Three Lessons on Suffering From the Life of Paul

Good morning. All right, so I wanted to start off this morning by reviewing

where we have been and then talking a little bit about where we are going regarding

the sermons here at Good News Church.

For most of this year so far, we have been in a series called How to Handle

Relational Drama, okay? That's been most of the sermons of the year.

It was an 11-week series, and we just finished up that series last week.

It was probably my favorite series that we have done here perhaps ever,

and so that's been great.

So then, now we're today. Okay, we're done with the series and we move on to

the next thing. And then next week is Easter Sunday.

So I didn't, I know we finished a series last week, but I didn't want to start

a new series this week and then be in part two on Easter Sunday. Does that make sense?

Okay, good. So four of you, that makes sense. The rest of you,

you don't understand, but I just think part two, you know, a lot of people show

up for church for the first time.

So the plan is for this week to be a standalone sermon, not part of any series.

And for next week to be a standalone sermon, not part of any series.

And then after Easter, the Sunday after Easter, the plan is for us to begin

a new series on the book of Genesis called How It Started.

And so there you go. That's where we've been and that's where we're going.

So we got an individual sermon this week, individual sermon next week,

and then a series on the first book of the Bible.

And that should last us probably through the summer and maybe beyond.

Genesis is a really big book.

So that brings us to today, today's sermon. Weeks like this are sort of unusual

for me because we plan out our sermons way in advance and we plan them in bundles

where they're like connected to the sermon before and after it.

So there are not a lot of weeks in my life that I like sit in my office and

I go, what am I going to preach on this Sunday?

Right? I don't ever have to ask that. I always know what I'm preaching on this

Sunday. So this week was a little different, but here's what we went with.

I decided to go with a sermon titled Three Lessons on Suffering from the Life of Paul.

At some point, I noticed three lessons in the Bible, all on the topic of suffering,

all illustrated in the life of Paul.

So I am giving them to you today.

This topic I would say is obviously relevant because everybody goes through

suffering, right? Right?

Yeah, everybody goes through suffering. There are some of you who are going through it right now.

And so this sermon will be particularly relevant to you.

In fact, you might even be like, whoa, did God have me come here like this particular

day to hear this message? That's what I'm thinking.

Because that's what happens. We go through difficult times and we need to know

what God's word says in the midst of difficult times.

And some of you are literally right now in the midst of a difficult times.

You had a very hard week, but you're here. It was hard to even get here, but you got here.

Some of you, you'd say, no, it was like a bad month. Like it has been a hard time for a while now.

Some of you might look back over the past year of your life and say,

this past year actually has been the most difficult year of my life.

And so for those of you that are going through it, this should matter to you.

This is relevant to what you are going through.

And then if you're someone here who goes, well, you know, my life's pretty good.

I had a good week. It's kind of been a good month.

In fact, the whole year, it's kind of been a good year. I don't even know if

I need this. Oh, you need this because it's not going to last. Okay.

You're going to go through suffering. I'm not like saying like that I want it to happen to you.

I'm just telling you it's going to happen because life is filled with adversity

and you're going to go through it and you need to know how to handle it when it comes.

So some of you are in the middle of it. Some of you, it's going to come later,

but you need to, as Christians, we need to know how to handle the adversities of this life.

And so there are three passages that we're going to learn this morning.

Okay. It's Philippians chapter two, verses 25 through 27, Acts chapter 16,

Acts 16:16–25

verses 16 through 25, and Galatians 4, 13 through 14.

And from these three passages, we kind of have a little outline of three lessons

on suffering, all from Paul's life.

Of these three passages, I will let you know, one of these three is sort of,

I would say it's like medium famous.

Like it's a story that's not taught on a whole lot, but like KidZone probably

does it. Like there's usually a kid lesson somewhere in your childhood on one of these.

The other two are obscure, hardly ever preached on.

So, but that's what we're going to cover today. So let's start with the first one.

Philippians 2, 25 through 27. This is one of the obscure ones.

Okay. Nobody, almost, almost nobody preaches on this ever.

Philippians chapter two, starting in verse 25.

Paul is writing this letter to these Christians who are in a town called Philippi.

That's why it's called Philippians because they're the recipients of the letter. Okay.

So as he writes to the Philippians, he says, but I considered it necessary to

send you Epaphroditus, my brother, coworker, and fellow soldier,

as well as your messenger and minister to my need.

Okay. Let me pause there. So what's going on here?

Sometimes you read the Bible and you go, I don't even know if I can understand

the Bible. I don't even know what an Epaphroditus is. I can never understand this.

So Epaphroditus is somebody's name, right? This is a dude that lived 2000 years

ago and Paul knew him. He was friends with Paul.

Paul loved this guy. And so he is saying, I considered it necessary.

The thing I needed to do is I needed to send to you Epaphroditus.

In other words, Epaphroditus is a guy who's with me and I told him to go to you.

In fact, I think Epaphroditus is the guy who, not just me, like you can read

scholarly commentaries on this, Epaphroditus is the guy who was sent to the Philippians.

It's probably the way they got the letter that we call Philippians.

Like how do we have Philippians in the Bible?

Because Epaphroditus was sent to the Philippians with the letter, okay?

So he said, I consider it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus.

Then he describes him. He says, my brother, right?

So this is his way of, I think, saying that Epaphroditus is a fellow believer

in Jesus Christ, right? He's my brother. He's a Christian.

He's my coworker. I think that's a way of saying he is a fellow missionary with

me. He's someone who is serving God out here on the mission field.

I think that's probably the same thing that's meant by fellow soldier.

I don't think he's actually a part of the Roman military.

I think he's saying, this is my Christian friend, missionary helper.

We're all on this mission for God together. And then he says,

as well as your messenger and minister to my need.

So if he was their messenger, it means at some point prior to this,

he had come from there to Paul.

So the backstory probably is Epaphroditus, I'm guessing is probably from Philippi.

And at some point they heard that Paul had a need. Okay.

And if you read the earlier part of the book of Philippians,

you would know this. Paul was in prison at this point.

Paul was like falsely in prison. He hadn't done anything wrong,

but because of his faith in Jesus Christ and the difficulties there in the Roman

empire, there Paul is in prison.

And so the Philippians hear about it. And they go, we need to do something to help Paul out.

So they get together some sort of care package. I don't know what was in it.

It was probably money, but it might've been other stuff.

And they said, we got to get someone who will go to Paul and give him this gift.

And apparently Epaphroditus had the week free. I don't know,

but he was like, I'll do it.

And so they sent it, like Epaphroditus is the one who delivered the help from

the Philippians to Paul, right? They didn't have FedEx back then.

Like you do a care package and then what? Okay, we got all this stuff to help

Paul. What are we going to do with it?

Somebody has to physically take it and go find him and give it to him.

And that's what I think is being referred to here when it says Epaphroditus

is your messenger. He's the one that showed up that said, hey,

surprise, we Philippians care about you.

Here's some stuff we got. In fact, not only is this a gift that I brought,

I am also a gift that I brought. Like I'm here to help you, right?

So he's your messenger and minister to my need. So they're getting along great.

But he says, I'm sending him to you. Why? Here's the rest of the verse.

Since he has been longing for all of you and was distressed because you heard that he was sick.

Indeed, he was so sick that he nearly died. However, God had mercy on him and

not only on him, but also on me so that I would not have one grief on top of another.

So he says, the reason I want to send him to you is because he wants to go home.

Like he wants to go be with you. He longs to be with you all.

In fact, he heard that you heard that he was sick and he wants to show up and

show like, Hey, look, I'm fine.

No, no need to worry about me anymore. He wants to show up. In fact,

not only had you heard correctly that he was sick, it was worse than you heard.

He almost died. Like there was a point where he was so bad. We were like,

I think this is the last time he's ever going to get sick.

Like this, he's a goner. There's no way he's going to pull out of this.

And then he did and he survived.

And he says, and so God had mercy on him. In other words, allowing him not to die at that time.

But then he adds this, he says, and not only on him, but also on me,

so that I would not have one grief on top of another.

He's saying, if Epaphroditus had died, right? That would have been a grief to me.

That would have been a sorrow in my life, a sorrow on top of the sorrow I already

have, right? It would be one grief on top of another.

Well, what, so that he seems to be saying that there was almost this terrible

grief thing that happened on top of the grief I already have.

Well, what does he mean? What grief does he already have?

Well, he doesn't say specifically there, but did I mention earlier,

he's falsely imprisoned at the time that he's writing this.

He had had a bad month, right? He's in a prison cell and he hasn't done anything

wrong. So he's already experiencing grief.

And he's saying in the midst of this sorrowful, difficult stuff that I'm going

through, I'm glad there wasn't an additional grief that happened on top of that.

I'm glad my friend didn't die.

Now, the reason I bring this passage up is because I want you to see Paul was

happy that Epaphroditus didn't die so that he was spared from more grief on

top of the grief that he already experienced.

And I guess what I'm saying is, it seems to me that Paul believes it's okay

to be sad when bad things happen.

It's okay to grieve when grievous things happen. Are you following me?

Right, that Paul didn't deny that anything bad. It's not like he said,

well, you know, he almost died, but that would have been no big deal, okay?

Because he would, you know, because he's my brother and coworker,

so he's gonna go to heaven.

So that would have been fine. That wouldn't have made me sad at all.

In fact, nothing makes me sad. I'm not upset about the situation I'm in.

I'm cool with that. If he'd have died, you know, I'd been happy about that.

I think sometimes people think that you're supposed to feel that way as a Christian.

If this person knows Jesus and then they died, well, aren't you supposed to

be happy that they're with Jesus?

Yeah, but also you lost a loved one and it hurts.

And he's saying, I'm glad it didn't happen, even though I guess it would have

been good for Epaphroditus if he went to heaven. But he's saying it would have

grieved me. So I'm glad it didn't happen.

It's, Paul sure seems to imply that he would have grieved if Epaphras had died

and that that grief wouldn't have been wrong because sorrow comes into our life.

The reason I'm saying this, because you might go, wait a minute,

this is a weird first point.

So you're saying in the midst of difficulty, it's okay to feel grief and be sad about it?

Yes, I'm saying that because I think there are times where people make it sound

like you're not supposed to do that. If you were really a mature,

good Christian, you would never be sad about anything. You would rejoice always.

In fact, doesn't the Bible say, rejoice always?

It does. In fact, you want to know what book of the Bible says rejoice always?

It's Philippians. It's Philippians that says rejoice always.

In fact, Philippians is the book where Paul says that he has learned how to

be content in every situation.

And he was in a prison cell or in some sort of imprisonment when he said that.

So in this letter, we see that things can be terrible and yet we're supposed to rejoice always.

And there's a contentment we can have.

And yet when this guy didn't die, I was glad about it because it saved me some grief.

So how does this all work? If we're supposed to be rejoicing always and we're

supposed to be content, but then we're sad when somebody dies,

how does this all work together?

And I guess I'm saying, it just seems to me from the point of view of Paul,

you can be someone who has difficult things that happen in your life and you can grieve them.

And you are also supposed to rejoice always and be content.

There is a measure of joy or a measure of happiness or a measure of contentment

that you were supposed to have even in the midst of the most difficult situations

because you're not without hope.

That there is a God who loves you and who is going to save you.

Like Jesus is going to return. There will one day be a new heaven and new earth.

Whatever suffering you're going through, you will not go through it forever.

That's the whole point. That when you go through life.

Yes, we grieve because bad things happen to us, but we don't act like we're

doomed because Christians are never doomed, right?

That'd be a good book title. I might write a book title, Christians are never

doomed. I don't even know what it'll be about yet other than this.

But I think that's important. Christians

are never doomed. There is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Jesus is gonna come back and make all things new. This will not,

whatever this is, as bad as it is, it will not last forever.

Christians are never doomed.

But that doesn't mean in the midst of the distress, we don't have any grief.

We just have a joy and a contentment knowing that there is hope,

knowing that there is salvation coming.

But that doesn't mean we can't ever have sorrow if our loved ones die. Okay.

Perhaps a quicker way to have said this would be to say, it's okay to cry. Jesus wept.

So that's lesson number one. Now let's go to Acts chapter 16 for lesson number two.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 16, verse 25 is really the verse that I want to camp on,

Acts 16:25

but I don't think that verse will make much sense without the story that comes

before it. So let me read you the story that comes before it.

This is a story that I said is medium famous. Sometimes they teach it in like

children's classrooms and stuff.

So Acts 16, starting in verse 16, it says, and this is Luke writing from his

perspective, because he was one of the people here at the point that this was happening.

Luke says, once as we were on our way to prayer, a slave girl met us who had a spirit of prediction.

She made a large profit for her owners by fortune telling.

As she followed Paul and us, she cried out, these men who are proclaiming to

you the way of salvation are the slaves of the most high God.

And she did this for many days. But Paul was greatly aggravated and turning

to the spirit said, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of

her. And it came right came out right away.

When her owners saw that their hope of profit was gone. And I just,

I want to pause there because I want you to see what their motive is. Okay.

Her owners got really upset because their hope of profit was gone.

Like this was, oh, we're not going to make as much money as we would have before

because of this happening.

The reason I just want to point that out is because later on,

they're going to explain what they were upset about and that is not the way they phrase it.

So our hope of profit is gone. So this is what they did. They seized Paul and

Silas and dragged him into the marketplace to the authorities.

Bringing them before the chief magistrates, they said, these men are seriously disturbing our city.

Now this is interesting. Now they don't say, they're disturbing our city.

They cast a demon out of the slave girl and now she can't fortune tell so we

can't take advantage of her anymore and make all this money off of her,

right? They don't phrase it that way.

That's what happened. That's not what they said. They said...

These men are seriously disturbing our city. They are Jews who are promoting

customs that are not legal for us as Romans to adopt a practice.

Really? That's what it was? Like that's the thing? Romans had a law that you

could not free the slave girl from the demon? Really? That was the issue? No.

Of course that wasn't the issue, but that's what they were upset about. Paul set this girl free.

This girl was, I mean, in some ways you could say she's doubly enslaved,

like she's enslaved to this demon, but the demon gives her this ability to fortune

tell, which causes these other people like her human masters that own her to

be able to make a bunch of money off of her.

And when Paul casts the demon out of her, that ruins the whole thing.

They don't phrase it that way. And in fact, they stir the whole town up against

them or at least a big chunk of people because verse 22 says this.

Then the mob joined in the attack against them and the chief magistrates stripped

off their clothes and ordered them to be beaten with rods.

After they had inflicted many blows on them, they threw them in jail,

ordering the jailer to keep them securely, guarded.

Receiving such an order, he put them into the inner prison and secured their feet in the stocks.

So I think it's important to understand this story to get to what happens in

the next verse. Paul and Silas have their feet essentially chained to the floor.

They're in a prison cell that they don't deserve to be in because they haven't

done anything wrong. And they didn't even get thrown into the prison cell until

after they'd been beaten by a bunch of strangers.

And I guess what I want you to notice is Paul is experiencing intense suffering in this story.

Not because of his unfaithfulness to God, but because of his faithfulness to God.

Do you see that? This is not punishment for doing the wrong thing.

This is Paul going around telling people about Jesus and freeing people from

evil spirits. And he gets punished for that.

And so in the middle of that, now I'll read you the next verse, verse 25.

About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the

prisoners were listening to them.

So it's late at night. They're in some prison cell somewhere after having been

beaten, after having been falsely accused and treated poorly,

after having done the right thing and getting punished for it.

And now they're stuck with their feet, you know, handcuffed down somewhere, in some cell somewhere.

And what were they doing? They were praying and singing hymns and people could hear them.

So I guess they're praying out loud because other people could hear them praying.

And they were singing, which I guess you could only sing out loud.

So they're praying out loud, they're singing out loud, and they're singing hymns to God.

It seems to me that like they still trust God.

They have done the right thing, been punished for it.

And in the midst of that, they continue to worship their God and the prisoners could hear them.

Which I mean, you could sort of imagine like that would have been a weird thing

to hear if you're there in that prison cell. This was an unusual night, wasn't it?

I think you'd think to yourself, there's not a lot of people singing around

here. Usually we don't got a lot of singers.

And then people that are singing at midnight, that's real weird.

People who are singing after they just got beaten, that's even weirder.

People that are singing after just having been beaten and they're singing to

their God after having been beaten because they serve that God.

I bet you they'd never heard anything like this before.

Luke includes this little section of this sentence. I don't know why.

I guess he thought it was interesting. I sure think it's interesting.

That not only were Paul and Silas praying and singing hymns to God,

but the prisoners were listening to them. So these are the two things I just wanted to point out.

First, we see Paul praised God in the midst of his hard times.

He was worshiping God and crying out to God, perhaps crying out to God for salvation,

but there was like a trust in God that I'm praying to you, I'm talking to you, you're still my God.

He's singing praise to God in the midst of the suffering, not after the suffering.

I think a lot of times we go through difficult times and we're like,

this stinks, this stinks, this stinks.

And then if it gets better, if God delivers us, if we are rescued,

if we get healed, we say, thank you, God, for getting me through that.

I praise you, God, that I got on the other side of the difficulty.

I just want you to notice in this story, Paul and Silas are dead in the center

of the difficulty and they're worshiping God before it got better.

And it did get better. Paul did not die in this prison cell. He got out.

But he's praying and singing hymns before he got out.

And then other people heard him. And I remember hearing a pastor years ago,

he was preaching on this passage.

And when he got to this part about the prisoners listening to them,

he said something along the lines of, people listen to you different when you're

going through the midst of suffering.

Like there are times when you go through suffering and you talking about God

in the midst of suffering is something that just sounds different than the way

you sound when life is all fine.

Have you ever noticed that? It seems like he's pointing out a parallel here

because I don't think these prisoners would have heard the praises of Paul and

Silas to their God if it weren't for the difficulty that happened.

But there's sometimes where God uses difficulty so that your words get heard

in a particular way or in a particular place where it wouldn't have happened ordinarily.

Maybe you've seen this before where someone does not care what you believe about God at all.

And then suddenly at the funeral, they do.

Or you could talk all about this, you know, how faithful God is and this thing,

and this is my favorite verse.

And like, it's like, I don't wanna hear it. I don't wanna hear it.

But for some reason in the emergency room waiting room,

okay, I'll listen to what you have to say.

There's something about difficulties that we go through that cause people to

hear us differently or sometimes different people to hear us.

And so the point here is that Paul, like us, we could praise God in the midst

of our difficult times and people hear that.

Okay, here's the third lesson from the life of Paul. This is from Galatians

chapter four, verses 13 to 14.

I think this is my favorite one. This one's just crazy. So, the one I told you

is kind of medium famous. This next one I'm going to tell you,

obscure, nobody ever preaches on it. I didn't learn about it growing up.

I didn't learn about it until I was an adult. And then I came across it and

I was like, whoa, this is crazy that this is in the Bible. Galatians chapter four.

I love this. Galatians chapter four. So this is a different letter,

but Paul's writing to, he's writing to a group of Christians from a region called

Galatia. That's why it's called Galatians.

So he's writing to these Christians. And this is what he says in the middle of the letter.

Galatians four, starting in verse 13. He says, you know that previously I preached

the gospel to you because of a physical illness.

You did not despise or reject me, though my physical condition was a trial for you.

On the contrary, you received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus himself.

What is Paul doing here? I want to tell you, he is reminiscing,

like he is thinking back on something that had happened previously.

This is a letter that he's writing to people that he's already friends with.

He already knew them and he's referring to the time period back when he had

been, was hanging out with them in person.

Okay. Paul does not always do this. I believe the book of Romans and the book

of Colossians are books that Paul wrote to people that he had not met,

but that's not the case with Galatians.

Galatians are a group of people that he knows. The Galatians,

Paul showed up in that region and preached about Jesus to people and the people became Christians.

And then now that you have this group of people that are Christians,

they formed this congregation. So there's the church in Galatia.

It's this congregation of Christians that didn't exist before,

but it existed because Paul showed up and taught them about Jesus.

So now there's a church in Galatia and Paul writes this letter to them.

And he's writing to it saying, hey, remember back when I used to be there in person?

Remember when I first showed up? You remember when you first met me? I was sick.

I had a physical illness the first time you guys ever talked to me.

Do you remember that? I previously preached the gospel to you because of a physical illness.

You did not despise or reject me, though my physical condition was a trial for you.

So whatever had happened, Paul does not explain what the physical illness was.

He doesn't give any details. And the reason why he doesn't is because he didn't

need to. He's talking to people who knew the whole story, right?

2,000 years later, there are times we read the Bible and you're like,

man, I wish it would have included more details.

Like, at least tell us the name of the sickness. What was it?

Okay, he didn't tell them. They didn't need to know. They were there for it.

They lived through the situation. So he just refers back to it briefly.

I had the illness, remember? Oh yeah, yeah, we remember. And you did not despise or reject me.

So Paul was sick when he met them and whatever condition it was that he had, it was off-putting.

Because he would expect that they would have despised him rejected him and they didn't.

In fact, he says, my physical condition was a trial for you.

I don't even know what that means. Maybe they were helping him get in and out

of bed. Maybe he was having a hard time walking and they were helping him.

I don't know what the symptoms were, what the problem was. Maybe he just,

he looked all gross because he was sick all the time. And they were like,

oh, we don't really want to look at him, but we need to learn about Jesus.

He's the only guy that knows. I don't know what it was, but he said,

whatever it was, it was a trial for you. And you got through it.

You accepted me as a messenger of God.

Okay, so Paul's sick when he meets them. He has this condition that's off-putting.

And I guess I just wanted to throw this in because I think it's interesting.

Some people think that whatever the physical condition is, it was something related to his eyes.

And the reason why is because of the next verse. And so I'm gonna read it to

you just so you can see what Galatians 4, 15 says.

Right after he says, like, I was sick, remember? And you guys were there for

me. This is the next thing he says.

He says, what happened to the sense of blessing you had? Remember when you really

liked me and I was preaching the gospel?

And so he's thinking back on it. He says this, he says, for I testify to you

that if possible, you would have torn out your, what's the word?

Eyes and given them to me. So he's thinking back on the situation.

He's saying, I was so sick. It was such a difficult time, but I was preaching

the gospel to you and you guys were so kind to me. In fact, remember how nice you were?

You guys would have given me your eyes if that would have helped out the situation.

So maybe he had some sort of problem with his eyes or with his vision at that

point. He's like, you guys would have given me eye transplants if that were a thing.

But I don't know if he's being literal. It could be a figure of speech.

Sometimes we say things like a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush and

a stitch in time saves nine.

And we're not talking about stitches and we're not talking about birds.

And maybe this is just a figure of speech about eyes and maybe he had some other illness. I don't know.

But I will just tell you that it was obviously a significant situation and they cared about him.

And one other thing I will just point out, some people think it's malaria that he had.

Like if you look and just read literature about this I think there are people who think

that malaria was what he had because it would be a sickness that

you could have got back then you could get it from getting bit by a mosquito it would

have been difficult to recover from it would have slowed down your missionary

journey I think it affects your eyes if it gets bad enough your eyes can turn

like yellow and gross looking and Paul had been in like a swampy region just

before the time period that he

was in Galatia which would be a place where you're more likely to get it.

That's just speculation. We don't know for sure. But whatever it was,

whatever the thing that actually happened was, this is the part I want you to get. Verse 13.

Paul says, I preach the gospel to you because of a physical illness.

What kind of physical illness would cause the gospel to be preached?

That's a weird disease, right? I preached it to you because of the illness.

Well, obviously it's not like the illness caused the preaching,

right? It's the circumstances of the illness that caused the preaching. What was it?

I mean, we don't know for sure because he doesn't tell us. They knew.

But something was going on. It could be that he was in a swampy region.

It was mosquito infested and he was getting sicker and sicker.

And he went to a higher altitude place, which Galatia was, in order to recover

from what had happened in the area he was just in.

It could be the other way around. It could be that he got to Galatia and he

had intended on going beyond it.

He was contending on going to other cities and he contracted the illness in

Galatia. And now he's stuck there.

Like I was planning on walking 20 miles tomorrow to the next town and I can't even get out of bed.

And so now he's stuck in Galatia and he didn't intend on being there,

but the sickness caused him to be there for weeks longer than he intended to be there.

But being there weeks longer than he intended to be there meant a bunch of people

heard about Jesus that he didn't intend to tell about Jesus and they formed

a church and received this letter a few months or years later.

Are you following what I'm saying here? So this is really huge because this

is gonna have something to do with you in just a minute.

So this is what I want you to realize. Paul got sick. That sickness caused him

to preach to people that he wasn't going to preach to, but he preached to them

because he was sick and he was there.

That preaching caused those people to become believers in Jesus Christ.

And they formed a church in Galatia, a church that wouldn't exist if Paul didn't get sick.

So months or years later, Paul writes a letter that we call Galatians that's

in every single one of our Bibles.

That letter was written to that church and that letter was only written because

the church existed to receive it.

But it wouldn't have existed if they hadn't become Christians and they wouldn't

become Christians if he got sick.

Are you following the logic here? The book of Galatians is in our Bibles because Paul got sick.

And everything that has come from the book of Galatians over the past 2000 years,

Do you realize the effect that this book has had on people?

I mean, there are people who even nowadays, like in our day and age,

who hear preaching from Galatians or read through the book of Galatians and

they become followers of Jesus Christ.

But those people wouldn't have become followers of Jesus Christ if they hadn't

read it. They wouldn't have read it if it didn't exist.

It wouldn't have existed if the church hadn't received it. The church wouldn't

have received it if they didn't exist. They wouldn't have become a church if

they didn't hear the gospel and they would have never heard the gospel.

If he hadn't got sick. I'm saying there's stuff that's happening in the lives

of people like here in Ocala nowadays, people receiving salvation and coming

to know Jesus and it's connected to an illness somebody got 2000 years ago.

Some incredibly important and eternally good things happened because Paul got sick.

And this is the part I want you to get because this is gonna be very relevant to you.

Paul could not possibly have known that when the symptoms first arrived.

There's no way. He can't see into the future. He's not gonna know that there'll

be people in Ocala, Florida that will get saved because of this linkage of events.

All he knows is one day he wakes up and he's got a fever.

And he goes, this is uncomfortable. I wish it would go away.

And the next day it was worse. And on the third day it was so bad he couldn't get out of bed.

And then the next night he's sitting there and he's got chills all night long,

no matter how many blankets he puts on. And he's like, this is so terrible. I wish it would stop.

And it didn't stop. And he stayed there in Galatians and he told people about

Jesus because sickness didn't stop him. He kept telling people about Jesus, even he was sick.

And I don't know. I just made up those symptoms. I don't know what disease he

had. Maybe he was vomiting.

Maybe he had weird pussy things around his eyes. I don't know what they were.

I'm just saying stuff happened that as it was happening, he would have had to

say, this is terrible. I wish it would stop.

And he would have had no clue what he was going through and how it would affect

the church six months later or the letter of Galatians two years later or your

life 2,000 years later. He could not have known any of that.

He just thought he was having a bad month.

He wouldn't have known that that was part of God's plan leading to the salvation

of people he wouldn't know years down the road.

So my point in bringing all this up is you, you can trust God in the midst of

your suffering because you also don't know the future.

And yet you also serve a faithful God, the same God that Paul served.

You go through rough times and go, God, why are you allowing it?

Who knows? I don't know the answer.

I'm just saying you don't know the answer either. You don't know how it's connected

to something a year from now and a hundred years from now.

And you might go, wow, that's kind of profound. Good job, Mario.

It's cool that you found like the one place in the Bible where something terrible

happened to someone and God used it for good later on.

No, I did not find the one place in the Bible where that happened.

That's a regular pattern in the scripture. This idea that someone is going through

something and it stinks and it's awful and they have no clue what it's connected

to, the good that God is gonna do through it in the future, that's true of the

story of Joseph in the book of Genesis.

It's true of the story of Job. It's true about Ruth. It's true about Jonah.

It's true about Esther. It's true about John the Baptist.

It's true about Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ had a really terrible day. Remember that story?

It changed the world. And all of these people that I just listed,

with the exception of Jesus, suffered while having no clue what God would do

through it in the future.

And so you can trust God in the middle of your adversity because he is faithful

and he knows the future when you do not.

And so if I could summarize what I'm saying here today, this would be it.

Number one, you can rejoice in the Lord and still experience sorrow.

Or you could say it the other way around. You can experience sorrow and still rejoice in the Lord.

Number two, you can praise God in the midst of your hard times.

And sometimes other people will hear you.

I'll hear what you're saying while you're going through the hard time.

And number three, you can trust

God with your suffering because you don't know the future and he does.

Let's pray.

God, thank you for all of this. thank you for your faithfulness,

I ask on behalf of anybody here that it'd be relevant for Lord we ask for your

forgiveness for when we doubt for when we say to you

things like God you don't have a right to do this or why would you do this or

you better tell me why or I don't think there's a good enough reason why I pray

that you would forgive us,

for that,

I pray that you'd help us to rejoice in you, even in the midst of our difficult times,

that we would live like not doomed people live.

And yet I thank you that in the midst of the not doomed, there are difficult

things that happen in this life.

And I thank you that we can grieve and we can mourn and we can experience sadness

and acknowledge it as real.

And thank you for John recording that Jesus wept so we would know that even he did that.

I pray for those of us in this room who are going through suffering right now,

like right in the middle of a difficulty.

Pray that you would help us to worship you in the midst of it before it even

gets better. And I pray that you would do incredible things in the lives of

the people who are listening to us.

And I thank you for being sovereign and I thank you for knowing the future.

And I thank you for being trustworthy.

And I pray that those of us who are going through adversity right now,

that we would trust you, that we would say, I don't know, I have no clue how

this affects six months from now, six years from now, or 600 years from now.

But I trust you, God.

So I pray that that would be how we relate to you and we love you and we thank you for the gospel.

And we thank you for the light at the end of the tunnel and we look forward to your return, Jesus.

Amen. Let me end with these good words from God's word. This is Romans 8, 28.

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God,

those who are called according to his purpose.

That is good news. Thank you.