Faithful When It Hurts

Automatically transcribed — lightly cleaned for readability. Wording is the preacher’s own.

Heavenly Father, as we turn to open your word, pray that you would bring our attention to you, Lord, that you would help me to speak clearly, that you would help me to speak honorably. And Lord, I pray that I would decrease and you would increase. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We are in our sermon series on the book of, well, not the whole book of Revelation. I'm typing Revelation into my phone. Okay. We are on our study of the book of Revelation, but specifically the first part, the first couple chapters where there are seven letters to seven churches. And this week we're going to be talking about the letter to Smyrna.

Everyone knows Smyrna, right? Favorite vacation spot. So, in Revelation, sometimes when we think about Revelation, you know, we think about kind of a lot of the dramatic parts of Revelation, but the beginning parts of Revelation are some very practical and I think very timely letters that the Apostle John wrote to seven churches. So let's kind of set the context here. So can we put up the image of the first map here? So you see here, this is kind of a bigger map. You've got Jerusalem over in the right corner, and then you've got modern day Turkey up in the middle where it's labeled Asia, and then you've got Rome and Italy. That makes up a large portion of what would have been considered the Western civilized world at the time of Jesus and the apostles. So John, or not John, wait, John, yes, the apostle John. Who wrote the book of John with Jesus, that John, he is, he's on a little tiny island. Go ahead and hit play on this video. He's in this tiny little island on called Patmos. So if you see Patmos,

It's on the bottom left here and he's in exile. So he's been teaching about Jesus. He's been making the Romans mad and he's on this, what's a very tiny island. You can go to Google maps and look at it. If it wasn't so rocky and hilly, you could probably walk across it pretty easily if it weren't so mountainous, but it's this really rocky mountain, mountainous and small island. And that's where he's living in exile. And as he's living in exile, he has this revelation. He has this vision of Jesus and Jesus gives him seven messages to give to seven churches. So he sends a message to these seven churches listed here, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Tyria, and so forth and so on. And so what we're doing is we've been covering that. Now, when you think about the book of Revelation, you probably think of, or at least I do, I think of the word apocalypse. Right? Anyone, you know, I feel like Revelation is the book of the Bible that Hollywood likes to quote the most. And the way they quote it is they put it at the opening title sequence of a scary movie, right?

Like the seven horsemen, right? Something ominous, something scary. And then they show like an end of a world movie, right? Like that's, that's like your, your, your, textbook handbook way of starting like a post-apocalyptic movie is put ominous quote from revelation on the black screen and then swap to like New York city and ruins or something like that. And so when we hear the word apocalypse, we think of disaster. We think of the end of the world, right? At least that's what I think of. But what does the word apocalypse actually mean? The word apocalypse in Greek just means revelation. It just means something has been revealed. Something has been unveiled, right? Something has been made clear and uncovering. And that's what the book of Revelation is. Paul or John, I've been talking so much about Paul the last several weeks. I got to talk about John. John is sitting and he is having a quiet time and he has this revelation. He has a vision where things are revealed to him. The curtain is sort of pulled away. And apocalypse means that,

A revealing or an uncovering. And so when we talk about the book of Revelation, the book of apocalypse, it's not simply, it's not trying to communicate necessarily the end of the world, or this is disaster coming. It's saying the things that are being uncovered, the things that are being revealed, the things that are there that you don't see are being pulled back. The curtain is being pulled back. Think about it kind of like the night sky. You know what's above us right now? Stars, right? Stars are out there right now, but we can't see them today, right? One, because we're inside of a building. But then two, if you stepped out, it's cloudy and there's a sun, right? But if we get lucky tonight, maybe we'll have a clear sky and maybe the light pollution won't be so bad. You'll be able to see what's always there, the stars, right? And it's kind of like we forget that they're there. They get covered up. But occasionally, if we go to a good spot, a good destination away from the light on clear weather, the sky will be unveiled. It will be uncovered and we'll

See the truth, the reality of what is always right above us. That's what's happening here with this vision, this apocalypse, is Jesus isn't showing something that is just not there. He's saying, I'm showing you what is there. I'm showing you behind the curtain, something that is always there that I'm helping make visible. And so this is the revealing. And so Jesus had a revealing message for these seven churches in Asia. He wanted to show them something, awaken them. And as we read these seven messages, we want to do the same thing. We want to say, Jesus, we're asking Jesus to uncover our eyes so that we can see the reality of ourselves and the world around us, right? As we read this today, that's my prayer. I hope that's your prayer is that as we read this, we say, Jesus, show us, uncover our eyes to the realities of what is around us and about us, help us see things more clearly. So we're going to be in Revelation chapter two, and we're going to be reading specifically verses eight through 11. Now, as we're kind of reading this, we're kind of framing this as kind of Jesus's

Letter to this church, you know, when's the last time somebody got some fun mail? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Few of you, right? Fun mail is a mail that wasn't sent to you by a corporation. Right. Fun mail is somebody that some, something that somebody specifically sat down, wrote your name, no matter how sloppy it was. And they, and they put a stamp on it and they took it to a box and they put it in there. Right. We don't get a lot of that anymore. We get a lot of flyers and advertisements, but fun mail is fun, right? We love to open personal letters, correspondence. If someone's ever written you a personal note of encouragement or a birthday card, Christmas cards are coming soon. All of those things. We love to open fun mail. And when it's from someone we really care about, don't we just reread that letter, right? If it's someone we haven't heard from a long time, or maybe it's someone that we have a crush on, or it's a wife or a spouse. Like we read it and we're just like, I want to drink this in.

They took the time and the thought to say this. I'm going to read it over and over again. I'm going to dwell. I'm going to meditate on that. That's what we're going to do as we're opening this passage. We're going to read it thoughtfully and I want us to meditate on it. I want us to think crucially and detailed. I want to kind of pour over the words today, just like we would with fun mail and kind of pull what's out of it. And so as we read it, I want you to be thinking, this is just a good practice in your own Bible reading. If you're reading a passage and you want to study it, read the passage a couple times and highlight the things that you have questions about, right? Say, oh, I didn't know what that word meant. Oh, that's a really weird way to say that. What does that mean, right? So as we read this, be thinking in your mind, what are the words? What are the phrases? What are the things that stand out to you that make you

Have questions about what does this mean and what is the importance of that. So I have one last map to put up there. And we're going to put that up there. And this is going to show us that he's on the island of Patmos. And then I think I've got one more, unless I messed up my slides, that we, last week, Pastor Cameron talked about the message to Ephesus. And then he, today we're going to be talking about the message to Smyrna. So we're going to go ahead, read that. So if you can pull out your Bibles or follow along on the screen, Revelation chapter two, verse eight says this.

And to the angel of the church in Smyrna, write the words of the first and the last who died and came to life. I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich. And the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are, excuse me. I'm sure that was miserable. One second.

Excuse me. Could you give me just a little bit more volume? I know that's scary after I just coughed, but it'll keep me from yelling. Thank you. Okay.

All right. Where was I? Okay. Do not fear, verse 10, what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for 10 days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear to hear, let him hear, that the Spirit says to the churches, the one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death. Okay, so what is this talking about? What is this passage? Now, over the next couple weeks, last week included, we're going to be covering these passages and there's a certain poetry or a certain structure to each of these. And I want to kind of make it visible because it helps us understand what we're reading. If we can understand, you know, just like when you open a letter, what's at the top? Dear so-and-so. I hope this finds you well, right? And then we get to the bottom, and always the best parts are in the PS, right? PS, you know, don't forget to bring the cookies or something like that.

So go ahead, and I've got a structure up here, a structure of these passages, of this passage right here. Revelation 2, 8 through 11, there's a predictable structure that each of these pass through. There's an introduction, sort of the dear so-and-so. And this part, each section, each letter to the different churches starts with, to the angel of, the words of him who, right? That's how we know that we're kind of the introduction. If you look at verse eight, you see, and to the angel of the church of Smyrna, the words of the first and the last, right? It's got this predictable pattern that's in each of these sections. And then after the intro comes the message. The message is filled with or indicated by these two kind of key phrases. First is, I know blank. I know that. I know of. I know of you. I see you, right? And then it is usually followed by, but I have this one thing for you or one thing against you. That's the message portion. And that's contained in each of those. And then very finally is the closure.

And the closure ends almost, closing ends almost always the same. It says, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. And then it ends with, to the one who conquers. Look, it's exactly that way in verse 11. It says, he who has an ear to hear, let him hear. Right? And then second half, the one who conquers, right? That's kind of a predictable structure that we see in each of these passages. And so we're going to break that down a little bit. Let's look at the intro. Verse eight is the intro. We can see it because it has those phrases and to the angel of the church in Smyrna, right? The words of the first and the last, he who died and came to life. What is this saying, right? What's this introduction, right? We want to know who the letter is from, right? We know who it's to. It's to the church of Smyrna. And we know that it's being given from who? From Jesus, we presume, since that's how we've titled the series, but we don't see the name Jesus here. Although that is what, you know, John sets us up.

When he's seeing this whole vision, he describes Jesus as standing amongst a bunch of lampstands. He's standing amongst seven lampstands. And from that standpoint, he gives this revelation, this message. And we're told that the seven lampstands represent the seven churches. That's why we have a bunch of lamps on stage. In case you were wondering. So Jesus is saying this and he is described as the words of the first and the last, he who died and came to life. The alpha and the omega, maybe that's said a couple times here throughout the book of Revelation. What does that mean to be the first and the last? Does that mean like you're at the beginning of the line and the end of the line? Right like what what does it mean and I was thinking of a good way to illustrate this and you know how who you can tell is in charge of a room, they start the meeting and they end the meeting right who's the person who gets to call everything to order who's the person who starts what's supposed to happen and then who's the person who says we're done right.

Right? Jesus is saying, I'm the one that everything begins with, and I'm the one that everything ends with. And everything in between happens inside of my purview. Everything in between is under my control. Jesus is echoing a verse from Isaiah where God said, all the kingdoms and the nations rage, but I am the first and the last. There is no other God like me. Jesus is recognizing he's calling himself back and saying, I am God and I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the creator and the ender, the infinite one. And so this is his identity. And then we get this second glimpse at his identity here when he says, the one who died and then came to life. Notice that he died and then came to life. One thing that we need to make sure that we clearly articulate when we talk about the gospel is that Jesus died. He did not pass out. He died. It is theologically correct to say that God died on a cross. We don't talk about the gospel like that. We say Jesus died on the cross,

But Jesus is God and God did die on a cross. That's not incorrect to say. It's not the whole picture, but it is correct. And so Jesus died, but he didn't stay dead and he came back to life. It's put this way in Romans chapter six, verse nine. Can you put that on the screen for me? It says, we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. Jesus put to death, death. He got victory over it by dying and then coming back to life. It's kind of like almost imperfect illustration on the fly, but here we go. It's like arm wrestling, right? You're arm wrestling and you're getting all the way down, all the way down, all the way down. Oh, no, we're coming all the way back, right? Like we've completely defeated. We've, we've gone all the way to the end and we've come all the way back. Jesus conquered death. And so we've got these two opening statements that tell us about who Jesus is, his character, and what is important for us to understand about him.

So that's the intro that gets us set. We know who it's to and we know who it's from. Now let's look at verses nine and 10. This is the message part. This is the part of the passage where Jesus is giving the instructions. Verse nine says this, I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested. And for 10 days, you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. Okay, let's make just a couple observations about this, right? We're reading this letter, we're paying attention to the details. So what do we see here? We see the structure, right? It starts off with what phrase? I know, right? But what phrase is missing from the message, right? Each of these letters contains two phrases in the message. I know, but I. There's no but I.

Right? The but I usually is where Jesus introduces a rebuke or a correction where he says, but I have this one thing against you. I know that you've been doing this so well, but I see that you're not doing this so well. This is one of the two churches that Jesus has a message to where he has no correction. He has only encouragement. So I think that's interesting. Jesus doesn't have a correction for them. He only has encouragement with them. We see that there is this kind of latent conflict going on, right? What does he say that he knows? He knows of your tribulation and your poverty and the slander. Where's the poverty? Where's the slander coming from? From the Jews, or at least from those that say they are Jews, but they're not. But they are a synagogue of Satan. Okay. Who, when we read that had questions about that? Just me? Okay, I guess that's why I'm up here. So, I had questions about it this week. I was just like, what does that mean? What does it mean to be a synagogue of Satan?

That's freaky, right? Okay, I'm excited about this. All right, so, like, what does it mean? So, what we've got here at this time, this is kind of, it has to put our heads in a bit of a different context, because we live in 2026, and our culture, our time is very different. But at the time that this was written, Christians were new and there weren't very many of them. And some people had never heard of Christians. Actually, a lot of them weren't even called Christians yet. They were called the way or followers of Jesus or disciples of the way, right? They were meeting in little houses. Jews were much larger in number and then the Jews had much more political power than Christians did. They had arrangements arranged with the Roman government because the Roman government didn't tolerate new religions, but the Jews had established a peaceable. Arrangement with the Romans. And as the Christians were going around and saying, we're not going to bow to Caesar. We're not going to worship Caesar. We're not going to do this. The Jews were like, Caesar, they're not with us.

Right? We generally tend to think of Jews and Christians as being a little bit more separate. At the time of the creation, Christianity was a subsection of Judaism. That might be a different way of thinking about it. It's still technically true. We don't think of it that way because we are just so exposed to Christian culture that we don't realize that we are the branch out of Judaism. And so... When this was happening, the Jews had the political power and the authority, and they wanted to separate themselves from these Christians who were teaching false doctrine, according to them, talking about what they believed to be a false Messiah, and they were upsetting the Roman government. And so they persecuted the Christians. And so Jesus here is saying, he said, they claim to be Jews, claim to be the people of God, but they obviously are not because they're persecuting me. Just like when Paul was confronted by Jesus on the road to Aramaeus, what did Jesus say to Paul as Paul was persecuting Christians? He said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Right? So he's saying the Jews that are in your particular city are persecuting

You and they're being used by Satan is what he's saying. Now. So briefly, we need to make sure that we don't take this passage and then make it say something it doesn't say, right? So we could read that today and we say, oh, all Jews belong to Satan or something like that. We could kind of take this very harmful and racist attitude. And unfortunately, this passage has been used historically to justify violence by Christians towards Jews. And we need to recognize that is not what this passage says. And that is not what Jesus is recommending here. Jesus does not recommend violence in this passage. He recommends endurance, which we're going to talk about, but we need to understand that when this was said, the power dynamic and the way that it was written was entirely different than the context we live in today. So that's what that, that's what I think is really interesting about this passage. All right, next, is that we see that there are a series of contrasts. Maybe you've noticed it. If you look carefully at this passage, starting all the way back in verse 8, we'll see these kind of couplets,

Something compared against another. Look at what it says in verse 8. It says, the words of the what? The first and the last. The dead who became live, right? And then we have here in verse nine says, you are poverty, but you are rich, right? And then the slander of those that say that they are Jews, but they are not, right? We're getting, we're seeing this over and over again, this kind of coupling, this comparing and contrasting. And what I want us to see out of this first verse here, out of verse nine, is what Jesus says. He says, I know.

I know your tribulation. I know your sufferings. Jesus sees and understands our circumstances, right? Jesus sees what's going on. When Hagar, the slave of Abraham and Sarah, and she was mistreated and she fled, she encounters God and his provision and his promise to her. And she calls God, the God who sees, right? God is not unaware of what's going on in our lives. He's not unaware of what our church is going through, of the things that are happening. Where is Jesus described in this vision? Remember John sitting at his table, he's having his morning devotional. He turns around and he sees Jesus standing where? In the midst of the lamps. And what are the lamps? The lamps of the churches. Jesus is walking among the churches as he talks about this. Jesus is in and among and can see the churches intimately and see what's going on. He knows the circumstances and the suffering of this church. He says, I know what's going on in your life. I'm not oblivious to it. I see it. I see the things that you think no one else sees.

You know, suffering in silence is difficult, right? When we feel like we're going through something and nobody sees it. Actually, let's take just a moment. We're in a room.

And there's a ton of people here, and I do not know what everybody's going through today. You might be here, and you might be going through something. You might be sitting next to a row of people, and they have no idea what today was like for you or what this week was like for you, right? And that's a type of loneliness that's difficult to deal with sometimes, being alone in a crowd. What Jesus is saying is, no, I know. I see. I know what you're going through. I know what your circumstances are. This is the type of God that we follow. And not only that, we know a God that also has scars. Right? When we meet Jesus, Jesus is not going to be in this perfect body. How is Jesus described when he is resurrected and he meets the disciples and the apostles after his resurrection? He has holes in his hands. He has a hole in his side. The marks of crucifixion are still born on his body. We follow a God who's not impervious, who's never felt pain, who hasn't cried. We follow a God who knows what it is to be human because he was made fully human while being fully God.

So, Jesus sees God knows your circumstances. Now let's read this next verse, verse 10. What does it say? It says, do not fear what you are about to suffer. And for 10 days, you will have tribulation, be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. This is what I want you to see here. Fear is an obstacle to faithfulness. Fear is an obstacle to faithfulness. What is his primarily concerned? He says, do not be afraid. Do not fear. The Greek here is emphatic. He is like, do not ever fear. If you're fearing, stop fearing and don't fear anymore. He's saying you should not fear. Why? He says, do not fear, but rather, right? Do not fear for what you are about to suffer. And then all the way at the end, he says, be faithful, right? Be faithful even unto death and I will give you the crown of life. Fear is an obstacle to faithfulness. I was talking with my dad last time we were together and I don't remember how we were talking about this, but we were talking about something I very vividly remember.

At least I remember parts of the story, but it was interesting to hear him tell the story from his perspective. I remember being a little kid and we were at some park, some park caves. It'll do a bunch of caves in Southern Ohio. I think that's where we were at. And there was like this, like fake mine shaft that like, I think I'm, I'm, I'm very young at this point. And we come up and I've got like my little like Fisher price, like headlamp on, like, I think I'm going to go spelunking. And we come up to this like mineshaft that I'm all stoked about. We're gonna go in a cave and like, you know, you go, you're supposed to go into this thing and then it kind of shakes and makes some noise like you're going down. And I was just like, nope. No way I'm getting in that thing. That thing looks old. You know, like I'm not going to get in there. It's going to fall down. And I was distraught. I was like, there's no way, no way I'm getting in there.

No way we're going to do that thing. I was crying. I was upset. My whole family had gone through except for me and my dad. Right. So the tour group that we were with, everybody had gone through and they were like, look, it's fine. And I was like, they didn't come back out. What are you talking about? You know, and I'm just panicking. Now I remember that I eventually got through it, but I didn't really remember exactly how. And I was talking to my dad and my dad was like, oh no, I remember that very clearly. He's like, the way we got you to go through it was I said, what if I carried you? He's like, as soon as I picked you up and carried you, you were fine. You were perfectly cool. You were ready to go. And it's because my dad picked me up because I was picked up. Fear was keeping me out of the place I was called to. Fear was keeping me out of the place I was supposed to go. But the moment I was picked up and carried by my father, I was able to put fear

Aside and I was able to go where I was supposed to go, right? Trust in the father carried me through. And that's what it is in the spiritual life. Fear keeps us from going to where we're supposed to do, from being faithful. We could talk for hours about biblical examples of Think about Adam and Eve, the very first story in the Bible. What did they do? They didn't trust the father. Serpent came along and said, did God really say, he doesn't want you to eat that fruit because he doesn't want you to be like him. God's not really good. He's keeping something good from you. They didn't trust the father. They had fear that they were missing out, that they were not going to have something. And so they were not faithful. We could go forward to Abraham. Abraham was promised a promised son that would become a nation. And Abraham is getting older and Sarah is getting older and older and they haven't had this son yet. And what does he do? He's afraid that he's not going to get the promise. He's afraid that he's not going to get it. And so what does he do?

He tries over and over again to find ways around to make the promise happen his way.

What happens when Jesus is with the apostles in the upper room? He says, you guys are going to be tested. He turns to Peter. He says, you're going to be sifted like wheat. Satan's going to sift you, but I know that you will persevere. And even having been warned and told that, Peter still denies Christ three times later that night. Why? Because he was afraid. Because he was afraid he was going to get crucified. Because he was afraid that God didn't have him. Fear is an obstacle to faithfulness. And so how? How do we get out of the grip of fear? Because if you've ever been afraid, fear feels like something that grips you. Right? When we encounter fear, there's like those three typical responses, right? We're either going to fight, we're going to flee, or we're going to freeze. Right? When we experience fear, it like arrests our attention. It's the only thing we can think of. I'm in danger. I don't have the thing that I need. I'm going to be in trouble. And it can be really tense. It can be really impactful. And that happens in

Physical situations, but it happens in spiritual and emotional situations too. When we feel like, I don't know what this test result's going to be. When I feel like I don't know how this is going to play out. When I don't know if that person is going to be kind to me or this person I'm going to lose. We have all of these things that we can be afraid of and it arrests us and it can put us in a place where we feel like we're trapped by it. How do we get out of that? Because it's all fine and dandy. Okay, Jesus, do not fear. Like, how am I going to do that? Right? Because it kind of feels like what, if you've heard me teach long enough, you've heard me talking about bumper sticker verses, right? It sounds like Jesus is saying, put a bumper sticker on it. Do not fear. You're good. Get out of here, right? What's the key here? Because I don't think Jesus is leaving us alone here. The secret to this is to put things into perspective. The secret is in the contrasts.

Remember earlier, I was talking about the first and the last, the one who died and came to life. What does Jesus say to the church out at the beginning? He says, I know of your poverty, but hey you're actually rich.

I know of the slander of these people who are accusing you. They're actually your enemy. They're actually a synagogue of Satan, right? Do not fear what you are about to suffer for behold, the devil is about to throw you into prison. Devil's about to throw you in the prison, but guess what? You are going to be tested, right? A positive thing. And it's going to be for 10 days. Now it's not a literal 10 days. This is a metaphor for saying a period of time, shorter period of time. It's a way of saying not forever forever.

And so you will have tribulation. Be faithful even unto death, but what? Here's the contrast. I will give you a crown of life.

Notice that Jesus is giving perspective. When we suffer, perspective exchanges fear for faithfulness. When we're experiencing difficulties, when we are facing uncertainty, when we are afraid, the thing that gets us out of the grip of fear is perspective. It's being able to see things as they really are. It's seeing the wider picture, right? If you talk to, I mean, the illustration I just gave you is a perfect one because of what I didn't mention about that scary mind shaft I was afraid to go into as a kid, is that it was really just two doors and they just closed one set and made the thing rock a little bit, and then they opened the other one. They never took you underground. I was afraid of nothing. I didn't have the perspective to see that. When you take a kid, some of you will be doing this in a few weeks. When you take a kid and you drop them off at school for the very first time, they're terrified. They're afraid. Is mom going to come back? Is dad going to come back? Because they don't have perspective yet. You know that they're going to be fine.

You know that they're going to have a blast, that given enough time, they're going to be excited to go to kindergarten, right? You've got that perspective because you've got something to compare it to.

We need perspective. We need to be able to zoom out. When we suffer perspective exchanges, fear for faithfulness. And that's what is going on. Jesus is saying, he ends here, right? At the end of verse 10, he says, if you're faithful unto death, I will give you the crown of life, right? Death has no sting. What he says in verse 11, he says, he who has an ear, let him hear The spirit that says to the church is the one who conquers will what? Will not be hurt by the second death.

Right? He's saying here something crucial. Death for the Christian is not death. If you find how death is referred to most commonly in the New Testament, it's referred to as falling asleep. Right? Because Christians don't die. They fall asleep and they are with the Lord. Right? To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Jesus turned to the thief on the cross and he says, today you will be with me in paradise. Paul said, for me to live is, to live is Christ and to die is gain, right? Like he's living for Christ, but as soon as he dies, he has gained. He's not lost anything. This is the way in which a perspective needs to be shifted. Let's make this a little bit more clear. I want to talk about some practical applications of this. So suffering, pain, sorrow, all of these things are not optional, right? All of us will experience difficulties. All of us will grieve. It is an unavoidable part of life. But what is optional, what we do have control over is our responses to suffering.

You can't control whether or not suffering will come to you. It will. You just don't know when or how. And the only thing that's left up to you is how you're going to respond. How are we going to react? What are we going to do? How are we going to be faithful in the midst of this?

Suffering can do a couple of things. I've seen it do a number of things. Suffering can make us bitter, right? We go through difficult things and we just get angry at the world. Nothing goes my way.

We just get mad and we just carry bitterness around. And it just is a poison root that just makes everything bitter. Everything's sour.

Suffering can make us more fearful. I've been hurt once. I'll be hurt again. We can get into this place where we're paralyzed, or we can get into a place of despair, absolute distraught. There's nothing left in this world. I'm suffering so much. I might as well give up. We can despair. Those are the things that can happen. Those are responses that we might be tempted towards when we suffer. But what are the responses we're called to? How does perspective change us? The perspective and the way that I think we ought to respond in suffering is that we can carry the image of Christ because we are carried by the Father, right? Just like when I was picked up, I was afraid and I was fearful. I was picked up by my dad. I was able to be calm, cool and collected. Now, I was still scared a little bit, but I knew that my dad was carrying me.

The father is carrying you. We need that perspective to understand that nothing is happening outside of God's purview. Remember who Jesus said he was at the beginning of the section? He was what? The first and the last. He has the first word and the last word and everything in between is his.

Our security, the reason we don't have to be afraid, is rooted in who Jesus is. It's by fixing our eyes and looking at God. It's by fixing our eyes and looking at Jesus that we are given perspective. How do we get perspective? It's not by staring into a mirror and saying, I'm smart, happy, and beautiful. It's by looking to Jesus. It's by recognizing who God is and the fact that he holds us and carries us through everything.

Christianity, we are to constantly, constantly be resetting our perspective by looking to Jesus. That's how we reset. That's how we recognize that this current momentary suffering is but a fleeting shadow. We see dimly, but we will see clearly. We suffer these momentary trials, which now we are aggrieved, but we will rejoice for the faithfulness that it produces in our hearts, which is more precious than gold.

Suffering is momentary. This moment, this life is momentary. Eternity is for eternity. Christ is eternity. When we have a moment to perspective, to look up and behold Christ, everything is put into perspective. My God suffered for me. What is my suffering? Can I not look at him just like Christ looked at the suffering set before him at the cross, but not despised the shame of the cross, but looked at the glory placed before him. So we too throw off all the sin, all the things that easily hinder, and we run the race pursuing after Christ. This is a quote I shared a couple of weeks ago, and I just think that it is, I got to share it again, because I think it is so important for us to understand When anything disagreeable or displeasing happens to you, remember Christ crucified and be silent.

I think a lot of, there's different church traditions and a lot of church traditions have like what they call a real crucifix. A crucifix being not just a cross, but a cross with Christ on it, right? An image of Christ being crucified. And I think there's something important about that, about meditating on Christ's suffering. Paul said that there is nothing among, I long to know most among you, among the people he was writing to, is Christ crucified.

It's at the cross that our faith hinges. And when we reflect on Christ's suffering at that moment of love expressed, we get spoken to. We see a God who is not far away and distant, who's not looking down in anger, but a God who is on a cross and is crying out, Lord, forgive them for they know not what they do. Who is saying, it is finished. I have paid for it. Who is saying, I love you. And this is how much. And that's what we need to see when we suffer. We need that message. We need to be known by that. We endure because Christ has endured. We endure because we are in Christ. These are the things that are true suffering comes, but we can carry the image of christ because we're carried by the father we can be given a perspective that shows that this momentary situation isn't forever, and sometimes we need to do those two things when you're.

When the moment is too much to deal with, you need to zoom out. When you're in a moment and you're like, this is too big. This is too scary. This is too hard. You got to zoom out. You got to see the big picture. You got to see that God's holding everything, that God will sustain you, that this is not the end of the story. When the big picture is too scary and too overwhelming, when you're like, I don't see how it's going to work out. I see just danger and uncertainty in front of me, you got to zoom in. You got to get down into the moment and say, right now, God is with me. Right now, this breath is a gift from God. Right now, these people in front of me, yes, I don't know what's coming in the future, but I know that right now I'm being sustained. Right now, I'm being held by the Father. So, when the big perspective is too big, you got to zoom in. When the moment is too hard, you got to zoom out. We got to fix our eyes on Christ.

Let me read this last passage for you. This is Romans chapter 8. This is Paul. This is the implications of the gospel. He says this, he says, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Who can bring a word against him? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who was at the right hand of God, who is indeed interceding for us, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall it be tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? For as it is written, for your sake, we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. We're suffering. Shall we be separated from the love of God. No, in all of these things, we're what?

We're more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus, our Lord.

God loves you and no matter where you find yourself today, you cannot be separated from that truth. Nothing in all of creation can change the fact that God died for you, that he made a way for you and that he wants to love you. And that whatever situation you find yourself in, he's holding it. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, this morning, I know that there is grief in this room. Lord, I know there is suffering in this room. God, I know that there are difficulties and things that are unspoken and things that are hidden. Lord, you speak to each and every one of those things. Lord, we do not have to fear. Lord, we do not have to despair because you have conquered them all. And because we are in you. Lord, we have died with you and we have risen with you. Lord, remind us of our baptism. Remind us of our faith. Remind us of the fact that we are now called sons and daughters, that you are a good father who holds us and carries us through all things. God, you will not abandon us. You will not leave us alone. Lord, you are faithful. Lord, this morning, I pray that your Holy Spirit would bring comfort to everyone in this room, that people would be reminded and given that perspective, that our eyes would be lifted up from our circumstances and that we would behold the love of Christ displayed in your son, Jesus, on the cross.

Lord, help us to be a church that endures well. Help us to be a church that no matter the season or the difficulty, we remain faithful, whether people like us or don't like us, whether people speak well of us or they don't, whether we are popular or unpopular, I pray that we would always, always be faithful, in and out of season. Lord, make that true of us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.