Well, thank you. It really is an honor for me to be with you. I'm sorry for your sakes that Pastor John wasn't able to make it, but I am honored by the opportunity to open the Word of God to you in his place. I said to Brad Armstrong on the way in, I said, "I'm here to disappoint everybody." You know, I'm trusting the Lord that he will minister grace to you through his Word, even if the steward is different than expected.

I have, as I hope was evident in the Q&A, I have great respect for what you do, Christians working in the STEM fields, in environments which are often extremely hostile to God, hostile to Christ, hostile to Scripture, and hostile to the very truth that you and they must presuppose if you were to do your jobs well.

The sciences, properly executed, I said something about this in the last hour, they discover and articulate truths that God has revealed in His creation, the creation over which Christ presently reigns as Supreme Lord and King, the truths that are amplified and further revealed and clarified in the 66 infallible and inerrant books of the Old and New Testaments.

The very success of the people in your fields depends upon these foundational facts that so many in your fields reject out of hand, inconsistently, of course, but reject nonetheless. It's something like a mechanic who is vehemently morally opposed to the existence of nuts and bolts and screws, right? It'd be really tough to work in that guy's garage.

Don't talk to me about nuts and bolts and screws. Don't talk to me about a Creator and a King and truth. That's akin to what many of you have to do since these fields have been hijacked by the enemies of truth and who so often persecute those who don't receive their a priori secularism.

There's a sense in which you are all like special agents of the true King working behind enemy lines, but in territory that really belongs to the King. And in those environments, you're bombarded with unbiblical ideas and worldly agendas each and every day. And so Mathema exists to help you think biblically about these issues and to assess and evaluate them according to a biblical worldview and to encourage and strengthen you to be faithful witnesses to the truth in hostile territory.

It's a delicate balance to be sure. On the one hand, your employer has not hired you to be a Christian missionary to your organization, right? And you're there to do a job and you're there to honor Jesus by doing that job with excellence. And on the other hand, Jesus has sent you to that workplace to be a witness to the truth and your commitment to Him supersedes everything in your life.

So truly, I don't envy the position that you're in. I'm glad that I work where I work. God has gifted me to do this, and I'm glad that I get to do it. But God has gifted you to do the things you're doing. I still don't envy you. The challenges and the temptations are obvious, right?

How much will I be willing to compromise in order to keep the peace? What truths won't I speak about for the sake of keeping my job? And we can get very pragmatic. I mean, I need to provide for my family. I've spent all these years in education, you know, sometimes I've got student loans to pay back.

Even if I've paid them all back, I need to provide for my family. If I'm not here, if it's not me, they'll hire somebody else who doesn't have a biblical worldview at all, who's not concerned at all to be a witness to the truth. So I don't envy you.

But in the time that I have with you, I do want to encourage you not to compromise. I do want to stir you up to be bold in your stand for the truth behind enemy lines. If you are going to be, as the TMU mission statement says, empowered for a life of enduring commitment to Christ in the midst of our society, you are going to need to be equipped to suffer for Christ's sake in a manner that is worthy of the gospel.

If you're going to persevere in a life of sacrificial, life-laid-down ministry to a world that is actively hostile to you and to your Savior, you need to be equipped with a sound theology of Christian suffering. And in the text that I've chosen for this final session, Philippians 1:29-30, the apostle Paul is aiming to lay just such a foundation for the Philippians, to equip them to suffer in a manner worthy of the gospel.

Now the Philippians had been transformed by the gospel. They were no longer slaves of Caesar. They were now faithful slaves of Jesus. Their identity was no longer in being devoted citizens of the Roman Empire. They were now citizens of the kingdom of heaven. They had been called out of darkness into Christ's marvelous light, 1 Peter 2.9.

And so, they began to face hostility from the darkness around them. We read in Philippians 1.28 of their opponents. Verse 29 speaks of suffering for Christ's sake, and verse 30 speaks about the conflict they're experiencing. And it's in this context of opposition and suffering and conflict that the apostle Paul calls them in chapter 1 verse 27 to conduct yourselves as citizens in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.

They are to live lives that are driven by that gospel. And specifically, he says, that means they are, verse 27, to stand firm in one spirit. They are to strive together for the faith of the gospel. And they are to be, verse 28, in no way alarmed by your opponents.

They were to hold their ground amidst attacks to compromise. They were to continue their mission of propagating the gospel behind enemy lines. And they were to do it all without so much as flinching, because the king of heaven remains on his throne. And he is infinitely more powerful than any opposing force could ever dream to be.

And then, in verses 29 and 30, Paul throws more fuel on the fire of the Christian's fearlessness in the face of the opposition to the gospel. He says, "For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear to be in me." What we have in this text are four truths about Christian suffering that increase the believer's resolve to endure hardship as soldiers of Jesus Christ.

Because for both the Philippians and for us, part of what it means for us to live in a manner worthy of the gospel, verse 27, is to suffer in a manner worthy of the gospel, verse 29. And my prayer for you is that properly apprehending these four truths about Christian suffering will put a holy fire in your eyes.

So that when the hostility of the world comes, you will be undeterred, there'll be steel in your spine, you'll be fearless in the face of suffering, and thereby be equipped to live and to suffer in a manner worthy of the gospel. And that first truth is, number one, suffering is a mark of Christian identity.

Suffering is a mark of Christian identity. And the key to understanding this is to see the close connection between believing in Christ and suffering for Christ's sake in verse 29. If you have your Bibles, look at the text. "For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake." And so, brothers and sisters, though many who name the name of Christ would want to deny this, we must make no mistake, suffering for Christ is a mark of Christian identity.

That teaching is established all throughout the New Testament. Jesus Himself said it in John 15, 19, "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world because of this, the world hates you.

Remember the word that I said to you, a slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you." Peter wrote to suffering Christians in 1 Peter 4, 12, "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you." Hear how he's reasoning?

Don't be surprised. Persecution is not strange. This is normal for the follower of Jesus. If they persecute Him, they'll persecute His followers. Romans 8, 16, and 17, Paul writes, "The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him." We are heirs if we suffer with Him.

And it's stated nowhere more clearly than in 2 Timothy 3, 12, where Paul states plainly and emphatically, "All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." There's no wiggle room there. It's not all Christians in closed countries will be persecuted. It's not all pastors and missionaries will be persecuted.

It's not all super-evangelistic, super-spiritual, super-Christians will be persecuted. No, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Why? Well, because the darkness hates the light, because the kind of life that is commanded of those who would conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the gospel sticks in the craw of the enemies of righteousness.

And that kind of life lived on the path of light indicts the sinful lifestyle of those on the path of darkness by exposing it, by exposing it in the light of holy living. I don't like that guy. Why? He's a goody two-shoes. I don't like that woman. Why? Because she's so perfect.

That's not necessarily so, but when you aim to conduct yourselves according to a standard of righteousness, not in order to earn your salvation, but because you've been saved, the people who recognize that's not my life, they're indicted by it, they're convicted by it. And because people suppress the truth in unrighteousness, they do what they can to stuff that down.

So the darkness hates the light. So you ask, so how, for Paul and the Philippians, how in the world is telling them that suffering is certain supposed to comfort and strengthen the Philippians to face that persecution? Well, it's comforting because Paul is telling them that suffering for Christ in the way that they have been suffering and the way that they will continue to suffer is an identifying mark of one who truly belongs to Christ.

It has been granted to you not only to believe, but also to suffer for Christ's sake. Suffering for Christ marks you out as a true believer. John Calvin put it beautifully in his commentary on this passage. He says, "Persecutions are, in a manner, seals of adoption to the children of God, if they endure them with fortitude and patience.

Their adoption can no more be separated from sufferings than Christ can be torn asunder from himself." So suffering for Christ's sake is the seal of our adoption into His family. It's our birthright. It's our badge of authenticity. Peter says again in 1 Peter 4, "Don't be surprised, but," verse 13, "to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exaltation.

If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests on you." And so this hostility that you experience at the hands of the adversaries of the gospel is, Philippians 1:28 says, "Assign an evident token from God of your salvation, for because to you it's been granted, not only to believe but to suffer, because the God who has given you His salvation has, with that gift, also graced you to be Christ's people in the world," which means you will suffer for His sake just as He did for your sake.

The question that you've got to ask yourself is, "If suffering for Christ is a mark of Christian identity, am I suffering for His sake?" And I don't just mean martyrdom and imprisonment and physical abuse. I mean the kind of social ostracism and opposition that comes from faithfully and obediently following Christ in a world that hates Him and everything He stands for.

Do you know what it is to be shunned as a hateful bigot simply for refusing to compromise on the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality and transgenderism? Men, do you know what it is to be mocked as a prude because you won't join the men at work in making sexual comments and evaluations of this woman or the other?

Ladies, do you know that look of alienation and bewilderment from the other wives and mothers or ladies at the workplace who don't complain about their children or gossip about their husbands or boyfriends? Do you know what it is to be looked upon by the sophisticated minds of society as a knuckle-dragging fundamentalist because you won't compromise the scriptural teaching about men's and women's roles in marriage and in the church?

Or because you won't compromise the scriptural teaching about God's creation of the universe in six literal 24-hour days? Can you pour out your heart to someone in proclaiming the gospel to them, lovingly and sincerely entreating them to be saved from the wrath to come and to run to everlasting joy and salvation in Christ, only to have them mock you as a narrow-minded xenophobe who just wants to control everybody and make people believe the same as you?

Do you know the feeling of being aliens and strangers in the world? Do you know the pain of knowing that you're far from home? Foxes have holes, birds have nests, the Son of Man has nowhere on this earth that He spoke into existence and sustains with His Word to lay His head.

The key is if so, if you know those pains of alienation, of being strangers, don't be discouraged. Those are marks of the citizens of heaven, those who are out of place as citizens of the kingdoms of this world. On the other hand, what if you don't know that pain, that ostracism?

Can you fit right in? I mean, you go to church on Sundays, maybe Bible study once a week or every other week, but for the rest of your time in the world, is it that you seem right at home? Have you so domesticated your faith? Have you so compartmentalized your relationship with Jesus Christ that no one can tell the difference between you, a professed follower of the Lord Jesus and a pagan who loves and serves himself?

No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket. Do you stick out as a light among the darkness or can you get along just fine in the world because you've been unwilling to stand publicly for what would bring inconvenience for Christ's sake? We need to hear this, friends, because the kind of convenient, polite, socially inoffensive spectator kind of Christianity that provokes no hostility from the enemies of the gospel, Paul says, that kind of Christianity is a sham.

He says that kind of Christianity won't take you to heaven because to you it has been granted not only to believe in him but also to suffer for his sake. Suffering is a mark of Christian identity and so rather than running from it, when it comes we ought to be encouraged by it.

Christ said this would happen and it's happening. I'm happy actually to bear that reproach. I'm real. I'm not just playing a role, I'm not just playing pretend. I'm a believer and I know I'm a believer in part because I'm willing to suffer loss for his sake. The strings of my heart are not so attached to what they can take from me.

They're attached to him. I'll say more about that in a moment. Secondly then, suffering for Christ's sake is a gift of divine grace. It's a gift of divine grace. Look with me again at verse 29, "For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake not only to believe in him but also to suffer." So we've established suffering inevitably comes to the true believer in Christ but where does it come from?

Does it originate merely in the hostility of the opponents themselves? Does it come from a random chaotic uncontrolled universe so we've just drawn the short straw and need to make the best of things? Does it come from a random impersonal governing force like fate so we just have to grin and bear it?

Does suffering ultimately come from Satan or demons? Ultimately we have to answer no to all of those questions. Ultimately suffering comes from God. Why do I say that? Well one, Scripture calls God the one who works all things after the counsel of his own will, Ephesians 1:11. And we know, Romans 8:28, that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.

All things, not just the good things. And not God turns all the bad things into good things for those who love him. That's not what the text says. God does not just make the best out of a bad hand he was dealt. He ordains all things for his purpose to glorify himself, to magnify his name.

Joseph said as much in Genesis chapter 50 in verse 20, "You meant it for evil, the brothers who sold me into slavery, but God meant it for good." Not just turned it out for good. God's good on his feet. He can make the best of a bad situation. No, God meant the sinful action of Joseph's brothers for the good of preserving life.

Genesis 45, 5 to 8. Job says the same thing. Chapter 1 verse 21, "The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away." Job 2.10, "Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity from him as well?" Even as Jeremiah the prophet stands in the rubble of the ravaged city of Jerusalem at the time of the Babylonian invasion, he asks, Lamentations 3.37, "Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass unless the Lord has commanded it?

Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both good and ill go forth?" But even if I didn't have all those verses to turn to, you know how else I know that suffering for Christ's sake ultimately comes from God? Because Philippians 1.29 says, "It's been granted to us not only to believe but to suffer." Well, who has granted that we believe?

Certainly not our opponents of the gospel and certainly not Satan. It's God who has granted us faith, Ephesians 2.8 and 9. Faith is the gift of God and in the same way it is God who grants us to suffer. And consider the word itself, He grants us to suffer.

The word is charizomai from charis which is the New Testament word for grace. It means to give as a gift or to give freely. It's the same word in Romans 8.32 where Paul says, "He who did not spare his own son but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things?" Dear friends, what Paul is teaching us here is that the suffering that comes upon the people of God as a result of their faithful obedience to Christ in a hostile world is nothing less than a free gift of sovereign grace.

And I ask you, does God give poor gifts? Does He give gifts that are without purpose and without wisdom? Does He ever give gifts that are not beneficial and for the greatest good of those whom He gives them to? Of course not. All of God's good gifts to His children are good for His children.

This text tells us that He gives us suffering for Christ's sake as a gift of His loving unmerited favor. Now some of you are thinking, "What kind of favor is that, suffering?" If you're thinking that, I want you to know the apostles would have had no idea where you were coming from.

They just wouldn't get it. And if you have your Bibles, turn over to Acts chapter 5. The Sanhedrin had already thrown the apostles into prison for violating their command not to preach any longer in the name of Jesus. But the angel of the Lord came in the middle of the night and freed them, and the next morning they were back in the temple preaching again, and so the Jews called them before the council again, and after some discussion about what would be done to them, verse 40, they flogged them and ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus and then released them.

So, Acts chapter 5 and verse 41, "They went on their way from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name." Our generation of professing Christians seeks to run from shame as far and as fast as possible, as if it were a pure, unmixed evil.

If you're ashamed of the way that you feel inside, go ahead and mutilate your bodies so that you can match the body to the feelings and not feel that shame. If you're ashamed of what your inclinations are, let's have a whole month dedicated to celebrating those inclinations so that nobody feels any shame.

But the apostles' generation rejoiced that they had been considered worthy to receive the divine favor of suffering shame for the name of Jesus Christ. And I would ask that God would grant that we see the glory that they saw. That we would be so satisfied by Christ that we would count it a privilege to meet the world's shame, if it means that by that means we can put His glory on display.

Years after being flogged that day, Peter would write again in 1 Peter 4, "To the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing." And again, if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but to glorify God in that name. To glorify God in that name.

You see, suffering for Christ's sake provides us with a wonderful opportunity to put the worth and sufficiency of Jesus on display to the world. It gives us an opportunity to magnify Him by being more satisfied in Him than by all that life can offer us and all that death can take.

I'm going to say that again. Suffering for Christ's sake gives us an opportunity to magnify Him by being more satisfied in Him by showing the world that He is more satisfying than all that life could offer and all that death can take. It's like the hymn says, "When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay." And so one pastor writes, "If we hold fast to Him when all around our soul gives way, then we show that He is more to be desired than all that we have lost." And friends, magnifying Christ, showing that He is more to be desired than all that we could lose, that's what we were created to do.

I don't care what your job is, you were created to show the world that there is no greater joy than making much of Jesus Christ. There is no greater joy than knowing Him and the fellowship of His sufferings and making Him known through our sufferings for His sake. It's a gift to suffer on behalf of Christ.

It's a gracious gift of unmerited favor to be given the privilege of being prisms to reflect the glory and the sufficiency of Jesus to the world. But I'll take your treasure, oh, I've got a treasure you know nothing about. I'll take your family, my heavenly Father provides for all my needs and my elder brother sits on the throne of heaven.

I'll take your children, maybe, but God would grant, if He is gracious, an opportunity for me to make spiritual children out of those that I might minister the gospel to. I'll take your very life, you can't do that. My life is hidden with Christ in God. I'm seated in the heavenly places already.

You see, when nothing, when everything that the world values doesn't hold a candle to you and to your affections, but you say, "He is more to be desired than all those things," we make Christ look great. That's why suffering is a gift, because what do you want in this life more than to make Christ look great?

You, a sinner from the dung heap, from the mud pile, from the miry clay, you treasonous rebel, traitor to the King, whom He has graciously plucked out of the fire, you say, "I, me? I can make much of Jesus? My horrid little life could make much of Jesus?" Yeah, by the grace of God, it can, if indeed to you, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

And so, when suffering and persecution come from those who would oppose Christ and His gospel, and when things get hard, and when it starts to hurt, and it threatens those things and those people whom you most treasure, don't try to save God from His sovereignty by thinking that those trials originate from someone other than your heavenly Father.

Don't cut the legs out from under the theology of sovereign grace upon which you stand. You would destroy the very comfort that you seek if you did that. Another great hymn says, "Heavenly peace, divinest comfort, hereby faith in Him to dwell, for I know whatever befall me, Jesus doeth all things well." Where do heavenly peace and divine comfort come from?

From the knowledge that whatever happens, Jesus, the sovereign Lord, is doing all things well. So don't try to save God from His sovereignty and in the same breath steal your heavenly peace and divinest comfort. Instead, count that suffering as a gracious gift from the loving hand of your Father.

Then you would suffer in a manner worthy of the gospel. Suffering for Christ's sake is a mark of Christian identity, and it's a gift of divine grace. The third truth about Christian suffering is that Paul teaches us, or that Paul teaches us in this text, is that it is endured for Christ's sake.

It is endured for Christ's sake, and you can flip back to Philippians 1 and read verse 29 with me again. You've heard the repeated emphasis as I've said it over and over again, "For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for His sake." Paul does not want to be misunderstood, he repeats it.

And so all the suffering we've been talking about this afternoon is the hostility believers face, particularly as a result of opposition to the gospel. This is persecution in the proper sense, the more narrow sense. One commentator puts it helpfully when he says, "The suffering in view here is not everyday headaches and heartaches.

Suffering on behalf of Christ is caused by public identification with Christ in a world hostile to Christ." Now the Bible has glorious truths and promises about how we are to respond righteously to the everyday headaches and heartaches, for sure. And certainly the truths we've observed already can be carefully and legitimately applied to those circumstances.

But the suffering that is in view in this text and in much of the New Testament is suffering that is endured on behalf of Christ. And you hear this emphasis everywhere, Matthew 5, 10 and 11, "Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me." Mark 10, 29, "Truly I say to you, there's no one who's left his house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms for my sake and for the gospel's sake, but that he will receive a hundred times." And one we've come back to a couple times, 1 Peter 4, 12 to 16, "Don't be surprised as if something strange were happening to you, but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing.

If you're reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests on you. Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer or thief or evildoer or a troublesome meddler. But if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name." And so when I say that we need to shine as lights in a dark world, I don't simply mean that we need to "live differently" in some sort of general sense.

You cannot legitimately claim these promises of comfort for suffering for the sake of a generic morality that holds doors and pulls out chairs and doesn't use foul language and is generally respectful of people. On a horizontal level, even enemies of the truth can be polite and respectable people. But Paul is calling us to the kind of suffering that happens on behalf of Christ.

And when I say that we need to eschew this kind of convenient Christianity that provokes no hostility, I don't mean that provoking hostility in and of itself is a virtue. If you suffer hostility because you're belligerent and annoying, or if you stick out from the world just because you're a strange person, that's not Christian suffering.

One preacher said, "This is not a Christian kookishness that counts it the highest virtue to go around disturbing people by being different." No, this is suffering particularly and specifically as a result of our attachment to and likeness and commitment to Christ. And so our suffering is to be endured for Christ's sake.

And I would say that that gives us strength to endure the trials that are coming. Because friends, I ask you, is there anything that you cannot endure for His sake? For the sake of the innocent Lamb of God who bore the unfettered wrath of His own dear Father on the cross so that impure, unholy, treasonous rebels like you and me could be purified and reconciled as friends and seated around the table of the King of all kings?

To bear reproach for His sake? That's no trouble for me, not when He's borne so much reproach for my sake. What are the frowns of a few fellow mortals if we can see His smile, if we can know Him, if we can walk more closely and more intimately with the Savior who is the apple of our eye, who is at the very bottom, the very bedrock foundation of our joy and comfort?

Surely we can endure suffering for His sake. And then number four, the fourth truth about Christian suffering that will prepare us to suffer in a manner worthy of the gospel is that suffering is a means of sweet fellowship. Suffering is a means of sweet fellowship. Look with me at verse 30.

It's granted to you to suffer, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear to be in me. And what we see here in verse 30 is what one writer calls a masterful stroke of pastoral comfort on the part of the Apostle Paul. The Philippians would remember, like it was yesterday, the beatings and the imprisonment that Paul suffered at the hands of the crowds in Philippi.

It's recorded in Acts chapter 16. And now they're hearing of his resolute fearlessness in the midst of his sufferings, his resolve to magnify Christ whether by life or by death, verse 19 of chapter 1, or verse 19 and 20. And he's preaching the gospel unto the conversion of many even in the praetorian guard into Caesar's own household, Philippians 1, 12 to 18.

They hear of the sufferings and they think of all that Paul's endured for the sake of the gospel. And you realize they came to regard him like we regard him, right, as a hero. And Paul is saying, you're now experiencing that very same thing. We are brothers in arms.

And the Philippians would have been thrilled to hear that because there is a sweet fellowship that exists between brothers and sisters who suffer together for the cause of Christ. And knowing that Paul regarded them as having the same kind of fellowship with him would have strengthened their hands to stand firm.

It would have strengthened them to continue striving together to be courageous and undaunted, no way alarmed by the opposition. And I think it should be no different for us. We should be enticed to a resolute fearlessness in the face of opposition by knowing that suffering on behalf of Christ is a means of sweet fellowship with all of our brothers and sisters throughout the ages, all the faithful soldiers of Jesus Christ who have gone before us, who have been despised and forsaken by the world, men like Justin Martyr, and Polycarp of Smyrna, and Ignatius of Antioch, and William Tyndale, and John Huss, and Martin Luther, and John Rogers, and Hugh Latimer, and Nicholas Ridley, and John Knox, all of these and thousands of others of whom the world was not worthy, who loved not their lives even unto death, they are our brothers in arms, our band of brothers.

And more than that, suffering is not just a means of sweet fellowship with them, with other believers, but with the Apostle Paul himself. This is a man who laid down his life to travel the known world, who endured all manner of hostility, who wrote half the New Testament, and who's a spiritual hero to every Christian who's ever lived.

He can lay down our lives for the same gospel mission that he suffered for. And Matthew, I want to know, don't you want your life to count for something? Of course you do. Don't you want to live so that you don't waste the years that you've been given? Of course you do.

Don't you want to invest yourselves and to spend and be spent for something that is truly worthwhile and meaningful, something that will outlast this earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal? I mean, talk about being part of something that's bigger than yourself. We can be engaged in the very same conflict that the Apostle Paul himself was engaged in, provided we are willing, as he was, to lay down our lives, to live in a manner worthy of the gospel in a way that cuts straight across the grain of the world that we live in.

But it gets better even than that. The suffering that you experience for Christ's sake is not only providing you with the opportunity for unique and intimate fellowship with other soldiers of Christ. It also provides you with the opportunity for unique and intimate fellowship with Christ himself. See, when we become willing to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, to preach his gospel, to walk in holiness as he walked, we will provoke the same hostility from sinners that he provoked.

And in counting so many times people say, you know, we were just nice and we were just loving, and if we were just gentle, you know, like Jesus was, the world would like us, and then they would listen to the gospel. It's like, guys, they killed Jesus. He was the nicest, gentlest, most, you know, respectful man that ever lived.

He was sinless and perfect, and they still killed him, and you think you're going to win them over by your winning smile and cunning charm? They killed him. But you see, as we count Christ more satisfying than all that life can offer and all that death can take, we suffer for the same cause of righteousness as the Lord himself, the creator and king of the universe.

That's a fellowship that the world knows nothing about. That's what Paul means, Philippians 3.10, to know the fellowship of his sufferings. It means a camaraderie. It means an intimacy that we can have with our Savior by sharing in the sufferings that he experienced. And that should be an enormous amount of fuel to lay down our safe and comfortable lives and to lose our lives for Christ's sake and the gospel's sake.

It is worth enduring all manner of hostility if we get to know him more intimately because of that hostility, if we get to see more of him in ways that we wouldn't otherwise know if we kept ourselves in the safety of our Christian bubble. Nice, polite, respectable, but are you willing to lay down your life for Christ, not just to die for him, but to lay down your life living for him?

Are you willing to go to him and bear his reproach? Turn with me to Hebrews 13, we'll end here. Hebrews chapter 13, verse 11. All throughout the book of Hebrews, the writer draws parallels between the Old Testament sacrifices and the Lord Jesus Christ as the perfect sacrifice. In chapter 13, verses 11 and 12, he makes the point that just as the sacrifices were burned outside the camp, signifying a place of uncleanness and shame that was cut off from the community of God's people, so also was Jesus sacrificed outside the camp of Israel in hostile territory.

And then in verses 13 and 14, he gives the implications for the church. So Hebrews 13, verse 11, "For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside the gate." So let us go out to him, outside the camp, bearing his reproach.

Why? For here, we do not have a lasting city. We are seeking the city which is to come. So you see, we are to leave the securities and the comforts of the camp and we are to go out and bear his reproach. The reproaches that have fallen on you have fallen on me.

But the magnificent sweetness of this verse is that we don't simply go out, but that we go out to him. He is out there on that road of suffering. Jesus is out there waiting for you on that path of suffering endured for the sake of the gospel. And he is calling us to come and enjoy the sweetness of the fellowship of his sufferings.

I can't say anything that would make it so that I might lose my job. I can't say that thing. I can't have that conversation. Why? Because then I'd be on a road that leads me to the unemployment line. You know what? Jesus is on that road. If endured, if suffered for his sake truly, and not as an evildoer or a troublesome meddler, he's on the road of suffering and he's already walked it.

The 19th century London pastor Charles Spurgeon, called the Prince of Preachers by so many, asked his congregation the question I ask you today, "Can you take the side of a despised Christ? Can you stand at his cross? Can you own him when the blood is dripping from his wounds, when everybody thrusts out his tongue at him and has ill words for the crucified one?

Can you say, 'I love him still'? Can you say with the hymn writer, 'Go then, earthly fame and treasure, come disaster, scorn and pain? In thy service, pain is pleasure. With thy favor, loss is gain." With thy favor, loss is gain. To live is Christ and to die is gain.

I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ. May God grant that it would be true of all who sit here this afternoon.

May God grant that it would be true of us. Let's pray. Father, would it be true, may it be true by the power of the Holy Spirit that you would seal to the hearts of your people this word that gives boldness, that breaks chains of cowardice, that frees unto fearlessness?

We wouldn't go looking for suffering. We wouldn't go taunting the enemies of the gospel to cause us to suffer, not at all. But Lord, where faithfulness in this increasingly hostile world requires that we go out to Christ and bear His reproach on the road of suffering, I pray that you would give grace for us to walk out on that road.

It may be that simply being faithful to you in the public square means that we don't have jobs, means that we have to find another way of supporting our family, means that we have exceptionally tough questions to answer, but it's worth it. None of what we have now is worth losing your favor.

Nothing that they could offer us is as sweet as the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ. Help us to see that. Help us to believe it, not just in our minds but in our hearts. May it be that you cause us to walk so nearly with you that these things are...of course, these things are...yeah, the sight of Christ that I see in my morning devotions is sufficient to satisfy my heart for eternity.

And so you couldn't get me to trade that for anything. Change us into such people who, when presented with sin, whether sins of compromise or any other sin, say, "What could you offer me that approaches the value of the blood of Christ shed in my place to free me from these very sins that you tempt me to?" It's madness.

It's lunacy. And I pray that as these dear people go to work and interact with the people that you have sovereignly placed in their lives, that you would open their mouths, loosen their tongues, free them to be the ministers and witnesses to the truth that you have purchased for them to be by Christ's precious blood.

Give them a holy joy. Protect them from rancor and anger at unrighteousness. Give them a boldness, but may it be a brokenhearted boldness that speaks the truth with tears in the eyes and calls with tears of joy to come and know the great Savior that has purchased our inheritance of a lasting city.

Here we have no lasting city. We're seeking the city which is to come. Father, do in hearts what preachers cannot do and change your people for the glory of Christ, we pray in his name, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.