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[Silence] [Music] [Music] [ Music ]

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God so loved the world. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, ♪ And those who believe it ♪ ♪ Believe it ♪

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♪ Believe it ♪ ♪ Should now perish ♪ ♪ Should now perish ♪ ♪ For evermore ♪

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♪ Lost in life ♪ [MUSIC] ♪ God's great love is so ♪ ♪ Into the world to come ♪

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♪ Give love ♪ ♪ Love that the world ♪ ♪ Who'd him might be saved ♪ ♪ Amen ♪

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[MUSIC - "GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD"] (SINGING) God so loved the world. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. ♪ That those who believe in, believe in him ♪

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♪ Should not perish ♪ ♪ Should not perish ♪ ♪ Or have everlasting life ♪ ♪ And never lasting ♪

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♪ One day ♪ ♪ Never lasting ♪ ♪ Never lasting ♪ ♪ Goodbye ♪

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♪ Come, soul of the world ♪ [Music] God sold

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out the world God sold Amen.

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Hear this word, around which the morning message is woven. Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth.

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Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

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whosoever serves me must follow me. And where I am, my servant will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. Now is my heart troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name."

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Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again." The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered. Others said an angel had spoken to him." The subject, "The Glory of Suffering." The glory of suffering. We do not often think of glory as being identified with suffering. We are prone to think of glory as being associated

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with happiness, with ease, with the vision of God in the garden of life, walking with us with everything smooth without a bump in the road. But glory is not a smooth road. It's not all pleasant and easy and comfortable. Glory comes by often traveling a rough and stony road with a bitter and chastening rod.

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It is good for us during this Lenten season to meditate on what it means to experience the glory of suffering as disciples of Jesus Christ. The scene is near the end of our Lord's earthly ministry. Forces of opposition have encircled him.

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The cross is in the background. Jesus is experiencing the dark night of the soul. such a time as this, some Greeks come to Jerusalem to worship during the feast. They want to see Jesus.

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They go to Philip, and Philip goes to Andrew, and both of them in turn tell Jesus. I was told by John why they wanted to see Jesus. Some scholars suggest that they were aware of the impending danger Jesus faced, and so they have come to take him away to a secluded and safe place where Jesus will be free from

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false accusations of the religious leaders. They have come to urge Jesus to go with them to some island away from the fury and tumult of the angry crowd gathering in Jerusalem. And we, like the Greeks, look for God often in some situation of isolation, when all is

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calm and peaceful. When things are going our way, when success is ours, oh, we think of those times as manifestations of the glory of God. But the message of Jesus is that we see God in unexpected times and places. I sought God, and I endeavored to hear the voice of

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God. So I climbed upon a steeple. He said to me, "Go down again. I dwell among the people." So the glory of God is the presence of God, the divine presence. Moses said to the Lord, "Show me your glory." And the Lord said, "I I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord,

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in your presence." The divine presence in the human presence. That's the meaning of the incarnation. in Christ, a Word made flesh dwelling among us.

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So the writer of the Gospel of John says, "We beheld his glory as the only begotten Son of God the Father. Divine glory amid human suffering, God's presence in sickness and in health. And some of us who lean heavily upon aspirins and Tegretol and other such things is that, wonder what can this message be about when you talk about glory being in

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the pain that some of us may even be bearing right now. But this says, Jesus, our suffering, our human suffering, our spiritual suffering, our agonizing over many of the problems that trouble us in this life are opportunities for us to experience the glory of God.

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That's rather strange, but that's the gospel. That's the good news that comes to us in this Lenten season, that the glory of God is shining, shining in the darkness of this world. That the light shines in darkness, and the darkness cannot put it out.

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So the disciples of Jesus Christ learned to suffer in God's name. Let me repeat that, that the disciples of Jesus Christ learned to suffer in God's name. There were stained windows in the church and they had portraits of saints. And one little boy was asked to give the definition of a saint, and he said, "It's one through

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whose life the light shines." As he looked at those windows and saw the light shining through. So a saint is one who through whose life the light of God shines. You can see the reflection, that the presence of God is radiating through this life.

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And Jesus is saying here in this particular experience that we are empowered by God to suffer and experience His glory in the suffering. So that the glory of suffering is revealed in lives of those who suffer for goodness sake.

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And that's some of the hardest suffering we can do, is when we are doing good and someone else is over there doing evil. It's not sort of like a church I saw on a comic strip years ago, and there was this old car representing the church and the struggle, and there were those who were behind it trying

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to push it up the hill, just doing everything, straining every nerve to push it up the hill, and there were those who were in front trying to push it back, doing everything they could to push it back. So the Greeks come to the temple in Jerusalem looking for Jesus to have an interview with

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him. They come to Philip seeking an introduction to Jesus. That's rather interesting that the Greeks come to the disciples seeking an introduction. Well in a sense, there are Greeks today who come to disciples of Jesus Christ seeking

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an introduction. "Can you introduce me to Jesus?" This is what they're saying to these disciples. And of course, Philip goes and gets Andrew, and they both come to Jesus.

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So there are those in our midst who are seeking an introduction to Jesus. Well, you can imagine what Jesus may have said, "Hello, fellas. What is it you want? We want to see you."

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And Jesus Christ says to them, "You see me in human suffering." The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

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So growth in the Kingdom of God comes through suffering as a seed is placed in the ground And it decays as it dies, and from that death new life springs up, and other seeds are there produced. That's what happens.

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Tertullian said that the enemies of--he said this to the enemies of the Christian faith, we multiply, talking about the Christians. we are mowed down by you. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. So the more they persecute and the more people die for the faith, the more the

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faith spreads. So the negativities of life may be changed with a positive attitude toward suffering, we can turn a minus into a plus when we face the challenges and the opportunities by letting God shine in our lives. The glory of suffering is in giving ourselves away.

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You know you hear a lot of people say, oh, I don't know, don't do that. Save yourself, honey. Save yourself, for what?

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Save yourself. The glory of suffering is that we do not try to save ourselves, but to give ourselves away. Isn't that what Jesus did?

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Now they have come to him, these Greeks have come to try to take him away. Don't be worried with all of this mess. Come on with us.

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We got a nice, quiet, calm, secluded, safe place for you. Come with us. And Jesus talks here about the glory of suffering. Sacrifice yourself, not save yourself,

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but sacrifice yourself and let the light of God's grace shine in our suffering. God may be glorified in our sons. But what do you mean, preaching about that?

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What do you mean? Well, I remember a story of an outstanding Japanese Christian who had an ailment, kidney, bladder ailment. It caused him to get up all through the night.

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And there's nothing more troubling than to have to get up all through the night. He had to get up all through the night. Because of this ailment. And when he got up, then he had a hard time getting back to sleep.

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Stayed awake a long time. So this was very troubling. But it was revealed to him that he could use those things in a very purposeful way. So what he did, he kept a pad near his bed, so when he had to get up, and he stayed awake, He had meditated on God and there were revelations that were given to him and he wrote those

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revelations on a pad and they were later put in books and blessed thousands because of the suffering. So suffering, and every experience of suffering that we have in this world that with God it may be used to bless us, to magnify his name, and glorify his kingdom. That's a wonderful

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message this Lenten season, because most of us, I'm included, we like to avoid as much suffering as we can. We want to avoid it. We want to have our life of ease and luxury. We want to run away from suffering. But Jesus doesn't run away from the cross. And at the crossroads of

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our lives is the cross. It's not the kind of cross that's That's a decorative emblem on the communion table. It's a cross in our lives. We find ourselves at the crossroads of life

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and all through life I see a cross where sons of God give up their breath. There is no gain except by loss. There is no life except by death.

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glory of suffering. Jesus says, as you read that passage, that this is my hour. This is my hour. Well, your hour will come. Maybe it hasn't come, but it will come. This is now! This is that special time in my life when I must go through certain suffering. This is my hour, my hour.

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Well, the Greeks had two words for time. One is chronos and the other is karos. Chronos is chronological time. All of us have that kind of time. We celebrated just a short time ago those who had birthdays. It's adding to their chronos, chronological time. But

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this other word, kairos, has to do with God's time. It has to do with the right time. That God enters into our experience in a significant way at the right time. And when is the right time? Well, you know, you're courting a girl and you want to kiss her, and she says, "No, no,

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no." And finally you get to the point where she welcomes the kiss. That's the right time. That's the right time.

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That's the right time, so God intervenes, God breaks into our lives and whenever He comes, it's the right time. Right time. Jesus said, "This is my hour. What shall I say? Shall I say, "Father, save me from this hour?" He said, "No, no, for this I came into the world. This is my time, my time to shine on Calvary's cross. This is my time."

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So, he says to the Father, "Glorify your name." And the Father answers, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again." I glorified it in your birth. You were born in a lowly cattle shed, and in the midst of it all, when they said they had no room, I provided some room.

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I glorified it even in that lowly place the angels from heaven came and sang anthems of praise I glorified it at your birth I glorified it on the Mount of Transfiguration

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when Moses and Elijah came and there was a great experience that the heavens opened and they saw there the glory of God I glorified your name.

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Now I'm about to glorify it again through the sufferings of the cross. The goodness of God is in suffering for his name. Not for ourselves, but for his name. So he glorified it in so many ways through his birth, through the baptism, and through the cross.

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He glorified it. And so we experience glory in suffering, not just because the preacher says that, but because you have a relationship with God. This passage talks about a covenant relationship

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Now we talk about covenant relationships in marriage and covenants and other Relation ways that we are related Covenant relationship but covenant relationship is more than just reading the church covenant Those are some nice words, but people read them and forget them

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But I'm talking about a covenant relationship like a covenant relationship in marriage. It's it's something that's binding It's not a contract. It's something that you're being together, a binding together, togetherness, a binding in which there is no real separateness, but there is oneness and unity. And so we're talking about a covenant relationship with God.

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That you're so being bound together with God that nothing, as Paul says, that nothing shall separate you. Neither life, nor death, nor ages, nor principalities, or powers, things which are, or things which are to come, shall separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." That's a binding, binding.

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And so no suffering, no suffering will separate you. Too often we have a headache and we can't make it to church. Separate, we give up quickly. Now we, if you're not in top condition and all that, well you can't play in the game,

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not on the team. But this is a relationship where the more suffering you have, the more God reveals His glory. Paul says, "Look, I went to the Lord and I asked Him to let me be free of this ailment."

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He said, "But He said to me, 'My grace, my grace, my grace is made perfect in human weakness.'" And so, as we celebrate this Lenten season, may it be that we will be closer to God, that we will experience this binding of the Spirit, that there will be nothing, no suffering that will separate us, and we can say, as the writer says in that hymn, "Thou, Thou, Thou, my everlasting

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potion, more than friend of life to me, all along this pilgrim journey. Savior, let me walk with Thee. Close to Thee, close to Thee, close to Thee, yes, close to Thee, all along this pilgrim journey.

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Let me walk with thee. We extend the invitation to Christian discipleship. Jesus said, "This is the kind of life you live if you're going to follow me." We invite you to come. The door is open. An open door, he says before us.

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[MUSIC PLAYING] Carla. Carla. [MUSIC PLAYING]

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Carla. Carla. [MUSIC PLAYING] [Music]

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Glorify God through human suffering. [Music] Cut. [Music]

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♪ Oh, my everlasting potion ♪ ♪ More than dreams alive to be ♪ ♪ All I long and yearn for ♪ ♪ And yet here ♪

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♪ Savior, yet ♪ ♪ He walked with me ♪ ♪ Close to me ♪ ♪ Close to thee ♪

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♪ Close to thee ♪ ♪ Close to thee ♪ ♪ All along ♪ ♪ Thy beautiful journey ♪

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♪ Take her there ♪ ♪ Leave hope ♪ ♪ Leave peace ♪ - Not for ease.

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♪ Not for ease ♪ ♪ Our earth ♪ ♪ Leave pleasure ♪ ♪ Not for pain ♪

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♪ Thy prayer ♪ ♪ Shall be ♪ Gladly. Gladly live thy joy and sorrow, for we let thee go with thee.

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♪ Close to thee ♪ ♪ Close to thee ♪ ♪ Close to thee ♪ ♪ Close to thee ♪

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♪ Let him live ♪ ♪ Like Paul and John ♪ ♪ Only let me walk with thee ♪ ♪ Lead me through the vale of shadows ♪

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[MUSIC] Then the gates of life eternal May I enter, Lord, with Thee ♪ Close to thee ♪

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♪ Close to thee ♪ ♪ Close to thee ♪ ♪ Close to thee ♪ ♪ Close to thee ♪

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♪ In the name of love ♪ ♪ In the name of love ♪ ♪ May I enter Lord with Thee ♪ - Oh, gracious God, our Father,

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be with us as we suffer in this world that the suffering may glorify your name. Grace, mercy, peace be with you. From God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.

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Amen. ♪ Amen ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ ♪ Amen ♪

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[Music] (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]