Multiplying Resilient Disciples

Hey everyone, this is Josh from Encounter Church

Henley and thanks so much for tuning into our

podcast. Our prayer is that through this podcast

you can have an encounter with Jesus that will

change your life. And now get ready for an inspiring

message from our preaching team. As a uni student,

I was the unfortunate victim of much self -induced

suffering at the hands of procrastination. Preach.

Many times an assignment would be coming up and

I would have not done the readings or been behind

on lectures and I would feel that familiar stress

and anxiety creeping up as the due date approached.

Often I would come up with genius plan like tomorrow

I'm gonna wake up at some hideously early hour

like 9 a .m. have a coffee get straight into

my assignment go to the gym for a brain break

come back work on it again have lunch boom it'll

be done easy only to sleep in wake up late and

waste the day watching YouTube or playing video

games it was the kind of vicious cycle where

the due date got closer made me more anxious

and I would deal with this anxiety by totally

turning my brain off with a TV show. I would

get to the point where there was no more time

left and if I delayed any longer I would miss

the due date. Then it would usually go like this.

I would turn on my computer, open a blank document

and pray. Lord I know that I probably don't deserve

to pass this assignment at this stage and I accept

that if I fail it's totally on me and totally

my fault but I need your mercy and grace in this

moment. Help me focus help me push through this

anxiety and help me pass this assignment And

all glory to God I can stand before you today

and say that I have a teaching degree And I really

learned a lot going through this process It was

the first time in my life that I really had to

practice Turning something over totally to God

and to just trust him with the outcome Even when

it felt like my entire future was on the line

Now, as the teacher, my prayers sound a little

different. Lord, I pray that you help my students

get their assignments handed up on time. But

really, I made life a lot harder for myself by

relying on these unhealthy coping strategies

whenever I was confronted with the unpleasant

realities of student life. Reading and research

is not always very fun. Citing sources sucks.

Catching up on lectures and requesting extensions

is stressful and embarrassing. But I could trick

myself into thinking I was being productive by

putting on an interesting podcast and getting

chores done around the house. But in reality,

I was avoiding the uncomfortable task set before

me. Life is full of unpleasant moments, trials

and suffering. The world presents us with a multitude

of ways of managing this, but they mainly fall

on a spectrum with two ends. The first is to

avoid, to flee, and to try and forget. We blast

ourselves with stimuli to banish the unpleasant

thoughts and feelings. Music, podcasts, TV, we

live in a time where it's never been easier to

totally avoid reality. Doorstep delivery to meet

every physical need. Virtual experiences streamed

into our bedrooms to simulate the experience

of friendship and community. Does this sound

familiar? There are so many people enslaved to

drugs and addiction in their quest to avoid experiencing

pain, but we know it doesn't work. Whether you

binge on alcohol or six seasons of The Office,

there always comes the hangover and the brain

fog. The other end of this spectrum is to fight

suffering. I think of the stereotypical hyper

-masculine influencer guy, right? Wake up at

3am, 10k run before breakfast, ice bath, hustle

culture, workaholics, right? Some people think

that you'll never have to suffer health issues

if you just train and diet hard enough. Or we

can trick ourselves into thinking that we might

never have to suffer financial stress if you

work hard enough, earn enough money, invest in

the right assets. Trite sayings get repeated

like, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

Or when the going gets tough, the tough gets

going. We can delude ourselves into thinking

we enjoy the suffering, or that we have mastered

it. But we know that this strategy has limits.

We are only human and no matter what you eat

or how hard you run, you are still going to die

someday. I'm not saying there's anything wrong

with being health conscious or being a hard worker

and you can all clearly see which end of the

spectrum I lean towards but it is an endless

worldly pursuit because the world cannot handle

suffering. The common thing with both of these

strategies is they are attempts to gain control

over the experiences in our lives and both strategies

ultimately fail. And I want you to pause for

a moment and think about where you might sit

on that spectrum. Everyone does a little bit

of both, but think about what it is that you

turn to unconsciously when work gets stressful,

when you're tired, when the relationships that

we take for granted are tested. Do you pull away

and avoid it? Do you react and try and fight

it? We can experience a kind of suffering one

too many times and then endeavor to never experience

it again if we can help it. Take hunger for a

simple example. One day you're a child in the

back seat of the car asking mum for maccas and

she says we have food at home. The next moment

you're an adult and that ability to turn into

the maccas drive -through line the moment you

feel even the slightest hint of hunger can begin

to control your life. Ask me how I know. Or on

the other side, you can attempt to best the pain

of hunger by going on crazy diets and extreme

fasts so that you're so used to the feeling you

think you've beaten it. Yet hunger is still real

and you must eat to not die. This is without

touching on the emotional and interpersonal trials

we can sometimes face. What do we do when relationships

totally break down? When loved ones pass on?

Do you resort to avoiding people and places that

you used to love because their presence brings

back painful memories? Or just become totally

numb to loss and harden your heart? Neither of

these things are what Christ wants for our lives.

These are things that our culture cannot handle

because for so many people death is the end.

So what's the point dwelling on it? We get up

the next morning and put on an audiobook as we

drive to work. The point here is that everyone

does a little bit of both of these because we

don't know what to do with suffering. It is unavoidable.

But where does that leave us as followers of

Christ? If you don't know me, my name is Daniel

and I serve here at Henley, sometimes on kids,

men, often on the coffee van. And I'm a youth

group leader over at our Enfield site every Friday

night during the school term. Shout out youth

team. Shout out my youth boys. And Lucy. Today

I'm talking about multiplying resilient disciples.

Oh, sorry. Today we're beginning a new sermon

series on the five core values of our church

and we're starting with multiplying resilient

disciples which is a value really close to my

heart. It's our vision here at Henley that everyone

from the city to the beach would have an encounter

with Jesus and from that encounter come to know

and follow him as disciples and that we may multiply

as a church and grow in resilience together.

Our text today comes from Romans 5. where the

Apostle Paul is writing to the early church in

Rome and giving them his thesis on salvation.

Paul is a pretty logical thinker and in this

passage he is giving us the play -by -play on

how to handle suffering as a disciple of Christ.

The amazing thing is that he doesn't tell us

how Christ can help us avoid suffering or how

in Christ we can become immune to suffering but

he tells us that in Christ we can rejoice in

suffering. from the text we can rejoice to when

we run into problems and trials for we know that

they help us develop endurance and endurance

develops strength of character and character

strengthens our confident hope of salvation and

this hope will not lead to disappointment for

we know how dearly God loves us because he has

given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with

his love. So what is Paul telling us here? He's

saying something totally alien to how the world

handles suffering. He says to rejoice in it.

Why? Because it can produce good things in our

lives. This is a radical departure from the common

view of our culture. The way Paul says it, suffering

can be an opportunity for spiritual growth. Why?

Because suffering is our spiritual training ground.

In this passage, Paul gives us a three -point

program. Step one, suffering builds endurance.

Step two, endurance develops character. Step

three, character strengthens hope. Let's break

it down verse by verse. Verse three, we can rejoice

too when we run into problems and trials for

we know that they will help us develop endurance.

Paul says we know this, but we don't always act

like it. As a teenager, I developed some endurance

by helping my father shovel tons of gravel around

the driveway. At the time, I wasn't aware of

the benefits. I just did it because I had to.

But just as manual labour benefits your muscle

development, trials benefit our spiritual development,

because suffering is our spiritual training ground.

But that endurance I developed was because I

chose to stay in it. I could have tried avoiding

the task. I probably did a few times. I could

have tried fighting it. But by choosing to face

it and stay in it, like Paul says we should do,

I was able to benefit from it. Sure, an unavoidable

problem can force us to confront it, but by choosing

to confront an issue, like a university assignment,

for example, we strengthen the muscle of our

capacity to face these issues and persist in

them. It's just like the gym. Start with the

small weights and soon enough you'll get stronger

and the heavy weights won't feel as heavy anymore.

Verse four, and endurance develops strength of

character and character strengthens our confident

hope of salvation. So then having this endurance,

this strength to face up to our problems and

persist through them, we also develop strength

of character. But what does Paul mean by character?

He means that we not only have the capacity to

endure the trial, but to act and react well.

Character is the measure of our ability to live

the way Christ wants us to live. It's our integrity.

It's our love for others. Our ability to not

just endure our suffering, but to hold true to

our values even when it would be easier to fall

away, to go back to the bad habits, avoiding

or fighting the suffering. Strength of character

gives us the ability to not only weather our

own storms but to help our brothers and sisters

weather theirs. And in having this strength of

character we can look back on the trials we have

endured in our past and know in our hearts that

God will carry us through it again. That is the

foundation of our hope in the future and in our

ultimate salvation. I can look back now and I'm

sure you can too at the trials and problems we

would have went through as teenagers and think

about how they might feel like nothing compared

to what we have to face today. I know that shoveling

gravel is no longer as difficult a task as it

was for me 10 years ago. And we can look back

and see that we're still here today. And we can

see what God was doing in our lives back then,

the lessons we learned and the strength of character

God was building in us. So therefore by choosing

to face our trials and choosing to persist in

them, We know that God is developing this character

in us today because suffering is our spiritual

training ground. If you were to think about what

problems you are currently facing, what kind

of character might God be wanting to develop

in you? What is it in your life right now that

you will look back on in five years time and

think, thank you God for carrying me through

that? And so we have a developed character. We

become more mature in our faith as Christians

by living faithfully and choosing to face our

problems head on. What does Paul say next? That

our character strengthens our confident hope

of salvation. Verse five, and this hope will

not lead to disappointment for we know how dearly

God loves us because he has given us the Holy

Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. Last

week, Pastor Ash gave us a great sermon on the

power of the Holy Spirit. I know that this week

I've done my best to stop trying and start yielding,

to let go of my death grip on life and to trust

the Holy Spirit to work in me, which is hard

to do when you're prepping a sermon but I've

been seeing results. If you weren't here last

week I recommend checking it out on the podcast.

But the relevance here is that Paul reminds us

that we have been given the Holy Spirit. As Pastor

Ash said, the Holy Spirit is there to help us.

We can struggle and try to force our way through

life on our own and in our own power, but we

don't have to because the Holy Spirit is there

to help. And this applies to facing suffering

too. This is the key difference between how we

handle suffering and how the world handles it.

Yes, to endure suffering takes some effort, but

the Holy Spirit is our Comforter and our Helper.

He fills our heart with His love, a perfect love

that drives out all fear. He helps us to endure

and overcome. Suffering is our spiritual training

ground and the Holy Spirit is our spotter. And

that is not the only help God has given us. He

has given us each other. This is why I absolutely

cherish our RDG groups. If you're new here, our

resilient disciple groups are our mid -week small

groups. For me and for many, they've been a great

way to connect with others in the church. They're

spaces for us to pray together and read and discuss

the Bible together. It's a place to do life together

and to make church more than Sundays. Our RDG

groups tie into this core value in a much deeper

sense than just sharing some keywords. It's a

place to share our burdens with each other and

pray for each other. Where we can be strengthened

by each other and grow in that endurance and

resilience together. Christ founded the church

because we cannot follow him alone. But in worshipping

and celebrating together, we can help one another

grow to become like Christ. This is what it means

to be multiplying resilient disciples as a church.

There's something that Josh said when he preached

a few weeks ago that really hit me. He said that

if you never tell anyone what you're going through,

no one will ever know. And it hit me because

it's so deeply true. We're all suffering and

it's so easy to just hide it and pretend you're

fine. I know that I can often struggle to share

what burns my heart and to ask people for prayer.

RDGs are a space for that sharing, to be heard

and loved and supported. And it's a blessing

to not just receive support, but to be able to

offer it too. RDGs is a space where we grow in

trust with each other, pray for each other. It's

not just an add -on to church, but it's a crucial

piece of being able to remain in the hardship,

to go to for spiritual strength, where on our

own, our first option would be those habits we

use to avoid or fight the pain. If suffering

is our spiritual training ground, our resilient

disciple groups are like the spiritual recovery

spa. Currently, RDGs are on pause because we

have been all in on running Alpha as a church.

So if you're curious about Christianity, new

to the faith, or have a friend that is, you should

consider coming along or bringing them along.

Our RDG groups are going to start up again next

term, so if you're not in one, check it out and

ask about how to join one. And I am really looking

forward to RDG starting up again. Living in a

share house full of blokes, hosting our RDGs

at our house for me and Isaac, was a really good

reason for us to keep the place clean. And bless

others of course. And in the meantime, it seems

like our dining table has turned into a full

on 3D printer robot workshop for about a month

there. Not naming any names or looking at anyone

in particular. But to return to the three -point

program, right, Paul says that if we stick it

out in the suffering, we increase our endurance.

If we keep on enduring, it produces character

in us, and that character increases our hope

in God. So we can know that God is using the

suffering to produce good things in us. Hooray!

That's why we can have joy in trials, but do

we always? Do we sometimes have joy? Do we ever

have joy? The core problem we have with suffering

and the reason why so often we mirror the methods

of the world and not the three -point program

of Paul is that we struggle to trust God with

our lives. Trusting God means surrendering control

and we don't like surrendering control because

it can scare us. In Matthew 6, Christ gives a

sermon where he reminds us to trust in the Lord.

Verse 26, he says, look at the birds. They don't

plant or harvest or store food in barns for your

heavenly father feeds them. And aren't you far

more valuable to him than they are? Can all your

worries add a single moment to your life? We

worry about so many things. We avoid and we fight

to try and control how we feel and what we experience.

We have perpetual anxiety about the future because

it's so hard to put this principle into practice.

We cannot control our way out of suffering. To

face our trials we have to learn to trust God

in the moment. But we struggle because surrendering

control scares us. What if God lets me fail?

What if our health does turn for the worse? What

if we don't pass the assignment? Can all your

worries add a single moment to your life? We

have to learn to trust God with our lives and

our futures. At my old school, we had a traditional

Bible verse associated with the year 12s that

graduated each year. It was Jeremiah 29, 11.

Jeremiah 29 11 for I know the plans I have for

you declares the Lord plans to prosper you and

not to harm you plans to give you a hope and

a future of course the fun context is that the

people of Israel are being shipped off to Babylon

as God is declaring this they are suffering due

to their own unrepentant and sinful ways for

generations and yet the Lord is asking them to

trust him Many year 12 students head to university

after graduation, which is quite similar to Babylon

in many ways. So it really is. It's a very fitting

verse for the occasion. And each of us have had

that moment in our lives, right? Maybe not university,

but we have a moment where childhood is over

and we step out into the real world. It can feel

like our own personal exile into Babylon. And

as we go along, life throws trial after trial

at us and we can develop these unhealthy coping

strategies. Ways we avoid or fight the feelings

as we struggle to hold onto control of our lives

and figure out our futures for ourselves. Try

as we might, suffering is unavoidable. Grab the

band back up. And God is not blind to this. Jesus

is not unaware. Jesus knows what it's like to

suffer. Hebrews 12 says, and let us run with

perseverance, the race marked out for us, fixing

our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter

of our faith. For the joy set before him, he

endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat

down at the right hand of the throne of God.

When Christ was praying in the garden, the night

before his crucifixion, he prayed for another

way. But he did what we struggle to do. He prayed

what we struggle to pray. He prayed, not my will,

but yours be done, Lord. It was Christ who suffered

and died on the cross for our salvation. His

resurrection made possible our own resurrection.

His death defeated death and sin so that we may

have eternal life. We know how much God loves

us because he has given us his Holy Spirit. It

is that Holy Spirit that gives us joy in trials,

endurance in the face of suffering, character

and a hope that will not disappoint. For us to

grow in faith together and to endure in the face

of trials as Christ endured the cross, that is

our vision for multiplying resilient disciples

here at Henley. The first time I prayed my prayer

for God to help me pass an assignment, it was

an earnest shot in the dark. I knew that I had

come to the end of myself and I was without hope

in my own abilities. I felt like it would take

a miracle to pass and I gave it over to God.

By the fourth time I prayed that prayer it was

with confidence that God had helped me before

and I felt that He would help me again. The last

time I prayed that prayer it wasn't about an

assignment, but it was a prayer where I knew

my future was out of my control. Late last year,

I was finishing up my last teaching placement.

My toe was infected and needed surgery and I

was booked in for a wisdom tooth removal. I was

flat broke. I had a job lined up that would fall

through if I couldn't get some very important

paperwork sorted in time. It was a tough time

for me. I prayed that prayer for God to get me

through it and he did. I finished my placement,

got the job and healed up well. I can look back

now and appreciate all that he has done for me.

I've felt so blessed to have finished my degree

and to be teaching where I am at a good Christian

school with supportive colleagues and helpful

mentors and a great relationship with so many

students. But having gained so much, I feel like

I have so much to lose. I have no guarantees

that there's a contract for me there next year.

It's totally out of my control. It's just how

it is. Never before in my life have I cared this

much about something. To feel so invested in

a community and the lives of the young people

I teach, the thought of losing it all weighs

on me heavily. Some days I avoid it. Put on the

podcast for the drive home, grab some KFC to

lift my mood. I don't have to worry about it

till next year, right? It's so far away. Some

days I fight it. I think that maybe if I go to

every after school event and become the most

beloved teacher and write a great staff devotion

and plan the best lessons, there's no way they

could let me go, right? But how could I possibly

rejoice in it? This suffering might be so totally

different to what it is that you're going through.

But the truth remains, suffering is our spiritual

training ground. And I can have joy and choose

to face this feeling. Remain in this moment because

I know that God is inviting me to grow in trust.

So I continue to pray that prayer, but not the

same way. I know what I want, but I know that

what God has planned for me is greater than what

I have planned for myself. That whatever the

outcome, He is the one who is in control. I pray

that His vision for my life can become my vision

for my life. Not my will, but His will. That

whatever place He puts me in is the place He

chose for me to work His glory. So we know that

we can follow Christ's example in the garden.

we can rejoice in our present trials and suffering

because we know that He has plans for us, plans

to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give

us hope and a future. If you have a trial that

you feel like you've been struggling trying to

control, whether it's avoiding it or fighting

it, consider that you can hand that over to God

tonight. You can choose to place your trust in

Him and to surrender that control. Everyone,

let's stand together and pray. Lord, you are

good. You see the trials in our life and you

know the fruit coming from it. I pray that in

this moment I can surrender that control and

surrender it to you. Trust ourselves into the

plan you have for our life that is better than

ours. Thanks so much for tuning into this week's

message. If you felt challenged or need prayer,

we'd love to hear from you on Instagram at encounterhemley.

or if you're interested in how you can support

this ministry, please go to our website encounteradelaide

.com .au Thanks again for listening. God bless

you.