Suffering
Tom Shrader addresses five questions about suffering — whether it is normal, what causes it, where God is, what its purpose is, and how to respond — drawing from James 1, John 16, Job, and 2 Corinthians. He argues that trials are not only normal for Christians but inevitable, multi-shaped, and purposeful, citing over twenty reasons suffering serves God's refining work in a believer's life. The teaching closes with four practical steps: accept the reality of pain, think theologically, remember God's faithfulness, and trust Him through Psalm 46.
“Faith is getting God's perspective on our situation — me beginning to see my life, or whatever the circumstance is, from God's perspective.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Standalone Teachings
Recorded: 2016 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 40 min
Themes: suffering, trials, pain, trust, hope, faith, perseverance, God's faithfulness, going through loss, dealing with chronic illness, grieving, feeling abandoned by God, new believer, struggling with doubt, facing hardship, questioning God
Scripture: John 16:33, John 14:18, John 14:26-27, John 15:18, John 15:26, John 16:18, James 1:2-4, 1 Peter 4, Genesis 1-4, 2 Samuel 12:13-14, Job 42:5, John 9, Psalm 119, 2 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 4:8, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Romans 8:28, Psalm 46
Theological Themes: theodicy, sanctification, becoming holy, providence, refining faith, biblical suffering, James 1, Psalm 46
Full Transcript
Introduction: The Universality of Suffering
We are starting today a four-week series called "All of Life." Tim and Paul called some months ago and asked if I would teach. Whenever they call, I love to do this, so I said yes. Then I asked what the topic was, and they said my topic would be suffering.
The premise of the series is this: when we come to Christ in repentance and faith, our life is transformed, and that relationship with Jesus infiltrates every aspect of our life. We tried to pick topics that would relate to most of us — and in this case, all of us.
Sandy and I yesterday went to see a movie called *Risen*. It's that time of year when the studios put out the Christian films, and it always feels to me like they're sucking our money right out of us — but this one I thought was really good. It's the story of a Roman soldier who is present when Jesus is crucified, and who is then made responsible for ensuring the tomb stays sealed after the burial. Then — spoiler alert — Jesus rises, this soldier witnesses it, and he is sent out to investigate.
I found it gripping from his perspective. There's a moment when he encounters the risen Christ, and he's sitting with Jesus on a rock, and Jesus says, "Do you have any questions?" The soldier responds with what felt like a tender and sad moment all at once: "I don't even know what to ask." His world is then turned right side up, and the implication is that he can no longer live the way he used to live. That's true for all of us. It really impacts the way we deal with everything in our life.
Defining Suffering
When the guys gave me the topic of suffering, I sat down with a legal pad and had notes all over — suffering, tribulation, persecution, all of this. Then I said, wait, stop. Let's go to Webster. Here's Webster's definition of suffering: the pain that is caused by injury, illness, or loss — it may be physical, mental, or emotional pain. And I go back to my original statement: it is universal.
I've noticed in discussions on suffering and pain that we have a tendency to compare, contrast, and minimize — to treat certain pain as not real. When a little kid comes up and says, "I have an owie," that is suffering and pain at that three- or four-year-old level. In my case, at the 66-year-old level. And it goes from there to the serious: accidents, illness, broken relationships, rejection.
I was at a high school basketball game this year, and there was a group of about fifteen girls. There was one girl who clearly didn't fit in — at least that was my read from the outside. It felt to me like they were communicating that to her the entire game. That's one kind of rejection. Or it's someone you made vows with — for better, for worse, rich or poor, in sickness and in health, till death do us part — and now they say, "I don't love you anymore." Or it's economic hardship. Or it's the friend who says, "Listen, we've got a business venture — we don't need all that legal documentation, we're buddies, we'll figure it out."
My summation is simply this: the list is endless. I'm not going to try to manufacture that situation of suffering for you. You know what it is in your life. It fits fairly neatly into the physical, mental, emotional, economic, and relational categories.
The Bible as Our Source of Perspective
Here is the assumption I want you to know going in: the Bible is true. When we talk about suffering — or really any area of life — what the Bible says affects how we view and understand it. I come to this book and I get my perspective on suffering from this. What I need is perspective.
I was listening to a man teach the other day — I won't tell you who it is, because it will affect the way you receive this. I'd rather have you spend the next thirty-some minutes trying to figure it out on your own and be distracted. But he defined faith this way, and I really liked it: faith is getting God's perspective on our situation. Faith is beginning to see my life, or whatever the circumstance is, from God's perspective. That is what I want to try to do in the time we have.
Five Questions We Will Address
As I thought about this topic, it raised all sorts of questions for me. I tried to bring it down into five fairly simple questions that, taken together, will address the majority of what we are thinking about.
Number one: Is suffering normal? Is this normal for the Christian? Number two: What is the cause of this? I am a fix-it person — not in the sense of fixing something that is broken (I call Sandy for that), but in the sense of fixing a situation or circumstance. I like to fix things. I was talking with a friend this week about another man we both know, and my friend said, "He's a control freak." Write this down: everybody is a control freak. Everybody wants to be in control. So what caused all of this? If I can figure out the cause, maybe I can figure out how to fix it.
Number three: Where is God? Here is this event in my life — at varying levels on a scale of one to ten, potentially catastrophic — and the question is, where is God in the midst of it? Number four: What is the point? Why is all of this happening? And number five, for me personally: What do I do? How do I respond? Those are the five questions we are going to look at.
Is Suffering Normal for the Christian?
Is this normal? And by that, I mean, is this normal for the Christian? I became a Christian in March of 1980. Previously, my life was filled with rebellion, sin, and selfishness. But in March of 1980, that changed. It is not to say that it went away entirely, but I started to dial back my sin.
Humanly thinking: God, if I were you, I could see why you might want to judge me before, but why would you do that now? I am on your team. One of the great things God did for me — and it has become more and more apparent in the last three or four months — is that He grounded me with great teachers. Larry Wright was my role model, my hero, my teacher. He was not the only one, but he directed me toward other men who were solid teachers.
One of the things they said over and over again — and Larry had great authority when he said it — is that coming to Christ in repentance and faith does not mean your path will be strewn with roses. It does not mean it is going to be easy. Larry had rheumatoid arthritis, and you did not have to know him to see that something was wrong with him physically. He did not have enough strength to reach out and open a car door. He would have to back up to it to get enough leverage to pull it open.
Larry was also diagnosed with cancer. We were sitting at breakfast one day, and I said, "Doc, something is going on in your neck. This is not normal. It is just growing." It was cancer, and they cut it out. I was talking with him one day when a woman came up. Larry had had a new bout of something — I do not remember what it was — and she said to him, "Haven't you suffered enough?" Larry said, "Apparently not." But it was normal. It was his normal.
What Jesus Promised About Tribulation
Is suffering something that should not happen to a Christian? No. Look at John chapter 16, verse 33: *"These things I have spoken to you so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation."*
It would be helpful, for your own study, to figure out what the first part of that verse is referring to — what are "these things"? If you look at John chapters 14 through 17 in a red-letter Bible, it is almost entirely the words of Jesus. This is Jesus the night before He is crucified, and He has been telling His disciples that He will send them another. Chapter 14, verse 18: *"I will not leave you as orphans."* Verse 26 of chapter 14: He promises the Helper. Verse 27: *"My peace I leave you."* Chapter 15, verse 18: the world hates you because it hated Him. Verse 26 of chapter 15: the Helper will come. That theme continues all the way through to chapter 16, verse 18: He will send the Spirit of truth.
Jesus is saying, I am going to send you the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. You are going to have God dwelling not merely in the room with you, but in you. The Spirit dwells in you. And one of the reasons He is given is this: in this world you will have tribulation. Is it normal? Yes.
James 1 — Inevitable, Multi-Colored Trials
In fact, look at James chapter 1, verse 2. This goes even stronger than normal — it is inevitable: *"Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance."*
Before examining that verse, consider three paraphrases. J.B. Phillips renders it: "When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, my brothers, don't resist them as intruders, but welcome them as friends." Eugene Peterson's paraphrase, The Message, reads: "Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith life is forced into the open and shows its true colors." The New Living Translation says: "When troubles come of any kind, consider it an opportunity for great joy. You know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow."
I want to pull three words out of James 1:2. The first word is "when." When you encounter various trials. Not if. The trials are not presented as optional. James is writing to followers of Jesus, and he says when — they are inevitable. The second word is "various," which literally means multi-colored. Trials come in all shapes and sizes. You sit by the doors and watch people come in and you can see physical challenges. You talk with people and they share about brokenness in a relationship. You sit with men who say they are on the verge of losing everything.
Let me flip this quickly, because there is a test many will miss. Alongside the test of adversity, there is also the test of prosperity. The historian Thomas Carlyle said that for every thousand people who pass the test of adversity, there is only one who can handle the test of prosperity. These tests come in all shapes and sizes, all magnitudes and scopes — some small, some enormous.
Knowing What Trials Produce
The third word is the one that sets everything up: "knowing." When these inevitable, multi-colored trials come into your life, know this — that testing produces endurance. Is suffering normal? Yes, and it is far beyond merely normal. It is for your own good. I know that does not sound right, but it is for your own good.
When you first entered into a relationship with Christ, you said, "Jesus, I want to grow." I spend a great deal of time around older believers, and what they all say is, "I want to finish strong." That is perseverance. And if you want to persevere, James tells us that the essential ingredient to perseverance is trials. So when you pray, "God, I want to finish strong," He hears, "Let me suffer." You may want to rethink that prayer — retool it — and bring it back to Him with open eyes.
Is Suffering Normal?
One more passage: 1 Peter 4 — "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeals among you." Why do they come? For your testing. Don't think they're strange. Let me read three paraphrases of that verse. Here's one: "Don't be bewildered or surprised when you go through fiery trials." Here's another: "Don't be astonished." And yet one more, from The Message: "When life gets real difficult, don't dump to the conclusion that God isn't on the job." I like that one. When these things come, don't be surprised — expect them. Are these trials normal? Absolutely normal, for everyone in life, but especially for the Christian.
What Causes Suffering?
You could list the causes of suffering and fill up slides forever. I have four or five things here. Number one: all suffering traces itself back to the Fall. If you could do it — it's probably impossible, but if you could — read Genesis 1 and 2 with a fresh set of eyes, skip Genesis 3, and read Genesis 4. You're going to think a big part of the puzzle is missing. Genesis 2 ends with Adam and Eve in the garden, naked, innocent, unashamed. Genesis 4 begins with strife, bitterness, anger, and murder. What happened? Genesis 3 happened. Death, pain, grief, illness, loneliness — they all come from there. You cannot understand the world around us without understanding Genesis 3. That's why man is the way he is. That's why toil now replaces work.
The second cause is our own sin. In 2 Samuel 12, Nathan has confronted David about his sin, and David finally confesses. 2 Samuel 12, verse 13: "David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said to David, the Lord has taken away your sin. You shall not die." Verse 14: "However, because by this deed you have given occasion for the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child that is born of this shall surely die." Some of the time — not all of the time, but some of the time — we reap what we sow as it relates to sin. You sin and there's consequence. You sin and there's discipline.
God loves you. How do you know? He disciplines. When my girls were small, we spanked — well, we spanked one of them. We didn't have to spank the other one. We spanked Sarah; Haley learned from Sarah. We disciplined both of them. But it's amazing — we didn't spank any other kid in the church, and there were hundreds of them. You know why? They weren't my kids. God loves you, and because He loves you, when you sin, sometimes there are consequences.
The third cause is man's inhumanity to man — war on a large scale, and violence on a personal scale. I taught at New City Church downtown about a year ago, and when I was done, a couple came up and introduced themselves. The wife mentioned she did the weather on one of the local news channels. So the next day I turned on the local news to check — I never watch local news, but I turned it on. The weather doesn't come on until about 5:10, so I had to sit from five o'clock and watch the local news, which every morning is someone killed someone, someone robbed someone. Last week it was a couple in their mid-eighties who answered the door. A man said he had no money; they gave him some. He came back the next day wanting more money, and he killed the eighty-six-year-old man. You all reacted the same way I did — there's a disgust in that, something viscerally wrong about it. That's man's inhumanity to man.
The fourth cause is natural disasters. Jamie Rasmussen, the senior pastor at Scottsdale Bible Church, has a son who goes to Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa — about twenty or thirty minutes north of Iowa City. Jake Each, who was on our staff, is now a pastor of a church there in Cedar Rapids. Jamie texted me the other day; his son was staying in downtown Cedar Rapids. I did a conference there the year before last, and they had really refurbished and remodeled the whole downtown area — but a giant flood had come through there about six years ago and just wiped it out. They weren't ready for it. Hurricanes, tornadoes — you may have seen in the paper last week about the tornado that hit Tucson. It did fifteen million dollars' worth of damage. It was stunning what happened down there.
And then there is Satan's attack. You have a real enemy in Satan, and he has demons, and their desire is to destroy you. They will attack you. So when we ask what causes suffering, those are the categories, with many nuances within each one.
Where Is God in All of This?
Here's the big question: where is God in all of this? Here comes this God who is supposed to love you, supposed to care for you — we've been singing about it — so where is He in the middle of your suffering? Is He simply impotent? Can He see what's happening but is powerless to stop it? Does He not care that you're hanging out there suffering? Or is He fully in control and in authority, but somehow a sadistic God? That is many people's view of God — that He sits up there looking for people to destroy, that He is vengeful and irrational. To address that question, I took two examples: one from Job, and one from the blind man in John.
Job and the Blind Man
In Job, Satan comes and asks God for permission to test Job, and God gives it to him. God puts some parameters around him, but keeps moving them back. Finally, Job has lost everything, and Job says, "Though He slay me, I will trust Him." His friends tell him he is suffering because of sin. We never really get a conclusion — what we see is that God reveals Himself to Job.
Job finally hits a wall where he says he is going to ask God about this. God responds by asking Job: Where were you when I laid the foundations? How does the ocean find its limits? Where do we store the snow? This goes on for chapters. And finally, when God finishes and asks Job what his question was, the implication is clear — Job's questions dissolve in the presence of who God is.
The blind man in John 9 gives us another beautiful scene. Jesus and the disciples come into town, there is a man who is blind, and the disciples ask, "Who sinned, this man or his parents?" That was the traditional wisdom. Jesus said neither — but that the man might become a display case for the work of God. His suffering put him in an incredible position to display God's grace and mercy.
What we see in these two illustrations is not that God doesn't care or that He is unloving. We see that He is in control, that He is very involved, and that He is very intentional. He is not removed, He is not distant, and He has not lost track of you. It is not that His capacity to monitor mankind was maxed out at seven billion — He is God, and in the midst of all of this, He is there.
I can't always figure this out, which in its own way becomes comforting. If I could figure it out completely, He doesn't seem like He would be much of a God.
Everything Happens for a Reason
There is a popular phrase: everything happens for a reason. The implication of that is that somebody must be in control, somebody must be all-knowing, somebody must be all-powerful, and somebody must have these things under their jurisdiction. We use the term accident, but what the scripture teaches is that there really isn't an accident in the truest sense — everything that happens in our life is either caused by or allowed by God.
One of the things that makes suffering and pain and hardship even worse is the idea that there is no purpose to it. But there is purpose. There are many reasons why we suffer, and it is worth working through them carefully.
Twenty-Two Reasons We Suffer
The first is that suffering teaches us patience. I was teaching at Christ Community Church in Tucson some twenty years ago on a passage with a suffering component. I needed to get back to teach Sunday afternoon, so I asked them to put a song after me so I could slip out the back. I finished, went out the back door, and headed down a hallway.
There I came across a woman, about thirty years old, in a wheelchair, along with what I took to be her caregiver — her mother. I stopped and said hello, mentioned I had been speaking about suffering and hardship, and she said it was really good. Her mother said, "Show him what you learned this week."
Her mother lifted out a stick with a flat metal piece on the end with a hole in it, and placed it in the girl's mouth. The girl couldn't use her hands. She dropped that hole over the joystick of her wheelchair and moved herself. She said, "I was the most impatient person in the world, and God is teaching me patience." Suffering does that.
Suffering also produces joy. Weeping lasts through the night, but joy comes in the morning — there is a breakthrough, something like a runner hitting the wall and pushing through it. It produces maturity as well. The testing of our faith produces perseverance and, through that, maturity.
Suffering silences the devil. It teaches us — Psalm 119 tells us that through affliction God drives us to His Word. It purifies us. It makes us like Christ.
In 2 Corinthians 12, verse 9, God says: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. I am content with weaknesses and insults and distress and persecutions and difficulties, for Christ's sake." Suffering keeps us from pride and prevents us from sinning. It chastens us. It proves our sonship — as we discussed before. And it reveals ourselves to ourselves.
This Is the Laboratory
I realized all this stuff makes sense, and the vast majority of you are going to say amen — and it's true. Here's the challenge: this is the classroom. That's the laboratory. I've watched guys who can quote scripture, and along comes the slightest little hiccup and their whole life is ruined. I've watched people I thought were so fragile, and along comes something beyond anything I can comprehend, and God just fills them with the Spirit and they rise to the occasion. You see yourself.
Does it help our prayer life? I've been at the oncologist when the report comes back and he says everything is clear. You know what we say? "Where should we eat?" I've also been there when he says, "This is serious," and all of a sudden the next phrase is, "Let's pray."
Suffering Qualifies Us to Comfort Others
We become an example. We qualify ourselves as counselors. Second Corinthians chapter 1, verse 3: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction so that we may be able to comfort others in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves have been comforted by God." There is something powerful about saying, "I've been there."
The church was very small — we were on Dobson, small numerically, maybe 150 people. So statistically, what I'm about to tell you is almost impossible. We had three families in a period of six months that lost a baby either right before birth, at birth, or right after.
That was really hard. I was not trained for that. I did not prepare for any of that. I remember being with that first lady and her husband and I kind of just waddled through it. The second time I was in exactly the same position — and then all of a sudden the first lady came in and said to that second lady something I could never say: "I know how you feel." All of a sudden, you have a story to tell about the grace and mercy and magnitude of God.
What Suffering Produces
Suffering furthers our witness. It gives us insight into God's nature. That's Job 42:5 — after all his testing, Job says, "Before I heard about You, now I have seen You." Suffering drives us to God. You can read through that list, and probably the overarching umbrella for all of it is that it shows the sovereignty of God. "We know that God causes all things to work together for good, for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose."
Four Ways to Respond
So how do we respond to this? I was at our Arcadia campus years ago, and one of the guys teaching was closing up and said, "Let me give you four points." I thought they were really good. I couldn't remember what he was talking about, but I thought this works for many, many things — and it certainly works here.
Number one: accept it. When suffering, hardship, and difficulty come, accept that it's a reality. It does hurt. You don't have to be the Christian superhero who says, "Oh, it's nothing." It hurts physically. It's hard. It's hard to be the caregiver — sometimes far tougher than the one going through it. And then you feel guilty about feeling guilty. It's real.
Number two: think theologically. That's why we come back to Scripture. There's a phrase — I don't hear it as much anymore, but you used to hear it all the time. Someone would say they're having a real difficulty, a real challenge, and someone else would respond, "Well, it is what it is." That may be one of the most dismissive, damaging things you can say. Someone is sitting in the middle of real pain, and your answer is, "It is what it is — bad roll of the dice, I guess that's how it goes."
So I've expanded that phrase: it is what it is, and He is who He is. I need to think theologically. The problem with our theology is that so often it doesn't ascend high enough to let God be God, or descend low enough to place us honestly in the middle of our sin. Suffering reveals us to ourselves, and we need to gain God's perspective on our situation.
Number three: remember what God has done. You've been in this place before. You've seen His faithfulness. You've read about it. That's the beauty of reading — especially Christian biographies and stories, and your own story. One of the things I regret — and that list is 48 million miles long — is that I never journaled. I've taken a couple of runs at it, so I'm being a total hypocrite here, but if I acknowledge it, maybe it's not quite as hypocritical. There is real power in journaling and going back to ask, "What was I thinking when...?" — to go back and remember what God has done.
Number four: trust Him. You don't need to turn there — I'll just give you the reference. Second Corinthians chapter 4, verse 8: Paul says we are afflicted in every way, we are perplexed, we are persecuted, and we are struck down. He talks about being beaten, stoned, and imprisoned. And at the end of it, God says, "My grace is sufficient for you."
Suffering Teaches Us to Hope
Martin Luther writes this: "Until a person experiences suffering, he cannot know what it means to hope." Beyond the physical and the emotional, one of the deep difficulties of suffering is the uncertainty that comes with it. But there is a certainty — the certainty that God is in control in the midst of all of it. It is not an accident. It may be beyond your comprehension, but that's all right. You are not God. You do not need to figure this out. You know these things are true.
So here is my catch-all, my basic go-to in the midst of all of this: Psalm 46. "Be still and know that I am God."