A Little Help From My Friends
Jesus’ sermon on the mount starts with God’s blessings. The blessings of God are upside down from what the world considers blessings. The world thinks that poverty, mournfulness, meekness, hunger, thirst, purity in spirit, and persecution are curses, not blessings. However, Jesus said, when those who live righteous in Christ are persecuted by the world, Great is your reward in heaven… As Paul said, the suffering of this present fleeting moment in time is not to be compared with the eternal glory that shall be revealed in us.
According to 1 Peter 3, even if you suffer for the sake of righteousness, you’re blessed. Jesus’ last beatitude says, Blessed are they when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake, for great is your reward in heaven.
Pete was journaling and writing down his list of maladies… neuropathy, planar fasciitis, Parkinson’s disease, anemia, and so on…. Then he heard God’s still small voice: “I see you’re listing your friends.” Our friends bring us closer to the Lord…. The job of the Holy Spirit is to afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted. As Suzan often said, Joy is not the absence of pain. Joy is the presence of the Lord.
Paul listed his “friends” in 2 Corinthians 11. Paul suffered and endured scourgings, beatings, stoning and imprisonment.. in shipwreck often, in perils of the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils against false brethren…. These perils were his “friends” because through the pain of his “thorn in the flesh,” Paul through the patience of suffering finally understood his true calling. He came to the conclusion that for me to live is Christ and to die (to myself and to the world) is gain.
Isaiah 40 says, nothing in this world will last. This too shall pass. Even the nations of the world will rise and fall… nations are but a drop in the bucket from God’s eternal perspective. For that which is seen is temporal, but that which is unseen, the things of the spirit of God, are eternal.
The things the world considers success, God says will come to naught…. Ecclesiastes says everything is vanity… everything is “dust in the wind.”
The Pharisees thought that Paul had reached the pinnacle of success. In Philippians 3:5-7, Paul listed his worldly credentials….
If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so:
circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee;
concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
However in verses 8-11, Paul came to the conclusion that these worldly credentials didn’t matter:
But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.
Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ
and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;
that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,
if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Paul said, the things the world holds dear, these things I count but dung that I may receive the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, for he is my lord and every thing else is rubbish in comparison.
The world strives for trophies, medals and awards….. accolades and tokens of the world’s appreciation for excelling in the things that they value the most…. To be better than the competition… to be self assured, self fulfilled, self confident, and self sufficient… to be self actualized. However, these things will come to naught…. The warning is this: be careful what you strive for. The greatest disappointment in life is that after climbing the ladder of success, you finally discover that your ladder was leaning against the wrong wall.
Paul came to this conclusion after he had prayed three times for God to remove his painful thorn in the flesh. Twice God did not answer his prayer… Thank God for unanswered prayer. Then finally when the student is ready the teacher will come. The third time Paul prayed, God answered his prayer, but it wasn’t the answer that Paul expected. The Lord said that despite your painful thorn in the flesh…. “My strength is made perfect in thy weakness, my grace is sufficient for thee.”
The question is, when people see you and what you do, are they witnessing the gospel of Christ? As Paul said in Philippians 1:27, only let your conversation (your exemplary behavior as a citizen) be as it becometh the gospel of Christ…. The word conversation is the word for “citizenship.” Even though we hold dual citizenship as citizens of the United States and citizens of heaven, we are Christians first and Americans second. Our first allegiance is to the kingdom of heaven…. To our Sovreign Lord, for he is the king of kings and Lord of Lords.
This is the theme of Philippians 1:27-29 about our witness to the world as citizens of heaven:
Only let your (behavior as citizens of heaven) be worthy of the gospel of Christ…. standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel,
and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God.
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake…
When people read the book of our lives, do our lives reflect the testimony of the Lord? As long as we draw breath upon this earth, then God hasn’t finished writing his word upon the tables of our heart. For we are his living epistles… his love letters…. living testimonies of God’s mercy, love and grace known and read of all men.
Often the greatest witness is not how we handle so-called success. People will sit up and take note of how we handle adversity. Paul’s suffering, his thorn in the flesh was his “friend.” Through the suffering, like Paul, we will come to understand what God said to Paul, “my strength is made perfect in thy weakness, my grace is sufficient for thee”…….
That despite the trials, tribulation, and suffering, we may be living epistles of his strength, mercy and love…. To the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael
