Suffering Will Come
Tom Shrader opens in 1 Samuel 18 to examine the covenant friendship between Jonathan and David, grounding it in the self-sacrificial love described in 1 Corinthians 13 and contrasting it with Saul's jealousy and pride. He then draws a parallel to Joseph in Genesis 39, noting that in both cases the Lord's presence was visible even in unjust and painful circumstances. From these examples, Shrader offers eight practical principles for navigating suffering: do not be surprised by it, commit to God's purpose in it, resist the urge to demand explanations, remember you are not alone, pray in dependence on God, give thanks, refuse a victim mentality, and maintain an eternal perspective.
“Your circumstances are not necessarily indicators of your spiritual condition.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Samuel
Recorded: 2009 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 53 min
Themes: suffering, friendship, jealousy, perseverance, gratitude, prayer, perspective, trust, going through hard times, dealing with betrayal, feeling abandoned by god, navigating injustice, young adult, new believer, struggling with bitterness, facing unfair treatment
Scripture: 1 Samuel 14:6-7, 1 Samuel 18:1-14, 1 Samuel 19:9-10, Genesis 39:1-23, Genesis 40:2-6, 1 Corinthians 13:1-7, 1 Corinthians 10:13, James 1:2-4, Ecclesiastes 7:14, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, Matthew 5:16, John 3:16
Theological Themes: theodicy, providence, covenant, sanctification, imago dei, sacrificial love, divine presence, eternal hope
Full Transcript
The Friendship of Jonathan and David
Jonathan and David's story is one I want to spend some time on, because there is a real friendship here with a lot of application. I also want to spend some time on Saul, because he has a real reaction to David's success. Then, I want to hone in on verse 14, which tells us that David was prospering and the Lord was with him.
Let's look at verses 1, 3, and 4. "Now it came about when he had finished speaking to Saul" — and "he" there is David — "that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David. Jonathan loved him as himself. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, and his armor, and that included his sword, his bow, and his belt."
This Jonathan is someone we have met before. He is Saul's son, and he is quite a man in his own right. The context here is important: David has just defeated Goliath. When the Philistines saw that, they fled, the men of Israel gave chase, and now Saul has summoned David to appear before him. It is against that backdrop that we read verse 1.
When it says David had finished speaking, it may have been a variety of things — perhaps a question, perhaps something of an interrogation that Saul was conducting, with David presenting his case. It is in that moment that Jonathan finds his soul knit to David's.
Jonathan: A Warrior in His Own Right
Jonathan was a warrior himself. If we go back to chapter 14, there is an interesting question that came to mind: why didn't Jonathan go and fight Goliath? In chapter 14, verse 6 and following, Jonathan was there with his armor bearer while Saul remained inactive. Jonathan was frustrated by the inaction, so he said to his armor bearer that the two of them would go in, go after the enemy, and throw out a fleece — and if God gave them a sign, they would advance. And in fact, they did.
So Jonathan was no coward. At a time when essentially the rest of the nation, including the army, was passive, Jonathan acted. Yet in the confrontation with Goliath, he was not the one who stepped forward. Who knows why. But certainly this man had deep admiration for David. Perhaps it was David's courage. Perhaps it was simply that sense you sometimes get when you meet someone and there is a kindred spirit — something that connects. Jonathan sensed something in David.
The Armor Bearer Becomes the Model
Back in 1 Samuel 14, verse 7, there is the figure of Jonathan's armor bearer. When we worked through that passage, I made quite a point of how significant this man was. He said to Jonathan, "Do all that is in your heart. Do whatever you want to do. Turn yourself, and here I am — I am with you according to your desire."
Jonathan experienced that kind of unconditional support from his armor bearer. And now, in a real sense, Jonathan becomes David's armor bearer. Jonathan is saying to David: you go, and wherever you go, I am with you. Everybody needs somebody like this. It is not blind following — it is a relationship built on trust.
You see this in the text itself. How did Jonathan love David? Verse 1 tells us he loved him as he loved himself. Verse 3 repeats it: he loved David as he loved himself. The paraphrase from Eugene Peterson renders verse 1 this way: "By the time David finished reporting to Saul, Jonathan was deeply impressed with David. An immediate bond was forged between them. He became totally committed to David. From that point on, he would be David's number one advocate and number one friend." That is the same spirit as the armor bearer.
Love at the Core
What is driving all of this is love — biblical love. Almost any teacher working through this passage would take time to develop the theme of friendship between Jonathan and David, and I may do exactly that when we reach the end of Jonathan's life. Jonathan is killed early in 2 Samuel in battle, and I may return to this theme there. But what I want you to see right now is that what was compelling Jonathan was love.
Let me read to you from the passage that many of you have had to endure time and again at weddings — 1 Corinthians 13 — first from the New American Standard, and then from one of the paraphrases.
The Nature of True Love
"Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not jealous. Love does not brag and is not arrogant. It does not act unbecomingly." Here is the summary phrase: it does not seek its own. It is not provoked. It does not take into account a wrong suffered. It does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in all truth. And then verse 7: "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things."
Here is the paraphrase. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than itself. Love does not want what it does not have. Love does not strut. Love does not have a swollen head. It does not force itself on others. It is not always me first. It does not fly off the handle or keep score of the sins of others. It does not revel in others' grovel. It takes pleasure in flowering truth. Verse 7: it puts up with anything. It trusts God always. It is always looking for the best. It never looks back, but keeps going to the end.
That is love. That is real love. That is what this friendship is all about. We talk about love and we get a certain sense of what that means, but this is a love that is deeper than what we would associate even in a male-female relationship. This is not a sexual love. This is a love driven by self-sacrifice. This is a love that says, you are more important than me.
This is also a love that trusts God and trusts the other person. I was talking to somebody the other day — I had made a phone switch to an iPhone, and the problem with the iPhone is you have to have AT&T service, which is awful. So if you work for AT&T, I do not mean to insult you — I am just saying, get your service act together. So I am in the middle of a conversation with this person, and I cannot hear a word. I keep saying, "What? Huh? Repeat that." And finally I said, "I do not know what you said. I cannot hear you on this phone. But I know this — I trust you. You do what you think is right, and I have got your back." That, to me, is a friend.
Accountability Versus Love
Now, I understand the reaction some of you may have — here we go, another talk about accountability. But when you actually go back to 1 Corinthians 13:7 and look carefully at what is there, there is not much about holding everybody accountable. There is a great deal about love. And most often what we have is a distorted view of accountability — it becomes one person holding another person to their own view for that person's life, not God's view, and not the view the other person actually holds. If you have a MacArthur commentary and you look at what John says on just a couple of key paragraphs on this passage, it is powerful. It describes an amazing, transforming relationship — one that energizes people and empowers them.
Jonathan's Radical Gesture
That is what Jonathan does for David. Put yourself on the receiving end of this. Can you imagine a man coming along — not just any man, but the king's son — and saying, "I am here for you. I love you more than I love myself"? And then in verse 4, he gives David his robe, his armor, his bow, and his belt.
Consider why that is significant. Saul is the king, and we are early in this whole era of kingship in Israel. It is assumed that Jonathan will be the next king. And yet Jonathan is saying, it is not going to be me — it is going to be him. He passes the princely robe and the armor to David. That is an enormous gesture. That is what love does.
I do not do much counseling anymore, but in the old days I did more of it. I would sit with a husband and wife and ask the husband, "What do you think? How do you feel about her?" He would say, "I love her. I love her a lot." And I would turn to the wife and say, "He loves you — at least we have got that." And she would say, "He says he loves me, but he does not show it." Here is what we understand instinctively: love is never passive or stagnant. Love has action associated with it.
Here is the picture of that. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." He did not merely say, "I love you." He showed it. That is Jonathan. That is what is happening here. And I think we could go far deeper than this, but the point is clear — Jonathan was totally committed to David. From that point on, he would be David's number one advocate and number one friend.
David's Rising Favor
And it is not only Jonathan loving on David. Look at the people around them, including Saul's own staff. Verse 5: "So David went out wherever Saul sent him and prospered, and Saul set him over the men of war. It was pleasing in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul's servants."
This made not just the people happy — they were all swept up in David and who he was — but even Saul's staff. These were the very people whose roles might have been in jeopardy as power began to shift. Even they were saying, "We love this guy. He is terrific." They could make the transition as that power shifted.
Then it happened, as David was returning from killing the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet King Saul. They had tambourines, they were dancing, and they had a song. Here is what they sang: "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands." They are singing that.
The Danger of Success and the Disease of Pride
Saul became very angry, for this saying displeased him. He said, "They have ascribed to David tens of thousands, but to me a thousand. Now what more can he have but the kingdom?" There is nothing left, in Saul's mind. The only way David can go higher is if he becomes king. Then look at verse 9, which has an ominous, sinister, threatening feel to it: "Saul looked at David with suspicion from that day on." Saul's heart is now exposed.
He will come back later, because Jonathan is going to confront him and ask whether he is out to get David, and Saul will say no. But you see his heart. From this moment on, he is done.
Three Ways Pride Seeps In Through Success
Let me talk about success and follow two rabbit trails. The first is this: when somebody is successful, it cracks the door to the disease of pride. There are three examples worth considering.
The first is in the person who is actually successful. You achieve something, people begin to recognize it, and you give glory to God and talk about how others made you successful. But in your heart, after a while, you begin to believe it was you. When everybody in the office is telling you that you are really successful, and you never pay for dinner, and this keeps happening, pretty soon you think you are special. I was at a country club once where there was a retired NFL Hall of Famer. When he walked through the room, these sophisticated men became little boys again, wanting him to sign a napkin. You get enough of that, and it does something to a person.
The second way pride seeps in is through those who are living vicariously through the successful person. People simply love a winner. I met a man years ago — we are acquaintances, not friends — named Norm Evans. There are probably only three or four people in this room who know who he is, but he was one of the starting linemen on the undefeated Miami Dolphins team. He accomplished something that has not been done since. I remember him saying that on Sundays he would look around the stadium and think, "These people must have something better to do than this." When the team won, fans would say, "We played well today." There is nothing wrong with being a fan — I talk about Iowa football, too — but that instinct to attach yourself to someone else's success can feed the same pride.
The third and most dangerous place pride enters is in someone who is threatened by another person's success. This is Saul. His attitude is: your success comes at a cost to me, and I do not like it. That is jealousy. If you take the definition of love from 1 Corinthians and flip it, jealousy is not patient, it is not kind, it does brag, it is arrogant, it acts unbecomingly, and it seeks its own. That is Saul exactly.
Rejoicing With Those Who Rejoice
That jealous instinct can be surprisingly natural. Imagine sitting with a group of friends during a time of personal economic hardship, and someone walks in and says the most extraordinary thing has happened — a lawyer called from Oklahoma, and an eccentric aunt who had been quietly buying land and moving on had oil discovered on every parcel, and she has just died and left them fifteen million dollars. At that moment, there is the deafening sound of one hand clapping. That is why Paul says to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. It is easy to weep with someone in grief. But when someone walks in with a story of success, and in some way it intimidates or challenges you, it is as though there is a finite amount of success in the world and if they get some, you cannot have any. That is Saul. He is threatened, and the news gets much worse for him from here.
The Spear and the Evil Spirit
It came about on the next day that an evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he raved in the midst of the house while David was playing the harp. Remember, David playing the harp had been a soothing thing for Saul up to this point. But the music is no longer the issue. Now Saul is intimidated by David. So he grabs a spear and hurls it, thinking he will pin David to the wall. But David escaped from his presence twice. And if you look at chapter 19, verses 9 and 10, the situation is described again in almost verbatim language. This becomes a key point, and we will continue from here.
The Lord Was With Him
Verse 12 tells us Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with David but had departed from Saul. Therefore, Saul removed him from his presence and appointed him a commander over a thousand. Two things happened here. First, there is a psychological blow — it is a demotion. David had been commander of everything in verse 5, and now he is commander of a thousand. Second, and this becomes Saul's ongoing plan as you will see next week, with a smaller force it is more likely that David himself will be injured. Part of what happens continually is that Saul is pushing David into battle, thinking, "Maybe they'll do what I can't do. Maybe they'll kill you."
Verse 14 tells us David was prospering in all his ways, for the Lord was with him. That phrase appears in verse 12 and again in verse 14. When we hear it, the mind goes back to the book of Genesis — specifically to Genesis chapter 39 — where we meet a man named Joseph.
Joseph: A Parallel Story
We come into Joseph's story a little past the beginning. He has had a dream, he has told his brothers what the dream is, and it is certainly offensive to them. Joseph comes from a dysfunctional family. Now, it has been said that we all come from dysfunctional families, but Joseph's family put the fun in dysfunctional. You may have siblings and you may have sibling rivalry, but it is unlikely any of you ever sold each other into slavery — and that is exactly what his brothers do. They take Joseph and sell him into slavery.
We pick up the story in Genesis 39, verse 1: "Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh, captain of the bodyguard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him down there." Potiphar is essentially the head of the secret service — the chief officer overseeing considerable enterprises. Joseph's brothers had sold him to the Ishmaelites, and the Ishmaelites then sold him again to Potiphar.
Then comes the familiar phrase: "The Lord was with Joseph." It is the same phrase we just saw in 1 Samuel 18 speaking of David. Because the Lord was with him, Joseph came to be a successful man in the house of his Egyptian master. And notice — the text says the master *saw* that the Lord was with him. It was visible.
Visible Faith
The New Testament equivalent of this is: "Let your light shine in such a way that men see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." If we are followers of Christ, we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us, and that is supposed to be visibly manifest to the people around us. Faith is meant to be something others can see. They could see that there was something different about Joseph, and they could see how the Lord caused all he did to prosper.
So Joseph found favor in Potiphar's sight and became his personal servant and the overseer of all the house. Potiphar essentially handed him the keys to everything — Potiphar's entire enterprise — given to a slave. He had seen there was something different about this man.
Falsely Accused
In the midst of running the household, Joseph comes into contact with Potiphar's wife. She desires Joseph, approaches him, and tries to seduce him. He resists her day after day. Finally, one day she comes on particularly hard, and Joseph runs. She grabs his cloak, and he flees with nothing on him.
In verse 19 we pick up the story: "When his master heard the words of his wife, which she spoke to him saying, 'This is what your slave did to me,' his anger burned." Now, it does not explicitly say who his anger was directed at — the assumption is clearly Joseph. But it is worth noting that under typical circumstances, what Potiphar would simply have done is call together the rest of the bodyguard and have Joseph executed. He does not do that. The reason, it seems, is that Potiphar knew Joseph — and he knew his wife was a problem. That is a reading into the text; it does not necessarily say so directly, but that is the most plausible explanation for why Joseph is not killed on the spot.
Instead, Joseph's master takes him and puts him in jail — the place where the king's prisoners were confined. This is not ordinary jail. It is the dungeon of dungeons, the darkest and worst place available.
Faithful in the Dungeon
And yet — verse 21: "But the Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him and gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer." The chief jailer committed to Joseph's charge all the prisoners in the jail. The same thing happens with the jailer that happened with Potiphar. There is good help that is hard to find, and this man stands out from everyone else — so he is put in charge of everything. Verse 23 tells us the chief jailer did not supervise anything under Joseph's charge, because the Lord was with him and made whatever he did prosper.
The parallel between Joseph and David is plain. The Lord was with both of them — and yet both found themselves in extraordinary and unjust circumstances. Joseph is in a dungeon.
Your Circumstances Don't Reflect Your Spiritual Condition
He has been sold into slavery. Now he is in jail, in the dungeon, in the inner part of the jail. And the Lord was with him. David is right where God wants him to be, right where God anointed him to be. And yet now he has the king — the man with all the authority — who is out to get him.
I want to draw a couple of principles from that. This is the overarching principle: your circumstances are not necessarily indicators of your spiritual condition. The fact that everything is going really well does not mean you are a spiritual giant, and the fact that everything is going badly does not mean there is sin in your life. Consider Paul. He is smack in the middle of a missionary journey, smack where God would have him be — and he ends up in Philippi hanging in a jail while they are beating him severely. They stoned him where he went. They thought they had killed him. He was right in the middle of God's will through all of it.
Why We Need to Talk About Suffering
This message comes out of a devotion I did with the ladies this week and some work I did in Priority Living. It is also born out of something Susan said to me about four months ago. She said, "You need to talk more about suffering and hardship." I told her it felt like I was talking about it every week. She said, "You need to talk about it more. Tom, you have to understand where the people are." There are just certain things about her I don't like, and this would be one of them.
So if you feel like you have been beaten up by this topic lately, it is intentional. And when I got to this passage, especially in light of what I have been teaching in James, I could see it has huge application for us right now. Just this morning I was sharing with somebody, and we got to talking, and he said, "You know what? Everywhere we go, there are people who are hurting." That is exactly right.
Eight Things to Do in the Midst of Suffering
So here is what I want to do. I am going to give you eight things — eight things to do when you are in the midst of suffering, trial, or difficulty. You could add more than eight if you want. You could blow this list apart entirely. But here are eight.
One: Don't Be Surprised by the Suffering
Number one: do not be surprised by the suffering. We do not know a person who has not been touched by some level of suffering. Doesn't it feel that way everywhere you go? It is certainly economic hardship for many, but that only surfaces other issues — relational difficulties, physical difficulties. And I think I am getting to that age as well. I cannot tell you the last time I went out with somebody for coffee and we did not end up talking about colonoscopies or kidney stones or something. It is everywhere we go.
Do not be surprised by it. James says it this way: "Consider it all joy" — and here is the key word — *when* you encounter various trials. Not *if* — *when*. If he had said "if," I would have found great comfort in that. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won't. But no, he says you are going to have these things. Do not be surprised.
Here is the way my mind would work on this. For thirty years I was not a particularly wonderful person, so I had all sorts of destruction around me — in relationships and all that goes with that. Then God got a hold of my life and transformed it. Maybe you have had that experience too. All of a sudden you get on the other side of that, and then suffering comes. And even though you know it is going to happen, there is still something inside you that says, "I don't get it, God. Why didn't You deal with me back then? Why now?" So do not be surprised by it.
Two: Commit Yourself to the Lord
Number two: in the midst of all this, commit yourself to the Lord. He has a purpose in this. Ecclesiastes 7:14 says, "The day of prosperity, be joyful. The day of adversity, consider: God made one as well as the other."
In the midst of these trials, things happen. Our faith is tested. We are humbled. The things that are truly important are revealed. A friend of mine uses the phrase that trials *wean us from earthly things*. They give us a story to tell. There is nothing more powerful in the idea of coming alongside someone than when somebody says, "I've been there. I know what you're going through." These trials do something absolutely amazing — they reveal ourselves to ourselves. I begin to find out who I really am.
And what I find is that I have to trust God. God says, "My ways are not your ways. My ways are higher than your ways." God has a purpose and a meaning in this. This, by the way, is why doctrine is so important. This is why the sovereignty of God is so crucial.
Three: Don't Waste Energy Trying to Figure It All Out
We are in the middle of all of this and we start asking, "Where is God? Is God mad? Is He angry?" No. We understand that everything that comes into our life is either caused by or allowed by God. He is not surprised by this, and He is working His purpose in it. That leads me to the third thing.
Number three: do not waste a bunch of brain cells trying to figure it all out. In other words, do not try to understand everything. Let me give you an illustration. If you asked me, "Tom, I know you like the Kona Grill — where is the closest one?" I would say, "It's down at Chandler Fashion…"
When "Why?" Has No Answer
If you come to me and say, "I have a question for you — why would God allow this?" I'm already in trouble. I don't know. And you're not going to know, and you're not going to figure it out, and you're not going to unpack it. Most likely.
We can, however, take the things we know, and that's important. We know that God is going to bring something into your life, and part of why He would allow a trial is to strengthen you. That's what James says: "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing the testing of your faith produces endurance." One of the things He is doing in those moments is giving you spiritual stamina.
Sarah's Accident
My daughter Sarah was in a car wreck, and it was a bad wreck. She and another girl were driving home from a cheerleading game along one of the frontage roads. The girl's parents were ahead of them, so it's not like they were out drag racing.
The light was red. They waited. The light turned green. They pulled into the intersection, and three guys in a stolen pickup truck, drunk on beer, T-boned her right there and got away. They never caught them.
I was out of town. Susan was out of town. When I got back, Sarah had suffered brain seizures and had broken bones from roughly the shoulders up. Her jaw was wired shut, and three, four, five days later they were still picking glass out of her head. She was a junior in high school, and at that age how you look is pretty important to a young girl, and she got really weak and really down. I took her on her first walk, around the hospital floor, and she had on those little slippers. Honestly, it was like walking with my grandmother. She got down to about 83 or 84 pounds.
Through all of that, not one time did I hear her say, "Why?" I didn't hear her mom say it. I didn't hear her sister say it. And I didn't say it — not because we're so strong; that's not the point. We know doctrinally that God is in control and He is sovereign. I don't understand it. I don't know why He put her through that. I don't understand why Susan has cancer. I don't understand it, other than she is human and we are human and this is what happens in a fallen world.
I don't waste any brain cells on the question of "why," and I'm not asking you to commit intellectual suicide. I'm simply saying I would not spend a lot of energy on something you are never going to figure out.
You Are Not Alone in This
Point four: realize you aren't the only person who has ever gone through this. I read something recently noting that people are handling the current economic downturn remarkably well, and the reason offered was that it is so widespread — it affects everybody. If it were hitting only one segment of society there might be more anger, but when everyone is in it together, it changes things.
In our own lives, though, when something comes — whatever it might be, you fill in the blank — it is easy to feel like you are the only person it has ever happened to. I had the flu one year, and I was genuinely, miserably sick. I was in bed, it was dark, and Susan came in to check on me. She asked how I was doing, whether there was anything she could do, whether she could get me something. I just wanted to sleep.
As she started to walk away I called her back and said, "Susan, they tell us that including people alive right now, some 14 billion people have lived on the earth since the beginning of time." She said, "Yes." I said, "None of them ever had the flu this bad." Now, that wasn't true, but I was sick as a dog. You get into that way of thinking, don't you?
Here is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:13: "No temptation or test has overtaken you but such as is common to man." Let me also read it from one of the paraphrases: "No test has come your way beyond the course of what others have faced. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down. He'll never push you past your limit. He'll always be there to help you come through it." You are not the only one who has ever encountered this.
The Place of Prayer
Point five: pray. Prayer activates our faith and demonstrates our dependency upon God. Think about it — the reason we pray is because we know God cares, we know that He can, if He chooses, do something about our situation, and we acknowledge that He is sovereign and in control. It shows our dependence upon Him.
Oprah says frequently that everything happens for a reason, and I am not a combative person, but I would love to sit down with her one day and have that conversation. I would say, "Oprah, I know you say this all the time and I know you believe it — but if that's true, do you understand that there has to be someone, something..."
Responding to Suffering with Gratitude
Number six: be thankful for the suffering. Chris Christensen, whom many of you will remember as one of our staff members, got brain cancer, and it ultimately took his life. His favorite verse in all of Scripture was 1 Thessalonians 5:18. Thank you for the suffering. Thank you for the cancer. Thank you for the job loss. Thank you. Why? Because it all ties together. I know God is doing something, even when I don't know why.
To me, there is a measure of arrogance in thinking that God owes me an explanation for what He is doing. And I think it is equally arrogant to believe my finite mind could understand it even if He gave it to me. I am at a point where I am saying, "God, thank you. I don't understand it, and I don't even need to understand it."
Getting Your Eyes Off Yourself
Number seven: don't be a martyr. Get your eyes off yourself. Get rid of the victim mentality. We live in a time where everybody is a victim and nobody is a villain anymore.
If you have your Bibles, we were in Genesis 39. Look at Genesis 40. Pharaoh becomes angry with the cupbearer and the baker, so he puts them in prison, and they come into contact with Joseph. Genesis 40, verse 6 is an amazing verse: "When Joseph came to them in the morning, he observed them, and behold, they were dejected. And he asked them, 'Why are your faces so sad?'"
Now, why is that remarkable? If there was anybody who did not deserve to be in that place, it was Joseph. It would have been so easy for him to sink into self-pity — why me, why this, why, why, why? And yet, in the midst of his own pain, he comes into contact with these men who are hurting, and he is not so absorbed in his own suffering that he cannot see the suffering in their lives. He says, in effect, what is wrong with you? How can I help you? Let me make it about you.
When I get into the middle of these trials, it becomes very dark, and I suddenly have my eyes fixed entirely on myself. The best way out of that darkness is to look outward and serve other people. The fastest way out of the victim mentality, the fastest way to avoid becoming a martyr, is to begin serving others. Joseph is a stunning example of that characteristic throughout his life.
Don't Suffer Needlessly
Here is the last one, and it may sound a little silly at first: don't suffer needlessly. Jesus comes to a man who is lame and asks him a question — "Do you want to be healed?" There can be all sorts of reasons He asks that question. When Larry taught on that passage, and Larry had rheumatoid arthritis — not as severe as some, we have men who come in wheelchairs more debilitated than he was, but he was genuinely infirm — he said he had to wrestle with that question seriously. He was not being facetious at all. He said there are some real advantages to sickness. His wife Sue never asked him to take out the garbage or do yard work. He gets the best parking spaces everywhere he goes. He can say he does not feel well. Don't suffer needlessly.
Here is what Larry said, and I love it. Listen to this: "I would rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently, because I know my obedient suffering is as temporary as my disobedient prospering." That is really powerful. On the surface it sounds like a statement about suffering and prosperity, but it is not. It is about an eternal perspective and about obedience. He said he would rather suffer than prosper — why? Because he knows his obedient suffering is as temporary as his disobedient prospering.
Suffering and the Eternal Perspective
We say this often, and I have to say it to myself many times: no matter how bad it gets, it can only last a lifetime. But we tend to think in that finiteness rather than from an eternal perspective. That, by the way, is another thing suffering accomplishes — it draws us out beyond ourselves and into that larger view.
One author writes this: "Our passion for God and our passion for heaven should be inseparable. The more I learn about God, the more excited I ought to get about heaven. The more I learn about heaven, the more excited I ought to get about God." A.W. Tozer writes: "Let no one apologize for the powerful emphasis Christianity puts upon the doctrine of the world to come. Right there lies its immense superiority to everything else within the whole sphere of human thought or experience. We do well to think long of tomorrow."
Dale Moody said it this way, close to his last words: "Soon you will read in the newspaper that I am dead. Don't believe it for a moment. Don't believe it for a moment. I'll be more alive than ever before." Those are powerful truths. If I get those deep into my heart, it is going to change the way I live.
I love the whole picture we have seen — the Lord is with David, the Lord is with Joseph.
Closing the Series: Suffering Is Part of Life
The Lord is in Paul's life, and the Lord is in you — but that does not mean you are trial-proof or suffering-proof. There is no way to microwave spiritual growth. At the core of it is suffering, hardship, and pain. You can get swept away in that if you don't keep that list of truths close at hand — and you can add to the list or remove what doesn't resonate, but you need to have it ready, because the suffering and the pain will come.
An Invitation to Prayer
One of the things we want to do, and in a church like ours where it isn't always a regular part of what we do, it can feel a little uncomfortable — but we want to be able to pray with you. After this service, and every Sunday at every service, you'll see men from our pastoral staff here at the front of the chapel or in the conference center ready to pray with you. It may be rejoicing with you, it may be praising God and giving thanks with you, whatever it might be. They are here to pray with you, and I'd really encourage you to take advantage of it. There is something really powerful about that.
Also, just before we close — the men's conference is next week, and it's not too late to register. Grab some friends, bring your small group or come alone and meet some other men. We'd love to have you join us for that.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for these amazing, wonderful truths. Thank You that You work powerfully in our lives. God, I pray that we would get to the point that in the midst of hardship and pain we could get our eyes off ourselves and on You — so we wouldn't be taken by surprise at any of this, and we would commit ourselves to You and trust You. We would understand that this is just part of life, and we would turn to You in prayer and thanksgiving. We would not be a victim and a martyr, but we would allow and understand that You are going to work in our lives.
God, to those who are hurting, I pray You give them comfort here today. And God, for those who are doing well and are perhaps thinking that this doesn't really matter to them right now because that's not where they are — two things: one, that the prosperity and good times they feel will pass, and two, God, that we can rejoice that You are blessing them. Father, we love You, we praise You, and we worship You in Jesus' name. Amen.