Speaker 1: Acts 9, 23 through 30 in the ESV.
Speaker 1: When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul.
Speaker 1: They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him.
Speaker 1: But his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.
Speaker 1: And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples and they were all afraid of him, but they did not believe that he was a disciple, but Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how, on the road, he had seen the Lord who spoke to him and how at Damascus, he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1: So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem preaching boldly in the name of the Lord, and he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him, and disputed against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him.
Speaker 1: And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.
Speaker 1: May God bless the reading of his word.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Well, when facing challenging circumstances often let's say we're engaged in something and we face difficulties often we'll ask this question is it worth it?
Speaker 2: Is it worth it?
Speaker 2: So, by way of example, imagine that you receive a promotion at work.
Speaker 2: How many would say amen to that?
Speaker 2: You get a substantial pay increase so you could actually afford eggs, right, and this is great.
Speaker 2: But then you get the job and you realize, in addition to the money, there's also a lot of added responsibility and a lot of extra headaches and it's taking you away from your family.
Speaker 2: And you will likely ask yourself this question is the money worth it?
Speaker 2: If you have children, when your child hits about two years old, you might ask is it worth it?
Speaker 2: And then, once you get through the terrible twos, you're good for a while until guys, they become teenagers.
Speaker 2: And then, jerry, you go.
Speaker 2: Man, I really wonder if it's worth it.
Speaker 2: Right, you know, I went back to school as an adult, went to graduate school and to study theology and I, man, I, I was excited about it before I started.
Speaker 2: I knew it was going to help me in my preaching and my pastoral leadership.
Speaker 2: But I remember at the time I worked here full time I built websites just to help pay bills.
Speaker 2: In addition to that, I had family responsibilities and all of that, and then I would be up late every night with rigorous study, and I cannot tell you how many times I've asked myself the question is it worth it?
Speaker 2: Well, I want to think about that question in the context of our Christian lives.
Speaker 2: Is it worth it to follow Jesus?
Speaker 2: Last week we started looking we're going through the book of Acts as a church, and last week we started looking at Acts, chapter 9, where we find this profound conversion of the Apostle Paul, who turns to Christ.
Speaker 2: You might remember that before Christ excuse me, before Christ meeting Christ, paul was a persecutor of the church.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, you go back to Acts, chapter 7, and it was Paul.
Speaker 2: And in the chapter 8, it was Paul who condoned the first, the execution of the first Christian martyr, namely Stephen.
Speaker 2: So at this point, in the beginning of chapter 9, we find Paul, who is also called Saul, goes to the high priest and he says listen, the Christians have scattered and I want to go about 150 miles away to this town of Damascus, where there's a large population of Jews who are following Christ, and I want your permission, would you deputize me?
Speaker 2: Let me go down and arrest them and then bring them back to be dealt with through their judicial system.
Speaker 2: I mean, this was a mean dude, okay, he was very, very angry and antagonistic towards Christians.
Speaker 2: So Paul makes his way you remember the story to Damascus?
Speaker 2: And on the way, remember a bright light this is the glorified Christ appears to him.
Speaker 2: Paul is blinded, knocked to his feet, and Jesus begins talking to him and saying listen, you're persecuting the church, which means you're persecuting me, and I truly am the Messiah, I really am the risen Christ, as you have heard.
Speaker 2: And so Paul's life would be changed by this encounter forevermore.
Speaker 2: Jesus instructs him at that moment to get up and to go on to Damascus, but for much different reasons than he had intended.
Speaker 2: And so he goes and he's still blind, and for three days he prays to God.
Speaker 2: I would pray too after that encounter.
Speaker 2: For three days he prays and he fasts.
Speaker 2: He goes without food or water.
Speaker 2: Well, in the meantime, as he is praying, jesus appears to another man named Anais or Aeneas, I don't know how you say it.
Speaker 2: I think I called him Ananias my whole sermon last week, wrong person.
Speaker 2: So anyways, aeneas is, you know, he's just minding his own business.
Speaker 2: And Jesus shows up and he says hey, paul is in Damascus.
Speaker 2: I want you to go and I want you to find him and I want you to lay hands on him so that he will receive his sight.
Speaker 2: Well, ananias begins.
Speaker 2: He's hesitant, right, he's like God.
Speaker 2: Do you know who you're asking me to go see?
Speaker 2: Like, maybe you're getting your people mixed up.
Speaker 2: I don't want to go see him.
Speaker 2: Understandably so, paul has been condoning the execution of Christians.
Speaker 2: So, anyways, jesus responds to Anais like this.
Speaker 2: He says go, I have chosen Paul.
Speaker 2: I have chosen Paul, this persecutor, this murderer, the one with blood on his hands.
Speaker 2: I've chosen him as a vessel to move my mission forward on his hands.
Speaker 2: I've chosen him as a vessel to move my mission forward.
Speaker 2: He's going to preach the gospel to Israel.
Speaker 2: He's going to go before kings and even to the Gentiles to take the gospel to the uttermost parts of the ancient world.
Speaker 2: And we stand back and we go.
Speaker 2: What a glorious story, doesn't?
Speaker 2: It just show us that God can change anybody's life.
Speaker 2: God can use anybody, even the person sitting next to you.
Speaker 2: Right, that's a glorious thing and this is a wonderful story.
Speaker 2: But there's another verse that I didn't really point out last week.
Speaker 2: It's verse 16 in chapter 9.
Speaker 2: So if you have your Bible open, go to verse 16.
Speaker 2: And this is what else Jesus tells Ananias.
Speaker 2: He says Now.
Speaker 2: This to some Westerners seems like a paradox.
Speaker 2: Paul is chosen as a vessel to suffer, chosen to suffer.
Speaker 2: This is exactly Paul's life.
Speaker 1: And this was not an exaggeration.
Speaker 2: Paul suffered, and I think that's an understatement.
Speaker 2: So here's what I want to do today.
Speaker 2: Your and my suffering for Christ is not going to probably be anywhere near his, and you'll see that in a minute.
Speaker 2: But his story relates in some sense to our story, because the Christian life is hard.
Speaker 2: I know there are preachers who will tell you that if you come to Jesus, your life's just going to be all cupcakes and rainbows, but it's not.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this have any of you ever, like started really getting your life with the Lord and you think, man, this is going to be great and all of a sudden, all hell breaks loose in your life?
Speaker 2: It's like the more you try, the more that happens right?
Speaker 2: So when you follow Christ, as glorious as it is, there is an element of difficulty and challenge, and the question I want to pose before you today is is it worth it?
Speaker 2: Is it worth it and spoiler alert, I'm going to go ahead and tell you my answer it is, and that is, it is extremely, infinitely worth all the pain and the heartache.
Speaker 2: Following Jesus is worth it all, and I'm going to try to show you that through Paul's story today.
Speaker 2: So number one I want to look at first the cost of following Christ, but then the benefit of the challenges that come as part of our lives.
Speaker 2: All right, it's a little warmer in here today, so if you stop falling asleep, it's going to be an ice box, I'm just telling you.
Speaker 2: All right, so let's look at the cost Acts 9, 19b through 22.
Speaker 2: So let's look at the cost Acts 9, 19b through 22.
Speaker 2: So Paul has just been converted and it says immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues.
Speaker 2: When you're saying that ought to be immediately what you do, tell people about what Jesus has done for you and what he is offering to them.
Speaker 2: And this is what Paul proclaimed he is the Son of God.
Speaker 2: This is exactly what Paul has been denying and he realizes now Jesus is who he claimed to be and he's excited.
Speaker 2: So he goes to the synagogues and it says all who heard him were amazed and said is this not the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name?
Speaker 2: And he is not.
Speaker 2: Has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priest?
Speaker 2: But Saul increased more in strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ.
Speaker 2: Paul spends we know from Galatians 1.17, three years after his conversion, in Arabia and then Damascus, going to synagogues and telling the Jews in the synagogues his colleagues even listen, I was wrong, he was really like he killed Christians because he was so convinced he was right about Jesus.
Speaker 2: And he says listen, because he was so convinced he was right about Jesus.
Speaker 2: And he says listen, I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: And so many would think that, as Paul obeys the Lord and does exactly what God has called him to do, many people would expect that his life would just be full of blessing.
Speaker 2: Right, it would kind of be easy street that God would shield him from anything that would come his way.
Speaker 2: But that is not the case.
Speaker 2: Trouble begins as he's in Damascus.
Speaker 2: So, number one, he experiences persecution from unbelievers.
Speaker 2: So look at verses 23 through 25.
Speaker 2: So when many days had passed many days, by the way, is three years, galatians 1.17, the.
Speaker 2: Jews plotted to kill him.
Speaker 2: Guys, these are the people he's done life with, these are the people he's given his life to.
Speaker 2: These are Jews who, like he used to, who have rejected Jesus as the Messiah.
Speaker 2: And it says they plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul or Paul.
Speaker 2: They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in the basket.
Speaker 2: So think about this.
Speaker 2: Paul has just realized.
Speaker 2: The Jews have been waiting for centuries on the promised Messiah, the deliverer, who would come and inaugurate God's kingdom on the earth, restore all things, bring justice to the world, peace to the world.
Speaker 2: They've been waiting on this Messiah.
Speaker 2: Well, we know that Jesus is that Messiah.
Speaker 2: But Paul, along with many of his fellow Jews, he was a Pharisee, many of his fellow Pharisees, leaders in the temple, they man, they rejected Jesus as the Messiah.
Speaker 2: So, paul, when he meets the risen Christ, he is excited and he wants to go tell the people he loves so much.
Speaker 2: Listen, the Messiah is here, he has come.
Speaker 2: I mean, think back to when you, jesus, found you.
Speaker 2: I should say and think when you got saved.
Speaker 2: That was probably.
Speaker 2: I love new converts because they're excited and they want to tell everybody about what's just happened to him.
Speaker 2: And they want to tell everybody about what's just happened to him.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what Paul wants to do.
Speaker 2: And so he goes from synagogue to synagogues and he says listen, it's true, jesus is the Messiah and he's risen.
Speaker 2: But he didn't get the response that he probably thought he would.
Speaker 2: The Jews, who at one time had so much respect for him, the leaders in the temple, they weren't glad about his announcement by and large, and they weren't even neutral.
Speaker 2: They wanted to kill him following Jesus.
Speaker 2: Jesus makes this very clear following Jesus may cost you relationships.
Speaker 2: I've heard of, you know, a husband or wife getting saved, and maybe the husband and wife are both atheists, and one or the other gets saved and the spouse leaves.
Speaker 2: And one or the other gets saved and the spouse leaves.
Speaker 2: You've heard of people of different faiths.
Speaker 2: Their families have a different faith.
Speaker 2: One person in the family receives Christ and they're excommunicated from the family.
Speaker 2: There are people who have been severed from their mother and father.
Speaker 2: There are mothers and fathers who have come to the Lord and their kids, their adult children, want nothing to do with them anymore.
Speaker 2: They become estranged.
Speaker 2: Well, this is why Jesus says in Matthew 10, 37, whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
Speaker 2: The question is what are you going to do when they walk away because of your faith?
Speaker 2: Well, jesus says to be my disciple, you've got to have allegiance.
Speaker 2: Let them walk, as difficult as it is, and my question I want to ask you today is is it worth it?
Speaker 2: Is it worth it, paul, the people that he had done life with since childhood?
Speaker 2: They have stepped away because of his belief in Christ.
Speaker 2: Paul isn't worth it.
Speaker 2: So he experienced persecution from the outside.
Speaker 2: Secondly, he actually experiences, in this text, persecution on the inside, or let's call it skepticism.
Speaker 2: Skepticism on the inside.
Speaker 2: Look at verses 26 and 27.
Speaker 2: And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples and they were all afraid of him, and for they did not believe that he was a disciple.
Speaker 2: But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how the road, on the road, he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how him to the apostles and declared to them how, on the road, he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him and how, at Damascus, he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 2: So think of this Paul is in Damascus and he's going from in the synagogues, he's preaching to people who are hostile against the faith and he's run out of town.
Speaker 2: He's lowered that.
Speaker 2: The city was fortified and there were houses within the city walls, and so he was put out a window in a basket, lowered down.
Speaker 2: A bit of precarious situation, right, and what he does is he flees for his life and here's what he thinks I can go to Jerusalem, where the 12 apostles are, and find safety and acceptance and all that.
Speaker 2: He's been threatened by the people he loves so much.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go to my new family that's what he's saying the household of God.
Speaker 2: And he gets to the disciples and they're scared of him and they doubt that his conversion is real.
Speaker 2: Come on, he's not.
Speaker 2: He hasn't really changed.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's not the last time Paul would deal with problems within the church, the church of Corinth, who he loved so much man.
Speaker 2: They were questioning his apostleship and brought all kinds of accusations against him.
Speaker 2: You know, let me ask you this have you ever seen someone be honest, someone that you know, come to church for the first time and they've got let me be nice, let's say a checkered past.
Speaker 2: Are you with me?
Speaker 2: And they come to the altar and they start weeping a little bit and you, if we're honest, you think they're not going to change.
Speaker 2: Okay, you don't have to raise your hand.
Speaker 2: They're not going to change.
Speaker 2: Okay, you don't have to raise your hand.
Speaker 2: Maybe that was your experience.
Speaker 2: Maybe you've lived a really colorful life, let's say.
Speaker 2: And when you came to Jesus, your family, those around you thought come on, you're going to go right back to your old lifestyle.
Speaker 2: And that's discouraging, isn't it?
Speaker 2: Thank God for Barnabas.
Speaker 2: Barnabas, his name, this is his nickname that the apostles gave him.
Speaker 2: It means son of encouragement.
Speaker 2: How many are grateful for encouragers?
Speaker 2: I'm looking around and I see a lot of encouragers.
Speaker 2: I see also a lot of non-encouragers, but thank you for those who encourage me.
Speaker 2: Right, and just kind of even it out, here's what I love.
Speaker 2: I want to point your attention to verse 28.
Speaker 2: Here's what Luke's right.
Speaker 2: So he's just been rejected temporarily by the disciples.
Speaker 2: Barnabas stands up from him and now they say all right, we believe you, verse 28.
Speaker 2: So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord.
Speaker 2: He went in and out among them.
Speaker 2: Here's what I want you to see.
Speaker 2: Paul experienced church hurt.
Speaker 2: How many have ever been hurt within the church?
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I feel like my death is going to be the death of a thousand cuts from from cantankerous church people.
Speaker 2: None of you all right, except the non-encouragers.
Speaker 2: But here's what I love.
Speaker 2: You know I don't want to diminish the hurt that you've experienced in church, but no matter what you've been through, it's not a reason to leave and walk away.
Speaker 2: We're family.
Speaker 2: We're the family of God, and God has called us to be reconciled one to another.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is really really important.
Speaker 2: So don't let church hurt stop you.
Speaker 2: He joins with the apostles immediately, the ones who just said you're not real man.
Speaker 2: So, soon after Paul's life begins with Christ, he experiences persecution from the outside unbelievers that he knew and once he did, then he experiences skepticism from the believers inside.
Speaker 2: There's another enemy at play here, and it's the devil himself.
Speaker 2: This is really important.
Speaker 2: This is interesting.
Speaker 2: The same group of Jews who are, after Paul's life, wanting dead.
Speaker 2: It's the Pharisees, amongst others.
Speaker 2: They're the ones who wanted Jesus dead and ultimately had him turned over to be crucified, and I want you to listen to John, chapter 8.
Speaker 2: I'll read it for you.
Speaker 2: I think we have it on the screen.
Speaker 2: In verse 44, this is what Jesus says to those who are persecuting him, the Pharisees.
Speaker 2: They think they're godly, by the way.
Speaker 2: Okay, here's what he says you are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desire.
Speaker 2: He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.
Speaker 2: When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Speaker 2: Listen, the Pharisees want Paul dead, but Paul knows that ultimately, his fight is not against flesh, that there's another power at work here, and he says as much in different places, but especially and very clearly explicitly in Ephesians 6.
Speaker 2: You know this text about spiritual armor.
Speaker 1: Finally, he writes verse 10,.
Speaker 2: Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.
Speaker 2: Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
Speaker 2: For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Speaker 2: Paul recognizes that there is not just a human realm who is against him, but there is a spiritual realm that we don't see, but it's just as real as what we can see.
Speaker 2: See, but it's just as real as what we can see.
Speaker 2: And today, as Peter said, we must remember, folks, we have a real adversary, the devil, who goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
Speaker 2: He doesn't want to wound you.
Speaker 2: He wants to devour you when you suffer.
Speaker 2: You know what he wants you to do.
Speaker 2: He wants you to doubt God.
Speaker 2: He wants you to doubt God's love.
Speaker 2: He wants you to doubt even that God exists.
Speaker 2: If God's real, why would he let?
Speaker 2: me go through this, you know what he wants to do.
Speaker 2: Ultimately, he wants to make shipwreck of your faith, just like he did Peter.
Speaker 2: Think about that.
Speaker 2: I've got good news for you, though.
Speaker 2: Satan is a force to be reckoned with in Iran.
Speaker 1: He's a force to be reckoned with.
Speaker 2: We don't take him lightly, but your God is infinitely more powerful.
Speaker 2: This is not Star Wars, where it's a battle of good and evil, the dark side and the Jedi.
Speaker 2: This is like we know the outcome.
Speaker 2: The devil, the dark side, is no match for our great God, amen.
Speaker 2: Let me just read you Revelation 12, 9,.
Speaker 2: Because Satan was decidedly defeated at the cross and the great dragon was thrown down.
Speaker 2: This is looking forward to the last day that the ancient serpent who was called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.
Speaker 2: He was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him.
Speaker 2: Ultimately, he's thrown into the lake of fire.
Speaker 2: Our God is infinitely more power than the powers of darkness.
Speaker 2: So let's just think about Paul's life before and after coming to Jesus.
Speaker 2: Before coming to Jesus, a well-respected Jew, educated, has friends and family all around him who are cheering him on.
Speaker 2: He was a Pharisee, a person of status, wealth.
Speaker 2: He wielded a certain amount of power.
Speaker 2: By the world's standards, this would be, he would be called successful.
Speaker 2: Now he comes to Christ and let me just tell you, paul is getting towards the end of his life and he summarizes his life in Jesus.
Speaker 2: Are you ready for this 2 Corinthians 11, 24 through 28.
Speaker 2: Do we have that on the screen?
Speaker 2: Oh, here it is.
Speaker 2: Five times.
Speaker 2: I received at the hands of the Jews, 40 lashes less one, 39 lashes with a whip, the whip if used rightly, could whip up to 700 miles per hour and it would tear the skin from your back.
Speaker 2: 39 lashes he received and made his back like jelly.
Speaker 2: And he received that treatment not once, not twice, not three times, not four times, but five times.
Speaker 2: And he kept serving Jesus.
Speaker 2: As if that were not enough, three times I was beaten with rods, once stoned three times.
Speaker 2: I was shipwrecked night and day.
Speaker 2: I was adrift at sea on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city this could be a song danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.
Speaker 2: And apart from other things, there's the daily pressure on me from all you church folk.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 2: And we complain because God let our refrigerator go out.
Speaker 2: Although, why am I suffering so much?
Speaker 2: You know we're ready to throw in the towel.
Speaker 2: Guys, listen, as Christians, I don't care what the TV preachers have told you.
Speaker 2: Christianity is not your best life now.
Speaker 2: Now it is more glorious because you know Christ.
Speaker 2: But your best life as far as yeah, let me just stop there.
Speaker 2: Your best life will be when the Lord returns, what we sing about today, when every tear will be wiped from your eyes.
Speaker 2: No more pain, no more sorrow.
Speaker 2: Christians, you see it here.
Speaker 2: We experience the same problems of the world.
Speaker 2: We believe in healing, but Christians still get sick.
Speaker 2: We live in an already, but not yet kingdom.
Speaker 2: So while we believe in miracles, they're not guaranteed, no matter how much faith you have.
Speaker 2: But everyone will receive healing someday, be it in this life or the life to come.
Speaker 2: We're not shielded from natural disasters.
Speaker 2: Christians, just like non-Christians, just experienced flooding in different parts of Kentucky and lost everything.
Speaker 2: So Paul says I was in danger.
Speaker 2: He's a Christian.
Speaker 2: Rivers, robbers on people, gentiles on and on in the city, in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers, sleepless nights.
Speaker 2: Paul even went hungry.
Speaker 2: That's the cost of following Jesus in Paul's life.
Speaker 2: What are the benefits, though, of suffering?
Speaker 2: Because I would ask Paul, paul, is it worth it?
Speaker 2: Is it worth it?
Speaker 2: Paul understands that there are some benefits to suffering, so I want to give you five.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to list these and give you a scripture for each one.
Speaker 2: These are all letters written by Paul.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is not an exhaustive list, but here's how God uses suffering in our lives.
Speaker 2: Number one we identify with Jesus in our suffering.
Speaker 2: Galatians 6, 17,.
Speaker 2: From now on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.
Speaker 2: You have a Savior who suffered for you, and we, you know, the apostles, earlier in the book of Acts, said when they were threatened and beaten, they said we count it.
Speaker 2: They went away rejoicing that they were worthy to suffer in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 2: We identify with Jesus in our suffering.
Speaker 2: Number two suffering leads to humility.
Speaker 2: In 2 Corinthians 12, 7-10, paul writes so, to keep me from being conceited because of the surpassing greatness of revelations, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, so we don't know if this was a spouse or not.
Speaker 2: We don't know if it was a person, if it was a sickness, and I think it's intentionally vague, because every one of us in life have a thorn that you'd love to get rid of.
Speaker 2: Paul says a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being conceited.
Speaker 2: Some of you are going.
Speaker 2: He is talking about my spouse.
Speaker 2: Three times I pleaded with the Lord God, take it away Again.
Speaker 2: Just because you have a lot of faith, if God's will is not to take something away from you, it's not going.
Speaker 2: But here's what he says.
Speaker 2: The Lord said my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
Speaker 2: Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Speaker 2: For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardship, persecution, calamities, for when I am weak, then I am strong.
Speaker 2: You know, if everything went well in your life, you may never see your need for God.
Speaker 2: Isn't it interesting that people will, sometimes some people will only come to church whenever things fall apart in their life.
Speaker 2: But God uses suffering to keep us humble and dependent upon Him.
Speaker 2: Number three suffering leads to the spread of the gospel.
Speaker 2: Philippians 1, 12 and 13.
Speaker 2: I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me his imprisonment, by the way, has really served to advance the gospel, so that it's become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.
Speaker 2: I mean, they locked Paul up and he was chained 24 hours to a guard, and so you know what he does.
Speaker 2: He just preaches to the guard and then the gospel goes to the whole out the prison and to the whole imperial guard and it moves forward.
Speaker 2: It's unbelievable and God uses suffering in our lives often to move the gospel forward.
Speaker 2: Number four suffering, or let's say perseverance in suffering, brings an assurance of salvation.
Speaker 2: Romans 8, 16 and 17.
Speaker 2: I want you to really listen to this.
Speaker 2: The Spirit Himself bears witness, with our spirit, that we are children of God.
Speaker 2: So you know, people doubt am I really a child of God?
Speaker 2: Am I really saved?
Speaker 2: And the Bible says that God's Spirit, the Holy Spirit, will bear witness with ours.
Speaker 2: Man, you belong to God.
Speaker 2: And then he says if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.
Speaker 2: Now watch this provided, or in other words, only if we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified.
Speaker 2: Here's the point.
Speaker 2: Jesus gives a parable.
Speaker 2: I believe it's in Matthew 13, where he talks about the.
Speaker 2: It's the parable of the sower right Sowing seed on different types of soil.
Speaker 2: And one of the points that he makes to this parable is that some will claim to have received the gospel, but when persecution comes, they're out.
Speaker 2: That happens to a lot of people.
Speaker 2: They come to Jesus thinking man, he's going to fix all my problems, but when that doesn't necessarily happen or things get even worse for them or they're persecuted or opposed, they're out.
Speaker 2: In other words, they just want God for the blessings, not for Christ himself.
Speaker 2: But when you suffer and you persevere through it, the Holy Spirit will bear witness, give you an assurance of your salvation.
Speaker 2: Suffering also causes spiritual growth.
Speaker 2: Finally, romans 5, 3-5.
Speaker 2: Paul says this we rejoice in our sufferings I'll talk about that in a second Knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and endurance produces character and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who's been given to us.
Speaker 2: I've never heard people say almost never that you know what.
Speaker 2: My biggest season of growth actually I don't think I've ever heard this was when things were going really well.
Speaker 2: How many can look back to a challenging time in your life and say, man, that's when I grew in the Lord.
Speaker 2: That's what the Lord uses suffering for in our own lives.
Speaker 2: So you weigh the cost of following Christ and you contrast that with the benefits of following Christ.
Speaker 2: And so now we ask Paul is it worth it?
Speaker 2: Is following Jesus, giving Him your life, is it worth it?
Speaker 2: Let's look at his answer in closing.
Speaker 2: We previously read Romans 5, verse 3, where Paul says we rejoice in our sufferings.
Speaker 2: Philippians 4, 4,.
Speaker 2: He says while he's imprisoned, rejoice in the Lord.
Speaker 2: Always, through the good, the bad and the ugly, rejoice in the Lord.
Speaker 2: And then he says, and again I say rejoice Paul.
Speaker 2: Through all the shipwrecks and dangers, everything he went through, listen, he still had joy in the Lord.
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 2: Here's why Because Christ is the supreme treasure of our lives.
Speaker 2: To go back to Matthew 13, again, there's a one verse parable.
Speaker 2: I think it's my favorite parable, not just because it's one verse.
Speaker 2: But a man is walking through a field.
Speaker 2: This is the parable.
Speaker 2: He's walking through a field and he comes upon this great treasure, more beautiful than he's ever seen.
Speaker 2: And so the man goes.
Speaker 2: It's not his field, so he goes and he sells all that he has to buy the field that he might obtain the treasure.
Speaker 2: And it says, importantly, he does so with joy.
Speaker 2: And the point is this the man we don't know how much he had, but all of his possessions, everything that he owned, he had to sell it in order to obtain this treasure and he did it joyfully.
Speaker 2: The Christian life may cost you everything, but it's worth it.
Speaker 2: So, paul, he can suffer and still rejoice and be glad and say all because he sees Christ is more glorious than his possessions, than his money, than his friends that walked out on him, than his life.
Speaker 2: It's profound.
Speaker 2: So in Philippians 3, 7 and 8, he writes whatever gain I had, I counted it as loss for the sake of Christ.
Speaker 2: Whatever gain I had, I counted it as loss for the sake of Christ.
Speaker 2: Indeed, I count everything as loss, the flesh ripped from my back, loss, rubbish, because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ.
Speaker 2: Jesus, my Lord.
Speaker 2: If you know Christ, your soul can be satisfied.
Speaker 2: If you lose everything else For his sake, I have suffered all things.
Speaker 2: The loss of all things, and I count them as dung, is what it means Rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.
Speaker 2: In order that I may gain Christ.
Speaker 2: Paul at the end of his life, he writes his final letter to the book of 2 Timothy.
Speaker 2: He's writing to his apprentice and he's on death row under the brutal emperor Nero.
Speaker 2: And Nero was known for his brutal executions of Christians, often slow and painful.
Speaker 2: And Paul doesn't know what he's in for exactly, but he knows it's going to be bad.
Speaker 2: And he's sitting at the end of his life and he's writing to Timothy.
Speaker 2: And what we might expect him to write after all we've considered is Timothy, don't go into ministry, whatever you do, or maybe even don't follow Christ.
Speaker 2: Do, or maybe even don't follow Christ.
Speaker 2: It's not worth it.
Speaker 2: It's not what he says.
Speaker 2: 2 Timothy 4, 6-8.
Speaker 2: For I am already being poured out like a drink offering my time of departure.
Speaker 2: He's not just going to die and be annihilated, he's just changing locations.
Speaker 2: He said himself to be absent from the bodies, to be present with the Lord, and here's what he says.
Speaker 2: I hope we can all say this at the end of our lives I fought the good fight, I finished my course and I have kept the faith Henceforth.
Speaker 2: There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord and the righteous judge will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but all of us, all of you, he says, who have loved his appearing, never hurt anybody at the end of their life.
Speaker 2: I've been by ministry for, I think, 25, 20, I've been saying that for probably five years, a long time, and I've been by a lot of Christians' bedsides in their final moments and I've never had a Christian say and I've been with some believers who suffered greatly.
Speaker 2: I never heard them say not once.
Speaker 2: You know, I regret giving my life to Jesus.
Speaker 2: Paul, is it worth it?
Speaker 2: Is it worth the cost of following Jesus, he has said.
Speaker 2: He would say to us today in glory yes, yes, a million times over, yes, he is the supreme treasure.
Speaker 2: So how do you have this attitude?
Speaker 2: Like paul, you do what he did.
Speaker 2: You keep your eyes on jesus rather than your suffering.
Speaker 2: He tells us as much as Hebrews 12, 1 and 2.
Speaker 2: He says continue to look to Jesus, the founder and the perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Speaker 2: You know, thank God that he knows of suffering.
Speaker 2: You have a savior who can sympathize with you.
Speaker 2: Keep your eyes on him and I would just say to you, like Paul, just continue to revel in his glory, in the love of God.
Speaker 2: Revel in the love of God, the salvation that you have in Christ, the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus.
Speaker 2: One more passage Romans 8, 35 through 39,.
Speaker 2: Paul's words.
Speaker 2: And the point here is that, you know, remember, he says in another I think it's second Corinthians he says what's he say?
Speaker 2: What's trading my sorrows?
Speaker 2: That's how I know it.
Speaker 2: Pressed but not crushed, persecuted not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed.
Speaker 2: Here's what he knows.
Speaker 2: Christ is supreme and the devil and people in this world can throw all that they have against us, they can even take our lives, but here's what he declares and this is hope for all of us today.
Speaker 2: Romans 8, 35.
Speaker 2: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ, us from?
Speaker 2: the love of Christ Shall tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness or danger or sword, as it is written, for your sake.
Speaker 2: We're being killed all the day long.
Speaker 2: We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
Speaker 2: No, paul says, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Christ, who loved us, for I'm sure that neither death nor life, angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Speaker 2: And Paul's point is if you have that, then who cares what you lose?
Speaker 2: That's the point, paul.
Speaker 2: Is it worth it?
Speaker 2: Yes, there are many dangers, toils and snares.
Speaker 2: I have already come.
Speaker 2: Grace has brought me safe this far and grace will lead me home.
Speaker 2: One final story, and I'm done.
Speaker 2: Some of you may be familiar with the missionary, famous missionary, jim Elliott.
Speaker 2: So Jim Elliott graduated from Wheaton College in 1945.
Speaker 2: He was a Bible major.
Speaker 2: He graduated with honors and he was man preparing his life to be used in whatever way God wanted to use him, to be used in whatever way God wanted to use him.
Speaker 2: On October 28, 1949, eliot penned in his personal journal, as he was preparing for ministry.
Speaker 2: His most famous words and they read like this he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.
Speaker 2: In other words, it's his way of declaring that losing everything for Christ is not foolish it's all going to be burned up one day anyways.
Speaker 2: He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.
Speaker 2: That's 1949.
Speaker 2: In 1953, as a young man, he married his wife Elizabeth and they had one daughter together.
Speaker 2: Soon after a missionary from Ecuador told Elliot, in 1953, as a young man, he married his wife Elizabeth and they had one daughter together.
Speaker 2: Soon after, a missionary from Ecuador told Elliot of an unreached, violent Indian tribe in the jungles of Ecuador, and Elliot was determined, he felt God leading him to get the gospel to this very violent tribe of people.
Speaker 2: In the fall of 1955, after much preparation, elliot joined four other missionaries and they made their initial contact with the tribe.
Speaker 2: They were in an airplane and they would drop bags of goods as kind of peace offerings to let them know they were there to do them no harm.
Speaker 2: Then, finally, they came over a loudspeaker and said some phrases in their native tongue to do them no harm.
Speaker 2: Then, finally, they came over a loudspeaker and said some phrases in their native tongue to let them know again man, we just are here to talk to you, we mean you no harm.
Speaker 2: And so, on January 6, 1956, the missionaries made their first landing, where they were greeted by a young lady and two men, and they were warmly welcomed and they said we've got to go, but we're going to come back in a couple of days and we want you to bring more people so we can share with them about Jesus.
Speaker 2: So the missionaries did as they said.
Speaker 2: They returned on January the 8th, expecting a large group to come hear about Christ, who were hungry for God.
Speaker 2: That's not what happened.
Speaker 2: Instead, a large group of violent men came out and speared all five missionaries to death.
Speaker 2: Elliot was survived by his young wife and his 10-month-old little baby, and I would just say to you today that Elliot was no fool for giving up what he cannot keep to gain what he could not lose.
Speaker 2: You say, well, what good did that do?
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what good it did.
Speaker 2: Elliot's wife and another lady returned to that same tribe sometime later.
Speaker 2: They lived amongst the people who killed her husband for two years, learning the culture, the language and then sharing the gospel with them, and Elizabeth's courageous act of forgiveness and love had such a profound impact on this tribe that they ended up embracing Christianity and turning their back on their violent ways.
Speaker 2: I don't know what you'll have to go through as you commit your life to Jesus.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you this it's glorious in some ways, but it's challenging.
Speaker 2: But a million times over it's worth it.