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Well, good morning.
If you've got your bibles, and I hope you do, I want to invite you to turn to romans, chapter eight.
That's where we're going to be this morning.
Also want to challenge you with something before we go into our time of our message.
I want to encourage you as you leave today and as you see all those wonderful little kids that came up here on the stage, I want you to tell them thank you.
I want you to tell them well done.
As they opened up our worship time and they led us in worship.
One of the things my family likes to do is the Christmas movies at this Christmas time, this Christmas season.
And I'll be honest, I think it was at home alone two where they stacked the kids up on risers and there was that moment where the chaos happened and they fell, right?
So I sat over there.
It was like, lord, let them sing loud for you and let no one fall.
This morning, as we're having this time of worship, they did such a good job, their leaders working so hard with them and just so happy to have them be able to join us and lead us in worship.
Well, let's go ahead and we're going to go forward into our message this morning.
We're continuing on in our series on gifts of grace, of looking at the fact that Christmas season is that time of year where we get gifts and we give gifts.
It's this interaction that we have with one another.
Yesterday we got together at my in law's house with Aaron's family.
We gathered around.
My father in law cooked everybody a ribeye steak.
I ate all of my ribeye steak.
I ate the rest of my daughters and the rest of my wife's.
It was a good day.
I didn't feel well afterwards, but I felt great during it.
And that's when you know you've had a good meal with that.
And then at the end of that, before everybody left, we gathered around in the living room and we gave gifts.
And my mother in law, she made the statement as she was sitting there on the couch, as gifts were being given out, she said, I love this so much.
And what she was talking about was not the fact that gifts were being given to her.
She was talking about the excitement of what she gets to, when she gets to look at her grandkids, when she gets to look at her kids, her son in law and her daughter in law open up the gifts.
And let's be honest, and I'd say this with my father in law sitting here, he had no clue what any of us were getting, right?
And all you dads or some of you are like, yes, I get that.
And she had that of the joy and of the excitement of getting us to watch us open gifts.
And so this season is not solely about that, about gifts, but it is about the greatest gift, the gift of Christ.
And that's what we've been looking at.
We look at John 316 through 17.
It's kind of been our theme.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
And so we talked about, and we're going to look just cats out of the bag, all right?
Like next Sunday, as we gather for Christmas eve, it's all just in the.
Gift of Jesus and who he is.
And what we do with that.
But what we've been looking at is.
Through the grace that God gives us.
He gives us gifts through our relationship, through the saving grace that we have in Christ.
And so we talked about that.
We've been forgiven.
We've talked about the community that we've been invited into.
We've talked about the abilities that God has given us, but that in response to that, we're called to do something with it, to give those things away.
So we forgive.
We invest in others, in community.
We give our abilities for the source and for the good and for the.
Name of the kingdom, and so that.
We can look at what we do, whether it's at work, at a Christmas party, or gathered with our family and the giving and the receiving of gifts, and we can connect them to the gospel of what we're called to do and what we're called to be.
This morning, though, is a little different.
It's a little different.
And I had a conversation last week that sparked this.
One of our prayer encouragers.
If you don't know, we offer prayer encouragers at the end of the service on either side of our auditorium.
And they're there if you want to talk to someone about a relationship with Christ, but they're also there if you just came in this morning and you're going through something, you've got a burden.
You need somebody to pray for you, and they're there for that.
As well, and this particular prayer encourager.
She said, I just wish people would use us more.
She said, I know people come in and they're hurting.
I know people come in here and.
They'Re struggling and they feel like they're all alone.
And I wish they would come as they suffer so we can pray for them.
And in that moment, God began to.
Kind of work honestly in my heart and in my life and evaluating certain things for me and kind of led to where we're going to be this morning.
So this morning we're going to talk about is the gift of suffering, the gift of suffering, because I want to echo kind of her, what she was saying in that moment is this time of year is really, really good, but this time of year can also be really hard.
Certain points and times and seasons of the year that seem to carry this joy and excitement more so than other, but then they also carry with it some of the difficulty as we're reminded of the pain and the suffering and the things that we face.
Growing up in my house, I've shared this before, and I'll share it probably almost every time this year.
The two days where you would kind of experience this opposite of feelings was Mother's Day in my house.
Growing up and Christmas and watching my mom process her range of emotions that she experienced, having lost her mom when my mom was 15 years old.
So every Mother's Day was hard, every Christmas was difficult because it's that piece of, there's the joy and all that that's there, but there's the piece of.
Her mom that she misses.
And I know that so many of.
Us feel that as well, for different.
Reasons and different circumstances.
So this morning, what we're going to do is we're going to look at this gift of suffering that Christ suffered for us, but that you and I, we are going to suffer as well.
But that from that suffering that the gift that we can draw from that is this.
Suffering is not pointless.
Suffering is not useless.
That suffering comes with purpose.
And because suffering comes with a purpose, and from purpose, there's room to celebrate.
So one Peter 318 for Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.
So what we see here is Christ suffered.
God gave his son.
And in the giving of his son, what we decorate in our house with the nativity scenes, what we talk about, this baby that is born, what is going to happen is it's a journey to the cross of suffering, the journey of pain that he'll endure, the hardships that he'll face.
And he came to suffer for a reason, for the sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.
So we sin, we sin, and God gives wrath and punishment to sin.
God cannot ignore sin, so he sins Christ.
So Christ suffered for us.
Isaiah 53 five.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.
Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.
And with his wounds we are what we are healed.
The wonderful sacrificial story of Christ.
What he got is what we deserved.
He got our punishment, and what we received was his peace and his healing in the suffering that he's done for us, the beauty and the hope of the gospel.
Right, but with that, that's the part we like, but with that, and we're going to look at several instances within this, that Christ calls us to suffering.
Christ calls us to suffering.
He says, in Matthew 1623, Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.
Jesus also says this, by the way, in Matthew ten, mark eight, Luke nine and Luke 14, this wasn't a one and done, this wasn't an aside conversation.
This is the continual.
Paul says to Timothy, in two, Timothy two three, share in the suffering as a good soldier for Christ.
Two Timothy four five.
As for you, always be sober minded.
Do what?
Endure suffering.
Do the work of an evangelist.
Fulfill your ministry.
Philippians 129.
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him.
We want to put a period there, but also suffer for his name's sake.
Suffer for his sake.
You see, the call to the gospel and the fullness of it that you and I have to embrace in our life.
And we're going to feel the weight of this in romans eight here in just a minute.
Is that, yes, Jesus came and suffered for us, the righteous for the unrighteous.
But that in that there's a calling, there's a promise that we will suffer.
Jesus doesn't say that we could suffer.
Jesus says, expect it because you will.
Don't let it be the rotten surprise.
That you weren't expecting.
Expect it because you will.
And so my plea for us today is to answer the question, why should we?
We're talking about this as a gift.
Why should we embrace suffering?
I'm not asking how do we go out there and create ourselves into a situation where we're forcing ourselves to become a martyr.
I'm not saying that you and I should go out and look for people to beat us up and to tear us down, but I'm saying that when suffering comes and we could go around here and, yes, and amen, we've all suffered, how should we, in that moment, embrace this?
And what I would argue with you this morning is because we need it.
We need suffering in our lives.
Stop viewing suffering as the punishment you deserve.
Jesus took that.
And start looking at suffering as the refinement that we need.
Romans 814 through 16, for all who are led by the spirit of God.
Are sons of God.
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you receive the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba.
Father.
The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
Let's hang out here for a minute, man.
This is some good, warm, encouraging verses that Paul gives us here in romans eight through 14 through 16.
There's tons of joy that just saturated within these words.
That in Christ, because he suffered and died in resurrection.
When we put our faith, our hope and our trust in him, that you and I, that we are adopted into God's family.
We are sons and daughters of God.
This is who we are.
We're brought in.
We're brought into the family.
The beautiful picture of, like what I.
Experienced yesterday, brought into a family.
God brings us into a greater, a larger and eternal family, whether you've been saved for a minute or for 100 years, sons and daughters of God, and that in this, God gives us his spirit that leads us, God is going to figure it out.
He said, here's my spirit.
My spirit's going to live in you, and he's going to lead you in this world, that he's there.
He's not the father that sends us off to college, off to work, and.
Says, figure it out.
He gives us the spirit who leads us.
And Paul says, the spirit in this does something.
The spirit produces in us.
He says that there's no fear.
The spirit produces in us a boldness, a boldness that says that God is my father.
There's this boldness that we claim in the name of Christ that God is our father.
This morning in the study that I was leading, we were talking about evolution and how we as christians view that and the problems with evolution and all this we wrapped up.
It's just the remarkable feat for us.
To be able to know that God that created the heavens and the earth and the God that created all of this.
Right?
To borrow a line from buddy the elf, I know him, right?
I know him.
But more than that, more than that, the boldness that he is my father, that he is my father.
Now.
But verse 17.
Let's look at this.
And if children, then heirs.
Oh, we like that.
Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Reading and preparing for this week's message.
I read a pastor, he preached on.
This message, and he said this, that romans 817 is both spectacular and scary news.
Spectacular and scary news.
Spectacular.
If you are a child of God, then you are an heir with Christ.
He goes on to say, you have a hope beyond this life that makes the present pleasures look small and the present pains manageable.
It's an invitation into this life with him.
But that includes the suffering of this world.
Verse 18.
Words.
You're back at verse 17.
Just a second.
But verse 18.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time, all that you will face, all that you will encounter, all that you know, he says, are not worth comparing with the glory that is.
To be revealed to us.
Paul says that the inheritance is so much greater, and it is ours.
And it is ours.
But look back to verse 17.
Look back to that last half, the part that for us seems so scary, provided we suffer with him, in order that we may also be glorified with him, provided we suffer with him.
That's not what we want to hear.
That's not what many pastors preach.
They say, come to Jesus, and all your suffering, all your pain, all the things of this world are just gone.
What God has for you is more money, greater health, more privilege, more prosperity.
But what God's word says is this, that we are heirs with him, provided we suffer with him.
No suffering, no inheritance.
So what does it mean to suffer?
We just say, we're done here, and it's a message halfway preached and poorly preached.
So what does it mean to suffer?
Later on in Romans eight, Paul goes to explain the sufferings as futility and the groanings of this world.
And the groaning that he uses in comparison is to describe that the noise that a woman makes who's in labor.
These deep bellows of the spirit, of.
The pain that is being endured.
But we all know in that moment.
What comes from the pain.
And so we think of the sufferings of this world.
We think of persecution.
And some would argue that persecution is the only suffering that Christians face, and I just don't see that.
Christians face calamity, they face disease, they face death.
Done two funerals recently, attacks, hardships, tribulations.
And all of this is biblical suffering.
All of this is because we live in a world that's broken from sin.
All of this you have or you will face.
The question is not will you suffer?
Yes, you will.
The question becomes, what happens to you and what happens in you when you suffer?
What happens to you and what happens in you when you suffer?
Turn a couple pages back to romans, chapter five.
We're going to look at verses three through five.
Paul says not only that, so what Paul's previously been talking about is about the peace we have with God through our faith and that we rejoice in that.
So he connects these, he connects these.
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings and then underline this.
If you're the person that does it, underline this in your Bible.
Knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
So we embrace suffering.
We embrace it.
But why?
Because our suffering produces something in us that we need.
Endurance of faith.
I think the most comforting thing I can share with you this morning, if you're going through a season of loss.
Pain, if you're going through a season.
Of suffering, is this.
God doesn't waste your suffering.
God works and moves, and your suffering has purpose and your suffering has reason.
That is, yes, painful, but beneficial.
Oftentimes we can try to be super spiritual and act like the sufferings of this world don't hurt us, that they don't bother us, that we're strong enough in and of ourselves to get through it.
But the reality is, when we see Christ suffer, we see the pain that he goes through, we see the pain that he experiences, but we stand in the beauty that it's beneficial.
And when you walk through seasons and times and periods of suffering, when they resurface month after month or year after year, what we can admit is that they're painful.
But what we can cling to is they're beneficial.
Here's what happens.
One of these scenarios, you get diagnosed with cancer, your spouse leaves you, you lose your job, your house catches on fire, people gossip about you, someone you love passes.
The list goes on and on and on.
And in these moments of suffering, seen it time and time again, you're going to do one of two things, unfortunately, what we see often is people that blame God and run from him.
The diagnosis is too bad, the loss is too great.
The faith that we claimed probably wasn't.
Faith to begin with and was founded on shallow.
And the calamities of this world began to surface as the suffering endured.
And you blame God and you run from him, or you embrace God and you worship him through it.
So what Paul is describing here in romans five, why do we rejoice in our suffering?
Because knowing that suffering produces endurance.
And this endurance, it produces character.
And what comes from this is hope.
It's hope.
It's not defeat.
It's hope.
It's victory.
And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
Who has been given to us.
And so endurance produces this godly character of faith.
If you were to ask me, but who in your life is the greatest embodiment that you've ever seen in the.
Character of faith in God, I'd say.
Hands down, it's my granddad.
His name?
Vernon Harbin Bradbury.
My sister sent me a picture this past week of my granddad.
My granddad, I'm going to guess at the time this picture was taken, is in his late sixty s.
And my sister is about six years old, and they're standing in his kitchen, and he's down holding her hand, and she's smiling at the camera, and he's smiling at the camera.
And she has this picture out on one of her tables.
And she sent me a copy of this picture in text message, but then with a message attached to it.
And the message says this.
Her youngest daughter, her name's Darcy.
And Darcy looks just like my sister.
At that age, right?
They both wear glasses, same height, same hair.
She is a spitting image of her mother at five years old.
Now, let me remind you, this is a picture of my sister at five and my granddad in his late sixty s.
My sister's daughter comes walking up with the picture to her mom and.
Says, mommy, is this you and uncle?
Boring.
60S.
There's nothing wrong being in your late 60s.
I'm just not, you know?
But I think of him.
I think of him and I think of him as a man who went through the great depression, watched his family.
Lose all that they had.
I look at him and I think of a man who was joined the army in his first time.
That a man from Abbeville, South Carolina's boots touched foreign soil.
It was on the invasion of d day.
As he stepped onto the beaches of Normandy.
I think of a man who walked through the brutality of the battle of the bulge, where many died, not only from bombs and bullets, but from the harshness of the weather.
I think of a man who came back and who married his young bride and who struggled to pay the bills and to provide for his family, who daily would come in with his hands eaten with arthritis, but couldn't complain, as he was the mechanic that had to use them to make sure that his son, his two daughters, and his wife.
Had food to eat.
I think of a man who had.
His suit that he loved and that.
He wore every Sunday to church.
Not with a lot that's there, but I don't look at my grandfather and simply respect his life that he lived because of the suffering that he endured.
I look at my grandfather, and I respect him because of the life that he lived, the suffering that he endured, and through it all, the joy that he had for Christ.
His nickname was preacher.
He was a mechanic.
He wasn't a preacher.
The irony me, his grandson, is the preacher.
About five or six years before his death, I had the privilege of going away with him to a gathering of his regiment of men out of the South Carolina Abbeyville area that he served with.
We went up to somewhere in Virginia, where we gathered for about three days.
I was his chauffeur for the week.
Wonderful blessing to be able to sit down and hear this generation who encountered so many things that you and I couldn't begin to imagine, and we could never, growing up, get a complete answer from my granddad.
Why his name.
All of his friends called him preacher.
And I noticed that everybody there called him that.
All of his army buddies did.
And so we were sitting down one day, and I was having a conversation with this gentleman who was on post one night with my grandfather, and a plane was shot down, and it crashed.
As it crashed, they ran from that because of the explosion that was going to happen.
And the plane exploded.
And part of the motor, my grandfather and this man, they fell down when the explosion happened, and part of the motor landed squarely on the small of his back, paralyzing him from the waist down.
He had been talking about all the.
Different things, and I said to him, I said, why do y'all call him preacher?
He won't give us the clear answer.
Could you share this with me?
He started laughing, and he said, son.
You know, sometimes guys in the army.
Do things they're not supposed to do.
We say things we're not supposed to say.
We go places we're not supposed to go, but not your granddad.
There was night after night after night.
That we would have the conversation that.
This could be our last.
And in that, what it seemed to do was deepen his love and his joy for God.
This is what I think Paul's pointing us to when we see those.
They've lived through cancer, they've lived through the unfaithful spouse, they've lived through the lost job, they've lived through the house fire, through the gospel, through the loss of those they love.
And through it all, they experienced the pain and the hurt, but they clung to Jesus.
And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified.
And suffering is the gift that we don't want, that we didn't know that we needed.
Suffering is the gift that's hard, that hurts.
There's tears, there's frustration.
But the big if is this if in who we are, in the power of the spirit within us.
We cling.
Then we're children.
So I echo.
I echo with what one of our prayer encouragers said.
There's a lot of people in here.
Right now facing the financial hurts, the relational hurts, the emotional hurts that go on year round but tend to surface more this time of year.
My prayer for you as sons and daughters of God is this, cling to them.
Cling to them.
The prayer, God, give us the faith to endure and give us the faith to hold on.
Would you pray with me.
God, we.
Come to you this morning, Lord.
Lord, we thank you.
We thank you for the work of Christ on the cross.
Lord, we thank you that not a one of us here is worthy of what Christ did.
But he came and he suffered and he died the righteous for the unrighteous.
That in him and in him alone we can be healed.
That in him and in him alone we may have peace.
In him and in him alone we may have salvation.
And so we thank you.
We thank you, Jesus, for the sufferings that you endure on our behalf.
And God, we pray that as we.
Face the pain, in the hurt, in the hardships of this world, Lord, that.
We would share in the sufferings.
What would come from this, Lord, is an endurance.
An endurance that would produce faith, an endurance that would produce hope.
And at the end of the day, it doesn't just make us stronger people.
At the end of the day, it strengthens us in who we are with you.
So that we cling.
We cling.
God, give us the faith to endure.
Give us the faith to hold on to you.
And it's in Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
Thanks again for listening, and be sure to check back next week for another other episode.
In the meantime, you can visit us@willowridgechurch.org or by searching for Willowridge Church on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.