Sermon 2-17-08

First Reading – Philippians 3:7-11 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Second Reading - 1 Peter 4:12-16 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.

Gospel – (Today’s Gospel Lesson took place on Thursday of Holy Week. And Jesus, about to be betrayed and to go to the cross with much suffering involved, He’s functioning at this point according to his human nature We don’t like suffering do we? We want to get out of suffering. So Jesus prayed that this cup, this suffering, could be removed from Him. That’s what he wanted and prayed “God, please bring it about!” It’s interesting that God said no, and we’ll talk about that in the sermon today.) Luke 22:39-44 Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

Sermon –

As a foreword and I checked this out with a medical doctor, there is a medical condition called hematidrosis which can occur when a person is under an incredible amount of stress; small blood vessels break and blood comes out of the pores. This is an actual medical condition and it shows just how much stress Jesus was under. Today is the second part in our two-part series “Getting to Know Jesus”. Too often we say, “Well, I know Jesus died on the Cross and paid for my sins, I know that with sin forgiven we are connected to God and can go to heaven, I know we can get answers to prayers, I know all that stuff.” But knowing that is about 5% of knowing Jesus. Jesus said to His disciples, said to you, and said to me, “Follow me.” In the Biblical sense when a Rabbi says “follow me” it means “become me”. In Biblical times, when a Rabbi said “follow me” to a student, it meant the Rabbi was going to teach the student to be like himself. And when Jesus says to us “Follow me”, He is saying, “I’m going to turn you into myself, you will be like me.” That’s what it means to be an imitator of Christ.

To illustrate this point, last week we talked about knowing your local neighborhood skateboarder. We are lucky enough to have Colby, our local neighborhood skateboarder with us this morning; and you know those tricks I talked about last week? He can actually do them and he’s got the video to prove it! if I want to get to know Colby better, I have to do exactly what he does. If I really want to know what a skateboarder is like I have to have a skateboard and spend hours and hours and hours out there in the blazing heat doing kick flips and three flips and ollies and who know what else! We don’t get to know a skateboarder unless we spend hours trying to do what they do.

And - we don’t get to know Jesus unless we actually spend time doing what He does. That’s why the Bible is always talking about getting to know Jesus, following Him, and being imitators of Him. So we are doing a two-part sermon series on getting to know Jesus to help us understand the Mission Statement that we recently adopted: “To know Jesus as ‘The Way’, so that others may know the way to Jesus.” We talked last week in Part One about getting to know Jesus, understand Him and identify with Him. We talked about Emptying Ourselves. Jesus emptied Himself of His God power and faced life as a human being just as you and I face life. We should do just the opposite, empty ourselves of our humanity and our sinful nature and fill ourselves with God. We fill ourselves with God by reading His Word, we pump as much of the Word of God into our minds as we can. We read our Bibles and get to know as much about Jesus as we possibly can, we analyze his actions and start doing those same things.

Then we talked about being Led by the Spirit. Jesus did this during His temptation in the wilderness (Matthew Chapter 4). As followers of Jesus we need to be led by the Holy Spirit. You can have the Holy Spirit, God Himself, leading you through each circumstance in life each and every day. This is possible because as you fill yourself with Jesus, you begin thinking like Jesus. Then you really start seeing answers to prayer. Because all of a sudden you are praying in accordance to who Jesus is, and you’re thinking like Him. That’s called “praying in the Name of Jesus”. When you’re thinking like Jesus, praying in the Name of Jesus, you’re on the same wavelength He is and you’re asking everything in accordance with His will. And you will see the answers one right after the other. It’s amazing. You also get to know Him better. Because you’re thinking like God, your priorities are the same as God’s priorities and it becomes easy to be led by the Spirit.

We also talked about Using the Power of God’s Word. If you have struggles in life, use God’s Word, the most powerful thing in the world. For those of you who don’t think God’s Word is powerful, just think, God created the universe through His Word. God sustains the universe through His Word, if God were to say “Let a pepperoni pizza appear right here!” a pepperoni pizza would appear right here! That’s how powerful God’s Word is and He’s given us that Word to use! We see that power in Matthew Chapter 4 where Jesus used the power of God’s Word to defeat the devil. He simply quoted the Bible. When the devil comes to harass us, we can simply quote a Bible verse and the devil goes on the run. When worries come into our life, God’s Word will handle worries; When fears come into our life, God’s Word will handle fears. God’s Word is POWER! You name it, God’s Word does it! As we get to know Jesus, we will do those things He did.

Today both of our readings talk about participating in Christ’s suffering; Philippians 3:10 “the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings”, and 1 Peter 4:13 “participate in the sufferings of Christ”. Does that mean we suffer and pay for our sins? The answer to that is NO! Jesus did that for us. But we participate in His sufferings because in our sufferings we are doing the same thing Jesus did and we then get to know Him better. Philippians says further, “Do not suffer as a criminal or meddler, but we suffer because we bear Christ’s name.” We suffer because it gives power to our testimony. This is really awesome to understand! Christ suffered, but with a reason, with a plan and with a purpose. If we are to do the same things Jesus does because we’re getting to know Him, we need to do some suffering because that’s what Jesus did – BUT – never without a reason, never without a plan, never without a purpose. What was the reason Christ suffered? To pay for our sins. There was a plan and there was a purpose. We would be cut off from God if Jesus hadn’t suffered. We suffer for the same reason – not to pay for sins, but to point people to Jesus. Suffering gives us a testimony. People will say, “Wow! You’re suffering and you’re still praising God? I can’t believe it!”

Let me give you an example from Acts Chapter 16. Paul’s and Silas had been attacked and were in prison for bearing Christ’s name and for preaching the gospel. “The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas. The magistrates ordered them stripped and beaten. After they had been severely flogged they were thrown into prison” Does that sound like fun? “and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.” What would be someone’s normal reaction? The normal human reaction is “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand this, God. Here I’ve been serving you, I’ve been praying, I’ve been reading my bible and now I’m suffering! I don’t understand you! I’ve had it with God! Last time I’m going to church! God’s forgotten about me, He doesn’t care anymore. Look I’m in prison, I’ve been severely flogged!” Isn’t that what we’d like to say in times of suffering? That’s exactly why we need to set aside our sinful nature. But if you understand that this suffering is because you are participating with Christ in God’s work, that you are doing the same thing Jesus did, that it is not without reason, it is not without a plan, and it is not without a purpose, then you understand what it is all about and you can praise God in your suffering. That’s why Paul and Silas were sitting in prison praying and singing hymns, praising God after being severely beaten. They knew there was a plan.

But what is the plan? The plan is that we would have an effective testimony. The Bible tells us that the other prisoners were listening to Paul and Silas. They were suffering and the prisoners heard them praise God, pray and sing hymns. The jailer and his family heard them. There was an earthquake but Paul and Silas didn’t run away. They had a testimony for those other prisoners. During their suffering they said, “Here’s an opportunity to bring Jesus Christ into these people’s lives.” The jailer asked them, “What must we do to be saved?” Paul replied, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” These people paid attention to Paul and Silas because they were praising God in times of suffering. Paul and Silas did exactly what Jesus did - suffered in order to direct people to God. That’s doing what Christ did. That’s getting to know Him better.

Paul, in 2 Corinthians Chapter 11 talks about his sufferings. He says “Five times I received forty lashes minus one, three times I was beaten with rods, once people threw stones at me trying to kill me, three times I was shipwrecked, I spend a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move, I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from gentiles, in danger in the city, in the country, at sea, danger from false brothers. I’ve labored and toiled, gone without sleep, experienced hunger and thirst and have often gone without food. I’ve been cold, gone without clothes, plus I have faced the daily pressure with concern for all the churches.” What’s the world’s reaction to this? “Paul, give up! God’s forgotten all about you.” But all that suffering gave Paul a testimony. In all those things, he can still praise God. What a powerful testimony! People are led to Christ because of Paul’s suffering; people are reconciled to God because of Paul’s suffering, just as Jesus Christ’s suffering paid for our sins and directs us to God. That is participating in what Christ is doing. That’s getting to know Christ better. That’s why Paul said that he delights in his suffering.

But let’s talk about a modern day example. In the past month we talked about a lady who, everyone would think, had a pretty good life, but you wouldn’t want her life. She’s suffering, she had cancer, she’s had family members killed in an accident, and she lost everything in a hurricane. I’m talking about Deanna Favre, her husband is the recently retired quarterback for the Green Bay Packers. But through all this, she knew that her suffering was not without reason, not without a plan, and not without a purpose. She said, “OK, Holy Spirit, guide me, direct me just as you did Jesus. How can You use my suffering to save people?” So she wrote a book about it and it’s been on the best seller list. She is participating in the sufferings of Christ. That’s what this is all about. It’s all about saving souls. We suffer because it gives power to our testimony. If Deanna Favre would say, “Well, I’m married to the quarterback of the Packers, I have millions of dollars, we’re rich, we’re famous, we almost made it to the Super Bowl this year, have a nice house, nice kids, nice this, nice that and, by the way, you should believe in Jesus”, what power is there in that testimony? There is no power! Of course she believes in Jesus, her life is pretty good. But when life stinks and you can still praise Jesus - that’s a powerful testimony. That’s what God wants you to realize.

Our Gospel Lesson from today talks about accepting “NO!” answers from God. That’s what Jesus got from God in Luke Chapter 22. Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Get me out of this suffering. I don’t want to be nailed to a cross. I don’t want to be beaten. I don’t want to suffer for the sins of the world. Get me out of this!” If God would have listened to Jesus, what would our lives be like? Would we have forgiveness of sin? Would be reconciled to God? Would we be going to heaven? Would we have answer to prayer? Would we even be able to approach God? We would be eternally separated from God! So God said, “NO! You’re going to have to go through this suffering. You’re going to have to go to the Cross. NO!” But there is always a reason, always a plan, always a purpose. That’s what it’s about. And if that’s how God works in Christ’s life what can you and I expect in our lives as followers of Christ? We can expect “NO!” answers. Jesus got “NO!” answers and we’re going to get “NO!” answers. God does not give us “NO!” answers because He’s in a bad mood that day and doesn’t want to be disturbed, His answers are always with a reason, with a plan and with a purpose.

Remember what happened to our missionaries,Tim and Rita Nickle, several months ago? They are in Turkey doing missionary work and were robbed. Rita and Tim had prayed for God’s protection, and we here in this church prayed for God’s protection over them. But they got a “NO” answer. They were robbed. Everything taken. Everything left a mess. But Rita and Tim knew that God’s answers are always with a reason, a plan and a purpose. They discovered God’s plan after they were robbed and they had a powerful testimony. They were able to relate being robbed to Christ’s Second Coming. They said to the people in their church in Turkey, “If we had known that the robbers were coming, we would have taken steps to be prepared, more locks on the windows, more locks on the doors, etc. etc. But you know Jesus is coming, so be ready. He is going to come. So be prepared, take that step turn to Him as Savior, and confess your sins.” They had a powerful testimony. If you are robbed you get over it, but when Christ returns, if you’re not ready, eternity is forever. That’s the kind of thing that God does through his “NO!” answer. Accept the “NO!” answer from God and rejoice in it because we know that God has a reason, a plan and a purpose.

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