1 Peter 4 - Suffering to Worship
Tom Shrader examines 1 Peter 4:12-19, teaching that Christians should not be surprised by suffering since it serves God's purposes in their lives. He categorizes suffering into three types: persecution for obedience to Christ, consequences of sin or poor decisions, and the normal wear and tear of life. Shrader emphasizes that God either causes or allows all suffering for believers' spiritual growth and His glory, calling them to entrust their souls to their faithful Creator while continuing to do what is right.
“God has structured and organized our lives to include problems and suffering. Your mission is not to stop the suffering, but find Him in the midst of the hurt and the pain.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: 1 Peter
Recorded: 2012
Duration: 50 min
Themes: suffering, persecution, worship, trials, obedience, faithfulness, endurance, trust, facing persecution, experiencing hardship, dealing with consequences, enduring trials, new believer, struggling christian, suffering saint, faithful under pressure
Scripture: 1 Peter 4:12-19, 2 Timothy 3:12, James 1:2, Romans 8:28, Matthew 5:10-11, 1 Thessalonians 4:11, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, 1 Corinthians 10:13, Daniel 1:8, 2 Corinthians 1
Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual growth, providence, divine sovereignty, persecution theology, christian suffering, biblical trials, faithful creator
Full Transcript
Open your Bibles to the book of 1 Peter and the 4th chapter. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand and the guys will get you a copy. Feel free to take that home with you if you don't have a Bible at all.
We're looking at 1 Peter chapter 4, verses 12 through 19. The heading in my Bible on this section is "Share the Sufferings of Christ." That, in a way, has been the theme for the last four weeks. We've talked about suffering basically for four weeks. So what I want to do today, and this closes that section, as we move into the last chapter of this book, there's an emphasis on serving in particular.
Three Categories of Suffering
When I think of suffering, and we could use a word like persecution in there, I create in my mind three big buckets. One is suffering as a result of our obedience to Christ and the suffering or persecution that's associated with it - the mistreatment from people around us. The second bucket is suffering for sin or bad decisions. So in our life, we'll sin and there's a consequence to it, or we'll just do things that are not necessarily sinful, they're just dumb.
I was on campus here Tuesday when Luke did a memorial service for Charlie Jolly, who was one of the guys who was on campus here and then went out on the church plant at Gateway. Wonderful guy. In the course of the message, Luke reminded us of a poster that somebody had given me years ago. It was a picture of John Wayne, and the caption was, "Life is tough, especially if you're stupid." And it's really pretty good. So there's suffering where you just keep doing the same thing over and over again.
The third bucket is what I would call the normal wear and tear of life. We're never exempt from these. You get old, your back hurts, your garage door opener breaks, your parents die, or your kids die, or your relationships break down. So when we think of suffering, we can take that word suffering, or trials, or tribulations, and put them in those three big buckets.
The Context of Persecution
In the context here, it's on that first bucket, that persecution idea. But I found myself, so much of what I prepared as I studied, to be repetitious. So what I want to do is do a bit of a flyover of this passage, spending a little bit of time on verse 12 and some time on verse 19, and then come all the way back around and tie this together by looking at suffering in this general sense - not necessarily bucket one or two, but that third bucket, suffering in our life. I want to talk about why do we suffer, and what do I do when suffering comes. So hopefully I have great application to it. But the application all stems from what hopefully will be really good theology.
Tim last week took us through verse seven of chapter four: that the end of all things is near. So be sound, be sober, love one another, be hospitable, use your gifts. Now He comes along in verse 12, and it feels like an abrupt turn.
"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeals among you, which comes upon you for your testing as though some strange things were happening to you. But to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing so that at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with His exultation. If you're reviled for the name of Christ, you're blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. Make sure that none of you suffer as murderers or thieves or evildoers or troublesome meddlers."
Distinguishing Types of Suffering
At least here, by way of observation, He's saying there's this suffering in verses 12, 13, 14 that's a result of my suffering for Christ. But in verse 15, don't be suffering for ill in your life, for things that you've done, sin in your life.
"If anyone suffers as a Christian, He's not ashamed, but it's the glory of God in His name, for it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God, and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel?"
He says judgment will begin, and when it does, we'll be first in this. Again, our judgment as Christians is not condemnation. Our sins have already been judged and placed upon Christ on the cross. That will be a judgment for rewards. But He said, as that judgment comes, there'll then be judgment for those who don't know Christ, and that will be a fiery end.
"And if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved, what will be the outcome of the godless man and godless sinner? Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful creator in doing what is right."
The Reality of Ongoing Testing
That really does tee up the idea of how do I handle or how do I live in the midst of this suffering. As I said, the context for verse 12 comes out of this time of saying, I want you to do this. The end is near. Love one another, be hospitable, and He goes right in there and says, now, don't be surprised that the testing continues.
There's kind of a flinch in our life, most of us have, that as we draw closer to Christ and our life begins to look like His, and we take a life that was filled with sin and now it has less sin in it, that all of a sudden, hardship comes. Though we acknowledge that we know it's not this way, we kind of think, "God, if you were going to zap me, you should've zapped me before. Why are you doing this now?"
He said, "I don't want you to be surprised by this."
I became a Christian in 1980, and shortly after that, within weeks, I was introduced to something I didn't even know existed—a Christian bookstore. I didn't even know they were out there, and now there aren't many, to be honest. I will tell you that the best Christian bookstore in the valley is in the back of this campus, and we have guys from all over the country who will comment on that. It's not that we have hundreds of thousands of titles, we don't, but just great stuff in there. The independent Christian bookstore is almost maybe gone in the valley. There may be some left I don't know about, and for probably two reasons. One is churches begin to sell books, and two, obviously, Amazon just kills these guys.
I became a Christian, and my office was in downtown Phoenix. There was a Christian bookstore on Central just south of Thomas, and there was another one at 7th Avenue and Osborn. Maybe I'd been a believer a month, and I'm in this Christian bookstore at 7th Avenue and Osborn, just loading up with books. As I'm checking out, I plop all my books down, and the lady is checking me out. I see this leather-bound gold-leaf book called The Promises of God. I'm thinking, "Well, I gotta have that," but I'm running out of money here. I said, "Have you got a paperback version of this? I don't want to pop for the leather-bound." She said, "Sure."
The Missing Promise
Here's what happened, and it took a while, but as I read through The Promises of God book, and as I read through this Bible, I discovered that there were some promises in the Bible that didn't make it to The Promises of God book. Here's one of them: 2 Timothy 3, verse 12: "All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted."
This little book is filled with these wonderful promises of all the good blessings and all the prosperity and all the stuff that goes with it, but something like that, which is a promise from God—that as I begin to live for Him, there'll be persecution—though most of us are pretty removed from it, there'll be continued hardship, difficulty. My path is not strewn with roses.
Even today, there are about 250,000 Christians who are martyred around the world, who give their life for Christ. The persecution that we encounter—Sandy and I were just talking about it yesterday. Actually, we were talking about this whole lesson yesterday, and it seems minuscule. I read in The Sudan that one of the things that they were doing to Christians last year is as they were killing them, they were actually skinning them. All of a sudden saying, "You may have somebody who makes fun of you at work" doesn't seem so bad. I don't want to dismiss it. I'm saying it's real, but it seems very different.
The Reality of Modern Persecution
We may experience, once in a while, some sort of discrimination at work maybe. Maybe friends may get passed over for a job. Maybe old friends who make fun of you. We've had, in the church, families who've been literally declared dead by their family because they came to Christ. Especially at this time of year, it's really a tough time for them. You want all the family get-togethers and all that, and they don't talk to them. The grandparents might call and talk to the grandkids, but they ignore the parents. There's some level of that.
He said, "Don't be sad." He's writing to them and they're being persecuted. It's costing them everything to follow Christ. Remember, that's what we talked about at the very beginning of this book. Chapter one, verse one: those who are alien and scattered. He said, "Don't be surprised by this." Don't fall into the trap of thinking that somehow, as I walk closer with Him in their context, that this persecution will be removed.
The same thing is true of us. We shouldn't think that somehow, as we grow closer to Christ, that there is an absence of those who would persecute us in our way, or that the suffering and the pain of the world would somehow avoid us.
Testing Produces Growth
James chapter one, verse two: "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing the testing of your faith produces endurance." You see the same thing here in verse 12: "Don't be surprised by these fiery ordeals among you which come upon you for your testing."
The idea there is like the proving grounds where they would take an automobile that they've tested and manufactured. Now they take it to the proving ground and now they begin to drive it to see what's really there. These tests come and He said, "This is what they do. They grow you, they mature you. They're spiritual aerobics." Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing the test of yourself produces perseverance.
I got up today to come over here and then shortly after I got up, Sandy got up to run. She ran, I think it was like—she said it was a short day, so like four and a half miles. Then she comes back and has her tea and then at eight o'clock, she goes and swims for an hour and it's competitive swimming. I cheer for her. It's about all I do. Make sure her tea's ready when she gets home.
Physical and Spiritual Strength
I haven't been to the gym since March, February really. It all started in all this and then I got kind of sick and then it got worse. I'm trying to build back up. I've been walking and then this is my week to go back to the gym. I know I'm gonna hate this because I know exactly what's gonna happen. I know how sick I'm gonna be, I know how much it's gonna hurt. I'm really smart, I won't push myself. I'm smart and lazy—that's a good combination. I won't push myself, but I know this: I know in my head that I have to push myself physically in order to get physically stronger.
God says to us to get spiritually stronger, there has to be these things called trials or tests or suffering. They make us dependent upon Him. Life comes at us. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians chapter four as he evaluates His—
Afflicted but Not Crushed
Paul captures this beautifully in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 as he describes life in verse eight. He writes, "We are afflicted in every way but not crushed. Perplexed but not despairing. Persecuted but not forsaken. Struck down but not destroyed."
Now let me read you that from Eugene Peterson, the paraphrase. He says this: "We're surrounded and battered by troubles, but we're not demoralized. We're not sure what to do, but we know God knows what to do. We've been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn't left our side. We've been thrown down, but we're not broken."
And then he adds, and this gets into really the text in front of us: "What they did to Jesus, they'll do to us." So what Peter's saying is don't be surprised by this. Don't come upon these things as they were in some way happening, strange things happening to you.
Don't Be Surprised by Suffering
The idea of happening to you has the idea of just chance. That there's something behind all of this. That God is still in control in the midst of this.
Verse 13: "To the degree that you share in the suffering of Christ"—now this isn't His redemptive suffering. But as you share for the sake of Christ, to that degree, He seems to say, to that degree, you can be rejoicing because you will be blessed and rewarded for that.
Matthew chapter 5 verse 10: "Blessed are those who've been persecuted for the sake of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me," Jesus says. "Rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great."
The Spirit of Glory Rests Upon You
That's what He's saying here in verse 13 and 14. This idea of suffering—there's a time, there's a hardship, there's a difficulty, but at the end of this time, there is that reward. There's that time. He says there is the idea of the Spirit of glory and God rests upon you.
John MacArthur writes this: "It's not merely because of the suffering of the Holy Spirit that rests on believers but as when He came on and departed from the Old Testament prophets. Rather, that He's already being in the believer's life permanently and that He gives them supernatural relief in the midst of His suffering." That the idea of the peace of God that passes all understanding is not to eliminate necessarily the suffering or the hardship or the circumstances but to climb in there in the midst of it with you. He rests upon you, the present tense, it's to give relief, He gives relief.
Don't Be a Troublesome Meddler
Now, verse 15: don't be stupid, don't be corrupt, don't be a murderer or a thief. Those were capital crimes in the ancient world. Or evildoer—it's a term that's all-encompassing of all sorts of crimes. He said, don't do that and then he adds, or troublesome meddlers.
So if you took them on a path of severity, you have, here's the murderers and the evildoers and the thieves and here's this one down here who's kind of a meddler in other people's business. Again, MacArthur writes this: "The Christians are never to be troublemakers or agitators in the society or in the place of work. They may confront sin in the lives of other believers and help administer church discipline or challenge unbelievers with the gospel and exhort false fellow saints to greater levels of godliness, but regarding others' private matters, they do not concern them. Believers should never intrude inappropriately."
Paul writes this in 1 Thessalonians 4:11: "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business." He's saying, in the midst of all of this, there's no benefit. If you perform a capital offense and you're penalized, you shouldn't be surprised by that and if you're poking your nose in other people's business and you suffer as a result of it, that's a waste of time and energy. I don't want you doing that.
Glorify God in Your Suffering
Verse 16: "If anyone suffers as a Christian, he's not ashamed, but it's to glorify the name of God." The idea there is to praise God for the privilege of honoring suffering, be associated with Him.
So that in verse 19, he can say, "Those also who suffer according to the will of God." So it could be more than two, but at least two things. It could be that the suffering is the will of God or the way they approach it in obedience, really submission to that, is the will of God. Those who suffer according to the will of God.
God May Want Hardship in Your Life
And I'll make the point, because it's really important, is that God may want hardship and difficulty and challenge in your life. I've shared with you the last couple of weeks that about seven weeks ago, Sandy and I became Direct TV people. You've been Cox people all along and I've spent hours on hold and finally I had it. That's not a shot at Cox. I loved Cox, I stayed with them a long time. I was a faithful customer. But we went to Direct TV.
On Direct TV, we have all these channels now. There's a lot, I'm discovering them all the time, great channels. But on 363, 363 to 373, are all Christian television. Church channel, all that stuff. And it is on certain days, and I've used this picture imagery with you before, it's like drinking false doctrine out of a fire hydrant when you turn it on. It's bad.
Well, the other night, there's two guys that are particularly bad. And to which you would join Sandy's chorus, which would say what? "Turn the channel, turn the channel." "He wants to know what it is." "Turn the channel." I said, "I will. I just need a little more material here, I'm getting close."
And so, this guy is talking about God doesn't want you sick and God doesn't want you struggling and I just, I don't see that in the scripture. God brings about all this stuff, allows all this stuff in Job's life. We can look at that and say, here's some serious suffering and pain that God uses for Job's good in this case. So, Job says at the end of it, right? "Before I heard about you, now I've seen you." So, it's for Job's good and ultimately for God's glory. So, in our life comes these things.
Now, here comes this suffering, this hardship. Again, in the context here, I want to remain true, it's the persecution, but I'm going to add to it all the suffering and wear.
and tear of life. He said, "I want you to entrust." It's a banker's term referring to a deposit for safekeeping. He's saying, "I want you to entrust your soul, I want you to entrust your life to the faithful creator." It's the only time specifically that God is referred to in the New Testament that God's called creator.
Here's what He's saying. In the midst of all this, and we can get from verse 12 that implication that this may catch you off guard or it may cause you to particularly regroup, maybe even question or doubt, I want you to entrust your soul to the creator, the author of everything, the designer of all, who sustains it all, who began it all, who continued it all. You can entrust Him with your soul and then here's what you do: do what is right.
The Third Type of Suffering
So I want to make full circle here. I want to talk mostly about the suffering, hardship, difficulty in our life. That's that third bucket. It's the wear and tear of living. I don't think anybody is surprised or when you really talk about it, somehow thinks it's not right or fair that if you sin, there may be consequences to it, suffering consequences. If you do stupid things over an extended period of time, there may be stupid things inevitably result in suffering. But that third part, that wear and tear, R.C. Sproul writes this: "To remove God from human suffering is to quit the pilgrimage of faith. God majors in suffering. He displays Himself in holy involvement in all suffering." Rather than be removed from our suffering, it's those circumstances that allow us to see God at work, to be reminded that He's in control.
A Personal Example of Wearing Down
As I said, I wasn't feeling well last week and then late around Monday and Tuesday, came in here Wednesday and taught, went to a meeting, got sick in the middle of the meeting, went home, had to get for PL on Thursday, went downtown for the early morning seven o'clock meeting, got sick right before that meeting and then text Frank and said, "Can you take noon?" And then I went home and just laid around and worked on this. I'm having a hard time concentrating. Watched a lot of football yesterday. I could concentrate on that.
But in the midst of that, I saw a lot of TV and a lot of news and a lot of stuff and you get the sense that everything is wrong. Notre Dame's playing for the national title. That doesn't seem right. Politics seems upside down. The economy, I don't know who you believe, but it's teetering on an edge and we're gonna fall off and it isn't gonna matter. And after a while, it's what I tell you all the time: if you have a steady diet of Fox News and Sean Hannity and all these guys, it's gonna screw you up. It's gonna eventually, and potentially, I think screw up your spiritual life even. If you're driving around listening to that, you're so better off punching up 90.3 or 105.5.
When Everything Feels Wrong
But I'm listening to that and I'm sinking. I'm sinking physically, I'm sinking emotionally. I'm saying this is awful. The Mayan calendar is right. We're all gonna be blown up on the 21st. So I'm going, I don't know. As you look around the world, and maybe you don't even need to look to the world, you can just look to your own life, you get a sense that things aren't good.
And it can go in a couple of ways. You feel like you're doing everything right, but it's not working. And God comes along and reminds us over and over again that if our faith and trust is in free market capitalism, or the Republican Party, or the Tea Party, or the Democrat Party, we're gonna be disappointed. Because at that point, we've made them false gods. Our faith and trust should be in Him.
Finding Anchor in Scripture
So I'm gonna study every Friday. I didn't make it Friday. And it's on scripture memory this week. And I thought, oh my gosh, I know how this is gonna be. They're gonna go around the room and call on everybody and say, "Give us your verse." So there's one thing that I always find in music is I meet people and they go, "You know, there's a passage in the Bible that's meant so much to me and God's used it in so many ways. And it's my favorite passage." And I'll say, "Really, what is it?" "I really can't remember it at this moment." And I get it, there could be just a block, but it seems odd. It seems like if it's that big a deal, you ought to remember it.
So I know that in that room, they're gonna ask me. And I thought, what passage? And the one that came up first to me was Romans 8:28. Matter of why, I'm sure the passage would change as time went on, but Romans 8:28: "And we know God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose." And I take that passage, that verse, Romans 8:28, and put it right in the context of this whole idea of suffering.
God's Control in Our Suffering
"And we know God causes all things to work together for good." As we've said to you many times, if we have a Bible that only has one verse in it and that's that verse and we know it's true, we know God is all knowing and all powerful or that couldn't be true. And then I put to it the rest of this book that says He loves me and cares for me. But in the middle of this suffering and pain, I've gotta understand that they may be out of my control, but it's not out of God's control.
And one of the things that I learned a long time ago is that when suffering comes, a lot of times, the first thing we jettison is sound theology. Either for fear that we can't fit it in somehow or we want to protect God's reputation. So people, all of a sudden, you suffer and you're trying to put it in a box.
Bad Theology in Popular Books
I was a Christian for about three years. There was a book that came out and I had all these people recommend it to me. I finally went to the bookstore. There were a couple of Christian celebrities who'd endorsed it. So I got it and I'm reading it. And as I'm reading it, each page gets worse. And the book was called "Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?"
When you get to chapter seven, this should have been the tip off. Chapter seven's title was "God Can't Do Everything, But He Can Do Some Very Important Things." Now, we all, in the sterile environment of this room, laugh at that. But when you're in the middle of hurt and pain, a lot of times your head goes, where's God?
I get it. I had the same thing when I read it. I just laughed out loud when I read the chapter. But this author was moved by the death of his son, if I remember from a traffic accident, and was trying to figure all this out. And his answer was to take God and minify Him and make Him impotent and say, I know if God could have, He would have stopped it. Well, that's not true. God either causes or allows everything or He's not God.
Learning Through Suffering: Real Stories
I was teaching in Tucson. I had to laugh because a couple Fridays ago, people kept saying, because ASU was playing the U of A, people kept asking me, who's gonna win? Who's gonna win? I said, that's easy. ASU, because no matter what happens in the game, they get to leave Tucson. So that's an easy, that isn't even hard. Every other year, ASU automatically wins that game. They don't have to stay down there.
So, I digress. Now a long time ago, it's when we did evening services only. I was in Tucson teaching at a pretty large church down there on Sunday morning. And one of the things I hate is a guest guy who drops his load and then disappears. I hate that. Hang around, you're not gonna talk to everybody, but get at some people. That's one of the challenges we have when we're in two locations here. For me to get in here and see some people, get over there and see people, it just can't be done.
But I'm down there, and I told them, one of my pet peeves is a guy who drops his load and leaves. Now, let me tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna drop my load and leave, because I gotta be back up to Phoenix within about two and a half hours. So when I end, they're gonna play a song, I'm going out the back door. It's not because they don't care about you or like you, or I've got a fire or a pill to take or something. I gotta get back there, that's where I'm going.
So I get out, I'm going down this hallway, and there's a lady standing behind and pushing a lady in a wheelchair. And if there was a way to avoid it, I would have. But I couldn't. So I came and I said, hey, how are you this morning? Good, fine. Very, very nice. And I'm ready to move on.
And the gal in the wheelchair said, I really enjoyed your message. And the message had been on suffering. And I said, you know, I feel a little embarrassed. My suffering is if they make my drink wrong at Starbucks. You have a very different level here. And she said, no, no, no. What you said was exactly true.
And I didn't say anything there. But my point would have been, I hope so, because I thought it was really scripturally based. But she said, in my life, I was the most impatient person in the whole world. And then this happened. And I became literally a totally different person. And she said, and I quote, God really taught me patience.
God's Purpose in Our Pain
Now, am I saying that if you're an impatient person, God's going to put you in a wheelchair? I'm not saying that. I'm saying there's what happens in the midst of that suffering.
I was teaching in Forrest's home. And they wanted to do a Q&A at the end of the last session. And so there's a guy in the back. And bad acoustics, I don't hear particularly well. And I couldn't understand a thing he said. And it was clear that he was having some trouble speaking. I said, listen, I don't know. Why don't you come up afterwards, and we'll deal with it.
And he came up. And he said, and I'm not making fun of him at all. I want you to understand how it was. But he said, I'm sorry. My mind sometimes races, and my tongue can't keep up. I said, well, pal, I got that. And he said, what happened to me is I was in an accident. And his friend told about it, a car wreck and all this. In a coma for three and a half months, and had some obviously lingering damage.
And he said, I want to be an evangelist, because my life is so filled with joy. And it's joy in the midst of this suffering and this pain. And his friend said, and it's the joy he brings to everybody around him.
Dave Dravecky's Story
So I step back, and I look at it. And I say, boy, this is a terrible thing. I always told this story, but it was always speculative until one day I sat down with Dave Dravecky, and I said, I've got a really bold question. Let me ask it. And I said, here's a story I've told a million times. Is it true? Because I'm speculating. He said, yes. So that's good.
So Dave Dravecky is pitching, all-star pitcher. And he's praying, he and his wife. And they're praying, God, use us. We have a platform. Use us. So his arm kind of snaps. And they have to do some surgery. And they put him back.
And he's out pitching one day. And he throws. And as he lets it go, the infielder said it was like a gun went off. And when they got in, it was cancer. And they had to take his arm.
And everybody's saying, oh, isn't this tragic? Isn't this terrible? I understand the hardship. But I would assert that God's saying, Dave's praying, God, use me in a significant way. And God said, I'm fine with that. But I'm going to need that left arm. And Dravecky said, that is exactly how I see it.
So there have been platforms. He's been with Barbara Walters, millions of people, literally. He's been touched through that. So we look at an event and say, isn't that awful? And we see it as one event cut out of a period of time. And we fail to understand this is all part of God's story.
God's Design and Our Mission
All that caused me to write these two sentences. God has structured and organized our lives to include problems and suffering. Your mission is not to stop the suffering, but find Him in the midst of the hurt and the pain, not to be absorbed by the pain and try to find a way out.
Now, I'm not saying don't be silly. And if there's suffering, try to
Why People Suffer and What to Do About It
I say this not just to you, but to your friends. So along comes a friend, and they have this hardship in their life. You do a bake sale and a garage sale, and you raise this money for them. And never take the time to say, "You've got this financial pressure. It can only be really one of two things. Either you're not making enough money - the government could learn this - or you're spending too much money."
If it's the latter, spending too much money, all of a sudden your garage sales are going to become an annual event. You haven't taught them anything. They haven't learned anything. That's not to say there aren't all sorts of things that happen in my life that are way beyond my control. But this suffering comes for a reason, for a purpose. What's God doing?
The Fundamental Questions About Suffering
So there you go. Two questions. We've got about 15 minutes. Why do people suffer, and what do I do when suffering comes?
Some of you have at home the old Wilmington Bible, all those long lists of Bible stuff. In it there's a section on why do people suffer. I have 25 reasons. I'm obviously not going to read them to you. But just to give you a flavor, as you sit and go, "Why would God do this?" Well, the first three: to produce joy, patience, and maturity.
Learning from Larry Wright's Example
I saw that in Larry Wright's life. I did not know Larry when he didn't have the arthritis. But he would tell me that before he had that arthritis, he would call himself the most selfish man in the world. I knew him, in my mind, as the most legitimately humble man, and by far the most caring man that I'd ever been around. I contend to this day that's what the suffering and the pain did for him, and the hardship did for him.
It purifies your life. It teaches you. It allows you to confess sin when we do sin that results in suffering. This is my favorite: it reveals ourselves to ourselves. Sometimes we're so cocky and arrogant - "I could handle anything." And along comes this little thing, and you fold like a cheap suit.
Or sometimes you're going, "I just don't know. I'm so weak. I don't know if I could handle anything." And then God gives you that blessing and strength beyond anything you can imagine.
How Suffering Draws Us to God
It drives us closer to God. There's no question about that. My prayer life is much deeper when the scan comes back with a spot on it than when the scan comes back clean. I tend to be more reliant or draw closer to Him when the deal blows than when the deal makes, when the child's not sick than when the child is sick.
It prepares us for ministry. It allows us to say to people, in 2 Corinthians 1, it prepares us to go and sit down with somebody and say, "Listen, I've been there. I know what you're going through." It shows us the sovereignty of God. And in a way, it gives us the ability to teach, begin to understand the testing of God.
So why do people suffer? There's a list of them. You can add to it. In the broad overall bumper sticker answer: for our good and His glory.
Eight Things to Do When Suffering Comes
Now I'll give you eight things to do when the suffering comes. Number one, and you should be able to get this from 1 Peter 4:12: don't be surprised. It's part of the Christian life. I believe it's either a false reading of the scripture, it's false teaching, or you're a charlatan when you say God wants you healthy and wealthy. God may want you struggling. Why? Well, I just gave you a list of them.
Don't be surprised by this. You're not immune from it. Because you became a Christian did not mean you left the pilgrimage of not just a faith, but of life.
Number two: commit yourself to the Lord. We studied, oh I don't know, three, four, or five months ago, the book of Daniel. In Daniel 1:8, Daniel is about to confront the king and all the powers of the kingdom. It says in Daniel 1:8, "Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself."
That at the very beginning, you resolve - the passage you have, if your Bible's still open, the passage you have in 1 Peter 4:19 - that you're going to entrust your life, deposit your life on Him, in Him, trusting Him.
Don't Try to Understand Everything
Number three, and if you're a really bright person who's here today - maybe somebody dragged you, you're visiting from out of town, or whatever, this is your version of penance, somehow you're here today - you're going to hate this. Sandy and I were talking. We went out for dinner last night. We were talking, and she said, "I think being really, really, really smart is a curse." And I said, "Well, I have no experiential data to support it. That's never been a challenge for me."
But number three is: don't try to understand all this. One of the things that I see among really smart people is they try to reduce God, or think they need to reduce God, to a set of equations that they can easily understand and comprehend, or explain. And some of God is inexplicable. He's bigger than you, He's smarter than you, He's more powerful than you are. He doesn't owe you an answer. It's arrogant to think, "I need to be able to understand everything. I need to know what God's doing, and I need to approve of it."
You Are Not Alone in Your Suffering
Number four: realize that you aren't the only person that ever has gone through this. It's 1 Corinthians 10:13. You won't be tested beyond that which you can endure. These are tests and temptations, difficulties, that are common to man. Rarely, out of the seven billion people on the planet, are you the only one that's ever gone through this?
I have, as I said, not been feeling well, but it hasn't been like the flu I had in the past. The last time I had the flu...
The Danger of Self-Absorption
Three years ago, I was really sick with the flu. Susan was sick at the time too, so it was Susan taking care of me. I was really in bad shape. She came in and asked, "Can I get you anything?" I said, "No, no, no, might want to call Faulkner first. Might want to call Faulkner Funeral Home, because I can feel what's right here." She left, and I called out, "Susan, Susan, Susan, come back." I said, "You need to know, no one has ever had the flu as bad as I have the flu right now."
Sometimes that's how you feel - I'm the only one. Then it gets worse. You become very self-absorbed in this, and it's hard to get out of it. You become identified with your affliction. Every time anybody sees you, they say, "Well, how are you doing? How are you feeling?" You either give them a relatively insincere "Oh, I'm fine, everything's great," or you begin to unpack it, and once you do, you just sink worse and worse and worse into this.
It's important to understand there are a lot of people who are going through what you go through.
Practical Steps: Prayer and Thanksgiving
Number five, you would assume this: pray. The very act of praying acknowledges that God has the capacity not only to hear us, but to do something about it, if He so inclines. It's bigger than me, it's beyond me.
Six, thank God for it. You're gathered around the Thanksgiving table ten days ago. "Let's pray. God, thank you for my mom, thank you for my dad, thank you for my house, thank you for this job, thank you for this car." But nobody heard, "Father, thank you for this cancer. Thank you for this unemployment."
How can I be thankful? Well, we've been through this. Let's do it one more time. The testing of my faith produces endurance. God's in the process of drawing me closer and closer to Him. When I pray, "God, I want to break the tape, I want to be there at the end. I want to hear, 'Well done, good and faithful servant,'" He hears, "Let me be tried and tested and suffer." Spiritual aerobics.
Avoiding Martyrdom and Needless Suffering
Number seven and eight, I'll just say quickly: don't become a martyr. And eight is a version of that - don't suffer needlessly. I'm sure you can add to that list.
There are certain people that you meet where it seems the only time they're comfortable in their life is when there's turmoil. You know those little bubbles with a sleigh ride in the house? You shake it up and the snow's there, then you see it settle down. In their life, they're constantly shaking this up. For whatever reason, because they thrive in that or they're problem solvers or whatever it is. But don't create these points of stress and hardship and suffering just for the sake of it.
There's a moment in Jesus' life where He comes upon a sick man and asks him this question. I thought it was odd, but then I didn't give it a great deal of thought until I heard Larry teach about it. He said to the sick man, "Do you want to be healed?" I thought, that's kind of weird.
Then Larry said, "I'm very sick. And I have to tell you, this will sound weird to you, but there's some real benefit to it. I get great parking places everywhere I go. Nobody expects me to do anything. Sue never asks me to take out the garbage. Sue never asks me to mow the grass." Don't suffer needlessly.
The Perspective of Temporary vs. Eternal
Larry's summary was something you've heard before: "I'd rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently." On the surface, it looks odd. I'd rather suffer than prosper. But now he qualifies it: I'd rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently.
Can you clarify that just a little bit? I'd rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently because I know - there's that word again, that's what we say, what we know trumps what we feel - because I know my obedient suffering is as temporary as my disobedient prospering. This is all temporary.
No matter how bad this gets - and we don't say it in some flip non-caring way - but no matter how bad this gets, it can only last a lifetime. That's the perspective I have. I step back.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that Christian hope of resurrection sends a man back into his life on earth in an entirely new way. That whole idea of the afterlife, the passage we just looked at, the reward, the exaltation that comes when Christ comes back - that's one of the things that sustain us.
A Prayer of Perspective
Years ago, I came across a prayer. It's anonymous, attributed to a Confederate soldier. I was preparing Wednesday morning for priority living, and the lesson on Wednesday morning is very similar to this. This prayer popped into my mind and I thought, "Well, I have no chance. I mean, I have nothing filed. Once I'm done with this, I'll lose these notes." I thought there's no way I can find it.
But Google is an amazing engine. If you can just capture a phrase, it is awesome how fast it can get you there. Sure enough, I typed in the little phrase that I remembered and up it came. Let me read this to you:
"I asked God for strength that I might achieve, and I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey. I asked for health that I might do great things. I was given humility that I might do better things. I asked for riches that I might be happy. I was given poverty that I might be wise. I asked for power that I might have the praise of men. I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God. I asked for all things that I might enjoy life, and I was given life that I might enjoy all things."
Here's the summary: I got nothing
I asked for everything I hoped for, but not everything I asked for. Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am, among all men, most richly blessed. I think of that in the context of suffering because I almost lose a sense of what's good or bad. It's the Viveki thing.
Then along comes this cancer, and I get, on this limited scale, I wouldn't write it out. Isn't that interesting? I wouldn't write out, "God, I want cancer." I would write out, "God, I want a platform, and I want to be used." So in a circumstantial sense, there's almost this case where I don't even know good from bad. Not talking moral now.
How many times have you heard something comes into somebody's life, and they say, "I wouldn't want it, I wouldn't ask for it, but I wouldn't trade it for the world"? God shut this down, and there was this amazing opportunity over here.
Finding Meaning in Suffering
So I say that by way of encouragement. I hope you understand. If you're here today, and you're suffering, and you're hurting, that as a result of a personal relationship with Christ, that suffering and hurting and pain has meaning, in the broadest sense, for your own good. We may not understand that for a while. And ultimately, for His glory.
And so you can entrust yourself. He's trustworthy. He won't leave you. He won't forsake you. He didn't blink. He didn't miss it. He either caused it or allowed it, and He'll use it ultimately for your good.
And we know God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose—that's us. Well, the thing that makes all of that have meaning is the cross.
Let me pray as Jake comes to lead us in communion. Father, thank You that we can look at a lesson like this and the suffering and the hardship and the pain and be reminded that though things feel like they're out of control, they're not out of Your control. God, we pray that You would continue to sustain us, that in the midst of suffering and hurt and pain, You would use it in our life to draw us closer to You. So let us be a shining light to people around us. Father, we pray in Christ's name, amen.