Pressed But Not Crushed W/LeMarr Jackson

Welcome to the Madison Church Square Campus Podcast.

We want to invite believers, seekers, and doubters to encounter God's love through his living word.

This season, we delve into a new series: Kingdom Living in Turbulent Times.

Stories of resistance and resilience.

When times feel uncertain and unsettled, God's promises remain a resource to anchor us as we navigate life's storms with a kingdom perspective.

So settle in, open your heart, and journey along with us to discover how God calls us to trust in Him and walk out our faith.

My name is Lamar Chandre Jackson.

I've been gone from the square for a couple of weeks now.

Last week, uh, the high schoolers and I were out at a conference called the Where You At Urban Youth Conference.

Shout out, yes.

Um, this was the 19th year of doing this conference, and Madison has been a part of it since its foundation, so it's amazing to be able to do that.

But I was reminded by uh a friend of mine who's a pastor in the city here.

Um, every every year this comes around, and every year that conference, amazing and powerful, and wonderful things happen.

And if I just looked at my sickness with my natural eyes, I might have thought it's just that time of the year.

A lot of people have been getting sick.

But if I begin to look at it with my spiritual eyes, there's a pattern that begins to record that shows up.

And it seems like around that weekend, every single year, these special kinds of sicknesses or situations start to pop up.

And it's like the enemy is attacking during that weekend.

And I wanted to bring that up to say thank you to everyone who's been praying for those things, prayed for those weekends and amazing conferences where people come together and they learn more about God and they unify because of it.

Uh, the CCDA conference is coming up this week as well.

Too stay in prayer, stay in prayer because the enemy doesn't like when we band together, the enemy doesn't like to see us unify, the enemy doesn't like to see us get together to praise and worship the creator of us.

Amen.

So, yeah, I did get a little sick this week, but God has a way of doing these amazing things.

See, we live in a fallen world, and because that is because of it being fallen, we often see troubles, sufferings, persecutions, they happen because we live in a fallen world.

But because we serve an amazing God, those troubles don't get the last word.

Amen.

See, he also lets us know that those troubles won't happen without a purpose.

Him being a sovereign God doesn't mean that he makes us go through trouble.

That's not what it is, but it does mean that when we go through troubles, he we know that somehow on the other end, he will make it work out for the better or for the benefit.

Somehow, somehow.

I stand before you today to preach the word, and I have to tell you that it is still a mystery to me.

I don't always know why God moves the way he does, or how, or what it can, I can't always explain, but I trust him.

I trust him in the midst of all of it.

And so, Paul, we're gonna read some writing from Paul today, and I'd say that he has a PhD in going through trouble, or a PhD in suffering, and so he's gonna give us some of God's words to us when we're going through these times of trouble.

And we're gonna read from Corinthians, and he's writing to this church that's dealing with a ton of stuff.

Uh, we know that he wrote a few different letters to the churches in Corinth, and there was a ton of things that he had to help them out and help them through.

And in this particular letter, there's a particular situation was going on.

I came across the word super apostles.

There were some super quote-unquote super apostles who were coming to the the towns in Corinth and preaching these messages that were anti-what Paul taught them and anti-the gospel.

Uh when I learned a little bit more about it, it started to sound a little bit like some prosperity gospels.

And it seemed to me that they were super focused on what was happening on the outside, determining what your faith was.

And they would point at the life and the trouble and the suffering that they saw Paul going through and trying to discredit him because he went through things.

So Paul wrote a letter responding, letting them know that trouble and suffering doesn't mean that God is far away.

But hopefully, you can you can notice that that actually means that that's when Jesus is closest to you.

And so we're gonna read this letter, we're gonna read some words from it, and hopefully it illuminates us.

And if you're going through suffering and trouble and you can identify those things, maybe you can identify also how close Jesus is because of it, in the midst of it.

So we're gonna read in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, and I'm actually gonna start down at verse 5.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

And if we can all stand in acknowledgement of the reading of the word, stand in body andor spirit, and let's find out what God's words are to those of us going through trouble or going through struggles, maybe even how Paul can deal with so much.

Starting at verse 5, here's what it says.

For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ is Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, may this light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed, perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not abandoned, struck down, but not destroyed.

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.

So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

It is written, I believed, therefore I have spoken.

Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to Himself.

All this is for your benefits, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving.

Shout out to Thanksgiving, may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

Therefore, we do not lose heart, though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated.

Heavenly Father, I just ask that you bless this time this morning.

I pray, Lord, that you move Lamar completely out of the way and that you allow your Holy Spirit to jump in and speak your word.

Let your word go forth to speak to your people, so that your people hear your message and don't leave this building this morning the same way that they came.

But we leave different, transformed, and wanting to be more and more like you.

In the name of Jesus, we pray and we thank you, Lord, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

And all God's people said, Amen.

So the gospel addresses your suffering.

The God we serve is not afraid or running away from the fact that there is trouble in this life.

Yet he actually meets it head on.

But he may not meet it in the way that we might think he would.

We know that he is sovereign, meaning that he is powerful and above all things that go on on this earth, but he doesn't meet it by saying that you will not go through it.

God doesn't tell us not to expect suffering in this lifetime, he actually tells us a little bit differently that we're guaranteed it.

And he tells us that we don't get a get out of suffering free card whenever we want to use it.

Though he does promise that suffering will be defeated one day, but there's a whole lot of waiting that we have to have before we get to that day.

See, suffering begins to lead us to this question of do I trust God more than what I see?

Do I value the spiritual more than what's going on in my physical life?

Will I allow my physical ailments to break my spiritual will?

The scripture also describes this as faith.

See, in Hebrews, it tells us that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen, the things that we don't see.

It's trust in what I don't know.

So the Bible calls this faith, and suffering leads us to faith.

How else does scripture speak about our suffering?

There's three major things that I want you guys to walk out of this sermon, knowing, memorizing, having, holding on to, hanging on to, praying about as you continue about your lives.

One, scripture tells us about suffering that you will not go through it alone, you will have a friend, a companion who is always there with you.

Two, scripture will tell you that the suffering that you go through will not be without a purpose.

There will be a purpose for your suffering.

And finally, scripture tells us that your suffering is only temporary.

So what it is, what is it that you're suffering?

What are the woes that you're holding on to that happened to you in your life?

Have you lost people?

Have you lost health?

Have you lost finances?

Whatever it is, God wants to speak into it.

He wants to tell you that you're not alone, it won't be wasted, and it's only temporary.

Our role in the midst of this is to endure.

Now, this enduring doesn't mean that we don't express what or how we truly feel about it.

We'll actually see in a moment, David expresses deeply that he is going through it.

So the Bible gives space for us to express what we're truly feeling.

It's not to say that I'm enduring with a straight face and saying, you know what?

Oh, nothing's happening to me.

I'm completely okay, knowing that we're broken and hurt and harmed on the inside.

The Bible isn't telling us to have false bravado.

We don't have to walk around with a macho nature because we know that we endure.

But this process of enduring through the midst of trouble becomes an exercise in faith.

But faith doesn't mean it's easy.

I would actually tell you having faith isn't easy, it's actually a hard experience.

And God also doesn't ask us just to endure for the sake of enduring.

He actually is telling us that you're enduring with a purpose, that your enduring will begin to spark the light and give more encouragement and faith to others around you by the way that you endure.

God will somehow and can somehow use that to grow other people.

Paul calls us jars of clay, though.

And he says that we have this treasure stored inside.

And the thing about jars of clay, it actually tells us that we're fragile.

It's another way of like, if we ever thought about when we're we understand that we're called sheep, it's not this great, grandiose thing that God is saying about us.

It's actually letting us know that we're super ordinary.

This jars of clay is the same kind of concept.

Jars of clay are extremely fragile, they might even be easily broken.

So that actually lets us know that we need to depend on something other than ourselves in the midst of this.

If we want to be able to endure well, well, we don't endure by ourselves.

We need to rely on the God who gives us strength.

But Paul is really just saying that, well, really, we're unimpressive compared to what we're holding on the inside, which is treasure.

And that treasure is the spirit of God, the power of God, the message of the gospel of Christ that's deep down on the inside of you.

You carry it with you wherever you go, and it has immense value in this world.

And here's the thing: when that pressing begins to push against us as jars of clay, we might even show a couple of cracks.

And what that does is reveal what's on the inside of us, that treasure, that spirit of God, and that begins to show through in such a way that other people looking at this jar of clay is seeing the God that's on the inside.

And that begins to empower other believers and grow other people in faith.

This is what it looks like to endure with purpose.

We show the outside world more of God, the deeper the suffering that we go through.

There's a verse, there's a passage I want to bring up in Psalms 22.

I have them pull it up.

I want to just read this to you.

This is David going through it.

Let's see if it sounds like he's somebody who is really going through some true pain or some true suffering or some true trouble, or does it sound like he's just saying, Laddie da, whatever, God, I trust you.

Let's see how Psalms 22 puts it.

He says, My God, my God, which is also quoted by Jesus later on on the cross, but why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me?

So far from my cries of anguish.

My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer.

By night I find no rest, yet you are enthroned as the Holy One.

So the suffering that David is going through isn't changing his perspective on who God is, though, because he sees God still as the Holy One who's enthroned.

But then he continues on.

This is also why he knows he can trust in this God.

He says, You are the one Israel praises, and you are ancestors.

Well, they put their trust.

They trusted and you delivered them.

To you they cried out and were saved.

In you they trusted and were not put to shame.

David continues, but I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people.

All who see me mock me, they hurl insults, shaking their heads.

He trusts in the Lord, they say, Let the Lord rescue him, let him let him deliver him, since he delights in him.

David is saying that he can endure because he trusts in God.

But that enduring isn't pretty.

Others might look at us and think we're crazy to be able to endure what we endure what we're going through and still have the faith that we believe in.

They might look at us and say, Well, you believe in God, but God has allowed all of these terrible things to happen in your life.

Turn your faith away from him.

Well, that's what they did to David.

Because this enduring may even look like losing to the outside world.

But I trust the God who is sovereign above all to still somehow, I don't always know how, but somehow I trusted He will work it out for the better.

We look at the story of Job.

His friends told him to turn away from God.

But Job was one who was resolute, he was never turning his back on God, no matter what the outside circumstances looked like or told him to do.

He endured in the midst of some serious suffering, even with no understanding of what he was going through.

He even talked back with God, he had strong words that he wanted to say, but he never lost faith.

That trust stayed first.

We look at Esther and her situation.

Pastor Erica preached this not long ago, but she was charged to put her faith and her trust in the God who could protect her in the face of death.

Because she faced death going to speak to the king of the Pharaoh of that time.

We look at Joseph.

Pastor Dream preached this not long ago, but we see him time and time again.

It seems like he's just losing after losing after losing, but he continues to trust in God.

And no matter how many times he got brought down, he knew that at the end of the day, that somehow purpose would come from the suffering.

And he said, Well, what the enemy planned to harm me, God planned it somehow.

He purposed it out for the good and the betterment, not just of me, but also for my people.

The Hebrew boys thrown in the furnace, they represent that message that they didn't they don't go through the suffering alone.

The fourth man is in the fire with them.

We sang about it this morning.

There's no shortage of suffering in scripture, and there's no shortage of suffering in our lives.

Yeah, God gives us this message.

It's only temporary, it's only temporary.

All of the suffering that you go through is only temporary.

See, the joy of the future is greater than the pain of the present.

Paul calls it light and momentary troubles.

Some of us might think that, well, are you belittleing the suffering that I'm going through?

Well, remember, Paul is one who has a PhD in suffering.

He's not belittling suffering at all.

This author, later on, a couple chapters later, I'm gonna read from you 2 Corinthians chapter 11.

2 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

He's gonna go through a list of suffering things that he that he's been living through.

And he's gonna tell the people, just so you know, I have been suffering, I know what it's like to suffer, I know what it's like to suffer for the sake of Christ.

Let's read it in 2 Corinthians 11 down at verse 23.

Here's what it says it says, Are they servants of Christ?

Well, and then he says, Look, I'm out of my mind to talk to you like this.

Look, this ain't normal, but because those super apostles are preaching this message, I just really, really, really need to get this to you so that you understand this.

But he says, Yo, are they servants of Christ?

Well, I'm more, and then listen to how he describes it.

He says, I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again.

Five times I received from the Jews the 40 lashes minus one, which was the max physical per punishment that they would give without endangering the life.

So they would give you 39 lashes because 40 meant it just might kill you.

He says, Five times I've had that.

Then he says, Three times I've been beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked.

I spent the night and the day in the open sea.

I have been constantly on the move.

I've been in danger from rivers and danger from bandits and danger from my fellow Jews, and danger from Gentiles, and danger in the city, and danger in the country, and danger at the sea, and in danger from false believers.

I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep.

I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food.

I have been cold and naked besides everything else.

I face the daily pressure of my concern for all the churches.

This is a man that knows suffering intimately, deeply, and he's giving us a picture, and he's kind of saying, if we want to weigh it, I want you to think about all the troubles that you've been through, especially the ones that for the sake of Christ, and I want you to put them on like a scale or like a seesaw, you know, the little teeter-totters that used to have back in the day.

And he says, put all of those sufferings that you can think of.

He just lifted a whole huge list of them for us, and he says, Put it on one side.

You'll see that side drop because it's heavy, it's real.

I've experienced that.

I understand that I know that, but then he says, This is what I want you to do on the other side.

Think about all of the provision of God, the grace that we just receive, you know, the undeserved favor, the mercy in crucial moments, the faithfulness that God has shown us, even when we turn our back on Him.

And He says, ultimately, the eternal life that lasts forever.

I want you to add it up and put it on that same scale or that seesaw, and then you watch it, boom.

My troubles, my suffering, all that I go through.

I mean, if I just look at it on its own, it's heavy.

But if I weigh it compared to the provision of God, it is light.

It can't pull the scale down against what God provides for me.

And then that extra month, that extra, that extra little piece, that extra credit sauce, he says, Well, not only is it light, it's momentary, it's temporary, it will end.

See, the suffering won't last, but God's provision won't end.

It's eternal.

I came across a quote that just blew my mind.

For believers, this life right here that we're living right now is actually the worst that it gets.

For some of us who've been living phenomenal lives, and you might feel like you've never been through suffering, it's still the worst that it gets right now, and that should make you happy and excited, it should give you joy.

We're gonna talk about that in a second.

But for those of us who are going through true, deep, real suffering, trouble, and turmoil, that should give you a deep, deep joy.

That what comes next is greater than this.

This is what it looks like to have eternal perspective.

I alluded to this a few weeks back.

Like God called me to bring it up a little bit harder again this week.

And our youth group students, man, y'all should really remember this.

Because Paul also starts talking about seeing the the unseen versus the seen, and it looks sort of like this it's the idea of happiness versus joy, and happiness is an emotion that you experience, you feel, events happen.

I'm rooting for a team, and that team wins, so I'm through the roof.

Or maybe that team loses and I'm sad, it hits me, it hurts me, but joy isn't that.

See, joy is a state of being that doesn't shift or change.

No matter whether I am happy or sad, I always have joy on the inside, and then again the happiness, happiness begins to look, it's momentary because you know what?

This this game my team might win, but next game my team might lose.

So, you know, it comes and it goes, but joy it never leaves me because no one can take it away from me.

It stays there, it's eternal.

And the last piece of it, happiness, is actually something that's me focused, it's around the things that I can see or I can feel or people that are connected to me.

It's the idea of what's happening to me I can be happy about.

But joy isn't about being me focused, joy is about being Jesus focused.

See, joy is about what he did for me on the cross because what he did for me opened up, it gave me access to live with him for eternity.

There was a separation between him and me because I was sinning, I was choosing things other than God, and God said, I need to make a plan to decrease that gap.

And so Jesus went to the cross for you and me so that there would be nothing in between him and us, and that right there is the cause of my joy.

So my joy is Jesus focused, and it gives me eternal, eternal goodness.

Right here, we also can acknowledge that Jesus is one who doesn't back away from suffering, but he enters into it, he goes through deep suffering, physical, mental, and spiritual suffering when he goes to the cross.

He's in the perfect place of paradise, and he chooses to put on human flesh to walk through suffering.

I can't imagine the contrast there, but he does it so that we know that we can have a friend who can empathize with us, that we can call on somebody who doesn't just know what we're going through, but he knows what it feels like because he's been through.

It too.

And so we can trust that God truly, truly, truly knows us and knows what we need.

He's fully empathetic to the suffering that you're going through.

And his suffering shows me that suffering is not wasted.

Because when he goes through his suffering, he gives us that access.

That access to salvation.

Because of his suffering, I can be set free from the bondage of sin that I was in.

But then he also shows me that suffering only has a temporal hold, it's temporary.

Because death comes out of his suffering.

But then he shows us, oh, death ain't a period, it's a comma.

Keep reading the story because he gets up and says, Death, you've got no hold on me.

Death, you have no hold on my people.

And so we're gonna take this meal in memory of this, to engage in the joy that he gives us access to.

To remember that if we're suffering, well, he has to and he can connect with us.

He's our friend, he is our companion in the midst of suffering, and to remind us that our suffering will not be for nothing.

There will be some purpose somehow.

And just to let us know that when we're going through it right now, it may seem like it'll last forever, but it will end.

That suffering will end, and then we'll get to walk and live in eternity with Him.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we come to you just I ask that you submit this word in our hearts, the feelings that you give us.

I pray, Lord, for every one of us who's going through suffering right now.

Remind us that we have a friend, that we have a companion who's been through suffering too.

You're not far off from our suffering, you're not only there when we're on the mountaintop, you're there when we're deep in the valleys too.

Remind us in this moment, give us strength to be able to endure.

We thank you for being a God who didn't shy away from it yourself.

Thank you for inviting us to this table to remember who you are and what you did for us.

I pray, Lord, that as we eat and we partake of this table, that it be something that doesn't stay within these walls, though, that when we leave outside of these walls, as we continue to be pressed, we continue to be pushed against, we continue to be hurt.

I pray, Lord, that the you, the treasure, the spirit that's inside of us begins to show through those cracks that we have as we walk outside, and people who don't know you want to get to know you, and people who do get empowered by it.

Thank you for being a God who speaks to our suffering.

We thank you in the name of Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we pray.

Amen.

Thank you for joining us on Madison Church Square Podcast.

We hope today's message inspired you.

Don't miss next week's episode as we continue exploring the series Kingdom Living in Turbulent Times.

Together, let's uncover how to live faithfully amidst life's challenges.

Until then, stay grounded and be blessed.