job fully,strengthening him and being in
agony.
Even after an angel appears,even after an angel strengthens
Jesus, he remains in agony.
(07:20):
Christians, supernatural supportfrom God will not always end
our difficulty.
Rather, it will allow us tosuccessfully endure it.
And if you don't understandthis, you're going to feel like
God doesn't see you.
If you don't understand this,you're going to feel like God
doesn't love you, you're goingto feel like he doesn't care,
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you're going to feel like he'snot all powerful.
Keep in mind all right eyes onme for a minute.
This is not your world,Christian.
This is not your life, this isnot your kingdom, this is not
your hope.
This thread, that grass, thisoxygen, is not enough for you.
Never was intended to be, neverwill be on this side of
eternity.
And so what God will do, hewill always, always give us the
(08:06):
ability to endure.
If you were here last week,logan was getting baptized and
he was sharing struggles that hehad had with lust for ages
we're not talking about weeks ormonths for years, and he had
this beautiful little piece inhis testimony.
He shared a scripture and hehas said what is amazing to me
is, over the past number ofmonths, with a 100% success rate
(08:31):
, when I have quoted thisscripture to myself, when lust
has threatened, I have alwaysendured the temptation and made
it through.
What I want you to realize asan angel shows up to Jesus and
yet he remains in agony.
In fact, if you keep looking inthe verse, it says he prayed
all the more earnestly.
He didn't even get the angeland say got what I needed, let's
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get back to it.
He's strengthened by God and hesays I gotta pray harder, I
gotta lean into this more.
Why?
Because supernatural supportfrom God is not always gonna end
our difficulty, but rather itwill allow us to endure it.
God will always give you theability to endure and he will
sometimes give you a full-onescape.
(09:13):
We all want the escape, butthere's a reason he doesn't
always give it.
The reason that Christ, thatGod, that the Holy Spirit, does
not always give it to us isbecause there is a robust
theology of suffering for theChristian.
Now let me hit pause for just amoment.
I'm not going to say I'm goingto go through this real quick
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and some of you note takers getvery frustrated at me.
I know that I talk fast.
I can't do a thing about it,nothing.
I've tried for years.
This is who I am, who God madeyou to be.
I'm sorry in advance for that.
When you talk fast, you movefast, slides go fast and then
you don't get them.
I will never hold back anyslides from you.
If you come and ask me for themafterward, all right, I am
(09:57):
going to fly through this.
But I also wanted you to knowthis If you're a Christian, you
need a doctrine of suffering.
If you are a Christian, you needa little tablet, a living note,
a postage stamp size, somethingin your world, a tattoo, a key
chain.
You need a doctrine ofsuffering because 99 times out
(10:20):
of 100, you are going to be insome way, shape, form or fashion
.
It might be that you slit yourhand open when you were trying
to fix something and it might bethat you get a cancer diagnosis
.
It could be anywhere in between, but 99.9% of the time there's
going to be some level ofsuffering.
You need a doctrine for it.
So here is a non-exhaustiveChristian doctrine.
(10:43):
My assumption was y'all didn'twant to stay until 9 pm tonight,
so I'm just going to give you afew highlights.
There are way more realitiesthan just these.
By the way, you should alsohave a doctrine of celebration.
Some of you have this down patand you don't know how to laugh
or throw up a high five orcelebrate.
We'll work on that in the weeksto come.
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First thing that I would pointto is this is a scriptural
reality For this, and when theBible says this it's referring
to, for this life is a light,momentary affliction that
prepares it, has a purpose forus an eternal weight of glory
beyond all compare.
So number one suffering ispromised, christian.
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By the way, if you're not aChristian, if you're a seeker,
if you're just trying to figureout the claims of Christ, if
you're skeptical about theclaims of Christ, it's still
great for you to know, becausethis is going to show you the
kind of Savior that Jesus claimsto be.
He never calls us to walkthrough stuff he hadn't walked
through with deeper mud bootsthan we're going to go through.
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Number one suffering is promised.
Indeed, all who desire to livea godly life in Christ Jesus
will be persecuted.
If you want an easy life, justdon't try to live godly, okay.
If you don't wanna be, I'llgive you the key.
Just don't try to live godly,okay.
If you don't want to be, I'llgive you the key.
Just don't try to live godly.
And all of a sudden, this worldis going to lean itself to you.
It will.
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The enemy would love nothingmore than for you to traipse
through life enjoying all of thelittle I don't know special
things that this world can offer.
It'll cost you your soul.
It will never be fullysatisfying.
You will have an emptiness thatyou cannot explain.
But oh, I've just screwed up myslide.
There we go.
But if you are going to live agodly life, step one, you ought
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to expect this Suffering ispromised.
Number two suffering unites uswith Christ.
When I was growing up in thechurch I never appreciated this.
I don't know why, but maybeit's because when I was a kid I
felt real buddy-buddy with Jesusanyway.
And then I got older and my singot older and I realized how
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gross and despicable I was.
And the older and the more Irecognized my own sin, the more
surprised I was that Jesus wouldwant to hang out with a guy
like me.
And so if you're like, well, ofcourse Jesus wants to be close
to me.
Praise God for that.
But for those of us whoquestion why a holy God would
want to be near us, oursuffering unites us with Christ.
Rejoice in so far as, in otherwords, as much as you share in
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Christ's sufferings, you willrejoice and be glad when his
glory is revealed.
There's this beautiful littlepromise in this.
Those of us who suffer well forJesus will appreciate Jesus
more than those who do not, andthis is what unites us with him.
The world that we live in isconstantly going to be fleeing
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suffering and trying to findcomfort.
When a Christian can build thiskind of a theology, it allows
you to use something sufferingand difficulty that the world
has no clue how to use.
It's like a tool in granddad'sshop that you have no idea what
that thing does.
And as soon as you figure itout all of a sudden what that
thing does, and as soon as youfigure it out all of a sudden,
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life changes.
Number three I'm giving youfive.
Suffering equips us to comfortothers.
Blessed be the God of allcomfort who comforts us in all
our affliction Christians.
So I just want you to pick adifficulty that you have walked
through in your life up to thispoint that God has stepped into.
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If you can't, you need to comeand talk to us at the end of the
service.
Okay, if you can't come up withone time that God has stepped
in to walk through difficultywith you, I wanna talk to you
before the day is done.
But for those of us who arewalking with Christ and you have
seen God step in I just wonderif you have believed that here
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Paul is blessing God, callinghim the God of all comfort not
some comfort even though Jesusremains in agony at the end of
this prayer, even though heremains in agony after the angel
shows up, that he's the God ofall comfort.
He comforts us in all ouraffliction so that we may be
able to comfort those who are inany affliction.
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I love this verse.
I love this verse so much.
I'll tell you why I love thisverse Because when people are
suffering, the thing that I hearmost from Christians is I don't
know what to do.
I feel like I'm gonna say thewrong thing.
I feel like I'm not actuallygoing to encourage them.
I feel like I'm gonna make itworse if I'm quite honest.
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But do you notice this?
What God is saying is you havewalked through difficulty, being
comforted by God so that youwould be able to comfort those
who are in any affliction.
Now look, if you have walkedthrough cancer, you're gonna be
able to support those who get acancer diagnosis better.
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Capital T, true, but do youknow what this verse also tells
me In some very real ways.
Suffering is just suffering,and it doesn't matter if it's an
eight-year-old who lost hisfavorite hat the day before the
big dance, or if it's thethree-year-old who can't find
his teddy before the storm comes, or if it's the single who has
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been praying for a spouse, or ifit's somebody who has lost
their spouse, whom they lovedeeply.
In some ways, thatthree-year-old can look into the
eyes of a 78-year-old who issuffering with pain and meet
them in it.
Christians, that is so cool, socool.
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But if you don't know this,you're not going to utilize the
affliction that you have gonethrough as an opportunity to say
I may not be walking throughwhat you've walked through, but
I've gone through my valleys.
And can I tell you how Godshowed up?
Can I tell you that I didn'texpect God to show up?
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And here is what he showed me.
Number four a non-exhaustivedoctrine of Christian suffering.
Suffering deepens ourdependence on God, for we were
so utterly burdened.
Why To make us rely not onourselves, but on God, who can
raise even the dead?
Why are you suffering,christian?
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One of the reasons may beyou're really good at trusting
in yourself, and God loves youtoo much to leave you that way.
God doesn't want you to feellike you can figure life out.
He don't want you to feel likeyou can figure business out
marriage out, children out theneighborhood out.
He don't want you to feel likeyou can figure business out
marriage out, children out theneighborhood out.
He don't want you to feel likeyou can figure your front yard
out.
He don't want you to believethat you can figure your
transmission out.
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God wants you to constantly say, like Mr Incredible in the
opening scene of Incrediblesevery time I fix this place,
something breaks.
And the Holy Spirit's like thatis so good for you.
Do you realize how great it isfor you that you can't keep
things fixed, that lifeconstantly feels bigger than
your arms can hold?
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Why, oh God, how am I gonnamake it one more day so much
better for you than a day whereyou don't need him?
And finally, number fivesuffering produces spiritual
growth.
I would have you just notice twowords out of this, though I'll.
Suffering produces spiritualgrowth.
I would have you just noticetwo words out of this, though.
I'll read all of them.
We rejoice in our sufferings.
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I told you there's more to itthan just these five.
But we rejoice in oursufferings, knowing.
Bank on it, count on it.
That suffering producesendurance, that's a good thing.
Endurance produces characterI'll take some of that and
character produces hope.
But what I would actually haveyou simply notice here is this
Suffering produces.
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Suffering produces good things,and Jesus knows it.
He knows that sufferingproduces good things and I
promise you this too.
Jesus is not down in the gardenof Gethsemane, at the Mount,
faking this prayer.
He's not saying I want them tothink I know what it's like, so
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I'm just gonna really lean inthe way some of us lean in when
we feel like we just need morefaith to believe we have any at
all.
No, jesus is feeling every bitof this.
This is not fake suffering.
This is not robotic.
This is not fatalistic.
This is not Jesus just readingthrough the script.
This is Jesus saying God, areyou telling me there's no other
(19:25):
way?
I love every one of themcreated in my image, and Stokes
is right when he says every oneof our sins.
When we look at it, we ought tolook to Christ five times more
than we look at our own sin.
But Jesus looks at this.
The creator of the universe,looks at the wood that he
created, at the iron that hemade, at the creature he made in
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his own image, and he saysFather, is this really the only
way Suffering produces thingsTrue suffering does?
And this, in the case of Christ, produced confidence,
incredible confidence.
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This is the next part of thetext.
Jesus has been praying, anangel has appeared and while he
was still speaking, there came acrowd, and the man called Judas
one of the twelve, don't forget, he's one of them was leading
them.
He drew near to Jesus to kisshim.
I just want to stop at this,but for one moment I don't want
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to read any further.
Judas has returned from exactlywhat Jesus said he was going to
do.
Here's what I want you to say.
If you were here last week, Iwant you to remember the
confidence that Jesus had.
If you weren't, let me justgive you high watermarks,
because Jesus goes fromincredible confidence to the
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kind of conflict that you and Iunderstand so deeply, right back
to incredible confidence.
Confidence, conflict,confidence.
What kind of confidence?
Well, last week, judas isliterally walking filled with
Satan.
The Bible says and Jesus sayshey, go, do what you need to do,
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go.
Confidence.
Peter is looking at himselfwith the worst self-assessment
you can probably have hey, I'llgo to prison, I'll die for you,
jesus.
And Jesus is like no, you won't.
I'm pretty sure before I hearthat rooster three times, you're
gonna say you don't even knowwho I am.
And Jesus looks at him.
He says hey, peter, when youhave turned again.
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And Jesus looks at him.
He says, hey, peter, when youhave turned again.
I want you to strengthen theseguys' confidence.
The disciples spend their timearguing in the last meal they
have with Jesus about how greatthey are.
And he looks at them and hesays guys, we're about to go
into a time that is different.
I've been telling you to begenerous.
Store up a little bit of money.
I've been telling you to giveaway your cloak.
Hold on to it.
There are gonna be some coldnights.
I've told you not to get intofights.
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Let God fight your battles, butstick a couple of swords by the
corner.
I need people to know that youare protected, because I am not
going to be here.
This is how you are to operateconfidence.
And then, with the greatestamount of conflict we ever see,
jesus have, maybe outside of myGod, my God, why have you
forsaken me God?
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Life maybe outside of my God,my God?
Why have you forsaken me God?
Is there any other way?
And then he gets up from prayerand is already confident again.
This is what intimacy with Goddoes.
This is what a theology ofsuffering does.
This is what trusting thatsuffering produces something
good does.
And Judas draws near to kiss him.
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But Jesus said to him Judas,would you betray the son of man
with a kiss Confidence?
Jesus knows he's about to getdragged out and he looks Judas
in the eye and he's like really,this is how you want this to go
about.
And when those who were aroundhim saw what would follow
everybody can see this comingthey said Lord, shall we strike
with the sword?
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And then one of them fivedollars to the camp store.
If you can guess which one ofthem did this?
The yeah, yeah, the impulsiveone.
You gotta love the fact thatone disciple's like Jesus is now
the sword, time Is it, is itnow?
And Peter's like it must beright, like it's just how he
plays it out Watch theconfidence of Christ.
Jesus says no more of this, cutit out.
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This is not what I want.
The guy who's about to bedragged out, is telling both
warring parties stop and theylisten to the confidence of
Christ.
Not only that, he touched hisear and healed him.
Jesus has to bend over near thesame dirt that he just covered
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with his tears and pick up anear and, using no command strips
at all, nor an impressivesurgeon, stitch, sticks the
thing back on.
How do you drag the guy off?
After that?
A lot of hate, a lot of sin,and it's in a lot of us.
And Jesus said to the chiefpriests and the officers of the
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temple and the elders he says toevery big, impressive person
who had come out against himhave you come out as against a
robber?
He gives them this incredible,logical statement You're coming
out with swords and clubs.
Don't you guys remember?
I was with you day after day inthe temple?
You didn't lay hands on me.
Confidence.
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Jesus looks at the most powerfulpeople who were coming to him
at night with clubs and torchesand he says timeout, flag on the
field.
I've been doing this for threeyears.
If you had a problem with me,why didn't you just come while I
was in the midst of teaching?
Confidence, do you not wantyour life to look like this?
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Confidence, honesty with yourconflict and then bounce right
back to confident.
That's how I want to live.
Is it just because it's Jesus?
I don't think so.
And Jesus turns at him and hesays but this is your hour, this
is the power of darkness.
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Look at, the confidence ofChrist Speaks right to Judas,
tells them no more of thiswarring, when Peter's little
kerfuffle would have been thebeautiful distraction for Jesus
to sort of slip away into thedarkness of the night.
But he doesn't.
He looks at those who werewarring against him and he heals
them.
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He has a theology of sufferingand he looks at them and he says
here's the deal, this is yourhour.
If I were going to give you afifth theology of suffering for
the Christian, it's temporary.
Jesus says hey, this is yourhour.
If I were gonna give you afifth theology of suffering for
the Christian, it's temporary.
Jesus says hey, this is yourhour, this is your minute.
Don't waste it.
This is all you're gonna get,because ever since Genesis 3.15,
we've been looking for this.
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Do y'all remember Genesis 3.15?
Adam and Eve.
The serpent is going to strikethe heel of the Savior.
He's going to bruise.
So be it, strike away, give ityour best shot.
Bruise me as much as you can.
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This is the only chance you'regoing to get, and they do.
Christians, this life is yourhour to suffer.
This life is your time to bebruised.
Christians, this life is yourtime to be bruised.
Christians, this life is yourtime to limp.
(26:26):
There is an eternity where10,000 years pass by.
In a moment where you will notlimp, there will be no splinter
in your hand, there will be nopainful thought in your mind.
Limp well, christians, becausesuffering produces good stuff.
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Jesus went from conflict toconfidence, and we can too.
The most important thing is foryou to make sure it's not your
own doing.
Scripture makes it very clearto us in 1 Peter.
By the way, note takers, I'mnow going to tell you how you
(27:11):
can suffer.
Well, all right, you need tofirst make sure it's not your
own doing.
It doesn't make sense for you tointentionally sabotage your
life with sin and poor decisionsand then say, oh, woe is me
suffering for the Lord.
The Bible has some thoughtsabout this as well.
What credit is there if, whenyou do wrong and are beaten I
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know we don't like that, we'lljust say the word punished for
our sensibilities what credit isthere if, when you do wrong and
are punished, you endure it?
What sense does that make?
If my kids do not clean theirroom and I say no TV tonight,
and then I walk past theirbedroom, the door closed,
(27:55):
hearing sobs from the other side.
Oh Lord, see my suffering, seehow I am laying down this time
for you, how I am coming to youwith lack of the beautiful
electric glow that tends tocomfort me in the eve of the
night.
No, that is not a prayer thatGod is taking very seriously.
You should have cleaned yourroom, all right, you're being
(28:17):
punished because you were aknucklehead.
That's what's going on.
Look, when you do wrong and yousuffer, doesn't make sense for
you to get credit for that.
But hey, when you do what isgood and you suffer, if you
endure, and what percentage oftime will God allow you to
endure if you come to him 100%of the time.
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This brings favor with God.
To put another way, let none ofyou suffer as a murderer, a
thief, an evildoer or a meddler.
If you feel like meddling inthe affairs of other is no big
deal, sorry, little free sermonfor you.
Just know that God's word tucksit in with murder, thief and
evildoer, all right.
So maybe don't meddle in theplans.
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Encourage one another, shootfor unity.
That's a freebie.
But if anyone suffers as aChristian, let him not be
ashamed.
Let him glorify God in havingthat name.
I am suffering because I am aChristian.
My knees are in the dirtbecause I'm trusting in Christ.
My tears are falling because Iam trusting in Christ.
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Do you feel yourself beingaligned with your Savior?
You ought to, because that'sexactly what God wants.
So if you have made sure thatyour suffering is not your own
doing, here's how you can use it.
Number one show the world thatyou expect it.
This is toolkit type stuff.
This is people saying hey, Ireally struggle with evangelism.
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I'm about to make it very easyfor you.
I do not know how to point myneighbors to Christ outside of
inviting them to church onEaster and Christmas.
Go for it.
Let me give you another way.
How am I supposed to live forJesus on the soccer field?
How am I supposed to live forJesus around the water cooler?
I'm about to show you Numberone show the world that you
expect suffering.
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Now there are a couple ofdifferent ways that you can do
this.
Let me tell you the wrong wayto do this.
Everything was going just fine.
I knew this was going to happen, because everything was going
good.
I knew that something bad wasgoing to come.
Might I argue with you?
This is not a very good witnessfor an onlooking world.
I'll tell you what is what is.
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And, guys, again, it doesn'thave to be the biggest stuff.
It can be small.
It can be your kid because of astorm getting rained out from
going to the trampoline park andlooking at him and saying,
buddy, we knew this stuff wasgoing to happen.
God's not surprised by this.
This world is not going tosatisfy us, and that is okay.
(30:47):
It is okay for us to bedisappointed.
It's okay for us to be let down, so long as, when we are, we
realize God is not the one whois disappointing or letting us
down.
He's allowing us to say thisworld is never really going to
satisfy me.
And I now am going to read toyou the longest quote I have
ever read on a Sunday.
(31:08):
Apologies in advance.
Glasses on nerds.
We're going to hit Spurgeon, bythe way.
We're just going to hang outwith Spurgeon for the next 10
minutes while we close thispuppy out.
When you know difficulty by theway, my words are on the top,
they're not nearly as good asthe paragraph to follow when you
know difficulty is coming, itis less likely to shake your
confidence.
When you know difficulty iscoming, less likely to shake
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your confidence.
But please don't be the, ofcourse here.
It is no duh.
This world stinks.
Be the.
Hey.
God's giving me some good stuff.
I'm going to walk throughdifficulty too.
This world is never going tosatisfy me.
Now know this.
You Christian people especiallyknow this.
And then it will preventdisappointments.
If you begin your Christian lifeimagining that, because you are
a Christian, everything is togo smoothly with you and that
(31:55):
you are henceforth never to haveany more troubles, you will be
bitterly disappointed when thethorns and thistles begin to
spring up.
But expect them, look forwardto them.
Why?
Because suffering producesChristian.
Squeeze the suffering untilgoodness comes out and then,
(32:16):
when they do come, half of theirsting will be gone.
You will say well, when I tookthis farm, spurgeon is just
imagining that he bought a farm.
Sorry, I'm bringing you halfwayinto his sermon.
Well, when I took this farm, Iknew that thorns and thistles
would spring up.
I calculated upon seeing themNow that they have come up.
To be forewarned is, in a greatmeasure, to be forearmed.
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If I know disappointment iscoming in this life, if I know
this life cannot satisfy me, ittakes half the sting away
because I never expect it to bemore than it can, I shall not
sit down and weep with bitterdisappointment, for what I
suffer is no more than Iexpected.
Christians, show the world thatyou expect it, but do so
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positively.
Secondly, another way to useyour suffering thank God for its
absence.
Thank God when you are in aseason when you are not
suffering.
If this world was neveractually made to satisfy us and
we find ourselves in asatisfactory place, thank God
for that moment.
And if you are in that momenttoday, next week or a month from
(33:23):
now, take a little of the extrafull measure of the cup of how
enjoyable your life is and shareit with those who might not be
in that place.
Take that endurance, take thatenthusiasm, take that
expectation of God's goodness asthe absence of suffering is
around, and share the overflowwith those who are in the midst
(33:45):
of it.
Additionally, thank God for thepurposes of suffering.
Charles Spurgeon quote numbertwo.
Significantly shorterAffliction is God's black dog
that he sends after wanderingsheep to bring them back to the
fold.
Oh, that's good stuff.
Put a black dog on your keychain.
(34:06):
It'll help you.
It'll help you every time itcomes.
You're just bringing me back in.
Now, listen, sheep.
Let me tell you two ways torespond to a black dog.
Fight it if you want.
Push against it, show it yourscary little sheep teeth and
roar at it with your scarylittle sheep roar.
Or just turn around so thatyour legs don't need to be
(34:28):
nipped much and just walk in theway you knew you were supposed
to in the first place.
God sends difficulty because heloves you too much to allow
difficulty to continue.
This, by the way, is what manyof us in the church are praying
for in the life of someone whois walking through church
discipline as a church right now, I am praying that the black
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dog of God's affliction andprovidence will nip at the heels
of this man, whom I love, thathe would turn and that he would
walk toward the path ofrighteousness.
Number three I'm only givingyou four.
Here's how to use your suffering.
Add on to number one.
Show the world that you expectit to end.
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Show the world that, no matterwhat suffering comes, this too
shall pass.
There is only one lifetime thatI have to navigate this, and I
fully expect that this will goto the wayside.
This suffering may pass in amoment.
This suffering may pass in amoment.
This suffering may pass in amonth, or this suffering may
pass in this lifetime.
(35:30):
Either way, it is minuscule inthe light of the eternity that
God has invited me into.
And finally, if you want to useyour suffering, look to Christ,
not this world, and bring othersalong with you.
If you're going to look toChrist in your suffering, grab
somebody by the arm and dragthem in.
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I'm not saying drag them intheir suffering.
I'm saying drag them into yours.
Hey, I hadn't told you what'sgoing on in my life.
In a little while I've beenembarrassed, ashamed, I haven't
navigated this real well, but Ijust wanted you to know that I'm
really suffering in fill in theblank and I'm only letting you
(36:12):
know because I'm hoping that youwill walk with me through it.
I don't have high expectations,I don't expect you to fix this,
but I'm looking to Christ and Iwould love to have a partner in
that.
But I'm looking to Christ and Iwould love to have a partner in
that and maybe in a number ofmonths, when I am alleviated of
suffering and you are walkingthrough it, we can, brother to
brother or sister to sister,show the world that we fully
(36:35):
expect this.
To end, final Charles Spurgeonquote for the day the Lord does
not mean believers to besatisfied with this world If you
are his child, however fairyour portion here.
He means you to be alwaysrestless until you rest in him
and never be fully satisfieduntil you wake up in his
(36:58):
likeness.
Now the two Easter eggs I wantedyou to find in the tall grass
of suffering as we close out ourtime in this text.
Then they seized him.
Let me explain a couple ofpronouns.
They would be the mob.
They're gonna come up againhere.
This is the mob and him isJesus.
(37:18):
Then the mob seized him and ledJesus away, bringing him into
the high priest house and Peterwas following at a distance.
And when they the mob kindled afire in the middle of the
courtyard and sat down together,peter sat down among them.
I just want you to realize, Iwant you to see where everybody
(37:40):
is.
Jesus has been taken at night.
It's probably four or fiveo'clock in the morning, based on
some historical markers that wecan find in other corroborating
scriptures Four to five o'clockin the morning, most likely.
Jesus is now taken intosomebody's private home to be
put on trial in the most illegalcourt case that the world has
probably ever seen, against themost innocent man that the world
(38:03):
has ever seen.
And Peter, who raised his handto go to jail and to die for
Jesus, is still walking that outto this point.
He is with them.
He is with the mob that draggedJesus off, sitting around a
campfire with their faces onlypartially seen in the darkness
of a night that is not inhibitedby electric light.
(38:26):
Then a servant girl.
All right, remember Jesus.
Confidence conflict, confidence, peter, confidence conflict.
Let's see anybody wanna guesswhere Peter's going.
He's not getting more confident.
Then a servant girl, a big,scary servant girl with immense
amounts of power and prestige.
(38:47):
No, it's a little kid whowandered out of the room looking
for a donut that's what'shappening here; Looked at Peter
and says this man was also withhim.
I'm not sure about it, but Ifeel pretty confident.
And Peter can't handle it.
But he denied it, saying woman,he gave her a little more
(39:08):
credit than it seems like therest of the text does.
I do not know him.
Denial one, and a little latersomeone else saw him and said
you also are one of them.
But Peter said man, I am notwith him.
And after an interval of aboutan hour, still another insisted,
saying they've been hanging outat the campfire for a couple of
(39:29):
hours.
At this point, certainly thisman also is with him.
He too is a Galilean.
But Peter said man, I do notknow what you are talking about.
I don't know this guy.
And immediately, while he wasstill speaking man, I do not
know what you are talking about,the rooster crows.
(39:54):
I didn't think that was goingto be funny.
That's like the reason I saythat it says, as he was still
talking, he can't even get thelast sentence out of his mouth.
To me, one of the biggest gutpunches in all of scripture is
what we're about to read this isa soccer ball hitting you in
solar plexus whatever that'scalled your tum-tum and the wind
(40:16):
is completely knocked out.
You hit your knee and you can'tbreathe.
Here it is Immediately while hewas still speaking, the rooster
crowed and the Lord turned andlooked at Peter, and Peter
remembered the saying of theLord Jesus I'll go to prison and
(40:38):
die for you.
Not yet buddy One day, but notthis day, not this night, how he
had said to him before therooster crows today you will
deny me three times.
And Peter went out and weptbitterly.
What did the eyes of Christlook like to Peter in that
(41:00):
moment?
He wasn't angry, he wasn't fullof rage or wrath.
There certainly wasn't an, Itold you.
So he's looking at Peter andhe's saying buddy, I've loved
you.
I've loved you before you wereborn.
I've known every sin you'dcommit.
I've listened to every bit ofyour confidence and I have known
(41:22):
you're going to turn away fromme.
And this moment is going towound Peter.
It is going to wound himgreatly, but suffering for the
Christian produces good things,and this very wound is going to
be the thing that builds himback up Easter egg number one in
(41:46):
the tall grass of suffering,something that was promised.
I just want you to notice this.
The Lord turned and looked atPeter and Peter remembered Simon
.
Satan demanded to have you thathe might sift you like wheat.
I've prayed for you.
You know what my prayers looklike that your faith may not
(42:08):
fail.
And when you have turned, jesusknew the fix before the failure
ever happened.
Jesus turns to Peter at thesame moment Peter turns from
Christ.
He told him this was going tohappen and he then told him
(42:29):
something incredible.
He told Peter not only that hewould turn away from him, but
that he would turn back as well.
Which means this is the firstEaster egg hidden in the tall
grass of suffering, means thisis the first Easter egg hidden
in the tall grass of suffering.
Jesus knows the fix before thefailure ever occurs.
(42:50):
We were playing soccer lastweekend.
Ames is wearing glasses.
He's getting used to his newcontacts.
The kid's a rock star.
He can put them in, doesn'tneed any help, never complains
about it.
I'm super impressed with it.
I don't like touching myeyeball.
He walked into the doctor andwas like is it good that I can
do this?
And they're like you're goingto be set kid Like awesome, but
we ran out of contacts for hissoccer game, so he's got this
(43:11):
old pair of glasses on.
He runs onto the field andwithin 45 seconds gets tackled
by a bigger kid.
His glasses fall to the ground.
The soccer ball of all theplaces it could go, because
suffering is used by God rollsright over his glasses and snaps
the little thing off.
What do we do?
The kid literally can't playwithout him.
(43:32):
Okay, like vision's not great.
So what do we do?
My wife, a mother of three boys, says there's super glue in the
car and dad takes off and I runlonger and faster than I've run
in like years.
And I get there and then I haveto be steady and I'm like don't
(43:53):
screw them up, these areexpensive, don't want to wreck
it, come on, you can do this.
Dad, get them together, runback, run around to the sideline
, give them to the coach.
Coach calls the kid here you go, puts the band on and back into
the game he goes.
You know what that's being agood dad, that's being a good
mom.
But do you know what it wouldhave looked like if Jesus was on
the sideline?
(44:13):
Amos would have run out ontothe field, he would have been
tackled, his glasses would havefallen, the soccer ball would
have rolled right over, wouldhave rolled right over.
He would have looked up likewhat am I going to do?
And Jesus would have beenholding the super glue in his
hand.
This is why Christians Cansuffer so well, because your
(44:39):
savior, your savior, knows thefix Before the failure Ever
happens.
Hear me on this the failure youare in today, christ already
holds the fix for, and thefailure you don't see coming
(44:59):
tomorrow is just as ready in hishands.
Why fix yourself?
Why run to the car?
Why hope that the glue hasn'talready dried out?
Why get your fingerprints allover the glasses?
Just turn to Jesus.
Every time we fall, every timewe scrape our knee in this world
, every time splinters getpushed deep into our calloused
(45:19):
skin, every time we wanderaround in the darkness and bump
into things, jesus has the fixbefore the failure ever occurs.
That is Easter egg number one.
Jesus saw it coming before itever happened.
Easter egg number two,something specially preserved it
was so important to God that weknow that Jesus enters into our
(45:43):
suffering.
It is so important to God thatyou know that Jesus enters into
our suffering.
It is so important to God thatyou know that Jesus will not
reject you because of yourweakness or fear or failure that
I want to ask you this oh, bythe way, no, it's fine, bump it.
(46:06):
All right.
Here's my question how do youknow Jesus prayed a prayer like
this?
How do you know that Jesuscried like this?
I'm not being rhetorical.
You're okay to get answerswrong in this place.
(46:27):
Wrong people come in.
They never stop coming in.
The goal is not to have theright answers, it's to know the
one who does.
How do you actually know this?
Happened Anybody?
All right, well, let's go home,since you have nothing to bank
on.
How do we know that thishappened?
It's in Scripture.
Who wrote it down?
Who wrote this down?
(46:50):
No trick questions.
Come on Luke.
What was Luke doing when thishappened?
So how does Luke know thishappened?
Okay, check this out, becauseit's beautiful.
Who saw Jesus pray like this?
Nobody.
How far away?
Were they?
A stone's throw?
Was it Peter?
(47:10):
I don't know?
Was it Matthew?
But it was at distance.
What time was it?
It was the middle of the night.
You can't see.
Not only are they at distance,what are the disciples doing
while Jesus is praying like this?
Sleeping?
How well are they sleeping?
They miss an angel.
That's a pretty deep sleep.
Some of you guys woke up for astorm last night.
They didn't wake up for anangel, you think.
(47:32):
If they saw an angel 30 minutesbefore, they wouldn't have said
, when people show up with clubsand torches, hey Jesus, how
about some more of that angelaction?
Can we get one of those?
That'd be pretty great.
Right now, this exists.
Put your eyes on the screen orin the book, or in your phone.
The reason this exists isbecause God chose to preserve it
(47:53):
for you.
Nobody else saw this.
Seemingly, the Holy Spirit,christ, after his resurrection,
had to tell them I know whatit's like to suffer.
You never saw me suffer.
You saw this, but you didn'tknow I was suffering before it
even happened.
This moment is speciallypreserved for us.
Why?
(48:14):
Because our struggle withsuffering is not foreign to
Jesus.
It is familiar to him and Godwants you to know it.
How familiar Stokes or Bennett,whoever come on up, how familiar
(48:38):
is it, this familiar?
Surely, he, being Jesus, hasborne our griefs, every grief
you have ever felt Christ hascarried.
He has carried not only ourgrief but our sorrow as well.
I don't know how many nightsyou have walked through the
darkness, I don't know how manystruggles you have been through,
but Christ, christian, hascarried them all.
And yet we esteemed him, notimpressive, not as a savior.
(49:00):
Humanity looked at him with allof our brokenness and all of
our sin.
And do you know what we said?
He's smitten by God and he'safflicted.
This guy, just like the blindguy that I started our service
with, must have done somethingwrong.
If God really had this guy ashis son, he would never end up
here.
Why?
Because we, like sheep, havegone astray.
(49:22):
Every one of us we have youready to enter into this story
Turned just like Peter did.
Jesus told us about our sin.
We knew it was going to happen.
We thought we'd be able tomanage it and just as Peter
turned away, we turn away, everyone of us.
(49:42):
And instead we decided to do itour own way and even as we did
the promise that was made beforeyou realized you needed to fix,
the Lord went ahead and laid onJesus the iniquity of us all.
(50:03):
As Peter turns from Jesus, jesusturns toward Peter, and as we
turn from Jesus, jesus turnstoward us.
This is the beauty of thegospel, this is the good news of
the invitation of Christ, andit has zero expiration date, so
long as you are breathing.
If you do not believe this,jesus is going to feel
(50:25):
inaccessible or robotic.
It's going to feel like afather that you can never please
and a hamster wheel of attemptsthat seem endless, rather than
a relationship of covenantallove.
But if you do believe this, it'sgoing to look not just like a
model that Jesus sets for us.
It's going to look not justlike a model that Jesus sets for
(50:48):
us.
It's going to look likerealizing that God knows that
conflict is real and normal andthat he expects you to walk
through it, and that, whileJesus was walking through this
something that no one couldexperience there are going to be
times when your best friend andwhen your family will not be
able to understand, they willnot be able to step in and they
will not be able to bring enoughcomfort, but Jesus can.
(51:09):
There's not a soul who ever hassuffered more than him, and if
our theology of suffering tellsus we suffer so that we can
support those around us, you arenever going to out.
Suffer Christ, and there is nosuffering that he will not be
able to remedy because he isholding the fix in his hand.
Every one of us has turned fromJesus, but what would it look
(51:31):
like for you to turn toward himtoday?
And this question is the samefor the believer, the unbeliever
, the skeptic and the seeker.
What would it look like for youto turn back to Jesus today?
Take a moment and think.
Look over Isaiah 53.
If you want a moment of silenceto just pursue the Lord, please
(51:54):
take the back porch.
If you want to share, celebrateor receive prayer, we'll have
folks on the side and we'll goto the back, or eventually,
stokes will get us to stand upand sing songs to a Savior who
deserves every one of them.
Let's worship together.
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