Chapter 1: How can we trust in the Lord amidst suffering?
We all have to ask ourselves the question, what do we do in the meantime while we're waiting for glory? How do we explain our lives? How do we live the Christian life, the resurrected life, as we wait for glory with Christ?
The resurrection is true. It's historical fact. But it's not merely a doctrine to be defended. It's a truth that changes the Christian life. Welcome to the Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm Nathan W. Bingham. As Resurrection Sunday quickly approaches, you're hearing messages on Saturdays from Gabe Fleur's eight-part series, Alive! How the Resurrection of Christ Changes Everything.
He has already explored why the resurrection matters, the evidence that supports the claim of Jesus' resurrection, and today he'll answer the so what question, how does the resurrection impact daily life for the believer? He is the senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Gabe Fleur.
I have a good friend back at home who, in addition to his day job, might have the greatest second job in the world, and that is a caddy at Augusta National Golf Club. And so he and I are golf buddies, play a lot of golf together, but... He was the guy I got to go with for one of the most memorable experiences of my life, which was going to the Masters for the first time in 2018.
And we made our way down Washington Avenue there, if you know anything about the course. And you come in to the south entrance right there behind Publix, which is crazy. You turn off by the Publix there, and then you park. And we walked in right there at number 16 and set our chairs down. And that's, if you can see over the lake there, we were right by the lake.
And it's one of those things where if you see it on TV, I mean, we all hear the voice of Jim Nance, you know, the return to glory and those kind of things. If you see it on TV and then you actually experience Augusta National in person, and it is so much better than advertised. It is the most beautiful, scenic place I've ever been.
We ended up walking the course four times during the day of the round, just walking the whole time, watching a few shots and then moving on. But as we were driving away that day, you know, full of pimento cheese, smell of pine straw in your nostrils, spending way too much at the store there.
We were driving down 20 and just thinking to myself, you know, that is really a foretaste of glory where everything seems to be okay, even for just a few minutes. Now, we know that's papier-mâché in one sense, don't we? They have to spend a lot of money and time to get an Augusta National to look like that for just a week or so.
But it did make me think of the fact that we all have to ask ourselves the question, what do we do in the meantime while we're waiting for glory? How do we explain our lives? How do we live the Christian life, the resurrected life, as we wait for glory with Christ? And so in this segment here, I want us to talk about something we do each week in the Sunday school class.
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Chapter 2: What does the resurrection of Christ mean for daily life?
Now, curiously, Roman Catholics and others will take this to say that there's some sort of suffering that we need to undergo in terms of payment for sin in some sense, that there is a suffering that we must endure.
However, I don't think that's what Paul is saying at all because he's just finished explaining to us in 115 to 20 and will continue in chapter 2 explaining to us the all-sufficiency of Christ. That's the point of the book of Colossians. Christ is totally sufficient. So he's not telling us that we can add anything redemptive to his sufferings.
Instead, I think what Paul is telling us here gets us to the very heart of his doctrine of the Christian life. And so let's back up just a moment. If you were to ask Paul, Paul, we know you used to be called Saul. Now you're called Paul because you became a Christian. He would say, a what? He would say, a Christian. And Paul would say, I'm not sure what you're talking about. I follow the Messiah.
That's because that term Christian really wasn't used many times in the New Testament. It was where, you know, when they talk about the disciples were first called Christians. They were called followers of the way. But Paul's particular phrase to describe what it means to be a Christian is two words, in Christ. He mentions it dozens of times. He says it over and over again.
Paul's description of what it means to be saved is being in Christ, united with him. That's a basic category in Paul's thought, our union and communion with the resurrected Son of God by faith and by faith alone, which faith is a gift of the grace of God, all for his glory. justification by faith alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone. That's central, basic, nuclear to Paul's theology.
And yet the way he applies these categories to our lives is nothing short of stunning. And when he speaks of filling up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, What he is teaching us is so, I think, powerful and helpful for our daily lives. But before we look at what that is, let's go back to Luke's gospel and hear Jesus teach us the same thing Paul teaches us in Colossians 1.24.
Luke 9 and verse 23. And he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. How do we connect these two and what are they teaching us? Jesus will say to us elsewhere that a servant is not above his master nor a pupil above his teacher.
And taking all of that together, here's what Paul and Jesus are telling us about life as a resurrected, adopted child of God awaiting the final resurrection. And it's counterintuitive. They are telling us both that suffering always precedes glory, and that every Christian has an allotted measure of suffering, of cross-bearing, that he or she must undergo.
That's what Paul is saying when he says, I'm filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions. It's not a redemptive lack on the part of Christ's sufferings. No, he's saying to us, why is all this happening to me? Why does the catalog of trials in 2 Corinthians happen to me? And Paul's answer in brief is to us to say, do you think it's just going to happen to me?
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Chapter 3: How do we live the resurrected life while waiting for glory?
And that you have no hope of salvation apart from Jesus. But what we would take in being very comfortable, well-fed, modern people, bad news of suffering. We never want to talk about suffering. Love our comfort, love our ease, guilty as charged. Bad news about that, here's the good news. And it's all good news in this sense.
That as we follow Jesus in the pathway of suffering, he begins to raise us up. He begins that mysterious, life-giving work of renewal by the power of the Spirit in each one of our lives. So that as we live in the outer world,
Outer man age, we begin to experience true life as those who still must die unless Jesus returns, who still face the mundane frustrations and unspectacular difficulties of daily life, who still engage in cross bearing, that in the midst of bearing the cross, the crown is always before us. That even though we might live in a Good Friday reality, Easter Sunday is happening every day in our lives.
That's what Paul is saying. That's why he didn't lose heart. Have you ever noticed that in Paul? Have you ever noticed that he never prays for his circumstances to change? Never. I'm in prison, he says. I don't care. The gospel is being preached, Philippians, while I'm in prison. Praise the Lord. He says, he never says, oh God, get me out of prison.
He just says, no, I'll endure it all for the sake of the elect and for Christ's sake, because that's all that matters to me. And I am following him in the pathway of resurrection life, even as I experience cross bearing death. So what does the resurrection mean for us in our daily lives? It means that in every one of our lives,
Again, as one author put it, we will be experiencing many crucifixions and many resurrections every day. And the battle for our souls and our minds by grace and by grace alone will be won in those many battles. It's not so much the one event that will undo us, but the culmination of daily events that can wear us down.
And therefore, the gospel of resurrection, the only true gospel, speaks to us right where we are and says, all of the things that are wrong, that we don't like in our lives or on a bigger scale, the global evil we see, all of that comes to an end one day. And in the meantime, in the meantime, it's all normal for us. This is what you signed up for, Jesus says. Count the cost, he reminds us.
Because in the end, a student is never above his teacher. And as we walk with him in suffering, he says, don't lose heart. Because what I'm going to give you is so much better and how I will sustain you is so much better. John 7, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water. And so he says, as you follow me in daily death, recognize that daily resurrection is coming your way too.
Daily living water, daily sustenance for life in a fallen world. So that at the end of it all, when we see him in that pregnant scene of revelation and we cast the crowns before him of saying, it's all been you from start to finish. You never let us down. You never walked away from us. To Christ alone be the glory.
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