Step One in Preparing to Suffer
00:00:00.000 | Good Wednesday morning.
00:00:05.480 | Well, on Monday we looked at the topic of suffering, namely the divine design behind
00:00:12.160 | suffering.
00:00:13.400 | What is God doing inside of us when trials hit?
00:00:18.560 | That was APJ 1852.
00:00:20.880 | God is the great physician.
00:00:24.040 | He knows how to use pain in our lives to kill inside of us the sin that robs us of the
00:00:29.920 | greatest pleasures, namely enjoying Christ as our greatest treasure.
00:00:37.520 | That Monday episode was a deep exploration into why suffering is not paradoxical to the
00:00:43.240 | joy aims of Christian hedonists.
00:00:46.420 | As a compliment to that episode, I want to play for you a sermon clip today, one that
00:00:50.520 | stands out to me.
00:00:52.440 | In this clip, Pastor John explains how to prepare for suffering.
00:00:56.400 | If we're going to suffer well, what groundwork must happen inside of us first?
00:01:02.760 | This is a crucial point to be made with principles drawn for Paul's own ministry in Philippians
00:01:08.280 | chapter 3 verses 1 to 11.
00:01:10.680 | Here's Pastor John to explain the text.
00:01:15.160 | You know this list, don't you?
00:01:17.200 | He's listing off his distinctives that as an unbeliever, he really enjoyed.
00:01:25.720 | Surprised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew
00:01:32.240 | of Hebrews.
00:01:34.320 | That's a pedigree, which in the Jewish culture was simply awesome.
00:01:39.040 | And when you got a good pedigree, you strut your pedigree, you get the praises and you
00:01:43.920 | bask in the pleasures of the admiration of being a man with a pedigree.
00:01:50.280 | Mm, mm.
00:01:52.080 | Feels so good.
00:01:53.080 | Feels so good.
00:01:55.180 | This is satisfying.
00:01:56.180 | I've got a pedigree and people know it.
00:02:01.720 | That's the unbeliever's satisfaction.
00:02:04.640 | That's the Paul.
00:02:05.640 | And then he adds, at the end of verse 5, "I've got three other things that make my life glorious.
00:02:15.560 | I am Pharisee and there are no better law knowers and law keepers than Pharisees and
00:02:27.380 | I'm outstanding."
00:02:29.980 | It's said in another place, "I have exceeded all of my kinsmen in this."
00:02:35.820 | Oh, he had a lot going for him.
00:02:38.660 | His total reputation.
00:02:42.860 | And zeal-wise, I took on the church, this renegade sect that's undermining what I've
00:02:51.220 | lived for, calling this crucified criminal the Messiah.
00:02:57.100 | What a blasphemy.
00:02:58.100 | And I'm taking it on from city to city and bring it down.
00:03:03.500 | That's who I am.
00:03:04.620 | That's my identity.
00:03:05.900 | Has anybody got a zeal?
00:03:07.260 | I've got a zeal.
00:03:08.820 | The rest of you cowards are afraid to take it on.
00:03:11.340 | I'll take it on.
00:03:13.380 | Oh, meaning, significance, purpose in life.
00:03:18.780 | Yes.
00:03:19.780 | And then he said, with regard to righteousness in the law, blameless.
00:03:26.860 | I think Paul was by and large free in his conscience.
00:03:34.380 | I know a lot of people try to say, "Oh, his conscience was killing him all the time because
00:03:38.640 | of this and that."
00:03:39.640 | I said, "I'm not sure of that."
00:03:43.060 | He said, "I was blameless."
00:03:46.300 | He was blind, but he was blameless in his eyes.
00:03:52.580 | Now he meets Christ, Acts chapter 9, on the Damascus Road, and suddenly his world collapses.
00:04:11.140 | He was getting his meaning from a zeal, an allegiance to the law as he understood it,
00:04:19.840 | a passion for God as he understood it, and at the core of it was the opposite, Jesus,
00:04:29.400 | crucified, pretender, criminal, rightly executed, and people saying, "He's the Messiah."
00:04:42.160 | And there he was, alive, with a glory so bright, a greatness so great.
00:04:51.720 | It blinded Paul, and all he could do was listen, "Why do you persecute me?"
00:04:59.200 | And his life was over.
00:05:04.640 | How at that juncture did he prepare himself to suffer?
00:05:10.960 | Verse 7, he said, "Whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as loss
00:05:23.600 | for the sake of Christ."
00:05:26.880 | That's what he did.
00:05:28.720 | He looked at his life, and all that list, all that pedigree, all those achievements,
00:05:36.680 | all that reputation.
00:05:39.560 | He said, "Now, I will regard that as loss.
00:05:46.080 | I will regard that as loss."
00:05:51.360 | In other words, I have now consciously reversed, turned upside down my value system.
00:06:01.280 | This is how you prepare to suffer.
00:06:03.800 | You turn upside down your value system.
00:06:09.320 | So before he was a Christian, he had a ledger, all right?
00:06:14.480 | Loss column, profit column, gain, gain-loss, two columns.
00:06:20.520 | Over here in the column of gain, profit was Hebrew of Hebrews, astonishing pedigree.
00:06:30.800 | Pharisee, zeal, blameless, off the charts.
00:06:36.360 | What a gain column he had.
00:06:38.320 | And over here in loss was this horrible opposition and the possibility that Christ Jesus might
00:06:45.880 | be the Messiah, and that's not going to happen.
00:06:50.280 | And then he meets Jesus, and what does he do?
00:06:53.600 | Takes out a big red pencil, and on this gain column over here, he writes L-O-S-S.
00:07:04.200 | And over here in the Jesus column, G-A-I-N, and everything is reversed in his life.
00:07:12.920 | Has that happened to you?
00:07:15.560 | That's what it means to become a Christian, right?
00:07:19.080 | Matthew 13, 44, shortest parable, "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who found a treasure
00:07:25.800 | hidden in a field.
00:07:28.040 | And in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has, counts it as loss that he might have
00:07:36.800 | the treasure."
00:07:37.800 | It was just a field before, just walking through a field on his way to his treasure, and he
00:07:44.920 | stumbles over King Jesus in glory.
00:07:49.520 | It's full of diamonds.
00:07:52.720 | It's full of gold, full of silver.
00:07:57.000 | God opened his eyes, and now everything else, loss.
00:08:03.680 | Then your mind makes that transition.
00:08:07.240 | Your mind considers it that way.
00:08:10.920 | That's how you prepare to suffer.
00:08:12.560 | You get up in the morning, and you consider it that way.
00:08:14.960 | That's what he says, "I consider, I regard it.
00:08:18.720 | I consciously, mentally am looking at all the goods in my life and regarding them compared
00:08:26.680 | to Jesus as loss.
00:08:28.040 | They're in the loss column, and Jesus is in the gain column."
00:08:33.720 | And if you think, "Well, that was just Paul."
00:08:38.080 | He says in verse 17, "Brethren, join in imitating me.
00:08:42.600 | Join in my example."
00:08:44.680 | This is normal Christianity, every believer.
00:08:49.840 | Jesus said, Luke 14.33, "No one of you can be my disciple who does not renounce all that
00:08:58.680 | he has."
00:08:59.680 | Period.
00:09:00.680 | I'll say it again.
00:09:03.560 | This is Luke 14.33.
00:09:05.600 | "No one can be my disciple who does not renounce all his possessions."
00:09:17.880 | Now you've got clothes on, probably got a car out in the snowy parking lot, might have
00:09:23.280 | an apartment or a house, and other possessions.
00:09:26.680 | You probably have an iPhone or computer.
00:09:31.680 | So you own things.
00:09:34.080 | And this text says you can't be a follower of Jesus if you don't renounce those.
00:09:42.040 | Check out different translations on that word.
00:09:44.960 | Wouldn't that be the same as Paul saying, "Count them as loss."
00:09:49.440 | So this is mine, right?
00:09:52.360 | I think my wife bought it for me.
00:09:53.960 | This is mine.
00:09:54.960 | This coat is mine.
00:09:55.960 | This is my preaching coat.
00:10:02.320 | And I should count this as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus.
00:10:08.240 | As a humorous and simple illustration of a bigger point that we all must learn and embrace
00:10:13.080 | to look at our lives and our possessions and our successes and our pedigree and our achievements
00:10:19.320 | and our reputation and to see all of it as loss compared to knowing Christ.
00:10:27.460 | That is profound.
00:10:29.200 | This was from John Piper's sermon titled "Preparing to Know Christ Deeply Through Suffering."
00:10:33.640 | It was preached on March 2nd, 2014.
00:10:36.760 | And of course it is online right now.
00:10:40.120 | Have a sermon clip to share with us?
00:10:41.600 | Send me an email.
00:10:42.600 | Name, hometown, the sermon title, the timestamp of where the clip happens in the audio.
00:10:46.520 | And make a note of what stands out to you in the clip.
00:10:48.440 | Put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:10:54.640 | That's our email address, askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:10:59.720 | Well Christian unity is important.
00:11:02.600 | It's really important.
00:11:04.400 | But Christian unity is not uniformity.
00:11:08.040 | So if we are not the same in every way, how do we strive for unity with other believers?
00:11:14.280 | Three steps.
00:11:15.620 | Christian unity in three steps.
00:11:17.400 | Pastor John will explain next time.
00:11:19.200 | I'm your host Tony Reiki.
00:11:20.200 | We'll rejoin in studio with Pastor John on Friday.
00:11:23.160 | We'll see you then.
00:11:23.660 | [END]
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