Hey church, man, we are here in Kenya having an amazing time with our students. Can't wait to celebrate with you when we get back. Want to just kind of give you a little update of what's happening now.

It's been a great trip. I'm so blessed to be here. Today, right at this very moment, we are in the middle of a street in Nairobi doing street evangelism. All of our students are here right now sharing the gospel with all sorts of people along this street where there's businesses and so forth. We've already been to a school today, sang for so many. We sang for a ton of students yesterday and there's so much more to come.

Yeah, we had over 278 decisions made just yesterday alone and we're gonna have numbers more even today going on. So thank you for supporting these guys. Thank you for praying for us and we're looking forward to being with you again.

We're so excited. Again, this is just not even noon here. There's so much more left of the day and this is just day two for us. So for Brian bringing the word, we're praying for you and for the rest of you praying for us, thank you so much.

Well, amen. Hey, join me as we pray for those 140 that are in Nairobi right now. All right? Father God, we love you. We thank you that you give us the opportunity to go around the world, to share your love, uh, with the world that needs it, a hurting world. And Lord, we just pray for our students and the leadership that are with them right now. Lord, would you just wrap your arms around them like a warm blanket? Let them know of your love, your care, that you've got them right in the palm of your hand, uh, as they are out there doing the work for you, sharing your love with so many people. We thank you for the victories and we look with great anticipation to even more coming to know you because of the efforts that they're putting in and that you will bring them all back safely, uh, to us.
Father, we pray for the parents that are here that are anxiously, uh, looking towards, uh, their children getting home and at the same time with a little anxiety of what's going on with their child on the other side of the world. So would you give them a sense of peace as well? And lo- Father, in all of that, we rejoice and we thank you that you love us enough to send us in Jesus' name. Amen. Hey, some of you may know that I used to be the Bishop's pastor, so let me just give a plug here. Hey, if you've never been on a mission trip, you need to go. There's not a reason the world why you have not gone on a mission trip other than you haven't committed to it. Every one of us have been called to go and share the gospel. Our missions department led by Chris White has lots of great opportunities coming up through the rest of the year and first of next year.
And so you need to be praying and asking God, where are you going and how are you going to get involved so you can go and experience some of these things, uh, that these young people are going to experience because they're going to come home next week. They're going to be so on fire and if you don't catch that fire, you're just wet wood. <laugh>
We don't want to be the ones that pour water on it. We want to be the ones that fan it into flame. So find your place to play in that and be a part of it. You also know, or many of you probably know, that I, since I was the missions pastor a couple of years ago, we started the counseling center here, the Mike Stevens Counseling Center. We just call it in the community, the Burt Hickory Counseling Center. And probably there's not a weed that goes by that one of you, uh, doesn't stop me in the hallways and Wednesday night dinner or something and say, "Hey, how's the counseling center going? " So let me give you a little shameless plug for how it's going as well right now before I get into the message. Um, when we started two and a half years ago, we received about 500 appointments a year, 500 a year.
Since January one till today, this year we have seen 1,059 appointments. So it's growing. Um, when we first started, 90 to 95% were people from inside the walls of this church that were coming to see us. As of today, 51% are from inside this church, which means the community out there has heard about the, uh, what we have to offer in helping them find peace in their mental health or in their relationships or what's going on and they find out about that because you go tell them. So thank you for being our advertisement, uh, because we don't have another way to let the world know that we're here without you, uh, using your word of mouth and putting it out there. Yes, we use social media a little bit, but the greatest thing is what you guys do and believe it or not, that little plastic sign that stands on, uh, outside on the, um, edge of our property has drawn in a lot of people.
I drive by here every day, didn't know y'all have that service and we need that service in our family so they are taking advantage of it. We have three licensed counselors on my staff and we have five of what we'll call biblical certified counselors. Everything we do comes from a biblical perspective, not a world's perspective, but we do have the licensed people who have gotten that advanced degree and gotten licensed by the state of Georgia, but they still, uh, give their counsel through a biblical foundation. Then we have myself and another gentleman who has, uh, been pastors for over 40 years and so we speak into people's lives and then we have, uh, some other folks who have gone off to get some certifications and specific training on how to guide you and lead you in whatever's going on in your world, whether that is anxiety and depression, relationship issues, um, premarital or marital crisis issues.
We have dealt with a little bit of all of it. I would not say we're experts at all of it, but we have helped and we know how to refer people out if it's bigger than we do. But thank you for being a part of us. Continue to pray for us. Uh, because we've seen over a thousand so far this year, we're on a projection to see somewhere around 2,600 appointments this year, which is just really, really good and we still have room to grow in that. So thank you for being a part of it. You know, we, we deal with people who are hurting. How many in this room have never hurt? Uh, that's what I though. Uh, how many of you have never gone through what you might call suffering? Oh, by the way, all of you have gone through that too, right?
So I'm going to kind of l- look at today why God allows suffering and how it plays out in our world and how we as Christians are to play through that. I call this a theology of suffering, make it sound real religious, you know, a theology of suffering. But if we're all gonna go through it, we all have to learn how to get through it. And if we don't understand why God allows suffering and how he uses suffering, then we will miss some of the greatest stuff God has for us. So I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna start in Genesis 1:31 and that reads, "God saw that all he had made and behold, it was very good." So this is, God's created everything and then at the end of chapter one, he says, "And it was very good." You know what the word very there means?
Very. No, it means perfect.
Everything God made was perfect. Yeah, but Brian, we live in a world where there's hurt and sadness and suffering. Yeah, but God didn't make that. See, he made everything perfect. And because he so loved you and me, he gave us this thing called free will, choice. See, because if he didn't give us choice, if he didn't give us the opportunity to choose him, then it could always be said that we were slaves to him, that we were forced to worship him, that we had to because we didn't have another option. So God, because he so loved us, he gave us choice to choose him.
Then mankind, Adam and Eve chose poorly. The very first humans chose poorly and you and I reaped the benefits of their poor choice. Now I have a tendency to think of it kind of this way Adam and Eve are walking in the garden this perfect place and God's kind of walking with them and they're having this really cool conversation and God says, "Look around you. It's all yours. Have fun." And they're like, "Wow. Whoa." And God said, "Yeah, it's yours. Go have a party." It's fun. It's perfect. However, God said, "Because I love you, I'm gonna tell you that one thing over there, stay away from it. It's not good for you. I love you so much, stay away from it. But the other 359 degrees around you, it's yours. Go have a party." Great. And then Osloufut Satan comes along and he convinces Adam and Eve that God doesn't love them because if he did love them, he would give them all 360, not just 359.
And he gets them so focused on the on that they no longer see the 359 and when they partake of the on they lost the 359. Does that make sense to you? We all, because we've, uh, followed after that we've lost it because of on. Oh, but God so loved us that he says, "I still love you. I'm gona make a way." So then he says, Jesus, the one that whoever would come to the on and accept him as Lord Xavier will get not the 359, but the 360 back. Why? We lose it because of one. One, we get it back. We just are in the dispensation right now where Jesus has come, said, "Come follow me. " And we live in this timeframe until Jesus comes back that we go to get the 360, that we're still hung here. And in that, because Adam and Eve's sin, then death, illness, hurt, pain, depression, anxiety, disease, all of those things came into existence because man chose poorly.
God did not design that. God did not make that. He made it perfect. Mankind ushered in the, uh, disease and the illness and the suffering. And until Jesus comes back, we are going to face that suffering. We have nowadays what I'm going to call a cultural theology and it stands in opposition to a theology of the cross. And what I mean by that, cultural theology, we live in it. If you're comfortable, you're blessed. If things are going the way you want it to go, oh, you must be blessed. When things are right, you fee blessed. Or look at it another way. If you're suffering, something failed. If you're something, if you're suffering through things, something went wrong, I've made a mistake, somebody else has made a mistake and I'm having to suffer. Or that we, again, the church doesn't teach this, but many times you hear this and that is if you have enough faith that will eliminate hardship.
Faith does not eliminate hardship. It's coming because we live in a fallen world. It's not a matter of when, or not a matter of if, but when that you're going to face these hardships, these suffrage, you've already all admitted it. You do. The theology of the cross recognizes that God often works through weakness. That power is revealed through surrender and that resurrection comes after crucifixion. Resurrection comes after crucifixion. That's suffering. We can't get there without some suffering. So a number of years ago, I was reading through my Bible and I got to, uh, Second Chronicles. I'm sure all of y'all spent a lot of time reading Second Chronicles and 1st Chronicles, right? So anyway, I'm in 1st Chronicles and I'm reading and I come to the story and it's in chapter 13. I'm not going to read it because it take way more time so I'm going to kind of s- give you a synopsis of what's going on.
Many of you, uh, will know this story, but David has gone to get the Ark of the Covenant and bring it back to Jerusalem. It's at a guy named of Ben and Dad's house and David goes, takes his Levites with him. When they get there, they take the Ark of the Covenant, they put it on a cart and have some oxen and they pull that, the, uh, cart with the arc of the covenant on it, which all of them knew that you never, ever move the arc of the covenant without it being on poles on men's shoulders. They chase the easy way out. They think they're fixing things and they can just do it this way and God won't care. Well, while they're transporting this, they come to a place called a threshing floor. It's pavers laid out, uh, to create this hard space, but, you know, uneven that as their ox are crossing it, it says that the ox stumbled crossing the threshing floor.
The cart tilted and Uza, who was standing beside the cart, who happened to be a Levite to know that you should never move the cart that way, which is really an interesting thing. So what does Uza do? He does exactly what you and I would probably do.
Don't let him fall. And as soon as he touched it, bam, he died. Well, that scared David to death. David didn't know what to do so he stopped the parade, gets the guys to bring the arc of the covenant, goes to the first door he can find, knocks on the door, guy's name's Obed Edem, and he says, "I, I got this box. I need to leave in your living room for a while. Can I leave it here?" Brian's version. Okay. And so he leaves the Ark of the Covenant in Obed Edom's living room and I kind of, my version is David's walking out, "Oh, you might not want to let the kids play around that box. Bad things happen if you touch it. " You know, and I'm like, "Okay. Go back and read the story and see about Obed Edom. Obed Edom's house is blessed for generation after generation after generation because he allowed the spirit of God and the presence of the Lord to come into his home and his family was all saved." It's a great story.
And that's not where I'm going today, but if you ever want to know something, go back and look up Obed Edom. So anyway, David does that. That was in, uh, one Chronicles 13. Then when you get over to one Chronicles 16, you find that David was told, "Oh, don't go fight your mighty men. Don't go, I mean, don't go fight. Don't go count all of your mighty me. All your warriors, don't go count them. I got you. We're gonna, uh, win this battle." So what did David do? One, two, sound off now, one, two ... And he counts the whole army. And so God comes to David and says, "Hey, uh, I told you not to do that so you're gona be punished. You're gonna, you got..." God gave David choices for his punishment. You know, he said, "You can take a, a famine that's gonna last, uh, several years, you can take this or, hey, I, I'll just send a death angel for three days." Well, David chooses the death angel because he though, well, it's only three days.
It's not weeks and months like the other punishments. Well, the death angel comes, all of a sudden, people just start dying left and right. S- David just goes crying back to God, "Stop, stop. It was me, not them." So God tells him to go make a offering and, uh, God would take away the death angel. So David goes to this guy, his name is Arana and he goes to Rana. Arana's out in the field working and David goes up to him, says, "Hey, I, I'd like to buy your field." Arana says, "No, uh, you're the king. You can have it. " And David says, "No, I will not take something that I not properly earn and purchase." And so he purchases the field and David makes an altar, makes a sacrifice, God takes the death angel away. Well, in the field, what he purchased was a threshing floor.
So now I have read two days in a row, First Chronicles 13 and 1st Chronicles 21 where they're talking about a threshing floor and every time I was reading, it was like, you know, a neon sign going off and I'm slow. Uh, I didn't get it. So after two times I went, "Okay, God, maybe you're trying to say something about threshing floor." And so I went back and I did some studies on threshing floor and now that I'm thinking about this idea of suffering, it just fits so perfect for me. So I wanna tell you about the threshing floor and relating the threshing floor to a place of suffering and then what God has for us through that. So first off, a threshing floor is a very valuable place. It's valuable and you think, why would it be valuable? Well, we find out in one Samuel 23 that the Philistines would come to rob the threshing floor.
So they would put guards at the threshing floor to protect it and guard it. So it was a valuable place and the commodity there was valuable and so the thief would come to, uh, steal it. You know, we have an enemy, his name is Satan, who wants to come steal, kill, and destroy. He's trying to take the things away from you that God wants to give you and rob you of the joy of God and so he sends suffering. But a threshing floor, these sufferings can be good for you. So they're a valuable place. We find out in judges chapter six that Gideon goes to a threshing floor and he's bargaining with God. He's praying to God. "God, how do we defeat the Midianites? "And so Gideon lays a fleece out on the threshing floor and says," God, in the morning if the ground is wet and the fleece is dry, I know that's what we're supposed to do.
"So what happens? They wake up the next morning, the ground is wet, the fleece is dry and Gideon does exactly what you and I would probably do. "Oh, wow, God, that's pretty interesting. Maybe you misunderstood or I didn't speak it right. So let's try this again one more time tonight, the next night." And so he lays it out. He said, "This time, make the fleece wet and the ground dry." So they wake up the next morning, guess what? The fleece is wet and the ground's dry. So God used that to show Gideon what to do. So not only is it a valuable place, but God answers our prayers in our threshing floors. We find that in one Kings and 2nd Chronicles that they're at high places and that they are, uh, near the gate, because at the gates where people pass by and great things happen and on a high place that is high, it's valuable, it's important to you in your life.
And maybe one of the coolest things you find about a threshing floor is that Ruth laid her head on the feet of David on a threshing floor. Go back and read, uh, the book of Ruth and in chapter three, verse seven, it says that Boez was asleep on the threshing floor and Ruth laid her head there. And we know that Boaz is a picture of our kinsman redeemer. He's a picture of Christ that when we come to Christ, he will be in our threshing floors of life and he will help us and he will walk us through it. But Satan is always going to be telling you that it's a tough place, it's a hard place. Find your way around it. Don't go through threshing floors. Why would you suffer? Or if you're suffering, something's wrong, something's bad and it's just, just terrible. And God says, "I will be with you.
This is valuable for you. Come go through it and I will take care of you and the other side will be way better than you could have ever imagined." But Satan is telling us one thing, God's telling us another. And one of the reasons it's easy for us to follow Satan is because there's a couple of these other things about a threshing floor. A threshing floor, again, is this big pad of, of pavers that are laid out that they would lay the ... We use the idea of wheat. They would lay the wheat all out and then they would come and grab one of these and this is called a threshing sled. And this threshing sled, it has a yolk on this side, which they would harness the oxygen, maybe stand on it or put more weight here and they would put this face down.
And I know it's hard for some of y'all to see, but these are all rocks that are embedded into the bottom of this. Anybody wanna come up here and volunteer to lay down while I drag this across you? <laugh> I didn't think you would want to. Uh, it might mess up your clothes. Now, but this would rip it. It would tear it. It would crush it. It would break it because you can't get the kernel without the crushing and breaking.
Does that make sense to you? Suffering, there's gonna be some crushing and breaking into your life and you're not gonna go to, gonna go through it. You're gonna say, "Well, I'm gonna walk around it. I'm gonn find another way around it. " And God says, "I'm in it. I will be there with you. I will guide you. I will walk with you and I will help you. " And it is valuable for you. Wow. God, you're trying to tell me that my suffering is valuable? Yeah. You're all gona go through it. I didn't create it, but I could use it to remold you to remake you into something you didn't know you could be, but it's gonna require some crushing and breaking. First time I ever taught this, I had a guy come up to me and says, "I have one of those." I said, "You do not.
Nobody in the United States has a threshing sled." He said, "No, I do. " I said, "Kenny, you don't have one of those." Two days later, he showed up at my office with that. I said, "You have a threshing sled." <laugh> He says, "No, you have a threshing sled now." <laugh> So he gave that to me and I can't tell you how many times I've used that. And it sits in my office every day and people who come in there for counseling the meytimes say, "What's that? " And it gives me the opportunity to tell him the suffering we're going through, God's gonna use it if we will perceive it that way, but the enemy who wants to still kill and destroy wants us to perceive it as something bad as something that God can't use and we will try to avoid it. So the first thing about a threat, a first, second thing, first thing was it's valuable.
Second thing is there's crushing and breaking. The third thing about the threshing floor is once they have crushed and broken it, then they would take a broom or something, sweep it all up in a pile, then they take a windowing for it, which we would call a pitch for it and they, and throw it in the air. And when the wind is blowing, one of the reasons it's a high place winds, the wind would blow the chaffed away and the kernel falls to the ground. Man, I don't know about you, but I'm not usually volunteering to be separated from the things I think I need and I want or I worked hard for.
But sometimes God's gonna separate you from these things so that he can give you something new or fix something so you will be better prepared for the next thing that he has for you. But none of us wanna go through the separation. In Matthew 3:12, it says, "His winnowing fork is in his hand and it, he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat unto the barn and burning up the chaff, uh, with unquenching fire, that God's gona collect it, but he needs to separate it. Uh, Hebrews 4:12 says that the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword to the penetrated even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." See, God knows these things and there are some things that we're gonna be crushed and broken up and then separated from for a season or for a lifetime.
Sometimes it's our tradition. Sometimes it's relationships and things that when those fall apart and the enemy wants you to look at it as though life just ended, God's saying, "Hey, I got you and we're gonna keep moving and I can make something good out of this. " He didn't cause it, but he can use it to make something good. But if we and our focus is poor pitiful being, this is hers, no, you know, we just get to hear we don't see what God can do and we close ourself off from what God has for us new and exciting. And Satan wants to convince us that that's the way to live, that I can't do it anymore. And we get all tied up. I'm not saying depression, anxiety's not real, it is. But part of overcoming it is understand that God's got something bigger and sometimes we let that just overtake us.
Oky, why would I want to go through suffering if those things are true? Why do I need the threshold floor? Well, let me give you one more that's tough because after they winnow it, then they take the seed and they just lay it out in the sun and let it dry up because they can't take it with moisture and the seed still to the grinding stone because it'll just turn into paste. So they have to let it dry. Any of y'all volunteering for a dry season in your life? No, me neither. But God says, "I do that to prepare you to make something new. I can create newness out of this. We have dry times in our lives or in our spiritual walk and we want to blame Satan, but God uses those for our good. How do we get through the dry times? We stay in the word.
We pray and we worship. That's how we get through the dry time. Gideon was in a dry time and needed God to speak to confirm things. Uh, Mephibosheth, I don't know if you know who Mephibosheth is. He was Jonathan's only son that was still alive. David wants to honor him. Mephibosheth is often a place called Lodebar. Just so happens the word lotabar means dry place. They would literally out in a dry place and David doesn't even know who Mephibosheth is. The king since Barb brings him back and he gets to live the rest of his life eating at the king's table. Not because of something he did but because of relationship. God worked it out. God's work your lot of bars out if we'll focus on the right things. So now you've got the crushing and the breaking, you've got the separation, you got the dry time and you're like, Brian, what more would you really talking me into wanting to go through this thing?
I'm like, yeah, I know. Sounds really bad, doesn't it? And here's where it starts turning to the good side because after God's done those things in this difficult time, it only takes a spark to get a huge fire going. Hebrews 12:29 says our God is a consuming fire. Once he gets you ready, all he has to do is go pew. And an inferno starts.
You wanna be used by God, you wanna hear from God, you wanna be really tight with God. You go through these things, you prepare yourself and then you let him set it on fire. Now, interesting thing about fires, if you have a, I hope this doesn't happen, but if in your neighborhood tonight, well, the houses just catches on fire. Guess what's gonna happen? Everybody in the neighborhood is gonna come down the street to look at what? The fire. You go through these things and let God set you on fire. People are gonna come see the God on you and what he provides, which is warmth and strength and, and provisions and good things. Um, you don't get consumed up, you just keep glowing and going for God. People want to see that. Yeah, when the, when the fire comes at night, the bugs are gonna come out.
You know what bugs do? And either they fly so close to it, they get consumed or they fa- stay just far enough away. They don't get ... God provides that protection in that. People are drawn to fire because it brings comfort and light and direction and help. Don't you like that? I do.
It's the interesting thing about David's life. Most of us have this idea that David was anointed king as a boy and his life was just this straight line just going up just because he was the man after God's own heart. Just really beautiful little straight line. Go back and read scripture. That is not David's life. David's life was chaotic. He's. You like that? So it's just all over the place. But every time David got really way out here and off base, he knew how to correct things. He always came back to God. He always knew how to correct it, ask for forgiveness. Back in those days, make the sacrifices that need to be made to correct and then keep moving on. David wasn't a perfect man. He was just the one that ran after God's heart and knew how to correct it when things went wrong.
Wow, what a great lesson for us to learn. You're not gonna be perfect. As I say all the time, I cannot live sin less, but I can sin less. Got that? I cannot live sinless, but I can sin less. As I keep growing in my godliness, hopefully that's happening. As I'm doing that, then I'm leaving a example for those around. David had his congrega- or had his constituents watching him all the time, but even closer to that, he had his children watching. Who was watching David? His children? What did they learn from him? Not how to mess up as much as how to correct it, how to get back with God. You get, you go through these, uh, times of suffering, these threshing floors and God is going to draw you to him and then those around you, especially your family and your children are gonna see the example.
Oh yeah, when you mess up, here's how you go. And you always come back to God. You ask for their forgiveness and you get back with God. What an incredible, wonderful thing. Where does that path lead then? If he's going all over the place and where does the path lead? Well, Chronicles tells us where it leads. So at the end of cha- of the end of First Chronicles, chapter, uh, I keep wanting to say chapter. End of first chronicles, David dies.
And King Solomon takes over and there's some chapters of lamenting where they're just worshiping and thanking God for it and, and grieving over David's death in chapter one, chapter two of two chronicles, uh, Solomon, his son, who is now king, is lamenting and, and grieving over his dad's death. And then in chapter three of two chronicles, this blew me away when I read this. Chapter three, verse one, it says, "Then Solomon began to build the temple." You know, David had collected all the goods for it, didn't get to build it. Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his Father David, it was on the threshing floor of Irana, the Jebusite, the place David provided. What does that mean? That means that it went full circle and it brought it right back to the temple and the presence of God.
Your threshing floor will bring you back to the presence of God. And so once they got the temple built and they're doing it then in two Chronicles chapter seven, verses one to three, they're ready to dedicate the temple and it says, "Then Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. The priest could not enter the temple of the Lord because the Lord, the glory of the Lord filled it. When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the Lord above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground and they worshiped and gave thanks to the Lord saying, He is good His love endureth forever. Wow. It shows them that when they went through these threshing floors and they did all the hard work and they made the sacrifices and all God's glory fail.
Is, that word is called, and the Hebrew's called Kabod, the Kabod. The weight of God failed. It came so strong on them that they couldn't move. All they could do was worship God.
I was thinking about that last night when I was preparing this and then this morning God gave me a moment like that. Just being transparent with you, I was driving here about 6:45 this morning and I turned, I turned left in front of the CVS to come down on Du West Road and when I turned there, I wasn't even paying attention. I don't know where my mind was, but I noticed the radio was just. And it was on, I don't even, what it was on, probably Sports Talk. That's what I listened to a lot. And I thought, you know, that's not what I need. So hit the button, take me straight over to the message. And as soon as I hit it, a new song came on. Now it is a song many of you may know, but I'm not, it's, I'm not going to tell you what it is because it doesn't really matter.
The cabode of God just fell in my car and I wanted to sing along, but all I could do was cry. And as I made my way down here, I could barely pull in the parking lot and find a place to park and I just sat there through the whole song and God just, and I just ... And it was an incredible time. And if you've never had a time like that in your life, man, I encourage you to run after God. He wants to show up in your life that way. And when it does, you don't ever want to leave those times, but you get to those things because you run after God. You get to those things because you're willing to go through the threshing floors of life that he uses to prepare you and draw you to him and make you thirsty for him because otherwise we're running after it in our own strength and our own mindset, which is a world strength and a world mindset.
So then we get to this idea of, well, if we go through the suffering, what is it gonna do? What's it, what's God gona produce if we go through suffering? I'm glad you asked. Okay. So it produces suffering, which then leads to perseverance, which leads to character, which leads to hope.
Romans five through three through five. And not only that, but we also glory in the tribulations or suffering knowing that tribulations produce perseverance and perseverance character and character hope. Now, hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our heart by the Holy Spirit who has given to us. Wow. The suffering's gona produce perseverance, character, and hope. What else does he produce? Well, these trials or these sufferings refine our faith and they produce endurance. James one: two to four. "My brother, you counted all joy when you fall into various trials knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience, but let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing. "Wow, God's using that to complete us. Point number three, I would make God works through suffering for our ultimate spiritual good. Romans 8:28," And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God and those who are called according to his purpose.
God's got it. He's, he's not gona waste anything. Matthew 5:12 says, Rejoice and be glad because great is your rewarded heaven for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Count it all joy. You're just like all the others. Our Christian theology is unique because suffering is interpreted through the cross. Jesus Christ experienced rejection, betrayal, poverty, physical pain, emotional anguish, injustice, death. All the things we go through, he did it to conquer it. I, I, I came up with this little statement, I don't know if it works for you, but suffering without hope is torment. Suffering without hope is torment. It's what the enemy wants it to be in your life, a torment. But God says, I come to give you hope through the suffering. The cross becomes the ultimate picture of God's love of human evil and redemption through suffering. So how, not only did Jesus give us this example, but he also said he, he gave us something to do in remembrance of him, which is a part of our suffering. If you don't have one of these little cups for the Lord's supper, just raise your hand and some of our ushers will make sure that you get one because God's did allow Jesus to go through the suffering and then Jesus gave us the Lord's supper as a model, as an experience and as a, uh, a time that every time we do this, remember who he is, um, Joe get the ones down here?
Okay. So reminded us who he is and what he did for us. His body was broken. His blood was shed the ultimate and suffering all the way to death. And he says, when you take this, you're doing it and remembrance me and you're joining in the fellowship of suffering.
In one Corinthians 11, we read this. "For I receive from the Lord that which I also deliver to you that the Lord Jesus on that same night in which he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said," Take, eat. This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. "In the same manner, he also took the cup after supper, said," This cup is the new covenant in my blood. This new as often as you drink it in remembrance of me, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. "It's a symbol of our walking and with him, what he did for us and that we're gona be likewise we're gonna walk through suffering, but there's hope. The hope is what's to come as we walk in what God has for us.
But I'm just gonna pray here in a minute. Guys behind me are gonna sing a song called the Threshing Floor and we're gonna let you just pray and talk to God and take both elements at your leisure while they sing and you just worship and soak it in and join in the fellowship of suffering with God.