00;00;02;17 - 00;00;25;02
Brenton
This is further a weekly show for the people of Harmony Bible Church, where we seek to revisit and expand on Sunday sermons with the goal of growing deeper in biblical truth that transforms our lives. Welcome back to Further. In Britain, grim and today we're actually doing something a little bit different because we had three different people preaching this week.

00;00;25;05 - 00;00;38;27
Brenton
So we have all three of them here. So Andrew Weise was in Fort Madison, Nathan Williams was in Burlington, and Christian Frey was in Danville. So welcome, guys. Thanks for coming.

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Andrew
Thanks for having us.

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Nathan
Thank you. Yep.

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Brenton
I want to start with Andrew. On Sunday, you spent some time and defined the love of Christ in verse 35, and I think that's a good place to start here. If. If the promise in this text is going to be a comfort to us, we need to know. You know what? What? We're not being separated from. And so could you help us kind of define that phrase, love of Christ to get us started today?

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Andrew
Yeah, absolutely. Actually, I find it interesting, Paul uses the phrase the love of Christ in 35, and then in 39, he says, the love of God in Christ Jesus. And so I think there is a slight distinction between the two. So I'm going to broaden the answer a little bit here. You know, in John 316, for God's sake, love the world, he gave his only begotten son who believes in him so not perish, but have eternal life.

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Andrew
So we see God has a love for us. We saw a couple of weeks ago that this this for knowledge of us, it's a relational knowledge. He's choosing us. He's he's choosing to put his love upon us. And so so we certainly see that in this this passage. I think where the love of Christ is unique is that I think it's specifically referring to or narrowing in on Christ's demonstration of his love for us and his sacrifice on the cross.

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Andrew
And so we see that, I think, from from this passage here. But even more broadly in Scripture, it's God shows his love for us. And this while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And then in Second Corinthians 514, for the love of Christ, controls us because we have concluded this, that one has died for all. And so when I think of what Paul's communicating here, I think primarily what he's communicating is that Christ's love for us is at least demonstrated in his act of sacrificing himself on the cross for our sins and in the process giving us all the promises of salvation.

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Andrew
So justification, sanctification, glorification, adoption as God's children. And that is what we cannot be separated from. That cannot be taken from us.

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Brenton
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's easy to see love as just a affection instead of I mean, what I, with the Bible, actually uses the word love, which is those are actions. Those are you had quoted on Sunday, D.C. talk song Love is a verb.

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Andrew
That's right. So love. That's right.

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Brenton
That's right. Yep. So I think that's an important thing to keep in mind.

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Brenton
Nathan We were talking earlier about Psalm 44, and that's, that's the song that Paul quotes in verse 36. He says, For your sake, we're being killed. All day long. We were regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. And you were mentioning, you found it interesting that this psalm is is quite clear that the suffering the author is experiencing isn't his fault.

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Brenton
Or it wasn't that that people or groups fault. Verse 17 says that all this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you and we have not been false to your covenant. So why do you think that that is significant that Paul chose this psalm to quote?

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Nathan
Yeah. It this this verse has always just been when I read that passage is such a powerful passage like Paul, why did you have to throw this in here? But then when we actually dig into it, you know, I mean, a lot of the suffering that the children of Israel dealt with in the Old Testament was because of their sin and God was chastising them, but actually not this one.

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Nathan
Just from the verse that you just read, you know, I mean, all this has come upon us that we have not forgotten you and have not been false to your covenant. Our hearts had not turned back, nor have we departed. And then he goes on a couple of verses later, if we had forgotten your name, the name of our God, or spread our hands out to foreign gods, would not God have discovered this, For He knows the secrets of our heart.

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Nathan
And then the verse comes. Here's the verse quoted by Paul. Yet for your sake, we are being killed all the day. It's not for my sake, For what I've done. It's worth being killed for your sake and regarded as the sheep to be slaughtered. It just. I just had to wrap my head around that a little bit. And then it's like, okay, so why did you put that in there?

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Nathan
And I think and I talked a little bit in Burlington about the health and wealth gospel of the Army, and it always seems to think about, Well, I'm being punished because I'm not good enough or I'm not, you know what I mean? Or this is why the hardships come upon me. But that's not always the case. You know, sometimes, you know, Hebrews 11 pointed out really good when it says some are, some of you are some of the saints have been tortured or mocked or flogged or in chains or imprisoned, experienced imprisonment or stoned or so on.

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Nathan
And two are killed by the sword. And I think what Paul is saying is sometimes we do this because God allows this to happen, because we're Christians. And it's kind of like, so when this happens, we shouldn't lose heart and sort of say, Oh, well, God's forgot me because he doesn't love me anymore. No. But on the other hand, we should look at and say, No, I get to suffer for the sake of Christ.

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Nathan
And we can have that mindset if we suffer with Christ, then we are identifying with him in his suffering and and it gives us more hope. I love the way James says in James chapter one, verse two, he says, Consider it pure joy. My friends, when you face trials of many times the trials aren't fun by any means, but consider it because what what does what did the trials bring?

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Nathan
Because the testing of your faith. These trials are testing the testing your faith produces perseverance or steadfastness and let steadfastness take its its thing out. And through that, we are made more mature and complete lacking. Now, there's so sometimes we're allowed to go through the trials. God allows them to happen when they do, when they come first of all, with Hebrews Chapter 12, we got to see is it punishment?

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Nathan
Because God says He also chastises those he love. And if we're not getting punished when we're not walking, when we're going down, a simple life, you know, he says, that's a good proof that you're not really a believer, you're an illegitimacy. But if we are following Christ and we are getting chastised, we need to remember that God's steadfast love is still there.

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Nathan
And and the psalmist reminds us that in verse 36, he says, Save us because of your steadfast love. And it's just a reminder that we will, as Christians, we will face the hard times when they come. Remember, God is love is still steadfast and even through, even if it means death, we will not be separated for from him.

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Nathan
It's it's it's a really beautiful thing when you wrap your head around it. This these verses. Yeah.

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Brenton
Absolutely. Yeah. We had talked about that a week or two ago. Just how, you know, when suffering comes up. A lot of times the first response can be like, what did I do? What what is what am I getting punished for? And I mean, reading, reading this verse here for your sake. And he's speaking to God's for God's sake, that that we are being yeah, that we're being killed.

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Nathan
Otherwise it would be for my sake. I'm going through this because of what I've done. But it's not. It's. It's for your sake. Yeah.

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Andrew
Yeah. I love in in the Book of Acts, the early church the Apostles are preaching the truth of the Gospel spreading. People are coming to faith. The Jews are getting jealous and the apostles are brought before the Sanhedrin and questioned about it. And then they're charged not to preach in the name of Jesus anymore. And of course they're like, We can't do that.

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Andrew
We got we got a priest, Jesus. And and so as as they send them out, it says they they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. Then they left. This is the apostles, the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

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Andrew
That's the name of Jesus. And it's is it's an honor to suffer as our Savior did for us. It's a it's a small thing compared to the sufferings that he did. And it's worth it. And it's worth it. I know. Putting my mission's hat on, that was a rallying cry for different missions. Movements in in the last few hundred years is, you know, we're doing this because suffering is is a worthy cause because he he suffered for us.

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Andrew
Hmm.

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Nathan
It's all in perspective, isn't it? If you remember back up a couple of weeks to a sermon, Pastor Chris preached and verse 18 of Chapter eight of Romans says, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that he has revealed to us. And yes, we're going to suffer, but God will not leave us because of His love for us, even through the suffering.

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Nathan
And that's, I think the reminder is there for us. He's still there.

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Christian
I think that also sheds light on how Psalm 44 ends. You know, you see, the psalmist makes his kind of final appeal, not on the basis of what Israel deserves, but rather for the sake of God's love and kindness, his mercy. Right. He says redeem is for the sake of your steadfast love. My suffering has nothing to do with what I deserve, but my deliverance also has nothing to do with what I deserve.

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Christian
It's all because of God's grace, His mercy.

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Brenton
Yeah, it's not really good. Okay, so speaking of, you know, there's those things that kind of make us make us feel insecure and in verse 35, Paul lists things that could seemingly separate us from God. Um, sometimes I think it's it's so easy to get tangled up in things that that make us feel far from God that we don't even realize it's happening.

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Brenton
I wonder if you guys could could kind of name some of those things for yourself. Like what? What things have made you feel insecure about your place before? God?

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Andrew
I know sin is probably the the the biggest thing. And in fact, I remember and how I don't remember when it started from high school, probably into college, just really wrestling with my sin and God's grace and questioning and wondering if I if I could sin enough to lose my salvation or to be out of the love of Christ or whatever.

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Andrew
And I just really remember wrestling and struggling with that. Mm hmm.

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Nathan
I think for me, when I take is when I tend to focus on myself and my abilities. Dwayne, that's when I well, that's when I suffer anxiety and fear. And it's, it's, it's because I'm not trusting in him. And it's not because he loved me any less. It's not that I'm separated from. And in many ways, it's just I have lost focus.

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Nathan
I'm looking at the ground, looking at my feet, where they're going, when I should be looking up and taking his hand and going where I'm leading him. So, so often it's just like I lose focus. And when I lose focus, I forget that that he's there beside me. And I talked about some 13 a.m. in Burlington. And in that Psalm, David is basically saying, Did you forget me?

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Nathan
Did you hide your face? How long or Lord, are you going to hide? He's like the first two verses. He's just like saying, I don't think God's there. He's abandoned me. But by the end, by the last two verses, I had got my head wrapped around this. Now I am going to trust in your hand. Uses the words The very same words actually is the end of sound 44.

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Nathan
But I will trust in your steadfast love. Mm hmm. And then he says, Then there would be a song back in my heart, and I would start to rejoice. So it's losing for me. It's losing focus. And it's easy to lose focus and and rely on ourselves. We need to just get our focus back on God because he will never leave us.

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Nathan
He will never forsake as his love is steadfast and nothing will be able to remove us from his love through Jesus Christ. Yeah.

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Christian
Yeah. I think for me, comparisons are a huge thing in comparison manifest itself in so many ways, but particularly in the age of the internet. And, you know, having these computers in our pockets at all times, you're just perpetually taking in information, content, advertisements. I read recently I heard someone talking about this article that they read about how many ads we take in now versus like 20 years ago.

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Christian
And it was just like completely different universes. The numbers, I don't remember exactly what they were, but yeah, I mean, you can't help sometimes, but, but compare your when you're looking at your phone, although you can help compare your material possessions to, you know, what someone else has or what the algorithm's telling you you should have, you compare your relationships again to what you perceive people in your life and people that aren't even in your life that you, for whatever reason, put on a pedestal what their relationships look like.

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Christian
You compare your job to, again, other people you see out there that presumably have it better or are doing better than you. So yeah, I think comparisons kind of always catching it at my doorstep and making me question if God really loves me, for me, if his love, if that love is is truly inseparable, it's not a fun question to answer, but yeah, it's real.

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Brenton
Now I get that. Yeah. As I was thinking through that, I mean I just the, the worry of, of what's going on in the world, you know, is always kind of been there for me and it seems even real right now of like there's a lot of stuff going on. We have the Russia Ukraine thing we have what just happened in Israel like and like America's involvement in it and even just yeah, world news can make you just kind of take a step back and question question things.

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Brenton
And I just read into this list here that Paul that Paul lays out, you know, he says tribulation or distress. What what would you guys say distress means there? I mean, I guess my question is, could could his list include like things that we're kind of bringing on ourselves or are all these outside like external things that are coming on us?

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Christian
That's a great question. I think that list of seven tends to deal more with external points of oppression. I think then he gets more to the, you know, the spectrum spanning lists of height and depth and life and death, and that maybe gets a little bit more into the things that we bring upon ourselves or the things that we internalize.

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Christian
Yeah, that would just be my initial reaction to that observation.

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Andrew
I would agree with that, especially those first seven. I think he's talking to a church that is going through a lot of external persecution and trials and difficulty.

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Christian
And things he himself has, I think.

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Andrew
As well. Right. And so I think he's he's addressing those first. And and then, like Christian said, broadening it out to include others. But I think I think the Roman church would definitely have identified with those things a lot more than maybe we do in our comfortable Christian American lifestyle.

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Nathan
Well, that.

00;17;22;21 - 00;18;02;08
Brenton
Was that was kind of my thought with that question is that, you know, we persecution is we might see a little bit of it here. But, you know, famine, nakedness, dangers, the word like those aren't things that we can relate to here. I've never been worried about nakedness right. But like, we can all go around this table and explain, like, insecurities or, you know, anxieties or things that kind of pull us back into ourselves and not not like, trust God as much with those things.

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Nathan
I really think take any one of these. It's not that we might be experiencing it right now, but I think the point of it Paul is trying to make is if it comes along, are you going to lose focus? Are you going to say, oh, well, if God really loved me, why he wouldn't let this happen? You know, he's saying when they come along, just remember he's still got you.

00;18;24;12 - 00;18;50;11
Nathan
He still loves you. In fact, nothing will be able to separate you from his love. And so so it's it's kind of a warning. And if you go out going somewhere dangerous and someone warns it, now, be careful where your hiking shoes because this is a slippery slope. You know, whatever it's almost you're anticipating it. Right. So so he gives us these things in anticipation.

00;18;50;11 - 00;19;14;04
Nathan
And so if and when it does come, we're ready. We're ready and safe. Now, Paul already warned us about these things, that these things might come. But just remember, just remember God's still there. He still loves you. He's steadfast. I love that word that we kept keeps getting used in the Psalms. He's steadfast, means he's he's unfailing. He will never let us down.

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Nathan
His love will never let us down. Nothing can separate from us. So. So it's. It's looking ahead with anticipation. And we're not going to climb on the roof or we shouldn't on a really steep roof without our safety harness, you know, I mean, but if we've got up there without it and then we found like so so be ready.

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Nathan
Be ready and when it comes then you know.

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Brenton
Yeah, let's get that. Mm hmm. Okay. So you, you kind of answered this next question, but I'm curious on like, advice from from you guys, and it's going to have to be kind of general, but how can we begin to adopt and accept the truths that Paul is is telling us? I mean, how a lot of people have said is move these things from our head to our hearts, like how do we how do we actually use these in those times for for comfort?

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Andrew
I think that the first thing we need to do is we need to know them. We've got to be exposed to them, and we need to remind ourselves that, you know, suffering is is not something we should actively avoid necessarily. And I think it's okay to try to avoid suffering. But it's pretty clear, You know, Paul talks about it many times that if you desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus, you will be persecuted.

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Andrew
There are going to be trials. The spirit comforts us in our afflictions. It is to be an expected part. And the better we know scriptures and believe them ahead of time. In those moments when the trial comes, it's a lot easier to accept if if we already have that foundation versus us. And I think of this in the counseling world a lot of times as a pastor, I'm counseling someone and they, you know, you're sharing truth, you're looking in scripture and sometimes they're there.

00;21;21;01 - 00;21;58;18
Andrew
They're like, oh, yes. You know, I you know, I'm reminded of this. This is good. And other times it's amazing how many people will go, I've never heard this before. This is in the Bible. And it's like, yeah, like. And so the more we can know God's Word, know his promises, know what to expect. I think it's easier to accept when those trials, when those difficulties, when, when what normally would shock us, it lessens the shock and allows us to respond easier, quicker in a healthier way.

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Brenton
Yeah, maybe I'll maybe I'll expand this a little bit to verse 37. I mean, it says no, in all these things, we're more than conquerors. And so I think that comfort is maybe not the right or the only the only feeling to have there. Maybe it's that we don't shrink back from these things when we're when we're called to.

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Nathan
Yeah, that's, that's I was just going to follow up with that very point that to me when I read this, this is this is like pump your fists in the air. This is an anthem. This is this is a this is a this is just the mountaintop passage because of that part right there. We are more than conquerors.

00;22;35;02 - 00;22;49;22
Nathan
And again, it's your mindset, you know what I mean? When your kid falls down and scrapes his knee and you go, Oh, you poor thing, you know, it just makes them cry. All the more is say, Oh, you're so tough. Get up. You know what I mean? This is like kind of passage, like, Yeah, when this part comes, when you fall down, get up.

00;22;49;22 - 00;23;09;27
Nathan
Because we're more than conquerors. And is it because we're so great? No, it's because God's fighting for. It's this his love, this That's so. So it's to remember that and say, look at this. Is it like this is not for for the for the faint of heart. This is a battle we're in this whole life is about if we follow Christ, we chose to take up our cross.

00;23;09;27 - 00;23;30;26
Nathan
Daly Jesus says, consider the costs if you want. Are you sure you want to follow me? Because if you do, you got to take up your cross and follow me. But what that is, is it is it plunged us into the battle. And this is a battle. But knowing that we got the greatest force in all the world on our side, and that is through him who who loved us, right?

00;23;30;26 - 00;23;52;17
Nathan
That that's his love that's on. And because of that, we are more than conquered. We we can fight through these things. And so it's a matter of looking at it with a really positive way to say, yeah, I can do this. Even in the persecution, even when death comes to us. Like, yeah, but I know the end and the end is victory and it's eternal life with Jesus Christ our Lord and His love is going to bring me through to the other side.

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Nathan
And it's like, yeah, pump my fist in the air. This is awesome, man.

00;23;59;09 - 00;24;25;01
Christian
Yeah. You know, sports betting the last couple of years has become so popular and in some ways, like appropriated just that, that whole concept and subculture. And I think it's because there's this for, for many guys and girls too. You know there's this there's this insatiable urge to put money on a on a game because it's like, what if they win?

00;24;25;01 - 00;24;51;00
Christian
You know, what if they lose? But what if they win? Yeah, but we have this, like in in response to this particular subject. We have this, like, Marty McFly approach, right? Where he finds the next the future movie. He basically gets the sportsbook that that predicts the next like I forget how many you know championship games and he's like, man, I'm going to keep this you know, because he's going to go and he's going to be able to to never lose a Sportsbet.

00;24;51;02 - 00;25;15;03
Christian
Yeah. And similarly, you know, Chris Carr said before, we don't work for victory or we don't work towards victory where we work from victory because the battle is is won through the cross. Here's a holy God sending a piece of himself, his son, to a very unholy, rebellious people. Yeah. And that in and of itself brings us our victory.

00;25;15;03 - 00;25;32;18
Christian
It brings us our are righteousness through justification. And so, yeah, we can't lose. And when you when you work from that victory is when you really start, I think, to to understand and and even display the implications of what it means to be more than a conqueror.

00;25;32;21 - 00;25;35;10
Brenton
Yeah. Biff isn't steel in our almanac.

00;25;35;12 - 00;25;42;00
Christian
Right? You know, just almanac. Yeah.

00;25;42;03 - 00;26;09;03
Brenton
So I think we'd all agree that the the scope of of Paul's argument here is our justification right. We're happy agreeing there. Yeah. No matter what comes at us, our position before Christ is secure. So in that that means that our future glorification is completely certain. Matt and I briefly touched on this last week, but I'd love your opinions.

00;26;09;05 - 00;26;32;27
Brenton
My my question is how do the truths of Romans eight help us now in our current sufferings? A cynical person could could look at this passage and say, yeah, future hope is great, but it's it's still awful right now. Like, right this this situation I'm in is terrible. What hope can you give them out of Romans eight.

00;26;33;00 - 00;26;59;07
Nathan
Goes back to verse 18 How are you considering it? And it's and again, it's kind of like if you are focused on the here and now, you will be really depressed. And we're also reading says and I read it earlier, but it's worth reading again for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us once again.

00;26;59;07 - 00;27;36;03
Nathan
It's it's like, what's your perspective? So so an athlete, for instance, if he went out and the first day he came back and he's really sore and stiff and sore because he just ran half a mile, you know what I mean? And he wasn't used to it. And he said, Well, I give up because I just know. But he realizes that if he runs, keeps running, next week you'll be able to run a mile and then two weeks he'll be able to run a5k And before you know it, he's but but he's looking at the goal ahead that when he's going to run the marathon and he's going to win the marathon and lift the

00;27;36;03 - 00;28;02;12
Nathan
trophy that's what he's focused on. If he was focused on just a day, he would give up. And I think when we're going through the trials and suffering that I can can't consider the it's once again, it's looking to the future and remembering the goal, striving to win the goal that is set before us, Jesus Christ. And we got to just keep remembering that because otherwise we get stuck in the present and we're not going to keep going.

00;28;02;15 - 00;28;26;08
Andrew
Yeah, I was going to go back to Romans five, verse three says, Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance, just like you're talking about and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. So and then hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit and has been given to us.

00;28;26;11 - 00;28;48;02
Andrew
But that endurance, it's there's a there is a benefit. Right now. We're growing in endurance that I don't know if you know this. Your marathon reference is very timely. The world record was just shattered in the marathon 2 hours and 35 seconds to run 26.2 miles. It's incredible. It was.

00;28;48;03 - 00;28;48;15
Brenton
What was the.

00;28;48;15 - 00;28;49;16
Nathan
Last I mean, it.

00;28;49;16 - 00;29;16;07
Andrew
Was it was I want to say it was at least a minute slower than that, which I mean, still really fast. Right. But, I mean, it's in our lifetime, it's probably going to go below 2 hours. It's crazy. But like you said, it they didn't get there overnight. There's a lot of endurance that went into that. And as Paul says here, character was built.

00;29;16;10 - 00;29;39;11
Andrew
They had to they did not deny themselves. They had to be on a strict regimen they develop. They became different people, not just physically, but in their and who they were as a person and what they can face in their future. And if you if you can train for a marathon and run it in 2 hours and some odd seconds, you can take on a lot of life.

00;29;39;14 - 00;30;02;27
Andrew
And and I think that's in part that's what Paul is saying here. We rejoice in our sufferings because we know that God's using it to grow us and we're growing in our character. And in later he's talking about becoming more like Christ. And I think that's our sufferings. Help us identify with Christ because he suffered, but they also help us to become more and more like Christ.

00;30;02;27 - 00;30;25;20
Christian
And that's Romans 817. Right? They're right. We're errors of God, which means we're fellow errors with Christ, provided we suffer with Christ. Yeah. So that we also may be glorified with Christ. You know, it will go back to the sports metaphor and really all the sports metaphors break down because part of sports is losing. Right. Which is why Paul doesn't just say you're conquer, you're more than conquering.

00;30;25;20 - 00;30;41;28
Christian
You can't lose. So you go to the to the marathon runner and you say, like, how would you like to to train? And I can guarantee you'll win it. Well, they'd be like, Absolutely. Well, your follow up is, okay, well, it's going to take a lot of work. It's going to take some suffering, but it's also going to mean some glory.

00;30;42;00 - 00;30;51;15
Christian
Yeah, maybe like, yes, I'm yeah, you know, and again, that breaks down because again, more than conquerors insinuates you're never going to lose a race. Yeah.

00;30;51;18 - 00;30;54;01
Andrew
What that that means is suffering is necessary.

00;30;54;06 - 00;30;54;24
Christian
Exactly.

00;30;54;24 - 00;30;59;29
Andrew
We are going to suffer. We're not suffering. We're not, we're not in the process.

00;30;59;29 - 00;31;01;07
Christian
We're not, we're not becoming.

00;31;01;08 - 00;31;01;16
Andrew
Yeah.

00;31;01;16 - 00;31;25;20
Christian
Again, Romans seven says provided we suffer with him, right? Yes, absolutely. It's a sobering reality in, you know, talking to someone in the crux of suffering, which many, many people are at any given point in our church, even though I'm sure people listening to this episode, that can be such a hard, hard word. So you have to deliver it, you know, with grace.

00;31;25;22 - 00;31;42;19
Christian
But it is it's proven all throughout the Bible, especially Paul's letters. As someone who suffered immensely for the cause of Christ to to be like him means we suffer like him. But to be like him means we also are glorified like him.

00;31;42;21 - 00;32;09;28
Brenton
Yeah, that was that was actually something I was going to follow up with was, you know, you guys spent a decent amount of your time working with people that are suffering. I know you do a lot of counseling and what is what does that look like? I mean, Christian, you just said you have to do this kind of gracefully and and you're working with people that are really in the crux of suffering.

00;32;09;28 - 00;32;23;08
Brenton
What what does that conversation look like with you guys? Just thinking of our our listeners that I'm sure are are in that with other people as well. What advice would you give?

00;32;23;10 - 00;32;25;11
Christian
I want to look to Nathan on this one.

00;32;25;13 - 00;32;53;07
Nathan
Yeah. Actually, when I was going through my counseling certification, I had a supervisor who every Saturday we would meet on a Saturday morning via phone call and I would have to report and he's like, Wow, I've never had someone who had so many counselors who are going through suffering. I'm like, I know, right? And he says, I what's God trying to teach me like that?

00;32;53;09 - 00;33;13;22
Nathan
I don't know what he says. Learn how to talk with them about suffering, you know? And he's the one actually that pointed me to Psalm 13. And in some 13, David is going, we don't even know what he's going through, but he is suffering. I think I think a lot of counseling says, well, I think well, I'm going through so much, but I can't complain to God.

00;33;13;22 - 00;33;31;25
Nathan
But because he would he would he would smite me over the head with me. Oh, you know, I can't do that. But in some 13, it's so great that we can be real with God. It's part of our relationship. And and David says, David says in this, how long, Oh, Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?

00;33;31;29 - 00;33;56;09
Nathan
How long was I take counsel on my own? So I have sorrow in my heart all the day. How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? So. So the first part is Burial of God. Yeah, you tell him. And actually, Psalm 44, that was in our passage today from Sunday that Paul was quoting from his the same way that this Thomas has said, Have you seen what's happening to us?

00;33;56;09 - 00;34;24;06
Nathan
God, we heard that you are so great. You know, when you brought the people out, children reservoir of Egypt, we just heard how great you were. But I'm not saying that. Have you forgotten me? You know, so be real. But we can't stay there. We can't stay. So. So that's some verse two and three. So. So but by three and four David is asking and he says, okay, God it doesn't feel like, it feels like you've forgotten me.

00;34;24;09 - 00;34;51;02
Nathan
But he says, consider and answer, Oh Lord, my God, light up my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death. I am so depressed right now. He's saying that I think I just might die. I mean, he's in a dark, dark hole. And then he says, Lest my enemies say I have prevailed over him, let less my eyes light, less my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

00;34;51;09 - 00;35;13;24
Nathan
So. So it's so it's just venting at God, if you will, and then pleading with God, asking for help. But then it's always important the last how you end that too. Because the last two verses then says, All right, let me just read that. But I have trusted in your steadfast love, there's that steadfast love again. Is that okay?

00;35;13;27 - 00;35;31;18
Nathan
I did a little venting, a little bit of crying out a little bit. Are you there? And that's okay. God, you got to help me. It's like, oh, yeah. All right. In my venting and my calling out to remember you are there. You're steadfast is love, is it? And guess what? Then that heart that's been so depressed that you just don't want to sing.

00;35;31;18 - 00;35;52;18
Nathan
They don't want to do anything. When I recognize God in a steadfast love, I guess this is what happened. But I have trust in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bounty flee with me. It's once again, it's getting our head in the right game and in the right place.

00;35;52;18 - 00;36;17;17
Nathan
And remembering that God's love is steadfast and it's like it's when I have the pity party. It's easy to forget that and I'm focused on me rather than focus on him. And but it's a process. So, so, so maybe I even tell people, you know, if they're going through a hard time. Oh, God. About it. Yeah. Lift up your voice and shout out and say, God bless you.

00;36;17;19 - 00;36;33;15
Nathan
So a process and we we wouldn't want our kids if they were hurting. We wouldn't want them not to tell us, say, Come tell me about it. So it's it's that relationship part that we have to strengthen with God.

00;36;33;18 - 00;36;36;07
Brenton
Yeah, we need to learn to lament. Well.

00;36;36;10 - 00;36;37;21
Nathan
Absolutely.

00;36;37;24 - 00;37;04;28
Andrew
Yeah. That was I was going to agree with that. We need to weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn. So individually, we need to go through that process and not minimize the suffering. We need to acknowledge it and recognize the pain and the difficulty of it and that of others. I think that goes a long way when when you try to empathize with them and just mourn with them and say this this is this is bad, this is not good.

00;37;04;28 - 00;37;32;23
Andrew
This is not God's design for his creation and and just mourn over that. But then as as Nathan said, we can't stay there. We got to we got to move toward recognizing God's sovereignty in his work and what he's trying to do through this in us, even if we don't understand it and maybe never do fully understand why he allowed this particular thing or this set of circumstances.

00;37;32;25 - 00;37;35;05
Andrew
We got to we got to keep moving forward.

00;37;35;07 - 00;37;55;27
Nathan
You know, Paul has his prison letters. I mean, did Paul really understand why he was in prison? And he's probably thinking to himself as he's writing all those letters. You always say, I could be much more effective if I was just out preaching in the church, You know, remain. But think about it. If God hadn't left him in the prison, we wouldn't have his writings for today.

00;37;55;27 - 00;38;21;28
Nathan
We probably wouldn't have had these letters. So so we're just just remembering that God's plan is way bigger than ever. We could even imagine or think, even in the suffering, even being chained between two prison guards, Paul is able to witness to that to them. Then they bring it back to the house of Caesar. And Sierra sees people, people and the gospel keeps going.

00;38;22;00 - 00;38;39;06
Nathan
It's just and like you said, Andrew, we don't even see it at the time. I wonder, I bet you Paul didn't really understand that a couple of thousand years later we'd be read, we'd be totally pumped by what he wrote because he was in prison, right? It's just.

00;38;39;08 - 00;39;10;18
Brenton
Yeah, awesome. That's a it's a ton of good information. Christian, you I think you did a really good job of bringing this sermon full circle. And you talked a lot about resting in Christ. And I think that you're right that that we need to do far more of that. We need to be far better at that instead of, you know, relying on ourselves and anxiously kind of running around trying to take care of things in ourselves.

00;39;10;18 - 00;39;18;25
Brenton
Could you could you spend a little time discussing, you know, what you did on Sunday, but just the importance of that in light of our suffering?

00;39;18;28 - 00;39;46;21
Christian
Yeah, naturally, when you assemble a sermon and you kind of dissect the text, you you want to figure out why it matters to the the believer in your, your current context on a day to day basis. So a lot of times this is referred to as application. And yeah, I just kept kind of kept coming back to this, this kind of idea of of rest this the confidence we draw from a passage like this.

00;39;46;27 - 00;40;11;11
Christian
The boldness we can draw from a passage like this allows us to actually find rest and not the kind of rest that is just like laziness or like unplugging from from something that we enjoy, but rest that is rest for the soul. Rest that we see in Scripture, which I'll get to in a little bit as part of the answer.

00;40;11;11 - 00;40;38;01
Christian
This. But yeah, I think again, if you can accept the fact that because of your salvation or because your salvation is secure or you don't have to toil or try to achieve God's favor anymore, and because God is also for you and is never lost, then you too will lose. You just don't think you can get away from this.

00;40;38;08 - 00;41;00;29
Christian
The sense of relief maybe is another way to think about it, that that washes over a person when they read this passage. And I think that's one of the reasons it's such a powerful passage. It takes all the pressure off of us to do anything for observation, and it encourages us to just bask in the finished work of the cross, the past finish, work the current present, work in the future, present work that we'll experience in glory.

00;41;01;01 - 00;41;24;03
Christian
And then, yeah, I mean, we see this really, we see the Godhead all throughout Scripture demonstrating the importance of rest. Genesis to God rests. It takes a whole day out of creation, the accretion account to to rest. And if the God of the universe values rest and, you know, is our mission omnipresent, there's no beginning, there's no end.

00;41;24;05 - 00;41;50;08
Christian
I think it's important that we very, very much finite individuals who can only be in one place at one time. We are we also need rest. And then second Jesus, we see his life just absolutely riddled with with these times of drawing away from crowds and in finding, you know, places of solitary. There's this one. There's this one account.

00;41;50;10 - 00;42;09;07
Christian
I think it's Mark where he and the disciples are. There's a lot of people that are coming and going, coming and going, and he kind of system, hey, look, let's let's go get a bite to eat. Let's go find a place of rest. He even says so. And even as he prepares for for his ministry there in the desert, when Satan tempts him again, that's a place of rest.

00;42;09;07 - 00;42;47;25
Christian
That's a place of that that he's gone away from, from kind of the hustle and bustle of life to be with his father. And then thirdly, I talked about this in my sermon, but Ephesians one talks about the Spirit, particularly particularly as the means of sealing our inheritance and sealing our our our faith, securing our salvation. And so because the the Holy Spirit is has delegated, you know, in a sense, or we were able to, because of the Spirit delegate, really all the work of preserving our our salvation, we can rest knowing that the spirit not only has he sealed us, but he's interceding for us.

00;42;47;28 - 00;43;06;06
Christian
He's he's referred to sometimes as the helper. He too is doing this active work to ensure that we don't need to toil, we don't need to to grind. We can simply rest in in the security of our salvation.

00;43;06;08 - 00;43;20;12
Nathan
Yeah. You. Yeah. Matthew 1129 Jesus. And hey, take my yoke upon you and find rest. You rest in me. So. So it once again goes back to his. Where's your.

00;43;20;12 - 00;43;21;15
Christian
Confidence? Yeah.

00;43;21;18 - 00;43;36;22
Nathan
If it's in you, you're not going to have that kind of peaceful rest and knowing that you're secure. But when you're, when you, when you give give it all got you give it all to Jesus, that's when you find that, that really rest says like wow, yeah, that's a great word, Christian.

00;43;36;22 - 00;43;54;29
Christian
And even even with suffering like when we when we expect suffering, I don't want to say it makes it easier, but it certainly changes how we can engage with it when do encounter it. It'd be one thing if if we were under the assumption that like, you know, once you once you start following Jesus, life's going to be super easy.

00;43;55;02 - 00;44;18;06
Christian
And then when you do encounter suffering, then you would again you would expect that we've already talked about like what? What did I do to deserve this? Why he's got punishing me. But again, when you when you recognize that because Christ suffered, we suffer because Christ has been glorified, we will be glorified. You can take that suffering in stride because, again, you're you're moving from the cross from a place of victory.

00;44;18;09 - 00;44;28;13
Christian
And in you're kind of nestled in the rest that comes from from a God who works all things for for our good in his glory. Mm hmm.

00;44;28;15 - 00;44;43;24
Brenton
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that's. That we need to, again, come back to the gospel there, because we're not we're not resting in in nothing. We're resting in the finished work.

00;44;43;24 - 00;44;44;24
Christian
Of Christ where.

00;44;44;29 - 00;45;14;14
Brenton
We are. That is the only thing that we can find true rest in because we don't have to work for it. So yeah, let's see. Some 37 seven be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way over the man who carries out evil devices. We need to learn to be still before the Lord, and that is a hard thing to do.

00;45;14;17 - 00;45;16;09
Nathan
Mm hmm.

00;45;16;11 - 00;45;28;29
Brenton
But it's something that I think as we are sanctified, as we come to come to love the Lord more, it's something that we all will desire to do more. Mm hmm.

00;45;29;01 - 00;45;53;16
Christian
Yeah. And I think again, like, sometimes you can sit around your house all day and be far from well-rested from that. You know, again, it really we have this this, like, cultural understanding of, of rest or we equate it to just, like, not being tired. And it's so much more than that, you know, like it's doing things that you love.

00;45;53;18 - 00;46;10;21
Christian
It's being with people that you love. It's hopefully those people, your families, being with your family, you know, even just this time of year, you know, the weather's beautiful, the leaves are changing. And so even just taking a walk and being surrounded by God's creation, having a conversation with him about that and seeing where it goes that can be so restful.

00;46;10;22 - 00;46;24;09
Christian
And again, the solitary place that Jesus goes, he's almost always praying, spending time with the father. And so, yeah, this is a biblical definition of rest rather than any sort of cultural rest that the world can offer.

00;46;24;12 - 00;46;26;15
Nathan
Yeah, yeah.

00;46;26;17 - 00;46;54;00
Brenton
It's great. I think I think the one thing just to wrap this up, um, one thing that kind of came out of the conversation earlier was that in a lot of ways we need a mind shift. We need we need to shift our mind to future glory rather than, than our current situation. And that, that glory needs to be way more important to us than any other station we're in in this world.

00;46;54;00 - 00;47;18;26
Brenton
And so the more that we look forward to that, the more we will find hope and and won't shrink back from suffering when we when we do because of the of the truth that the poll lays out here, that we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. All right. I appreciate it, guys. That was fun. Covered a lot of ground there.

00;47;18;28 - 00;47;20;11
Brenton
A little longer than normal.

00;47;20;14 - 00;47;24;17
Christian
You got triple the triple threat. I know.

00;47;24;19 - 00;47;28;13
Brenton
I didn't even triple the time, so that's great. Thank you.

00;47;28;15 - 00;47;28;28
Andrew
Thank you.