Good Wednesday morning. Well, on Monday we looked at the topic of suffering, namely the divine design behind suffering. What is God doing inside of us when trials hit? That was APJ 1852. God is the great physician. He knows how to use pain in our lives to kill inside of us the sin that robs us of the greatest pleasures, namely enjoying Christ as our greatest treasure.

That Monday episode was a deep exploration into why suffering is not paradoxical to the joy aims of Christian hedonists. As a compliment to that episode, I want to play for you a sermon clip today, one that stands out to me. In this clip, Pastor John explains how to prepare for suffering.

If we're going to suffer well, what groundwork must happen inside of us first? This is a crucial point to be made with principles drawn for Paul's own ministry in Philippians chapter 3 verses 1 to 11. Here's Pastor John to explain the text. You know this list, don't you? He's listing off his distinctives that as an unbeliever, he really enjoyed.

Surprised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. That's a pedigree, which in the Jewish culture was simply awesome. And when you got a good pedigree, you strut your pedigree, you get the praises and you bask in the pleasures of the admiration of being a man with a pedigree.

Mm, mm. Feels so good. Feels so good. This is satisfying. I've got a pedigree and people know it. That's the unbeliever's satisfaction. That's the Paul. And then he adds, at the end of verse 5, "I've got three other things that make my life glorious. I am Pharisee and there are no better law knowers and law keepers than Pharisees and I'm outstanding." It's said in another place, "I have exceeded all of my kinsmen in this." Oh, he had a lot going for him.

His total reputation. And zeal-wise, I took on the church, this renegade sect that's undermining what I've lived for, calling this crucified criminal the Messiah. What a blasphemy. And I'm taking it on from city to city and bring it down. That's who I am. That's my identity. Has anybody got a zeal?

I've got a zeal. The rest of you cowards are afraid to take it on. I'll take it on. Oh, meaning, significance, purpose in life. Yes. And then he said, with regard to righteousness in the law, blameless. I think Paul was by and large free in his conscience. I know a lot of people try to say, "Oh, his conscience was killing him all the time because of this and that." I said, "I'm not sure of that." He said, "I was blameless." He was blind, but he was blameless in his eyes.

Now he meets Christ, Acts chapter 9, on the Damascus Road, and suddenly his world collapses. He was getting his meaning from a zeal, an allegiance to the law as he understood it, a passion for God as he understood it, and at the core of it was the opposite, Jesus, crucified, pretender, criminal, rightly executed, and people saying, "He's the Messiah." And there he was, alive, with a glory so bright, a greatness so great.

It blinded Paul, and all he could do was listen, "Why do you persecute me?" And his life was over. How at that juncture did he prepare himself to suffer? Verse 7, he said, "Whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ." That's what he did.

He looked at his life, and all that list, all that pedigree, all those achievements, all that reputation. He said, "Now, I will regard that as loss. I will regard that as loss." In other words, I have now consciously reversed, turned upside down my value system. This is how you prepare to suffer.

You turn upside down your value system. So before he was a Christian, he had a ledger, all right? Loss column, profit column, gain, gain-loss, two columns. Over here in the column of gain, profit was Hebrew of Hebrews, astonishing pedigree. Pharisee, zeal, blameless, off the charts. What a gain column he had.

And over here in loss was this horrible opposition and the possibility that Christ Jesus might be the Messiah, and that's not going to happen. And then he meets Jesus, and what does he do? Takes out a big red pencil, and on this gain column over here, he writes L-O-S-S.

And over here in the Jesus column, G-A-I-N, and everything is reversed in his life. Has that happened to you? That's what it means to become a Christian, right? Matthew 13, 44, shortest parable, "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who found a treasure hidden in a field. And in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has, counts it as loss that he might have the treasure." It was just a field before, just walking through a field on his way to his treasure, and he stumbles over King Jesus in glory.

It's full of diamonds. It's full of gold, full of silver. God opened his eyes, and now everything else, loss. Then your mind makes that transition. Your mind considers it that way. That's how you prepare to suffer. You get up in the morning, and you consider it that way. That's what he says, "I consider, I regard it.

I consciously, mentally am looking at all the goods in my life and regarding them compared to Jesus as loss. They're in the loss column, and Jesus is in the gain column." And if you think, "Well, that was just Paul." He says in verse 17, "Brethren, join in imitating me.

Join in my example." This is normal Christianity, every believer. Jesus said, Luke 14.33, "No one of you can be my disciple who does not renounce all that he has." Period. I'll say it again. This is Luke 14.33. "No one can be my disciple who does not renounce all his possessions." Now you've got clothes on, probably got a car out in the snowy parking lot, might have an apartment or a house, and other possessions.

You probably have an iPhone or computer. So you own things. And this text says you can't be a follower of Jesus if you don't renounce those. Check out different translations on that word. Wouldn't that be the same as Paul saying, "Count them as loss." So this is mine, right?

I think my wife bought it for me. This is mine. This coat is mine. This is my preaching coat. And I should count this as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus. As a humorous and simple illustration of a bigger point that we all must learn and embrace to look at our lives and our possessions and our successes and our pedigree and our achievements and our reputation and to see all of it as loss compared to knowing Christ.

That is profound. This was from John Piper's sermon titled "Preparing to Know Christ Deeply Through Suffering." It was preached on March 2nd, 2014. And of course it is online right now. Have a sermon clip to share with us? Send me an email. Name, hometown, the sermon title, the timestamp of where the clip happens in the audio.

And make a note of what stands out to you in the clip. Put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. That's our email address, askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. Well Christian unity is important. It's really important. But Christian unity is not uniformity. So if we are not the same in every way, how do we strive for unity with other believers?

Three steps. Christian unity in three steps. Pastor John will explain next time. I'm your host Tony Reiki. We'll rejoin in studio with Pastor John on Friday. We'll see you then.