Expect Suffering and Grow From It
Tom Shrader addresses the reality that all Christians will face suffering and persecution, drawing from 2 Timothy 3:12 and 1 Peter 4:12. He explains that suffering serves God's purposes by building patience, revealing character, making believers more like Christ, and providing a platform to help others. Rather than being surprised by trials, Christians should commit themselves to the Lord, pray for strength, and even thank God for suffering because it produces spiritual growth and endurance.
“God has structured and organized our lives to include problems and suffering - your mission is not to stop the suffering prematurely, but to find Him in the midst of the hurt and pain.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Tools for Finishing Strong
Recorded: November 14, 2018
Duration: 45 min
Themes: suffering, perseverance, endurance, growth, trials, patience, character, strength, facing trials, experiencing hardship, dealing with persecution, struggling believer, mature christian, aging adult, going through difficulty, seeking purpose in pain
Scripture: 1 Peter 4:12, 2 Timothy 3:12, James 1:2-3, Romans 8:28, 2 Corinthians, Daniel 1:8
Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual growth, providence, divine purpose, christlikeness, biblical suffering, persecution, spiritual maturity
Full Transcript
We are continuing a study that we've titled Tools for Finishing Strong. It's born out of conversation after conversation after conversation with people who are talking about the rest of their life, and the biggest aspiration seems to be, "I want to cross the finish line. I want to finish strongly." There's a whole bunch of sub-sets of that, but the obvious is, I can't finish strong if I don't start strong.
I had an opportunity a couple weeks ago on a Friday night to be part of nine different people who spoke for nine minutes on real life topics. It was done here at the church. My topic was aging. They put me last, which I said strategically, that's nine o'clock. They said, "Oh, it's past your bedtime." I said, "No, it's the time you're getting up to go to the bathroom for the first time." So they missed that.
The room was filled with people by nine o'clock who were young people who kind of thought, "I don't think I need that, but maybe my mom would." What I got was this incredible response from people in their—I'm going to say millennials, I don't even know what that means, 35-ish—who said, "That really struck home to me. That really got me." There was a quote I used, and it's a Dostoevsky quote. You always get extra credit if you can quote a Russian novelist. He says, in essence, "The second half of a man's life is nothing more than the consequence and continuation of the first half of a man's life." These 35-year-olds, I've had half a dozen of them come back and quote that to me and say, "That really struck me."
The Foundation: Authority and Learning
So this series is something that's worth sharing with your kids, your grandkids. It's online. The new website's up. We're getting a lot of really good response to the website. It's easy to work. It looks good. These are just tools.
We've said it's about establishing an authority. What are the rules? What are the understandings? That's the scripture. That becomes more and more important in a world that's saying there are no rules. Then I want to learn all my life from the scripture, from the world around me, from the changes that are being made. I want to then make good decisions, solid decisions. In that process, there's a confidence that comes, because not I'm so smart, but God is. So it becomes an issue not of intelligence or even information, but of wisdom.
I'll just give you a tip: Getting old doesn't necessarily mean wise. I can get old and be just as nuts as I was when I was 30. This is what I think we kind of lose. I still have the same issues. My faith has to be integrated into my life. I need to speak the truth boldly after I make the invisible God visible.
The Gains of Growing Older
One of the great things about growing older is I have great gain. We tend to talk about age and put it in the context of loss. "I've lost this. I can't hit it as far. I'm not as strong. I'm not this. I'm not that." Those are all true. But you've gained, presumably, some wisdom, some experience. My circle of friends, you gain time, you gain freedom. What do you do with that?
Tomorrow, Savannah comes. Savannah is my nurse. I have 15 minutes, 20 minutes with Savannah every Thursday. Now, that's not 100 people. That's just Savannah. She's seeing me in my physically weakest condition. But Savannah is really intrigued. "What's your story? What's this?" What do you do with that? So you may not have the sphere of influence numerically you had, but you have more time with more people, and you have an opportunity to live out your faith in front of them.
Embracing the New Normal
Last week we talked about my wheelhouse, and that's contentment. So I have to be content with the fact that I'm not going to— We used to say to kids, "Grow up, act your age." Now, here's what I'm saying to old people: Act your age. Get rid of those goofy pants and that stuff. You don't look good. You're old, just accept it. Do the best you can. Wear a little makeup. Cut your hair. Probably wear long pants. I got all that. But act your age and accept some of those limitations, because that's the way it is.
There's another term—and I'm wandering here because it just popped into my mind—the term "new normal." Here was a mistake I made. I would say, "This is my new normal." I would assume that it was the last new normal I would have. There's a new normal almost every year. There's a new normal with every doctor visit. There's a new normal at every time. So just be content with it. You can't do that. You can do this to be content.
Today's Topic: Expect Suffering and Grow From It
That's today's topic. This is not necessarily a huge draw, but it's really helpful: Expect suffering and grow from it. Expect it. It's part of the deal.
I became a Christian in March of 1980. I've often said, though it may be a little different now, the only thing I've ever done in moderation is work. Everything else I do to excess. I mean, I would have friends in my day who would say, "Schrage, let's go and have a beer." I'd say, "I'll go and get drunk with you, or I'll go home, but I want to have a beer." If I'm going to work out, my first workout is going to be, "Well, I'll run five miles." Forget the fact I can't walk across the street. I'll run five miles.
I became a believer, and I was all in right away. I didn't know much. I needed help, but I was all in. Somebody told me there was something called a Christian bookstore. Never heard of it. There was one at 7th Avenue and Osborne. There was a Christian bookstore. I went into this place. I didn't even know any of these existed. There were all these books. They were absolutely amazing. So I'm checking out. I got an armful of books. I'm checking out, and right by the point of purchase is a display case with a book titled "The Promises of God, Leather Bound Gold Leaf."
And I thought, well, man, I need one of those. Leather bound. So I said, do you have this in a paperback or used or something? They said, we have a paperback. Here's what I discovered. There were promises in this book, the Bible, that didn't make it to the promise gold leaf leather bound book and I printed out for you one of them right there on your handout. 2 Timothy 3:12: "Indeed all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." That promise didn't make it to the gold leaf one. It didn't make it but it's a promise. Yeah, and it's a guarantee. It's the way you live as part of what you have.
We deal with this often with men and women who come to faith and expect—we say this, but what we say and what we really believe are often two different things. We say I don't expect my path to be strewn with roses and make it easy. But then when hard times come we go, I didn't imagine that. I did that in my mind. I thought God, if you were gonna get me, you should have got me in the old days, but not now.
Not this. On your sheet: 1 Peter 4:12: "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeals among you which come to you for your testing. Don't think of them as strange."
Understanding Different Types of Persecution
Now we need to probably break it down and figure out exactly what we're talking about when we talk about persecution. When Nero was on the throne and the Christians were being slaughtered, the estimate—I don't know how they figure this stuff out—about 20,000 Christians a year were being martyred. They say today in our day 2018 that number's around 250,000, roughly ten times more.
There was something the other day somebody was telling me—I don't know if they were saying they saw it on YouTube or somehow they saw it—where literally these Christians, and I don't remember what country it was, were being lined up and they would kneel down and they would just slice their throat. So I think of suffering. I mean my biggest hardship is if Chick-fil-A doesn't make my drink warm enough.
The persecution we have is more subtle, but it's guaranteed. So there's persecution and then there's human suffering and there's just the hardship of life. Our persecution is just as real, but it can be different. It may be job discrimination. It may be you get passed over for the promotion.
We deal with a lot of people who come to Christ out of a background of a faith that would be different than ours. This is a particularly difficult time of year. I normally every year at holiday time warn you to watch out for Thanksgiving and Christmas. You have all these families together. My sense would be this one may be as difficult as any you have, and they're gonna want to talk about politics and they're gonna want to talk about this. Be careful.
The Reality of Family Persecution
You have differing views. Here you go and you add booze to it. It doesn't get better. That doesn't make the problem go away.
I have a friend who's a believer and he was talking about—he said I know how this is gonna go. My in-laws are strong—I don't know how to use the words anymore—they would be strong conservative, figure out what goes with that. And he said my sister last Thanksgiving came in with a t-shirt that said radical feminist. Well, that's not a good combination. That's gonna be—you know, have a scotch isn't gonna help that. Eat quick, get your leftovers and get out.
But you have that and you have people, and there are people in this church whose families are two or three miles away where the in-laws won't talk to the grandkids and their grandparents won't speak to the kids simply because of their faith. So it's real. Suffering, hardship, persecution, difficulty is real. And we need to understand it.
The Purpose of Suffering
One of the great things—and there's a bunch of them we'll talk about at the end—one of the great things about suffering is it strips you bare. R.C. Sproul wrote this: "To remove human suffering is to quit the pilgrimage of faith. God majors in suffering. He displays Himself in holy involvement in all suffering rather than to be removed from suffering and its circumstances. God allows them so we see Him work in them."
Well, I see suffering and my flinch—trust me, my flinch is not to say bring it on, I love it. The suffering comes and immediately I'm going to figure out what's the source of it, how do I get rid of it? What's causing this and how do I get rid of it?
Well here's the thing: determine the source of it best you can, but then learn from it. All suffering allows us to learn who God really is and who we really are.
Key Verses About Learning Through Trials
So I have two verses. One I put on the sheet, the other I'll give it to you, but you know it. James 1:2-3: "Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, tests, suffering." And the next word—the first word of verse 3 is the key word—"knowing." I know something. I know that the testing of my faith produces endurance.
Now a companion verse of that would be Romans 8:28, which I did not put on the list, but you can make a note of it. It says, "And we"—here's the word again—"know. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose."
That key word in both of those is we know something. If your Bible only had one verse in it, and it was Romans 8:28, "And we know God causes all things to work together for good"—and just in case you want to grab that verse, make sure you get the end of it—"to those who love God." So it's a promise to believers.
If you're in here and you're going and you're a guest or somehow you got here—you couldn't sleep and you ended up here—that promise is not for you. But we know this: if that's the only verse we had, we would know two things about God. For that verse to be true, God must be all-powerful. If He's gonna work things together for good, He's got to be able to do it. And He must be all-knowing. You can't separate them. If He's all-powerful but He's not all-knowing, He looks at the after fact and says, "Oh man, I would have—"
done something, but I didn't know that was going to happen. Or if He's all-knowing, but not all-powerful, He'd be in heaven screaming no, no, no, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. Out of this comes enormous comfort: He's in control.
The phrase that I go to Houston once in a while, haven't been in a while, and it was the first place that I did a talk with the title "What You Know Trumps What You Feel." Now the Trump word's gotten screwed up in this whole thing and now I can't, you know, the minute I hear that they shut down. If you got a better word, that's the right word: what you know trumps what you feel.
When Feelings Overwhelm Truth
That whole phrase came about when I got a call one night from a lady who said, "Tom, Bible study, yes, you know so and so. Her husband was just killed. Can you come and meet with us?" We're walking along, and we're talking, and she's saying, "I don't know what to do. I don't know how to handle the finances." She's just overwhelmed. It's not like a long battle. He just died. It was the last thing you expected.
As she's talking, I'd like to say God gave it to me. I don't have a clue if that's true or not. But as she's talking and saying, "This is what I feel," I found myself saying, "Okay, but what do you know?" She said, "Well, I was in Bible study with you today, this morning. And I know I'm forgiven." She started to list those out.
When circumstances come flooding around you, and obviously in the context of aging, you can apply this all over, what you feel starts to trump what you know. I found so often that when you hurt, you're vulnerable. When you're hurting physically, emotionally, spiritually, you're vulnerable to every whack job idea that's out there.
The Danger of False Comfort
I don't know, well, it was 25 years ago, I think. I had all these people recommend books. I do it too. But I'm pretty conscious that that's a big responsibility. I don't want to say to you, read this book, it's a great book. I'll mention it, I'll do my disclaimer. But I had all these Christian people recommending this book.
So I went to the bookstore, endorsement on the back from a Christian guy, I bought the book. I started reading the book. It was well written. It was thought through. But it was filled with heresy. Filled with false doctrine. It was written by a rabbi whose son was killed, and he was trying to make this thing work.
This book, which is titled "Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People," chapter seven was titled "God Can't Do Everything, But He Can Do Some Very Important Things." And you need to be prepared to forgive God, understanding His limitations. I've seen interviews with this guy, way smarter than I am, an incredible guy. But he's trying to make sense out of all this stuff, and it's beyond your pay grade. You're not going to understand.
Accepting the Mystery
I can think and think and think and wonder, but I can't explain an earthquake that kills 5,000 people. I can't explain why right now at Phoenix Children's Hospital, there are babies that are dying. I can help you, and more importantly myself, try to grapple with this stuff, but ultimately, I have to know that God's at work. He's not lost.
Literally, I'm in my computer this morning because I wanted to get these verses, so you had them, and I wanted to get you that quote from Larry. I hit something. Whatever's on my computer just starts spinning. I'm watching, I need Dramamine to work on my computer now. It's spinning, and I'm frustrated. So I said, well, it's just not going to work.
What do you do in a moment like that? I go to the bathroom. I come back, the thing's not spinning, everything's gone, but it's back to where it was. I hit another button, and another button, and I don't know what I did, but everything that was there is now back. I don't understand how all that happens, but I know it happens for a reason.
God's not like that computer who's up in heaven, and He's loading. God doesn't have loading written across His forehead with the little thing spinning. He's got it figured out. He's got all that in there. I don't understand Him, but that doesn't mean that I push Him away. I know. I've got to know. What do I know?
God's Purpose in Our Pain
Years ago, I wrote these two sentences, and they helped me figure it out. I wrote: "God has structured and organized our lives to include problems and suffering. Your mission is not to stop the suffering prematurely, but to find Him in the midst of the hurt and pain, and not be absorbed in the pain and try to figure a way out."
Now I'm not saying don't alleviate it. I'm saying our flinch, if somebody comes to you today, and they say, "I really have a problem," I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to try to figure out a way to fix it. I'm going to try to figure out a way, how do we get out of this thing? Rather than understand it.
This is the worst case. If you're a parent, I guarantee you, you've grappled with this. You've got a kid in trouble. Big trouble, little trouble. The first thing you want to do is get him out of that problem. But then you've got to figure out, well, how do I let him learn from this? The way to learn from this is the consequences. Experience the consequences. That's pretty hard to watch. That's pretty hard to watch when you have all that go through.
But in the suffering and pain, God's not absent. God's right in the middle of this. So, I probably have about 15 minutes left, 12 or 13. Let me touch on this stuff quickly and just give you some things to think about and some tools.
Why Do People Suffer?
Why do people suffer? By the way, this is what I've been doing more and more lately in teaching, and it can be a cop-out, but you can Google this. You don't need to be very smart with a lot of books anymore. You can Google, "Why do you suffer?" And you'll find all sorts of things that
But it produces patience in your life. I don't know if I have patience. If I'm driving from here to Whole Foods at Ray and the 101, I don't know if I have patience if every light is green. I don't know if I have patience or not. Suffering produces patience and maturity.
And suffering teaches us. Here's a big thing, one of my favorites about suffering: it reveals ourselves to ourselves. So you can state it positively or negatively. I'm all along thinking, I could never handle that. And all of a sudden I suffer, and I'm going, wow, I handled that. Now it was God in me. I got all the theology. But I don't want to get to the point where we can't just use language here. I got through it. I didn't think that was possible.
Some on the other hand are so cocky. "I can do all things," and "You've got to risk me," and we got all this stuff. Then along comes a broken nail, and your life's devastated. Suffering allows me to see what's really there.
Adversity as Character Builder and Revealer
So adversity, we always talk about adversity is a character builder. That's true. But adversity is also a character revealer. It's really easy when things are good, your kids are good, your health is good, business is good, everything's good. It's really easy to be good, and to think everything is okay, and to think you're some sort of a spiritual giant. It's the test of prosperity. That's hard, but so is adversity.
It makes you like Christ. It gives you an opportunity to learn. Doesn't mean you'll take it, but it draws you closer to God. It can make you able to learn and to be teachable.
I was in a church, not a Redemption church, the summer before last. The guy teaching is probably thirty-two, thirty-three. I got socks older than him. He's talking about suffering. And I'm thinking, buddy you don't have a clue. I mean the biggest suffering you've had is Amazon was an hour late making a delivery. I don't want to minimize that, but there's something rich about talking to a person who's faced all sorts of adversity.
It makes you teachable, and it gives you a platform to teach. That's what 2 Corinthians is all about. You've suffered, you've seen, you've learned, now you share with others. It's one thing to come and talk to me about what it's like to lose a baby. I've never had that experience. But talk to Barbara, talk to William—they've had it. And it gives you a platform. Those are all things of suffering.
What to Do When Suffering Comes
So I made a list with six or eight things on it. What do you do when suffering comes?
Number one: don't be surprised. That's 1 Peter 4. Don't be surprised. Don't go, "Oh wow, I didn't think this was going to happen." I have DirecTV. I tried to stop Cox years ago, but I was on hold for a week and a half to tell them I wanted out. I finally had it with them. I'm on DirecTV. If you're on DirecTV, one of the beauties of it is you can say numbers and talk to people. From about number 363 through 378 or 379, all the religious channels.
There's an amazing channel on DirecTV, 387. If you want to watch something interesting—selling yachts, selling jets, buying mansions. I don't know why, but I'm intrigued by this thing. If you go on those channels, you get to pick the heresy you want. And it'll be on there. One of them is going to be, "God doesn't want you sick. God doesn't want you struggling." Well, here you go: God may want you sick. He may. Why? Well, for all the reasons we've already talked about. So don't be surprised by that. Don't let it shake your faith, but it'll drive you to your faith.
Commit Yourself to the Lord
Here's the second thing: commit yourself at the very beginning of this. Commit yourself to the Lord. Come to Him constantly. In Daniel chapter 1, verse 8, Daniel's going to be tested and tried by the king. And Daniel says he reckoned, he decided, he made a decision to trust God.
Here's the third thing—and again, if you're a cynic, you could discount this: don't try to understand this. Why? Why? Why? I don't know. I don't know why. "I don't know" is a really good answer. It's almost arrogant to think that you could understand all that God's doing.
You're Not the Only One
Here's the next thing: realize you aren't the only person that's ever gone through this. What suffering does is close you down and makes you extraordinarily selfish. And it sets up for that. I'm really vulnerable here. Everywhere I go, everybody asks me how I'm feeling. "How are you doing? How are you feeling? How's this?" I got it. And I appreciate it. And it's my problem, not theirs.
My problem is, I tend to answer it. So I'm giving them blood reports and my PSA and everything that goes with it. And no matter what we do, we end up talking about me. And I begin to think it's me. It's you.
Every guy in this room has done this. You get the flu. And you're sick. And you're in bed. And in comes somebody to help you. And you say, "Lots of people have had the flu, but nobody's ever had the flu like this. Nobody's as sick as I am right now." I don't know what you're going through. I'm not saying everybody's gone through it, but a lot of people have.
Pray and Thank God
Here's the next thing, and this ought to be toward the top: pray. When I pray, I'm acknowledging that this is beyond my control. I'm asking God to intervene—not necessarily remove the circumstances, but help me understand it. When I pray, I make two assumptions. Number one, that God cares. And number two, that He can do something about it.
Here's the next thing when you encounter suffering: thank God for it. We've got Thanksgiving dinner next week. And we'll have a time, and there'll be all these kids, and all this beautiful time together. And it'll be time to eat. And we have a hard time because when we get together, everybody in there—
is paid to pray. So we're all trying to figure out who's going to pray. I try to give it to Tyler, and Tyler seems like he goes a little long. Tyler prays with PowerPoint at dinner. But we get to pray.
Well, the kids will want to pray. "Thank you for grandma. Thank you for my brother. Thank you for my new dress." No one has prayed, ever, "God, thank you for the cancer. God, thank you for the deal that didn't make." It's almost inconceivable. Why would I pray and thank Him for that?
Well, for all the things we talked about. Because I know the testing of my faith produces endurance. It's the spiritual aerobics.
Spiritual Aerobics
Years ago, and I have to be careful here because I'm in and out of getting in shape and working out, but years ago I was healthy, in shape, and decided I was going to join a gym. I was going to go beyond join a gym. I was going to go to the gym.
So I go, and there's a treadmill. It says, "How long do you want to be on there?" So I push 60 minutes. I wasn't thinking about it. "At what speed do you want this?" I don't know. It was like four miles an hour or something. I thought, well, that sounds slow. Five miles an hour. And then it asked me if I wanted an incline. I thought, well, yeah, I need a little incline. Well, I incline it.
At the three minute mark, I'm done with this. I'm hit. I'm grabbing. There's a big red button and I'm hitting it. So I go over and there's a young lady, maybe 20, probably built about like Haley is. She's probably about 100 pounds. She's working on these machines. So I thought, well, I'll just follow whatever she does. I'll follow her through. She's on the rowing machine, the row, push, whatever it is, weights. She's sitting down, my feet, and she's pushing. So I sit down, I don't change the weight, and I'm like this. So I follow her for a couple things, and I don't want to make this too graphic. But finally, my legs are shaking. I've probably been there 15 minutes. I go and get in a car and I just throw up everywhere.
Now six months later, I don't do 60 minutes, but I do 30 minutes. I don't do 30 pounds, but I do 80 pounds. Because of aerobics. You build up to it. Suffering is spiritual aerobics.
Don't Become a Martyr
Here you go, two more things, and we're running out of time. Don't become a martyr. It's so easy to be a victim. It's so easy to make a sad story with yourself the centerpiece of all of this.
And this is one you wouldn't think you would need, but don't suffer needlessly. You don't have to go. There's an amazing part of a story where Jesus encounters a sick man, and Jesus says to him—it's an odd question—"Do you want to be healed?" Now you would think that that's a no-brainer: yes. But there's some benefits to being sick. If my friends are moving, they never call me to help. "Can you get the other side of this dresser?" "Nope. I can stop by Payway and pick up a to-go order and bring it to you." If you're sick, there's those benefits. Don't start to create that mentality.
The Key to Everything
Now the key to this whole thing, I think, can be summarized in the sentence I gave you that Larry spoke. And we have to close. Larry said, "I would rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently." So if you just say, "I would rather suffer than prosper," that makes no sense. But those words of obedience are in there. "I'd rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently." Why? Because I know my obedient suffering is as temporary as my disobedient prospering.
I was talking to someone the other day, and it was somebody I know pretty well. So they were saying—I hadn't seen them in a while—and they said, "Give me a full medical update." I said, "Really? Okay." And I started. The more I got, I got on a roll. He said, "You know what's cool?" And then he quotes myself back to me, which I don't like that. He said, "No matter how bad it gets, it can only last a lifetime."
Well, that's true. That's what Larry's saying. Why would I rather suffer than prosper? Because I know both of these are temporary, and God's working through that suffering to make me more like the man or woman that He wants me to be. There's a whole bunch of things that contribute to that. But at the key, at the top of that list, is suffering.
If I want to finish strong, I need to suffer it, because suffering produces perseverance. I went along again, I'm sorry. I'm going to remind you, we're not meeting next week, which you'll kind of figure out. But we're not meeting the following week either. And if you don't remember all that, it's on the website under weekly study.
Father, thank You for this. This is one of those lessons where we really need You to take this knowledge from our head to our heart, and let us live in a way that glorifies You. Father, remind us that what we know indeed trumps what we feel. We believe that. We know that. Put it deep in our heart. We pray that in Christ's name, Amen.
Have a great week. I'll see you next week. No, I won't. I'll see you in two weeks, three weeks, sometime.