The Revelation of Jesus Christ
“Suffering for Jesus Pt 2”
Review
Several weeks ago we talked about the suffering church of Smyrna. Jesus encouraged them to not to fear the future suffering but to endure and be faithful to the end. Suffering, to one degree or another, has infiltrated the human experience since Adam and Eve rejected God’s authority and decided to seek life on their own terms. Today we suffer the cumulative effect of centuries of willful defiance against the Creator and His ways.
What the Bible Teaches Regarding Suffering
Suffering is a gift.
For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have. Phi 1:30
Suffering is not only a gift, it is a calling.
To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. 1Pe 2:21
It is not suffering for suffering’s sake or without purpose. The suffering is for the sake of Christ.
It demonstrates our desire to be faithful servants in a fractured world.
I. THE SOURCE OF SUFFERING
Yes God is an all loving God! Yes God is an all powerful God! In order for God to straighten out the mess we have made for ourselves by our selfish choices, God would have to eradicate your free will and make people obey His ways. Suffering is the result of man’s own selfishness and rebellion against the ways of God.
II. THE CHARACTER OF SUFFERING
A. Biblical Terms
Misfortune, calamity, affliction, trials, tribulation, Mistreatment, oppression, bear hardship, receive or suffer hard blows from without, Distressed by outward circumstances, distressed by emotional upheaval
B. No respecter of Persons
C. Never arrives announced
III. THE REASONS FOR SUFFERING
Trials only produce positive character when responded to in a positive manner.
A. Trials Produce Purity and Maturity
B. Cultivates Compassion for others
C. Teaches to Trust In God’s power Alone
D. Suffering is the Path to Personal Glory and Blessing
E. Spreads the Word of God
F. Brings glory to God
G. Discipline
As we encounter life and all its pain and suffering, our question should not be, "Why Me?" That is the response of a hard (perhaps confused) heart seeking relief from misery without meaning.
First we should realize that we live in a fallen world intended to drive us to God and we will never be comfortable or pain free till Jesus returns.
Next, we should ask, "What can I learn from this trial and how can I bring God honor as His child?"
Paul told young pastor Timothy to suffer hardship.
3 Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. 2 Timothy 2:3-4
If I believe that God is a good and loving God, who is infinitely concerned with my ultimate (important distinction) good, then I will be better equipped to respond in a healthy way to any given circumstance. If on the other hand, I believe that God is obligated to keep me comfortable, I will be disappointed and will become bitter. How we think concerning God and the place of trials and suffering in His master plan will affect my response. I know that God could remove any circumstance if it were in my best good and His greatest glory. Thus, if He doesn’t, there must be a reason.
IV. RESPONSE TO SUFFERING
A. Natural Human Response to Suffering
1. Fright
Like Peter, our focus on the Savior often shifts to the storms and circumstances of life and as fear diminishes our faith, we sink into a sea of despair where our only hope is the hand of grace offered by a loving and merciful God. Fear in turn can trigger two other responses.
2. Flight
Adam’s first response to fear of exposure was to hide and run. We have a natural tendency to RUN from unpleasant circumstances. We tend to avoid those things that stretch us beyond what we think we can endure. We intentionally avoid accountability for our rebellion.
We regularly resist facing our inadequacy. We run from all that threatens rejection or ridicule or the truth about our real heart condition. We develop elaborate self-protective devises to keep people from seeing us as we really are. Humor, toughness, intellectualism, sarcasm, indifference, ignorance.
3. Fight
If we do not find a way to run and escape or if we feel trapped, sometimes like a cornered animal we turn and fight. Rather than submit to God we stiffen our necks and fight against Him. We fight God, we fight others, and perhaps we even turn against ourselves.
Depression is anger turned on others or inward. Our fears manifest most clearly in our relationships with others. The majority of items identified in Galatians 5 as deeds of the flesh revolve around relationship issues. We are a fighting people, because we are a fearful people who are not looking to the Author and perfecter of faith and love to drive it out.
We are looking to either protect ourselves or promote ourselves and we fear exposure. When we base our worth is found in performance rather than relationship with Christ, we must do all we can to protect ourselves. When we are willing to take an honest look at ourselves and look to Him as the basis of our life, we can supernaturally respond to trials through His strength.
It is how Paul could say, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
B. Supernatural, Godly responses to suffering
Only when we respond properly can the benefits mentioned earlier come about. Proper response to trial brings about growth.
1. Rejoice
"I Rejoice in my suffering for your sake." Col 1:24
"We also exult in our tribulation" Rom 5:3
"Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials." James 1
"I am filled with encouragement; I am overflowing with joy in all our affliction." 2 Cor 7:4
“Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 1Pe 4:12-13
The opposite of rejoicing is grumbling and disputing. It is what the Israelites did all along the way rather than rejoice in the supernatural provision of God and the ultimate promise of a land flowing with everything they would ever need.
Rejoicing in trial focuses on the possible benefits and the one who overcomes the difficulties.
2. Praise / Give thanks
16 Rejoice always; 17 pray without ceasing; 18 in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
This is similar to the first but focuses directly on the attributes of God in a time when they seem to be in the shadows. God wants me to continually live life with an attitude of gratitude.
Even secular research demonstrates that grateful thoughts are the key to a healthy brain. Praise focuses on the person of God in the midst of trial knowing that He is there and He truly cares and loves us deeply. We praise Him because of who He is. Job said, shall we praise the Lord in prosperity and not in calamity? We are instructed to give thanks in EVERYTHING!
The opposite of praising and thanking God in trial is blaming God and complaining.
3. Don’t Lose Heart but take courage
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry (of reflecting God’s glory to the world), we do not lose heart. 2Co 4:1
We have an important job to do. We have the distinct privilege of reflecting the glory of the Lord through these vessels of clay. With privilege and responsibility comes promise.
We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 2Co 4:16
We have a Savior who knows by experience the task and trials before us.
Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Heb 12:3
To lose heart is to faint, give up, call it quits.
To not lose heart is to continue on, take heart or take courage.
Have you lost heart? Have you given up hope? Look to Jesus the author and perfecter of your faith.
4. Comfort Others
Check out the first eleven verses of 2 Corinthians 1.
5. Pray
Over and over we are urged in the time of trouble to cry out to God. The Psalmist expressed many such cries to God in terrible times of trouble. Jesus in His trouble, called on His father.
7 In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Hebrews 5:7
James 5 asks, "is any one among you suffering? Let him pray.
16 Rejoice always; 17 pray without ceasing; 18 1 Thessalonians 5:16-17
The opposite of prayer in suffering is personal effort and renewed resolve to survive and make life work on my own terms. Since God cannot be trusted to make life simple and comfortable, I am left to bring about my goal of Eden now on my own. This resolve involves fret, stress, worry, bitterness, disillusionment.
Philippians calls us to respond not with worry and fret, but with the prayer of faith.
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7
Don’t worry about ANYTHING but talk to Him about everything. When we talk to Him in surrender, the peace of God come to guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Not only pray to God but we are to pray for the ones causing the suffering. (Matt 5)
6. Resist the Devil
If we continue to fight ourselves, God, others and circumstances when the real enemy is Satan, we will never find victory in the midst of trial.
Sometimes the source of our struggle is an attack by the enemy who must be resisted.
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Ephesians 6:10-13
7. Persevere (endure)
"persevere/endure"
1--to remain, make your home, abide, stay, live.
2--"under"
The word resulting from the marriage of these two terms is strong.
We are told, when it comes to tribulations, to persevere, endure, remain under, keep in there, make your home there, live under the trial, hang in there, don’t try to squirm out from under it. To formalize the concept a bit:
Endurance is the ability to continue pursuing and doing what we know is right before God, in spite of my feelings, or fatigue and in spite of yearning to escape, grumble, or crumble under the load.
This endurance commanded by the Lord is not merely gutting it out till it is over. It calls for a Biblical response to each trial that comes into my life even over the long haul. The absence of such a response indicates a failure to tap supernatural resources.
ILLUS: "If those kids don’t stop that racket, I will go nuts!"
To hold back my verbal explosion for another 10 minutes is not endurance. Endurance is the ability to respond as Christ would respond with love, gentleness and a servant’s heart in spite of the pressure to pop and explode. Endurance is refusing to take the fleshly escapes offered by the evil one and, draw on the enabling power of the indwelling Holy Spirit by responding to the situation according to the principle of sacrificial love and acceptance.
LOOK at this key passage in 1 Cor 10:1-13.
No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it.
The opposite would be to give up, quit, respond in the flesh, run, resist, rebel.
The last two responses come from the example of Jesus who is our model for responding to suffering.
These are the foundational responses to any trial or tribulation that comes into our life.
This passage (1 Peter 2:21-24) relates four things Jesus did NOT do and two things He DID do.
21 For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 22 WHO COMMITTED NO SIN, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH; 23 and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, 24
• He did not commit sin.
• He did not lie or pretend.
• He did not return insults or contempt.
• He did not threaten.
8. Entrust (faith)
but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously
Peter used an imperfect verb to indicate a regular practice whenever necessary. Jesus did keep surrendering Himself to His Father. He yielded His life to God’s care. Entrust, give over, commit.
9. Sacrifice for others
and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.
Not only did He focus on trusting God but on serving others. The guiltless one willingly sacrificed His life for the benefit of those who were guilty. When suffering hits and it will, we must again entrust our life into the hands of our loving Father and agree to be His instrument to bring healing to others. Those “others” might include those who are guilty and undeserving.
Suffering is not forever. It serves a temporary service. One day it will be eliminated forever.
God is a God of deliverance sometimes here and for sure hereafter.
V. Deliverance from Suffering
A. Internal Deliverance
The regenerating of our dead and unresponsive spirit by the power of the Holy Spirit is the first level of God’s redemptive work. The daily renewal of our soul is the second field of redemption. Though the outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day.
B. External Deliverance
The body is God’s third priority. What does not experience deliverance here and now will find complete renewal later. There is abundant evidence in the Scripture that God not only can but does heal the body. It is not the top priority but demonstrates God’s power to restore a broken world. Jesus made that power abundantly clear all through His ministry even though He Himself clearly stated His priority was to preach the kingdom.
God also does relive suffering and intervene in the circumstances of life. He does bring about significant victory over the evils of our fractured world. Hebrews 11 illustrates extraordinary incidences of rescue, deliverance and victory over evil. Yet the same chapter also illustrates the fact that some suffer excruciating pain and loss while maintaining their fundamental trust in God’s ultimate plan by looking to a future city and a future world where all will function according to Prince of Peace’s design rather than the prince of the power of the air.
C. Eventual Deliverance
For sure, all suffering for the believer will eventually end. No more sickness, sorrow, pain, deformity, death, suffering, sin, war, conflict, drama, or evil. He promises a kingdom where righteousness dwells and we will experience the joy of the Lord EVERY day!
CONCLUSION
How can we respond Biblically?
1 Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. 2 Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification. 3 For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, "THE REPROACHES OF THOSE WHO REPROACHED YOU FELL ON ME." 4 For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. 5 Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, 6 so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 15:1-6
Here we find three things.
The encouragement of the saints.
The encouragement of the Scriptures.
The encouragement of God.
Jesus encouraged the suffering church at Smyrna as well as the suffering church in all ages not to fear the coming suffering but be faithful unto death.
I cannot promise you that you will escape suffering. I cannot promise you that you will not face unthinkable suffering and persecution as the last days approach a period of suffering never before experienced in human history. I can only assure you that the Lord Himself taught that in the world you will have tribulation out be of good cheer for He has overcome the world.
So I can only encourage you to encourage one another, draw on the encouragement of the Scriptures and seek the encouragement of the God of encouragement. Only then will you be able respond Biblically and supernaturally when suffering comes.
? Rejoice. “I will take joy in suffering for Jesus”
? Give thanks. “Thank you Lord for the opportunity to learn to trust you more.”
? Take courage and not lose heart. “I will not give up or allow discouragement to stop me.”
? Comfort others. “Give me opportunity to use this experience to help others.”
? Pray “Lord help me serve You with wisdom and integrity.” “Bless those who curse me.”
? Resist the devil. “I refuse all of Satan’s purposes and resist all of his attempts to hinder me.”
? Endure. “I will continue on in the face of difficulty with God’s help.”
? Entrust your life in His hands. “Father, I trust You to use this to make me more like Jesus.”
? Sacrifice for the sake of others. “I willingly give up my personal agenda to serve others.”
How are you responding to suffering?
Does your response produce glory to God and growth in your walk?
Are you prepared to be faithful unto death?
