Worship as Discipleship

Worship as Discipleship:  The Biblical Pattern for Formative Worship

Introduction:

                Do you remember those times whenever you were a child when you would mess with your sense of depth perception; where you would place your hand (or another object) right in front of your face and focus upon it, causing all other background images to become instantly blurry?  If you don’t remember doing this, hold up your hand about foot from your face and hone in on it.  You will notice that all of the surrounding background will become unclear and, physically, you will learn that we cannot focus on what is distant and what is close simultaneously. 

                The same sort of phenomenon happens with us Christians today.  We have been focused so intently on what is right in front of us for so long that the background of the ancient Way of the faith has gotten fuzzy for us and we can’t quite make it out.  Our focus on the now right in front of us causes the past to become blurry for us. 

                The truth of the matter is that the ancient Church looked drastically different than what the majority of Christianity looks like today (in America at least).  Ancient Christians differed vastly from us in their understanding of worship, discipleship and even what it means to be the Church to begin with.  While volumes can be written about on this topic, I just want to lay out a brief and rough outline focusing on what the ancient Church and its ways looked like.  With that said, it will be helpful for the reader to understand a few key distinctions right off the bat:

                a)  The New Testament only knows of one Church in each city that it addresses.  The only time that the New Testament epistle authors ever bring up the notion of “churches” is if they are talking about a large region which contained several cities and, thus, several churches within those several cities.  The ancient Christians only originally knew of one church in each city. 

                b)  This means that many of us would have to expand our understanding of how a city wide church would function, then.  Each city church was appointed a regional pastor called a “bishop.”  He was essentially the “head pastor” of the whole church over the whole region.  Under his leadership were other leaders called “elders” and “deacons.”  While the bishop ministered to the whole city/region, the elders and deacons were assigned to minister to more specific locations within that city/region.

                c)  The ancient Christians essentially knew of and practiced three different types of corporate worship together: they prayed during certain hours of the day, they had services called the Synaxis services where they continued to worship and pray in ways that paralleled the Temple in Jerusalem, and they held Lord’s Supper services once a week on Sundays where the whole city church gathered to celebrate the sacrament under the  one bishop.  Oftentimes the ancient Christians would hold Synaxis services with the Christians from their neighborhoods under the leadership of their neighborhood elders, even though they originally started with the Bishop of their city.  So, there were often several different Synaxis services across the cities throughout the week.  However, on Sundays, all of the different Christian groups came together to celebrate the Lord’s Supper with the regional pastor, the bishop.  Eventually, however, the Synaxis services and the Eucharistic services were blended together into one service and the Lord’s Supper was celebrated within multiple congregations across a city on any given Sunday, just as we see it today in Lutheran, Anglican, Catholic and Orthodox congregations.  Thus, the unifying power of the Lord’s Supper was diminished and the concept of Biblical leadership was scrambled.  The Eucharist no longer served as unifying practice between congregations and, with that, people lost site of the unifying role of the Bishop along with it. 

                With all of this information in perspective, we can now look at how the ancient Christians originally worshipped. 

Worship Patterns in Early Christianity:

Preliminary notes:

a) The early church worshipped according to the traditions of the Old Testament (the Apostles were Israelites after all). The writer of Hebrews (8:5) tells us that the Old Testament temple worship was a “copy and shadow” of heavenly worship and, as we will see shortly, the New Testament Christians still continually participated in worship at the Temple after their conversion to Christ.  The significance of earthly worship being a “copy and a shadow” of the heavenly worship is this: whenever we worship the Lord in accordance with the Law of Moses, we are participating in the combining of the heavenly and earthly liturgies.  As it is said elsewhere, God has “raised us with Christ and seated us with Him in heaven” (Eph 2:6) where we are “surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses,” (Heb.12:1).  We will not one day be seated in heaven but, whenever we worship the Lord, we are already seated in heaven.  Also, whenever we worship the Lord, we are joining in with the heavenly chorus of angels and saints and, thus, are “surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.” 

b) Again, there was a 3-fold pattern to the worship in the New Testament: the prayer hours, the Synaxis services (Temple worship pattern), the Eucharistic services (Lord’s Supper services).

c)  Worship was very communal.  Since their worship was very communal, this means that worship was the primary means of discipleship.  People submitted themselves to their Bishops and Elders.  The early Church Fathers taught that the ministers and congregants were interdependent as the members of the Trinity were interdependent.  As the members of the Trinity are all equal, they all functioned in different ways and with differing authority.  The same is true of the structure of the Church.  The ministers and the laity both had significant roles in the worship services and they both needed each other to function effectively. 

1)  Prayer Hours:

a)  The early Church prayed 3 times per day (corporately or privately), 9am, 12pm, 3pm during the “prayer hours.”  We will look at a few Patristic sources on this topic soon.  For the time being, however, read the following verses and pay attention to the details found therein.  During what times did they pray?  What happened during these times?

-Acts 2:15: The Holy-Spirit poured out upon the Apostles during the 3^rd hour of daily prayer (9am).  They weren't randomly gathered together but were praying during the 3rd hour of prayer because that is what the people of God did habitually.   

-Acts 3:1:  Peter and John went to the temple during the “time of prayer,” the 9^th hour (3pm).

-Acts 10:3: Cornelius had a vision during the 9^th hour of prayer (3pm).

-Acts 10:9:  Peter had a vision during noonday prayer time.

-Notice this as well in Daniel 6:10, 13: Daniel prayed 3 times per day, at set times of the day.

b) The early Church Fathers also wrote about the prayer hours:

Cyprian of Carthage (200-258 AD), from: Treatise 4 On Prayer, Ch.34-35:

“And in discharging the duties of prayer, we find that the three children with Daniel, being strong in faith and victorious in captivity, observed the third, sixth, and ninth hour, as it were, for a sacrament of the Trinity, which in the last times had to be manifested.”

Hippolytus of Rome (170-235), from: The Apostolic Tradition, ch. 41:

⁴If there is a day when there is no instruction, let each one at home take a holy book and
read enough of it to gain an advantage from it.

⁵If you are at home, pray at the third hour and praise God. If you are elsewhere at that
time, pray in your heart to God. ⁶For in this hour Christ was seen nailed to the wood. And
thus in the Old Testament the Law instructed that the shewbread be offered at the third
hour as a symbol of the Body and Blood of Christ. And the sacrifice of the lamb
was a symbol of the perfect Lamb. For Christ is the Shepherd, and he is also the bread
which descended from heaven.

⁷Pray also at the sixth hour. Because when Christ was attached to the wood of the cross,
the daylight ceased and became darkness. Thus you should pray a powerful prayer at this
hour, imitating the cry of him who prayed and all creation was made dark for the
unbelieving Jews.

⁸Pray also at the ninth hour a great prayer with great praise, imitating the souls of the
righteous who do not lie, who glorify God who remembered his saints and sent his Word
to them to enlighten them. ⁹For in that hour Christ was pierced in his side, pouring out
water and blood, and the rest of the time of the day, he gave light until evening. This way
he made the dawn of another day at the beginning of his sleep, fulfilling the type of his
resurrection.

2) The Synaxis Services:

a) Premise: These were services which were derived from the Temple services.  ”Synaxis” is the Greek word for “gathering together.”  The Synaxis services were primarily prayer services where the Christians gathered and worshipped according to the Old Testament Temple pattern.  While the Christians modified the Jewish Temple format slightly (by eventually adding New Testament readings to their services), the original framework was still maintained.  This makes sense because, originally, the early Christians continued to worship at the Temple as we will read about shortly.  However, after persecution broke out and the Christians could no longer worship at the Temple, they continued to worship with the modified Temple liturgy in different locations across a region.

-Again:  Hebrews 8:5: Old Testament temple worship was a “copy and shadow” of heavenly worship.  Many Christians today claim that the way of worship that we find in the Old Testament has been done away with because of what Christ has done.  However, one must beg the question: "Why would Jesus want to do away with His people worshipping in a way which copied and shadowed heavenly worship?"  It is clear enough that He did not want this to happen and that His people did, indeed, continue to worship according to that ancient pattern. 

-We can see a rough outline for these Synaxis services in Nehemiah 8:1-8.

-Luke 24:53: After Jesus’ ascension, the disciples worshipped “continuously” in the temple courts.  If Jesus came to do away with Temple worship, why did the Apostles  and early Christians continuously continue to pray there?

-Acts 2:46: Again, the early Christians met in the temple courts every day.

-Acts 3:1:  Peter and John went to the temple during the “time of prayer,” the 9^th hour (3pm).

-Acts 5:42: And, again, they continued to meet in the temple courts “day after day.”

-Acts 13:2:  The word for “worshipping” here means more than just “worship.”  The Greek word here is “leitourgounton,” which is the word that we get “liturgy” from.  It should be read as, “while they were performing acts of liturgy (or, liturgical acts) and fasting…”  They were worshipping through the form which they had adopted from the Jewish Temple liturgy.

b) Here is the order to the Synaxis service ascribed by the ancient Patristic sources (see “The Shape of the Litrugy” by Dom Gregory Dix):

a)  Opening greeting by the minister and the reply of the Church (“The Lord be with you…and also with you” or “Peace be with you…and with your spirit”).

b)  Old Testament reading (was chanted).

c)   Psalm singing

d)  New Testament letter reading (was chanted) and Gospel reading (was chanted).  Another Psalm may have been sung in between the letter and Gospel readings.

e)  Sermon.

f)  Dismissal of the non-Christians.  Non-Christians were not allowed to participate in the priestly intercessory prayer.

g)  Intercessory prayer by the congregation.  In the oldest worship services (like the Roman one), the minister or the deacon would mention a subject for prayer, then the people would pray for it on their knees on their own.  Then, the deacon would instruct everyone to rise and the minister would wrap up their prayers with his own prayer for each subject.  They repeated the cycle through each prayer subject.  Here is an example from the ancient Roman liturgy:

 

Minister: “Let us pray, my dearly beloved, for the holy Church of God, that our Lord and God would be pleased to keep her in peace, unity and safety throughout the world, subjecting unto her principalities and powers, and grant us to live out the days of a peaceful and quiet life in glorifying God the Father Almighty.” 

Deacon: “Let us bow the knee.” (All kneel and pray in silence for a while).

Deacon: “Arise.”

Minister: “Almighty everlasting God, Who has revealed Your glory unto all nations in Christ, preserve the work of Your mercy; that Your Church which is spread throughout all the world may continue with a firm faith in the confession Your holy Name.” 

 

h)  The minister blesses and dismisses the Church. 

 

3)  The Eucharistic (Lord’s Supper) services:

 

a) Premise:  While Christians gathered for the Synaxis services all across a region and at different places, all of the Christians from all of the different congregations gathered into one place on Sundays for the Eucharist services to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.  In other words, while there were many different groups that held their own Synaxis services across a region (after Christians could no longer worship at the Temple), all of these congregations gathered into one place on Sundays for the Lord’s Supper.  While the Synaxis services were structured off of the Temple services, the Eucharistic service was given by the Lord Jesus Himself (see 1 Corinthians 11:23-26). 

 

It is difficult for us to understand Scripturally that the New Testament Christians gathered into one place for the Eucharist because most of our translations of the passages at hand are interpreted falsely.  So, we will address the few verses which are translated incorrectly below. 

 

b) Since we don’t readily recognize the fact that the ancient Christians of the New Testament gathered into one place for the Eucharist because of our faulty translations, it is helpful first to look to an account of how the ancient Christians worshipped from an early source.  Justin Martyr (100-165 AD), whenever he was on trial, talked about how the Church met in one place for the Eucharist: 

“and on the day called Sunday, there is a gathering in the same place of all those living in cities or country areas.”   Whenever Justin was pressed further he replied that he knew of only one place in Rome where the Christians gathered and that was the house owned by a man named Martinus by the Timiotinian Baths. 

Now, look to see the correlation between Justin's account and the New Testament accounts:

-Acts 2:46: the Christians met and celebrated the Lord’s Supper “in the house” (κατ' οἶκον).

Note: They did not break bread (celebrate the Lord’s Supper) “in their homes” as most translations read, but “in the house.”  κατ' οἶκον is in the singular.  This syncs up with Justin Martyr’s account of the Eucharistic gathering in Rome.  Again, Christians worshipped daily in the temple courts and surrounding synagogues (the Synaxis services) but they came together once a week for the Lord’s Supper at one “house” in the city.

 

-Acts 5:42: they met in the “house” (κατ' οἶκον). 

Note: again, they did not meet “from house to house” but in “the house.”  κατ' οἶκον is singular here as well.  And, again, there was one “house” where all the Christians within a region gathered for the Lord’s Supper on Sundays.

 

c) Now that we have seen that the Christians in the early Church gathered into one house to break bread, we can see that Paul even gives us the names of some of the people who opened up their homes to the Churches in their regions:

-Romans 16:5-16: Paul mentions the Eucharistic household church owned by Priscilla and Aquila and some of the prominent individuals and families found therein.

-1 Cor. 16:19: Paul mentions the household of Priscilla and Aquila again.

-Col. 4:15: Paul mentions the Church that gathers for the Eucharist in the household of Nympha.

-Philemon 2: Paul mentions the Church that gathers for the Eucharist in the home of Philemon. 

4) The Communal Nature of Worship as Discipleship:

a) Premise: Worship was the primary means of discipleship in the New Testament and early Church.  In other words, discipleship was liturgical.  People were primarily discipled by the ministers (the Bishops and Elders) through their participation in the Synaxis and Eucharistic services.  If discipleship is primarily about teaching others how to seek God in all things and be conformed to His image, then these liturgical services were the chief arenas where disciples were forged by their leaders.  Discipleship was not simply mutual spiritual mentorship, nor was it a matter of leaders simply teaching their disciples intellectual information about the faith.  Rather, ministers taught the people how to do the faith by teaching them how to participate in the liturgical services.  The services themselves were formative, and it was the people’s chief duty to submit themselves to the authority of the ministers by participating in these liturgies.  Listen to the words of this ancient Church Father, Ignatius of Antioch (30-117 AD), who was the disciple of John the Apostle and was rumored to be the child that Jesus held in His arms:

“See that you all follow the Bishop, as Christ does the Father, and the elders as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as a command of God.  Let no one do anything connected with the Church without the Bishop.  Let that be considered a true Eucharist which is under the leadership of the Bishop, or one to whom he has entrusted it.  Wherever the Bishop appears, there let the multitude of the people be; just as wherever Christ Jesus is, there is the catholic Church.”

It was a common notion that, as the members of the Trinity related to one another, so too the different offices within the Church were meant to relate to one another.  The members of Trinity are all equal in their personhood but they each function in different ways and relate to one another in different ways.  The same is true of the Church.  While the laity, deacons, elders and bishops are all equal in regards to their personhood, they each have different roles to play and they each related to all the rest in differing ways.  Listen to what Ignatius has to say in his letter to the Magnesians in this regard:

“As the Lord did nothing without the Father, being united with Him, He was neither simply by Himself or simply with the apostles; so you shouldn’t do anything without the bishop (regional pastor) and elders.  And do not attempt to suppose anything to be right for yourselves apart from them.  But at the general meeting (Lord’s Supper service) let there be one prayer, one supplication, one mind and one hope in love and joy undefiled.  There is one Jesus Christ and there is nothing more excellent than Him.  Be zealous to come together, all of you, as to one temple, even God; as to one altar, even to one Jesus Christ…Study, therefore, to be established in the doctrines of the Lord and the apostles, that so all things, whatsoever you do, may prosper both in the flesh and spirit; in faith and love; in the Son, and in the Father, and in the Spirit; in the beginning and in the end; with your most admirable bishop (regional pastor), and the well-compacted spiritual crown of your presbytery, and the deacons who are according to God. Be subject to the bishop (regional pastor), and to one another, as Jesus Christ to the Father, according to the flesh, and the apostles to Christ, and to the Father, and to the Spirit; that so there may be a union both fleshly and spiritual.”  

As we see in the teaching of Ignatius, while everyone in the Church is to submit themselves to all the others, we are especially obligated to submit ourselves to the Bishop as Jesus does to the Father, and to the Elders as if they were the Apostles.  So, within the notion of mutual submission we understand that we are to especially submit ourselves to our guides and pastors in the faith.  If this is not discipleship, I don’t know what it is.  Notice also that Ignatius is talking about this submission during the times whenever the Christians assemble liturgically. 

Some Concluding Remarks:

To sum things up:

a)  There was only one Church in each city under the leadership of one bishop.  The elders and deacons served in the various faith communities within the city-wide church.

b)  Christians prayed during the prayer hours of the day (9am, 12pm & 3pm) both corporately and on their own.  This tradition continued well into the early centuries of the Church and even continues in some denominations today (Catholicism, Anglicanism and Eastern Orthodox).

c)  There were two different types of worship services: the Synaxis services and the Eucharistic services.  The Synaxis services were based upon the Temple’s liturgy and were celebrated in different locations across the cities.  The Eucharistic services were held only on Sundays and there was only one Eucharistic service held in each city.  For this service, every Christian from a city/region would come together to celebrate the sacrament under the leadership of the Bishop in the home of a local Christian individual or family. 

d)  Worship services were the primary means of discipleship.  The services were structured in such a way that they were transformative for all who were in attendance.  The relationship that the ministers held with the congregants during these times of worship were seen as nothing other than that of a relationship of discipleship.  People were discipled by their ministers by submitting themselves to them through the liturgies. 

Additional Resources:

“Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours?” by Rolland Allen

“The Shape of the Liturgy” by Dom Gregory Dix

“The Eucharistic Communion and the World” by John Zizoulas

“Eucharist, Bishop, Church” by John Zizioulas

Connecting the Dots Between Worship & Discipleship: Part 1

I have been very fond of the teaching of the Anglican theologian N.T. Wright over the years.  I have engaged in the majority of his works at some point or another over the past decade.  I am well acquainted with the thrust of his theological emphasis and the controversy which sometimes surrounds him.   Even though Wright has had a predominate voice within the theological world for decades now, he really didn't show up on the radar of most Americans until a few years ago.  The famed author, theologian and pastor, John Piper, decided to take Wright to task and write a book of response to some of Wright's publications in regards to his theology of justification.  Piper is also a man that I am very familiar with.  He belongs to the same Baptist denomination that I used to belong to and I read probably a couple dozen of his books during my theological education at a Baptist University.  Lets just say that I have always found Piper's theology off-putting and confusing and Wright's teachings came as a breath of fresh air to me.  All of this is neither here nor there, however.  I say all of this to make this point:

I will never forget the day that I read introduction to the book that N.T. Wright wrote in response to Piper's book of response to him.  Yes, I said that correctly: Wright wrote a book to respond to a book that Pipe wrote in response to Wright.  Within this introduction, Wright had a rather poetic and cutting way of articulating how the teaching which Piper promoted leads only to a sort of tunnel-visioned-egocentricity.  He likened his conversation with Piper (and the evangelical school of thought which he promotes) in this way (and I am paraphrasing Wright's words big time here):

Suppose you have a friend over that you have not seen in quite some time.  After spending some time catching up, you decided to go outside to observe the beautiful night sky together.  It is then that your friend says to your surprise, "Oh, how much God loves us!  He has put us and our planet at the center of the universe!  See how the night sky and all that it contains revolves around us!"  To your surprise and dismay, you think to yourself, "We have known for quite some time that we here on planet earth are not the center of the universe.  Everything does not revolve around us!  In fact, we are a part of a system of planets which revolved around the sun within our galaxy and our galaxy is very small compared to the limitless others which exist out there."  So, you gently seek to correct your friend feeling saddened that he has been confused about something so massive.  He accepts your words with confusion and with apparent reluctance, but you both decide to call it a night and go to bed.  then, in the middle of the night you hear a tapping on your door and you open it to hear your friend's beckoning voice.  "Come with me," he says, as he leads you outside to observe the night sky.  "See the movement of the stars.  See how they all move around us!  They circle around us.  How can you say that it is we who are the ones doing the circling?" 

Wright's point: like our friend in the story, many Christians today have difficulty whenever it comes to understanding that everything does not revolve around us.  We have been so fixated on notions of "personal" salvation and personal relationships with Jesus for so long that it is hard for us to grasp the bigger picture of what God is doing, not only in us, but with the wider creation as well.  It has become increasingly hard for us to understand that the Christian life does not revolve around us as individuals but that it actually revolved around the Triune God, the One seated upon the throne.  While many well-intentioned Christians will agree with my previous statement, many of them will not understand how they actually fail to live this Christ-centered orbit in practice.  They may think that they are living with Christ at the center but, in fact, it is their lives which are at the center of all their actions. 

To me, this is most clearly evidenced in the ways in which we both define and live out two key concepts within the Christian faith: worship and discipleship. 

It may seem a bit radical for me to claim that we have gotten worship and discipleship wrong in recent years but that is exactly what I am claiming.  There was a time whenever worship and discipleship meant very specific things.  Granted, both of these terms encompass quite a bit in how they can be defined in all actuality.  However, there used to be some very central ideas contained within both terms that are no longer central to the ways in which we both think about and carry out our practices of worship and discipleship.  To look at one example: both terms were always seen as highly, highly communal in ancient Christianity.  Yes, all of life is worship and all of life is discipleship.  However, the ancient Christians never ever saw these as things that we can do independently and apart from others.  Worship and discipleship had concrete communal implications for the lives of everyday Christians.  The notion that, "I am a spiritual person but I don't like institutions--so I don't God to Church," would've been an absurd idea to most Christians up until recent times.  In fact, to use modern vernacular, they very much so would've doubted that someone with this type of mentality was "saved" to begin with.  Listen to these words from Ignatius of Antioch, "He who fails to join in your worship shows his arrogance by the very fact of becoming a schismatic...If, then, those who act carnally suffer death, how much more shall those by wicked teaching corrupt God's faith for which Jesus Christ was crucified.  Such a vile creature will go to the unquenchable fire along with anyone who listens to him."  Heretics are the ones who live in isolation, who seek to do worship and establish thoughts about God in their own ways.  Not so with the Christians.  To be a Christian meant being a communal being. 

The same goes for discipleship.  In an age where no one really seems to know what "discipleship" means it is very important to understand its communal essence.  Discipleship is about more than simply having a personal relationship with Jesus (even though this is of utmost importance).  It is also, and quite centrally, about having a proper relationship with the people who are to be His icons: ministers.  Not only was (and is) discipleship about having a relationship with Jesus it is about having a living relationship with your minister.  This is also where corporate worship comes in and plays another central part: it is primarily through the worship services at Church that we are discipled by Christ through His ministers.  This happens through the liturgy, or is meant to happen at least. 

Discipleship and worship, then, are both "liturgical."  I will explain what this means more in Part 2 of this post. 

A few concluding thoughts for time being: 

We like to think that we can do worship however we like, do we not?  We define worship in the ways which seem most comfortable to us, bending the notion of worship to our own will and definition.  We are no different than our friend who points us to the beautiful night sky and sees himself as the center of it all.  Worship revolves around us; our wants and desires...our specific preferences for the feel and style of the types of worship that we want.  Although there is much comfort in embraces such a sentimental notion (that we are the center of it all), such a notion does not come without a great and tragic cost.  We will fail to see our actual place in the universe and the beauty of the orbital dance which we could be participating in.  We will fail to see how God has created all things with a specific goal in mind for each and every one of them.  Thus we will fail to see ourselves and everything else for what we are all intended to be. 

Whenever we remove ourselves from the center of it all, whenever we allow God to define both worship and discipleship for us, we can then begin to relate to Him and the created world around us in the Way that He intended for us. 

We will learn to see the beauty not in being the center, but in being the humble speck which orbits someone much greater than ourselves. 

Why We Are Allowed to Suffer

We are going to continue our series this morning on the teachings of the Heidelberg Catechism.  Let us look at Lord's Day 10 together, shall we? 

Q. What do you understand
by the providence of God?

A. The almighty and ever present power of God

by which God upholds, as with his hand,

heaven
and earth
and all creatures,

and so rules them that
leaf and blade,
rain and drought,
fruitful and lean years,
food and drink,
health and sickness,
prosperity and poverty—
all things, in fact,
come to us
not by chance
but by his fatherly hand.

Q. How does the knowledge
of God’s creation and providence help us?

 A. We can be patient when things go against us,

thankful when things go well,
and for the future we can have
good confidence in our faithful God and Father
that nothing in creation will separate us from his love.
For all creatures are so completely in God’s hand
that without his will
they can neither move nor be moved.

Even though we could go several different directions this morning, I really want to fine tune things for us and focus on one concept from the passage in particular.  These words of the Heidelberg are easy for us to accept whenever everything is going well, whenever life is easy and good, whenever there are minimal burdens and heartaches.  It is easy for us to look and see and confess that clearly the hand of God has guided us through times of blessing whenever we are going through these times.  What about the times, however, when things are bad, when we suffer greatly, whenever we begin to despair even life itself?  It is not so easy, then, to confess these words; that even through times of intense pain God's hand is guiding everything around us in life and that He is guiding us through our painful circumstances.  Furthermore, it is one thing to recognize that whenever we suffer we are being afflicted by the demons.  This is fairly easy to accept even though we don't like it whenever it happens to us.  It is another thing, however, to understand that God allows this to happen to us.  He allows us to suffer.  He allows us to be afflicted by the demons.  It is quite difficult for us to reconcile the notions that "God is love" and that He also allows us to go through times of tremendous suffering at various points in our lifetime.  I mean, listen to the words of Paul:

"In order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me."  -2 Corinthians 12:7

Paul was "given" a messenger of Satan to torment him.  He was "given" this....by whom?  The Lord.  God "gave" Paul a messenger of Satan so that Paul would not become conceited, or overly prideful.  We are already learning why God allows us human beings to suffer so much even though He loves us with an infinite love: He allows it so that we will not become prideful, and He allows us to suffer in order that we might be severed from our pride.  God allows us to be tormented by demons so that we can learn to do away with our selfish and destructive prideful tendencies.  In other words, God loves us so much that He refuses to let us destroy ourselves in pride.  Again, this is a concept that many of us can comprehend, ideally at least.  But what does this look like in the Christian life?  Perhaps many people are swept away from the faith, and many of us are so taken aback whenever hardship falls upon us, because we do not readily recognize where suffering fits in our lives as we seek to follow Christ. 

Sometimes I believe that the way the spiritual life is taught to us is misleading.  For example, whenever I was in school, all of my theological professors and my textbooks taught me that the pattern to the Christian life looks something like this: conversion, sanctification and glorification.  In other words, you convert to the faith, to Jesus.  That is conversion.  Then, you grow in holiness.  You are transformed by your relationship with Christ.  That is sanctification.  Lastly, you are finally and fully perfected upon your death or at Jesus' return.  That is glorification.  I am not saying that this is wrong.  It is perfectly Biblical and correct.  But it doesn't mean that this can't be misleading by the way that we teach it and understand it.  Unless your life looks more like that of Enoch or Elijah, where you transition smoothly from one phase of the spiritual life to the others...you are most likely going to feel like the pattern we are looking at doesn't quite fit your life...because it leaves no room for hardship, for suffering and trials.  It leaves no room for us who know all too well that sometimes we don't feel very sanctified whenever we should be growing.  It makes no room for those seasons of life that we all go through whenever, instead of growing in our faith, we feel as though we are stagnate, falling backwards or even as though the flame of faith as been extinguished within us. 

So, I think there is a different pattern to the spiritual life that might be more beneficial to us; a pattern that is clearly articulated in the Scriptures and learned firsthand from experience.  See if you can see the pattern in the lives of these people:

Job: went from peace, to intense suffering, to restoration (twice of what he had before the suffering)
Israel: was freed from the Egyptians, lost in the wilderness, then led into the promised land
Israel again: in the promised land, led into captivity, returned to the promised land
Humanity as a whole: we have gone from perfect Adam, to fallen Adam, to the new Adam (Jesus)
Jesus: by the Father's side, suffered unto death on the Cross, resurrected, ascended to the Father. 
Peter: followed Jesus and witnessed His glory on Tabor, then denied Him, then was restored to Apostle

Do you see the pattern? 

First, there is a phase of initial grace: where it is easy to pray, easy to love, easy to find motivation to study the Bible and there is much peace and joy. 

Then comes the time of trial/suffering:  (Now, I am not talking about being tried because a coworker at work said a nasty thing to you.  No, I am talking about a season of spiritual apathy and perhaps depression and many of us don't actually recognize it for what it is whenever we are going through it).  During it, we must fight for what once came easily to us.  We must fight to pray, fight to love, fight to read the Bible.  We sense a bit of a separation between ourselves and God and it is a time of much suffering as the soul weeps over what it senses it has lost.  It is wandering in the wilderness, lost in exile...so to speak.  The previous joy and passion feels as though it is being extinguished.  It is as season where we feel as though God has taken a step back from us.  God stepped back and let Satan torment Job.  God stepped back and let Israel be taken captive.  God stepped back and allowed His Son to cry out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" 

Lastly, then comes the restoration if we persevere:  with it comes a deep rooted peace and sense of discernment comes upon us.  Pride no longer has a place within us and prayer goes on without ceasing.  It does not mean that we have been made perfect.  That won't happen until we die or Christ's return.  It does mean, however, that we are, like Job, twice as strong as we were before going through the time of trial, the season of hardship.  Most importantly, perhaps, is that prayer becomes extremely powerful.  Job prayed for his friends and his prayer was heard and cherished by God.

So, we have learned so far that: we are allowed to suffer so that we will not become prideful.  We also realize that suffering is a part of the spiritual life in Christ.  We are given seasons of suffering and trials so that we can become stronger, by God's grace. 

Let us look further into the practical outworkings of all of this by reading what Paul has to say to the Corinthians: (2 Cor. 1:1-11)


“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To the church in Corinth, together with all His holy people throughout Achaia:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."

The first thing that I want you to notice and the only thing about the greeting for time being is that this letter is from both Paul and Timothy and is addressed to the church in Corinth.  This is important for understanding the contents of what follows:

 

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us (ministers) in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.  For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ."

Notice this...this is of extreme importance...that this is not just a generalized "us" who receive the troubles and the comfort.  No, God comforts ministers (Paul and Timothy) in their troubles so that they can then comfort those who are going through hardship with the comfort that they themselves have received.  It is not as though Paul is saying that we all receive comfort from the Lord so that we can comfort others who are going through distress.  Even though this is also true to some degree, it is not what Paul is getting at here.  Lets read on: 

"If we (ministers) are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.  And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort."

Pay attention to what Paul (and Timothy) are saying here:  ministers are allowed to suffer so that they can guide the people of God faithfully through their own periods of suffering.  Ministers are given suffering so that they can speak from experience as they seek to comfort the people of God as they struggle during seasons of trials.  We ministers suffer, in other words, for you.  We suffer for you: "If we are distressed, it is for your comfort, your salvation.  If we are comforted, it is for your comfort."  We receive comfort from the Lord after  seasons of suffering so that we can then turn and show you the Way through suffering and into the comfort which God gives.  Lets read on.  This is a fascinating set of verses:

"We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia.  We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself.  Indeed we felt we had received the sentence of death.  But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead." 

He says that they were under great "pressure."  The Greek word for "pressure" depicts this imagery: it is an overwhelmingly crushing burden that just gets heavier and heavier.  It is what happens in life whenever we feel as though one bad thing after another keeps stacking on top of us and we begin to feel suffocated by it all, as if any minute now we are going to be absolutely and devastatingly broken to bits.  Ever feel this way?  You know what Paul is talking about, don't you?  The feeling that he is getting at?

He also says that God gave them more than they could endure.  Let me rant for a second....don't ever tell somebody whenever they are going through a difficult time that, "God will not give you more than you can bear" because it is absolutely not true.  What does Paul say here?  God gave them more than they could endure.  People who say that God will not give them more than they can handle have not suffered in reality and have no wisdom to offer.  Or, and worse yet, perhaps they have suffered greatly but they were too hard-hearted to learn anything from their experience.  Hear this:  God can and will give you more than you can handle in life.  He will break you, absolutely.  Why?  Paul tells us:

Paul says that this happened so that they would not rely upon themselves but on God.  This is the locus of all that we have been getting at this morning and the very central part of the answer to the question, "why are we allowed to suffer?"  We are allowed to suffer so that we would not rely upon ourselves, but on God.  Another way of saying it is this way: God allows us to undergo suffering to show us that we can lose all things except for Him.   God allows us to suffer, it is a part of the plan, so that we would not cling to our prideful tendencies which destroy us, but so that we would cling solely to Him and rely upon Him alone, for He is the only One who can raise the dead.  Paul continues: 

"He has delivered us from such deadly peril, and He will deliver us again.  On Him we have set our hope that He will continue to deliver us, as you help us with your prayers.  Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.”

We see in all that Paul has written here, not only the reason why we suffer, but how Christians can learn how to suffer together.  This is so important and ferociously overlooked in our day.  We are given a beautiful image of how ministers and the people of God are to harmoniously exist together and mutually help one another, as they all seek to follow Christ in the ways in which they are called.  Ministers are allowed to suffer and come through it so that they can console and guide the people of God through their seasons of spiritual stagnation, intense temptations, and severe pains.  This is allowed to happen to us ministers so that we can speak from experience as we seek to guide the people of God.  We can give you more than just interesting ideas.  We can do more than paint you a picture or a map of how to get out of the season of life that you find yourself in.  We can actually guide you out of it as people who have already been there before.

The people of God, however, are given a tremendously important task: they are to help their ministers by praying fervently for them; that their ministers would suffer for the sake of Christ and gain the wisdom of the Lord in the process.  The people of God not only help themselves as they pray for their ministers but they help the masses as well.  As Paul has said, the "many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted" to the ministers as they help people.  Again, though, as you pray for us you are actually helping yourselves because, through your prayers, God makes us faithful guides to you. 

Before we conclude, we need to address things a bit more poignantly:

This will not happen if we ministers refuse to suffer well, if we do not persevere until the end.  We will be like Paul's other disciple, Demas, who, when times got tough, left the ministry and Paul's side for the world.  If we ministers do not readily and gladly suffer for Christ's sake, taking up our crosses, we will not make it through periods of trials, temptations and hardship.  We will not be able to speak to others of the comfort of the Father, nor lead people to it, because we will not have received this comfort ourselves. 

This (mutual help) will also not happen if you do not pray for us ministers.  I know my heart and I have come to know Pastor Gil's heart very well over the years as I have sought to study his every move and imitate the wisdom which he has passed onto me.  I know our intentions and where we are at.  To the person among us who may be tempted to say: "I never get anything out of Gil's teaching, or Tj's teaching," I say to you:  it is because you have failed to pray for us.  If you don't pray for us, you shouldn't expect God to give you anything from us.  You will gain great riches from the Lord if you pray for Gil and I, especially from Gil and he is much more experienced than I am.  However, there is tremendous benefit for you in praying even for someone like me.  I pale in comparison to Pastor Gil.  I am a foolish man and still fairly inexperienced in the ministry.  Yet, I am given to you to help guide you and your children.  And if you pray for someone like me, you may be surprised what God gives you through me.  And, I can assure you that I have most definitely suffered for your sake and for your benefit.  I have sufferings of which nobody here knows about.  Just because you do not know about them, however, does not mean that it is not so.  I have suffered much, very much, for you all.  I have learned-my wife and I have learned-how real the demons are and how much pain they can inflict and how much they hate it whenever a minister and his wife pray for the church.  I can tell you what they look like and how much they hate it whenever prayers are offered on your behalf.  I can tell you of the excruciating physical pain that they can inflict just to keep someone from praying for you and for your children. 
 

God allows us to suffer, all of us,  for our own benefit.  And, God gives you ministers so that you will be benefitted during your times of hardship.  God has given us all suffering so that we would be inter-dependent; so that we would not rely upon ourselves through our struggles, through our cross bearing, through our following Christ.  We truly do need one another and you need your ministers, please don't kid yourselves.  If you are undergoing a long period of struggle, of doubt, of spiritual dryness, of apathy in prayer...perhaps it is because you have not leaned into your ministers as you should.  And, perhaps God is refusing to heal you until you relinquish your pride and seek the guidance of the ones who God has provided for you, the ones who have gone on before you.  

There is no reason to try to fake it, or try to cover it up if that is where you are at.  There is no shame in it.  As we have seen, suffering and testing is a part of our spiritual journey towards and with Christ Jesus.  Don't try to cover things up out of a fear of what others may think or of what we ministers might think of you.  For one, what you bring up to your minister is between you and your minister.  We are not going to tell everyone of your struggle, not that you should be ashamed of it to begin with.  We are all sinners here, are we not?  Furthermore, there is nothing that you can say that will surprise us.  I have heard it all.  If I have already heard it all, I certainly know that Gil has.  Don't let Satan convince you that your struggle is going to offend or surprise us.  Seriously, we are sinners too and you might be surprised to learn how much and how intensely we have struggled with the exact same things that your are currently wrestling with.  So, all of this to say: don't sweep it under the rug.  I have been at this church for five years now.  Please forgive me, but this needs to be said.  We are experts at sweeping  our personal issues under the rug.  We are experts at ignoring the spiritual struggles within us while we go about our churchy business and daily lives.  I wish we could understand how tremendously harmful this is for us and for our children.  At different points throughout the week on the mission trip in Colorado, the Holy Spirit began to teach our kids the importance of Paul's teaching and the kids came up to me to share about their struggles and seek comfort from their minister.  One of our kids told me about what they were struggling with.  This person had waited a very, very long time to share about their struggle with me.  Then, they told me that they had waited so long because our church , to them, is not a church where we share these deeply rooted struggles.  They have received the impression that our church is not a safe place for people to deal with their personal spiritual struggles.  That our church is not a place where people can be truly transparent with the things in life that ail them.  I held it together the best that I could and then I found a corner and I wept bitterly and begged God to have mercy on each and every one of us.  I wept because that was this student's perception of their church family and that they are not the only student who has told me this over the years.  I wept also because that is my perception of my church family.  I see where they are coming from and I agree with them.  My brothers and sisters....such things should not be.  We may not change overnight but the change in our church begins with this:  If you are going through a spiritual rough patch, don't fall into Satan's trap and let your pride take you over.  Stop saying to yourself, "I have no need to talk about my current state with my minister."  The only person you are deceiving is yourself.  Come and talk to your ministers.  Let us disciple you and let us guide you out of this time of heartache into the time of comfort and joy.  that is why we are here!  And, for God's sake, if you do it for nothing else, do it for our younger generations.  Be courageous for them!  Change the tide for them!  Nobody needs to know what you and your minister have spoken about, or even that you came to them to begin with.  People will see your progress, though, and God provoke others to be inspired by your hidden actions as they see you come out of your time of wandering in the wilderness and into the promised land.   

Don't just see us ministers as guys who create programs for you or for your kids, and don't just see us as guys who give you nice little sermons to think about week in and week out.  No, see us for what we are.  See us for who we are.  See us for who God has made us into for your benefit.  If only you knew....if only you knew how much we have suffered for your sake, how intensely the demons have waged war upon us, you would never make an excuse to remain in your apathetic state ever again, but you would come and receive from us the comfort which we have ourselves received from the Lord.