Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Good morning. 11:15.
[00:00:07] Good morning. Hey. If I have not had the chance to meet you, my name is Michael Fueling. I'm the lead pastor here at the village church. So after the services, I hang out up front and I would love the opportunity to meet you. Maybe you've got questions or you're new, would love that opportunity. If you have a Bible, would you open it to the book of Second Corinthians? We're gonna be in chapter five.
[00:00:29] Before we get into that, I wanna do something a little. I'm going to make. I'm going to try to make a sound. And I would like to ask you, what does this sound communicate? You ready?
[00:00:48] Irritated.
[00:00:50] Could be one. Okay. At the very least, whatever I'm about to do, I'm not very excited about it. Or it's the sound the women of my home make when I do something to embarrass them. That's also. That's awesome. Okay, here's another one.
[00:01:10] What does that tell you?
[00:01:12] Well, something happened that minimally, is making my life a little bit more difficult or that really irritated me. Or again, is the sound the women of my home make when I do something to embarrass them. If you don't see a common thread, we have a dog who apparently is getting old now. And the dog likes to sleep and lay around. But you know when you see your dog and you just, like, it's just sitting there and you just want to go pet it. So like, every time I go up to my dog and it's kind of laying and I pet it, he is making the same noise every time. And here's the sound he makes.
[00:01:45] And then I will make the noise back and I go. And then he will amp it up and like. But it's like, it's your dog. How can you not just, like, pet it? Even our chickens, we have chickens in our backyard. And when I go out in the morning, I'll have a coffee and they'll see me and I'm not gonna make the noises. Cause I don't have, like the body parts the chickens do. But, like, they are really clearly communicating. Hey, dude, who's married to the woman that feeds me, can you just get us outta here? Cause we're cramped and we wanna go eat worms and kind of do our own thing for the day. All right, So I want you to listen to Romans, chapter 8, verses 22 and 23.
[00:02:24] Paul says, we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, we who have the first fruit of the Holy Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. So in scripture, actually groaning is a theme. And so groaning is how creation expresses the the exhaustion of living in a fallen world. Throw me a bone. Like, raise your hand if you have at all experienced, like being exhausted with how fallen and sinful this world is. Anyone? Anyone? We got a couple of thank you for that. Like, this word summarizes this experience that everybody has living in this crazy world. This brings us back to our study on second Corinthians. We're gonna be in chapters five and six over the next couple weeks. And these two chapters are a masterclass from the Apostle Paul on how to go through extreme difficulties in life and not just groan your way through them, but how to endure difficulties and to do it in a way that brings God glory and honor, which is what we want. Because that difficulty, it's gonna end one day and I wanna get to the end of it and say, you know what? I wasn't perfect the blood of, but I want to bring you glory and honor in terms of how I dealt with this. Now, one of the things I so appreciate about the Bible is that it is just so honest about the reality of life. And so 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 2, Paul says, For in this tent, that's this human body, he says, we groan. And then in verse four, he says almost verbatim the same thing, he says, while we are still in this tent, we groan. And so we find is like most of life is maneuvering between seasons of groaning and difficulty and seasons of delight and enjoyment. And in between these two seasons is a whole bunch of really boring downtime, you guys know what I'm saying? And then the seasons of delight and enjoyment, they feel like they're far too quick. It's like when you watch an incredible movie that's two hours long, maybe even three hours, and time just flies. That's what the seasons of delight and enjoyment are like. But the seasons of groaning and difficulty are like watching the most boring movie in the history of the world. They just lag and take forever to get through. The Bible also acknowledges that not all seasons of difficulty are the same. So I wanna share with you, it's a non biblical proverb. It's just a proverb that's not in the Bible. But a proverb is a statement that is generally statistically true for most people. Of course there are exceptions to proverbs, but by and large, it's a really good description of normal, everyday life. It goes like this.
[00:05:32] Three to five times in a person's life, there will be a difficulty you encounter that will tempt you to despair.
[00:05:43] And the first time that it happens, your soul will groan and in ways you never thought possible before. A person's first major life difficulty, There is this sense of feeling above it, impervious to it, maybe even like this feeling of being invincible.
[00:06:09] But then, like every single person who's gone before you, extreme difficulty hits you like a freight train. And when it arrives, you have some choices to make. There are different paths that you can take when it arrives. Number one, you can do what most people do, which is they just give up. Some people, they lose hope, they lose joy, they lose purpose. And it's just kind of like, what's the point? I'm just going to go with my life. It doesn't matter anyways, because this will never end. And even if it does, it'll just be one trauma or drama after another. So just give up.
[00:06:43] People who take the second path, I'll be honest, they're hard to watch. And you probably have friends and family whose names and faces will kind of go through your head when I say this. But the second path is to just give in.
[00:06:57] Some people become consumed by their difficulty, by their hurt, and then defined by their worst moments. And ultimately, they become corrupted by them.
[00:07:08] I would prefer a different route. I prefer option number three. And this is to endure.
[00:07:14] So to endure is not to ignore extreme difficulty. It is to face it head on. It is to feel all the feels that come with that. It is to name and to grieve all the losses that come with it. And we do this. We face it, and we walk into this and into this mess, and we do it knowing Jesus is with us. Now, along the way, we make a ton of mistakes. And there are gonna be a bunch of course corrections. I have never met a single person on the planet who came out of the womb and said, I was born ready, spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, and mentally to handle whatever hardship and extreme difficulty this world has to throw. Nope, that is not the way it works. And so we make a ton of mistakes as we figure out how to walk into the chaos of extreme difficulty. But we do this knowing that the blood of Christ covers us and the presence of God never once leaves us or forsakes us. So now, 2 Corinthians, chapter 5. As we get here, I need you to remember something, because Paul is gonna share about his extreme difficulty, and he is Gonna describe a difficulty that is unique to him and the apostles, okay? And so as we watch this, most of us in this room are not going to have to endure what Paul and the apostles endured, that their unique, extreme difficulty. But the principles apply to everyone. So Second Corinthians, chapter five, verse one. We get kind of an introduction to their difficulty. He says, we know that if the tent that's the earthly body here, the tent that is our earthly home, is destroyed. Now, I just want to pause right here, okay? So the tent refers to our physical, dying, groaning earthly bodies. Okay? Really, really good news for you that I wanna share with you. There was a study released a long time ago, and I've shared this with you, but I'd just like to remind you in case you're new, you're gonna love it, okay? That said, the human body begins to die at the age of 24. So from the age of 24 on, you are on a slow trajectory toward death. And if you are younger, that, congratulations. But 24 comes much quicker than you realize. Okay? So the tent here, it's referring to this groaning body. And there's this sense that the body is just failing and dying on this trajectory toward death. And tents are temporary. They are not made nor designed to be able to deal with extreme conditions, which is why we, when we get resurrected bodies, I need something better than this weak, frail tent that is obviously in much danger. Now, there's a word at the end of this that I want you to notice. It is the word destroyed. So if you kind of just are reading through Second Corinthians and you don't slow down, you're gonna miss some of the bombs the apostle Paul drops. And this is one of those bombs. Let me translate what he's saying here.
[00:10:13] For we know that if they actually end up being successful in killing any of us apostles, that's what he's saying and what he's identifying for you is that for Paul and for the apostles here is their extreme difficulty. There are a group of people who are trying to murder them for their faithfulness to Jesus, and they won't stop until these guys are dead. And what Paul and the apostles also know from Jesus is that they will succeed. You will be killed for Jesus, this is going to be the way you die. And so I would say, does that count as extreme difficulty? Can we go? Yeah. That is a lot for a human soul to carry. Now, what you're going to see kind of in this passage of scripture is that, like, if you live in kind of Western culture, a place where it's safe for Christianity, like, you're not in threat of your life. And praise God, I would never wish it on anybody. We have kind of our own set of, like, favorite verses, and usually they have to do with the plans I have for you and a bright future and prosperity and God helping us out, all that kind of stuff, right? But if you're in the persecuted church, you probably don't know this, but they have a very different set of favorite Bible verses because they're dealing with very different things. And so if you're in the persecuted church, second Corinthians 5, this is one of those texts that they memorize and they study and they dig into it. Because what Paul is doing is he's showing them, hey, listen, whatever your difficulty is, especially if it's persecution, here is how mature believers navigate this. One pastor, he described Paul's ministry like this. He said, quote, for Paul, ministry was detrimental to his health.
[00:12:06] Is that an understatement if you've ever heard one? All right, so if they actually end up killing the apostles. And Paul, he goes on to say this in verse one, we have a building. Notice the contrast, tent to building. Tent is fragile and secure, easily broken, easily destroyed. A building takes a lot more work to destroy. He says, we have a building, and it's not like any building. It's from God. It is a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. And what he's reminding them is this. He's like, listen, yeah, we're gonna die. We're gonna be murdered. And on the day when they succeed in murdering us for the name of Jesus, let me tell you what waits on the other end of this. They're gonna murder and they're gonna destroy this tent. But God has made for me an imperishable building that nobody can destroy. And so Paul is at this place in his life where he has accepted what God has called him to, and he trusts the Lord. And he's like, listen, our resurrection bodies, they're going to be without sin. They're not going to be weak tents. They're going to be secure buildings made by God and protected by God. But Paul isn't done talking about the realities of tent living.
[00:13:14] Two things that make the human heart groan. First one, he says this.
[00:13:19] For in this tent, we groan.
[00:13:23] Longing, longing. Here is the ache for a future where your current difficulty is gone.
[00:13:32] The vast majority of you, I don't need to give you, like, a list of possible difficulties because you know your current difficulty. And if you're in one of those in between seasons, praise God, enjoy it. What a gift. But if you're in a season where there's, like, a difficulty hovering over your life, you have a pretty clear picture of what it looks like when this difficulty is gone and peace is back in your life.
[00:13:55] The second thing that makes the human heart groan, Verse four. He says this. While we are still in this tent, we groan being burdened. We don't have just longings, but we have burdens. A burden is a weight too heavy for your heart to carry.
[00:14:14] For most Christians, when we are in a situation of extreme difficulty, there are going to be really two questions that we want sometimes required to be answered. The first one is, how long will this last? And rarely, if ever, does Jesus ever tell us how long it's going to last. Like, so you're probably never going to get the answer to that. One day you'll wake up and you'll go, I think it's past tense. The second question, though, is, why?
[00:14:42] I feel like if I know why I'm going through something, if I know what it's accomplishing, then I feel like I could endure anything. But most of the time when we are with believers, we're going through something and they say, God, why? Why did God allow this to happen in my life? And we go, I don't know. And we mean it. We don't know. Right? But, like, if we could get that answer, and that's what we want. God, come down, have a conversation with me. I want you to plot out how this event or series of events is going to benefit you, your kingdom, my life, my family, and the future. Somehow, God, draw a line from point A to point B. Right? That's what we want.
[00:15:20] Verse 5 is one of those verses that if, again, you're going to notice a theme in Second Corinthians, if you sit on, will actually begin to give you the answer as to the why of your past difficulty, the why of your current difficulty, and the why of your inevitable and upcoming difficulty.
[00:15:43] Verse 5. Here's what it says.
[00:15:45] For who has prepared us for this very thing?
[00:15:51] Is God. Well, who's us? He's talking about the apostles. What is this very thing? Facing and enduring their murder for the sake of Jesus.
[00:16:01] Okay, how did God get them to the point where they are able to face their own murderers and be faithful to Jesus? Like, if I told you someone was gonna murder you tomorrow, would you be filled with a bit of anxiety? You don't get anxiety when you're reading Paul like this.
[00:16:20] And so here, let me just help you understand this. Jesus didn't just drop Paul and the apostles into this situation and say, ha, good luck. Figure it out, you'll be fine.
[00:16:32] No.
[00:16:34] Every single difficulty. And if you kind of know Paul's life, I'm going to give you a very brief summary of it. Every single shipwreck, every single slander, every single broken relationship, every single beating, every single betrayal, every single government overreach, every single burden, every single longing, every single anxiety.
[00:16:57] But what Paul, as he gets to the end of his life, realizes is that none of those things were ultimately about those things.
[00:17:08] Every one of those difficulties was preparation for an upcoming difficulty that was going to be heavier than this one.
[00:17:20] God knew that Paul and the apostles were going to need experience after experience to build muscle after muscle so that they could get to the point of carrying their own inevitable murder. And to face that extreme difficulty and do it in such a way where they bring glory and honor to Jesus with their very last breath.
[00:17:45] Okay, do you guys remember, like, I don't know, three to five minutes ago when I shared with you that non proverb, non biblical proverb? Three to five times in a person's life, there will be a difficulty you encounter that will tempt you to despair.
[00:17:58] What most don't realize in their first extreme difficulty is that how you handle that will set the foundation for all of the upcoming ones.
[00:18:11] So the mature believers who have gone before you would like to tell you a hard earned truth.
[00:18:19] Whatever difficulty, extreme difficulty you experience, whatever it is, before it got to you, it had to go through Jesus. And Jesus said, yes, because whatever is coming next, you need to build the muscles now in this thing in order to carry that thing.
[00:18:47] One of the perks of being Jesus is that you're omniscient and you can look down the corridors of history and know exactly how things are going to pan out.
[00:18:55] And here's what Jesus knows. Jesus either allows, ordains or permits whatever current difficulty you're going through. It's not like he got to you and he goes, oh, no, it got through. I mean, how did it do that? Oh, Satan, come back, right? It's not how it works. Now I can hear the complaints already. Listen, for some of you, when difficulty hits right, you're gonna have to go through the hard, long process of learning to bend the knee in submission to Jesus. Throughout this process, some of you are gonna go through the process. You're gonna reject Jesus, wag your finger at him, and say, if you loved me, you would have stopped this. I'm not gonna follow you. It's too hard, and I don't like you. I can't control what decision you make. I can't tell you that one is much better than the other. But one of the challenges, I think, that humanity puts God in, it's like a double. It's. It's a double bind. So on the one hand, people demand God, stay out of my business. Let me do what I'm gonna do. Don't infringe on my free will. I get to choose.
[00:19:53] But the very same people, when God doesn't stop others from making your life difficult, say, why didn't you stop them? If you loved me, you would have stopped them. So in other words, like, don't infringe on my free will, but infringe on everyone else's free will so that my life can always be easy. Darn it if you do. Darn it if you don't.
[00:20:11] I want to share with you a hard ministry lesson. It's a bit cold, but I think when you can kind of come to grips with it, it'll help you get through a bit of ministry in life.
[00:20:22] Most of the time, God lets people do whatever they want.
[00:20:29] And as they do whatever they want, they reap what they sow, whether good.
[00:20:37] After all, who's responsible for all the decisions that you've made in your life?
[00:20:43] You are. And who's responsible for all the decisions that I made in my life?
[00:20:48] I am. I don't get to blame God for my own stupidity. You don't get to do that. And so here's what we find.
[00:20:56] We live in a world where God allows people to make free decisions.
[00:21:01] And these decisions are sometimes really, really hard and impact other people's lives in severe ways, every one of us included. And God lets you make decisions. Sometimes we bring difficulty on our own life, don't we? And sometimes, just because we are in the orbit of other sinners, difficulty comes into our life because of the decisions that they made.
[00:21:23] And this isn't to be crass or cold, but it's to tell you that until you are dead or Jesus comes back, you will be a sinner in a world with fallen sinners. And you will be able to make decisions that harm people, and they will be able to make decisions that harm you. Difficulty is inevitable until Jesus comes back.
[00:21:39] And as long as you're alive, you're gonna have to expect this. That even in these seasons of peace and quiet, inevitably, inevitably in your life, extreme difficulty will come. You can try to Avoid it, but you will never be able to do that. Wow, this guy's encouraging. This is a. This is an uplifting sermon, guys. Sometimes when you're going into battle, you need a reality check. You don't tell somebody going into battle, it's going to be fine. There'll be no bullets. You're going to be totally good, right? No bombs, no explosions. Could be super peaceful. No, you actually have to prepare them in basic training. You have to subject them to intensity so that they can be prepared for the realities of war.
[00:22:15] Verse 5 goes on. He says, he who has prepared us for this very thing is God. I mean, think about all the preparation that God had to do in their lives, all the difficulty to prepare them to endure their own murder. And then it says this God who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. There's a lot here, but one, thank God. He does not abandon us, but gives us his Spirit who never leaves us nor forsakes us. You may not feel like God's presence is with you, but if you've trusted in Christ, you can't get rid of his presence. It is.
[00:22:48] But as you as a follower of Christ, you see this extreme difficulty and you walk into its chaos with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of you, and you get to the other end.
[00:23:02] There is something really encouraging for you in this, because guess what? Fake Christians don't make it to the other side.
[00:23:10] And so here's what we find. The Apostle Paul can say this. Listen, I have confidence that I am a real Christian, not because I'm good or perfect, but because I walked into this chaos with Jesus and I came out on the other side still loving Jesus, messed up a ton along the way. And actually, honestly, because of my own stupidity, postponed the process and made it more difficult than it needed to be. But I walked into it. I walked through it and I got to the other side. So extreme difficulty exposes not just our weaknesses, not just the depth of our maturity, of the maturity of our faith, but for some, a false conversion. And in Scripture, this is a very real thing. There are real Christians and there are fake Christians. And do you know the most consistent and easiest way to weed out one from the other?
[00:24:04] Extreme difficulty. And so when you go through extreme difficulty, as imperfect as the whole process is, and it's messy, nobody does it perfectly, but you come out on the other end of it. There is a guarantee for you. The guarantee is you have the Holy Spirit, you walked through hell and you came out on the other side. Yes, frustrated with God, dealing with all these emotions, but still in love with Jesus. Be encouraged. Your spirit salvation is real. John writes, I write these things that you might know. You have eternal life. And one of the best ways to have confidence that your salvation is real is to endure extreme difficulty and come out on the other side still in love with Jesus. Now, verse 6, verse 6 is for those who endure extreme difficulty. You get to the other side, your faith is still intact. Apostle Paul says this, so we who are about to be murdered are always of good courage. I'm sorry, this is a very weird sentence in the context to read. And you might be tempted to think to yourself, oh, this is kind of like some faux joy. How are you doing? I'm really good and everything's great. And actually, that's not what is happening in this situation. I think on one level, Paul is able to say, I have been tested over and over and over and over and over again. And I have come out of each successive and increasingly more difficult difficulty. I have come out on the other end still in love with God, imperfect as the process is. And he could look and say, I've passed the test. I am stronger than I ever thought possible. And I know that whatever comes next, because I have the Holy Spirit, I know that whatever comes next after death, it's gonna be resurrection life with Jesus. Now, you got to consider, really, the trials that these apostles, particularly Paul, have gone through. And in light of that, I want you to just look at the rest of verses 6, 7, and 8, because these are kind of just shocking statements given what they've gone through. He says, we know in verse six that while we're at home in the body, we're away from the Lord. Okay? Fact, if I'm here on earth, Jesus is at the right hand of God, the Father in heaven. So we are separate. So I'm at home here. I'm away from Jesus. Got it?
[00:26:23] Verse 7. For we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes. In case you're wondering if he's discouraged, no, we are of good courage. He's looking at them and saying, we have been prepared for this very moment, this thing that is coming upon us. The Lord made sure we were ready for it. Yes, we're of good courage. And duh, we would rather be away from the body and home with the Lord. But that's not yet. Yes. Who wouldn't rather be with Jesus than in this fallen, burdensome world, all of us. And yet he steps back and he just says, listen, we are of good courage. We have been prepared for this we know what happens after. And we know we have the guarantee of the Holy Spirit who testifies that we really are children of God. Look again at verse seven. For we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage.
[00:27:24] Statements like this don't come naturally if you are thinking about your life and you're thinking, if I was going through what Paul went through, I couldn't say that. That's how I feel. If I was going through what Paul went through, I don't know that I would be able to look at you and say, I am of good courage. I am okay, I am ready to be murdered. I don't feel like I have that in me right now.
[00:27:51] But when you watch, especially like a seasoned saint, when you watch them go through extreme difficulty and they are able to look at you with peace and say, I trust Jesus. He is good. He is with me. He loves me. And there are these people, when they're in the middle of it and they say this, you know, they mean it.
[00:28:22] These are sacred moments where you get to watch somebody who is spiritually shredded lift unbelievable weights. And you're looking at somebody who is saying these things as the outcome of a life that has endured trial after trial after trial, difficulty after difficulty after difficulty. And they walked into these difficulties with Jesus and came back stronger after each one. When you get to this point to watch someone else go through extreme difficulty and be convinced in their heart that God is and God loves them, this is a special thing. And this is what I want for every one of us, whatever difficulty we go through, to go through this and to walk out of it testifying to the goodness of God. And eventually you go through enough of them in life where you say, oh, been here, done that.
[00:29:14] Yeah, this is terrible. Yep. Wouldn't wish it upon anybody. But I could already tell you going into it, I'm going to get out of it. And I can already tell you that God's good. I can already tell you that he's just. I already tell you that he loves me. I can tell you that he's never gonna leave me or forsake me. So you go through trials enough and you get to this point where you're like, eh, brilliant. This is just what it means to be a human in a fallen world with Jesus by my side. That's what it means. And so there's this interesting things. When you watch people who've gone through it, man, they're just confidence going into trials. It is remarkable. And they understand intuitively, well, I gotta get through this because at the end of the day, God's building muscles in me now that apparently I'm going to need for something later that's going to be even more challenging. We got a whole lot more in 2 Corinthians 5, 6. But I want to share with you two. So what's number one?
[00:30:05] Don't give up on God in this or the next difficulty.
[00:30:09] Be courageous and trust him.
[00:30:14] I want you to see this theme in Second Corinthians. In chapter 4, verse 1, he says, we do not lose heart. Second Corinthians 4, 16, he says it again, we do not lose heart. Why is he repeating this?
[00:30:25] Probably because he knows that anybody in the Corinthian church who is going through what he went through, the weight of difficulty would have lost heart by then. But God didn't prepare them for that. He prepared Paul, the apostles, for this. This is why they're not losing heart. And you can understand, they're looking at it like, are you okay? Like, you shouldn't be okay. Nobody should go through what you're going through and be all right. And so he's affirming them, no, we don't lose heart. And then in chapter five, you can almost hear the questions like, no, for real, Are you okay? And he's like, we're not just okay.
[00:30:55] We have good courage. Like, there is a strength inside of us that I know is hard for you to understand, because God didn't prepare you for my trial. God prepared me for my trial. So right now, I know that looks crazy, but, no, we're of good courage. We haven't lost heart. In fact, we're ready for this. Every shipwreck, every single betrayal, every single beating the Apostle Paul had to go through. And my goodness, I'm thinking to myself, how many times does this guy need to be beaten almost to the point of death? Well, apparently, that was preparation for his ultimate murder, which is going to happen. And Paul can look back and say, apparently, I needed five separate beatings in order for me to be prepared for the weight of enduring what I know is gonna be my murder and torture. And so Paul had to go through a lot. But I love this. He's like, we don't lose heart. We don't lose heart. We're of good courage. We're of good courage.
[00:31:44] I love this quote. It's an ancient Greek poet named Aristoculos, and he says, you do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your training.
[00:31:57] And this is what Jesus is doing with every Single one of us. He is training us and building in us the muscles to carry the things that are coming next.
[00:32:08] Longings, burdens, difficulties.
[00:32:12] They make you feel all the feels right. They're gonna make you feel anxious, they're gonna make you feel afraid.
[00:32:20] And here's why. I think it takes courage to trust in Jesus because all your feelings are telling you, take care of it. Take care of it yourself. If God loved you, he wouldn't let this happen to you. The list goes on and on.
[00:32:36] But it takes courage to look at your fear and your feelings and say no.
[00:32:42] When you do things that are petrifying, like cliff jumping or whatever. Like, I don't know what you guys do, but that's like, everything in my body is, you know, like. But, like, courage is not the absence of fear. It's not the absence of anxiety, it's not the absence of hesitation. It's the ability to look at those things and say, you're. You're not true right now. In fact, there's something that is better. And so I'm gonna live by principles and reality rather than my emotions. I don't know about you, my emotions lie to me all the time. Like, my emotions are not a good guide. They're up and they're down, they're left and they're right. Like, I gotta know principles, otherwise I'm gonna be all over the place. It takes courage to look at your anxiety and say no, or to look at your fear and say no, or to look at your desire for you. Name the sinful impulse and say no. I am going to choose to do the hard thing and I'm going to trust what God says.
[00:33:38] Now, number two, God will reward all those who seek to please him. Verse 9. So whether we are at home or away, I love this. We make it our aim to please him. So in extreme difficulty, we have a choice to make. We can either, number one, get rid of the pain. That sounds like a great option to me. I don't know about you, I hate pain. I don't like things that hurt. I hate all of it. Like, I don't like inconvenience. So, like, I wanna get rid of it. But guess what? A lot of the times, if we're just gonna get rid of pain, that means we're gonna have to sin to do it. For some people, it's substances to numb the pain. Or it's slander and gossip to ruin the person who's creating the pain. Or it's lying to avoid the consequences. The painful consequences of the thing that we just did, I would love to say you can get rid of the pain. The vast majority of the time. The best way to get rid of the pain is to go through it and endure it with Jesus.
[00:34:34] There's a second option and it's to please God.
[00:34:38] I can't tell you what this means in your situation.
[00:34:41] Disney stole this line from churches in the movie Frozen, do the next right thing. That's not a Disney thing, that's a church thing.
[00:34:50] You step back and you say, okay, what is the next right thing? And your feelings and your anxiety and your fears, they're gonna say, here's the next right thing. Get em or lie or steal or drug, whatever. You're gonna have all these impulses. No, the actual question is, Jesus, what would please you the most in this situation? What next step would please you the most?
[00:35:16] It is really hard to say no to your impulses, your wants, your habits, your desires, your addictions.
[00:35:24] And to say, you know what, that way hasn't gotten me anywhere but more difficulty. So Jesus, I want to do whatever that right next thing is that pleases you.
[00:35:36] Verse 10 gives us, I think, great motivation. It says, for we all, we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is done for what he has done, may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. And so here's this principle, like you and I are gonna stand before Jesus and every evil thing that we have ever done or thought or should have done, or might have done, or could have done will be exposed. And every act of faithfulness to Jesus will be rewarded. Every single act done that is consistent with scripture and with the intention to please God will be rewarded. Jesus will reward every single act of faithfulness. Every decision from when you were a little kid and you made that decision to please him over your impulse to the moment you are dead, every single decision you make to choose to please God over yourself, he has not forgotten and he will reward every single one of them. There is a future you with a resurrected body living on a new earth. And that future you has pretty strong opinions on the decisions you make right now when you are facing extreme difficulty. Because future you, resurrected you with heaven, with Jesus on a new earth, knows that God will generously, in a very compelling way, reward every single act of faithfulness. So future you, if it could cross the barriers of space and time, would say, stop it, your feelings are liars. Please him and you will be generously, wonderfully, delightfully, Rewarded by Jesus one day.
[00:37:21] I want to close and I want to draw your attention to the end of verse 10. He says that everyone is going to receive what is due for what they've done in the body, whether good or evil. And so the Scriptures are clear that every person who has ever lived, every decision will be exposed and will be judged.
[00:37:43] And there's a principle that we have shared multiple times at Village church, but I want to share it again because I think it is so powerful, clear and helpful. Goes very simply like this, because God is just.
[00:37:56] Every single sin will be paid for in one of two ways.
[00:38:02] It will either be paid for by you in hell or by Jesus on the cross.
[00:38:09] Not one single thing done by you, to you, around you, or to anybody else will ever just be ignored. They will all be, with clarity, publicly dealt with. No injustice gets swept under the rug.
[00:38:22] And. And when you face Jesus, okay, there are two options.
[00:38:30] You can reject Jesus, but to reject Jesus is to reject what he did for you on the cross, which is to pay for your sins. And you can do that. But if you reject Jesus, you're rejecting his offer to pay for your sins, and so you will pay for your sins forever in hell.
[00:38:48] The other option is to come to him and say, I've sinned. I'm sorry, I'm rejecting myself as my own God. You, Jesus, are my God. You died for my sins. You were raised from the dead. I believe in you. Forgive me and save me. That is a much better option than paying for your own sins in hell forever. Amen. And the good news of the gospel is, hey, God is just. He doesn't look at the evil of this world and go, oh, turn a blind eye, didn't see that. Oh, he deals with everything justly. We would like him to deal with it now. But the Scriptures say every single day that God waits. This is the Michael translation. But you'll. Every day that God waits is another day where someone else comes to Christ. And so God is patient, not wanting that any should perish. So he's waiting. And so every day he waits, more people come to Christ. And so we say, take as long as you want. Come, Lord Jesus, but take as long as you want. And we plead with people, we don't know when the day is. And when the day comes, there's no second chances. And so I get to look at you today and say, you can either pay for your sins or Jesus can. And I would strongly encourage come to Christ and say, thank you. I'm sorry. I believe if that's a decision that you want to make today. Come talk to any one of us. But great news you might say, how do I do that? You can just talk to God in your head. Here's your thoughts. It's crazy.
[00:40:11] And you can just pray to him and say, I'm sorry. I believe in Jesus. I believe that you died for my sins and raised again from the dead. And if that is a decision that you make, tell somebody that you came with, come talk to one of us up front afterwards. We would just count it our absolute joy to help you figure out what. Is that right? Next step, as you personally trust in Jesus. Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Father, I am so thankful for the blood of Christ. I'm thankful for your word. But yes, I am thankful for these faithful men and women over decades, centuries and millennia who've gone before us. I'm thankful for the apostle Paul, Lord, that we get the privilege to eavesdrop on these really honestly, deeply personal conversations. And we get to watch somebody who built extreme muscles through years of hardship. God, we're thankful that he faced death giving honor and glory to you. But Lord, even though we will probably not be murdered for our faith, Lord, we will go through extreme difficulty and we want to go through it with you. We want to be men and women and students to children and children who declare that even in the midst of extreme difficulty, you are our God and you are good and you are trustworthy so that others might see that and they might come to believe in your goodness and your trustworthiness and they would be saved from their sins. Father, thank you for your kindness and I'm so excited. Now we get to celebrate another baptism. You are saving people every day all over the world. And we just get these little glimpses into the big story and big picture of what you are up to. So we celebrate with you and we thank you and we do this in Jesus name. Amen.
