How to Suffer Better | Turn Your Suffering Into Strength

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- Let's sing together. Call his name.

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Father God, I think every step you saw

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that came into this place or online with us,

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into this space together is a step towards You

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because we believe, and I know when I get closer to You,

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I get closer to life.

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Thank You for taking us to deeper places.

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Thank You for for making it clear

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what Your way is and who You are.

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You are kind and gracious and good and I fully trust You.

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Set my eyes and my heart back on You this morning.

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Thank You, God. Amen. - Yeah.

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- It's great to be back together.

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It's always great to sing together.

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I love that you're online with us, too.

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Why don't you turn to somebody in the room

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and just say, "Hey, glad to be here with you,"

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and you can have a seat together.

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- Well, there's a verse I've been returning to

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a number of times this week. It's Acts 20:24, and it says:

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But I do not account my life of any value

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nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course

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and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus,

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to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

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That verse talks about the course of life.

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Finish my course.

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In this Run Journey we're talking about

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the idea of a race,

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that God has a race laid out for each of us.

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There's a course to follow.

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And I'll just tell you in my life,

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the most frustrating part about having a race,

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having a course, is that I don't know

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what's around the next corner.

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I don't know what pain might come my way.

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I don't know what difficulty might come my way.

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I don't know what hardship might come my way.

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I just don't know.

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Maybe in your life you've had those moments

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where something just jumps out and you're like,

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"Oh my gosh, I didn't see that coming."

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The pain hits you, the suffering hits you

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is the word that the Bible uses for it.

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Well, I'm taking great comfort in the fact that,

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while God has been grieved about things

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that have happened in my life and your life,

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He's never been caught off guard.

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While God's been upset about things that have happened

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to you and I, God's never been thrown for a loop.

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While God's been saddened about the things

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that we've experienced in our lives,

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God's never been unprepared to comfort us

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and to lead us forward.

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This week we're talking about suffering in our race.

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All of the pain, all the difficulties that come our way,

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all the things that we didn't see coming,

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all the things we never would have asked for

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that come our way, and what do we do about them?

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It's suffering.

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We're speaking of, by the way, I suffered

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in my group this past week with that game we played.

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We did not make it to the end of the game board.

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We worked for three hours.

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We couldn't solve the riddles.

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I've never felt so dumb in my life.

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I don't know how your group went. That's all mine went.

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We're talking about Paul.

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We're talking about suffering today.

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And we're going to go to the place where

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the Apostle Paul suffered maybe the most,

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a place called Philippi.

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And when you study the life of the Apostle Paul,

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this thing jumps out to you about

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what makes him so different,

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and it's how he handled suffering.

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It all came his way, but he didn't do it in the usual way.

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See, his suffering didn't lead him to bitterness.

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His suffering didn't lead him to disillusionment.

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Instead, his suffering led him to trust God more.

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And it led to something called endurance,

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character and hope.

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This is the go/no go part that all of us must face

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at the beginning of our race.

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Today, like I said, we're going to go to Philippi,

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a virtual pilgrimage, for 20 minutes

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and then have live teaching after that.

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Welcome to week two of the Run Journey.

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- Hey, and welcome back to week two

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of our Real Encounters Journey.

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Again, we're here in Turkey and Greece,

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and I am just so excited about week two,

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because this is the week that we don't all want to talk about.

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But this is what separates the true, true people

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that are going to stick with it from the people that

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are just going to maybe walk away in every circle. Right?

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And that is suffering.

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So I know we don't love to talk about it,

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but there's just a little bit of hardship

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that's just kind of crucial and necessary.

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And it's a part of every great hero that we look up to.

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And it's certainly a part of Paul's story.

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And so, Bob, I know that Philippi in particular

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is this space that we're headed to that has

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such historical and archeological significance

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for a place where Paul was beaten and thrown in jail,

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but somehow found joy.

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Just tell us a little bit about that space.

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- Yeah, Philippi is an amazing site.

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It's one of my favorites, you know, because

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in Tarsus you have this modern city

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built over the ancient site so you don't really see too much.

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But when we go to Philippi, it's not inhabited.

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And so the archeologists have been able to excavate

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pretty much the whole city.

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And it's a Roman colony that was the leading city in its region.

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And when Paul and his disciples came there,

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we kind of see the city that they entered into.

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And there's several interesting discoveries there

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that really tie directly to what Paul

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and his disciples were doing.

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Number one, we'll be visiting the baptism site of Lydia,

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who was really the first convert in Europe.

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- Wow.

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- But even more so, her home, her household,

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her family became the first church in Europe.

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And so we can say that Lydia, as a woman,

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was one of the first church leaders in Europe,

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which is amazing.

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- We do love to see girl power. We do, we love it.

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- And that's the way of Jesus.

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Jesus was all about empowering women, you know,

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and we see that lived out in the ministry of Paul as well.

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And we have other things too,

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like on this subject of suffering

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it's so vivid because the judgment platform,

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the bema that's right on the main square, if you will,

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of Philippi is still there,

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and we can see the remains of it

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and literally stand where Paul and Silas stood

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when they were unjustly condemned and beaten

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and then thrown into prison.

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And it really brings home the reality of that story.

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- That's so, so cool.

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And to that point of Paul and Silas, you know, suffering.

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And I'd love for you to chime in here,

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because I think that word in your context

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might be hitting home or even feel a little bit different

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because you are a Christian in a space

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that's just predominantly not a thing.

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And so there's some level of suffering

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that you might be experiencing as a follower of Jesus.

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If you want to talk a little bit about that.

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- Here, for example, in Turkey, we Turkish Christians

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are usually, when we become believers,

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we are outcasted by our families, by our friends,

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by our surroundings. Right?

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I myself personally was kicked out of my house

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by my father when I made the decision

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to become a Christian.

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And so we really can relate to also the suffering

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that the early church had to endure.

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And it is kind of like an interesting point maybe too

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to mention that also it is happening again

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in kind of the same biblical land. Right?

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And so when some of the young people in our country,

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when they decide to follow Jesus,

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they might have this wrong idea of like,

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"Oh, now my life is going to be perfect.

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You know, I'm going to have everything my way."

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But no, as you know, as Christians, we know that

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that's not what Jesus said that we would have.

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Actually He said, "Take up your cross and follow Me."

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Right? And we try to prepare them

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for the suffering to come, because as Christians,

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we're not called to a life free of pain,

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free of suffering.

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I mean, our Lord and Savior Jesus suffered the most,

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you know, of the suffering. So, yeah.

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- That is -- that's a good word right there,

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that we are -- our calls to take up our cross.

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And you know what? The best place to kind of go

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and see a guy who did this, who took up his cross

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and followed Jesus, is again to follow the life of Paul.

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And so our next stop on the Journey is to see

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where he suffered well, which is in Philippi.

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- While in Asia minor, now modern day Turkey,

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Paul experienced a vision of a man pleading,

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"Come over to Macedonia and help us."

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So Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke,

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who wrote the book of Acts, traveled to Philippi,

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a city in Macedonia which is now modern day Greece.

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It is here, on Paul's second missionary journey,

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that the dramatic events recorded in Acts 16 unfold.

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Lydia is baptized.

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Paul cast a demon out of a slave girl

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and is arrested, beaten and thrown into jail with Silas,

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where they worship God until He sends an earthquake

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to open the prison doors

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and the jailer becomes a believer in Jesus.

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Later, Paul wrote the New Testament book of Philippians

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to the church that was founded during his time here.

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- Welcome to Philippi.

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Now, Philippi might not mean much to you and I,

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but the events that have happened here

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not only shaped the world,

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but shaped the very life of Jesus Himself.

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In the year 43 BC, there was a battle that took place

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right here called the Battle of Philippi

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between Octavian and Brutus.

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Brutus had just brutally murdered

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Octavian's adopted stepfather, Julius Caesar.

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The battle was for control of the entire Roman Empire.

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Octavian was victorious and went on to become

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the first absolute ruler of the Roman Empire.

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Later on, he changed his name to one you might recognize,

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Caesar Augustus.

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And the year 4 BC, Caesar Augustus decided that

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he would like to count the number of citizens

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across the entire Roman Empire, and so ordered a census

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which caused a young Jewish couple named Mary and Joseph

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to make the long journey to Bethlehem.

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Jesus was born in Bethlehem,

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which fulfilled a 700 year old prophecy

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because of what happened right here.

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The history of this place is incredible.

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- Seven years have passed since Paul left Tarsus,

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and those seven years have been incredible,

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results everywhere, everything's going great in Paul's race.

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Which is not to say there's not resistance.

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Why is it going so great?

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It's because Paul knows the secret to running

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and winning the race, the one that he tells us about

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in Romans chapter five.

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We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

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Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings,

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knowing that suffering produces endurance,

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and endurance produces character,

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and character produces hope,

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and hope does not put us to shame.

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Paul knows this pattern that builds character

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and hopeful power in somebody, and he knows that

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it starts in suffering, which is why we're in this city

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where we are today.

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Now, when Paul walks into town,

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he actually has an immediate win.

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He meets some women who are praying.

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And there's one in particular, a woman named Lydia,

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a leader, a businesswoman

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who responds incredibly to his message.

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And actually, this is the story where,

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if you've ever heard this idea that Paul is anti-women,

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you have to engage with the story of Lydia.

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We're actually going to talk about it more

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in our group materials.

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But for now, I want to focus on the second major story

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that happens in Philippi.

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In this story has these two details that just bother me

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as I've studied it and as I've meditated on it.

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Two things that just at face value

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don't make any sense at all.

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Now the story starts with Paul and his companions

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experiencing something very familiar,

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which is resistance, and then ultimately suffering.

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As they're going back to the place of prayer

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where they met Lydia, a slave girl comes out

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and starts heckling them.

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Here's how the story goes in Acts 16.

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As we were going to the place of prayer,

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we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination

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and brought her owners much gain by fortune telling.

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She followed Paul and us, crying out,

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"These men are servants of the Most High God,

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who proclaim to you the way of salvation."

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And this she kept doing for many days.

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Paul, having become greatly annoyed,

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turned and said to the spirit,

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"I command you in the name of Jesus Christ

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to come out of her."

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And it came out that very hour.

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Now the demon possessed girl shares the truth.

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She says exactly what's true:

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These men serve the Most High God,

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and they're going to tell you about the way to be saved.

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But for whatever reason, Paul doesn't want

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this announced right now, in this moment.

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And so, day 1, he ignores her.

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Day 2 he tries again to ignore her,

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but it bothers him a little bit more.

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Day 3, day 4, we don't know exactly how many,

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but eventually Paul gets so annoyed

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He does what you and I do and he just snaps.

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You can imagine him looking over his shoulder

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and going, "Just get out."

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And he kind of keeps going because the demon leaves.

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In Paul's mind, problem solved. She's quiet.

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However, her owners, who made a lot of money

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off of her being demon possessed

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and able to tell fortunes, are not very happy with Paul.

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This is how the scene goes next.

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But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone,

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they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them

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into the marketplace before the rulers.

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And when they had brought them to the magistrates,

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they said, "These men are Jews,

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and they are disturbing our city.

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They advocate customs that are not lawful

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for us as Romans to accept or practice."

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The crowd joined in attacking them,

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and the magistrates tore the garments off them

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and gave orders to beat them with rods.

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And when they had inflicted many blows upon them,

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they threw them into prison,

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ordering the jailers to keep them safely.

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Paul was dragged from that road we were just on

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to this spot right here to go on trial,

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and trial is very generous.

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It worked differently back in the ancient world,

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the justice system, if you could call it that,

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especially in the Roman Empire.

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See, this is the public marketplace where

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we're standing.

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In the public marketplace there was a raised platform

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called the Bema, where two magistrates sat.

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They were something like the co-mayors of the city,

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only if, as mayor, you could do whatever you want,

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to basically whoever you wanted.

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And so Paul and Silas are dragged here

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to the middle of the bema.

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These holes in the ground are where

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there would have been a railing.

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And centered perfectly on the bema

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is about where this circle is right now.

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And so Paul is shoved up to the front of the railing.

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He's holding on.

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And the magistrates instantaneously condemn him.

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No trial, no witnesses, no testimony, nothing.

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They call out these guys who start beating them with rods.

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And these aren't just random guys.

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This is an actual position in Rome.

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It's called a lictor.

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The lictor is where the Roman soldiers retired now,

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some of the biggest and the strongest.

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They carried on their back a battle ax

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and the handle of the battle ax was surrounded

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by willow rods.

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The idea was that you could quickly and easily

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reach over your shoulder, get out a rod

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and start whipping somebody with it.

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The rod was called a fascia,

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and it's actually where we get the word fascism from,

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basically to brutally enforce

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with whatever violent means necessary.

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And so what happens to Paul right here in this circle

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is he suffers greatly.

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It's not a couple of whacks on the back.

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As he's holding on to the iron bars

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his back is ripped apart, blood is spilling everywhere.

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Now, this moment is one of the details that bothers me.

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Yes, the violent part. Yes, that bothers me.

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But more so that the violence, the suffering

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didn't have to happen.

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Paul was a Roman citizen.

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This exchange was not legal for Roman citizens.

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You could do it to whoever else you want,

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but Rome took their citizenship very, very seriously.

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All Paul had to do before the first rod came across his back

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and say, "Hey, by the way, I'm a citizen of Rome,"

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and none of it would have happened.

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Why didn't Paul do it?

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Why didn't he stand up for himself? It's puzzling.

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Well, regardless, what happens next is

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he's hauled off to jail, his feet are put up into stocks,

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and he's laid on his back.

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Those stocks would have been close to the floor.

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So literally, he's spread eagle laying on his wounds

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and he does something crazy. He starts to praise God.

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Here's how the story continues.

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About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying

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and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners

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were listening to them.

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And suddenly there was a great earthquake,

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so that the foundations of the prison were shaken.

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And immediately all the doors were opened

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and everyone's bonds were unfastened.

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When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open,

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he drew his sword and was about to kill himself,

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supposing that the prisoners had escaped.

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But Paul cried with a loud voice,

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"Do not harm yourself, for we're all here."

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And the jailer called for lights, and rushed in,

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and trembling with fear,

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he fell down before Paul and Silas.

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Then he brought them out and said, "Sirs,

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what must I do to be saved?"

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Okay, so there's a lot of strange details

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that seem odd in this story, right?

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I mean, he's lying on his back in pain,

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horribly, unimaginable pain.

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And Paul decides, you know what I'm going to do?

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I'm going to sing praises to God.

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I'm going to talk about, sing for all to hear

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how great God is, how He saved me,

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how He's rescued me, how He's delivered me. That's odd.

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And then also the earthquake happens.

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The prison doors all fall apart and Paul decides to stay.

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Very strange.

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But neither one of those is the second detail

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that's really bothered me about this story.

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The second detail that's bothered me

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is the jailer's question: Sir, do to be saved?

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Now for us, we read a lot of things into that question

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that maybe aren't true.

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The jailer was Roman, likely a retired Roman soldier,

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and in his mind, there was no concept

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of some of the things that we might assume.

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There was no concept of something called spiritual sin,

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or the need for eternal salvation,

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or forgiveness or justification,

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or how to become righteous

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or not even exactly our versions of heaven and hell

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and the afterlife. All of that was very, very different.

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And so what's bothered me is, where in the world

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did the jailer come up with this question?

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And then it hit me. He had heard that morning

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a slave girl shouting something.

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She said, "These men are servants of the Most High God.

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They are proclaiming to you the way of salvation." Crazy.

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Then later on, I just imagine,

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the jailer is in his office and he hears singing,

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and he leans in and he listens.

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And the words of the songs are about a God who saves,

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who heals, who delivers, who forgives.

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And the dots in the jailers mind connect.

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Why did Paul stay in the circle?

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Well, I think it's pretty clear:

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Paul stayed in the circle because he got

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a nudge from God that on this day, his race

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included standing still and enduring the suffering

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for the sake of the kingdom of God.

00:27:34

And that's exactly what happens,

00:27:37

because the jailer and his whole family, they believe.

00:27:41

Here's how the story continues.

00:27:43

And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus

00:27:46

and you will be saved, you and your whole household."

00:27:50

And they spoke the word of the Lord to him

00:27:52

and to all who were in his house.

00:27:54

And he took them the same hour of the night

00:27:56

and washed their wounds.

00:27:58

And he was baptized at once, he and all his family.

00:28:02

Then he brought them up into his house

00:28:04

and set food before them.

00:28:05

And he rejoiced, along with his entire household

00:28:08

that he had believed in God.

00:28:12

God used Paul's suffering to save,

00:28:15

and it will be the same for us.

00:28:17

We have to get this idea through our minds

00:28:20

at the beginning of learning how to run our race

00:28:22

and run it God's way:

00:28:24

Suffering is not an optional step in the journey.

00:28:27

It'd be awesome if Paul had said, "Good news, everybody.

00:28:32

Ease leads to endurance,

00:28:35

and endurance leads to character

00:28:37

and character leads to hope, begins and ends and ease."

00:28:41

That's not what he said.

00:28:42

He said it's suffering.

00:28:44

Suffering is the first step.

00:28:46

See, there is no following Jesus

00:28:49

without willingly stepping into the circle of suffering.

00:28:54

When I came here years ago with Bob

00:28:56

and was first touring and learning about

00:28:58

all the places that were going in this Journey,

00:29:00

it was actually this spot in this stone,

00:29:03

in this circle that meant the most to me.

00:29:06

Because it's such a sobering picture

00:29:08

of exactly the invitation into the race with God.

00:29:11

Will I step into the circle or will I avoid it?

00:29:15

Will I stay where it's comfortable and safe

00:29:18

and known and everything's in control?

00:29:21

Or will I trust God when He says to step in

00:29:24

and to trust Him, even if it's uncomfortable,

00:29:27

even if it's dangerous, even if it's painful,

00:29:30

even if it stretches me, even if I don't know which way to go?

00:29:33

Will I trust God enough to take the step into the circle?

00:30:04

- Well, welcome to Philippi, everyone.

00:30:06

We've done our best to put you in that ancient place today

00:30:08

where Kyle was actually standing.

00:30:11

My name is Alli Patterson, if you're new around here.

00:30:13

For our Run Journey, I'm one of the teaching pastors

00:30:16

here at Crossroads, and I'm on the Journey with you.

00:30:18

Who met with their group this week? Anybody else?

00:30:22

Lots of hands. We did too.

00:30:23

We had some couples over on Wednesday night,

00:30:26

a few of them we know, a few of them we don't know

00:30:28

and we had a great experience.

00:30:30

We spent some time actually talking through

00:30:34

week one's goal was to name the race.

00:30:36

What's the race that you're in?

00:30:37

What's the path that you're on right now

00:30:39

that you really feel like God's pointing you toward?

00:30:42

This is the one I want your eyes on right now.

00:30:45

So first of all, before I go any further,

00:30:46

because I can hear it already, I've been sick.

00:30:48

Anyone else gotten something lately? Yeah.

00:30:51

So I've been sick all week.

00:30:53

I know you're going to forgive me

00:30:54

if I have to use my tissues, my cough drop,

00:30:56

or my water, so sorry in advance.

00:30:59

I've had to once or twice,

00:31:00

but we're going to get through this together.

00:31:02

So today we're dealing with the reality

00:31:06

that no matter what race we named,

00:31:08

and there's as many as there are people in our community

00:31:11

that named their race this week,

00:31:14

none of them are going to go smoothly.

00:31:17

So today we're dealing with the reality

00:31:18

that how we suffer

00:31:20

will determine how we finish our race.

00:31:23

And some of us walked in here knowing the suffering,

00:31:27

some kind of pain and difficulty

00:31:28

took us out of our race a long time ago,

00:31:30

trying to figure out how to get back on course.

00:31:32

Other people you just named a new race.

00:31:35

And so, hey, welcome. The water's warm.

00:31:38

Today is going to be prep for what's coming your way:

00:31:42

Suffering and difficulty, right?

00:31:44

And others of us are actually squarely

00:31:46

in the middle of it right now.

00:31:48

This whole topic let me like remember this question

00:31:53

that I used to ask myself during actual races.

00:31:58

So when -- the question I asked myself many times

00:32:01

was, what am I going to do at mile 16?

00:32:04

When I was in my 20s, I ran some marathons,

00:32:09

which was, you know, just a year or two ago.

00:32:14

It's not that funny.

00:32:17

I ran some marathons. I still love to run.

00:32:20

Haven't done a marathon in a long time,

00:32:21

but did enough that at mile 16, every single time

00:32:27

I had to ask myself: what am I going to do right now?

00:32:31

Because mile 16 is a unique low point

00:32:35

in the marathon race.

00:32:37

Let me paint you a picture, marathon 26.2 miles.

00:32:40

The point two is just -- it's just cruel and unusual, right?

00:32:45

26.2 miles. And at mile 16, you are hurting.

00:32:49

You are chafing.

00:32:51

You are asking yourself, "Why did I do this again?"

00:32:55

And then you see the mile 16 marker.

00:32:57

And the math is really easy.

00:33:01

You passed that mile 16 marker and you do the math

00:33:04

and you go, "I can't possibly run another ten miles.

00:33:11

Ten more miles from here." It's like mind blowing.

00:33:17

And so every single race, not just my first one,

00:33:20

where it took me by surprise, but every single time

00:33:24

I would pass the mile 16 mile marker

00:33:27

and I would think to myself,

00:33:29

"What I do in the next period of time right now

00:33:33

is going to determine how I cross the finish line."

00:33:35

And let me tell you what I see around mile 16,

00:33:38

maybe 17, in that ballpark, every single race I did,

00:33:42

I would see this, people would be they're going,

00:33:45

they're doing their thing.

00:33:46

And all of a sudden they're like, "I'm out. This is -- no."

00:33:51

Or I would see people who would literally,

00:33:54

they're trying their hardest, but they collapse,

00:33:58

they're injured, they're out and they're done,

00:34:01

and they just get pulled off the course.

00:34:04

And I would also see people who were keeping stride,

00:34:07

but who started to slow down,

00:34:09

like significantly around this time.

00:34:11

Maybe they hit a walk.

00:34:12

Maybe I see a few of them hours later,

00:34:15

literally sometimes crawling across the finish line

00:34:18

just because they want to finish their marathon.

00:34:21

And it all happens right around mile 16.

00:34:25

It was the low point every single time.

00:34:28

Your mile 16 in any race you named is coming.

00:34:32

And I wish I wasn't the one standing up here

00:34:35

on week two going let's talk about

00:34:38

all your suffering at mile 16.

00:34:40

But if we don't, you're going to get off course.

00:34:44

You're going to be the one that gets dragged off,

00:34:46

or you're just going to go, "You know what?

00:34:48

It's too much. I'm out."

00:34:49

And if we can learn to expect it

00:34:51

and if we can learn to understand it's part of

00:34:54

an arc in the story that God is going to tell in our life,

00:34:58

then we can actually deal with it in a way that is Romans 5.

00:35:02

Here's our our verses for our whole Journey

00:35:05

come from Romans 5, and they're a reminder

00:35:07

of what suffering well actually ends up in.

00:35:12

We rejoice in our sufferings,

00:35:14

knowing that suffering produces endurance,

00:35:17

endurance produces character,

00:35:19

and character produces hope.

00:35:21

You can suffer well, and that can be your arc,

00:35:25

or you can suffer badly

00:35:27

and you can get pulled off the course.

00:35:29

Today our goal is to figure out how do we handle suffering

00:35:33

so we get the good stuff,

00:35:34

because that's what God has promised.

00:35:37

He's promised that if we can suffer well,

00:35:39

if we can figure out how to do that,

00:35:42

it will push us into an arc that will find an end point in hope.

00:35:46

And that is what I want.

00:35:48

I'm going to take you into some suffering in my life

00:35:50

that actually started a long, long time ago.

00:35:53

And I'm not picking it because it has a nice ending.

00:35:57

I'm picking it because I can see the whole arc.

00:36:01

I can see that that suffering is bad and as painful as it was,

00:36:06

has made the entire journey.

00:36:08

And I want you to get in it with me today,

00:36:11

because there are three things that I learned

00:36:14

in the darkest place, which was actually quite a long time ago.

00:36:17

And now that I've made the entire arc,

00:36:20

I can actually see some things that took place

00:36:22

in that really low mile 16 spot that I think

00:36:27

are at least part of the key to suffering well.

00:36:31

The first one of those is to stop obsessing

00:36:35

about the beginning of our suffering.

00:36:38

We get caught in a swirl of how did this all start?

00:36:44

Why me? What are these circumstances?

00:36:47

How did I get here? Whose fault is it?

00:36:51

Why? Why did -- why did this come into my life?

00:36:54

And how do -- how am I supposed to be

00:36:57

the one that goes through this? It's just not right.

00:36:59

And we get caught in the swirl of the beginning.

00:37:03

And if we allow ourselves to get in t

00:37:06

he who, what, where, when, why,

00:37:07

who's to blame swirl of our suffering,

00:37:09

we will not move forward on our journey.

00:37:12

We will stay right there, and we will not only

00:37:14

stay right there, we will guaranteed get bitter about it.

00:37:20

My conviction about this arc that God wants us in is this.

00:37:27

It doesn't matter how the suffering starts

00:37:30

and we don't want that answer.

00:37:32

We want there to be two different categories,

00:37:34

like the suffering I deserve

00:37:35

and the suffering I don't deserve or something.

00:37:37

And you know, God should take away one

00:37:40

and use the other one, and that's just not how it works.

00:37:45

We see suffering come into the lives of people

00:37:48

in Scripture and out of Scriptuhre all the time,

00:37:50

tat doesn't seem to be what makes the difference.

00:37:52

And so when we swirl on the beginning

00:37:55

and we decide it's in the category

00:37:57

that shouldn't have happened,

00:37:58

we never actually move forward in our journey.

00:38:02

And listen, I know those answers matter to you.

00:38:05

They matter to me.

00:38:06

We all want to rewind and unwind and figure out

00:38:09

how we got in the mess to begin with. Right?

00:38:12

We want those answers.

00:38:13

And I will tell you, I think a lot of us know this

00:38:16

who've been through difficulties.

00:38:17

Sometimes on a healing leg of your journey,

00:38:20

it can be helpful to go back and understand, you know,

00:38:23

the past and the patterns a little bit,

00:38:25

and it can actually be a helpful part of a healing journey.

00:38:29

But not at mile 16.

00:38:32

At mile 16, something else is going to move us forward.

00:38:36

It's not going to be the obsessive swirl

00:38:40

over why all of this started to begin with.

00:38:42

Now, some of you are mad at me already about this.

00:38:45

It's all right. I can take it.

00:38:46

You're like, "Okay, I can maybe get on board

00:38:49

with the fact that God will, you know,

00:38:51

bring some hardship into my life.

00:38:53

But not not this.

00:38:55

You don't understand my story. This wasn't okay.

00:38:58

It just shouldn't have been."

00:39:00

And I don't. I don't know your story, I really don't.

00:39:04

But I know Paul's.

00:39:06

I know the one that we just heard from Kyle,

00:39:08

and we can see in that story exactly where the beginning was.

00:39:13

Let's go back into that for just a second.

00:39:15

In Acts 16, there's a girl.

00:39:17

She's following them around for days on end,

00:39:20

and she's yelling because of a spirit that's possessing her,

00:39:22

"These men are from God.

00:39:24

They know the way of salvation."

00:39:25

And here's what Acts 16 says again.

00:39:29

And she kept doing this for many days.

00:39:31

Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned

00:39:33

and said to the spirit, "I command you

00:39:35

in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her."

00:39:38

And it came out that very hour.

00:39:44

So here we are, that's the beginning,

00:39:46

because it was right after that

00:39:48

that the owners of the girl got mad.

00:39:51

They drag him into the marketplace.

00:39:52

He gets accused, beaten, bloodied and thrown in prison.

00:39:56

And that was the beginning.

00:39:58

An annoyance and a deliverance that you could argue,

00:40:02

big picture for that girl,

00:40:04

was maybe the greatest kindness she had ever received.

00:40:10

And that was the beginning of Paul.

00:40:12

And yet not a hint of bitterness,

00:40:15

not only in this story,

00:40:17

but never, never in all of Paul's journey,

00:40:20

in all of his sufferings, do we get a hint of bitterness.

00:40:22

If you read the book called Philippians,

00:40:25

which is a letter that Paul later wrote back

00:40:28

to these same people that are in this area

00:40:30

that he's dealing with in this story from Acts.

00:40:33

He writes them a letter when he's moved on,

00:40:35

and he reminds them, "Don't forget,

00:40:39

rejoice in all circumstances."

00:40:42

And the crazy thing about that letter is that

00:40:45

it got written when he was in jail,

00:40:47

again, later somewhere else.

00:40:51

And it's one of the happiest letters in the Bible.

00:40:53

And if you read that letter, you can tell that Paul,

00:40:56

not only not now, while he's going through it in Acts 16,

00:41:00

but never did he take on any sort of bitterness

00:41:03

about the suffering that began like this.

00:41:07

And many other instances in his life

00:41:09

that were pretty similar to this.

00:41:12

And I think we assign the people in the Bible,

00:41:15

you know, they're in the Bible. They can do that.

00:41:18

They just get beat and sing praises. You know?

00:41:21

I don't -- I don't know, what do we tell ourselves?

00:41:24

We tell ourselves they're like these special people.

00:41:27

They're holier than me. Of course, that's what he does.

00:41:30

You know, it's Paul.

00:41:32

I don't think so.

00:41:35

I think it's that Paul was with Jesus enough

00:41:39

that he began to understand this is the beginning

00:41:42

of something that you're going to turn into

00:41:44

whatever life you're bringing me on.

00:41:49

That this is the course and that maybe

00:41:51

with every new suffering, his mindset was like,

00:41:55

"Oh, wait, this is the beginning of this arc.

00:42:00

And so how can I hate it? I guess I'm in again, Lord."

00:42:06

Maybe it's that Paul began to take on that mindset.

00:42:08

Now, one of my mile 16 moments

00:42:11

that I'm going to share with you here in a second.

00:42:13

It was - if Paul's began with, like,

00:42:17

a minor annoyance, turned into an act of kindness.

00:42:21

Mine was, like, as far away from that

00:42:23

as you could possibly get.

00:42:25

It was more like your bad character

00:42:30

led to bad choices that led to sin

00:42:33

that just about took you out.

00:42:36

As far away from this origin of Paul's story as possible.

00:42:42

And we don't like the fact that no matter which one it is,

00:42:46

God is taking us on the same journey

00:42:49

in the middle of that suffering.

00:42:51

And mine, my mile 16 moment.

00:42:57

If you've been around Crossroads long enough,

00:42:59

you've probably heard me talk about this before.

00:43:01

Shortly after we got married, many years ago,

00:43:03

I had an affair and that led to a time

00:43:07

of really deep suffering, not just for me,

00:43:12

but for the other people that it impacted as well.

00:43:15

And it was a time where the pain that I was dealing with

00:43:20

was so big that I would open my eyes in the morning,

00:43:24

and the only good part of my day

00:43:26

was the half second before I realized

00:43:28

the life that I was living again.

00:43:31

I don't know if you've ever been in that kind of pain,

00:43:34

but it was like crushing to the point where I didn't --

00:43:37

I didn't know how to get out of it.

00:43:39

And worse yet, I was in the swirl of the beginning

00:43:43

where I knew this is my fault.

00:43:49

And so that means there's probably no way out for me.

00:43:53

And I would just swirl.

00:43:55

In the beginning I tried blaming myself

00:43:59

as deeply as I could for as long as I could,

00:44:02

to feel as bad as I could, in all the guilt

00:44:04

and all the shame that I felt I deserved,

00:44:06

and it didn't move me forward.

00:44:10

And then I tried to rewind the past, like,

00:44:13

how did I get here? And what's wrong with me?

00:44:15

And where is it? You know, where, where did it begin?

00:44:18

And what are all the factors and the reasons?

00:44:21

And that did not move me forward.

00:44:22

And then I listened to all the voices

00:44:26

that are really happy to tell you, "You know what?

00:44:29

This mile 16, nobody gets past this one.

00:44:33

You might as well just go back. Just crawl off the course.

00:44:38

There's no way forward."

00:44:40

And so it's the swirl, you know,

00:44:43

that that freezes us, that we get stuck in.

00:44:46

And none of that ever moved me an inch forward

00:44:51

in the journey that God actually had

00:44:54

to use that to produce endurance and character

00:44:57

and a life of hope again.

00:44:59

But you know what did? Nnumber two. Number two.

00:45:04

The second thing, and I'll be honest and say

00:45:06

I sort of accidentally discovered this one.

00:45:09

It's like a hindsight 20/20 sort of situation.

00:45:13

And nonetheless, number two is the thing

00:45:16

that moved me forward was when I stopped trying to control it.

00:45:23

When I stopped trying to control what was happening,

00:45:27

I actually started to move again.

00:45:29

Let me explain. See, we reach to save whatever we can

00:45:33

when we're on the way down into pain and difficulty.

00:45:36

We know, you know, you know that it is.

00:45:40

And you don't really want to end up

00:45:43

all the way at the bottom, obviously.

00:45:45

And so you just reach out to save what you can.

00:45:49

And a lot of times that you grab for things like that

00:45:53

and you just hold on to hold it together

00:45:57

as much as you possibly can, so that you don't make it

00:46:01

all the way to the bottom.

00:46:02

Now, the Bible has a word for this process

00:46:05

of starting in one place, up higher

00:46:08

and actually taking a path down low.

00:46:11

And it's called humiliation.

00:46:15

Humiliation we use to mean embarrassment.

00:46:20

I mean, a fall from up higher, a journey down

00:46:23

can be embarrassing sometimes, but not always.

00:46:26

Sometimes things come into our life

00:46:28

and we land in a low place.

00:46:29

And it's really not embarrassing.

00:46:31

It is still a journey down to a really, really low place.

00:46:38

Maybe you're in a different kind of path down.

00:46:41

Maybe, you know, someone is sick in your life

00:46:44

and you can't fix it

00:46:46

and you're in a really low place about it.

00:46:48

Maybe you're in a dead end job and you can't quit

00:46:50

because you need to pay your bills,

00:46:51

and you don't know the way forward,

00:46:53

and you're still there and you promised yourself

00:46:56

you were going to be gone by now.

00:47:00

And you started up here, and now you're really low.

00:47:03

And maybe some of us have lost somebody,

00:47:06

or we're in the middle of a bad breakup,

00:47:08

or we're realizing our finances don't fit together,

00:47:10

or we're struggling with the thing that we're like,

00:47:13

you know what? I thought I was okay with this,

00:47:15

and I'm now beginning to realize,

00:47:18

I think this is an addiction.

00:47:21

It's a downward path, a humiliation to a low place.

00:47:29

And the Bible actually calls that process that word.

00:47:37

And it's linked to the word humility.

00:47:41

When when we get into that low place

00:47:43

and we're actually willing to just say it.

00:47:48

What if, what if holding on to whatever you can hold on to

00:47:53

to prevent yourself from being just an inch above collapse,

00:47:57

what if holding on is the thing

00:47:58

that's actually preventing you from moving on?

00:48:02

Because we use all of our might

00:48:03

not to make it all the way to the bottom.

00:48:06

But the Bible doesn't represent that process

00:48:08

in quite the same way.

00:48:11

I went through this moment with God in an elevator,

00:48:15

and I said I kind of accidentally discovered this,

00:48:18

like, you need to stop controlling it.

00:48:20

If you want to get back on course just stop.

00:48:24

And I was in an elevator, and I pushed the button,

00:48:27

and I was going up, and I was by myself.

00:48:29

And I was in this terrible, terrible time of my life.

00:48:32

And I said out loud to God in the elevator,

00:48:35

"You know what I'm just going to do?

00:48:36

I don't know what to do. So whatever happens,

00:48:41

I'm just going to start telling the truth.

00:48:43

If somebody asks me a question,

00:48:45

I'm just going to answer it."

00:48:50

And it's almost like he heard me, you guys.

00:48:53

It's almost like he heard me in the elevator that day.

00:48:56

Because wouldn't you know it, time after time after time,

00:49:00

in the coming weeks, I had the chance

00:49:02

to just confess the truth.

00:49:06

I went through that with my husband.

00:49:07

I went through that with my friends.

00:49:08

I went through that with all kinds of things

00:49:11

that I was firmly convinced in this situation

00:49:15

would be my ruin.

00:49:18

But when I made God that promise, I accidentally

00:49:22

stumbled into the truth of the humiliation

00:49:25

that actually, when you tell the truth

00:49:28

about the low place, the pain, the difficulty,

00:49:33

you get yourself back on course.

00:49:36

It is. It's the craziest thing I've ever experienced.

00:49:39

The things that I thought were going to take me out for good,

00:49:42

actually, were the things that God used

00:49:44

to redirect my path to a race that

00:49:47

He could start to lead because I wasn't in control anymore.

00:49:52

I wasn't trying to grasp and save and protect

00:49:56

and do all the things we do when we know

00:49:58

we're in this process of humiliation,

00:50:00

because we just don't want to get all the way to the bottom.

00:50:02

This week in your groups, maybe you're going to say

00:50:05

out loud for the first time, "I know it looks like

00:50:09

my life is going fine, but I have this one place

00:50:12

where I'm really, really low."

00:50:16

That might be the thing you need

00:50:19

that starts a whole new journey out of that space.

00:50:25

Letting myself get all the way to the bottom

00:50:29

of the humiliation is what moved me forward in the end.

00:50:33

Because God can work in that space

00:50:35

when we just stop trying to control it all.

00:50:41

And that brings me to number three.

00:50:44

Number three is where we find Paul.

00:50:47

And I use this language because of the story we're in.

00:50:50

Number three, the thing that I learned

00:50:52

about these low places where God can move

00:50:54

is that we have to stay in the circle.

00:50:57

Remember the circle Kyle stepped into in the bema

00:51:00

in Philippi, the place of Paul's great suffering?

00:51:04

Once we are in that space and we step willingly into it,

00:51:08

we have to stay there long enough to understand that

00:51:12

we are going to actually experience God in that space.

00:51:17

He does amazing things in that space.

00:51:21

Remember Kyle, he wondered, why didn't Paul

00:51:24

play the Roman citizen card?

00:51:26

Why didn't he stop it?

00:51:27

Why did he seem willing? Willing, in a weird way,

00:51:31

to walk into this? When he had the trump card?

00:51:34

He could have stopped it.

00:51:36

And even more strange, even more strange,

00:51:41

was the fact that when he got all the way down,

00:51:44

it was bloodied and beaten in a jail cell.

00:51:50

And he did the craziest thing.

00:51:53

He started singing at the very, very bottom.

00:51:57

Now, I'll tell you my honest reaction to that story,

00:52:00

as strange as it sounds to say that, you know,

00:52:03

he was singing in this jail cell all the way low.

00:52:06

I thought, "That's actually the part of the story

00:52:09

I understand, because it happened to me.

00:52:13

In the same period of time in my life.

00:52:16

I was in my kitchen thinking, honestly,

00:52:19

as I look back on it, it might honestly be

00:52:22

among the worst couple days of my entire life.

00:52:25

And I was in the kitchen, and I was dealing with

00:52:27

the reality of the life that I thought

00:52:30

I was going to live is very likely gone.

00:52:33

My marriage is probably gone. My job is probably gone.

00:52:35

My friends are definitely gone.

00:52:37

All the things that I thought

00:52:39

I was going to be living were gone.

00:52:44

And I'm standing in my kitchen

00:52:46

and I actually started singing to Jesus.

00:52:52

And it was just as weird as it sounds in the Paul story.

00:52:56

See, for a couple of weeks previous,

00:52:58

I had been talking to God a lot.

00:53:00

I knew that He was around this situation,

00:53:02

that He was in my life, that He was nearby,

00:53:05

I just couldn't make out what do You want from me?

00:53:08

I don't know what to do right now.

00:53:10

And so I'm in the kitchen and I'm like,

00:53:11

nobody else has wanted to be around me.

00:53:13

So I would wake up every day and I would read my Bible

00:53:15

like it was my lifeline. You know?

00:53:17

Just looking for anything in there that might help me.

00:53:20

And I would talk to God all day long

00:53:22

because nobody else wanted to talk to me.

00:53:25

And so I would just talk to God.

00:53:26

And so I'm in my kitchen after a couple weeks of this,

00:53:30

and out of my mouth pops a song

00:53:33

I don't really even ever remember learning.

00:53:37

And I start singing to Jesus.

00:53:40

And I think the reason was the same

00:53:42

as it very likely was for Paul. He was there.

00:53:48

He was right there with me.

00:53:52

I'm in the kitchen. Paul's in the cell.

00:53:54

You're going to be wherever you're going to be,

00:53:56

and you're going to understand,

00:53:57

"Oh, wait, I'm inside this suffering.

00:54:01

But God is here.

00:54:03

He's right here in the middle of it with me.

00:54:07

How is that possible?

00:54:08

Nobody else wants to be in this with me.

00:54:11

But He's here in the circle of our suffering.

00:54:15

And we spend so much time trying to stay away from it,

00:54:19

trying to hold ourselves above it,

00:54:21

trying to step out of it that we don't understand

00:54:23

we're stealing from ourselves tThe very thing

00:54:26

the slave girl ran around yelling, "These guys,

00:54:29

they know the way to salvation."

00:54:31

Paul knew, that's why he stepped into the circle.

00:54:36

He knew that in his deepest suffering,

00:54:38

no matter where that was going to lead,

00:54:40

he was going to meet Jesus there.

00:54:42

And when I started singing this song

00:54:47

that day in the kitchen it made me understand

00:54:51

that worship is our natural response to the presence of God.

00:54:54

It's not some, it's not some like weird, crazy thing.

00:54:58

It's when you have God in your face and in your space,

00:55:03

what you do is you respond in worship.

00:55:05

And lyrics, they kind of stick on us.

00:55:08

You know, that's really unfortunate for me

00:55:10

because I have some from the 90s.

00:55:14

A little Salt-n-Pepa I wish I didn't remember

00:55:17

quite as well as I do.

00:55:19

But I'm in the kitchen

00:55:21

and here's what came out of my mouth.

00:55:26

[singing] I love You, Lord,

00:55:30

and I lift my voice to worship You.

00:55:39

Oh my soul, rejoice.

00:55:45

Take joy, my King, in what You hear.

00:55:54

May it be a sweet, sweet sound in Your ears.

00:56:04

And I just started -- I just started singing.

00:56:07

Rejoice!? Are you kidding me?

00:56:09

This is the lowest moment of my life.

00:56:11

But I was responding to the fact that

00:56:14

the way of salvation was in my kitchen with me.

00:56:18

The God who takes that moment and turns it into

00:56:21

a life of hope. Who knew?

00:56:24

Who knew that in that low moment, in that encounter,

00:56:28

what I was actually doing is getting back on course

00:56:30

with the God who knew exactly how to save me.

00:56:33

He knew exactly how to save my marriage.

00:56:35

He knew exactly how to save my race,

00:56:38

so that a couple years later,

00:56:40

not only would I still be be married,

00:56:42

but I would be leaving my corporate race

00:56:45

to try to spend my life telling other people that God,

00:56:49

the God that you're looking for, is the God

00:56:51

who's coming into your lowest place,

00:56:54

your worst moment, and He wants you there.

00:56:57

And He came from a place on high,

00:57:00

and He came all the way down as low as He could get,

00:57:02

so He could find you in that space and pick you up

00:57:06

and put you on a new journey forward.

00:57:08

That's who you're looking for. [applause]

00:57:16

And He was in Paul's cell, too.

00:57:18

You know that song became a reminder for me

00:57:21

every time I've suffered.

00:57:22

I wish I could tell you that that was

00:57:24

the last time I sang it, but it wasn't.

00:57:25

I've sung it a number of other times.

00:57:28

It's almost become like my reminder that

00:57:31

when I'm in that place, so is Jesus. So is Jesus.

00:57:36

I've sung it at 4:00 in the morning

00:57:38

when I'm nursing my fourth baby in six years, and I'm weary.

00:57:43

I have sung it when I lost a friend.

00:57:45

I sang it when I was publicly smeared

00:57:49

for something that was just completely untrue.

00:57:51

And it's become the moment that I come back to

00:57:57

to say, wait, don't fight this because Jesus is in it.

00:58:03

And so I asked Justin, our wonderful Oakley worship leader,

00:58:07

to help me offer that song to you.

00:58:10

Maybe you'll discover your own. That would be great too.

00:58:13

But you can have mine.

00:58:15

And I thought we could just take a moment

00:58:18

and just remember what I remember every time I sing it,

00:58:22

which is Jesus is in the circle of suffering.

00:59:22

- And I think about Paul.

00:59:25

I don't think he had instruments in there with him that night,

00:59:28

but Jesus was with him.

00:59:31

And so how about we sing it just like he did?

00:59:33

And if you're in your circle of suffering

00:59:36

and sing it right in the presence of Jesus

00:59:39

with our voices and our hearts.

01:00:36

- Have you ever heard somebody say

01:00:38

at some later point in their life,

01:00:40

"I can't even hate that terrible thing

01:00:42

that happened to me because of where it took me."

01:00:46

That's somebody who learned to suffer well.

01:00:48

That's somebody who let God get a hold of their suffering

01:00:53

and turn it into endurance and turn it into character

01:00:56

and turn it in to a life that has hope again.

01:00:59

That is somebody who suffered well.

01:01:03

And so this week, as you do your work,

01:01:06

as you go on this Journey one more step,

01:01:08

you're going to be asked a question

01:01:10

in your group this week.

01:01:11

And the question is: how is weakness or pain

01:01:14

or difficulty in your way on the race?

01:01:18

And the goal that we're going to help each other toward

01:01:21

is to meet Jesus in that space, to find Him in that space.

01:01:26

And as you do that, I want you to remember

01:01:28

the words that Jesus himself spoke to Paul.

01:01:30

Paul went to Jesus at one point and said,

01:01:33

"I've got this thorn in my flesh. It's painful.

01:01:35

I want You to get rid of it.

01:01:36

I want You to take it away from me."

01:01:38

And Jesus said to him, "My grace is sufficient for you,

01:01:42

because My power is made perfect in weakness."

01:01:47

So I want you to remind each other of those words

01:01:49

as you deal with your own suffering this week.

01:01:53

Let me pray for us. Lord, help us not to be afraid

01:01:57

of the difficulty that You've put in our path,

01:01:59

but instead to go into it eyes open for You,

01:02:03

looking for You, knowing that when we find You

01:02:06

You will turn it into all the good stuff

01:02:09

that's coming for us.

01:02:11

We trust You as the way of salvation.

01:02:14

Jesus, it's in Your precious name that I pray. Amen.

01:02:19

- That's our prayer that God would use

01:02:21

whatever's going on in our life, the good and the bad,

01:02:25

when things are celebratory

01:02:27

and even when we're suffering,

01:02:28

that God can use that to point us towards Him

01:02:31

and to make us more like Him.

01:02:34

Hey, if you've experienced anything today

01:02:36

that you want help processing, especially

01:02:38

if maybe you are in a place of suffering

01:02:40

or just need some extra prayer and encouragement,

01:02:42

we'd love to do that.

01:02:43

You can just email us at anywhere@crossroads.net.

01:02:46

And myself or a member of my team

01:02:47

would love to connect with you, pray for you,

01:02:49

do whatever we can to help you.

01:02:50

Now, real quick, before we're done,

01:02:52

just a few things you need to know.

01:02:53

Hey, keep going with your individual work

01:02:56

in the Run Journey guide.

01:02:57

This is an incredible way for you to lean in

01:02:59

and get the most out of this Run Journey

01:03:01

and experience suffering well from God's perspective.

01:03:05

Secondly, hey, keep going with your groups.

01:03:07

I had 50 dudes in my Run Journey group this past Wednesday night.

01:03:10

Would love for you to join us,

01:03:12

or whatever group you're in,

01:03:13

keep going with that work as well.

01:03:15

Third, if you have a middle school or high school student

01:03:17

who lives near one of our physical campuses

01:03:19

or within driving range, hey,

01:03:21

we have Big Night happening next Friday.

01:03:23

Would love for you to join.

01:03:24

It's going to be an incredible time.

01:03:26

We've got Dante Bowe, Insane Shayne.

01:03:27

It's gonna be an incredible time.

01:03:29

Hey guys, thanks for being with us on the Run Journey.

01:03:31

We'll see you guys next week.

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