The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 5: Rescued Through Suffering

Episode Date: December 29, 2022

Jesus not only rescues us from, but rescues us in and through our suffering.

Well, Church, would you guys thank Ellison for sharing the powerful testimony that she did? Ellison is leading worship tonight at our Bay Meadows campus. So, Alison, we love you. Thank you so much for sharing that story. Wow. Let's pray. Father, thank you for tonight. Lord, thank you for this chance to gather.

Lord, we know in a room like this, even in a season where we're singing about it being merry and bright, there is a lot of sorrow and there's a lot of suffering, a lot of trouble and a lot of trial. But you said that you've overcome it. And so, Lord, we lean into you into the promise of your word tonight. Jesus, show us what you're doing in the middle of our suffering.

We love you, we trust you. You are such a good God. We pray it in your name, Jesus. Amen. Amen. Well, we are, first of all, congratulations for being here between Christmas and New Year's. You guys are like varsity. So you're getting, you know, first in line somewhere. But we've been in a series over Advent and

Christmas called Rescue Mission. And we've been talking about when Jesus came, what he came to do was come on a rescue mission. And for most of the series, we've been talking about how Jesus rescued us from some things. But today what I want to do is I want to talk about Jesus rescuing us through something, particularly what Jesus is doing in and through our suffering. Now about two years ago, some of you all know this story, I've told bits of parts of this story, but about two years ago, I started getting this weird back pain, and then I started getting this weird cough.

And I thought I had just pulled a muscle or done something, I don't know. And one day Kristen came up to me and she's like, would you quit clearing your throat? We're in the middle of a pandemic. Like, stop it. Remember that thing that happened for a few months here in Florida? Sorry. Yeah.

And so I looked up, you know, did what you shouldn't do. I Google, you know, back pain, chest, coughing. And it says heartburner indigestion. So I take some tums. It doesn't work. I go to the grocery store. get some prylasek over-the-counter stuff or whatever it is. I take that, it doesn't work. So I go to the doctor, and he's like, ah, that stuff's junk. He writes prescription. He's like,

try this. Take it. It doesn't work. A couple months have gone by by this point. Go in and they do some scans. It's on a Friday. Kristen and I are at home. We have this counter in our kitchen, and I'm kind of on one side, and she's on the other. My phone's just sitting there, and we're talking about. I'm kind of coming out of the anesthesia, you know. And my phone rings, and I look down and it's the doctor. Now listen, for those of you all that are doctors, I love you. You just don't call us back that fast unless it ain't good. And I look and so I pick up the phone and I answer it and the doctor says, hey, so we found some things on your scan and I said, hold on, hold on, so I put on speakerphone and I said, okay, say that again. I said, well, we found some masses on

your scan and your neck. And we'd like for you to come in tomorrow morning. We'll be here about 7.30 in the morning. And I was like, well, tomorrow's Saturday. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we want you to come back in. So we went back in, did some more scans. Sure enough, they found a couple tumors that were in my neck. That led to a few months of diagnosis and testing, things like that that ended up that we found

out that it was cancer. And I went through surgery and some treatment and had amazing, amazing doctors. like my doctor prays with me. How incredible is that? It's good to do that. And if I could tell you, it was suffering. Like, it may not have been the most suffering. Right?

I mean, I don't know about you, but I mean, I hear stories like Ellison's story or today. I was over with a friend and she's going in to have some cancer removed tomorrow and we were at our house to pray with her this afternoon. afternoon. But it was suffering. It was emotional. It was physical. It hurt. All of that sort of thing. Listen, Jesus made some crazy promises. He said things like those that come to me, I will never cast out. Or he said, if you will come to me, I will give you rest. Or he said, I will never

lose one of my own or I will build my church and the gates of hell won't prevail against it. But Jesus made a promise in John 16, he made a promise that you don't even have to believe the Bible to know it's true. You don't even have to be a Jesus follower to know it's true. The promise is in this life you will have trouble. Anybody confirm that's true in your life. the rest of you are liars in church after Christmas. Try that again. Anybody have, anybody testify?

Listen, suffering and the goodness of God is one of the most profound questions we can ever ask. And listen, when we start, when we enter into suffering, there's some kind of go-to moves, don't we? We all have them that we try to go to deal with our suffering. Like, we'll, maybe you'll deny it. Right? Somebody says, how you doing?

You're like, oh, blessed and highly favored. No, you're not. You're suffering. Or maybe your go-to move is you just, you minimize it. Right? You'll compare it. Like, you'll hear Ellison story or you'll hear my story and you'll be like, I don't, I didn't really suffer.

And it's not the amount. or the severity, but maybe your move is to try to minimize it. Or you're just going to muscle through it, right? Like, you're just going to white knuckle it. You're like, I'm, oh, nope, nope. And you're just, I'm going to grit and bear it. I'm going to get through it. Maybe your go-to move is self-medication.

You know, I'll just treat myself, one more cookie. I'll just drink my way through it. maybe your go-to movies you're going to entertain yourself out of your suffering. You're just one more Netflix show. One more vacation. Right? Maybe you're just drowned yourself in busyness. Like if I get really busy at work and I dive headlong into that thing,

then maybe I can deal with or I can forget about the fact that I'm suffering. But here's the thing. None of those work, do they? None of them do. They might for a second, but eventually they come back up. Eventually they resurface. And you can't shove them down and you can't push them away for long enough. But here's the thing.

In the middle of suffering, what I've learned is we don't need any more good advice. Have you ever been suffering and then somebody wants to give you a bunch of good advice? like, here's what you should do. And at that moment, you already feel loaded down and you already feel weighed down, and then all of a sudden people give you more to do and you're like, I can't even, I can't do any of it. And it adds to it.

What I think we need is not more good advice. What I think we need in the middle of our suffering is some really good news. What we need to know is, Jesus, what are you doing in the middle of my suffering? How are you rescuing me? Maybe not necessarily from it, but how are you rescuing? What are you doing in the middle of my suffering?

And so today what we're going to do is we're going to jump into John Chapter 11. So if you've got a Bible, we're going to go to John Chapter 11. We're going to go through the whole chapter, so you have to listen really fast. And we're just going to ask the question, Jesus, what are you doing in the middle of suffering? and here's the thing, here's my hope and my prayer, is that if you're going through something, you would just let this be good news that washes over your soul.

And if you're walking alongside somebody that's suffering, you might be able to take some of this and tuck it away and you would show up to them and you wouldn't come with more weight of good advice, but you might come lightening their burden with some really good. news. So here's how John 11 starts in verse 1. Now certain man

was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sister sent to him, sent to Jesus, saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill. Do you see that? He whom you love

is ill. You know that suffering and God's love they're not mutually exclusive to one another. That those two things can exist in the same place at the same time. I mean, they're right

next to each other. He whom you love is suffering. He's ill. And the first thing, Jesus, what are you doing in the middle of my suffering is that Jesus is endlessly loving us in our suffering. Jeremiah 31 says this. God says, I have loved you with an everlasting love. First John 4 says God is love.

Hebrews 138 says that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. You know what that means? God has loved you with an everlasting love. God is love and God never changes. That means that no matter what is going on in your circumstances, God is endlessly loving you because he never changes. It is his very character and nature to love you. our son, Gavin's in college now, but when he was really little, he had a set of bunk beds.

And we told him, you need to sleep on the bottom bunk of your bunk beds. So we put him in bed one night, and he goes to sleep in his bottom bunk of his bed. We go back to our bed. And in the middle of the night, all of a sudden we heard this huge, like, thud. And then a blood-curdling scream. And parents, you know parents, right? There's the scream that I'm not really hurt, but I want you to come and do something for me.

And then there's the like, uh-oh, something has gone terribly wrong right now. It was that one. And I ran down the hallway, ran into his bedroom, I go in there, Gavin's laying on the floor and he's holding his arm. And at some point in the middle of the night, he had crawled up from his bottom bunk onto his top bunk, fall in his sleep in his top bunk, and then had rolled out and woke up to falling and breaking his arm. Now, here's the thing, here's what I know you're thinking right now. Why didn't you have bedrails for him? That's what you're thinking, aren't you? We had them.

They were in the closet. So the moral of the story is, it's not enough to have the bedrails. You have to use the bedrails or listen to Dad, but either way. But do you think in that moment when I go running in there and there's Gavin waking up to a broken arm, do you think I look at him and I love him less in that moment? No. As his dad, his suffering doesn't cause me to love him any less. If anything, it causes me all the love I have for him to well up and to grab him and to pull him up and go,

all right, I want to do whatever I can do. I'm here. Your dad is here. I love you. And Jesus is endlessly loving us in our circumstances. Do you know how you can. know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is loving you even in the middle of suffering. It's the cross.

The cross, it's not your circumstances that determine whether God loves you. It's the cross, the very act of suffering that demonstrates that Jesus is loving you in the middle of your suffering. So it goes on in verse four. It says, but when Jesus heard it. he said, this illness does not lead to death. Now, that's a bold promise, isn't it? Like, what's going on right now?

This is not going to end in death. Now, spoiler alert, you'll hear in a minute. What happens to Lazarus? He dies. And when he dies, it looks like Jesus couldn't keep his promise. but the end of the story comes and Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. And so Jesus, what are you doing in the middle of my suffering? Is that Jesus is faithfully keeping all of his promises in the middle of our suffering.

Do you know how you know that you can bank 100% on Jesus' promises, always being true? if the cross tells you that Jesus loves you no matter what his resurrection tells you that you can believe every single one of his promises that's what the entire entire chapter 1st corinthians 15 is about if jesus is raised from the dead then you can bank on everything he ever said or did and so the promises that jesus makes all second corinthian says all of god's promises are you yes in Jesus Christ. And the reason that you know that Jesus keeps every single one of his promises is that he was raised from the dead. And there is nothing, I'm telling you, there is nothing

more comforting than knowing that Jesus is perfectly in control, even in the most, even in the most seemingly out of control situations. He's keeping all of his promises. So he says, this does not lead to death. It is for, you should circle that word, it is for the glory of God, so that, you should circle that, so that the son of man, son of God may be glorified through it.

The glory of God, we've said this for it. The glory of God is like the weight of God. It's all the fullness of all of who God is. It's all of his all knowing, all of his all loving, all of his all graciousness, all of his all powerfulness. You take all of that sum all of that up and like the weight of that, you measure it out and that is the glory of God. And suffering and the glory of God can go together.

And so Jesus, what are you doing in the middle of my suffering is that Jesus is ultimately revealing God's glory in our suffering. Look what he says. It is for the glory of God. That little statement for and that little statement so that tell you why or what is going on behind that suffering. That's the suffering, it isn't just this illness doesn't lead to death. It isn't just that he has an illness. It isn't just that he's suffering.

It's that he is suffering and there is something else going on behind it. There is a purpose behind it. and what is going on is that God is working for his glory. Listen, our suffering, it may be the, it may seem like the most urgent thing to us, but God's glory is the greatest thing there is. And I want, even in the middle of my suffering, what I want is I don't want God to take his eye off

the greatest thing there is. I actually want God to put his eyes on the greatest thing, his glory, and then work through my suffering to display his glory. So he goes on. He says in John 5, 115, now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. And so when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. I'm about for love. And then after this, he said to the disciples, let us go to Judea again.

The disciples said to him, Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again? Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day does not stumble because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, stumbles because the light is not in him.

Now, after saying these things, he said to them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. But I go to awaken him. The disciples said to him, well, Lord, if he's fallen asleep, he will recover. Do you see like, Jesus is like, Lazarus has fallen asleep, and they're like, well, if he's going to sleep, he's just taking a nap,

he'll get up. And I just pictured Jesus like, okay, now Jesus had to be. spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest and sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly. It's like, okay, guys, look at me. Read my lips, okay? Lazarus has died. And for your sake, I'm glad that I was not there so that you may believe. But let us go to him. That little, that little phrase, for your sake, what it means is it's for your good. Jesus, what are you doing in the middle of our suffering is that Jesus is graciously working for our good in our suffering.

He's always working for our good in our suffering. There are a handful of verses that I held on to over the last couple years. One of them, Romans 828, for we know that all, all things work together for good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose. Do you know who those who love God and called according to his purpose are? Christians. If you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ, you are one who loves God and are called according to his purpose. And if that's true, then everything God is doing, everything that is happening, everything that is happening in your life, God is working it for your good.

Not some things, not just the good things, not the fun things, all things, all things God is working together, no matter where the suffering comes from. Right? Listen, some suffering comes, because I bring it on myself. I do something stupid or sinful, and I suffer. Some of my suffering comes because you do something stupid and sinful, and I pay the collateral damage for it.

Right? I mean, that's not all joking aside. That's some of your stories. You're suffering because somebody said something, or somebody did something, or somebody promised something, and then they didn't keep that promise, and you're suffering because of it. Some suffering comes because after Genesis chapter 3,

nothing in this world seems to work the way it's supposed to. cells multiply too rapidly. Hearts don't beat the way they're supposed to. Sometimes we suffer because we have an enemy, Satan, who came to steal, kill, and destroy. And sometimes we have suffering. We have hard things going on in our life because God has given us something hard.

But no matter where the suffering comes from, if you are in Christ, you can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is at, at work for your good in the middle of it. Always, always. First Peter 5.10 says this, after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace.

God is not the God of some grace. He's not the God of a little bit of grace, sometimes grace, I'll give you a little bit of grace here, I'll give you a lot of grace there. He's the God of all grace, all grace. I remember when our daughter was really little, I bought her this cute little dress. I told this story before, I bought her this cute little dress.

It's kind of this like hippie, bohemian little dress, and there's nothing better than being like a dad of a little girl. So I come home that day, and I bring, I had it in a box, and I bring it in, and Gavin's like about five years old, he's playing race cars on the table, and I go over and I get down on the floor, and I give Sophie the box and she unwraps it and she pulls it out and it's like pulls it. It's like, ah, it's a dress. I love it. And like, you know, she runs over and takes off whatever else she's wearing and puts the dress on and she's twirling around.

And Gavin looks at me and he goes, that's not fair. Yeah, oh, it's right. To which I looked at him and I said, all right, bud, hey, you want fair? Hop in the car. I'll go buy you a dress too. He's like, nah, that's cool. I like my race car. I'm good.

Look, we don't want fair. We want grace. Fair is getting what we deserve. Grace is the unearned, ill-deserved favor of God. We don't want what we do want to cry fair. It didn't go well when we cry fair. What we want is the God of, all grace. And everything God does towards his children is all grace. In Hebrews chapter 12,

verse 5, it says, my son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. it is for discipline that you have endured. God is treating you as sons. Now in verse 10, he disciplines us for our good that we may share in His holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.

But later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. If you are a follower of Jesus, God is not punishing you in your suffering. Let me say that again. If you are a follower of Jesus, God is not punishing you in your suffering. Now, I know you look and you're like,

you have no idea what I'm done. I'm not saying there aren't consequences to some of your actions. But God's not punishing you. And do you know why I can stand up here and say that with all confidence, not knowing all of your stories, is because at the cross, Jesus drank dry the cup of God's wrath. He took the punishment of our sin that we deserve, and he bore it in himself. And either Jesus drank that cup of God's wrath dry or he didn't.

And I'm telling you on the cross, my God, my God, my God. Why have you forsaken me? He paid the penalty. He paid the punishment that we deserve. And if you are in Christ, all of God's punishment has been born in Jesus. And therefore, God is not punishing you. What it says in Hebrews is that he's disciplining you. He's disciplining you.

He's shaping you to be more like Jesus. That's what he's doing. in your suffering. Now, four days goes by, Lazarus dies, and Jesus shows back up at Bethany. And the sisters, Mary and Martha, they're worked up about it, as you would be too, because if Jesus said, I love you, and then I'm going to stay over here, and you know that Jesus could save your brother, but he doesn't show up, and then they're hurt. They're worked up about it. And they both, when Jesus shows up, they both say almost the exact same thing to Jesus. In verse 21 and verse 32, they both say this, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Now I'm not sure

they said it that way. There might have been a little tone. But do you know what Jesus does? Here's what he doesn't do. He doesn't look at him and go, fine, you want to talk like that? I'm going back. He doesn't leave. He doesn't yell at him. He didn't correct him. He just meets him where each of them are. And he loves them, and he comforts them. Look what he did. Martha, Martha needed to be comforted by some theological truth.

Look at verse 23. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. And Martha said to him, I know that he'll rise again in the resurrection on the last day. And Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection in life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

Martha wanted to have a theological conversation with Jesus in the middle of her suffering. And what does Jesus do? He goes there with her because he knows that's what's going to comfort her. But then you look what Mary needed. Mary didn't need some theological discussion about the resurrection at some point in the future. All she needed was somebody to cry with her. And it says when Jesus saw her weeping

and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, where have you laid him? And they said to him, Lord, come and see. And Jesus wept. Jesus, what are you doing in the middle of our suffering?

And what Jesus is doing is he's compassionately comforting us in the middle of our suffering. He's meeting us right where we need to be met in the middle of our suffering. When it says that he was deeply moved, that little word is embryomenos in Greek. And it carries this kind of, there's a sadness and there's an anger to it. It's like Jesus is saddened by the death and he's angered that death is entered into this world because he knows that the wages of sin is death. And his heart breaks. His heart breaks.

It breaks for Lazarus. It breaks for Mary. It breaks for Martha. And he meets them right where they are and he comforts them. And then verse 38, Jesus deeply moved again. came to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone lay against it. Now, if you've been to an Easter service,

little like bells and whistles should start going off at this point. A tomb, a cave, a stone, a dead guy in there. Jesus said, take away the stone. Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, Lord, by this time, there'll be an odor. For he's been dead four days. Jesus said to her, did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God? So they took away the stone and Jesus lifted up his eyes and he said, he prayed, Father, I thank you that you've heard me.

I knew that you always hear me. But I said this on account of the people standing around that they may believe that you sent me. And when he said these things, he cried out. with a loud voice. Lazarus, come out. And the man who had died came out, hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. And Jesus said to them,

unbind him and let him go. Jesus, what are you doing in the middle of our suffering? What Jesus is doing is he's giving us a community to help us walk into newness of life. Do you see this? I mean, most of us picture when Jesus goes, hey, Lazarus, come out. We imagine Lazarus, like, gets up, and he's like,

and walks out, right? And he's like, I'm back. But that's not what it says. It says the man who died came out. Hands and feet, bound in linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. So he doesn't come like, walking out, he like comes hopping out.

You just got to read your Bible. That's what it says. And the guy, Lazarus comes out. He's all wrapped up. And then Jesus said to them, unbind him. He looks at his friends and family that are standing around Lazarus. And in essence, what he says is, help him walk into this new life. help him walk out of this suffering.

Help walk with him through. You do it. He can't get himself out of this. You unbind him. You unwrap him. You walk with him. I remember when I was a teenager, well, not even teenager.

It was probably 11 years old. We were living in Nashville at the time. It was a summer afternoon. Everybody was kind of outside. I mean, this huge hill that came from the back of our house. all my friends were out there. We had our dirt bikes. And we got up the top of the hill

and we were going to race down the hill. And the hill kind of came down like this, went around our yard and then ended and there was a huge field at the bottom. And so we were going to race from the top all the way down to the bottom. And so we get going. And all of a sudden, it's like,

on your mark, get set, go, and we take off and we come down the hill. And as we come down the hill and we get to the yard, the thought in my mind was, hey, you know, in school, we learned that the shortest distance between two points is.

straight line. And so as everybody turned left, I'm like, I'm cutting through my yard. I didn't calculate for the curb at the edge. And I come down, I don't know how fast, but I hit it, and I launched, and I mean, I just super-maned over the handlebars. The bike, I just, there it goes, and I'm just flying. It's awesome for about half a second. And then I land, and I hit the ground, and I break my arm. Two broken arm stories tonight. It's awesome. Bing, it comes out.

My mom runs in the house, grabs a cookie sheet, a Southern Living magazine, and duct tape. Duck tapes my arm in a Southern Living magazine to the cookie sheet. Like the most redneck thing, you better. Like, I mean, nothing says Tennessee like that, right?

Go Gators. So, at that moment, there I am with a broken arm. What if I had just stopped and gone, hey, guys, this is super embarrassing. Can we just wait and see how this thing heals up and then we'll go to the hospital and let them all know how I healed up and how I once suffered, but now everything's okay? You'd look at me and go, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. If you're hurt, if you break your arm, go to the hospital. It's the place you go

when you're hurt. I'm telling you, if you're suffering, the church is the place you go when you're hurt. You don't run from it. You don't run. It's the community that's there to gather around you and unbind you and walk you into this newness of life. I remember after I'd had surgery,

the tumors they had found were in my neck. They kind of ran from the front of my neck around towards the back of my spine. I have this awesome scar that kind of goes across my neck right here now. But it was about a week, 10 days after I'd had surgery, and they said, hey, it's going to take a little while for you to get your voice back and talk and all that. And my voice took a couple days.

My voice came back. And then we were sitting right down here in church and the music starts to play. Like Michael's up there. You know, he's playing. He's doing that thing. He gets into it. And I go to sing and, uh, and like nothing comes out of my mouth.

It was the weirdest. Now, listen, I'm a terrible, terrible singer. I don't have any pitch, any rhythm, nothing, none of it. But I love it. And I'm sitting down here, and all I want to do is I want to sing, and nothing is coming out of my mouth. And at that moment, I turned around and I looked out, and all I could think was God, I can't do it.

But would you somehow take their singing and make it my singing? Would you somehow count their praying and their worship for mine? Because I can't do it. I need to be here and I need to worship and I need to pray, but I can't do it. And so, God, would you take theirs and accept theirs on my behalf? I needed a community to gather around us. I remember before Gavin went off to college, it's a couple weeks before he went off to college,

and I looked at him and I just said, hey, bud, at some point the wheels are going to come off. I don't know how, I don't know, I don't know when, I don't know what it'll look like, but it's going to get rough. It'll get dark at some point. Something will happen. I said, when it goes, wrong, who are you going to call? Who's the person you're going to call? And he said, well,

Dad, I had these two leaders in student ministry. I'm going to give them a call. And I said, okay, if they, if you call them like at three in the morning, that's who, if you get in a ditch, that's who you're calling, in a bind, that's who you're going to call. He said, yeah. I said, okay, here's my credit card. I said, take them out to lunch and tell them, buy their lunch, and then after you've paid for lunch, tell them, it's payback, you have to answer my phone call at three in the morning. I don't know when. I don't know how, I don't know where,

but you need a couple people that you can call at three in the morning. And this is why the church exists. We're not an institution. We're a body, we're a family that gathers around and unbinds each other and walks us into newness of life. Now there's one more thing

that Jesus is doing in this account of Lazarus's death. And it has absolutely nothing to do with Lazarus and Mary and Martha. What Jesus is ultimately doing here is that Jesus is ultimately pointing us to hope and healing that is only found in his life, death, and resurrection. I mean, he finds a cave with a stone, with a dead. guy in it after three days, four days, and then he calls him out. This whole thing that happened with Lazarus, it actually happened, but it was a pointer to Jesus's death and resurrection. And Lazarus was just resuscitated. He was going to die again. Imagine that one coming.

Like, oh, I had this before. For Jesus, he wasn't resuscitated. He was resurrected. He was resurrected. to never die again. This whole thing is to point us to the fact that in the middle of our suffering, Jesus is saying, I am your hope. I am your healing. In me because of my life, death, and resurrection, you will be rescued in, through, and ultimately from all of your sons. suffering. So in Revelation 21, verse 4 says this. He, talking about Jesus, will wipe away every

tear from their eyes. And death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away. Then in the new heaven and the new earth, the resurrected Jesus when you meet him will wipe away every one of your tears. You will get in Jesus by faith, total healing. You will get a resurrected body. First Peter five, I started to read it. It says this, after you have suffered a little while, the God of all great, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, establish, confirm, and strengthen you. God himself will restore, establish, confirm, and strengthen you. He will rescue you. He will rescue you.

So listen, if you're suffering right now, my hope and my prayer is that this account would wash over you, not with more good advice, but with good news, that he loves you, that he's working for your good,

that he wants to display his glory in and through you, that he will comfort you and ultimately, by faith in Jesus, you will be healed. Listen, if you're not suffering but you know somebody that is, by all means, make them a casserole, take it to their house, like get the can of cream of mushroom soup and the noodles and the chicken.

Do it all. It's awesome. Bring it. And then when you hand it to them, say, hey, can I just tell you some good news? And tell them how much Jesus loves them. Tell them how he cares for them. Tell him that he's working for their good. Tell him that he wants to comfort him. Tell him that you're there on behalf of Jesus to walk with him through it. And listen, if you're suffering, don't suffer alone. And don't suffer without Jesus.

Maybe tonight it's the night that you can place your faith and trust in Jesus and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is doing this in Jesus. your life. So we're going to share communion together. And what's interesting is that the backdrop of communion, the Last Supper, is suffering. I mean that thousands of years ago, the Hebrew people are enslaved in Egypt. Right?

And they go, Pharaoh, let my people go. Nope. Nope, nope, nope. plague after plague after plague after plague and finally god says here's what i'm going to do i'm going to pass by and you're to take the blood of a spotless lamb and you are to put it over the doorposts of your home and when i see the blood of the lamb i will pass over your house and i will spare you death and when he did that, he came that night and set his people free. And then he said to remember that I set you free from the suffering of Pharaoh.

And that by the blood of the lamb, I passed over and spared you the suffering of death. He instituted Passover. And then decades and decades and decades go by. and Jesus finds himself in a room one evening, the last night of his life, and he's with his closest friends, his disciples. They're sitting around a table and it's Passover. They're celebrating that meal, that's suffering meal. And he's staring down the cross, suffering. And he takes the bread and he breaks it. And he says, this is my body broken for you. What he was saying was, I'm going to go to the cross and I'm going to suffer

on your behalf, in your place, to pay the punishment for your sin. My body will suffer. My heart will be pierced. I'll hang until I lose breath in my lungs and I suffocate. I will suffer, but I will do it to set you free and to rescue you. You'll be rescued through my suffering. And he took a cup and he said, this is the cup of the new covenant, poured out for the forgiveness of sins, sealed in my blood. Apostle Paul says that as often as we eat this bread and we drink this cup, we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes again. And when he comes again, that coming again is described as another feast. But this time, the feast is described like a wedding banquet where there's no more tears and there's no more crying and there's no more pain and there's no more suffering. And so in

this meal, we absolutely, we look back and we remember God faithfully working and showing up to rescue us in the middle of suffering. And we take that and we bring it up and we make it a very present reality that when you take this bread in a minute, you're going to come up front and we're going to sing, we're going to worship, we're going to have people up front and they're going to serve you. There's bread. You can take it. You can dip it in. And when you do that, you do that, remember that Jesus didn't just show up 2,000 years ago, that by the power of the Spirit, he is here right now with you. And one day, there will be no more tears, no more crying, no more sorrow, and we'll celebrate face-to-face together with Jesus. We might be suffering,

we might be sorrowful, but we're also always rejoicing. Because of the, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, thank you for the good news of your gospel. Lord, thank you that we don't have to pretend like suffering isn't real. Lord, that we don't have to perform and act like we have it all together. But God, thank you, thank you for the good news of your gospel that reminds us that you entered into the middle of our trouble and our suffering and our pain, and you bore it and took it on. And Jesus, we come to this meal and we remember that. And we remember that you are with us right now. God, we look forward to the day when we'll be with you forever. So, Lord, you said that before we

come to this table to examine ourselves. And so right now, we bring you all of who we are. God, for those of us that have never placed our faith in you, and right now, here we are. We trust you. We believe in you. We believe Jesus that what you did on the cross counted for us. And Lord, we also come repentant, sorrowful for the sin in our lives, but realizing that you paid the price and that our sin as far as the east is from the west and we're washed as white as snow. So Lord, thank you for this meal that reminds us of your faithfulness and your goodness and your rescue. And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. So would you stand? We're going to worship together. We're going to sing. You can come down when you're ready. There'll be people that will have communion here.

take bread, dip it in. If you need to come and pray, you can do that. But let's respond to the good news of the gospel and worship together.