Suffering That Obtains A Blessing

Our Father who art in heaven.

What a unique privilege you have because you are adopted. One of the most sacred places in a home should be the dinner table where you have those conversations about who you are and parents are trying to shape and form their children and hear from them and love them and you're sharing a meal together. That's what the family of God is like. The last picture is the wedding feast of the Lamb. The Lord's Supper is a little taste of how we all come together, rejoice together in what God has done for us. Adopted. But behind that is we're loved. God the Father has declared to us His love. He's shown us that love in sending His Son to die for us. His Son demonstrated that love by laying His life down for us, and the Holy Spirit seals us in that loving adoption by declaring to us that we are children of God, and giving us access up to the Father. That's unpacking just a sampling of the doctrine of salvation, of adoption behind this incredible calling that now moves out to each other in brotherly love. If you're not a believer this morning, I wanna pause here because these commands are for Christians and the first thing I want you to hear is everyone in sin, if we're remaining in sin and not coming to God with our sin, we're gonna remain distant. But one day you're going to see God up close. And the holy God who is just, He's going to exercise His wrath on everyone who has not confessed their sin to Him, who has not come to Him in faith. This morning, I want you to hear the God who has sent His Son to us invites us to believe in Him, to be forgiven, to be brought near, to be brought into His presence with love so that when we see Him face to face, there isn't fear of judgment. There's rejoicing and feasting. You need to understand there's two ways we will be received by God on the last day. It's either as those who believed in him and are invited to experience his love most fully, or those who have rejected him and will experience his wrath most fully. I urge you this morning, do not walk away thinking this is something haphazard or something to be ignored or put off. Have that conversation with somebody around you or with me after the service. If you're a believer, the call here is to an identity. He's called you to himself. And what we see here, Jesus' own new commandment, love one another. To participate in the full family life of God is to love God as father, rejoice together in Jesus, who is the son who shared his inheritance with us, to know that love, and then to love one another with a brotherly love. It's important we understand the belonging to the family so that we then know how to behave accordingly. in Christ leads to a belonging to the family, which then leads to a proper behavior towards one another. So elect exiles, a new kind of holy nation, a new kind of chosen race from every tribe and nation. Not siblings of physical birth. No, we're united because of a new birth. We're united because we've been born again by God. All kinds of folks from all kinds of communities and neighborhoods and backgrounds and ethnicities and languages. It's a reminder for me to slow down for our Spanish translator. Look at you, Daniel. But a family, God's new kind of household, brotherly love, It's the first one. It's not the first one listed, but it's the central. It's the most significant, I believe. And love here needs to be love as defined by God. If we've been adopted what God loved us while we were sinners to transform us, to help us, to save us, that's the same love we're called to. We love even in the difficulty. We love seeking to show forgiveness. We love hoping that it brings about a reconciliation. Love here is caring and kind. It's also instructive and corrective. Here's my challenge. Who do you love like a brother? Who do you love like this sibling who's been united with you? A warning here, if you only love those who are in your tight nuclear family this way, I'm afraid you're gonna fail the test of 1 John, that you might not know the love of God. If we only love those who are like us, we're not really demonstrating that we've truly experienced the love of God who we've rebelled against. The beautiful outflow of God's love for us even though we're made in the image of God, we rebel against him, is that we seek to know how to love others who are not like us. This is difficult because let's just face it, God has adopted some real rascals. Right? It's a demanding love. It's not a random acts of kindness love, it's a real commitment. It demands much of us. As we think about what God has done for us to do for others, this love is an outpouring of what it means to be a child of God, and it makes us a child of God. Love are the brothers, but not on our terms, on His. This is why we talk about membership of a church, because it really makes this command simple for me. I try to be as simple as possible. It's a very demanding love, and if we only practice this for somebody who's far away that we really don't know, we're really not feeling the full weight of it. We cannot love every Christian with this kind of love. We're not Christ. We're supposed to be little Christ, who we're seeking to build into a family, to help build up a particular body. This is why local church membership is helpful to know how you're directing and disciplining those loves. It helps us to see this is the area of focus. It's not all the Christians all over the place. We want to make sure we're praying for other Christians, make sure we're aware of other Christians in need, but it helps us focus in on who is that we're responsible for to give this kind of direct, committed love. Every believer should know they're expected somewhere. Every believer should be expected somewhere. This call to love is a way of participating more fully in the love of God. Now, that's the key central command, and now let's back out and see that that boy of love is marked by sympathy and a tender heart. But both of these relate to the feelings. Sympathy, having the same feeling towards somebody. The Greek word here is, well, the word we get sympathy from. That doesn't really help you that much, does it? But it's, the key word is with. You're feeling with them, you're suffering with them. There's a closeness. It came in, you suffered just like them, but there's a coming alongside of that's near. And maybe it is, you're living so close together that you're feeling their suffering. And like many who know Lily Samuel and the difficulty that family's gone through and waiting for this heart transplant where you're able to draw near in love and prayer. Empathy is more distant. Sympathy is being with somebody, relating to the actual suffering because you have similar experiences or come alongside of them and helping them with them. Well, tender heart. This one actually is pretty funny. It literally means something like strong bowels. That's helpful, too. There's an openness of the heart. There's a difficult truth in that it's difficult for hurt people to love others. There's a strength of the heart that's experienced the love of God. It's difficult to love people with scar tissue built up. That's a calloused heart. Instead of tenderness, we too often accept callousness or coldness, prickliness. Sympathy and tenderhearted, I want to set aside next to callous and prickly. Not hard-hearted, and hard-hearted means you're not a Christian. Hard-hearted means you're closed completely to the things of God. But it's very possible and likely that Christians go through seasons of scar tissue being built up, being cold, even prickly, because of difficulty in trying to figure out what does it mean to live in this world as a believer who has had a new heart from God and not let it close off. That tender heart is open. It's kind, it has gentle words that builds up. Corrects with kindness, welcomes people to pull up. The callous heart is cold, close-handed, harsh words that tear down. We invite prickly people to the Lord's Supper. Praise God. The Lord welcomes us. when there is a coldness, when there is a callous, when there is prickliness, because the only balm for that is Christ's tenderness. The only balm for that, Christian, isn't justice, it isn't more harshness, it's Christ's grace that washes over us with the word of God that heals that heart that's already been regenerated. Let's just appreciate what is happening here with sympathy and tenderhearted. God is giving us commands over how we feel. You're not a slave to how you feel. By God's grace, with the Holy Spirit that it indwells in you and has sealed you with a new heart and a transformed, you can have control over your feelings. You don't have to submit to every feeling. How good is that? If you think about the tenderhearted and sympathy and the brotherly love, the prodigal son is a good lesson here. Remember there's a father who's at home and he sees his wayward son coming back and he runs out to get him and he brings him home. That's where he belongs. Where's the older brother? He's not at home, he's out in the field. And the real sin is he refuses to go back home where he belongs with the father because of how he feels towards his brother. And that then affects how he feels towards his father. That's supposed to be a warning of being that older brother who just sits out and snarls at rejoicing in grace because of the prickliness. Over there, it's probably because of the hardness of heart. The first and the last, the first declaration, unity of mind, well, he ends with humble mind, and well, these two things have to be together. Humility, that isn't thinking of yourself less, it's thinking of others more. It's how the church is united, by having the same mind of Christ, by seeking to be obedient to Christ. If you want a further, deeper meditation on this, this is Philippians 2. If there's any encouragement of Christ, have the same mind as Christ, considering others more important than yourself, and others' interests more important than your own. That is the mindset of humility that leads to a united mind. Humbling ourselves before God. thinking his thoughts after him, and then seeking to show deference to one another. Jesus, the true brother, he comes and gets us to renew us. Seeking the unity of the whole means we deny our individualism. Carl Truman has put his finger on our age's problem. He calls it expressive individualism. This is this notion that I must be heard and how I feel must be acknowledged, recognized, and affirmed. That is a dangerous idea where my feelings are being imposed upon everybody else. There is no humility in that and there is no unity. That's self-absorbed and it leads to tyranny. Believer, I want to propose that the church embrace this kind of thinking a long time ago. However, somebody feels that must be something of the Holy Spirit. We didn't just embrace this. We made it a religious thing. We sanctified it somehow. If that's how somebody feels, well, who are we to deny the Holy Spirit who told them that? This is why we go back to the scriptures and the unity of mind must be first based upon the foundation of all that God has said. The unity of mind is us falling under Christ and submitting ourselves to his truth through keeping all of his commandments. The danger of insisting on how we feel would be something like in Mark 7, where the conclusion is we end up denying God's word and insisting on our own traditions. In this world, it would be we're going to deny God's word, insisting on our own feelings. Our invitation from God is we get to think God's thoughts after him. The same mind, the same beliefs, the same truths that then shape and harness feelings that are empowered by God and then lead to a love of the brotherhood. There's one thing that cannot fit within this framework and that is a consumer mindset. And I say that because we're all natural-born consumers. That's the river we swim in. You might not realize it, but we're all trained to just be consumers. The consumer mindset does not exist well within the framework of having unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. The consumer mindset says, what am I getting? The consumer mindset says, what are they giving to me? The Christian mindset says, how can I Honor God in the way I give myself over. That is the high calling of God. Those are right relationships. Those are just, that's an ingredient that's necessary for right relationships. We could go elsewhere. Wisdom from above, James. Fruit of the Spirit, Galatians. This is what Peter gives us for our right relationships within. Let me give a rationale for why these are important. First is evangelism. If we're going to go out of the walls of this church where we're gathered, and we're going to proclaim the gospel that you can be adopted in the family of God, and we tell them about the love of God and how God reorders our whole lives around this wonderful gospel of love, and then we come, we bring them back to a church that's full of gossip and slander and backbiting and hatred, we're not in any way helping them in the gospel. We're inviting them to Christ in his body. Church, the whole hope is that we would be the kind of body that would be going out in evangelism and then inviting people back into those who are practicing brotherly love. Our evangelism needs this. Secondly, our discipleship needs this. What is it to be a disciple other than to deny yourself? Carry your cross. Follow Jesus. We are to love one another as Christ has loved us. That is the foundation for any kind of real discipleship. Learning how to not only enjoy the love of Christ, but then to exercise it, to practice it. Not seeking to make everyone conform to our own opinions and convictions, that's legalism. The beauty of the gospel is that the church Or is the body of Christ all growing up to maturity to his measure, to his godliness, to his character, so that we have unity of mind with him? We're able to sympathize as his instruments. We're able to have brotherly love according to his love. The third has to do with the church's authority. How many times have you heard, well, the reason I don't believe in Jesus is the church. There's no one church anymore. We're all divided. The world knows that I attack the church's authority there. It's important, as we see in scripture, God has given the church some significant authority, and the authority comes when we speak together, united. There's few sweeter authoritative moments than when we're singing words together. He's done so much for me. There's fewer sweeter moments when we confess together. The church's authority is in the unity of the declaration we make together. The church isn't some kind of platform for democratic individual expression. It's found in the united ways in which we join and express God's truth to one another and to this world. The goal is a godly unity that promotes godly disciples, that then helps godly evangelism. Praise God for the unity he's given us, Jefferson Park. It's something to protect and steward, strive toward brotherly love with tender hearts, seeking one mind from humility. That's maturity of the Christian. Secondly, the right response. Those are the right relationships within the church. There's a beginning point of how we relate to one another, and now there's a moving past how we're gonna relate to one another, again, as the chosen race, the holy nation, to how we're gonna respond. Verse eight gives us the right direction to proactively move toward. Verse nine changes in that how are we gonna respond to somebody? How are we gonna react? Look at verse 9,

do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless. For to this you have been called that you may obtain a blessing.

It's not clear in this text how much of a change Peter's made. Verse 8 is something we're moving toward. Verse 9 is how we're going to respond to things that happen to us. That's a big difference. It isn't clear if this would be internal church conflict in verse nine or external pressure from outside. We like to think it's all gonna be external pressure from outside, but I think anyone who's been in the church very long knows this also could happen internally. So I don't know. I think it's a universal rule for all types. You can read most of Paul's letters and see this is the kind of thing that's too often happening within the church. Notice here, it's you do not seek repayment, revenge, or retribution. Those have experienced reconciliation. Those have been restored. Those have been who've been ransomed by the precious blood of Christ. You're giving a boundary. You don't seek repayment, revenge, or retribution. Those have experienced such reconciling power of God to bring us who were Sinners and rebellion against him. He's reconciled us to himself. Repayment and revenge should be strange and foreign to elect exiles. Enduring and persevering should not be abnormal among elect exiles. Because we're practicing grace and forgiveness. A real problem is we know that hurt people tend to hurt people, and that's a vicious cycle. Children of God, you're called out of that cycle. You learn that hurting others doesn't actually help, but the balm of Christ helps. This declaration, you've been called, verse nine. You've been called out of darkness into light. You've been called out of destruction. Into life? You've been called from wrath to grace? Well, this is part of that call. You're called not to repay, but instead, bless. This is important because you see someone's faith in the midst of being squeezed and the difficulty. You see someone's maturity when things are difficult and painful. In every way, what Peter's saying here is counterintuitive, right? This is completely counterintuitive. But if we've been born again, it's our instruction. This world is full of power struggles, and repayment makes sense so many times. We understand justice as Christians. Because God is just. We know what justice is, and we should want it in this world, and we should desire it. And what he's telling us is our seeking revenge or repayment is not his way of justice. God is perfectly just, and he will have his own just vengeance. We believe the gospel. The gospel is about justice. The most significant thing about the gospel is, believer, we do not get what we deserve. To truly understand how we would not repay evil for evil, it begins with the fact that we will not get what we deserve. Until we fully embrace that God will not repay us in his righteous wrath for all the sins we've committed, we will not be able to obey this passage. This is the beauty of the gospel. He forgives us for all sin, for the once for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ. If vengeance is difficult, if repayment is something you feel you need, stare at the cross where justice is perfectly revealed. and grace and mercy are perfectly revealed with it. The cross is in the backdrop of this command. Now there are many Christians who love Jesus in the temple. Righteous anger. This should not be anyone's life passage, The amount of times folks want to apply that to what they're doing is mind boggling. When a Christian says I have righteous anger, I do believe there are definite problems, sins, evils in this world that we can see are unrighteous and it's right to be angry. But I want to just put a pause in that our own simple tendencies usually lead us to an unrighteous response. I fear there's some kind of spiritual complex and that your secret is you're always angry. The Holy Spirit fills us to be gentle, to be gracious. We're not Jesus. We're called to be like him, but we're not. Vengeance belongs to the Lord, we see. Verse 8 tells us not to repay, but to bless. He makes the contrast so clear. Do not repay, which is our instinct, but bless. That is counterintuitive. Evil, that's just a simple word for bad, wicked. Revile, that's insults, abuse. You don't return it, you don't repay it. On the contrary, you bless because this is to what you've been called. We always have the reason to say, but justice, but fairness. And let's just remember, we do not want justice at the end of the day. We want to be justified and forgiven. Believer, if you are insulted, you bless. This is what makes Jesus' ethic truly unique. All right, so it's one thing to say, love others whom God has loved. That's what brotherly love is. You're simply seeking to love others that God has already loved. Therefore, we love them. It's another to see somebody who's an enemy and seek to bless them. It's hard because if a brother treats us like an enemy, we might be tempted to treat them like an enemy. Well, no, you're supposed to treat them like a brother. What if a neighbor treats you like an enemy? Well, you're supposed to treat them like a neighbor, made in the image of God. The whole idea is we're blessing others because we've been so blessed. We're able to bless in the midst of being cursed because we have been so blessed. Brian read earlier that Jesus himself makes this so clear on the Sermon on the Mount. That is the unique Jesus ethic. Love your enemies? He even gives an illustration for it. Somebody smacks you, turn the other cheek? Do not retaliate with evil. If you simply love those who are like you and are nice to you, what good is that? Everybody does that. Now, when we know that we have been an enemy of God and he's loved us, we are then able to show that same love. Peter doesn't take us to somewhere in the mount, he takes us to Psalm 34, verse 10. Notice there this,

whoever desires to love life and to see good days.

The prosperity gospel, that sounds good, right? There is a wonderful prosperity in scripture. To love life and see good days. What does that look like?

Let him keep his tongue from evil. Let his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it.

Psalm 34 is a significant declaration of God's blessing. The psalm opens, and I believe we understand when a psalm is quoted, it's likely he's assuming kind of the whole picture of the psalm. He's quoting these particular passages for a reason, but the psalm opens with,

I will bless the Lord at all times. I sought the Lord and he answered me.

In the midst of a trial, in the midst of a difficulty, in the midst of being persecuted, David cries out and he declares, I will bless the Lord at all times. Verse eight,

taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed are those who take refuge in him.

What is quoted here? If you desire to love life and to see good days, Guard your tongue. Do not repay evil with evil. Do not return reviling for reviling. Seek peace and pursue it. David has learned over and over again. He had opportunity after opportunity to punish or kill Saul, the king who was seeking to persecute and kill him. David, out of a fear of the Lord, would not stretch out his hand towards Saul. Why? Because he trusted God. Because he trusted God. Here, in the midst of being pursued, David says, I've called out. Look at verse 12.

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

If we were to go back to the different commands we were just looking at with the word submit, in that you can live your life out before the sight of God. You can live quorum Deo. And the husband, remember the warning, God will not hear you. Notice how important it is that God sees us and hears us in verse 12. In the midst of the suffering, In the midst of those who are faithful to endure and persevere, the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous. His ears are open to their prayer. God sees you. God hears you. That's the comfort. That's the comfort of being adopted into the family of God. That is the comfort of the Father who has sealed you. Go back to verse nine real quick. Notice that last, statement, the result. On the contrary, bless, this is what you've been called, so that you may obtain a blessing. What kind of blessing is there for not repaying evil and blessing those who do evil? It's at least the fact that God sees you and hears you. And is there a better blessing to have? and the almighty God who is good, the almighty God who is a creator and savior. Is there any better blessing you would want other than he would see you and hear you? Believer, those are precious promises. God is with us, he is for us, he is not distant, he is not disabled. He is going to come and he will bring his righteousness. It might not be in our time and in our way, but there's great truth to the fact that God is able to care for his children. He sees us and he hears us. Last week, Matt preached from Psalm 100 and we heard just a great meditation that God is good. Here, we're gonna stop and consider God is good when bad things happen. The psalmist invites us, taste and see that God is good. The real important thing there, and the reason we sing God Moves a Mysterious Way, we cannot judge God based upon our circumstances. We know God because of what he said. He is his own interpreter. We must know God from what he has said, and he is good. We seek to know him well. We seek to delight in him, to taste him, of his goodness and know him so that we can move beyond our circumstances, so that we're not nearsighted, we're not blind, we're not able just to kind of see what's right in front of us. Believer, you need to know God so you know how to look up. In the midst of suffering, Christian, believer, adopted child of God, look up. You have hope. because God sees you, God hears you. We look up. There's a buoyant joy, there's a hope that Christians should have because we're not going to be ultimately weighed down by the burdens and the suffering and the evil and the reviling. Now if we believe Jesus is good and he commands that we love our enemies, And the end of that, he says, be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. It's very similar to Peter's call, be holy as God is holy and has called you to be holy. God's called us to bless in the midst of being persecuted. God has called us to bless in response to reviling. That is the holy calling. Elect exiles. The assurance you have is God is rich in mercy. The God who sees you, the God who hears you, you are never meant to be in despair. You have hope. It's looking up to God. That's how you have the buoyancy to come out of the difficulties of the abuse and the reviling. In a trial, it's instinctive to grumble and complain, which is why James tells us to kind of joy and ask for wisdom. Look up. Last point, verses 13 to 17, right suffering. He continues to flow out of that Psalm 34, but focuses now specifically more on that right suffering, not just how you're gonna respond, but now the right suffering.

Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you'll be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it's better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.

I'm gonna turn our focus here to the specific of, from quoting Psalm 34 now, to really who is there to do you harm? Okay, David had Saul, but who is there? If you're zealous for doing good, who's going to seek to do you harm? As we saw earlier, the government's job is to praise the good and to punish the evil. In a good world full of common grace, that's what happens, but, well, this world is not the way it's supposed to be. There will be some who will seek to do you harm when you're zealous for doing good. He first asks, and there's a reflective question, is it a perceived problem or is it a real problem? Verse 14 tells us, even if we are being treated with harm for doing what's good, Even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Again, the whole idea of we're going to receive a blessing if we remain faithful in the midst of suffering. Now, he's not gonna give some instruction on what that means and how to do it. Do not fear those who would harm you. Are they frightening? Do not fear them, nor be troubled. Do not fear those who actually would harm you for doing righteousness' sake. Well, how? Verse 15, in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy. Honor Christ. We're called to seek to worship God and then obey our earthly authorities. And the terrifying thing is we can be so afraid of those earthly authorities and what they might do to us. This is why Christ says,

do not fear those who can kill the body, but fear him who can destroy the soul.

Here, it's honor him who laid down his life and purchased your soul and your body. In the midst of feeling or being mistreated for doing what is right, Remain on the course by seeking to honor Christ at all times because he is truly holy. Verse 15 tells us what that could look like. The second half, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Now, if you act just like the world, as Jesus warned us not to do, and you repay evil for evil, no one's ever gonna ask you, what is this thing you're doing? It's so unusual. What's the hope that's inside of you? But if you're able to remain steadfast, if you seek the grace from God that allows you to bless those who revile you, what an opportunity there might be. Because why else would they ask you what the hope is? unless there's a different kind of response to evil or reviling. There are times that a stern rebuke is necessary within the church to correct somebody who's misrepresenting Christ from the church. Here, the hope is that you would gain an audience. to give an answer, to give a defense, to give a reason for the hope that is in you, which is Jesus Christ and the gospel that he died for you and he rose again. And you do it with gentleness. Do we see there's two ways to live here? There's repaying evil with evil and harshness with harshness, and then there's gentleness, there's honoring Christ, there's brotherly love. Peter's telling us, live obediently. Be ready to give an answer. Have a good conscience. Knowing you have honored the Lord, knowing you have kept his ways, knowing you have done what is good. And if they don't ask for a reason, hear verse 16. So that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. There is a last judgment and it's not ours, it's God's. Trust the Lord when he says vengeance belongs to the Lord and he is just. Trust the Lord that he can save wicked people just like us. With our proclamation, he can save wicked people who are punishing us. And if he doesn't, there will be a righteous judgment if we trust him. Verse 17, a better statement. For it's better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. If you suffer for doing evil, that's the right judgment of the government. If they punish evil, if you suffer for doing what is good, that is God's will, you're following in the steps of Christ. There's a early church father, Polycarp, in his 90s, knew John the Evangelist. He's gonna be burned at the stake. He's going to suffer for what is good. And when given the last opportunity to deny Christ, he had had a life of practice, of responding properly to evil and doing what is good, of knowing Christ and all the benefits and blessings of what is Christ.

How can I deny him who has not denied me for all these many years? How could I reject him who has blessed me for all these many years?

We all want to think at that moment, we're going to have that kind of gospel courage. Let me step forth. It's learning how to practice it by being kind to one another, being tenderhearted to one another, practicing brotherly love towards one another. Learning then how to practice that brotherly love towards those who are difficult, In the workplace, in our neighborhood, maybe in our homes. There's a call of God that's high calling into his love. That calls us to practice what he has put in place so that we would be faithful and be witnesses. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you for your kindness that you have not left us the way we were, dead in our trespasses, distant from you in sin, practicing and longing for destruction. But you gave us life. You did not just give us any love. You gave us the love you have for your own son. You've invited us into your family. Lord, I pray we would know how to live as that family, and in that family, we would know how to encourage each other, to have sympathy with one another in the midst of suffering, to help each other know how to bless in the midst of reviling, to know how to endure with the hope that we might make your gospel known even in the midst of suffering. Help us all to rejoice greatly in you in that suffering. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.