"The Bread of Affliction" - Ronald L. Dart

good afternoon folks well I've tried again good afternoon as long as everybody feels like saying something that's all good I tell you I get the impression everyone around here is having a good time then you don't know how good it is to see you folks sure we didn't no idea how many of you would be here this year the reservations were a little slow getting started and we thought well maybe we wore them out last year but it turns out there 305 here this afternoon and I think that's a very respectable people and if you've never been here before how's this for a place to do this kind of thing this has really been tremendous this year and and I want to say that what a wonderful thing it is the way they take care of us here it was really I don't know it makes you feel good to come in last night and look at our there here's the special of the day on the menu and the bottom it did show all the fried chicken and the stuff that you get at the bottom it says with unleavened bread at the bottom I mean all this stuff you know when you're people when you're like me you need all the help you can get I go around in a fog half the time and I have to thank this year if I made it this year I have to thank my wife first of all for keeping me out of trouble and I remember one day mr. Armstrong kept me out of trouble another day mr. Bennish sharp kept me out of trouble and we wander into the Golden Corral if you've ever going on those places and smell the bread in that place we went to lunch there one day this week and I was going in there oh that's good bet he says you can't have any of that today and I was royally irritated with him for taking me there during the days of unleavened bread but anyway that's that's one of the things that we all live within it but he was just wonderful and of course I noticed you know stuff in the little corner had said that even the flour that the chicken was fried with had no living in it it's nice you know I can't help but think about some of the stories of the past some of you may have heard this one before don't stop me if you've heard it many years ago when the feast was first being held these festivals were first being held by the Worldwide Church of God down in Texas they had seven-day festivals at the feast of unleavened bread just like they had the Feast of Tabernacles and I think about the first year they were down there keeping the feast of unleavened bread the source store was sold out of rye Chris the first day everything that was on a level was just gone like locusts hid it and people kept coming in asking for it it kept coming in and asking for it it kept coming in and asking for it and of course they were out at the Feast of Tabernacles that years the stores had boxes of rock Chris packed to the ceiling and they couldn't figure out why no one was buying any rest at all now let's face it it is a curious custom and it does take some getting used to I'm not sure however though that we should blush you know you consider it we are around people who dress up like rabbits die boiled chicken eggs and die on different colors and get brushes and paint them all different kinds of colors and then go out and hide them in the grass and then lie to their children about how they got there then rabbits the Easter Bunny came and laid these eggs all over the place last night and you can go out there and find all these pretty colored eggs I mean I'm here to tell the whole world it's a lie chickens lay eggs but you know why should we blush now you want to talk about a strange custom that is a strange custom [Music] why do we do though what we do here we are you know we've tried hard some of us who made it and some of us haven't some of us have made it by the grace of their friends but why do we do this well the first reason is because God said to you know you go back and you read it God says seven days you'll eat unleavened bread and there be no leaven found with you and you get all the leavening out of your houses oh that's that is an awfully good reason for doing anything because God said so however then you have to only move your question though one step further for people like me who have inquiring minds your pardon expression is why did he commanded you know you it's fine he commanded it but why did he do it and what does it mean and where does it go now the meanings behind the holy days are many and they are very complex there is not just one quote official meaning in quote of the feasts of God in fact I think we have tried to take that approach in the past much to our detriment but the fact is that the Bible tells the preachers among us that these holy days are to be proclaimed in the word proclaimed as another word for preached in their seasons and we have always taken that to mean and when one of the holy days comes around that as a preacher I'm supposed to get up here and take the theme of that holy day and I don't have to start the sermon with why are we here but it works because it gets you focused on the fact that we are here for a reason because God commanded it and we're here to ask ourselves why did he command it what is this festival they are to be preached in their seasons and a result of this is that rather than just being like a granite monolith it has one and one meeting only the feasts are more like diamonds that have been cut into many facets and as you turn them the lights change in different lights and different circumstances and different angles they glitter in a gleam in different ways and there is so much to be learned the result is that they enrich our lives you know I I have been preaching the festivals now for thirty years and I still am coming up with new ideas every time the Holy Day comes around you know it's a it's a peculiar phenomenon in the way I have a fairly low boredom threshold and as a result I don't want to get up here and take my notes from last year's sermon and give you the same sermon again or if the truth is that an awful lot of people would never know the difference but some people would and I would and I'd be bored with it and if I'm bored with it there's an excellent chance you're gonna be bored with it so I'm always looking I'm always digging in there and trying to find something and sometimes new insights into the Festivus can grow out of the most trivial questions for example the question was asked years ago I remember mr. Ted Armstrong backlund we were in the Worldwide Church of God and I think this probably goes back as far as the early 60s at our first time I heard him say this at his point his approach to these days was that he believed that we were supposed to not merely abstain from leaven during the seven days but to eat unleavened bread his dietary habits were such that he didn't eat a lot of bread anyway and he would just as soon frankly would have rather he didn't really like unleavened bread he would rather have not eaten any leavening or he bread at all during those seven days and that would be his way of doing it but he looked back in the Bible and the Bible says seven days you shall eat unleavened bread and so he believed that he was supposed to eat some unleavened bread every day during the festival but this question got raised again and again down through the years and it came up again not very many years ago and we got to looking at it because the question was raised again and the question was are we supposed to eat some unleavened bread each and every day of the feast which is a positive act that we are supposed to do or are we merely is the commandment merely to see to it that we abstain from leaven for a 7-day period of time which is a negative side of the commandment or both if you will now is that trivial enough for you it really doesn't seem very important at all but as I said sometimes insights can come from trivial questions sometimes insert sites can come from controversies and that even though you do not necessarily change what you do you do see it maybe in a different light maybe more clearly because of something someone asked something some argument that was advanced some question that was raised some dispute that arose and Deuteronomy the sixteenth chapter in verse 1 it says observe the month of a babe and keep the Passover unto the Lord your God for in the month a bib the Lord your God brought you forth out of the eat out of Egypt by night you shall therefore sacrifice the Passover to the Lord and of your Lord your God of the flock the herd and the place which the Lord shots used to place his name there you shall eat no leavened bread with it that's the negative side of it seven days you shall eat unleavened bread that's the positive side of the commandment now the teaching the official teaching if you will for many many years was that leaven is a type of sin in the days of unleavened bread picture putting sin out of our life now if you take this concept then the idea of merely abstaining from leaven for seven days fits it quite well right because the objective is to avoid sin the objective is to get sin out the objective is to stay away from sin so therefore if I just don't eat any leaven or have an eleven in my home for this particular period of time then I have in that sense accomplished what I am supposed to do abstention should be quite enough to satisfy theologically that side of the question but today I'm going to turn the diamond ever so slightly and try to look at a different facet of it and maybe just a little bit of different light in this chapter here I stopped if you noticed at a certain point it says you shall eat no leavened bread with it seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it even the bread of affliction for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste that you may remember the day when you came forth out of the land of Egypt all your life the bread of affliction and what is fascinating about this and it really almost takes our question that we started without a school because it attaches a meaning to the unleavened bread in other words the meaning of the festival is not merely that leaven is a type of sin and you've got to get it out that the unleavened bread that has left has an intrinsic meaning of its own right it is the bread of affliction now this meant something to the Jews who came out of Egypt it had some very specific remote reminders for them and they were to harken back to the time when they were slaves and now that they were released by God and the time of their leaving of Egypt was in itself something of a time of hardship you know it's not easy walking across the desert it's not easy dragging half your possessions on your back and maybe leading an animal carrying the other half of your possession it's not easy going without food like they did for many periods and of course the bread they had no time to cook properly or to prepare their bread they just had to take everything and go because the Egyptians were urging upon them all these lessons the Jews took and came to understand them it meant a great deal to it and out of the meanings out of all these Old Testament meanings and out of all this history grew something very special to the New Testament church something very special and something very different now I hope you'll stay with me today and I want you to follow very carefully the logic of what I'm going to be talking about because none of the things that we do as Christians came into being out of thin air all of them grew out of roots all of them have historical origins all of them come from old concepts that are far older than what people normally think of as the Christian religion in the 6th chapter of John is a particular encounter with Jesus where he opens up this question of bread in John the sixth chapter he doesn't specifically talk about it about it being unleavened bread but when you understand the timing in chapter 6 verse 1 it says after these things Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee which is the sea of Tiberias a great multitude followed him because of the miracles he did on them that were deceit diseased and Jesus went up into a mountain and there he sat with his disciples and the Passover a feast of the Jews was near we are right into the Passover season we are apparently just a week or two earlier than where we are right now with the Passover coming on now through this period of time he had you know created meals out of out of fish and bread had multiplied food and people have been amazed by the things he had done they followed him here and they followed him there and the implication is that they followed him because they got their bellies full as much as anything else and they began to ask questions they became somewhat aggravated with him and their conflict really began to develop between Jesus and the people he was talking to and out of this conflict came one of the most important passages and all the things that Jesus had to say the passage begins it begins a little earlier than us but for our purposes we'll start in verse 48 because were the things that he says are all included here he starts out by saying I am that Bread of Life your father's ate manna in the wilderness and they died what happens to us you know the food that we eat is good for the day and it gets us through the night and on through the next day of work but we have to keep eating or we're going to die your father is a man in the wilderness it didn't do anything for them beyond keep them alive temporarily they died they got old and they died this is the bread that comes down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and never die I am The Living bread that came down from heaven If any man eat of this bread he shall live forever and the bread that I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world now I've spoken about this before but many of you may not have heard what I had to say some of you did and bear with me many many years ago when I was a member of another church organization I don't mean the worldwide I mean before that I commonly took up the Lord's Supper or communion as it was called on a quarterly or a monthly or a whatever basis it was that I was around where I could take it when I was in the Navy I remember in boot camp I would go to church on Sunday morning and whatever form of Communion the chaplain offered on that Sunday morning I would take that bet and I had a very profound concept of the sacrifice of Christ of the death of Christ and even though I was of another faith altogether I still knew that Jesus died for my sins I knew that I was a sinner I knew that I needed mercy I knew that I needed forgiveness and so consequently I would partake of the wafer and of the Y&R the grape juice as it happened to be in the Baptist Church I would partake of these things as I went along with profound awareness that Jesus for my sins but with almost no awareness at all of his flesh of his body of what did that mean and you'll have to admit as you read through this passage that it falls very strangely on the ear this bread is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world well now we had a hymnal here of some sort we could go through it and find him after him after him about his blood being shed for the life of the world I mean there were times and I began as a young very young man listened to me only a church singing some of these hymns to kind of every once in a while cringe a little bit at all the blood you know the blood this and blood that and a fountain filled with blood and there's power in the blood and in the blood of Jesus Christ covers our I mean it all it goes on and on about blood I mean the Baptist hymnals have got lots of bloody hymns in them so I understood all that but he didn't say that here he said this is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world then he went on to say the Jews therefore strove among themselves saying how can this man give us his flesh to eat their minds were on eating obviously they had already had the one meal and they were looking for another one he says now I'm going to give you my flesh jesus said to them verily I say unto you unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood not one or the other unless you eat his flesh and drink his blood you have no life in you whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day whatever this is about is pivotal in it we're getting right down to the core of what people become Christians for that to eat his flesh to drink his blood with understanding with purpose with his purpose in mind is one that that is to receive eternal light and to be raised up at the last day to fail in it some well is not to be raised up and not to receive eternal life is there anything more important to you right now than that my flesh is meat indeed my blood is drink indeed he that eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I and he and this is such a strange thing as I said it falls strangely on the ear but it was the Passover season and here long before the large Supper is instituted he is talking about what his sacrifice is all about his sacrifice involved two major and distinct parts his shed blood and his broken body by now I think all of us understand that the boat broken body of Christ represents his suffering and there's this passage back in 1st Corinthians 11 and as I've said before we're so indebted sometimes to people for causing trouble because if they hadn't caused trouble some things wouldn't have been said or written if the Corinthians hadn't too messed up the Passover in the Lord's Supper Paul would not have written this chapter we wouldn't know some things that is really important to know he wrote to them and said in verse 23 for I have received of the Lord that which I delivered unto you that the Lord Jesus the 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 this do in remembrance of me you know there is a difference a fundamental difference here from what a person might normally expect in type in anytime and the Old Testament Passover not a single bone of that lamb was to be broken and presumably no bone of Jesus was broken either and all the things that he went through and yet he did say this is my body which was broken for you something very different happened in Jesus sacrifice from what happened in the sacrifice of the lamb the lamb was caught on the deselected on the tenth day of the first month it was kept it was fed it probably had its ears scratched its belly rubbed or whatever it was taken care of it was fed well fattened up if you will for the slaughter and when it came to the tenth day I'm sorry the 14th day of the first month the lamb was killed quickly and as near painlessly as an animal can be killed just like that his throat was cut it bled out its life and it died the lamb did not have its body broken it was skinned it was eaten but none of that happened to the lamb until after it was dead the lamb in other words did not suffer in Jesus case in the night in which he was betrayed from the moment that the Passover supper began I mean as the Last Supper of the Lord's Supper began Jesus suffering began for he came in with these men here all of them were that with him together and they had eaten a seder or supper together it had called it a Passover it was a day early then he paused at a certain point during supper or when the main part of the supper was over and he got up and he laid off his outer garment took a towel and wrapped it around himself and began to wash all of his disciples feet and he made this this profound lesson for them that I am your Lord and Master and if I have washed your feet you ought to wash one another's feet and the lesson of humility is driven home and then when he had finished that and he sat back to table again he said because he was very sorrowful and very heavy one of you aren't there twelve of you here one of you will betray me and in the process of the other different accounts of the different Gospels but he finally identified Judas to Judas as the one and Judas went out to the priests the authorities and while Jesus was instituting the symbols of the lash of the Lord's Supper that is of the bread and the wine Judas was even in those moments betraying the pain that comes from betrayal is really I think a little beyond our comprehension unless unless you have been there unless there has been a in whom you have placed profound trusts unless there is a person whom you felt you could trust with your life that whatever it was you could put it in his hands and never fear and then to have that person turn around and betray you to another I don't I I have never had anything like that happened to me and I don't think I can appreciate the pain and Jesus went over across Gethsemane after the supper was over and he knelt down and he began to pray and his sweat was like great drops of blood as he agonized in prayer through that evening he had to face the prospect of death and there are those of us who more than others perhaps know what that means that there is a certain pain there is a certain agony that's involved in the prospect of death it used to be said that in the Inquisition that before they ever began to torture anyone in the Inquisition he was in prison he was fed bread and water and every day for a few days they would come in and they would show him the instruments of torture in most cases they never had to torture a soul but the anticipation the fear was worse than the torture itself Jesus that night knew what he had to face he knew what he had to go through he had a clear awareness of it all you would have sweat blood yourself if you had been there and he prayed father if it be your will let this cup pass from me nevertheless not my will but your will be done and then they came and arrested him and they took him away and as they took him away every one of his disciples had ran off and fled from him now what does that how bad does that hurt to have those people who you trusted those people who your closest friends all not betray you but just desert you at a time when you needed them the most they were just gone and poor Peter my heart goes out to him because he really did want to be firm he really did try to be firm he tried to stay where he could see Jesus at least he tried not to be among those who just ran away and then someone said I know you you were with him you one of his disciples he said I don't know the man it happened three times and then that third time he heard the rooster crow in the distance and it just came over him like a wave what he had done he went out and wept bitterly as I think he might well have done Jesus of course when he heard that looked at him and he knew and then of course well I suppose we might think of as the worst began to happen as Jesus was beaten buffeted spit on and he had his cheeks gave his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair he had a crown of thorns jammed down upon his head he was blindfolded and hid and they tried to get him to tell you're a prophet tell us who hit you and then finally when all was said and done and he was tried and falsely accused he finally was scourge and he still wasn't through still wasn't through they crucified Him now they could have just killed him they could have just stood him up against the wall and shot him full of errors or put a lance through him or they could have they could have stoned him to death on the spot they could have done a lot of things they didn't have to crucify him did they oh yeah they had to I have no idea what it would have been like to have someone take a heavy hammer and some very large spikes and drive them through your hands and your feet but even that was not that bad what was really bad was being hung up in the Sun with nails through your hands and your feet and left there to agonize through the day for all the misery grew and the pain grew the humiliations the shame because it was a shame and then of all the suffering that he had to endure there was a moment in time when God his father his father his own father turned his back on him it was necessary all this stuff had to happen if this happen then the sacrifice of Christ is not complete if this doesn't happen Jesus doesn't know what it's like to be fully human Jesus you see because all of us because of our sins suffer shame and we suffer humiliation and we suffer betrayal because of our sins and what we have done we suffer sickness we suffer pain we suffer agony and sometimes in trying to get healed of our diseases we suffer disease that tortures worse than anybody ever had during the Inquisition it's probably easier to bear because we believe somebody's trying to help us in the process but if Jesus is to be our perfect sacrifice then it was necessary that he be made perfect the Bible tells us through suffering so all this part about Jesus body which is broken for us is critical to his sacrifice and to what he did now a page back in your Bible it isn't mine anyway - chapter 10 of 1st Corinthians Paul says verse 14 wherefore my dearly beloved flee from idolatry I speak two wise men I want you to judge what I say the cup of blessing that we bless is it not the communion of the Bob the blood of Christ you know what the word communion means it's the same root in a Greek ready from which the word Fellowship comes we use the word fellowship our fellowship being as though well we stand around after church and shake hands and swap stories and this is fellowshipping I think that fellowshipping is much closer than this and probably the word communion where minds meet where people learn one another and get acquainted with one another and become to share things with one another and become close to one another this is what communion is about the cup that we partake of at the Lord's table the Lord's Supper isn't it the communion of the blood of Christ the bread which we break isn't it the communion of the body of Christ in other words in the process of partaking of the Lord's Supper we actually commune with or share heat with him his body and his blood we share it with him we share it with one another now as I said by now all of us I think began to understand that the the broken body of Jesus Christ has to do with his suffering that the bread of the Passover the Lord's Supper had to do with Jesus suffering and Paul says because many of you people haven't understood this thing that it has affected your attitude or your faith and many people have died who might otherwise have been healed and many people are still weak and sickly who if they had had faith if they had understood what they were doing if they had really looked to the Lord's body might well have been healed by now these things are there for us communion as I say it means sharing and much more now at the Lord's Supper we acknowledge in eating the bread and drinking the wine that we accept Jesus Christ's sacrifice for us but then we continue to eat unleavened bread the bread of affliction for seven days why and why should we assume that the unleavened bread of the Lord's Supper means one thing and the unleavened bread of the seven days of the feast of unleavened bread means something entirely different now I want to take you for a moment to one of the oldest and richest symbols of the Christian tradition you'll turn back with me to Luke the fourteenth chapter Luke the fourteenth chapter and I'm what I'm going to talk about for a moment is the cross of Christ and I'm going to lay aside for a moment the debate over the question of a cross or a stake of crooks or stauros because while it is important compared to what I'm talking about today it is relatively insignificant in Luke the 14th chapter it says in verse 25 there went great multitudes with him and he turned and said to them if any man come to me and hate his father and his mother and his wife and his children and brethren and sisters yes and his own life he cannot be my disciple now we have preached sermons or sermonettes and it played all manner of games with what does he mean by hate and I'm not going to fool with that today at all I want you to just look at it feel it absorbent understand that Jesus is trying to say something to you through this verse you know better you know you're not actually supposed to despise hate and loathe your mother your father what did he mean then listen to what he has to say if you try to come to me and you don't hate your mother your father your sister your brother your job your house whatever it is in your own life you cannot be my disciple and whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple what what exactly is this thing with the cross Paul talks about preaching the cross of Christ he said I have to do it with humility because if I if I allow myself to become some big thing in my preaching the cross of Christ could be made of no effect what do you mean by that you see the cross of Christ is not merely the instrument of Christ's death the cross was the premier instrument of his suffering and when he turns to you and says that you have got to be prepared to hate your own life and you have got to take up your cross and follow me what in the world do you suppose he means most of us would like to be able to pray to God we'd like to be in whatever we're in hurting and we're sick when we're lost when we've been betrayed when we're out of work and we'd like to pray to God and we cannot get our knees and say lord help me with this and God would just take care of it just like that we feel good it's almost like one minister said but I get on the street it's raining I say Lord get me a taxi but when Jesus said if anybody is going to come after me let him take up his cross and follow me he is talking about suffering he is talking about loss he is talking about pain he is talking about dying he is talking about all kinds of things that we don't like to think about and it sometimes there is this presumption that the Christian religion is here just to deliver us of all that I'm sorry that's not what the Christian religion is all about God is intending to do far more with you than you ever imagined in your life he intends to make you greater than you could have ever thought you could have been he intends to do tremendous things with you it's far more important that he make you into what he wants you to be then that you hurt or you're scared or you have to do without or you don't know where your next meal is coming from there are so many things to be learned so many lessons to be learned so much character to be built I heard a lot about that recently it used to be a very strong thing in the sermons we preached a lot in the church this thing a building of the character but you see that's what we're here for we're here to become something other than what we are and that happens to us because of pain and because of suffering and because we endure it and because we overcome it anybody who's going to come after me had better pick up his cross and follow me for which of you intending to build a tower doesn't sit down first and count the cost whether he has sufficient to finish it even remember the first time or one of the first times you ever heard that did a preacher everybody sitting down getting ready to baptize you and open up their Luke 14 and say now look here you better count the cost probably didn't mean much to you then you probably said what you mean count the cost I don't have any choice you were right but you also probably did not really understand what that meant that it meant that you were going to have to take up your cross and that you were going to have to bear your cross just like Jesus had to bear his cross you were also going to suffer he better count the cost because having start laid the foundation and not being able to finish it all that behold it began to mock him saying this man began to build and was not able to finish or what king going to make war against another does not sit down first and coming and consult whether he is with ten thousand able to meet him that comes against it with twenty thousand or else while the others a great way off he sends an ambassador and desires conditions of peace so likewise whosoever he'd be of you who forsakes not all that he has he cannot be my disciple that's austere isn't it that's total commitment and it's there is no no no compromise here there's no equivocation whosoever he be who forsakes not all that he has he cannot be my disciple that means in a sense also forsaking your body not that you neglected but the point is it can't be all there is to you you can't give up what it is that God has given to you because it may cause you some pain to your body whatever it is that is you ultimately is going to have to die in order for you to be what God wants you to be Matthew sixteen there's a very powerful statement of the same theme and one that I wouldn't want to take a chance on overlooking or failing to make Matthew chapter 16 beginning in verse 21 from that time forward Jesus began to show his disciples how he had to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things that the elders and the chief priests and scribes and be killed and raised again the third day this was not what anybody who really wanted to hear this was not what we want to hear I thought the Messiah was going to come and rescue us from the Romans I thought we were going to get out of this poverty-stricken situation I thought we were going to be able to to have a freedom and that we've never had before I thought I thought I thought Jesus said no that the son of man is going to go to Jerusalem and he is going to suffer many things not a few of the tea priests and the elders and he's going to be killed and raised again the third day then Peter on behalf of all of us took him began to rebuke him and said be it far from you lord this shall not be to you and you know why he didn't want it to be to Christ because he didn't want it to be to him all fairness he didn't want to happen to Christ either but he knew enough to know that if it happened to Christ that his life was on the line as well Jesus turned and said get behind me Satan you are an offense to me for you savor not the things that be of God but the things that be of men you know and I have to you know look at myself and my life and my response to life situations and realize that I'm afraid I'm of the same spirit many times I don't want to have to face the suffering I don't want to have to face the loss I don't want to have to give it up I don't want to have to go there I don't want to have to do this he said get behind me you're an offense to me and this is where the question of taking up your cross comes in because he knew what he had to do then she said Jesus to his disciples If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me you know you don't have to by the way go out looking for this it's not necessary for you to sell your business and tomorrow and give it all to the poor and go follow Christ you don't have to go looking for this it's going to come looking for you you don't have to go out looking for sacrifices trying to find sacrifices what you have got to learn to do is how to respond to the sacrifices that come to you and they will come whoever will save his life will lose it and whoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it what does the man profited if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul what shall a man give in exchange for his soul for the son of man shall the glory of his father with his angels and then he shall reward every man according to his works there is one more of these little episodes where he spoke of this cross it's in mark the tenth chapter and I want to also look at it mark the tenth chapter in beginning in verse 17 when he was come gone forth in the way there came one running and kneeled down to him and said good master what will I do that I may inherit eternal life jesus said to him what are you calling me good there is none good but one that is God you know the commandments do not commit adultery do not kill do not steal do not bear false witness don't defraud honor your father and your mother he answered and said master I have observed these things from the time I was a boy Jesus beheld him and loved him and said to him you lack one thing go and your way and sell whatever you have and give it to the poor and you shall have treasure in heaven and come take up the cross and follow me now there's a slight difference and I don't know how much emphasis to place on this difference in this particular case though he did not say take up your cross he said take up the cross Paul spoke of it this way too it was the message of the cross of Christ that is the suffering of Christ essentially when it boiled down to was the taking up of the burden of the weight of what it was that Jesus had done was doing would do intended to do and all of the loss the painful loss that would follow on the heels of picking up that burden turn back to Philippians because Paul Paul had to look at that and he had to look at it very hard it came clear to him in a way on the road to Damascus when God called him in the first place and struck him blind it all started right there and Paul lay three days and three nights not seeing and not wondering and knowing that everything he'd given his life to up in the list turned out to be so much ashes in his mouth and wondering what in the world is in store for him there and God called a man named ananias he said I want you to go see Paul because he a man named Saul because he's praying and Ananias is oh not so Lord that man's dangerous and God said no you go because I'm going to show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake at the very beginning at the very outset of Paul's ministry it was necessary for him to understand that he was going to suffer hey everything wasn't gonna work all the pieces were not gonna fall into place he was not gonna have a meal three times a day every day for the rest of his life he wasn't always gonna have a bed to sleep in he wasn't always going to be at peace and safety it means everything was not gonna be hunky-dory in his life at Paul was going to hurt he was going to be lost he was going to be afraid he was going to be sick he was going to be pain he was going to be in danger of his life he was going to be beaten and he was gonna suffer all this stuff in helping to carry the cross of Christ and this man who finally wrote Philippians said some things about this that I think are very very powerful he addresses the Philippians in his 3rd chapter about about the ridiculous attitude some people had toward their religious background and he said boy if you have something to boast about there I'll you want to hear some boast let me tell you what I was religiously and he just ticked it all off down for that what he was who he was what he had been wearing studied his credentials were great and finally he comes in verse 7 and says but what things were gain to me those I counted loss for Christ yayyyy doubtless and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things is that what you thought you were getting into when someone said count the cost before you're baptized for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and I do count them but dung fertilizer just a pile of fertilizer he said all of this stuff everything I had my life my achievements all the things that really in a way made me me he said I look at them and I just count them as loss and fertilizer why that I may win Christ and be found in him not having my own righteousness which is of the law but that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by faith and listen to what he says in his next verse it's stunning when you understand what he's saying that I may know him I lost all this stuff I gave all of it up and I counted it as worthless in order that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the Fellowship of his sufferings one of the things that Paul was happy he'd lost all this stuff in order to gain something what a gain he gained a share in the pain of Jesus Christ a pea share in the loss a share in the humiliation a share in in you know a lot of times when you buy into something you expect to get something in return better than that don't you but the thing that Paul said that I did all this was that I may know him and that I may share in his sufferings the fellowship I never exactly thought of it that way you know that that there is a fellowship of suffering a sharing in it and that the suffering that comes my way as a result even of my own foolishness a suffering that comes my way because of the sins of other people are the abuse or the crimes of other people a suffering that comes my way just by time and chance that all those sufferings that come my way that I pray about are asking the ministers to anoint me for and I ask for God to take them away from me and he doesn't all those things are the Fellowship of his sufferings because you see as we in a way have a chance to share in his sufferings what he was doing when he allowed them to nail him to that stake was to share in yours it is really he that has moved to the Fellowship of your sufferings not you have moved to his but it is in your attitude in your sufferings it is in the way you feel in your sufferings that you are able to have fellowship with his whereas if you blame him for what's happened to you if you criticize God because why didn't he keep you out of this accident if you criticize God how could God let something like this happen to me because I've been obedient to him and I've done his will then you have lost the Fellowship of his sufferings because the truth is it is the will of God that we suffer as he suffered strange-sounding odd not what you expected but you see there is a reason why you don't understand this there is a reason why this tends to go over your head and why you don't get to come to grips with it and the reason is because you really do not understand yet what it is that God has in store for you you do not understand what it is that he's trying to make of you you don't understand or grasp the consequences of having embarked on this journey in the first place and where it's going when we get to the end of it for the purpose of our walk with God is to turn us into something very very different from what we are today the Feast of Westerlund the unleavened bread should be a continual reminder of the communion of the body of Christ that as we day-by-day eat the bread of affliction that as our life goes on day in and day out that as we experience affliction in this world it is the Fellowship of his suffering that we are able to enjoy if that's the way of looking at it in fact the times of our sufferings the times when we hurt the times when we're afraid can be very special times of communion with God that can't be touched by the communion you have at other times if you don't know that yet trust me you will God will take you through whatever has to be done to do it and you know suffering with him is just a whole lot better than suffering alone in conclusion I want you to turn back with me to second Timothy the second chapter because the fact is there is more it is not just a matter of hurting it is not just a matter of communing with God in our suffering and I want all of you unto understand young people old people or whatever it is that the suffering that you have is not suffering that God causes it is the suffering that you and the people around you cause that is able to be turned to the fellowship of Christ suffering in 2nd Timothy chapter 2 beginning in verse 1 therefore my son be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and the things that you have heard of me among many witnesses the same commit to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also you therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ part of the deal is hardship part of the deal is a bread of affliction and not merely seven days of eating bread that may hurt your gums it's that it's that bread of affliction that you'll eat day in and day out in your life no man that wars and tangles himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him who has chosen him to be a soldier and if a man also strive for the masteries he is not crowned unless he strives lawfully the husbandmen that Labor's must be first partaker of the fruits consider what I say in the Lord give you understanding of all things remember that Jesus Christ of the seat of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel and I suffered trouble as an evildoer even unto bonds but the word of God is not bound therefore I endure all things for the elects sake that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory it is a faithful saying if we are dead with him we will live with him if we suffer with him we will reign with him you have to understand that what suffering we have right now the struggles that we have are to make something different out of us it is in a sense to tear down the old house and to build a new one because God has in mind placing in subjection to us the world to come and he has a lot of work to do on us between now and then and some of it will involve the bread of affliction

Channel: BornToWinCEM

Views: 868

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Born to Win, Ronald L. Dart, CEM

Id: Q8echBaOWlA

Length: 51min 5sec (3065 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 15 2020