I Don’t Need Food?

Hey, thanks again for sending in questions related to our recent sermons.

In the last several weeks as we’ve been going through the Sermon on the Mount, we’ve had

a reoccurring theme of God is the one who meets all of our needs.

Jesus even saying, don’t worry about what you will eat, what you will drink, what you

will wear, but instead seek first the kingdom of God, his righteousness, pursue after God.

And then this last week we talked about ask, seek, knock, find God and that he’s enough

and that that should be our focus is pursuing after him and not worrying about really anything

in this world and that if we seek to fill ourselves with him, we will be totally full.

So a very reasonable question comes in a couple of different ways asking, so you’re saying

that I don’t need food?

Or what am I supposed to say to somebody who’s suffering just like chin up and forget about

it?

This is actually what’s good for you.

So let’s just take a step back before we answer those questions and think about really what

we are hoping for as Christians at the end of our lives.

What are we going to have?

God, period.

And is he going to be enough then?

Will that fulfill us enough?

As Christians, we should say, yes, I hope we think that that’s enough because that’s

what we’re aiming for is to have God forever.

And we think God forever would be enough.

We actually call that heaven.

And so if that’s what we’re hoping for, for eternity, if we’re hoping for him and for

him to fill us for eternity, and that’s going to be enough to carry us for an infinite amount

of time, then we should be able to understand that he is enough to carry us right now.

And even if I don’t have food, clothing, water, any necessity at all, I still have enough

because I have the thing that I will have in eternity forever.

Throughout the Bible, there’s a very consistent theme, right?

Suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, character hope, consider it pure

joy.

My brothers, when you experience trials of many kinds, Paul says to live is Christ and

to die is gain.

We’ve talked about Jesus says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Don’t worry about seeking all these other things.

It’s very consistent, right?

God really is enough.

And so when we’re in suffering, we want to be thinking, I have what I need because I

have God or having these other things taken away from me will somehow make God more beautiful,

more glorious.

It will fix something in me.

Maybe it’s going to fix something in the world.

That should be our attitude in suffering.

If we’re putting our hope into anything that pain and suffering can take away from us,

then we don’t have a very good hope.

We don’t have a very sure hope.

Our hope has to be in something that pain and suffering cannot take away from us.

And really the only thing that that is, is God himself.

So yes, in our own framework, in our own thinking, we should know we should hope in God alone.

We should not be aiming for these other things.

Of course, that’s very consistent throughout the Bible.

Even if we starve to death, right?

If we want to be very dramatic about it, there’s something in that or we have everything in

that that we actually need, which is God himself.

Now if you come up to somebody who’s in pain and suffering, never should we say, you have

everything you need.

Get over it.

Don’t you know suffering produces character?

Character produces hope, right?

I mean, it’s James 2.

You see somebody in need and say, hey, good luck buddy, or you have everything you need.

You’ve done nothing.

We’re supposed to mourn with those who mourn.

If somebody’s mourning, our goal is to mourn with them.

And there’s a sense in which God is mourning with them.

God does not like the pain and suffering that’s in this world, right?

He cries when his friend dies.

Old Testament, God says, I am grieved over the disaster that I have caused in you to

the nation of Israel.

God really is upset about the suffering that’s in the world.

And that should be our reaction any time we see it out there.

Just sit and weep, right?

Job’s friends came in and they were like, hey, you’re suffering because XYZ.

And you need to fix XYZ, then you won’t be suffering anymore.

And the book of Job is to tell us that’s not how we react to anybody who’s in suffering,

right?

We just sit and cry with them.

We weep with those who weep.

That’s what we’re supposed to do for anybody who’s in suffering, right?

And that will probably actually help them more than anything else.

But for ourselves, and especially before we get into a moment of suffering, we should

have our theology of suffering correct so that when we get to that moment, we know exactly

how to respond to it, which is suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, character

hope, hope does not disappoint, points us to Christ, right?

So then when we enter into suffering, we at least have the framework of knowing what is

going on, knowing where we should still point ourselves, say, I don’t need to get out of

this.

I need Christ in this.

And then we will have him and his kingdom to a greater degree than we can even imagine,

right?

We’ll be back to having more than Solomon and enjoying this life more than other people

will really be able to understand.

Well, hey, thanks for sending in those questions.

And we’ll see you next time.