Sermon
When Bad is Good
August 21-22, 1999
Pastor Leigh Bishop

It's a joy to be here this morning to be able to share God's word with you. I've entitled my sermon today 'When Bad is Good'. Now that seems to be a contradiction of terms, but what I like about Scripture is it loves to do those things to us to remind us of the faithfulness of our God. And I'm going to be reading from Philippians chapter 1 in just a moment. Philippians was written by the Apostle Paul. It was written from jail. Paul seemed to spend a lot of time in jail. It was one of those things that just happened to him because he just kept preaching Jesus, and the people who didn't like him preaching Jesus kept throwing him in jail, so while he was in jail he'd write books and that's how we got our letters of the Bible from Paul. Most of it anyway, that reminds us of God's grace, and the letter of the Philippians is called the letter of joy or the epistle of joy. And when you realize the conditions in which it was written it makes you realize that when Paul said, count it all joy when you suffer for Christ sake, he not only wrote that, he believed it and he lived it, and he produced this wonderful book that speaks from his heart. 

So I want you to join me in Philippians chapter 1. We're going to start at verse 12. But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard, and to all the rest, that my chains are in Christ; and most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill: The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains; but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice. For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you. And being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith, that your rejoicing for me may be more abundant in Jesus Christ by my coming to you again.

Jesus made a profound statement in John chapter 16. First He started off kind of nice. He says, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me you may have peace. Now if He had stopped there, that'd be a wonderful verse. It's still a wonderful verse, but I wished he'd just stop there because it's wonderful to know we're going to have peace in Christ. But then He added this phrase, in the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. And so I have good news and bad news. I always like to give the bad news first to get it out of the way. That bad news is you're going to have problems. I don't care if you're a Christian. Jesus said if you live in this world, you're going to have problems. Now maybe that hasn't happened to you yet. It will, I guarantee it. But, I have good news. Jesus has overcome the world, and what that simply means is that no matter how great the problem may be, no matter how great the trial I'm either going through or will go through, that Jesus is great enough to sustain me and give me victory and I will come through it to His glory and praise. That's the promise of God's word. 

That Apostle Paul wrote these words from prison. He often spent life in prison. And I have to be honest about this. When I first became a Christian I did not like the Apostle Paul. Now I personalize people in the Bible. They're real people. These are not stories. These are flesh and blood people. And I loved Peter. Peter was my hero in the Bible, in the New Testament. I probably liked him a lot because he would say things and then wish he hadn't, and he was pretty boisterous. But you've got to remember he walked on water, and I haven't done that yet. So I loved Peter. And I loved his love for Christ, and his willingness to just speak out, be bold.

And so one day I'm reading in my Bible in the book of Acts, I believe it was, or in one of the letters, and Paul rebukes Peter. And I thought, who does that Paul think he is? You know, who does he think he is talking to Peter like that? So I just said, I'm done with you Paul. I'm not going to read your letters or nothing. Anybody that talks like that to Peter is just not any good. Well thank God I grew in the knowledge of Scripture and came to understand it wasn't Paul who was wrong, it was Peter, and the courage it took for Paul to stand up to an apostle, one of the original twelve, and confront him that way was awesome. And all of a sudden Paul became a hero of faith to me, and I realized that a great man of God he was. 

You know sometimes we'll hear people say, if I could only walk in the shoes of this person or that person. I love Paul, but I would not want to walk in his shoes. Paul lived out what he wrote, suffering for Christ. Listen to what he describes from his life as he honored Christ. He said, from the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have been in the deep. In journeys often, in peril of water, in perils of gentiles, in perils of a city, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fasting often, in cold and nakedness. Doesn't sound pleasant, does it? And yet in all of that he said count it all joy to suffer for Christ, because Jesus has a way of taking the bad things that come into our life and making them good. 

Paul taught three principles from this portion of Scripture that I want to apply to your hearts today and hope they will speak to you. The first is the way of Christ is the way of the cross. You cannot choose to follow Jesus and not experience the cross in your life. In fact, Jesus said whoever comes after me must take up the cross and follow me. And that cross means that willingness to suffer for the cause of Christ no matter what may be required of us so that He receives the glory and we recognize His fullness and His presence in our lives. 

A lot of Christians want to escape trouble. They think that coming to Jesus is the answer to all their life's problems, and in a real sense He is because He doesn't take away the problem, He is just there with us through them. But I think anybody who has that false idea or false hope that a Christian life is a trouble-free or problem-free life, has not encountered life. Jesus didn't have a problem-free life. I mean if the Son of God could not live without trial, who are we to think that we will? And so trial is a part of the Christian walk. Suffering is a basic component of the Christian experience, and suffering for Christ is part of that glory we get to share in His kingdom. The disciples understood this. 

Early on in the book of Acts they were preaching Jesus and they had been called in before the Sanhedrin, and they said you guys stop preaching Jesus. If you keep preaching Jesus you're in trouble, and then said now get out of here. And they kept preaching Jesus. So finally one day they brought them in and the Bible says they beat them up. Now they just didn't give them a little pat on the chin and say bad person, they beat them up. They blackened their eyes. They bloodied and broke their noses. They twisted their lips and jaws out of place. They puffed up their faces. They hit them all over. They beat them up!

When I was younger I used to watch boxing. I kind of gave it up because I didn't like the idea of people really clobbering each other. But I watched one match one time where the winner after the match looked like the looser. His face was just…you know, eyes closed, wearing dark glasses. He took them off for a minute and just slits there and I went, wow, that guy really got beat up. And this is what the apostles looked like, and they're back there in the room and they're just kind of trying to stand up holding on to each other, you know, just beaten to a pulp. And the guy looks and he says; now this is going to happen to you again, you guys stop preaching! Get out of here! So they got up and they went out of the room and they looked at each other as they reached the street, and the Bible says they started rejoicing. They started praising God. 

We're counted worthy to suffer for Christ's sake. Praise God we're counted worthy to suffer for Christ's sake. And the Bible says in the very next verse, daily, from house to house and in the temple the ceased not to teach or preach that Jesus is the Christ. I want you to know the world thinks they can turn off the gospel by punishment and suffering, but all it does is make us more on fire for Jesus. It puts that fire in you that wants to serve Jesus no matter what, the way of the cross. 

Charles Finney wrote a statement that might be apropos even to our day and age. He said these words, there are many professors who are willing to do almost anything in religion that does not require self-denial, but when they are required to do anything that requires them to deny themselves, oh, that's too much. They think they are doing a great deal for God and doing as much as He ought to ask in reason, but they are not willing to deny themselves any comfort or convenience whatever for the sake of serving the Lord. They are not willing to suffer reproach for the name of Christ, nor will they deny themselves the luxuries of life to save a world from hell. So far are they from remembering that self-denial is a condition of discipleship that they do not know what self-denial is. You know, we don't hear that message too much in our day and age of denying self to serve Christ.

We live in a society, in a world, in which, especially in this part of the world, where we can have anything we want anytime we want it. We're very comfortable and very satisfied. And the idea of giving up anything is a difficult thing to even consider, and yet that's what the cross calls us to, a denial of our wants for the furtherance of His. And so the way of Christ is the way of the cross. The second principle that Paul taught was what seems bad can actually be good. Here he was in prison and he could have said, now Lord, You've got me stuck in prison my work is confined here, I can't do the things that I could do if I was out of prison. I could be pioneering churches. I could be preaching at crusades. I could be on the radio. I could be doing all kinds of wonderful things for You Lord, but I'm stuck here in prison. You need to get me out of here. 

Paul had the ability to look at every circumstance in life that came his way and somehow acknowledge God was in it and find a way to bring glory to God through it. And he said, look, I'm in chains for the furtherance of the gospel. He didn't see it as a negative. He saw it as a positive and he shared three different things that came out of it. First of all, our suffering for Christ stimulates public interest. Because he was in chains for Christ the people who did not know Christ knew about what we going on and saw the joy of his countenance, especially those Roman guards who were stuck to him every day. Because you see he was chained to a guard every two or three hours, and every time that new guard came on the scene he talked to him about Jesus. Talk about a captive audience, you know. They couldn't go anywhere, and gradually these guards were getting saved and the whole Roman pretorium was coming to know Christ as Savior because of Paul's influence in prison. 

Sometimes when God takes us through trials it's so that the public can see the reality of Christ lived out in us. When we were younger we went through the tragic experience of having our daughter born with a severe birth defect. Numerous surgeries in the first three years of her life and several occasions when we were told she might not live. On some of those occasions my wife had to spend 30, 40 days or more in the hospital consecutively with her. And like everybody else she wept, but there was a peace in her heart and finally a lot of the mothers who were there with their children, because when you're in that part of the hospital you're there because your children are in a desperate way, and they would say to the nurses, what's different about her? What does she have that's different about her? And the nurses would come and talk to Patti and eventually some of these ladies too would come and talk to Patti. She was able to share with them the reality of Christ and His strength. And one day because so much of this was going on she was finally invited to talk to twenty-six of the administrators and doctors in that hospital, because so many people were asking how she was able to bear up through all of this experience. And she had the opportunity to share with those learned men the simplicity of trusting Christ, prayer and faith and confidence in Him. Because of the trials we went through she was able to convey to lost people the strength of Jesus. 

Suffering authenticates our witness. It makes people know that what we have is real. You know, it's easy to live for Jesus when everything's fine. When your faith isn't being tested anybody can be a Christian, but when you go through the trials of life and He applies the tests of life, that's when you know whether or not your relationship with Jesus is words only or if it's penetrated the heart and become a part of your life. In the same relation to the incident with Jennifer, when I first gave my heart to Christ my parents kind of said to me; well, it's a fad. It'll pass. I went to Bible school. Three years of Bible school, graduated. My parents came to my graduation and I could almost hear them thinking, could see it in their eyes, it's a fad; it'll pass. I went to Santa Rosa as a youth pastor, met the prettiest girl in the world and married her, was down there could hear my parents say, it's a fad; it'll pass. Went up to Stevenson to pastor, had our first child born, our son, we're up there, parents came to visit. I could just sense them saying it, it's a fad; it'll pass. 

When the rubber meets the road, when things really get bad, he's had an easy life, when the real troubles come it'll be over, and then our daughter was born. And we went through the crucible of suffering and the trial of realizing each day was a gift from God, and the heartache and the wrenching of all of a sudden having to run to the hospital of this or that. But when that happened, my parents acknowledged for the first time the reality of my faith in Christ. Because up to that point it was just one of those things I did, but when the reality of suffering was visible and the faith in Christ was not shaken, they knew it was more than mere words or an idealism. They knew that it was a life that had been changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the reason our God allows us to go through the difficulties of life is to refine in us the character of Christ so that people can see Jesus in us, and the difference that it makes. 

And finally our suffering for Christ encourages others to believe with zeal for the Lord. Paul said, here I am in prison. Here I am bound in chains, but as a result of this the believers in Jesus Christ out there are preaching Christ with greater boldness than ever before. They're not ashamed of the gospel. They're declaring His truth because they're not afraid of what the world can do to them. They love Christ. They saw in Paul the example of a Christian who was willing if necessary to die for the cause and that challenged them. How many of you have heroes of faith? Some may be in Scripture, but throughout my Christian life I've read biographies and autobiographies of men and women of God because they challenge me. And they become my heroes, and I want to emulate them in their life of service to Christ.

I think of John Wesley and George Whitfield. I want to hear Whitfield's voice because one time I was reading in an autobiography of his and he was preaching and people in their wagons driving to the service could hear him distinctly from five miles away. You think I have a loud voice? I got some help folks. You're not going to hear me from five miles away even with this (wireless microphone), but God had that ability to amplify his voice. I want to hear Charles Haddon Spurgeon's voice. He's called the prince of preachers, who gave himself totally to the gospel of Christ. They're my heroes. I have heroes of faith who have mentored me, that I admire, that ever time I'm reminded of their life and how they've lived it for Christ it says to me you honor Christ with your life too. They're an example of what it means to sell out to Jesus and to be all you can for the glory of God. This zeal can be contagious as we live for Jesus, but we have to be willing to get excited about what God can do. 

And that brings me to the last principle. When you really love Christ it's contagious. I would love for the church of Jesus Christ to get a contagious disease, love for Jesus. So in love with Him that everything else in the world grows dim in the light of His glory and grace. You know we sing the words, we sing the songs, we articulate the verses of Scripture, but does it really apply to our lives? Do we love Jesus more than anyone or anything else in this whole world? Because that's what He demands of us, and only when our level of love reaches that place where Jesus is all and in all can we have that love that somehow seeps out of us and starts effecting others. Do I love Jesus more than I love my wife? Yes, and she knows it. She as much as told me that she loves Him too more that she loves me. Do I love my children more than Jesus? No. I love them dearly, but I love Jesus more. Is there anything in this world that is greater than what Jesus has done for us? How can we not love Him with our whole heart and whole soul, and let Him become the joy of our life. 

Billy Graham was talking to a group of young pastors, and he said this to them, as long as you are willing to burn yourself out for Jesus the world will come if for no other reason than to watch the flames. When people really get excited about Jesus the world takes notice. In fact, the thing that turns the world off are those people who profess Christ and still live like everybody else. If Jesus doesn't make a difference in how I live, then why bother? But if Jesus is the heartbeat of your life, He does make that difference in how you live and becomes a fire in you that is all consuming. I think of Jeremiah. God said, Jeremiah, I want you to go and preach My word and I want you to know that not one single person will be converted. And so he said yes. About ten years later he's angry at God because nobody's been converted. Like he listened to God. And there he is and he's saying to himself, okay, that does it. I'm not going to talk about God. I'm not going to preach about God. I'm not going to say anything about God anymore. I am done, finished. It's done. I'm through. And then you find these words in Scripture. It says and His word was as a fire in my bones and I could not keep still. Has Jesus so consumed your life that you can't keep still? 

Do people around you actually know that you're a child of the King? Has He made a significant difference so that when you face the trials of life you know that Jesus will triumph through it and that as a result you will come forth more like Jesus than ever before? The choice is ours individually. The unique thing about Jesus' relationship to us is He doesn't ever work on people collectively. He works on each one of us individually, and however much you desire of Him, that's how much you'll receive. How much of Jesus do you want in your life?

Let's stand. Hallelujah. Father as we stand before You this morning we thank you for the truth of Your word. We thank you for the reality of the Christ whom we serve and love. We thank you Lord that in the midst of the trials of life You're always there. There's not a day or a moment that goes by that You are not intimately involved in our lives. Lord, may we open ourselves up to You that You may become all in all. That every breath we breathe and every word we say somehow conveys our love for You and Your majesty. Jesus we will have problems in this world, but we have You and You are more than enough to keep us. Lord I pray for each one here today as we go from this place that You would remind us of Your love for us, and challenge us to love You more. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. God bless you. Go in His grace. Have a wonderful Sunday and a glorious week. God bless you.