Becoming Like Christ in Our Suffering

Good morning Life church.

Today we continue to talk about how we can become like Jesus.

Last we discussed how we have to see God in the same way Jesus did, to understand Him as both Love and Holiness.

Today we will be talking about becoming like Christ through our suffering.

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Job 1:21 NASB95

He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

I love and really dislike this verse.

Shows me the sovereignty of God and how little control I have over the things in this life.

Job wrote this as a way of understanding the loss of his children in light of a good God.

God gave me a wonderful family, mom and dad who loved me and three brothers. The Lord gives.

But the Lord also takes away - all three of my brothers passed away before I was 2.

Suffering is one thing every human has in common. At one point or another we will all experience some form of suffering and pain.

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Jesus -

Experienced human suffering to the point of death on a cross.

Shame and humiliation - mom virgin birth, yea right Jesus.

Poverty -

Trained in carpentry and masonry work - lots of deaths and pain in that occupation.

Wilderness temptation

Rejected by the crowds

Rejected by a friend and disciple

Anguish over his soon to be death - sweat blood.

Arrested, beaten, stripped, mocked, shamed, tortured, crucified.

Hebrews 5:7–9 NASB95

In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation,

God and Man

Jesus learned and matured the same way we do

He learned how to be obedient in hard times, through his previous sufferings.

Through his sufferings, he was made fully mature - complete as a Man and our representative.

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You -

Maybe you are trying to move past some terrible pain and suffering in your life.

Divorce - bad marriage - lonesome - sickness - shame - physical pain - addiction - the disorder of COVID, etc.

Today I am not going to give you 5 ways to move past suffering and pain.

There is no such message.

However I do want to give you hope and show you how God can and will use your pain and suffering to

Enlarge your Life / mature you / And move you towards the image of Jesus.

God can use your suffering for His glory

God can give power and purpose to your pain.

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The story of Gideon is an incredible story of how God can bring power and purpose through someones pain.

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Quickly tell the story of Gideon and finish with earthen vessels and fire -

How did Gideon go from hiding in fear to leading Israel into freedom?

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BE HONEST WITH OURSELVES

Judges 6:11 NASB95

Then the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save it from the Midianites.

Face the darkness with open eyes.

a. No more running from reality to a bottle, pills, addiction, porn, work, fantasy world.

When we face the darkness with open eyes, we can

a. Honestly evaluate our circumstances

b. Honestly evaluate our weakness

c. Honest questioning of our understanding of God

d. Honest acceptance of our brokenness – No more lies – no more games – no more church masks.

Gerald Sittser,

“The quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise.”

Many of us in here have been chasing the sun, running from our brokenness, pain, suffering and never catching the sun light. Our past failures, pains, and sufferings haunt us, always lingering in the background of our lives.

God’s plan for us in not to run from the darkness but, rather run towards the darkness with open eyes. Take on those nightmares in faith and only then do we meet the SON and true light fills our lives.

Stop ignoring the problem and pretending like it is not there. We have to be honest with ourselves.

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BE HONEST WITH GOD

Judges 6:12–13 NASB95

The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior.” Then Gideon said to him, “O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

Don’t ever question God or he will get you! Really?

Follow the pattern of the Psalmist, the prophets, and Job.

Yell, scream, question, lay it all on the line.

God desires to speak into our hurt and honest questions.

(Healing through the death of my dad - through yelling, and asking hard questions of God.)

God is not afraid of your questions

Don’t be afraid to ask them.

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EMBRACE YOUR LIMITS AS GIFTS

2 Corinthians 12:9–10 NASB95

And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

Judges 6:14–16 NASB95

The Lord looked at him and said, “Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?” He said to Him, “O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.” But the Lord said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.”

Our weaknesses force us to rely on Him and not ourselves.

What weakness is holding you back?

What do you feel incapable of, even though you know God is asking you to go in that direction?

Embrace the weakness and rely on God to be your strength.

Your weakness is an opportunity for God to show up and show off in and through you.

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WAIT IN THE MESSY IN BETWEEN

Judges 6:25–30 NASB95

Now on the same night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s bull and a second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal which belongs to your father, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it; and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of this stronghold in an orderly manner, and take a second bull and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which you shall cut down.” Then Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had spoken to him; and because he was too afraid of his father’s household and the men of the city to do it by day, he did it by night. When the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was torn down, and the Asherah which was beside it was cut down, and the second bull was offered on the altar which had been built. They said to one another, “Who did this thing?” And when they searched about and inquired, they said, “Gideon the son of Joash did this thing.” Then the men of the city said to Joash, “Bring out your son, that he may die, for he has torn down the altar of Baal, and indeed, he has cut down the Asherah which was beside it.”

The stage of life between defeat and victory, dirty and clean, broken and healed, grieving and joy.

• It is in the in-between stage that God begins to show us our idols

· Idol of the American dream – if I can just get that life all will be good.

· Idol marriage – if I get married everything will be ok

· Idol of self – All I want is to make myself happy.

· Etc.

This middle stage the messy in between is the cross we are all called to carry one time or another.

· Not dead but not fully alive

· Pain and suffering

· Only that which is of greatest value remains – everything else falls off.

• It is here that He asks us to destroy those idols.

• control / power / pride / wealth / fame / NAME YOUR IDOL

It is kind of like Spring Cleaning - Starts dirty - chaos as you move furniture - will this ever get done - oh no we made a mistake - finally done - clean, new, fresh.

We naturally hate the in-between stages, they hurt and are messy.

a. They feel un-productive

c. It feels like we are walking in circles and getting nowhere.

d. God have you brought me here to die?

e. Yet it is here, like the wilderness for the Hebrew children that God changes how we view Him, ourselves, and the purpose of life.

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THERE IS POWER AND PURPOSE IN YOUR PAIN

Judges 7:20–22 NASB95

When the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers, they held the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands for blowing, and cried, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” Each stood in his place around the camp; and all the army ran, crying out as they fled. When they blew 300 trumpets, the Lord set the sword of one against another even throughout the whole army; and the army fled as far as Beth-shittah toward Zererah, as far as the edge of Abel-meholah, by Tabbath.

2 Corinthians 4:7–12 NASB95

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you.

Like Gideon’s earthen vessels holding the flame, we too are holding a flame, the Glory of God, the Holy Spirit.

And like Gideon’s earthen vessels, we too show forth the Glory of God in our brokenness.

The scars of our past are the places the Glory of God shines the brightest for others to see.

My painful family past and drug addiction are my weak places but, they are also the places in my life where God receives all the Glory.

Not only does God shine through our scars and brokenness, He also uses the pains of our lives to prepare us to hold His glory in the power of humility.

God desires to use our pains, scars, and sufferings to enlarge us to carry His Glory.

Don’t be afraid to show your scars and broken history - Those are the areas His Glory seeps out into the lives of others.

Don’t for a second think God has abandoned you in your time of suffering and grieving.

He is there with you and desires to use your pain to mold you and strengthen you to carry His Glory.

GOD’S POWER IS IN YOUR PAIN