Special: The sufferings of life from a heavenly vs a human perspective

Well, good morning. I'd like to talk about a subject that actually started last year with every time Vern goes on break, a chance to get away, which is well deserved. Either Mike or I get a chance to talk. And so last I think it was last November, I had the privilege of talking about.

See, I've forgotten. It's basically the the seeming tragedies of life. And I kind of thought, you know, I didn't actually think I finished that topic. So this is kind of a variation, but much more focused on the believer and the sufferings of Christ, the sufferings of Paul, and hence the sufferings of us.

So let's go ahead. So basically I've titled it The Sufferings of Life from a Heavenly versus Human Perspective. And you know, it makes all the difference in the world. Scripture talks about a heavenly perspective a lot. And I'd like to show you how, you know, several things we're going to talk about here. A lot of it's going to do, and I have this picture which I borrowed from Hal, Hal Malloy, and he had this to show our position in the heavenlies in Christ versus our walk here on earth. So we can see the sufferings of life. From one of those two perspectives, we can say, well, I guess I'm here, and it's going to be a tough go, and God will help me out if I ask him.

He'll be my helper. Bob taught him. But that's not what scripture teaches. It teaches us to be heavenly minded, to have our mind set on Christ, and to see it from that perspective. But there's some interesting things to learn about the sufferings of Christ, the sufferings of Paul, and hence the sufferings of us. So let's get into that here.

And I apologize for the little bit tinier than I would like But I didn't, I had to make a choice. I got them all on the screen. So I said, that's good. I really have it on the screen and not on the screen at all. So I, I made that choice. So it's on the screen. Okay.

So what does the Bible say about suffering? First of all, a definition. If you look at the original language, it comes to the word pathos. It means suffering, it signifies affliction, and you actually see it translated that way. You'll see it as sufferings or afflictions throughout a variety of verses. Paul used this word a lot. He used it in the epistles. He also is found in Hebrews, three times in Hebrews and four times in 1 Peter. The word trials is also used as well, but I'm going to talk about that a little bit, but mostly I'm going to kind of go on the path of sufferings and afflictions.

So what's our typical response? So I have a list of about six or seven things. And, you know, most of you probably would not... I guess you might be ashamed of some of these things I'm going to share. But I would say these probably are things that come to our mind, we might think them. So here's a list.

I don't see God playing our hand in this Suffinger trial. I'm trying my best, but nothing's working out. I'm envious of others who don't have this problem. I tell you, I mean, to be truthful with yourself, many times we say that, myself included. What did I do wrong? We're always looking for something we did wrong. And maybe we did do something wrong. I'm ashamed I feel this way. We're ashamed because we know, we know the response we should have, but we're ashamed that we have that response. I don't want this problem. Hey, Lord, I just don't want it. Why does God want me to be so miserable? And then lastly, why doesn't God answer my prayer?

Which typically is, take that problem away. So all those are, you know, I have said those, maybe not verbally to myself, I've said those and I'm sure that's a common experience of most people. Hopefully as we go through this, we'll learn some things, some new things that will help us to see and to answer some of those questions.

Okay, so now I want to basically compare the sufferings of Christ and his response. How did Christ suffer? We're going to see he suffered actually according to Chaffer. Chaffer says in his book, he says Christ's sufferings were infinite. And I kind of scratched my head for a second. I said, wow, infinite is a big word. Suffering but you think about he suffered for the sins of the world past present and future. That's a lot of suffering We're gonna look at the Apostle Paul and his suffering. We're also gonna look at the responses. So how do they respond?

Did they say like we might say Lord take this problem away and actually we're gonna see they did They actually said that take this. I don't want this problem. The Lord Jesus said that I don't want this cup. I It may not be shocking to you, but he didn't want that.

Even down, you know, anyway, we'll get there. And the believer. We're going to see the believer suffers, obviously. And what's God's instruction on that? Okay, so we're going to start. So what does it say about the Lord Jesus? His sufferings were infinite. As I mentioned, that's a quote from Chafer. He suffered at the hands of the Father. The Father said, my son's going to suffer, and he agreed to that.

Christ suffered from men and Christ suffered from his human body. And that third one is something that I kind of, after looking at these various verses, you know, we have to take the fact that the Lord Jesus is fully man and fully God. We're going to see verses that he's fully man, which don't line up with him being fully God. But if we're going to rightly divide the word, we have to accept those both.

He's the God man. And that's actually going to be helpful. We're going to see in this humanity, that's going to help us to see about our humanity. Okay, that's Schaeffer, I said there. Okay. So, Christ suffering from the Father. And here's one of the ones that's just a beautiful verse.

He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So, you know, that's, if you look at that verse, that's, you know, that's a, that's a toughie, right? He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf. So if you just take the core part of that, and the part that says, who knew no sin, and notice that to be is not in there. So it literally reads, he made him to be sin, I mean, he made him sin on our behalf. Sin singular. So he was made sin itself, which is a mind-boggling concept.

There's another verse that I didn't have on here, Galatians 3.13. It says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. I think it kind of captures that idea. If he's made sin, the thing sinned for us, God can't look upon him. He didn't look upon him. So Christ suffered at the hands of the Father. Next, Christ suffered for men.

And we're going to see here, there's three groups of men, the Jews, three groups of men. I'll just read the verse here. And he began to teach them, saying that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

So he suffered from the elders. That was the lay people. He suffered from the chief priest, mostly like the Sadducees, and the scribes were the keepers of the law. So all three groups contributed to his suffering. And they got together in the Sanhedrin and said, we find this man guilty. Crucify him. So men were definitely part of Christ's suffering. And thirdly, Christ suffered in his human body.

So I have actually three occurrences here, one at the tomb. one contemplating his betrayal, and one in the garden. So the first one is at the tomb. He, Jesus, was deeply moved. And what I've done here, Gary read for us, in some cases, the whole picture, the whole picture of this. I'm going to pull out the parts where it shows his human emotion, his human struggling. We're going to look at those first, and then we're going to come back and look at it again and look at the responses. So here's his at the tomb.

And this is a case where, remember, Mary and Martha and Lazarus were some of his closest people to him. And he was deeply grieved at Lazarus' death. So he arrives there and Mary says, you know, Lord, you should have been here. You know, he died. She's kind of upset with him. And you might be too. He was her only hope that her brother would live. And you should have been here. So he tells her.

So Jephus was deeply moved in his spirit and was troubled in himself. And it says Jesus wept. And that deeply moves the idea of agitation, of the mind in grief. And that says contemplating his betrayal. It says, he became troubled in spirit. I say to you that one of you will betray me. So this is a case where he's with the 12, and just the very fact that one of the closest people with him is going to betray him, even though he knew what was going to happen in his humanity, he was troubled by that, troubled in spirit. And troubled in spirit is the idea, a disturbance of the mind, emotions such as fear, So it seems the Lord, you know, as hard to grasp as it was in his humanity, he experienced these things.

And then the night of his betrayal, he said, Father, if you're willing, remove this cup from me. So here we go. Here we are. The night before, you know, the night he's going to go to the cross early in the morning and the next day, he says, I don't want this. Remove this from me. We say that many times too. I don't want this difficulty. So I'm presenting all the negative parts, if you will.

Being in agony. So this wasn't a light thing, being in agony. He was praying very fervently and his sweat became like drops of blood. And that word for agony, actually I had it, is the idea of severe emotional strain or anguish. Also, my soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. So think about that. He says, my soul is griefly deep to the point of death.

So what death is he talking about here? It looks like he's saying, I don't want to live anymore. I mean, it's the son of God saying, I want to die right now. I don't want to go to the cross. Take me out of here. I mean, we're going to see Paul had a very similar, similar thing. And we're going to see that if we're honest, I know we struggle with many of our relatives and stuff. Many believers have that same feeling. They don't want to live anymore for whatever reason. And the Lord Jesus, in his humanity, experienced that.

But a good verse to remember here, it's crucial to keep in mind, in Hebrews 4.15 it says, So as amazing as it seems, these reactions These things are not a result of the sin nature. And to me, that's huge. That is huge. Because what will happen is, you'll find well-meaning believers, they'll come along and they'll say, hey, boy, I don't know, where are you operating from today, brother or sister?

The Lord Jesus had operated from this without sin. So take that as an interesting question. Keep in mind, we'll delve into that a little bit later. Okay, so let's go on. What was Christ's response? And we actually read part of that already. And he knelt down and began to pray, saying, Father, if you're willing, remove this cup from me. Yet not my will, but yours be done. Notice even in this, he says, if it's possible, remove it. But then he turns around and comes right back and says, Lord, your will be done. And that's where he would have us as believers. We might say, take it from us. But when we're so convinced that that's God's will and purpose, we say, OK, Lord, let your will be done. And that's the response the Lord is looking for.

And then Matthew has a very similar account of that, a very similar statement. It says, my father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but as you will." So the Lord Jesus was focused on going to the cross. He knew he was going to the cross, but we see the reaction of his humanity, and we see the reaction of his being fully God.

We see both together. So some would say, I don't know. Can I explain this? Can I explain the union of God and man? No. But I see the verses that describe that. And I have to be honest and be accurate to the Scriptures. If I go off and say, well, I don't know, maybe he felt I could make up stuff. We don't want to make up stuff. We want to accurately teach what is in Scripture.

So Paul. Paul's suffering as described in Scripture. Three areas again. He suffered from the Father, he suffered from men, and he suffered from his human body. But of course in Paul's case, We have to be careful. Paul had a sin nature. So when we see some of that we're not exactly sure was responding from his sin nature or is responding from From his new nature, but his human body was overwhelming him as Christ did apparently Okay, Paul suffered from the father How'd you like to have have this?

This is Ananias. Yeah, I'd like to have the you know become a believer and Right after you become a believer. He says here's how much you're gonna have to suffer for me and You say, well, wait a minute, I thought becoming a Christian was easy street. Anyway, in Acts 9 it says, but the Lord said to him, and this is talking to Ananias, this is what he's telling Ananias to do. Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel. For I'll show him how much he must suffer for my namesake.

Then for men, and this list is we've kind of talked about since Sunday school, that Paul's sufferings was just incredible. And this is kind of a snippet of that. Paul says, I more so in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten without numbers, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews 30 lashes. Three times I had been beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I spent in the deep. And it goes on. His ministry for the Lord was exceptional. I mean, I'm thanking the Lord that I don't have to do all those things for the Lord. Anyway, let's go on here. Okay. So now we're going to see the occurrence.

We saw the Lord Jesus' occurrence of suffering in his human body. Here's a verse that talks about Paul's suffering in his human body. For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our afflictions, And, you know, afflictions is one of the words we've been tracking, you know, sufferings and afflictions, which came to us in Asia, for we were burdened excessively beyond our strength. So here's the case. It seems like the pattern is that our fallen, careful here, our human bodies are capable of being overwhelmed without sin. And we don't know, it doesn't say that, I'm just, you know, Beyond our strength so that we even despaired of life and we surrenders that we despaired of living So once again the Lord Jesus despaired of living Paul despaired of living. So would you say he's in there?

Or did or is this just as human body overwhelming him? interesting Okay, Paul's response to suffering. So the background this is a wonderful passage the background of this To keep me from exalting myself There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from exalting myself. Concerning this, I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Well, it seems to be a theme, you know, if you go through Paul's writings.

And he says he wants to boast about his weakness. He doesn't want to boast about what the Lord has done through him, necessarily. He wants to boast about his weakness, because then he'll show people to depend upon the Lord. Okay. So his response. Most gladly, therefore, I would rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. On my own behalf, I will not boast, as I mentioned before, except in regard to my weakness. And the rest of his response, therefore I'm well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Okay. So now we're going to move, so we've covered so far, And Bonnie tells me always, I need to have stories. You know, good presenting, right? If you're a good presenter, you've got to have stories. Well, I couldn't think of any stories. It's just too heavy. Well, I'll tell you a story. I'll tell you a story. It's funny. I will tell you a story.

Back at Bellevue Bible Chapel, where Courtney and I met, and we had many wonderful years together, I was asked to speak in the main service again, much like this. So I decided I would go and practice, like the Saturday before. So Bonnie came with me. So we go in. I had a key. Open the door. We set the microphones, the whole thing.

So she's out in the pew by herself. There's nobody else in the congregation. She's sitting up by herself. So I started my presentation. about two-thirds of the way through it, I don't see her anymore. She's down in the pew. What happened to my audience?

So hopefully I've improved a small bit above that. We'll see, we'll see. Okay, all right, so let's go on. So there's my story, right? Okay, back to the third part of this. What the Bible teaches about the suffering of believers. Okay, so actually there's going to be kind of three parts to this too.

A little bit different, because I want to bring in the heavenly perspective. The believers suffer, and we're going to see how believers suffer in Scripture. We're going to see God's instruction. I didn't really want to say God's command. And maybe you could say, I like the idea that what Vernon's brought forth many times, logical imperatives.

As we look at our life in Christ and who we are in Christ, we say, well, this is how I should act because of who I am. I shouldn't act contrary to who I am. I should act as a heavenly citizen. I should act as a child of God. And so it's logical that we should act that way. So I like the word instruction rather than command. even though there might be some commands in there.

And then thirdly, the heavenly perspective about living the Christian life and suffering. Okay, so what does the Bible teach about the sufferings of believers? So this list is long. I have two or three charts. So first of all, the believer is going to suffer because the world hated Christ, it says. He's going to hate you. That's just a fact of being a Christian. Also, in those two verses in John 15, 18, 19, it also says, if you read carefully, it says, the world hates you because Christ has taken you out of the world.

I thought that was really key. I said, well, how do they know he's taken me out of the world? They look and see, you have a passport that says, a passport to heaven? Here it is, you know. No, but that's what it says. It says, because you're not of this world, they'll hate you. You've been taken out of this world, and that's good news.

The sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance. In the body of Christ, you are sharers of one another's suffering. And we've talked about that a lot in Sunday school today. And that's a wonderful thing. We share, we come alongside one another as brothers in Christ, sisters in Christ. We share their sufferings, we share their pain. And that's part of who we are as a body of Christ. The fellowship of his suffering or the joint participation is to be known by all believers.

So we jointly share in that. And here's one. We're studying this on Mike's study on Wednesdays. The fiery ordeals among you which come upon you for your testing. Do not be surprised. The idea is amazed or bewildered. This is a sharing in the Christ's sufferings. And that fiery ordeal actually is literally a trial by fire. There's a parallel passage that talks about the purifying of gold.

And in 1 Peter 1.7 it talks about your faith being tested as you would test gold. So there's a purification there. So that fiery ordeal has a purpose.

And we're going to see that all the sufferings of believers are always for a purpose. God doesn't act with a believer for for no reason just because well, you know, I Wasn't I was it was busy today. I didn't get to you and you slipped up and made a mistake No, he's he's on top of it 24-7. You may not think that what he is Should not be moved by these afflictions for you yourself know that we are appointed and here's the verse are destined to these things for some we're destined appointed for sufferings and afflictions, maybe not the best news you want to hear and And then lastly, the point I've been making kind of in the background here, we may have sufferings from our human bodies without sin on our part, Christ and Paul's example. Okay.

So what's our response? What is God's instruction in our response? He talks about making a comparison. He says, think about what it's going to be like when you go to be with me in glory. He says, suffering in this present age cannot be compared with the glory that will be revealed to us. Suffering is for a little while. That's kind of a biggie too. He says, think about now as a little while. This is just a little while. It seems like a long while, but it's a little while. He says, compare that, you know, make a comparison.

The suffering is but for a little while, then the God of all grace will perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. In this, it's talking about your salvation, the blessings of salvation. You greatly rejoice, even though for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials. Comfort overflows through Christ to match the sufferings of Christ that we endure. That's kind of a paraphrase of that part of that verse. OK. Here's a wonderful verse. Something to remember. What do you think about joy and happiness? Are those equivalent terms in scripture? I'm going to argue that they're not. Because, you know, are we to be happy, happy, happy, happy? Is that the Christian life? Some think it is.

You've got to have a warm handshake and a big smile and everything's going great. Well, boy, you look at scripture, it doesn't sound like what I read in scripture. But joy is different. Joy is realizing who you are and what you have. And it's something that's part of you. It's a gift of the Holy Spirit. Love, joy, peace, and so on. Joy and happiness are not equivalent. And that's why you can consider it all joy, my brethren. when you encounter various trials. Knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete and lacking nothing."

Okay, so now here's the... I'll talk about the heavenly picture. Hopefully you're not going to fall into pews, you're not going to fall asleep around me. Okay, we're actually coming... we're getting toward the end here. Believe it or not. Okay, heavenly picture.

So let's talk about the heavenly perspective from scripture, talk about the believer's position in Christ, and a summary of some positional truths. I really feel blessed because I've been studying Ephesians. A lot of these things I kind of borrowed from the Ephesians class because we have them. Actually, I can borrow them from some of the other classes too, but we have them as part of our class, so it's wonderful. So the believer, in his heavenly perspective. The believer, according to Ephesians, is in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Our citizenship is in heaven. Our hope is laid up for us in heaven. An inheritance reserved in you for heaven. And actually, another one I didn't put on here. This is kind of an interesting one.

So I'm waiting for the Lord Jesus to return. Do I wait at Bellevue Bible Chapel right here in the auditorium? Do I wait here for the Lord to return? I don't. I wait in heaven. That doesn't blow your mind. I don't have it on here. We wait in heaven. So that really tells us. That's where we're to be focused. I wait in heaven for Him to return. I should have added my list here. A believer's focus is to be from the heavenlies. Seeking the things above, setting your mind on things above.

What does it mean to be in Christ? This is why I really like, in a living union with Christ Jesus. I think that's a combination of what Hal taught and some others. I kind of, in a living union with Christ Jesus, there's a little picture of trying to, you know, McCauley has a good point here. The prepositional phrase in Christ is the most fundamental expression in the New Testament of what it means to be a Christian.

Isn't that interesting? It's the most fundamental expression, but it's the least taught. I mean, if I went up the door and walked down here, and I told them the most important thing that should be taught is that in Christ, they would say, probably not. How about something else? They wouldn't say that, probably. Their phrase was a favor to Paul. He used it nine times in the first 14 verses, about 25 times in the rest of Ephesians.

The in Christ statement about the believer is called, that's really the definition of positional truth. So the next one is going to talk about positional truth. Positional truth describes our living union with Christ. Positional truth describes our new history in Christ. Positional truth never changes, nor is never lost. Positional truth is discovered only in the word of God. Positional truth is independent of our feelings and emotions.

It doesn't mean that we don't say, thank you, Lord. I'm sitting with you in the heavenlies. Thank you so much. But it's not, you know, it's not, you know, once we realize, but it's not an emotional kind of feeling or whatever. And Macaulay has a definition, which I like. It's a body of truth that tells us of the facts and significance of our union with Christ. Okay. So I decided to put this chart in.

So what if I'm angry with God, and I said, you can't be the God that I know, this is too much. And you say, I don't want this, and you walk away from Him. What's God going to do? What's God going to do if you walk away from Him? This will blow your circuits here.

If we are faithless, and we are sometimes, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. You say, well, I've been there. But he still remains faithful, which is cool. And then probably one of my favorite verses of many is this one. And it's in Hebrews. And it just tells us of his focus and his care for us.

For he himself, this is a Weiss translation, for he himself has said, and the statement is on record, I will not, I will not cease to sustain you and uphold you. I will not, I will not, I will not let you down. So that being of good courage, we are saying the Lord is my helper. I will not be, I will not fear what shall man do to me.

So that's pretty five negatives there, five and just incredible, incredible statement. OK, so a few summary thoughts here. OK, good. God has a plan. I'm glad he has a plan. I don't have a plan many times. We were asked to think about a story. Have you made up your five year plan? This is back when we had small kids about Caroline's age and got Caroline's kids age. And a dear friend said, have you made up your five-year plan? And Bonnie said, I'm thinking about the next week and how to get through the next week. A five-year plan? What are you talking about?

What's wonderful is we can depend upon God's plan and not our plan. God has a plan and a purpose for the believer's suffering. It's to conform us to the image of Christ, He who has begun a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. When you trusted Him as your Savior, you started out in this relationship with Him. He began it. He saved you. You trusted Him by faith. He saved you. He began it. He's going to continue it. Grow in grace in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. One we always need to remember, I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. He's doing the living. Some more things to remember. The source of our anxiety and worry about these sufferings many times are our damning nature. But I've learned a little bit that there's some bodily things that are going on here too. Ask me to totally explain that.

I can't. But Christ's death on the cross has separated us from our sin nature. Our response is to be one of faith in the facts. So our focus many times can be on ourselves rather than on Christ and his promises. We can get wrapped up in ourselves. That's pretty easy to do. We can be looking at the circumstances from our perspective rather than God's perspective. And then here's a chart that I'm trying to summarize one of the points I've been making here.

The human body is frail. and may be overloaded or overcome by the sufferings of life. Christ's human body, even though being God, was overcome by a troubled spirit. This is from the verses we read earlier. By a troubled spirit, being in agony, deeply grieved to the point of death, but it was without sin. And we know that from the other passages. Paul's human body was overcome, excessively burdened beyond his strength, As a result, Paul despaired of his life. So pretty amazing insights there. So I'd just like to leave you with a few thoughts here.

God's trials and sufferings for the believer are always with a view toward our approval and to glorify him. His power and glory is revealed through our weakness, When we find we cannot fix our trials and sufferings, then we are ready to rely totally upon the Lord for his solutions. And then lastly, and this is from Hal, it's a giant step when we accept our weakness in fixing our trials and suffering. It's a giant step when we accept our weakness in fixing our trials and sufferings.

Thank you. All right. Let's see. Should I pray now? I forgot. OK. I guess I should pray. I apologize. I'm losing it here. I'm totally losing it. Maybe I should go back to Bellevue and start again. OK. All right. Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for our time today, Lord. Thank you for the blessings we have, Father. Thank you for just the insight of Scripture. Thank you for the honesty of Scripture and for its exactness and how it tells us about our wonderful Savior, how he's fully God and fully man, and how his sufferings in his body were substantial, Lord. Thank you for your care for us. And that never ends, Father. In Christ's name, amen.