Avoiding the dark can hurt you bad.

Steve Brown:
Avoiding the dark can hurt you bad. Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Key Life exists to communicate that the deepest message of Jesus and the Bible is the radical grace of God to sinners and sufferers. Because life’s hard for everyone, grace is for all of us. Our host is seminary professor and author, Steve Brown.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hope you guys had a great week-end. As I always say, I hope your pastor’s sermon was as good as my pastor’s sermon. If you’re just joining us, we’re in the middle, well, we’re kind of moving toward the end of our study in the Book of Philippians. Paul’s favorite church, if he had his letter in any church, it would be at the church at Philippi. They had stood with him in his persecution. They had spoken good of him when others were speaking evil. They had been his friend when others wouldn’t be his friends. And he loves the people at Philippi. The text we’re looking at, and we’re continuing to look at it. And if you’ve been listening, you’re aware of that, is Philippians 3:7-11. Let’s pray and then I’ll read the text and we’ll dig in to the litany of lies. Father, as we come into your presence, we come rejoicing. Not because we’re so good and you’re going to say good and faithful servant. We come rejoicing because we’re forgiven, because we’re loved without condition, because you’ll never leave us alone in the dark. Father, we praise you, and we worship you. If you had not sent your Son, if you had not loved us, if you had not found us, if you had not promised to get us home before the dark, you’re still God. Sovereign, Creator, Ruler, and Sustainer of everything, and worthy of our worship. Father, you know everyone who’s listening. You know the hard places and the soft places. Remind us that you’re sovereign over both. And as always, Father, we pray for the one who teaches, forgive him his sins, because there are many, we would see Jesus and him only. And we pray in Jesus’ Name. Amen. This is Philippians 3:7 through 11.

But whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, become like him in his death, and so somehow to attain the resurrection from the dead.

Now, if you’ve been listening as we’re looking at that text, we’ve seen that in that text, there are a number of lies that most of us at one time or another believe and maybe even still believe. We’ve seen that lie number one, is you find joy in what you acquire. Lie number two, you find sorrow in what you lose. Three, you find God in what you do. Lie four, you find Christ in what you merit. Life five, you find contentment in what you avoid. And that’s new, and that’s what we’re going to look at. Look at Philippians 3:10.

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and

what?

the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.

Now, that’s crazy. That’s crazy like a fox. I have often, in my cynical way, thought that life is simply getting from birth to death with as few hassles and as little suffering as possible. But you know something? That isn’t the way the Bible looks at it. In Acts 5:41, you’ll remember that the disciples had been arrested, and they were set free by an angel who told them to go back and do what they were arrested for in the first place. Now, that seems, if I’d been Peter, I would have said to the angel, let me explain something to you. You just got us out of prison, we got in prison for speaking the name of Jesus. And you want us to go to the public square, speak the name of Jesus, and we’re going to be thrown right back in jail, and you’re going to have to come and rescue us again. But do you know what they said? The apostles left the Sanhedrin rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the name. What a strange way to look at suffering.

The fellowship of sharing in Christ’s suffering, becoming like him in his death, counted worthy to suffer for his name.

Let me tell you something about suffering. There’s probably no place in your life where you can identify with Christ any more than at the place of suffering. Let me give you the focus of the Incarnation of Christ.

Christ identified with us in our suffering that we might identify with him in his.

Let me say it again.

Christ identified with us in our suffering that we might identify with him in his suffering.

The Christian answer to suffering is God coming and saying, if there were any other way, I would have taken it. Somebody relates how, it was a book and I don’t remember the name of it. Maggie Robbs, I think, recounts the story of a lady, a survivor of the Holocaust, who at 4 PM every day stood outside the Manhattan church and screamed insults at Jesus. The pastor, who was then Bishop Kilmer Myers, went outside and told this lady, Why don’t you go in and tell him instead of standing on the outside and telling the world? She did, an hour passed, and the bishop went to check on the woman, and she was on her face with tears before the cross of Christ. After all, she said, he wants a Jew. Are you lonely? So lonely that you think you’ll die? After all of that, he was lonely too. Are you in pain and you can’t stand it? He was in pain too. Are you misunderstood by your friends? He was misunderstood by his friends too. I had a misunderstanding once by someone who thought I’d done bad when in reality I’d done good and helped someone. I’m not going to give you the details, but I had, let me see if I can do this. I had, at the request of a man who had done something bad, refused to tell his friends or his family what he had done. I keep secrets. I don’t even talk to my wife about secrets. And I have more secrets than you can possibly imagine. In fact, in the last church that I served, I said, I know all of your backstories. I know all of your sins, and I’ve listened to all of your confessions. And for a significant contribution to my retirement fund, I will exorcise you from my upcoming autobiography. And they would laugh and I would laugh but they knew there was some truth in that. At any rate, I had taken some secrets, had kept them, and his friends didn’t understand. And it’s a long story, and I’ll spare you the details, but they went after me. And it was awful, it was a hard time. And I had elders in those days in the church, and I loved those guys big. And they, and I shared everything with them. They were solid. They held up my arms. They prayed for me. But I said, but I told them about this incident, without revealing the secrets and I said it’s really hard when people think you’ve done bad and you’ve really done a good thing. And I’ll never forget what one of the elders said to me after I told him that. He said Steve, this is maybe the one place where you can just a little bit understand the suffering of Jesus. Hey, you think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thanks Steve. We are working our way through Paul’s letter to his favorite church. What we know as the Book of Philippians, specifically our text today was Philippians 3:7 through 11. More tomorrow, hope you’ll join us. Well, maybe, you know this, but maybe you could still use a reminder. God isn’t mad at his children. So, if you’re running away from God, because he’s so big and scary, keep running. Just change direction, run back to him and you’ll find he doesn’t just love you, He kind of likes you too. That idea is at the heart of a message Steve gave on his Three Free Sins Book Tour. We would love to send you that full talk on CD for free. Just call us right now at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] to order that CD. Or to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the U.S. and Canada. Again, just ask for your free copy of the Three Free Sins CD. And finally, if you’re blessed by the work of Key Life, would you help share that blessing with others through your financial support. Just charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or you can simply text Key Life to 28950. And of course, if you can’t give right now, we get it. But if you do think about it, please do pray for us. Okay? Always needed, always appreciated. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. Both of those organizations assure financial accountability. And as always, we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.