Turn Your Suffering Into Strength | Crossroads Church

And I will tell you that in my life. Hey, and welcome back to week two of our real encounters journey. Again we're here in Turkey and Greece and I am just so excited about week two because this is the week that you don't always wanna talk about, but this is what separates the true, true people that are gonna stick with it from the people that are just gonna maybe walk away in every circle, right? So I'd love to talk about it, but there's just a little bit of hardship that's just kinda crucial and necessary and it's a part of every great hero that we look up to and it's certainly a part of Paul's story. And so Bob, I know that Philippi in particular is the space that we're headed to that has such historical and archeological significance for a place where Paul was beaten and thrown in jail, but somehow found joy. Just tell us a little bit about that space. Yeah, Philippi is an amazing site. It's one of my favorites, you know, because in Tarsus you have this modern city built over the ancient site, so you don't really see too much, but when we go to Philippi, it's not inhabited and so the archeologists have been able to excavate pretty much the whole city.

And it's a Roman colony that was the leading city in its region and when Paul and his disciples came there, we kinda see the city that they entered into. There's several interesting discoveries there that really tied directly to what Paul and his disciples were doing. Number one, we will be visiting the baptism site of Lydia, who was really the first convert in Europe. But even more so, her home, her household, her family became the first church in Europe. And so we can say that Lydia, as a woman, was one of the first church leaders in Europe, which is amazing. We do love to see girl power. Absolutely. We do, we love it. And that's the way of Jesus. That's right. Jesus was all about empowering women, you know, and we see that lived out in the ministry of Paul as well. And we have other things too, like on this subject of suffering, it's so vivid because the judgment platform, the bima, that's right on the main square, if you will, of Philippi, is still there and we can see the remains of it and literally stand where Paul and Silas stood when they were unjustly condemned and beaten and then thrown into prison. And it really brings home the reality of that story. That's so, so cool.

And to that point of Paul and Silas, you know, suffering, Nerula, I'd love for you to chime in here because I think that word in your context might be hitting home or even feel a little bit different because you are a Christian in a space, but that's just predominantly not a thing. And so there's some level of suffering that you might be experiencing as a follower of Jesus, if you wanna talk a little bit about that. Here, for example, in Turkey, we Turkish Christians are usually, when we become believers, we are outcasted by our families, by our friends, by our surroundings, right? I myself personally was kicked out of my house by my father when I made the decision to become a Christian. And so we really can relate to also the suffering that the early church had to endure. And it is kind of like an interesting point maybe to mention that also it is happening again in kind of the same biblical land, right? And so when some of the young people in our country, when they decide to follow Jesus, they might have this wrong idea of like, oh, now my life is gonna be perfect. You know, I'm gonna have everything my way. But no, as Christians, we know that that's not what Jesus said that we would have. Actually, he said, take up your cross and follow me, right?

And we try to prepare them for the suffering to come because as Christians, we're not called to a life free of pain, free of suffering. I mean, our Lord and savior, Jesus, suffered the most of the suffering. So yeah. That's a good word right there that we are called to take up our cross. And you know what? The best place to kind of go and see a guy who did this, who took up his cross and followed Jesus is again to follow the life of Paul. And so our next stop on the journey is to see where he suffered well, which is in Philippi. While in Asia Minor, now modern day Turkey, Paul experienced a vision of a man pleading, come over to Macedonia and help us. So Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke, who wrote the book of Acts, traveled to Philippi, a city in Macedonia, which is now modern day Greece. It is here on Paul's second missionary journey that the dramatic events recorded in. Acts 16 unfold. Lydia is baptized. Paul casts a demon out of a slave girl and is arrested, beaten, and thrown into jail with Silas, where they worship God until he sends an earthquake to open the prison doors and the jailer becomes a believer in Jesus. Later, Paul wrote the New Testament book of Philippians

to the church that was founded during his time here. Welcome to Philippi. Now, Philippi might not mean much to you and I, but the events that have happened here not only shaped the world, but shaped the very life of Jesus himself. In the year 43 BC, there was a battle that took place right here called the Battle of Philippi between Octavian and Brutus. Brutus had just brutally murdered Octavian's adopted stepfather, Julius Caesar. The battle was for control of the entire Roman Empire. Octavian was victorious and went on to become the first absolute ruler of the Roman Empire. Later on, he changed his name to one you might recognize, Caesar Augustus. In the year 4 BC, Caesar Augustus decided that he would like to count the number of citizens across the entire Roman Empire and so ordered a census, which caused a young Jewish couple named Mary and Joseph to make the long journey to Bethlehem. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which fulfilled a 700 year old prophecy because of what happened right here. The history of this place is incredible. Seven years have passed since Paul left Tarsus and those seven years have been incredible.

Results everywhere, everything's going great in Paul's race, which is not to say there's not resistance. Why is it going so great? It's because Paul knows the secret to running and winning the race, the one that he tells us about in Romans 5. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character. Character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame. Paul knows this pattern that builds character and hopeful power in somebody. And he knows that it starts in suffering, which is why we're in this city where we are today. Now, when Paul walks into town, he actually has an immediate win. He meets some women who are praying and there's one in particular, a woman named Lydia, a leader, a businesswoman who responds incredibly to his message. And actually, this is the story where, if you've ever heard this idea that Paul is anti-women, you have to engage with the story of Lydia. We're actually gonna talk about it more in our group materials. But for now, I wanna focus on the second major story that happens in Philippi. And this story has these two details that just bother me as I've studied it and as I've meditated on it.

Two things that just at face value don't make any sense at all. Now, the story starts with Paul and his companions experiencing something very familiar, which is resistance and then ultimately suffering. As they're going back to the place of prayer where they met Lydia, a slave girl comes out and starts heckling them. Here's how the story goes in Acts 16. Again, by fortune telling. She followed Paul and us crying out, these men are servants of the most high God who proclaimed you the way of salvation. And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out that very hour. Now, the demon possessed girl shares the truth. She says exactly what's true. These men serve the most high God and they're going to tell you about the way to be saved. But for whatever reason, Paul doesn't want this announced right now in this moment. And so day one, he ignores her. Day two, he tries again to ignore, but it bothers him a little bit more. Day three, day four, we don't know exactly how many. But eventually Paul gets so annoyed

he does what you and I do and he just snaps. You can imagine him looking over his shoulder and just going, just get out. And he kind of keeps going because the demon leaves. And Paul's mind, problem solved. She's quiet. However, her owners, who made a lot of money off of her being demon possessed and able to tell fortunes, are not very happy with Paul. This is how the scene goes next. They said, Paul was dragged from that road we were just on to this spot right here to go on trial. And trial is very generous. It worked differently back in the ancient world, the justice system, if you could call it that, especially in the Roman Empire. See, this is the public marketplace where we're standing. In the public marketplace, there was a raised platform called the bima where two magistrates sat. They were something like the co-mayors of the city. Only if as mayor, you could do whatever you want to basically whoever you wanted. And so Paul and Silas are dragged here to the middle of the bima. These holes in the ground are where there would have been a railing and centered perfectly on the bima is about where this circle is right now. And so Paul is shoved up to the front of the railing. He's holding on and the magistrates instantaneously condemn him. No trial, no witnesses, no testimony, nothing. They call out these guys and start beating him with rods.

And these aren't just random guys. This is an actual position in Rome. It's called a lictor. The lictors were the Roman soldiers, retired now, some of the biggest and the strongest. They carried on their back a battle axe and the handle of the battle axe was surrounded by willow rods. The idea was that you could quickly and easily reach over your shoulder, get out a rod and start whipping somebody with it. The rod was called a fascia. And it's actually where we get the word fascism from, basically to brutally enforce with whatever violent means necessary. And so what happens to Paul right here in this circle is he suffers greatly. It's not a couple of whacks on the back as he's holding on to the iron bars. His back is ripped apart. Blood is spilling everywhere. Now, this moment is one of the details that bothers me. Yes, the violent part. Yes, that bothers me. But more so that the violence, the suffering didn't have to happen. Paul was a Roman citizen. This exchange was not legal for Roman citizens. You could do it to whoever else you want. But Rome took their citizenship very, very seriously. All Paul had to do before the first rod came across his back is say, hey, by the way, I'm a citizen of Rome and none of it would have happened. Why didn't Paul do it? Why didn't he stand up for himself? It's puzzling. Well, regardless, what happens next is he's hauled off to jail.

His feet are put up into stocks and he's laid on his back. Those stocks would have been close to the floor. So literally he's spread eagle laying on his wounds and he does something crazy. He starts to praise God. Here's how the story continues. And immediately all the doors were open and everyone's bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, do not harm yourself for we're all here. And the jailer called for lights and rushed in and trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Okay, so there's a lot of strange details that seem odd in this story, right? I mean, he's lying on his back in pain, horribly unimaginable pain. And Paul decides, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to sing praises to God. And I'm going to talk about, sing for all to hear how great God is, how He saved me, how He's rescued me, how He's delivered me. That's odd. And then also the earthquake happens, the prison doors all fall apart and Paul decides to stay. Very strange. But neither one of those is the second detail that's really bothered me about this story. The second detail that's bothered me is the jailer's question. Sir, what must I do to be saved? Now, for us, we read a lot of things into that question that maybe aren't true.

The jailer was Roman, likely a retired Roman soldier. And in his mind, there was no concept of some of the things that we might assume. There was no concept of something called spiritual sin or the need for eternal salvation or forgiveness or justification or how to become righteous or not even exactly our versions of heaven and hell. All of that was very, very different. And so what's bothered me is where in the world did the jailer come up with this question? And then it hit me. He had heard that morning a slave girl shouting something. She said, These men are servants of the Most High God. They are proclaiming to you the way of salvation. Crazy. Then later on, I just imagine the jailer's in his office and he hears singing and he leans in and he listens. And the words of the songs are about a God who saves, who heals, who delivers, who forgives. And the dots in the jailer's mind connect. Why did Paul stay in the circle? Well, I think it's pretty clear. Paul stayed in the circle because he got a nudge from God that on this day, his race included standing still and enduring the suffering for the sake of the kingdom of God. And that's exactly what happens because the jailer and his whole family, they believe. Here's how the story continues. God used Paul's suffering to save and it will be the same for us. We have to get this idea through our minds

at the beginning of learning how to run our race and run it God's way. Suffering is not an optional step in the journey. It'd be awesome if Paul had said, Good news, everybody, ease leads to endurance and endurance leads to character and character leads to hope, begins and ends in ease. That's not what he said. He said it's suffering. Suffering is the first step. See, there is no following Jesus without willingly stepping into the circle of suffering. When I came here years ago with Bob and was first touring and learning about all the places that we're going in this journey, it was actually this spot in this stone, in this circle that meant the most to me because it's such a sobering picture of exactly the invitation into the race with God. Will I step into the circle or will I avoid it? Will I stay where it's comfortable and safe and known and everything's in control? Or will I trust God when He says to step in and to trust Him even if it's uncomfortable, even if it's dangerous, even if it's painful, even if it stretches me, even if I don't know which way to go? Will I trust God enough to take the step into the circle? Well, welcome to Philippi, everyone. We've done our best to put you in that ancient place today

where Kyle was actually standing. My name is Allie Patterson. If you're new around here for our run journey, I'm one of the teaching pastors here at Crossroads and I'm on the journey with you. Who met with their group this week? Anybody else? Lots of hands. We did too. We had some couples over on Wednesday night, a few of them we know, a few of them we don't know. And we had a great experience. We spent some time actually talking through week one's goal was to name the race. What's the race that you're in? What's the path that you're on right now that you really feel like God's pointing you toward? This is the one I want your eyes on right now. So first of all, before I go any further, because I can hear it already, I've been sick. Anyone else gotten something lately? Yeah. So I've been sick all week. I know you're going to forgive me if I have to use my tissues, my cough drop or my water. So sorry in advance. I've had to once or twice, but we're going to get through this together. So today we're dealing with the reality that no matter what race we named and there's as many as there are people in our community that named their race this week,

none of them are going to go smoothly. So today we're dealing with the reality that how we suffer will determine how we finish our race. And some of us walked in here. knowing that suffering, some kind of pain and difficulty took us out of our race a long time ago. Trying to figure out how to get back on course, other people, you just named a new race. And so, hey, welcome, the water's warm. Today is gonna be prepped for what's coming your way. Suffering and difficulty, right? And others of us are actually squarely in the middle of it right now. This whole topic, let me like remember this question that I used to ask myself during actual races. So the question I asked myself many times was what am I gonna do at mile 16? When I was in my 20s, I ran some marathons. Which was, you know, just a year or two ago. It's not that funny. I ran some marathons, still love to run, haven't done a marathon in a long time, but did enough that at mile 16, every single time, I had to ask myself, what am I gonna do right now? Because mile 16 is a unique low point in the marathon race. Let me paint you a picture. Marathon, 26.2 miles. The .2 is just, it's just cruel and unusual, right? 26.2 miles, and at mile 16, you are hurting,

you are chafing, you are asking yourself, why did I do this again? And then you see the mile 16 marker, and the math is really easy. You pass that mile 16 marker, and you do the math, and you go, I can't possibly run another 10 miles. 10 more miles from here. It's like mind blowing. And so every single race, not just my first one, where it took me by surprise, but every single time, I would pass the mile 16 mile marker, and I would think to myself, what I do in the next period of time right now is going to determine how I cross the finish line. And let me tell you what I see around mile 16, maybe 17. In that ballpark, every single race I did, I would see this. People would be, they're gone, they're doing their thing, and all of a sudden, they're like, I'm out. This is, no. Or I would see people who would literally, they're trying their hardest, but they collapse, they're injured, they're out, and they're done, and they just get pulled off the course. And I would also see people who were keeping stride, but who started to slow down significantly around this time. Maybe they hit a walk, maybe I see a few of them. Hours later, literally sometimes crawling across the finish line just because they wanna finish their marathon, and it all happens right around mile 16. It was the low point every single time.

Your mile 16 in any race you named is coming. And I wish I wasn't the one standing up here on week two going, let's talk about all your suffering at mile 16, but if we don't, you're going to get off course. You're gonna be the one that gets dragged off, or you're just gonna go, you know what, it's too much, I'm out. And if we can learn to expect it, and if we can learn to understand it's part of an arc in the story that God is gonna tell in our life, then we can actually deal with it in a way that is Romans five. Here's our verses for our whole journey, come from Romans five, and they're a reminder of what suffering well actually ends up in. We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope. You can suffer well, and that can be your arc, or you can suffer badly, and you can get pulled off the course. Today, our goal is to figure out how do we handle suffering so we get the good stuff? Because that's what God has promised. He's promised that if we can suffer well, if we can figure out how to do that, it will push us into an arc that will find an end point in hope. And that is what I want. I'm gonna take you into some suffering in my life

that actually started a long, long time ago, and I'm not picking it because it has a nice ending, I'm picking it because I can see the whole arc. I can see that that suffering, as bad and as painful as it was, has made the entire journey. And I want you to get in it with me today because there are three things that I learned in the darkest place, which was actually quite a long time ago. And now that I've made the entire arc, I can actually see some things that took place in that really low milestone. 16 spot that I think are at least part of the key to suffering well. The first one of those is to stop obsessing about the beginning of our suffering. We get caught in a swirl of how did this all start? Why me? What are these circumstances? How did I get here? Whose fault is it? Why did this come into my life and how am I supposed to be the one that goes through this? It's just not right. And we get caught in the swirl of the beginning. And if we allow ourselves to get in the who, what, where, when, why, who's to blame swirl of our suffering, we will not move forward on our journey. We will stay right there. And we will not only stay right there, we will guaranteed get bitter about it. My conviction about this arc that God wants us in is this. It doesn't matter how the suffering starts. And we don't want that answer.

We want there to be two different categories, like the suffering I deserve and the suffering I don't deserve or something. And God should take away one and use the other one. And that's just not how it works. We see suffering come into the lives of people in scripture and out of scripture all the time. That doesn't seem to be what makes the difference. And so when we swirl on the beginning and we decide it's in the category that shouldn't have happened, we never actually move forward in our journey. And listen, I know those answers matter to you. They matter to me. We all want to rewind and unwind and figure out how we got in the mess to begin with, right? We want those answers. And I will tell you, I think a lot of us know this, who've been through difficulty, sometimes on a healing leg of your journey, it can be helpful to go back and understand, you know, the past and the patterns a little bit. And it can actually be a helpful part of a healing journey, but not at mile 16. At mile 16, something else is going to move us forward. It's not going to be the obsessive swirl over why all of this started to begin with. Now, some of you are mad at me already about this. It's all right. I can take it. You're like, okay, I can maybe get on board with the fact that God will, you know, bring some hardship into my life, but not this. You don't understand my story. This wasn't okay. It just shouldn't have been. And I don't know your story, I really don't, but I know Paul's. I know the one that we just heard from Kyle, and we can see in that story exactly where

the beginning was. Let's go back into that for just a second. In Acts 16, there's a girl. She's following them around for days on end, and she's yelling because of a spirit that's possessing her. These men are from God. They know the way of salvation, and here's what Acts 16 says again. And she kept doing this for many days, Paul having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out that very hour. So here we are. That's the beginning. Because it was right after that that the owners of the girl got mad. They drag him into the marketplace. He gets accused, beaten, bloodied, and thrown in prison. And that was the beginning. An annoyance and a deliverance that you could argue big picture for that girl was maybe the greatest kindness she had ever received. And that was the beginning of Paul, and yet not a hint of bitterness. Not only in this story, but never, never in all of Paul's journey and all of his sufferings do we get a hint of bitterness. If you read the book called Philippians, which is a letter that Paul later wrote back to these same people that are in this area that he's dealing with in this story from Acts, he writes them a letter when he's moved on, and he reminds them, don't forget, rejoice in all circumstances. And the crazy thing about that letter is that it got written when he was in jail again later somewhere else. And it's one of the happiest letters in the Bible. And if you read that letter, you can tell that Paul, not only not now while he's going through it in Acts 16, but never did he take on any sort of bitterness about the suffering

that began like this. And many other instances in his life that were pretty similar to this. And I think we assign the people in the Bible, you know, they're in the Bible. They can do that. They just get beat and sing praises, you know, I don't know. What do we tell ourselves? We tell ourselves. They're like these special people. They're holier than me. Of course, that's what he does. You know, it's Paul. I don't think so. I think it's that Paul was with Jesus enough that he began to understand this is the beginning of something that you're gonna turn into whatever life you're bringing me on. That this is the course and that maybe with every new suffering his mindset was like, oh wait, this is the beginning of this arc. And so how can I hate it? I guess I'm in again, Lord. Maybe it's that Paul began to take on that mindset. Now one of my Mile 16 moments that I'm going to share with you here in a second. It was if Paul's began with like a minor annoyance turned into an act of kindness. Mine was like as far away from that as you could possibly get. It was more like your bad character led to bad choices that led to sin that just about took you out. As far away from this origin of Paul's story as possible. And we don't like the fact that no matter which one it is, God is taking us on the same journey in the middle of that suffering. And mine, my Mile 16 moment. If you've been around Crossroads long enough, you've probably heard me talk about this before. Shortly after we got married many years ago, I had an affair and that led to a time of really deep suffering. Not just for me, but for the other people that it impacted as well. And it was a time where the pain that I was dealing with was so big that I would open my eyes in the morning and the only good part of my day was the half-second before

I realized the life that I was living again. I don't know if you've ever been in that kind of pain, but it was like crushing to the point where I didn't I didn't know how to get out of it. And worse yet, I was in the swirl of the beginning where I I knew this is my fault. And so that that means there's probably no way out for me. And I would just swirl in the beginning. I tried blaming myself as deeply as I could for as long as I could to feel as bad as I could in all the guilt and all the shame that I felt I deserved and it didn't move me forward. And then I tried to rewind the past like how did I get here and what's wrong with me? And where is it? You know, where did it begin? And what are all the factors and the reasons and that did not move me forward. And then I listened to all the voices that are really happy to tell you, you know what this mile 16, nobody gets past this one. You might as well just go back. Just crawl off the course. There's no way forward. And so it it's the swirl, you know, that that freezes us that we get stuck in and none of that ever moved me an inch forward in the journey that God actually had to use that to produce endurance and character and a life of hope again, but you know what did? Number two. Number two. The second thing and I'll be honest and say I sort of accidentally discovered this one. It's like a hindsight 2020 sort of situation and nonetheless number two is the thing that moved me forward was when I stopped trying to control it. When I stopped trying to control what was happening, I actually started to move again. Let me explain. See we reach to save whatever we can when we're on the way down into pain and difficulty. We know, you know, you know that it it is and you don't really want to end up all the way at the bottom obviously, and so you just reach out to save what you can.

And a lot of times that that you grab for things like that and you just hold on to hold it together as much as you possibly can so that you don't make it all the way to the bottom. Now the Bible has a word for this process of starting in one place up higher and actually taking a path down low and it's called humiliation. Humiliation we use to mean embarrassment. I mean a fall from up higher, a journey down can be embarrassing. sometimes, but not always. Sometimes things come into our life and we land in a low place and it's really not embarrassing. It is still a journey down to a really, really low place. Maybe you're in a different kind of path down. Maybe, you know, someone is sick in your life and you can't fix it and you're in a really low place about it. Maybe you're in a dead-end job and you can't quit because you need to pay your bills and you don't know the way forward and you're still there and you promised yourself you were going to be gone by now. And you started up here and now you're really low and maybe some of us have lost somebody or we're in the middle of a bad breakup or we're realizing our finances don't fit together or we're struggling with the thing that we're like, you know what, I thought I was okay with this and I'm now beginning to realize I think this is an addiction. It's a downward path, a humiliation to a low place. And the Bible actually calls that process that word and it's linked to the word humility. When we get into that low place and we're actually willing to just say it, what if holding on to whatever you can hold on to, to prevent yourself from being just an inch above collapse, what if holding on is the thing that's actually preventing you from moving on? Because we use all of our might not to make it all the way to the bottom, but the Bible doesn't represent that process in quite the same way. I went through this moment with God in an elevator and I said I kind of accidentally discovered this like, you need to stop controlling it. If you want to get back on course, just stop. And I was in an elevator and I pushed the button and I was going up and I was by myself and I was in this terrible, terrible time of my life and I said out loud to God in the elevator, you know what I'm just going to do? I don't know what to do. So whatever happens, I'm just going to start telling the truth. If somebody asks me a question, I'm just going to answer it. And it's almost like he heard me, you guys. It's almost like he heard me

in the elevator that day because wouldn't you know it, time after time after time in the coming weeks, I had the chance to just confess the truth. I went through that with my husband. I went through that with my friends. I went through that with all kinds of things that I was firmly convinced in this situation would be my ruin. But in, when I made God that promise, I accidentally stumbled into the truth of the humiliation that actually when you tell the truth about the low place, the pain, the difficulty, you get yourself back on course. It is, it's the craziest thing I've ever experienced. The things that I thought were going to take me out for good actually were the things that God used to redirect my path to a race that he could start to lead because I wasn't in control anymore. I wasn't trying to grasp and save and protect and do all the things we do when we know we're in this process of humiliation because we just don't want to get all the way to the bottom. This week in your groups, maybe you're going to say out loud for the first time, I know it looks like my life is going fine, but I have this one place where I'm really, really low. That might be the thing you need that starts a whole new journey out of that space. Letting myself get all the way to the bottom of the humiliation is what moved me forward in the end because God can work in that space when we just stop trying to control it all. That brings me to number three. Number three is where we find Paul, and I use this language because of the story we're in. Number three, the thing that I learned about these low places where God can move is that we have to stay in the circle. Remember the circle Kyle stepped into in the Bema in Philippi, the place of Paul's great suffering. Once we are in that space and we step willingly into it, we have to stay there long enough to understand that we are going to actually experience God in that space. He does amazing things in that space. Remember, Kyle, he wondered, why didn't Paul, play the Roman citizen card. Why didn't he stop it? Why did he seem willing, willing in a weird way to walk into this when he had the trump card, he could have stopped it. And even more strange, even more strange was the fact that

when he got all the way down, it was bloodied and beaten in a jail cell. And he did the craziest thing. He started singing. At the very, very bottom. Now I'll tell you my honest reaction to that story. As strange as it sounds to say that, you know, he was singing in this jail cell all the way low, I thought that's actually the part of the story I understand because it happened to me. In the same period of time in my life, I was in my kitchen thinking, honestly, as I look back on it, it might honestly be among the worst couple days of my entire life. And I was in the kitchen and I was dealing with the reality of the life that I thought I was gonna live is very likely gone. My marriage is probably gone. My job is probably gone. My friends are definitely gone. All the things that I thought I was going to be living were gone. And I'm standing in my kitchen and I actually started singing to Jesus. And it was just as weird as it sounds in the Paul story. See, for a couple of weeks previous, I have been talking to God a lot. I knew that he was around this situation,

that he was in my life, that he was nearby. I just couldn't make out, what do you want from me? I don't know what to do right now. And so I'm in the kitchen and I'm like, nobody else has wanted to be around me. So I would wake up every day and I would read my Bible like it was my lifeline. You know, just looking for anything in there that might help me. And I would talk to God all day long because nobody else wanted to talk to me. And so I would just talk to God. And so I'm in my kitchen after a couple of weeks of this and out of my mouth pops a song. I don't really even ever remember learning. And I start singing to Jesus. And I think the reason was the same as it very likely was for Paul. He was there. Amen. He was right there with me. I'm in the kitchen, Paul's in the cell. You're gonna be wherever you're gonna be and you're gonna understand, oh wait, I'm inside this suffering, but God is here. He's right here in the middle of it with me. How is that possible? Nobody else wants to be in this with me,

but he's here in the circle of our suffering. And we spend so much time trying to stay away from it, trying to hold ourselves above it, trying to step out of it that we don't understand we're stealing from ourselves. The very thing the slave girl ran around yelling, these guys, they know the way to salvation. Paul knew. That's why he stepped into the circle. He knew that in his deepest suffering, no matter where that was gonna lead, he was going to meet Jesus there. And when I started singing this song that day in the kitchen, it made me understand that worship is our natural response to the presence of God. It's not some like weird, crazy thing. It's when you have God in your face and in your space, what you do is you respond in worship. And lyrics, they kind of stick on us. That's really unfortunate for me because I have some from the 90s. Just a little salt and pepper. I wish I didn't remember quite as well as I do. But I'm in the kitchen and here's what came out of my mouth. ♪ I love you, Lord ♪ ♪ And I lift my voice to worship you, oh my God ♪ ♪ My soul rejoice, take joy, my King, in what you hear ♪ ♪ May it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear ♪

And I just started singing. Rejoice, are you kidding me? This is the lowest moment of my life, but I was responding to the fact that the way of salvation was in my kitchen with me. The God who takes that moment and turns it into a life of hope. Who knew? Who knew? So that in that low moment, in that encounter, what I was actually doing is getting back on course with the God who knew exactly how to save me. He knew exactly how to save my marriage. He knew exactly how to save my race so that a couple years later, not only would I still be married, but I would be leaving my corporate race to try to spend my life telling other people, the God, the God that you're looking for is the God who's coming into your lowest place, your worst moment, and He wants you there. And He came from a place on high, and He came all the way down as low as He could get so He could find you in that space and pick you up and put you on a new journey forward. That's who you're looking for. And He was in Paul's cell too. And He was in Paul's cell too. You know, that song became a reminder for me every time I've suffered.

I wish I could tell you that that was the last time I sang it, but it wasn't. I've sung it a number of other times. It's almost become like my reminder that when I'm in that place, so is Jesus. So is Jesus. I've sung it at four o'clock in the morning when I'm nursing my fourth baby in six years and I'm weary. I have sung it when I lost a friend. I sang it when I was publicly smeared for something that was just completely untrue. And it's become the moment that I come back to to say, wait, don't fight this because Jesus is in it. And so I asked Justin, our wonderful Oakley worship leader, to help me offer that song to you. Maybe you'll discover your own. That would be great too, but you can have mine. And I thought we could just take a moment and just remember what I remember every time I sing it, which is Jesus is in the circle of suffering. ♪ I love you Lord ♪ ♪ And I lift my voice to worship you ♪ ♪ Oh my soul rejoice and take joy my King ♪ ♪ In what you hear and may it be a sweet, sweet sound ♪ ♪ In your ears ♪ You know, I think about Paul. I don't think he had instruments in there with him that night, but Jesus was with him. So how about we sing it just like he did. If you're in your circle of suffering,

sing it right in the presence of Jesus with our voices and our hearts. ♪ Say I love you Lord and I lift my voice to worship you ♪ ♪ Oh my soul rejoice and take joy my King ♪ ♪ In what you hear and may it be a sweet, sweet sound ♪ ♪ In your ears ♪ Have you ever heard somebody say at some later point in their life, I can't even hate that terrible thing that happened to me because of where it took me. That's somebody who learned to suffer well. That's somebody who let God get a hold of their suffering and turn it into endurance and turn it into character and turn it into a life that has hope again. That is somebody who suffered well. And so this week, as you do your work, as you go on this journey, one more step, you're gonna be asked a question in your group this week. And the question is, how is weakness or pain or difficulty in your way on the race? And the goal that we're gonna help each other toward is to meet Jesus in that space. to find him in that space. And as you do that, I want you to remember the words that Jesus himself spoke to Paul. Paul went to Jesus at one point and said, I've got this thorn in my flesh, it's painful, I want you to get rid of it, I want you to take it away from me. And Jesus said to him, my grace is sufficient for you

because my power is made perfect in weakness. So I want you to remind each other of those words as you deal with your own suffering this week. Let me pray for us. Lord, help us not to be afraid of the difficulty that you've put in our path, but instead to go into it, eyes open for you, looking for you, knowing that when we find you, you will turn it into all the good stuff that's coming for us. We trust you as the way of salvation. Jesus, it's in your precious name that I pray, amen.