Sharing Your Faith In Spite Of Opposition Series

he honored God the whole way,

but his life had more suffering

than any ten of us in this room put together.

Now, when you and I face hardship,

most of us have a problem-solving mentality.

We want to immediately fix the problem

and eliminate the source of the hardship.

And I’m not saying that’s wrong,

I’m not saying we shouldn’t deal with problems,

But what I am saying is this:

A lot of the time when hardship comes into

your life or my life,

God’s priority for us

is not to fix the problem

but to learn something from the situation.

Let me give you some examples.

If you're struggling in your marriage

you may think,

My spouse is causing me problems and hardship.

I need to fix my spouse.

Now, I don’t know if any of you have tried

fixing your spouse.

but it doesn’t work.

If you want proof you can ask my wife,

after 27 years I’m still broken.

So you’ve got a choice,

You can say,

“Well, I’m going to avoid hardship

by trying to fix my spouse,

or you can say,

I’m going to endure hardship by loving my spouse,

whether or not they ever get fixed

whether or not the hardship ever goes away,

Why would I do that?

Because I know that God wants me to learn something

and grow through this suffering,

so I’m asking God

how can I learn?

How can I grow?

How can I become more like Jesus,

rather than always asking

How can I fix that other person.

Another example.

Parents have kids.

but the kids are always the wrong kids.

Have you ever noticed that?

The right kids that I deserve,

would be well-behaved little angels.

But I somehow got the wrong kids,

because my kids do things like

swim in the toilet,

and paint the dog.

They do everything they’re not supposed to do,

There’s obviously something wrong with my kids.

They’re giving me hardship.

So I need to fix the kids.

They must need medication.

Well, not so fast:

maybe God is trying to have the parents

learn things like

love, endurance, patience, faithfulness, prayer.

If we’re always focused on fixing our problems,

and avoiding any hardship or suffering,

and fixing the people around us,

we’re going to miss a lot of what God wants us to learn.

Now when Paul talks about suffering here,

he uses 3 pictures

of people who endure hardship or suffering.

The first example is a soldier

in verses 3-4,

Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs; rather, they try to please their commanding officer.

Why a soldier?

Because soldiers sacrifice,

They give up their freedom for a time,

they aren’t free to come and go like others are,

they risk their lives,

they willingly suffer so that others don’t have to,

they’re examples of sacrifice.

What Paul is saying is this.

Think about life as a war.

You’re a soldier, and you have an enemy.

Now, some of you would say,

well I don’t have any enemies.

Actually, you do.

You have Satan as an enemy,

and you have demons.

You may also have a few people that don’t like you, right?