Beacon Sunday Service August 13th 2023

And help right away. Uh Ciclovia takes place next week, August 20th. Um, I believe that the route doesn't really affect most of us, but it may get in your way as you're trying to get to church. So please plan uh your route to church accordingly. Uh and lastly, um, here are offering options. It's Zell, the Beacon Church LA at gmail.com, Venmo at the dash beacon, and obviously we do the traditional cash and check uh with the alpha and basket in the back. If you're not a member of this church, we do not ask or we don't require you to give, but if you're a member, we ask that you continually give diligently as the Lord provides you for you. Uh now um I would like to introduce our speaker for today.

He comes uh through the connection of our brother Pastor Matt Powell, who spoke a month ago. Pastor Kim Kira is the primary teach preaching elder at the Lighthouse Community Church in South Bay, which he helped plant over 20 years ago. SoCal, born and raised, he has an MDV and M A B C from the Masters. He grew up in a Christian home and came to faith early in life. He's married with four children, and we are so blessed and grateful to have him with us today. So let's give him a warm welcome. It's good to be here, good to worship with you. Will you stand with me for the reading of God's word? Our passage comes from Acts chapter 2, verses 23 and 24. This is Peter's sermon. This is what uh he says.

This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pains of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. This is the word of the Lord.

Well, it really is a blessing to be here. Uh a couple of our pastors know you, Pastor Matt, uh, another one who's speaking well of you, and so it's a privilege to be here and to give the opportunity get the opportunity to share God's word. Um, so it really is a grace. I don't I don't take lightly. So thank you for having me. Now, that being said, I feel like I don't want you to get your hopes up. I think sometimes when you like you have a guest speaker, you're thinking, let's hope this goes well. Um I do have a gift to put people to sleep. I was uh preaching at one of the Christian fellowships on a local campus recently, and the lady, like the the young lady right in front of me fell asleep.

And I'm like, we're I mean, it's she's not pretending like, oh, I want to stay awake. It was like she just puts her head down and goes to sleep. And here's the thing, it was like minutes into my sermon. I mean, it was like what kind of said in five minutes that convinced you that it's not worth staying awake for. So um, I'm not so I'm not gonna try to impress you this morning. I'll like if I keep you awake more than five minutes, then I've done my job. So um, but it is a blessing to be here, grateful for my time with your church family. So let's jump into this. Now, we're going to look at a sermon by the Apostle Peter in which he discusses the death and resurrection of Christ. And yet understand this is not simply so that we can look at the the truth that get us into heaven, but because we need to recognize the gospel speaks not only to eternal life, but to everyday life.

And in particular, this picture of death and resurrection is really at the heart of the Christian life. Because on one hand, we we feel the weightiness of living in a world that is filled with sin and suffering, but on the other hand, we have Christ, who the one who helps and saves, the one who transforms, the one who offers hope and joy. So, as Christians, we live in the tension between death and resurrection, between sin and salvation, between heartache and hope, between suffering and glory. In fact, I chose this topic because I don't know any of you, um, and yet I know it's relevant because all of us are intimately acquainted with the difficulties of life. Maybe you even feel that right now.

On one hand, Sunday is not only supposed to be a day of rest, but really the most special day of the week, and yet maybe it feels like just a brief respite from the struggles of life. Maybe as you go to work tomorrow, you'll be hammered by another deadline, or you have to work with people that are difficult to get along with. Maybe finances are tight. Maybe your job search seems never ending. Maybe parenting is really hard, at the very least, tiring right now. I'm guessing your your leadership is kind of feeling the pressure of finding a new pastor, and that can be daunting and at times discouraging. My parents' church, they've been in a search for years for a senior pastor. And so I kind of know a bit of that feeling.

So you'll enjoy this morning, but it's only a brief break from what seems like your reality. Or maybe things are much worse than that. So difficult that there's a lot of dissonance going on inside of you right now. In the fall, I was at a marathon, obviously not running. Uh, but I was watching my wife, she was running, some members of our church. So I'm near the finish line. And needless to say, by that time, people are exhausted. They look so unhappy, right? It's a good argument, right? Not to do marathon. And in the middle of the course, there was this professional photographer, and he's he's taking pictures that I guess people could purchase later. And so you have these people, and then they they look like they want to beat up whoever convinced them to run this, and the minute they see the camera, what do they do?

They smile, you know, it's like this, and you know, they and then the minute they get past the camera, again, they look like they just did the most unfun thing in the world. And some of you feel that way when you come to church. You smile and you sing, but it's not what's really going on in your heart because you're in such pain. And seemingly no Sunday morning service is going to change the hurt that you feel. You uh maybe the marriage seems a bit cold, or you have an ongoing health problem that makes every week, maybe even every day, seem somewhat unbearable. Maybe it's that broken relationship that hurts to the core. Maybe it's some great loss, some pain, some manner of brokenness, some sense of hopelessness.

So it seems less that that this morning feels like a break, and more that it almost feels like a fake, right? Church is kind of the glassy facade of the Christian life. Outwardly you worship, and inwardly you feel miserable. Maybe you're even asking, though likely not out loud, what is there really to rejoice in? Like, where is God when I need him? Why won't he answer my prayers? Well, this morning I want us to think about the gospel and consider, like I said, what it means to both eternal life and everyday life. And through that, I'm hoping we see how it makes sense of the tension that we as Christians live in, being intimately acquainted with suffering and yet still knowing a Savior. What it means to experience heartbreak and hope.

And to do this, we're going to consider the life and teachings of the Apostle Peter. Now, Peter's one of Jesus' closest uh followers, some say the leader of the disciples. He was with Jesus uh throughout his earthly ministry, and during that time, Peter would be a man who was intimately uh acquainted with failure and loss, suffering and sin, and yet he becomes a man of great hope, who's used uniquely by God to help start the church as we know it. In fact, the the passage we're gonna look at is just a brief snippet from a sermon that Peter gave not too long after the death and resurrection of Christ, which led three thousand people to faith in Jesus. I mean, can you even imagine that? Now it's a bit of context because we're just right in the middle of this sermon.

In part, Peter is explaining why there was this significant outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He's making sense of why these these amazing things are happening. Basically, his argument is this do you want to know why our world has been turned on end? It's because Jesus has come. And in his death and resurrection, nothing will ever be the same. In fact, if you look at Peter's sermons throughout the Acts, they follow that similar pattern where he's trying to explain why Jesus makes sense of all that's really going on in their world. Let me read those two ver uh those few verses again. I read them earlier, but I think it's good to set up our time. Uh Jesus says, Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst as you yourselves know.

This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. It's only a few verses, but what I want us to see is how uh why the worst day in the world ended up being the best day, and why, in light of that, our hard days can be hopeful days. Okay, and that kind of gives us our key idea. That the gospel of Jesus allows our hard days to be hopeful days. So, first, let's look at why the worst day was the best day. What are those moments that bring you joy? So I think I'm I'm further along than just about everyone in this room in season life.

So I have I have four kids. My oldest is going to be a sophomore in college, second's gonna be a freshman in college, third is gonna be a junior in high school, and our fourth is gonna be uh seventh grader. Okay, so um but over winter break, my oldest son came back from college. Um we took him to eat ramen. He he loves that. It's like an idolatrous love, it's not just like he enjoys it. And after months of dorm food, it's hard to describe the level of joy on his face. Like it's I I would describe it like this. Imagine the joy of a young lady who's just been proposed to, right? And then simultaneously she hears that her unsaved grandmother became a Christian, and she's not as happy as my son looked in that moment.

And that's how how much he loves it. Okay, so I'm not I'm not joking. You gotta eat with him. Now, obviously, these are great moments, right? Maybe even right now you can look back, look to the past week and think, oh man, that was so special. You know, my my kid took their first first step, or I got that promotion, or someone encouraged me. But life isn't just made up those moments. We all experienced good days, but all of us experience bad days. So the question is why do we have bad days? And likely, as you know, it's because we live in a world devastated by sin. Remember that God created the world and people in particular, everything was perfect. To use the term paradise would not be an exaggeration, but humanity failed God, and with the introduction of sin and the curse, the whole world was ruined.

Now, at the greatest level, it led to the greatest problem that we were eternally separated from God and waiting for his just judgment. Sin means, after all, that we have broken God's law, we deserve punishment. And it should be sobering that that one day will be the day, the day when we stand before God and answer for our lives. But it isn't just about the day, it's also about every day, and specifically why we have bad days. Because sin is not just the wrong things that we do or are done to us, but the disease that corrupts and infects everything. Right? All of creation has been poisoned by sin. Sin is the root of every bad day. That's why there's ongoing challenging home situations, financial difficulties, the pain of of loneliness, strained relationships with a loved one, athletic or academic, or uh uh occupational failure.

Why there's divorce, chronic pain, broken friendships, the ruin of cancer, infertility, disability, natural disasters, school shootings, losing a family member, all of it. Now, this being the case, where do we find hope in our bad days? Because you might think, well, the answer is in a good days. In other words, it seems like the cure to a bad day would be a better day. That's what most of us long for. Right? If you've had a really bad day, what do you want? You want the next day to be a better day. But actually, our hope for our bad days is found in the worst day. In fact, what we really needed was the absolute worst day imaginable. So let me explain. And we're going to really think about this because we need to understand just how bad the worst day was.

Okay, so we have the sin problem, but God did not abandon humanity. Right after sin entered the world, God promised a savior that would come and make things right. And then he established the nation of Israel and said that from this nation would come the rescuer who would save them. So realize that for all of their history, Israel had been waiting for a savior. They called him the Messiah. You likely, you know, you've heard that term, it means the anointed one, the New Testament term is the Christ. And they looked for this Messiah, this Christ. They they hoped for him. They hoped they hoped in him. They longed for the one who would save them. And truly they needed saving because though Israel had moments of greatness, their history was one of deep moral failure.

The nation often spiraling into rebellion and idolatry. Imagine century after century of uh of sin and self-inflicted suffering. And through all this, people waited for the Messiah. They hoped in God's promise of a forever king who would come and make things right and rule in love and righteousness. So almost try to picture it. Imagine generation after generation of Jew passing along to their children the hope of the Messiah, a prophet, a miracle worker, a savior. Can you picture Peter's mother and father putting him to bed at night and telling them, hey, one day the Messiah will come and he'll save us. Maybe that was the prayers by their bedside. They pleaded with the Lord to send the anointed one.

Then Jesus enters the story. And he could not have come at a more needed time. Israel's in a really bad place, suffering in so many ways as they lived under the oppression of Rome. And into this, Jesus does what no one had done before. Right? He would teach with an authority that none had ever heard. It's like he's speaking for God Himself. He was living righteously, perfectly, really, right? Always merciful, always loving. Imagine being with someone whose love is just so unique that you can't help but notice. He challenges the religious establishment and their hypocrisy. And beyond all this, there were the miracles. Giving the blind sight, making lame walk, casting out demons, calming storm stormy seas, feeding thousands miraculously.

And what this all did was make people believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the long-waited king. And this belief began to build as Jesus' reputation spreads.

Is he the Christ of God? Will he free us from Rome? Will he bring economic prosperity? Then just prior to his appointment with the cross, Jesus performs perhaps his greatest miracle, raising Lazarus after he'd been dead for four years. And this sends the nation into overdrive, right? The religious leaders want him dead. After all, he's taking away their people. But for many, they believed Jesus to be the long promised king of Israel. And here's the thing Peter got to see all of it. Again, he was part of Jesus' inner circle, meaning that no one was close, a closer witness to a life, and no one was a closer friend. He saw the miracles, he even performed some on Christ's behalf. He heard him teach, he felt his compassion and mercy, he knew his love.

And so Peter believed, as did so many, that Jesus was the Messiah, that the Christ of God. In fact, just previous to Jesus entering into Jerusalem and his date with the cross, Jesus asked Peter who he thinks he is, and Peter says famously, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. That's why in our passage, at the very beginning of verse 22, Peter says this.

You saw the miracles, you saw the signs and the wonders. And that was God telling you that he is the Christ. He was the one that you were meant to worship and trust, the one you're meant to live for and love. So try to picture what this all meant to Peter. He had given up everything to follow Jesus. He left it all behind, but it seemed worth it because this prophet, this miracle worker was the one that Israel had been waiting for. I mean, he Peter didn't just believe that Jesus was the Messiah of God, but he was God Himself. And understand if you believe that, your whole world is different, right? If you believe that you're in the very presence of God and that he loves you, and that he came to save you, your world is turned on end.

Try to picture the hope and the excitement and the joy. So take that in. Imagine wanting something for your whole life, and it showed up and it's infinitely better than you expected. Or imagine believing something could just make your life right, and it's right there in front of you. Imagine you had the greatest source of hope, something you believe would change your life forever. I mean, how happy would you be? What how joyful would you feel? What kind of hope would you experience? I mean, imagine believing very soon, like everything's gonna be okay. Like no matter everything's gonna be right. And this is why when Jesus tries to warn the disciples that that that what is to come, that he's gonna die, that Peter can't believe it.

And this belief is not held when Jesus and his disciples enter Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and the city is shaking. I mean, the people were praising him, declaring him the king of Israel. And you can imagine Peter just walking alongside of Jesus as they do this, Peter's people screaming, even worshiping Christ. That's what makes the next line in Peter's sermon so shocking. It says, Remember he's so remember, he said he said you knew he's the Christ. Verse 23, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. So Jesus was tortured, nailed on a cross, and left to die. It was not only the worst day in Peter's life, quite simply, it was the worst day in the history of men.

On one hand, no one was less deserving of death, right? Purely innocent, never doing anything wrong, perfect in love, always doing everything right. I mean, God himself. But not only that, but he was the one who was supposed to save them and to rescue them. And so you can imagine that with his death, so many hopes and dreams died as well. I mean, picture Peter watching Jesus hanging on the cross, struggling for every breath. Right? Uh maybe he held out a little hope. After all, Peter had seen Christ do all these miracles. He knew that he was powerful, even the very Son of God. And so maybe Peter stands hiding among the crowd, hoping beyond hope that Jesus would do one more miracle. He would bring himself down on the cross, and then he would lay ruin to the lawless men who were murdering him.

But then Jesus breathes his last breath, and nothing prepared Peter for that moment. Dreams shattered, hopes lost, faith ruined, future in peril. Some of you have experienced suffering that was life-changing. You got that awful medical diagnosis. You're you're, you know, some of you know seeing a brother or sister prodigal and walking away from Christ. Right? You you you know news you've had news that you can't have children, you've lost your job, the phone call that someone that you've loved has died. I remember walking into the hospital room when my they were trying to bring my father back to life and watching them and then realizing at some point that he was gone. And yet nothing was quite like what happened on that day, what Peter experienced.

You can almost imagine him having trouble breathing, like he didn't know what to do next. After all, he don't he'd given up everything. And not only that, but Peter had denied Jesus, not wanting to be arrested and even crucified as well. And so Peter, who had said that Jesus was the Messiah, that he would die for him, was now alone to deal with his own failures and the seeming failure of the one he had absolute faith in. So why belabor all this? Because we need to really understand just how bad that day was, that there was nothing like it. Like you've never had a day like that day. Nothing you're going through right now was as was as horrible as that. And the reason we need to get that is because it means, as we'll look at the next point, that if God can use this situation to do something good, then quite simply there is no circumstance in your life for the life of this church that God cannot use for good.

First then, let's let's look at how God could use the death of Jesus for good. So remember, the reason that the disciples abandoned Christ is they saw no reason to follow a dead man. Right? But there was a purpose in this, and Jesus' story was not over. Peter continues, verse 23. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. Now that last line begs the question, why was it not possible for death to hold on to Jesus? After all, it had held on to everyone else. Think about it. I read there's an estimated over the course of time, 117 billion people have lived on our planet.

Not sure who counted, but death has a perfect record. And no one lives forever. He's 117 billion to zero. He is the reigning champion. So how can Jesus escape this? In fact, why does it say it was not possible for death to hold on to Jesus? Well, to understand that we have to remember what was really happening in the death of Jesus. Remember, I said that we are sinners destined to die, deserving hell. What was there to do? Well, if we're going to go free, and yet justice to still be served, the only way that could happen is if someone took our place. But if someone took the punishment we deserved, if someone suffered hell for us, that way justice would still be served, but we could be forgiven.

And that's what Jesus was doing on the cross.

The righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. So on the cross, Jesus wasn't just suffering a physical death. That was just a small part of it. No, he was suffering the very wrath of God for all who have put their faith in him. Meaning that God treated Jesus like he lived my life with all its sin and ugliness and punished him for it, so that I can be treated like I've lived Jesus' perfect life with all its love and mercy. Jesus was treated like a sinner, so I could be treated like a son. He suffered hell, so one day I would know heaven. It was the worst day, and it was the best day. And this explains why death could not hold on to Jesus, because he accomplished victory over sin and death.

It was impossible for death to hold Jesus because death had lost his power. The resurrection of Christ being proof that he won over every darkness. So do you kind of see why the worst day was the best day? Jesus, the Son of God, was murdered so that we might forever live. He suffered so that one day we will never suffer again. The worst day and the best day. If you're a believer, you know these truths and believe these trees. But if you're if you aren't a Christian, maybe someone invited you, maybe you know, you're what uh you're here just investigating the claims of Christ. Um, I hope you realize that you need Jesus, right? Because you could look all you want to the world to provide you with some measure of happiness or joy, but but just know, as Augustine points out, our hearts will always be restless until they rest in Christ.

So this is what I hope for you. I hope today is your worst day, and I hope it's your best day. I hope it's your worst day in that maybe for the first time you realize that you're a sinner before a holy God, and there's absolutely nothing that you can do about it on your own. But I also hope it's your best day, because you're willing to put your faith in Jesus and know forgiveness and eternal life. Alright, we need to move on. So we see that the gospel means what the gospel means for eternal life, but what does it mean for everyday life? And that's point number two here. Let's look at why our hard days can be hopeful days. When things are difficult, where do you turn for answers? Sorry. My guess is Google, um, I think most of us, right?

If you got like a medical diagnosis, what's the first thing you're gonna do? You're gonna go to Google. I found in a little while that the Google that Google even has answers the Bible doesn't tell us. My son had a project on Zacchaeus for school, right? So we're we're you know, I I can't help him with a lot, like math and all that, but I can help him with this. So we're looking at the pastor together, and he asks, you know, he was in elementary school at the time, how tall was he? And I said, Well, I don't know, the Bible doesn't tell us. And he said, Well, you'd expect he said what you'd expect from a kid of his generation. He said, I'll Google it. I'm like, you can't Google it, right? There's we don't know.

The Bible doesn't say. And then he says, Google says he's 4'10. So I'm like, I don't I don't know if that's canon, but again, when we have difficulties, we we try to solve the problem. We literally Google it. But let's look at what it means to turn to God. Now, forgiveness was all there was in the gospel. We would have enough to praise God for eternity. We deserve hell, we're given heaven. I could say amen. We could end a sermon, some of you wish I would. But the gospel does more than that. Because the fact that the worst day was the best day means that our hard days can be hopeful days. Why, like I mentioned, if God can use the greatest tragedy in human history to bring about the greatest blessing in human history, then shouldn't we trust that he can use the sufferings of our life to accomplish a greater good?

I mean, think about some difficulty that you're going through. I don't know you again. Maybe it's something very significant. Maybe it's just the day-to-day life. It's I gotta change diapers in the middle of the night, whatever it is, think about what's going on, and then ask the question can God use that for good? I mean, what is beyond his wisdom? What escapes his power? What eludes his love? I know all of you have experienced suffering. Some of you are in the throes of it right now. But do you really think through that idea that all is not lost? That even now God is doing far more than you can possibly imagine. This is why Peter was so transformed, and why in his first letter he wrote so powerfully about the hope that we have in suffering.

We're about to finish up the letter of 1 Peter at our church. And in 1 Peter 1, 6 through 7, Peter writes this. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, the perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. In the gospel of Christ, we in the gospel of Christ, Peter believed in what the powerful work in the powerful work that God could do, even in the refiner's fire. In other words, Peter had experienced the worst day and the best day, and so he knew that our hard days could be hopeful days.

And Peter was never the same. In fact, church history tells us that Peter too was crucified. And yet listen to his words later in that first epistle. 1 Peter 3 14. Peter writes, But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear, nor be troubled. For Peter again, because he understood the worst day was also the best day, that his hard days were hopeful days, and that's why Peter's life was so powerfully changed, and the same should be true for us. And so let me offer you two things to remember as you try to have faith that God is loving you even through the sufferings of life. We could call them two fuels for our hope. But first, it's God's knowing sovereignty and God's loving story.

His knowing sovereignty and his loving story. So first, as we journey through the joys and sorrows of life, we must remember God's knowing sovereignty. The idea of God is sovereignty means that he has planned life, ours in particular, according to his will. In verse 23 of our passage, Peter says this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. It's kind of a shocking statement that Jesus' death was God's plan all along. This wasn't about God seeing some wrong and trying to fix it. From the beginning of time, God had a plan to bring about salvation. So understand, God has absolute power to accomplish exactly what he tends. We could look all over the Bible for this.

We could look at creation for the limitless power of God. But in our passage, it's probably one of the greatest evidences. God holds life and death in his hand. Verse 24. It was not possible for death to hold him. Meaning that Christ is so powerful that death becomes impotent. Death loses its strength, its steam. And the idea being that if God can overcome death itself, should we doubt his ability to do anything else? I mean, can you imagine? I mean, God does what he wills. There's nothing outside his purview. There's no suffering so large that he's handicapped by it. There's no tragedy beyond his control. And importantly, his sovereignty wasn't just accomplished by his limitless power, but guided by his infinite wisdom and knowledge.

Again, look at our passage. This was according to the definite plan and the foreknowledge of God. In other words, God's sovereignty was guided by perfect knowledge. Right? God is never surprised. He has never reacted to something that was unexpected ever. He moves and acts with perfect wisdom. And so again, slow down and consider that for a moment. As one of God's children, he orchestrates your life perfectly. By that I don't mean without difficulty or suffering, but perfectly for you. Perfectly to accomplish what he needs to in your life, both circumstantially and spiritually. The same is true for this church. Right? God is doing exactly what he intends for Beacon LA. He's not surprised. He's never caught off guard.

Every moment in the life of this church has been orchestrated by our sovereign God. That brings us to the second idea. It's not just his knowing sovereignty, but his loving story. So understand, though God is powerful, he doesn't then plan our lives merely as an indifferent tyrant. In other words, if God used his power and wisdom in a way that was indifferent to who we are, then we're without hope. But that's not our God. And so we kind of, even as we read this as Peter's story, it really is our story as well, because it's the gospel story. And it's a story that shows us God's love for us. In verse 23, it tells us that God delivered up Christ. The word here delivered is only used here in Scripture, but the same idea is used and connected elsewhere in Scripture with the idea of love.

John 3 16 would be the most famous, where God so loved the world that he gave his only son. 1 John 4 9. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that he sent his only son. Right? The sending of Jesus to die for us is the greatest act of love the world has ever seen. And here's the point. We shouldn't consider the gospel from a distance and simply thank God and thank God for his power and his sovereignty. No, it's it's our story, and it's the greatest act of love the universe has ever known, and it was on our behalf. Right? He's powerful for us. He's strong for us. And understand that it's more than God has a fond affection for us. The gospel says more as Romans 832 points out if God loved us enough to sacrifice his son that we should believe with the deepest of conviction that God will always and forever act in love towards us.

So backing up to the big picture as we combine God's sovereignty and love, what does this mean? That God has orchestrated our lives with all their difficulties for our good. Even suffering has a purpose like nothing is lost in God's economy. There's meaning to it all and that's brothers and sisters is why hard our hard days are really hopeful days. Now we won't understand everything that he is accomplishing but one thing is certain is that God uses suffering to make us more like Christ and that's the greatest treasure we could ask for because that means that he's making us more like the person with the greatest hope the greatest courage the greatest conviction the greatest love the greatest trust the greatest mercy really the greatest peace and joy so consider that for a moment if you're suffering and all of you are in some way understand though there are thousands of things you don't realize that God is accomplishing you will know one day on the other side of eternity but one sure one is this he's making you more like Christ in the best possible way he's doing a good work in you that he might do a good work through you.

Now with that in place let me offer you two simple application points before we close first be humble with God's plan. In other words be careful how you try to make sense of life because life won't always make sense one of the greatest stumbling blocks to believing that our hard days can be hopeful days is that we just can't picture any good coming from our suffering at least not a good that's worth it doesn't seem possible that that some evil or suffering in your life can possibly end up for our betterment and chronic pain or aging or loss or singleness or brokenness or not having a pastor how can that be for my good but we have to be humble and believe that just because we don't understand God's plan doesn't mean it isn't good or right mainly because he's infinitely wiser than all of us we do a lot of counseling at our church and one of the things I've often discussed with those that I counsel is this when Jesus was crucified no one thought it was a good idea.

They could not fathom the idea of a murdered Christ they saw no purpose in the Messiah of God hanging lifeless from a cross they only understood it as the worst day because they couldn't possibly fathom it as the best day meaning that that it's possible that God has a greater and a better purpose than we are than we're even able to imagine. And practically then we must believe that if the worst day can be the best day then our hard days can be hopeful days. And we have to be humble enough to say I don't understand what God is doing but I believe it's loving and I believe it's for my good some of you are hurting ways that I I can't even fathom and if not now you will at some point you'll lie awake at night you'll feel like you have a you have very little time with your thoughts before suffering intrudes again.

You'll struggle every single day and to be honest you won't know what God is always doing. But understand this your lack of knowledge is not what determines if what is happening in your life is good or bad. Because Romans 8 tells us for Christians God works all things for the good application then is just to be hopeful in God's love hard things can be hopeful things because of God's love. And we we've already discussed this but it bears repeating because the that God is constantly loving us. After all scripture tells us that absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of Christ meaning that even through suffering, God is loving us. And I understand when I say that, it's not enough to think God will show me love when I suffer.

We have to realize that he doesn't just love us in our sufferings, but he actually loves us through them. Because if God's love is as relentless and powerful as scripture says, then nothing passes into our life that that hasn't first passed through the filter of his love. Does that make sense? Whatever's happening has to be an act of love. Theologically, there's no way around it. Charles Spurgeon says it much better than me, but he says, remember this. Had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there. So this may be hard to hear that God uses suffering. But if we see it within the context of God's love, then suffering can take almost a dark beauty that will that will one day shine brightly in us and through us.

And with that, I don't want to simplify it. Like some of you might be suffering so severely that I wouldn't even be able to understand it. But at the same time, we have to see suffering within the context of God's sovereignty, sovereign love. Because then we can believe that he'll use trials to accomplish what is best for us by whatever means necessary. Remember this the point of suffering isn't to better understand your suffering, it's to better understand your Savior. Because when you understand him, regardless of what suffering comes your way, you'll be you'll move forward with faith and joy, knowing God is at work in your life. And so the encouragement then is to draw near to God. And for me, I don't simply preach preach this for you.

Like, you know, like I've I figured life out. I hope you guys really get this. The reality that my hard days can be hopeful days because of God's love has been one of the single most impactful truths I cling to in the difficulties of life. As I realize that God's love is more than fond affection, rather he's constantly actively seeking my good, even through suffering, it changes how I see everything. Like I'm constantly reminding myself, not just that God has this general fuzzy fond affection for me, but in that moment, that's exact what with exactly what is happening. That is God loving me. Does that make sense? So imagine as a pastor, I'm criticized by someone, or I'm gonna have to have a really tough ministry conversation.

What do I remind myself about? Not that God's gonna love me during that. I tell myself, Lord, this is you loving me. I need, I needed to hear that. Right? You must be doing something. You must, you're you're being kind, you're rescuing me from myself. You're showing yourself to be trustworthy, you're revealing my sin, you're encouraging my faith. And if there were ever better for me not to be criticized, then I wouldn't have been. But because I was, then I can trust that this was your loving loving plan for me. So thank you for loving me. I that sounds I'm all praying that all the time. Like, Lord, this is you loving me. And it's all of life. If I'm lying in bed at night because I'm worried about one of my kids, or my wife and I have had a disagreement, or I suffer another setback in my health, or I make a decision that doesn't turn out well, or I feel the weightiness of ministry.

It's in those moments I need to hold on to something much greater than the world's cliches or my own strength or hopes for better circumstances. By faith, I need to cling to the love of Christ, believing that he's kindly allowing what he is because he wants more for me than I will ever want for myself. Because when I do that, then I can look beyond my suffering and beyond my circumstances to see the love of my Savior, and everything is different. I love the way Paul Tripp writes about it in his devotional new morning mercies, and I'll close with this. And this was kind of what inspired me to think through this sermon. But he writes, the cross is evidence that in the hands of the Redeemer, moments of apparent defeat become wonderful moments of grace and victory.

In God's righteous and wise plan, this dark and disastrous moment was ordained to be the moment that would fix all dark and disastrous things that sin has done to the world. The very worst thing that could happen was at the very same time, the very best thing that could happen. Only God is able to do such a thing. The same God who planned that the worst thing would be your best thing is your life and makes them tools of redemption. He takes your failures and employs it as a tool of grace. He uses the death of the fallen world to motivate you to reach out for life. The hardest things in your life become the sweetest tools of grace in his wise and loving hands. Will you pray with me? Dealing Father, we thank you for your grace and for your mercy and for the men and women here, but I know that all of them have experienced suffering.

Some of them will enter significant uh seasons of suffering. And yet, Lord, I really pray that the gospel would remind them that if the worst day can be the best day, then their hard days can be hopeful days. Help them to believe and trust that whether it's the mundane difficulties of taking care of little children or the significant difficulties of loss and brokenness, then all of it can be used by you for their good and for your glory.