Is there anyone here this morning that loves to suffer? Maybe you don’t love suffering, but do you at least appreciate it? Can suffering ever be good? Why suffer if you don’t have to, does suffering make sense? It makes me wonder; how do we hear Paul’s command to join with him in suffering for the gospel? It’s important to know that suffering just for the sake of suffering is not healthy.
Doctor Paul Brand is a Christian doctor who has worked
with those who suffer from leprosy. He’s written a couple of books with Philip
Yancy about pain and the human body from the Christian perspective, talking
about how amazing the human body is, that it truly is
fearfully and wonderfully made as Psalm 139 says. Doctor Brand tells us
that pain’s a gift because it tells us that something’s not right and so we
need to pay attention to what’s going on. Now he’s normally talking about
physical pain, but the same principle applies to spiritual, emotional and
mental suffering. Suffering, even suffering for the gospel, reminds us that
things in the world are not the way they’re supposed to be. Something’s off or
wrong when we end up suffering for sharing the good news of Jesus and following
his way instead of the world’s way. What this suffering reveals is that the
world needs the gospel news and the church even more than we realized.
Paul’s writing to Timothy, a young man
Paul has
left in Ephesus to pastor the church there. Paul values this relationship, it’s
important to him since Timothy is more than just a friend. Paul’s invested in
Timothy as a mentor, pouring his experience, knowledge and love into this young
man. There’s love and appreciation here for Timothy and for the faith and gifts
Timothy has. The faith has been passed down into Timothy from his grandmother
and mother. A large part of our faith is rooted in community and relationship
with God and each other, as we see in the relationships between Paul and Timothy
and Timothy and his family.
Paul knows Timothy’s faith and his gifts; he encourages
Timothy to fully fan into flames his faith and gifts. Now this isn’t a campfire,
roasting marshmallows kind of fire, this is a middle of the field, throw
everything on bonfire. The Holy Spirit that gives us the gift of faith also
gives us the power, love and self-discipline to live out our faith. The word
for power is dynamis,
where we get the word dynamite from. This is a powerful strength from God; a
spiritual inner courage that helps us to move forward and act despite fear, strength with roots into the community of
believers as we see in Hebrews 12 where the writer reminds us that we are
surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. We don’t need to rely on our own strength
and courage when we have opportunities to talk about Jesus; the Holy Spirit is
at work in that relationship, in us.
Paul ties this power to love and
self-discipline because
these things are all given to us as a package deal in order to be
disciple-makers. When love shapes our character and lives, when our character
is based on a foundation of self-discipline and holy lives, talking about Jesus
becomes more natural and easier. There is that warning here that always makes
me pause, “So don’t be ashamed of the testimony about
our Lord or of me his prisoner.” I immediately hear the echo back to
Jesus’ words in Luke 9, “Whoever
is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he
comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”
This is something I’ve wrestled with at times, especially with people I already
know. In the back of my mind is that small niggling thought, “If I talk to them about Jesus, will they
think I’m crazy and reject me as a friend?” I don’t want to be ashamed of
Jesus, but the opinions of others often matter more to me than they should.
Timothy
faces the same situation. Both Jews and Greeks
thought the testimony about Jesus was crazy. For the Jews, the thought that
Jesus was God was blasphemy, while for the Greeks, the fact that Jesus died and
rose again, and in dying and rising from the dead, our sin is forgiven, and we’re
made right with God was crazy. Paul reminds Timothy, “God
has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything that we have
done but because of his own purpose and grace.” God has a purpose for
us, and it’s all connected to sharing the gospel news and making disciples. How
we live is important: how we treat each other, and others reveals our faith. Our
success in making disciples is not going to come from our own strength, but
from the Holy Spirit working in us, helping us live holy lives and share the
gospel.
Paul
commands Timothy to join with him in suffering for the gospel. The question
comes, if we have good news, why should we experience suffering when we share
this good news and allow it to shape who we are? Why are people so threatened
by the gospel news of Jesus? Jesus has destroyed death,
a powerful hope in a week where many of you attended funerals, while others are
walking in the valley of the shadow of death with loved ones. Jesus has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,
offering us amazing hope, especially when life doesn’t go the way we had hoped,
when we find ourselves facing our own mortality as people our own age die, and
we realize that our own life is fragile as well. So why should we expect to
suffer for offering hope?
Jesus
himself warned us that we would face suffering when we
choose to follow him.
Matthew 5:11–12,
“Blessed are you when people
insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because
of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the
same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” We’re called
to rejoice and be glad for persecution and suffering! Paul shares what he’s suffered
in 1 Corinthian 4. Following Jesus and being his herald brought Paul lots of suffering
as he went wherever God led him. He went hungry, was shipwrecked several times,
and had that thorn in his flesh. Much of Paul’s suffering came at the hands of
people because he shared the gospel news freely and openly. Suffering and
persecution was a real thing for Paul.
People are threatened and lash out against Jesus and his followers because Jesus calls us to a way of
life that looks different from the culture we live in. We’re called to live out
the values of God, which are often different than the culture’s values. Jesus
calls us to give him our complete loyalty, to turn our backs on everything that
we consider most important, and that confuses people. Our culture values rights
while Jesus values responsibility. We see this played out in the fight against
abortion where our culture focuses on the rights of the woman over her body,
while Scripture calls us to lives of self-sacrifice and responsibility and
value the gift of life.
Our culture focuses on rights while the Bible calls us to give up our rights and submit ourselves
completely to God as slaves to him. We’re called to love our neighbour and help
them prosper and flourish, while our culture calls us to put ourselves first. Jesus
calls us to live holy lives, our culture calls us to satisfy our every desire. We
forgive and show grace rather than strike out when we get hurt. We’ve seen
powerful examples of this, the Amish parents who forgive the man who killed
their children and even reached out to his mother in her grief was admired by
many even as they found it hard to understand that we return good from evil. The
Bible calls us to live out our faith in public while our culture tells us to
keep it private. These very different values from Jesus’ way of life can create
confusion, even guilt and anger, and people lash out when they feel anger,
guilt or fear.
Jesus can
take away the anger, guilt or fear; he can help them discover a life of purpose
and hope and build a community where everyone can flourish and find acceptance
and love rather than the anger and division that is spreading in our culture
lately!
We are here to help those in our lives and communities to discover how
different life can be with Jesus, how he can bring hope and peace, not just
into our lives, but into the life of our community as well. Jesus uses us, his
church to live as his church, modelling his love, grace, forgiveness, joy and a
willingness to sacrifice in order that others can come to know Jesus. Paul
reminds us, “This is no cause for shame, because I know
whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard when I have entrusted
to him, our souls and lives, until that day.” Until that happens, we’ll
experience times of suffering and rejection because we follow Jesus, as we share
the gospel, living it out in our daily lives and values as a community of
believers who trust the Holy Spirit to give us what we need to bring the gospel.
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