Living Hope

Pastor Philip Miller: If to live is Christ, then anything that gives us more of Christ is actually a blessing. It's actually grace. And friends, suffering is the hard school in which we learn that to live is Christ.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Welcome to Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I'm Pastor Larry McCarthy. We're glad you're with us today. Pastor Philip, we're talking about a difficult topic: suffering. But the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ gives us hope in suffering.

Pastor Philip Miller: That's right. The Apostle Paul's going through it in Philippians. He's been imprisoned, he's unjustly facing persecution. There's so much misery in his life, and yet he recognizes that the grace of God is actually meeting him in the midst of that suffering.

He's not alone, and it's not like God's off the throne. God's got purposes even in these hard things that are working for the good and glory of God and for Paul's good in the midst of really hard stuff.

So I think for our listeners, anyone out there who's going through hard things—and we all do from time to time some really acute hard things—there's a lot of hope here today as the grace of God meets us in the midst of our suffering. I think we can learn a lot from the Apostle Paul.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Well then, let's go now to the pulpit of the Moody Church as we look at how Christ reorients our suffering. This is part three of the sermon "The Basics of Life." The text is Philippians chapter 1, verses 18 through 30.

Pastor Philip Miller: To live is Christ, friends. Oh, that we may live a life worthy of the gospel. Christ is our reason for rejoicing, he's our purpose in living, and then thirdly, he's our meaning in suffering.

Our meaning in suffering. We already looked at verses 27 and 28, so let's jump down now to verses 29 and 30. "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, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have."

Remember Paul said, "I want to hear that you're standing firm in one spirit, one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, fearless against those who oppose you." See, the Philippians are facing pressures and hardships and suffering just like Paul. They all are facing suffering together. The opposition that Paul had been enduring earlier in Philippi is still going on as he is in house arrest in Rome.

And Paul wants them to know that this suffering is normal. It's normal. "It has been granted to you," he says, "that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but suffer for his sake." Do you see what he's saying here? Not only has it been granted that you should believe in Jesus Christ, it has also been granted that you should suffer for his sake. Suffering, he says, is normal. It's to be expected.

Remember Jesus said, "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart; I have overcome the world." That's in John 16. In elsewhere Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:12, "Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer." Everyone. Now, who does that leave out? Anyone here the exception to everyone? Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer. In other words, to live for Christ means we will also suffer for Christ.

Now, this will blow your mind, I think, if you haven't fallen asleep, that is. This will blow your mind. Do you see the word "granted" in verse 29? Look down there, verse 29, the word "granted." The word is *echaristhe*. You'll hear the word *charis* in that; that's the word for grace. It has been graced to you, not only to believe in him but to suffer for his sake.

The same grace—listen to me—the same grace that draws us in faith to Christ, that very same grace also calls us to suffer for Christ. How can that be? You say, wait a minute, how can suffering be grace? Well, if through suffering we get more of Jesus, that's grace. That's grace. Friends, if to live is Christ, then anything that gives us more of Christ is actually a blessing. It's actually grace.

And friends, suffering is the hard school in which we learn that to live is Christ. That's where we learn it. We may be tempted to live for our careers, and Christ may in his grace allow suffering into our lives—a career setback, perhaps—to teach us that he is all we need and he is more than enough. And friends, that's grace.

We may be tempted to live for leisure and comfort, and Christ in his grace may permit hardship to enter into our lives—maybe sickness or all kinds of things—that we might experience the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, discovering that his strength is perfected in our weakness. And that, friends, is grace.

And we may be tempted to live for family, and Christ may call us to the hard, painful work of walking down a road of estrangement with our loved ones in order that we might learn that we have a friend in Jesus Christ who sticks closer than a brother. And friends, that is grace.

For those of us, friends, who are children of God by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, our suffering in the loving hands of God is never punitive. He's not punishing us. But it is purifying. Our suffering is never punitive but it is purifying.

Because friends, Jesus took every last ounce of the wrath of God on the cross for us. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It is finished. Which means that if God in his loving care and fathering discipline over your life allows hard things into your world, it is not punitive but purifying.

It is his loving discipline. He's training you and growing you up, conforming us to the image of Christ, of his beloved Son. Listen to these verses. 2 Corinthians 4:17: "These light and momentary afflictions are preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison."

Romans 8:16-18: "The Spirit, the Holy Spirit himself, bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then we're heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, provided that we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us."

Later in Philippians chapter 3, verses 8 through 11, Paul says, "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I've suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, that I might know him in the power of his resurrection and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."

Or Hebrews 12:10-11 says that our Heavenly Father disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness and the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Friends, it occurs to me that life is just long enough to teach us that Christ is all we need. Have you thought about this? The first half of your life you spend building, don't you? You build your body up, maybe; you fix it up and make it pretty and strong. You build your mind with education and learning. You build your career, right? Try to earn some money and build a house and build a life for yourself. You build a family. You try to build a contribution that you give to the world, don't you?

And then in the second half of life, it all starts going away, one thing at a time. And with every loss, suffering. And in each of those moments of suffering, grace. A gracious invitation to discover that Christ is all we needed every moment along the way. Because in the end of our lives, friends, Christ is all we have. It's all we have.

I know you don't want to think about this, but in the end you will let go of everything. That career will not be there. The money you saved in retirement will slowly deplete. Your health will disappear, maybe your mental faculties will disappear. And the people you love, you will either bury or you will be buried by them. And in the end, all you will have is Christ, and it will be enough. It will be enough.

To live is Christ and to die is gain. And so friends, to live a life worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ means that Jesus becomes the treasure we can never lose. And we endure in the grace of Christ, who has become our greatest treasure in life and eternity. Do you endure in the grace of Christ, who is your greatest treasure in life and eternity?

You realize in the gospel Jesus gave up everything to make you his treasure. And now he calls you to give up everything that he might become your treasure. To live is Christ. Oh, that we may live a life worthy of the gospel, friends. Christ is our reason for rejoicing, he's our purpose in living, and he's our meaning in suffering. Or as the Apostle Paul puts it, and here's your takeaway: "For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."

Can you say that? Can we say that together right now? For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Oh, that we might learn the depths of what this means and live a life worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: This is Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I'm Pastor Larry McCarthy. We're certainly glad that you're with us today as we continue our discussion and finding the meaning in suffering.

You know, Pastor Miller, I'm thinking about what Paul says: "Through the abundance of the revelation that I received, I've also been given this thorn in the flesh so it keeps me humble." He's suffering, he gets this affliction, but he says there's a purpose in it. God has given me this grace of this suffering to keep me from getting a big head. Now, that's a very unique perspective, that there's grace in suffering and meaning in suffering that goes beyond the suffering itself.

Pastor Philip Miller: Yeah. I mean, the key phrase here is that it's been graced to you—not only to believe on him, our salvation, but also to suffer for him. That there's actually a grace in the midst of suffering that we can't get any other way.

And I think it's important to make a distinction, though, that the things we suffer, those are painful. And they're hard, and we're right to resist them and to not like them and wish they weren't there. Part of the brokenness of this world is the sorrow and suffering and the brokenness and the pain and the cursedness of our existence.

So all of that's bad. We could just call it what it is. Death is bad, sickness is bad, pain is bad. We're not supposed to love any of those things when they come. And yet, we also know as followers of Christ that God meets us in the midst of hard, hard things and even thorns in the flesh, as Paul describes that in First Corinthians, or his sufferings of being in jail here in Philippians chapter one.

Even those hard, evil things that come into your life that cause pain and heartache and are miserable—even those things can be means of grace as God meets us in the midst of them. So the grace is not the suffering itself; the grace is the way that God meets us in the suffering. That's the grace we need.

And here's what's amazing to me about God. Our God is a God who understands suffering, right? The Psalms describe God as near to the sufferer, the brokenhearted, that he draws near to those who are going through hard times. Jesus is a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.

The Holy Spirit groans within us with words that we can't even articulate, but he's groaning with us, like the pains of childbirth, Paul says. So in other words, there's a lot of suffering in this world and God is not immune. He's not distant. He actually comes close to his children when we suffer.

And so part of the grace at least—part of the grace is the fact that we get more of God in hard times in ways that he's just particularly close and available and we're more receptive to than other times.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Wow. There's so much there. You're right. The attributes of God then become personal to us. How do you know him to be a God who provides until you don't have anything? How do you know him to be a God of peace unless you're in some chaos and turmoil?

And so it's in those situations that his attributes now become very personal. But for our listeners, I'm sure some of them are saying, "I hear you. I hear this talking about suffering, but this feels like I'm being punished—like God is punishing me for something and I can't quite seem to reconcile that." Can we unpack that for them?

Pastor Philip Miller: That's a really important distinction that we need to make because Romans says there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Every ounce of the wrath of God was handled by Christ on the cross, so there's nothing but grace for me now.

And that is important to remember, because otherwise we're going to be tempted to think that 99 percent of the wrath of God Jesus took, but that last one percent God's still mad at me and he gave me cancer.

But that is not the gospel. And so what we have to remember is that when God allows suffering in our lives—and he does for all of us, right? Paul says anyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus is going to suffer, so we're all going to get it.

But that suffering that God allows into our life is not punitive; he's not punishing us, he's not afflicting us for something we did, but it's purifying. It's purifying. In Hebrews, the writer tells us that God lovingly disciplines his sons. He treats us as sons because he's growing us up.

He wants us to share in his righteousness, holiness, and peace. So there's a disciplining, growing, nurturing, strengthening, training. So some of that's hard. If you go to the gym and you're lifting weights, it hurts sometimes. Sometimes there's pain. No pain, no gain.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: That's a really practical image. I like that. It's kind of like having a personal trainer, right?

Pastor Philip Miller: Yeah. So if you're in the gym and you have a personal trainer and they're pushing you—they're pushing you to do things that hurt, that are stretching, that are really uncomfortable and you're panting and groaning underneath the weight of it all—and yet it's because they believe in who you can become and the capacities of strength that are being built.

So here's the thing. As a Christian, we know everything that God brings into our lives, it's all been filtered through his loving hands. It comes out of left field for us, but it's within the concert of the purposes of his will, his loving hands.

He allows it into our life because he knows in the end he's working it all together for our good, for his glory. He's making us more like Christ. None of these tears, none of this sweat, none of the agony is wasted. He's building us up so that we might share in his righteousness, holiness, and peace and be conformed to the image of Christ.

So there's grace in that, and there's grace knowing that God must have good purposes in this because he's never against us. He's always for us. He proved it on the cross when he sent his Son. If he was ever going to back out, it would have been then, at the price tag of our redemption.

But the fact that he gave us Jesus means he's going to give us everything we need in order to make us like Christ so that we might stand in glory. And then I think the last thing is just to remember it's temporary. These are light and momentary afflictions. They may not feel light, but they're going toward glory and God's on the job and we can trust in him.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Oh, great reminders, so practical. Ultimately, repurposing suffering comes down to cultivating the right mind. The very secret of joy, Paul writes about. To help you cultivate that attitude, we're offering a special resource: *Be Joyful* by Dr. Warren Wiersbe.

Paul, a prisoner, showed us how to have joy in spite of circumstances. He had a single-focused mindset. He didn't look at his difficult circumstances in themselves; he looked at them through Christ, changing everything.

Paul called his very chains his "bonds in Christ." And when you have a single-minded focus like that, your circumstances work for you and not against you. God is always on the job, beloved, transforming us into the image of his Son, Jesus Christ.

We're here to help you on your spiritual journey whatever challenges you're facing, and that's why for a limited time we're offering the book *Be Joyful* for a donation of any amount. Now, to request your copy, simply go to LivingHopeOffer.com, 1-800-215-5001.

Or you can write to us at Moody Church Media, 1635 North LaSalle Drive, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Thanks for joining us for Living Hope where you'll always find gospel truth for the journey of a lifetime. Living Hope is a production of Moody Church Media and is sponsored by the Moody Church.