Suffer Like Christ
WE LOOK TO CHRIST TO LEARN HOW TO SUFFER WELL
This past Sunday was our final Sunday wrapping up what we've learned in the book of Habakkuk. We turned to the letter of 1 Peter - a textbook on how to suffer well as a Christian. The believers then lived as exiles in a world in which there was no social benefit to being a Christian, they were regularly slandered and insulted by their neighbors, and they faced the same struggle against "the passions of the flesh, which wage war" against our souls as we do today (1 Pet 2:11-12). So how did Peter encourage them? How does he teach them to suffer well? By telling them to suffer like Christ. Why does he do this? Because Jesus Christ himself puts what we learned from Rom 8:31 ("If God is for us, who can be against us?") to the test and proves it's 100% true. We look to him and we learn how to suffer well as we live as exiles on the way to our eternal home.
*Due to some technical difficulties, the opening portion of the sermon audio was not captured. You can read the manuscript here to fill in the gap and listen to the rest of the sermon below.