“Huck and Chuck,” what does that mean? That’s the title of the sermon, “Huck and Chuck”. We’re back there, and Nick goes, “I normally just delete those things. I’ve looked for the Huck folder, and I can’t find it.” I had a vacation. Can you tell? Good to see you. If you got a Bible, go with me. Let’s do it. Romans chapter eight. We’re going to be in verse 17 today, and we’ll get there here in a moment. By the way, the phishing scam was representing me, trying to pretend it was me, and it basically says, “Hey, it said this: I’m in a prayer session, so I can’t take your call right now, but I need you to email me back.” Trust me, I never would use the term “prayer session”. I hope you’re happy. Here’s the title of the message: “Suffering With Christ” (Romans 8:17b). It’s taken right out of the text, and trust me, you’re going to see it is incredibly good news. Let’s read it, Romans 8:15-17. “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.” We covered that a few weeks ago, but then here’s this statement: “Provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified.” Now, first things first, let’s make sure you understand what this doesn’t say. This word “provided” is a translation choice, it’s not a literal translation, usually the word “which”, which is translated in this sense, “provided” is translated “indeed” or “since”. Now the reason why it says “provided”, and it’s a problem, is because it looks like it’s conditional. It is a conditional particle, but in the Greek, this is why it’s so good to know the Greek, it is in the indicative mood. It’s assuming something. The Bible’s not telling you that you’re a child and an heir and a co-heir with Christ as long as you do your suffering. You got to get your suffering in. That’s not what it’s saying. It’s saying this: you being a child, you being an heir, you being a co-heir with Christ, you’re going to have your fair share of suffering in this world. You’re going to, and I want you to see that it doesn’t say it’s meritorious, it doesn’t say suffering is efficacious, right? It doesn’t say you’re earning salvation; it’s simply stating a fact. It’s stating a fact that those who are in Christ will suffer in this world, that’s what it’s literally talking about. See that? And, by the way, this word “suffer” right here – we’ll talk about this word, but this is not the word that is used for normal hardships or trials. Okay, this is not saying that you’re co-heir, as long as you have, you know, your fair share of hard things happen in your life. This is not talking about the suffering that happens, you know, when you get your property tax bill. It’s not that. It’s not because your washing machine broke. It’s not because you’re, you know, your relationships broken, or say this is not even something you’d say, “Oh, this is my health.” No, this is not that word. In this life, people suffer, no matter where they are, whether they’re in Christ or whether they aren’t. Those are just normal trials.
Job 5:7 puts it this way, “But man (that’s mankind, man) is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.” What does that mean? Now, well, you ever sat by a campfire, where do the sparks go? They go up. In other words, it’s the normal course. There’s going to be trouble, there’s going to be hardship. So that 8:17 “suffers”, not talking about that kind of trouble, nor is it referring to the things that we see in Romans 5:3-4. Remember this from years ago? “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings.” This is not the same word, this is the word, “thlipsis”, and it simply means pressure. We rejoice in the pressure. These are normal pressures, and they yield because they’re temporary. They yield temporary benefits in our sanctification, “Knowing that suffering produces endurance.” Will you need endurance in heaven? No, you won’t. You need it now. Look at the next verse. “And endurance produces character.” Will you need character development produced in heaven? No, your character will be perfect, you’ll be in perfect holiness, just as Christ is. “And character produces hope.” Will you need hope in heaven? No, you won’t need hope. You won’t need hope in heaven. You’ll have everything, it’ll be there, you will have realized it. A man doesn’t hope for what he already has, and so it’s not talking about that kind of suffering as normal.
Let’s go jump back with me to Romans 8:17, right? “Children then heirs, heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, provided that we suffer.” Well, so what exactly is this word talking about? What does this word mean? Well, it’s noteworthy that this word is only used two times in your Bible, only twice, and I’m going to go over there here in a moment and show you the second place it’s used, but there’s a reason for it, because this is not “thlipsis”. I want to make sure I spell this transliteration correctly. It’s S Y M P A S C H O. Yeah, that’s transliteration of the Greek term, but that’s how you pronounce it, “sympascho”. Now I’m gonna ask you a question. Your 2nd service, you got to sleep in a little bit, so you’re sharper than 1st service. Do you see a word in here already? Do you see a word right here? “Sympathy”. Yeah, that’s what this is. The definition of the word “sympascho” is this, it’s to experience pain jointly, to suffer with or feel pain together, and so there would be the sympathy. There’s a sympathetic pain happening in this verse. If we suffer, and you notice it says “With Him, and that’s the difference, that’s the distinction of it. You having to pay your taxes is not you suffering with Christ, it’s when you’re actually suffering because of Him. And so, we see this verse in another place and let me show you where it is. This is 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, and I think you’ll remember the context of verse chapter 12 as we go through a few verses, look, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” Remember these? Verse 13, “For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body (that’s the church universal throughout all time and geography) Jews and Greek, slaves and free, and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” Skip down to 2 Corinthians 18-20, “But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as He chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.” So, you get the illustrations of the body, many parts, they’re not the same, but together they make one body.
Now, look at 2 Corinthians 12:26 and you’ll see our word there, “sympascho”. Look, “If one member suffers, (look, this is one Greek word) all suffer together.” “All suffer together”, “sympascho”, so the suffering in one space brings suffering in all the other spaces, and the body is the illustration, and you know this, don’t you? You know this. If you get injured, your whole body reacts to it, doesn’t it? It’s not just isolated at one small place, you feel that throughout the body, that’s what it’s talking about in Romans 8:17 “If indeed we suffer with Him.” Now that we’re not suffering for atonement, we’re suffering under certain trials and persecutions related directly to Him. We’ll get to that, but here’s the point: there’s a sympathy in that, and it’s not just the sympathy that He has for us, but it’s sympathetic that we’re feeling the kind of things that He felt at some level, and there’s a reaction to it. If you don’t just suffer by yourself, you’ve been sympathetic for someone, haven’t you? And someone else has suffered. Well, it’s that way in your body as well, isn’t it? Kelly and I went camping two weeks ago, and I say camping because I want to look cool, but it’s really not camping. We pull around a big toaster with a king size bed inside of it. Now, in all fairness, I did injure my left arm moving firewood, so you know, pray for me. But that’s germane to the story, because we woke up like a third morning there, I think, and here’s how we camp. The trailer, the king size bed is back to the back. It’s a converted toy hauler. We bought a toy hauler, and we converted it. And so then, then my back is sitting against the drop down door, and of course it’s closed, and she’s making coffee, and she’ll bring me my coffee, because she’s godly. She brings her food from afar, and so I’m sitting there, you know, giving her moral support. “You can do it!” And right after that bell rings, and that coffee maker, she pours it, and she comes across handing it to me. Now she has the handle, and so she gives me the cup, which I think is mean. But I took it with my good arm, and I’m sitting back up, you know, because you’re in bed, so now you’re coming back like this, and, and that, well, I went with my left arm, which was still having some kind of weird spasm, and my hands decided to rebel, and my hands did this, I can’t explain it, I have it. I literally have the T-shirt to prove it, and that scalding hot coffee hit me here to here, and just and you know what? I didn’t go, ‘Wow, I bet that hurts on my chest.” My whole body convulsed. I just sat there like this, so it would start to cool, and then the pain could dissipate and Kelly’s laughter could stop, and therefore I was convulsing, because listen, the rest of my body was sympathetic. Why? Because we’re one, I’m one body, and we’re one body in Christ, and you are one spirit with Christ, and what Christ suffered, you feel, because you suffer some of those same things in this world, that’s what it’s talking about in 8:17 “(since or indeed) we suffer with Him.”
Now let’s jump back to the text again, Romans 8:17 “And if children and heirs, heirs and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer (here’s the key) with Him.” This “with Him” is implied in this word, and it’s implied in the word that is “Glorified with Him”. Why? Because the theme of the text is Christ. So, we know who the together is, the sympathy in that’s what it’s talking about. That’s actually what it means, and if it’s not “in Him”, “with Him”, then it’s not this kind of suffering. It’s not what it’s talking about. So, we have to ask this question, why then is this happening? Why is there suffering at all? Well, we live in a sin-cursed world, and sin brings sorrow. That’s the bottom line. Jesus comes into the world, He takes our sin, He bears our sorrow, He carries it away, but that doesn’t mean we’re relieved of any suffering in this life. There will be a day where Christians will no longer suffer. It’s already guaranteed, but it’s not yet here, already not yet. And so, we do, and we endure suffering. We go through things not just normal, but we go through particular sufferings as Christians, listen, because we are in Christ. Now if you think that model is unusual, was that not the model of our Lord, our leader, the one that is our Savior, our God? Yes, it certainly was suffering, and then following that with glory, look at Luke 24:25-26 This is on the road to Emmaus, ‘And He said to them, ‘O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ (what?) should suffer these things and enter into His glory?’” You see, one follows the other. We’re headed into glory, and we do experience sufferings. In fact, 1 Peter 1:10-11 says it this way, “Concerning this salvation.” Now, what is he talking about? Well, the previous verses talk about your and my inheritance in Christ, that is secured in heaven, it’s kept there by God, that’s assurance. But he says, “Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring (what?) person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted (watch this), the sufferings of Christ and (the what?) subsequent glories.” One precedes the other, and so it is with the body, and He is sympathetic to us in that suffering, and we are sympathetic to Him because the Bible, in some places, calls it “Sharing in His sufferings”. That’s when we’re suffering because we are in Him. Now, this should not surprise us. Jesus makes this perfectly clear.
Let me show you some verses that I guarantee are not on anyone’s refrigerator. This is John 15:18-21, “If the world hates you.” What? You must have done something wrong? Nope. Now, when it says, “the world”, what does it mean? It means the world system. It means people that are unregenerate in all of its systems, the system, the spirit of the world, the people who are antichrist. If that world, “If the world hates you, know that it hated Me before it hated you.” In other words, He went into it first. “Know that it hated Me before it hated you.” Now watch closely. Look at the next verse, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own.” Now, what is the solution for some people to avoid suffering? It’s to be of the world, it’s to try to make the world like them. Guess who did that all the time in the Old Testament? Israel. “Yeah, we want to be like the other nations.” Guess who does it all the time right now in the church age? Here’s who, the fake church. We want the world to like us. Now they don’t say the world system because that would sound like, you know, reprehensible. They use words like “community”, they use words like “the people”, they use words like “the surrounding neighborhoods,” whatever they, whatever it is. If you’re talking about pleasing Christ, you can’t be pleasing Christ and a pleaser of men. You can’t serve two masters, that doesn’t just apply to not serving money. If you’re going to be a pleaser of God, you cannot be a pleaser of men. It doesn’t mean you don’t love people, it doesn’t mean you don’t even like them, but it means that you, they can’t be what you’re about. And so, if we were of the world, we could get the world to like us. And so, we want to try in the church in this day and age, typically, what does it do? It goes for the applause of the church. Oh, we want to look this way to the community, we want them to like us, we want them to think we’re a big deal, that somehow us behaving in a certain way that they would appreciate will cause them to want to come to Christ. That is loco en la cabesa. If you don’t hablo that means “crazy in the head”, because Spanish. There’s no sound reasoning in that. People aren’t talked into the gospel, the Holy Spirit convicts them of their sin, they hear the good news of Jesus, and they find their self believing, and so what do they do? They repent of their sin, and they trust their Savior. It’s not because people seeing our lives, they need to reflect the goodness of God. I’m not arguing against that. I’m simply saying you’re not going to get the world to like you, and Jesus is guaranteeing it this way. If you’re going to take a stand for Christ, if you’re going to tell the truth, you’re going to face this kind of suffering. It’s just part and parcel to it. “If you’re of the world, the world loves you as its own, but because you’re not of the world, but I chose you out of the world. Therefore, the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also (do what? they’ll also) persecute you. If they kept My word, they’ll keep yours also.” Why? Because you’re going to be faithful to tell them what He said, simply representing in that way His Word. So, we’re doing right now, so that’s what He’s saying. But look at verse 21 He says, “But all these things, (all what things? all the hate and all the persecution, all) that they will do to you on account of My name, because they do not know Him who sent Me (that’s the Father).” They don’t know God, they don’t love God, they don’t love His Christ, and therefore they hate you. And it’s on account of Jesus’ name. I want you to think about that. Jesus is basically saying this: you can blame Me, not blame, but you know what I’m saying. You can lay it at the feet of Christ. It’s because of you representing Him, and that kind of persecution hits us and hits us in different ways. Let me give you just a loose list, I’m probably going to say these too quickly for any notes, but here are some types of suffering that are in your Bible: rejection, being maligned, misunderstood, falsely accused, harassed, mocked, slandered, schemed against, alienated, distressed, resented, imprisoned, and killed. Now I don’t know about you, that doesn’t sound like any fun, but these are the kinds of things that Jesus is guaranteeing to us, and it’s what Paul is referring to in 8:17 of Romans. Now, you think about that, that seems like a hard word, I mean, those are those are painful things. We don’t see anybody getting killed for the gospel in our probably current day and age, at least in this country, maybe the state. We don’t see it in the state, maybe going on. We don’t know about that, but we tend to think of these things being the red, the more extreme things being the sufferings that he would be talking about in 8:17. It’s just not true. It includes these, but it’s not exclusive to it, because if the Bible’s saying that if you’re in Christ, you’re a child, you’re an heir, you’re a joint heir, and you’re going to have these sufferings, that then it can’t be exclusive to these.
Let me read you Paul’s resume, and we can weigh our lives against it. Let’s see if any of us have experienced these. This is 2 Corinthians 11, right? It started verse 23 He’s refuting these fake super apostles, right? He’s comparing himself, and he doesn’t want to do it, but he needs to do it to protect the church. So, he says, “Are they servants of Christ (talking about the false apostles? He says)? I am a better one, I’m talking like a madman.” In other words, he knows it sounds inappropriate in that sense, but he has to do it, right? You’re used to that with the guy who preaches here most of the time. “With far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. (Here’s the resume) Five times I received at the hands of the Jews, forty lashes less one.” That’s with the same kind of cat of nine tails that they beat Jesus with when they scourged Him, that’s a death sentence, just to have it done once. He goes on, “Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a day in a night and a day, rather I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, danger from my own people, dangers from gentiles, dangers in the city, 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.” And he ends the list not with something of physical but with something of heart. He says, verse 28, “(And apart from all, all the other things I quoted a different translation) And apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.” And what is he saying? He’s saying my heart hurts. Saying I have a pressure on me and a brokenness of heart for those that create problems, and a brokenness of heart for those that would be straying away after false teachers, and a concern that the church would be true to Christ, their Savior. It’s a hard issue, because when you read that resume, you might be able to go through there and pick out the worst one that you think would hurt the most. Maybe it’d be a scourging, or maybe you’re afraid of, you know, big fish, and you would not want a day and a night in the sea, right? Floating on a board, that’d be terrible, right? Just dark black, and there’s fins going by, you know, I don’t know what he experienced, but all those things seem bad.
But there is a suffering that Jesus guarantees will be common, and it will be of heart and He makes no apology when He says this. And again, this won’t be on your refrigerator either. This is Matthew 10:34-36. This is Jesus speaking. Okay, so let’s let Jesus tell us who Jesus is and what Jesus does. He says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.” You say, “I thought He was the Prince of Peace?” Well, when He comes the second time, we’ll have peace through war. By the way, that’s how it all ends. But He says He’s talking about right now, at His first coming, His first advent, right? So, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth. (I have not come to bring peace) I have come to bring (what?) a sword.” What does a sword do? It cuts. That’s the illustration He’s using, and then He says some things that are heartbreaking, and I know that many of us in here feel these things because we’ve had this experience. He says this: “For I have come to set a man against his father.” “Wait, what? You’ve come to set a man against his father? Wait a minute, Jesus isn’t for unity in the family?” Well, of course He is, but it’s true unity, that’s unity in Christ. That’s what Jesus cares about. What is He saying here? Why would Jesus bring a sword to sever and damage a relationship between a man and his father? Well, it’s not that He’s coming and He’s being a destroyer, but the fact that one of them cleaves to Christ is the result. It results in the persecution of someone rejecting them, of someone severing that relationship. I guarantee you, this weekend there’ll be hundreds of people that will feel this at the core, that have a separation with a loved one, a family member, someone you deeply care about, maybe it’s an old friend you went to school with, or you worked with for years, and you want that relationship badly, but you are a believer in Christ, and they hate you for it. Now, it may not be overt hate, but the relationship just can’t come close, and you have always got to be careful, and if you were to be who you really are in Christ, you would face rejection, you would face mocking, you would face overt persecution, even some of us. Right? This is the sympathetic sufferings that are common to each one of us. “I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother.” Mothers think about this. You mothers who have daughters, think about the gospel being so clear and clean in your life, and the light and the salt coming out of your life in such a way that your own child were to look at it and say, “I’m not hearing that stuff. Don’t tell me that. You’re always preaching at me. You’re always trying, you’re judging me.” And you’re just saying, “I love you. My heart is not to hurt you. It’s for your good. I want you to understand what it’s like to have your sins forgiven. I want you to know what the joy of your salvation is. I want you to have an eternal hope, I want you to be in heaven with me.” And your heart’s broken because of it. That’s a suffering. Now I have a question for you, moms and dads, and I already know the answer to it. Which would you rather have, the severing of a loved one in that persecution, or would you rather take a beating? I’ll take a beating, I’ll take a beating any day. Absolutely. Why? Because that pain will end very quickly. Now it might send me home, but to live is Christ, to die is gain. But over having my heart broken? Absolutely. Absolutely, yes. To have having one of my children not know and love and serve Jesus Christ, would I take a beating to have that not be that way? Yes. Wouldn’t you? And then you see the third one, it’s really not that surprising, “And a daughter in law against her mother in law.” So then verse 36 look, “And a person’s enemies (oh, what could hurt more than that?) will be those of his own household.” That’s the pain right there. That’s the suffering. And if you really know what it’s like to have that pain, you’d rather take the beating too. It’s of heart, and I want you to hear this. Jesus knows your pain. He does. He’s sympathetic to it. We have a sympathetic high priest. He not only knows your weaknesses, but He understands your suffering. He’s a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. All of His friends betrayed Him. One of His closest, or all of His friends fled from Him. One of His closest friends, what? Betrayed Him, turned Him over. He received all that mocking. He knows how you feel, and He’s near to the brokenhearted, and He binds up wounds. And the Spirit of God, according to 2 Corinthians one, is a comforter to the people that have those heart issues, and He is sympathetic to it. Listen to me, it’s normal, it’s not abnormal. You’re not weird. You’re not broke because of that. Now, you might do some things wrong. We all stumble in many ways. Nobody can say, “But I’ve lived a perfect life.” No, we know you haven’t. But when Christ is the cause, yeah, that’s what He’s literally talking about.
In fact, Hebrews 13:12-13 says it this way, it’s a call to us. It says, “So Jesus also suffered (what?) outside the gate.” What does that mean? That means they took Him outside the city, right? They went up to Golgotha. It’s outside the gates of the city. If you’ve been to Jerusalem, you’ve seen it. When you get ready to go to Golgotha, and it does look like a skull, you get to go to Golgotha. You have to go outside that old city, and that was a form of rejection. You’re going to be killed out there. You didn’t get a burial. Your body would normally go in the trash heap. God superintended for Him to have a tomb. Nevertheless, because He “suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through His own blood. (In other words) He bore our rejection. Therefore, let us go to Him.” “Let us go to Him,” where? “Outside the camp, and bear the reproach He endured.” Now, if that confuses you, let me help you understand it. It doesn’t mean that you’re bearing the reproach to atone for your sin. It doesn’t mean that at all. It means you’re bearing the rejection because you love the one who bore your sin, and you love Him more than you love the praises of man, and you love Him more than mother, father, brother, sister, son, or daughter, and He is your first love, and from that first love is issuing what? Suffering. That’s what it’s talking about now. Just in case you’re wondering, what in the world does this have to do with the overarching theme of Romans eight? Some of you guys are like, “Steve, you were doing so good, it was so many weeks, it was real positive, we liked it. Why are you doing this to us?” I’m not doing it to you, the Bible’s showing you this. Really, the Bible’s showing you this. Why is suffering in 8:17? I’m going to tell you the answer, and I’m going to prove it to you in the text of scripture, because suffering produces assurance. Big time. This is what I write when it wants, that means big time. It does. How does that work? Well, it works like this, because when you suffer for Christ and you still love Christ, it’s a testimony to who you really are. You’re in Christ, and it’s a confirmation.
In fact, Jesus Himself, in the explanation of the parable of the seed, the sower, and the seeds, He makes it very, very clear. I’ll show it to you here in a moment. He makes it incredibly, explicitly clear that those who are not the real thing, who do not have the true root of faith, they do not endure tribulation, they will not endure suffering. They were fed maybe a false gospel. Listen to this. This is Matthew 13:20-21, “As for what was sown, (remember the sower? the seed is the Word of God, right?) As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the Word (that’d be the word of the gospel) and immediately (he does what?) he receives it with joy.” That sounds great! “Are you serious? My sins forgiven? Jesus will heal my all my diseases? All right! Jesus will give me health and wealth? Oh, perfect. Jesus has a wonderful plan for my life? Well, so do I. He can come help me.” “Immediately they receive it with joy. (But watch the next verse) Yet he has no root in himself (that’s he’s not the real deal, this is not a true believer, by the way, he has no root in himself) but endures for a while.” In other words, he’s superficially attached to Jesus, and usually to some form of church, and not if, when, “And when (what?) tribulations and persecutions arise on (here it is on) account of the word (that’s on account of Christ) immediately (he does what? he leaves) he falls away.” That’s not a falling away from the faith, that’s a turning away from what you thought you were getting, because you bought into a fake Jesus, somebody that did not give you the whole counsel of God impacting the gospel. That’s why we tell the truth, whole truth, nothing but truth, and so help us God. Now you see in that, so here’s what I’m saying to you. If you have felt that persecution, if you have felt these what tribulations on account of the word, on account of Jesus Christ, you felt that being maligned, you felt that you’ve had that rejection, you felt that slander, you’ve had that, and guess what? And you remain. What does that tell you? That you have blessed assurance. Why? Because He’s keeping you. Because the fake ones, they leave. Listen, tribulation of the kind we’re talking about brings the assurance of your salvation. It doesn’t pull you away from it, and it can’t. No one can snatch you out of your Father’s hand. He’s greater than any man, and He chose you, He saved you, He sealed you, He’ll keep you. He starts the work, and He’s faithful to complete it. Look at 2 Timothy 3:12. It’s a very telling verse. It says, “Indeed, (“all” in the Greek means all) all who (here’s a cool word, all who) desire (all who desire) to live a godly life.” What does “godly” mean? It means Godward, in other words, they want to please God. All who desire to please God in their life, all who are Godward in their life, they want “To live a godly life, they will be persecuted.” This is not conditional, it’s going to happen, it’s guaranteed. Now, here’s the thing. Why are they persecuted? Because of their desire. And guess what? The persecution comes and the desire doesn’t change, it increases. Why is that? Are we gluttons for punishment? No, we’re in love. We have loved God. He’s given us the love. He shed it abroad in our hearts.
Romans 5:5 says, “and He’s shed it abroad in our hearts” and we’ve been changed by love, and the more we know we learn, and the more we know Him, the more we love Him, and the hotter the fire gets, the more we’re pressed toward Him, and we realize You are the one who’s keeping me, You are the one who’s sustaining me, and what follows, I won’t spell it again, assurance that through the years, not just the moments, but through the years, and not just through the good times, but through the really, really, really hard ones. And here you stand, loving Him. Earlier, you were standing and lifting your voices, singing praises to God, I could feel the sound pressure standing right back there. Where is that coming from? Is that because your lives are perfect? No. Nobody in here gets a free ride. And, by the way, I hate to tell you this: nobody here gets out alive, unless Jesus returns, and that’s good. Why are you singing to God? Why are you grateful to Him? How can you love Him more? Because your heart is continually being fed and nourished, and the Spirit is taking these things and growing you up, and your love for Him is stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger. And when the fire hits that goal, all it’s going to do is purify it. Your desire will not change. Look at Acts 5:40-41, great narrative example, right? They’re going out, turning the world upside down. They started in Jerusalem, in Israel, right? It says, “And when they had (that’s the Pharisees, the religious, and when they) called in the apostles (oh, just kind of side note, yeah, they) beat them (they beat them) and charged them (what?) not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.” Now according to the parable we read, what would an unbeliever, a person who wasn’t really a Christian, have done? They’d gone out and gone, “Okay, I.. oh, you know, they said something, I feel like I need to self-soothe for a little while, I need some self-care days, and Jesus knows I’m frail. I don’t want to keep making them mad. These guys mad at me. If we make them mad, how can we be a light to them? We want them to love us.” What did they do? It says, “Then they left the presence of the council rejoicing.” Can you imagine you got blood coming down your back, you’re walking out with your friends, you’re doing this: “Did you see that, dude? When he hit you, it was like crack. Oh, look, he’s gonna kill him!” And here you are, you’re just bloody. This is awesome, “Rejoicing that they were (what? they were) counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.” “He thinks we were ready for that. He wanted to show us He’d sustain us. This is amazing.” You don’t think that added assurance? Yes, it did. That’s again that’s why it’s in 8:17 of Romans, Philippians 1:29, this is an amazing statement, “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him but also suffer for His sake.” This Greek word means a gift given in kindness. “Thanks.” Right? It’s a gift. Why? Because it’s going to result in your assurance and your stability. Why? Because you’ve been through the fire, it’s been tested, and still here you stand.
Here’s our last passages, 1 Peter 1:6-7, “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by (this is a general term here) various trials.” This general term, this means “all kinds”. This means hardships at work, financial problems. You got a health issue. It also has to do with relationships. It could be for Christ. It might not. You have these grieved things happening in your life. Some of them are based on conditions. Some are based on your relationship to Jesus. Yeah, you’re experiencing all these things. “So that (what? here it is) the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” In other words, what does that give you? It gives you assurance. Why? Because you’re realizing that your faith is tested and it’s genuine. If your faith is never tested, if you’re never put through the trial, especially if you’ve never suffered for Christ, if you’ve never been maligned because you’re a Christian, check it out, you should try it. You say, “Well, how do I make that happen?” Talk. It’s true, isn’t it? Now, if you drive like a jerk and people don’t like you, that’s on you, but if you sit down with a coworker or a family member and you tell them, “Listen, has anybody ever just clearly explained the gospel of Jesus Christ to you?” That might be enough to get you earmarked for the rest of your life. You might be an outcast just from that, but you progress through the gospel. You tell them about God and His holiness. You tell them about man and his lack of thereof. You tell them about Jesus, who’s the mediator. It’s my faith in Him somewhere in there. They have to realize I’m a sinner and I need a Savior, and they’re going to respond one way or another. They’re going to respond either in faith, believing, or you’re going to face some level of rejection. All of those things are heartbreaks, and God’s saying this in 1 Peter, it will test you, and it will prove you, and the genuineness of the purity, the gold of your faith, which is worth way more than normal gold, will give the assurance that Romans 8:17 is talking about tested and passed, rejected, persecuted trials, and here you say, here you sit, here you stand before Christ.
KEYWORDS
Hot Coffee, Suffering With Christ, Provided, Suffer, Trial, Pressure, Assurance, Romans 8:17, Sympathetic Pain, Heir, Romans 8:17, Romans Chapter Eight, Co-heirs With Christ, Body, Members, Sympathetic Suffering, Persecution, Assurance Of Salvation, Heartbreak, Tribulation, Godly Life, Peace, Apostle Paul, Sword, Rejection, Endurance, Character, Hope, Faith, Non-Denominational Churches In Sherman, Church In Sherman Texas, Gospel, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, God, Bible, Bible Churches In Grayson County, Thlipsis, Sympascho, Parable Of Sower, Golgotha
Speaker
Steve LeBlanc