Title: Suffering for Glory / Romans 8:17-18
Contents
Suffering for Glory / Romans 8:17-18
Passion Week is a time to reflect on the sufferings of Christ.
We don't always think about suffering.
And we don't always carry the burden of suffering.
However, suffering is something that everyone has, and the meaning of suffering is so heavy that suffering should be meditated on.
When adversity comes before me, it becomes a very heavy burden. So suffering needs to be meditated on before it comes as a burden.
There is no word in this world that better describes suffering than the cross of Jesus Christ.
There is no life that overcomes suffering as well as a Christian who meditates on the sufferings of Christ on the cross. We like to change the name of any kind of suffering to the word 'Cross'. And I pray.
'Lord, help me to bear this cross well!'
The cross of the Lord was not for himself.
It is thoroughly the suffering of atonement.
In fact, all the hardships we face are labeled 'the cross' and are not worthy of consolation. Because most of it is our own.
However, when the sufferings of the cross are meditated on, you will see that my sufferings turn into small things.
I read the expression 'there are four classes in the school of hardship'.
In the first class, you learn to say, "I must endure tribulation."
It is an attitude of resignation while grumbling in the face of unavoidable hardship.
In the second class, you learn to say, "I will endure."
It is difficult and difficult, but it is the development of an accepting attitude to bear it.
In the third class, you learn to say, "I can endure hardship."
This is the attitude that suffering is accepted as training.
In the fourth class, you learn to say, "I need to suffer."
Here, it is an attitude that is recognized as the value of seeing glory after suffering.
Can you say 'I need to suffer' about 'hardship'!
You cannot value suffering unless you think about the glory that will be given after suffering.
Before the cross, Jesus said, "The hour has come when we will receive the glory of the Son of Man" (John 11:23). It is a preview of the glory after suffering.
The difference between having faith and not having faith is whether you can see this glory or not.
Why is suffering a problem for us?
Because we do not see that glory is the result of suffering.
For Christians, suffering is but a reserved suffering for glory.
We have a clear honor.
It is the glory that the Lord received by dying on the cross, and it is the glory that we also enjoyed. The verse we read today calls it “the glory of the heir.”
To put it simply, it is the glory of the heir.
“If children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.”
Jesus suffered and died on the cross for the kingdom and glory that God the Father worshiped for us.
No glory we hope for should be more important than this glory.
Any suffering we face should not be considered without the glory of this heavenly kingdom.
This is the root of the suffering we must taste.
In John 15:19, this is how the suffering of Christians in the world is expressed.
“If you were of the world, the world would love its own, but you
Since you are not of my own, but I have chosen you out of the world, the world
hate you"
Today, I hope you will meditate on suffering in the wide world.
There are big and small difficulties in the world we live as if we are playing with oxen, and we often struggle, sigh, and suffer. The failures and sufferings we experience in the world are to be understood as small sufferings from Satan, the ruler of the world, only because we belong to the kingdom of God and not to the world. Christian suffering in a broad sense feels so erased from us now. Therefore, it is too difficult to explain the meaning of true suffering, and the range of grace to receive from it has become too narrow.
Just as a fisherman's skill is demonstrated in the stormy sea, as a general's courage is tested on a fierce battlefield,
Today's verse describes suffering as
“We must suffer with him, so that we may be glorified with him.”
It speaks of the necessity of suffering as a Christian.
The reason is the glory to be enjoyed with him.
The Apostle Paul also expressed it as 'the remnant sufferings of Christ'.
When you look at great Christians, they often seem to enjoy suffering.
They endure persecution alone, go down the road of death, and dig into the valley of loneliness where there is only one person.
There is Mrs. Christina Forsythe, who lived and died (1920) as a Scottish missionary while evangelizing the Punggo people of South Africa. She lived for 30 years as the only white woman in an African village. That's why she was called 'the loneliest woman in the world'. During the conversation, a man asked her.
“How did you live a lonely and difficult life?”
Then she answered very seriously.
"I'm never lonely"
Not all Christians live the same way. They do not live on the same land.
There are two countries in this world.
One is the city of the sinful world, and the other is the city of God.
Those who live in a sinful world interpret and live in that city only, the meaning of happiness, joy, sorrow, and suffering. However, those who live in the city of God are those who see the glory of the eternal kingdom of heaven, fight even in stormy times, and enjoy and rest in calm times. The world shouldn't be your comparison. Because they are from another country. The object of my comparison must be God's people living in God's city.
We do not ask you to find the path of suffering on your own.
It is a path that special people find.
However, there are hardships that come from living as a Christian.
You have to bear that hardship. Because it is the suffering the Lord has given you.
If I can't afford it, the Lord will not be able to give me the glory that He will give me in this world.
Don't let hardships become stressful.
Please remember that the sufferings the Lord gives are blessings in disguise that you must endure silently.
“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us.”
Suffering is a value that needs to be calculated.
The word 'thinking about' means 'thinking about it'.
Going through the narrow gate through the narrow gate is the path for those who can calculate it.
All others go through the wide gate and the broad way, but those who do these spiritual calculations go through the narrow way. Because we see the glory of the future.
I think God is making one request of us Christians now.
To give up glory in this world.
No matter how well you study or excel in your skills, our society has reached the limit of being successful in any profession. Its position is already occupied, and even breaking through is limited to very few people. Rather than going together in that fierce battlefield, we have to go along the narrow path as the Word says. Focusing on future glory, living in the present is a Christlike narrow path. Otherwise, we cannot live because of the mental pressure.
The Lord's life was a life of serving people all his life.
He lived as a counselor, healer, and preacher.
Even though the fruit didn't seem big, I bought it that way.
Then, as planned, he walked the way of the cross and died.
Use your skills to the best of your ability.
So when you decide which way to go, you have to go on the narrow road from that point on.
If necessary, you must go through hardships and sacrifices.
Glory is proportional to the labor of suffering.
And suffering is a judgment of character.
This is because the meaning of suffering varies according to a person's personality.
Why would that person suffer like that? We may think that, but the ability to bear the pain lies in the person's personality, so we cannot easily judge it.