Faith That It Will Be Worth It

Thanks for listening! If you feel like the content is helpful, we would love it if you share it with your friends, subscribe, and provide a great review.

You can learn more about First Baptist Church of Mandeville, Louisiana here: www.fbcmandeville.org

You can hear Pastor Ronny's sermons here: https://www.youtube.com/@fbcmandeville/videos

You can listen to one-minute sermon clips here: https://www.youtube.com/@fbcmandeville/shorts

And you can contact us at info@fbcmandeville.org

Transcript

Welcome And A Surprising Story

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in the Word. I'm Ronnie Cooksie.

The Lighthouse Idea That Failed

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Joe Stowe tells the following story. August Bartholdi went from France to Egypt in 1856. He was awestruck by the grandeur of the pyramids, the magnitude of the mighty Nile, and the beauty of the stately sphinx of the desert. His artistic mind was stimulated, and while on this trip he met another visitor to Egypt, Ferdinand Deniseps. Ferdinand was there to sell an idea, an idea to cut a canal from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea that would save merchant ships the long journey around the tip of the African continent. August Bartholdi was taken by the concept. He decided to design a lighthouse to stand at the entrance to this canal. It wouldn't be an ordinary lighthouse, it would symbolize the light of the Western civilization flowing to the east. It took ten years to build the Suez Canal, and for ten years Bartoldi worked on his idea. He drew plans, made clay models, he scrapped the plan, and then another plan he scrapped, and so on and so forth, and then he finally had the right one. It was the perfect design. Only one problem remained. Who would pay for it? He looked everywhere, but no one was interested. The Suez Canal was opened without a lighthouse. August went back to France defeated. Ten years of toil and effort wasted. You would have liked his idea. It was a colossal robed lady that stood taller than the Sphinx in the desert. She held the books of justice in one hand and a torch lifted high in the other to light the entrance to the canal. After Bartholdi returned to France dejected, the French government sought his artistic services. His planning and design cultivated in the Statue of Liberty lighting the New York Harbor. His disappointment was turned to delight.

Romans 8:18 On Suffering

SPEAKER_00 1:57

And much like Bartholdi, there are things that feel like suffering that we don't understand sometimes in the Christian life, where following Christ brings on hardship in our life. We don't enjoy that, but the Scripture gives us a great promise today. We looked last time, verse 17, that if we've come to know Christ, we're heirs with Him, we're in the Father's family. And it says that if we are heirs, we'll also suffer so that we may be glorified with Him, so that we'll follow Him to heaven as He leads the way and has charted a course for us. And verse 18 of Romans 8 says, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. And so daily we must choose to believe and have faith that it will be worth it to continue to follow Christ. And he says, It's going to be glorious. When we get to heaven, we'll be glad that we stayed hard after Christ, pursuing a life of honoring and glorifying him. It will be worth it.

Persecution That Became A Gift

SPEAKER_00 3:03

I was in the Ukraine years ago on a mission trip, and our driver was a Romanian man who had grown up in the old communist Russia, and in the military he had become quite successful. And he was advancing in his career, but then it was discovered that he was a Christian, a follower of Christ. And so he was persecuted, he was demoted, and he was given the job of working heavy equipment machinery. Well, after the fall of communism when he was there in Ukraine, guess what became a really profitable job? You guessed it, operating heavy equipment. God will always make it worth it. I can't promise you what the outcome will be if you follow him today and if you choose to identify with Christ, but I can tell you that he promises it will be worth it, and we experience this in the small sufferings that we experience even today.

Knowing Christ Through Shared Pain

SPEAKER_00 3:57

We get to know him in a deeper way. You think of old army buddies or old football buddies who have a common experience that they shared, and it produces a lifelong bond for which they're grateful. This is how we know Christ more intimately is that we choose to follow him. He suffered death on the cross to identify with us. Will we be willing to suffer with him to identify with him? God bless you.

Prayer And Tomorrow’s Invitation

SPEAKER_00 4:28

I'm pausing right now to pray for you and the suffering that you may be experiencing today as a believer, that God would walk you through it, and God would make you glad that you got to go through it with him rather than choosing to disassociate yourself with the Christ who died for you and gave his life on the cross suffering for you. God bless you. I look forward to seeing you back here tomorrow as we pick back up with Romans chapter eight.