Skip to main content

What I learnt on Sunday

This last Sunday I had a tremendous opportunity to preach on one Sunday two sermons to two different churches on two separate passages which essentially relates to the same theme : suffering.  In one I dealt with the question 'How Do We Respond to Suffering?' (Psalm 44). In another I asked "How Does God Comfort Us in Suffering?'. (Nahum 1:12-13)

As it so often happens when I preach - I get a new clarity over an issue as I share it - a new 'revelation' so to speak that God wants me to grasp. Usually a truth that has skirted around my mind, but now gets new clarity. On Sunday two particular points really struck me.

1. The sharp difference between Christian and non-Christian suffering. The purpose of Christian suffering stands in sharp contrast to non-Christian suffering. The non-Christian suffering is an outworking of God's wrath on our world and man as told in the Genesis account and Romans. The Christian suffer in Christ and all our suffering is service to God's kingdom in all it's dimensions. This necessarily includes suffering that comes as discipline. This is a huge point!

2. The extent of Christ's suffering on the cross. The  cross not only paid for our sins but also for our suffering too. It says in Isaiah that Jesus bore our afflictions. He was crushed for our infirmities as well not just our sins. This point has never struck me as much before. I wish when I am going through trials I can be reminded by others that Jesus paid for that too! This changes everything - it really does mean that the suffering of this present age are nothing compared to the glory that is too come. It really does mean that our burdens have been lifted at Golgotha!  That is amazing!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I am what I am by Gloria Gaynor

Beverly Knight closed the opening ceremony of the Paralympics with what has been dubbed the signature tune of the Paralympics. I had no idea Ms Knight is still in the singing business. And clearly going by the raving reviews she will continue to be around. One media source says her performance was so electric that "there wasn’t a dry eye to be seen as she sang the lyrics to the song and people even watching at home felt the passion in her words" . The song was Gloria Gaynor's I am what I am . Clearly not written by Gloria Gaynor but certainly musically owned and popularized by her. It opens triumphantly: I am what I am / I am my own special creation / So come take a look / Give me the hook or the ovation / It's my world that I want to have a little pride in / My world and it's not a place I have to hide in / Life's not worth a damn till you can say I am what I am The words “I am what I am” echo over ten times in the song. A bold declaration that she
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →

The Proof of Humility

It is easy to think we humble ourselves before God: humility towards men will be the only sufficient proof that our humility before God is real; that humility has taken up its abode in us; and become our very nature; that we actually, like Christ, have made ourselves of no reputation. When in the presence of God lowliness of heart has become, not a posture we pray to Him, but the very spirit of our life, it will manifest itself in all our bearing towards our brethren. The lesson is one of deep import: the only humility that is really ours is not that which we try to show before God in prayer, but that which we carry with us, and carry out, in our ordinary conduct; the insignificance of daily life are the importance and the tests of eternity, because they prove what really is the spirit that possesses us. It is in our most unguarded moments that we really show and see what we are. To know the humble man, to know how the humble man behaves, you must follow him in the common course of dai
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →

Babylon will fall

From beginning to end the message of the Bible, this revelation of God, is that there is to be an end to the world, and that the end is judgement…There is a day coming when astonished humanity is going to hear this cry: 'Babylon is fallen, is fallen' (Rev 14:8). What is Babylon? It is the world without Christ. It is London without Christ. It is New York without Christ. It is all these modern infernos without Christ. Babylon the great, Babylon is fallen, is fallen. This Babylon which seemed so great and wonderful, with its palaces and its great businesses, transacted with all the kings and the princes, and the great of the earth, who all brought their merchandise to it. They boasted of it. How great, they said, is Babylon. That is the world without Christ. But the day is coming when he will judge it, and this Babylon will fall, it will be crushed to rubble and to nothing. MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (Source: The Cross)
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →