Well, no, it isn't great news at all. But something I don't think I explained overly well in the sermon from Sunday is that you will suffer either way. That is, you will suffer for doing good, I think I explained that fine. As a Christian, you go out into the world, and the world will resist the faith. Properly exercised, the faith is something that the world doesn't deal too well with. The Christian faith preaches self-sacrifice, restraint, living for one another and not being in friendship with the world. And that is something that the world doesn't do too well with hearing. The world always resists the faith, whether violently or covertly. If you go out into the world with the truth of the scriptures, the world will not care for it.
But I don't think I properly explained how it is that you would suffer for turning against Jesus Christ. And no, it isn't just 'you go to hell for being bad.' Yes, that's part of it, but it's not all of it. For if I go to you can advocate only for doing what is good to avoid punishment, I will not be doing the sort of job that I am being asked to do. That is, if I present to you on the one had the basics of the Christian faith, self-sacrifice, giving up the quick and easy path, foregoing earthly pleasure and so on, and then on the other hand doing what you like in the here and now with the possibility of future punishment in the hereafter, I imagine you would do what most of us would do, which is to be extremely short-sighted, and to figure that we could get away with it for as long as necessary.
But the teachings of Jesus Christ are not just there for you to get into Heaven and avoid Hell (though that is part of it). But if we believe that he came that we may have life, and have it abundantly, then we can find meaning in the suffering of being a christian vs not being one. So as a Christian, if you are to live it positively and properly, you will mortify your flesh. There will be suffering of your flesh, where you have to give up what is fun, what is easy, what is satisfying and what is pleasurable. If you will not and can not, then you will end up falling into worldly things, and following the god in your belly, who is never satisfied and will never clamoring for your attention. You will suffer from being cut off from the way the world does thing. You will not be able to participate if everything the world does. In effect, being in the world but not of the world will entail suffering. It will be unpleasant to be mocked, overlooked and forgotten by the world, especially as social humans. But the suffering of falling into sin, of falling into worldly things, is suffering from a different direction. You have to ask a question that if mortifying your flesh causes suffering in one direction, what does indulging it do?
This question is at the core of what sin is, and what a victimless crime is. Over a long enough period of time, even the church began to say that a sin is only a sin if it hurts someone. And what that means is that it ignores the words of Romans that tell you that certain sins are sins you commit against yourself. And what does it mean to sin against yourself? It means you slowly and gradually become a moral and ethical monster. And here's where the suffering comes in.
What are monsters in this regard? And yes, I realize that you may disagree with me. Monsters are people who will adjust their perspective of what right and wrong are to suit where they are. This is the beginning of becoming a monster. This is Dr. Jekyll right as he is drinking the potion which will change him to Mr. Hyde in a moment. As soon as you view morality as fluid, as something that will adapt itself to you instead of you adapting yourself to something stable, you become the monster in the world. From that moment on, nothing will be able to stop you from doing what you want to do, because the basis of morality is your own experience.
And this is real suffering, because it is erasure of who you are, and conversion into someone or something else. You know that part of any sad tragedy where the hero, the chosen one gradually, or rapidly, transforms into a villain? Where their dearly held beliefs begin to crumble and fall apart? The part where they shift hard away from who they were towards the monster that they will become, based on how things work better for them now than they did before. And that happens so quickly because the reality is that you want to be good without being made good. And once you realize that this is a compulsion that we all have, then you have a couple of choices. Either mortify your flesh, realize that morals are outside yourself and you can be judged accordingly, or double down hard, and go your own way with yourself as the moral centre. But only one of those paths lead anywhere good.
For if we were able to believe and act as though we were perfectly correct and good, and if everyone else did likewise, what would happen to us? Exactly what has happened to us. We would become twisted, angry, vicious and filled with malaise. We would be warped with misery and discontent. We would be filled with rage and mistrust with one another, bound by our perpetual desire to be right because we would rather burn it all down, lose touch with one another, have our relationships scatter, we would rather be dead than wrong. Once you get that all sorted out, then you start to see that the suffering that we make is not just in being a meddler, or a murderer, or a thief or whatever, but in what it does to you and to all of us. The true suffering sometimes is what we are all living through and what it does to us, to our relationships with God, and with one another.
So that brings up the sufferings of a Christian. And one of the biggest elements of suffering that exists as a Christian is the nature that you will have to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Christ. It means not only that there are things you do that you ought not, things you ought not do that you should, but also that acknowledging that is a hurtful, painful thing to do. It pushes you in ways you don't want to go. It hurts to look at yourself with honesty, and to deal with the reality of your misdeeds. And it hurts to go before the throne of almighty God and to say of him and yourself that he must increase, and you must decrease. That is suffering so stark that very few people will ever engage in it. But there is nothing else that will lead to a path forward. Everything else leads to atomization and despair.
The suffering of bringing your sins to Christ openly and painfully is also what permits anything to change for the better. But you won't avoid suffering. One way or another, there will be suffering. You will either be more conformed to God, or more conformed to the Devil . Both entail and contain suffering. I can understand your desire to avoid suffering, but it isn't in the cards. Having your sins forgiven is painful, but is far better than letting your sins control you.
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