Humility & Suffering - 1 Peter 5

⁵ In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” ⁶ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. ⁷ Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. ⁸ Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. ⁹ Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. ¹⁰ And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. ¹¹ To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.

A challenging bit of scripture for me, 1 Peter 5.

v6 "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time." This makes me remember how often Bill Johnson speaks about "we can only live to the measure we have died" and that "we have to go low to go high"... Like in Baptism, we die to ourselves, and are raised with Christ. As we are being transformed into his likeness, as our old self is dead, and we deny things of the flesh but choose what is holy... we carry our cross, and as we submit to his will he raises us up. How God chooses to withhold blessing from us, as he knows with blessing comes responsibility, and if the measure of blessing is beyond what we can handle, he will withhold it (so as not to lets us be ruined), but then as we grow in his likeness, as "we delight ourselves in the ways of the Lord, he gives us the desires of our heart" (Psalm 37:4, partially rewritten) he releases that blessing upon us.

v10 "And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast." Wow - does God want us to suffer? I personally don't think so... I think as he created a world based on love, which meant being based on the ability to choose (as love can only exist where there is choice - see earlier blog on suffering), and therefore there is a choice between something and something else, good and evil existed, and therefore if we choose God we naturally are at war with evil and therefore is against us... this is where suffering comes from. So we suffer as Christ did (although never to the same immense extent), knowing that we have chosen the side of good, and that in him we are strong, that he will be with us and never forsake us. To God be the glory, and power forever and ever. Amen.

I close out with 2 Corinthians 1:3-7
³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ⁵ For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. ⁶ If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. ⁷ And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

Our Value = Price Paid

Today we had an incredible sermon delivered to us on 1 Corinthians 6 & 7, on the topic of being single vs. dating vs. marriage. Read below key verses for some context.

Chp 6:
¹⁹ Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

Chp 7:
¹⁷ Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. ¹⁸ Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised. ¹⁹ Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts. ²⁰ Each person should remain in the situation they were in when God called them. ²¹ Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so. ²² For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord’s freed person; similarly, the one who was free when called is Christ’s slave. ²³ You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings. ²⁴ Brothers and sisters, each person, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.

The key points the speaker brought were:

• We were bought at a price - price determines the value of the item bought... So how valued are we? What was the price paid for us?
• We should not let external circumstances, such as culture and human opinion, define us...
• We should remember that we are infinitely valuable - God is not careless in the way he deals with us, he went to great lengths to ensure that we had a choice of eternity with him
• Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit - do we honour that, are we submissive to God's perfect will?

Near the end she referenced James 1:17, which I think is a good place to end this blog

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Sickness & Suffering - God's Will?

So below is my sermon notes for the discussion I had with the youth group around the question:

Why does a good God allow good people to suffer? In other words, is God not good and He want us to suffer, or is He simply not powerful enough to stop us suffering?

In essence, my point was that what God had intended for us was good, it was glorious, but within his love for us he gave us choice (as love cannot exist without choice), and when we made the wrong choice, that put into affect a change what has altered the very environment we live in, from where we in perfect union with God, to a place where the earth has been affected by a fallen world. God does not want us to suffer, he does not delight in it, but in his mercy he allows us to make our own choices.

I cannot go into everybody's personal situation, and I do not think to even understand what everyone is going through, so I cannot give you a glib answer as to why... but I hope that I can encourage you and give you hope that God is good and that he does truly want the best for you, so seek him, press into him!

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Creation to the Fall:

· POWER: Genesis 1 & whole bible
God’s infinite power is constantly demonstrated!

· CREATION: Genesis 1:26-31 : God created man (male and female) and saw that it was very good.
God’s will for us, as seen at beginning of creation, was perfect!

· ITIMACY: Genesis 3:8 : God is walking in the garden
God had an intimate relationship with his children – the way it was intended

· CHOICE: Genesis 2:16-17 : Eat from any tree (even tree of life), but not from tree of knowledge of good and evil.
God knows that true love can only exist where there is choice, so in His love He gives it to us

· SIN & FALL: Genesis 3:1-7 : satan lies, man and woman believe it, sin enters the world – man & woman’s suffering and the ground is also cursed.
Sin affects the entire environment including the earth – this disrupts the perfect union with God and he has to remove himself from that place of sin. God did not desire for man & woman to suffer, to be separate from him, but that was a result of their choice!

Good man Suffering – Job:

· Job 1:1-4 : Job is wonderfully blessed.

· Job 1:6-12 : God is pleased with Job, Satan says he can make him curse God if things go bad – God agrees to let Satan put him through the trial, but that he cannot harm him.

· Job 1-2 : Satan kills & destroys everything which Job knows, but he still praises God.

· Job 3-37 : Job curses the day he was born, and is broken.

· Jon 38-42 : God speaks and says that there are so many things Job does not know about, listing many things which are beyond his comprehension.

· There are things in this world we cannot fully comprehend, and therefore should not get frustrated that we do not understand – but we should keep seeking, keep asking.

A few other learning’s from Jesus

· Luke 8:22-25 : Jesus “rebukes” the storm
Jesus would not stop the storm if it was God’s will, or else he would be working against his father. Do we rebuke that which is not of God’s will?

· Many healings Jesus did (look at any of the gospels)
I don’t believe God was making people ill and Jesus healing them. I believe that sickness has come from the fall, and that ultimately Satan whose role it is to kill steel and destroy, is doing that. Will we oppose him on his mission?