The Revelation of Jesus Christ
“Suffering for Jesus - 1”
Review
John wrote this book under direct orders from Jesus. Jesus appeared to him and commissioned him to write what he saw, what was and what was about to take place. This forms the outline of the book. John wrote during a time of severe tribulation and testing among those who chose to follow Christ and His teaching.
I. Prologue 1:1-20 (Things which you have seen)
The Prologue in chapter one records what John the aged Apostle saw (and heard) including a manifestation of Jesus far different that what John had known previously. The theme of the book describes the coming of Jesus and the events leading up to that return.
II. Messages to the Seven churches 2-3 (Things with are)
John wrote about the current condition of the church and Jesus’ message to seven specific churches in Asia that represent issues and struggles applicable to all churches in every age up till the return of Jesus. Jesus followed a similar pattern in all seven messages.
A. The Message to the church in Ephesus 2:1-7
Church of solid doctrine without serious devotion
Church of perseverance without passion
Forty years of Christianity diminished their enthusiastic devotion to Christ. Jesus lamented the loss of their first love for Him and warned them to repent and go back to serving Him the way they did when they first embraced Him. Failure to comply would revoke their privilege of bearing effective witness for Him in the world. Remember – Repent – Return
Be with, do for, give to, sacrifice for and talk about the one you love.
B. The Message to the church in Smyrna 2:8-11
The Suffering Church
Jesus spoke to this church as the Ever Present One; the beginning and the end. He spoke as one who Himself had proven faithful to the end in the face of unspeakable suffering. He had no correction but urged them to stop fearing what might take place and to stay faithful even unto death which He warned would actually happen to some of them. His admonition to stop fearing was not based on rescue from danger but relationship with deity. No matter where one’s view of the 7 year Great Tribulation and the timing of the rapture of the church, tribulation and suffering and trials have been connected to faithful followers of Jesus from the beginning. Jesus assured His followers that as long as they were in the world they would experience tribulation. Anyone who tells you differently misrepresents the teaching of Jesus and the Bible.
I made a few observations last time we were together from this passage.
• Everyone must endure storms.
• Storms will not last forever.
• Some will not survive the storm. (Christians die.)
• Although people perpetuate evil, Satan is the driving force behind the persecuted church.
Since the Bible has a great deal to say about tribulation and suffering, I chose to take the time at this point to try to give an overview of the Biblical principles regarding suffering.
What the Bible Teaches Regarding Suffering
Not only is suffering to be expected, but Paul actually called it a gift from God.
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
I. THE SOURCE OF SUFFERING
Suffering from slight to severe is a part of living in a fallen world. We have all encountered or heard about terrible suffering. As individuals contemplate the problem of evil and suffering in our world they make some basic conclusions drawn from an inadequate understanding of the character of God and God’s plan to restore a fallen world. Why does God allow suffering and pain in His world? How can a loving God stand by and let such horrible tragedy happen?
Abused and battered little children. Aborted babies. Disease, war, famine, hunger?
God simply cannot be a loving and all powerful God and allow evil to continue in our world.
The only conclusion concerning the fact that evil still exists in our world is that God is not powerful enough or not loving enough to do something about our pain and suffering.
There are three factors we must balance in order to understand the problem of evil.
A. God's Initial Design
God planned a perfect environment. Evil did not originate with God. He did not plan it, although He planned for it.
B. Man's Intentional Default
We understand that sin came into our world through the heart and mind of Lucifer.
Scripture states clearly how sin came into the experience of mankind.
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned -
Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. Rom 5:12, 14
Evil arose from the free choice of God’s His creation beginning with Satan turning his focus on himself and attempting to revolt against God’s rule. Along with free choice came a divine consequence. The existence of suffering and evil of today is the result of a long line of independent choices and violations of God’s revealed will and design for living. One thing is clear! God is not the one responsible for evil. We are. I hear over and over. Why is God doing this to me? God is not doing it. We make choices inseparably linked to consequences.
Jump off the roof and you will suffer the harsh consequences of violating the law of gravity.
OK! If God is all powerful and all loving, why doesn’t He do something about suffering and evil?
C. God's Redemptive Desire
God so loved the world. God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance and find eternal life. God immediately initiated a plan to eventually eliminate evil but that plan must unfold in a particular manner. 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.
Matthew Henry writes,
“The God of Israel, the Savior, is sometimes a god that hides Himself but NEVER a god that is absent; sometimes in the dark, but never at a distance.”
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 internal emotional turmoil
B. No respecter of Persons
Stress and suffering are experienced by believer and unbeliever alike. It can strike rich and poor; intelligent and ignorant. Money and education do not insulate us from suffering. Contrary to some teaching, God does not promise the Christian suffering free living.
C. Never arrives announced
Sooner or later tragedy will march into you own living room. It is only a matter of time until your emotions will be assaulted and your composure ripped by the sound of a siren in the night or a cry or the jolt of a 2AM phone call. You can't ever choose the time or place or intensity of the pain that penetrates your very soul and often shakes the very foundations of your faith at a moment in time. We cannot choose the what, only the how we will respond to the what. In order to properly respond to suffering we need Biblical perspective.
What possible purpose can pain and suffering serve?
III. THE REASONS FOR SUFFERING
God’s top priority is to transform us into the image of Christ. His priority is to make us holy not necessarily happy! Of course, Satan has his own set of perverse purposes for trials. Suffering can be a great benefit or a great barrio to our growth in the Lord. Wrong responses to suffering can create a kaleidoscope of further consequences and additional suffering and pain.
We are often responsible for the intensification of our trials because of our own unwillingness to do things God's way. Then we kick and scream at how terrible things are and curse God for not caring and doing something about our misery. A right response to suffering will in part depend on a correct understanding of the possible purposes and positive development that can come through trials. However, trials only produce positive character when responded to in a positive manner.
It is like exercise. Exercise properly and it strengthens the body. Exercise improperly and you can do permanent damage.
A. Trials Produce Purity and Maturity
According to Heb 2:10, Jesus was perfected through suffering.
In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Heb 2:10
We too learn obedience and develop maturity through suffering.
Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Rom 5:3-5
Without tension, stress, and trial there is no significant growth. Just as we need gravity to develop physically, we need the pressure of trials to develop spiritually.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. Jam 1:2-4
Joni Earikson Tada, well acquainted with what it means to suffer, put it very well.
"When God brings suffering into your life as a Christian, be it mild or drastic, He is forcing you to decide on issues you have been avoiding. He is pressing you to ask yourself some questions."
God allows suffering to get us to take a look at some areas in our life just as He allowed Israel to come under oppression to bring them to repentance. God is much more concerned with our spiritual maturity and purity than He is with our physical or financial will being. He is more interested in our holiness than our happiness. For only when we practice true holiness, will we enjoy genuine happiness.
Suffering is a means to purity and maturity.
Suffering, when resisted, can also lead to deeper sin and stunted spiritual growth.
B. Cultivates Compassion for others
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort (encouragement), who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.
Notice that it is not even necessary to suffer the same trial. The principles we learn in suffering and trials are universal to all trials; trust God.
C. Teaches to Trust In God's power Alone
Sometimes God needs to sweep away all the props we rely on instead of Him. He wants the things from which we seek to draw our security and significance to be shown for the empty pursuits they are. Bank account. Family. Friends. Work position. Health.
We need to be reminded that this life is a supernatural walk that can only be lived through the supernatural means given through His Spirit.
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many. 2Co 1:11
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 2Co 4:7
If we fail to properly respond, we become more and more materialistic and sensual in a world that lives on sensations and things.
D. Suffering is the Path to Personal Glory and Blessing
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. Heb 2:9
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2Co 4:17
If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 1Pe 4:14
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Rom 8:18
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 1Pe 1:6-7
We desperately need the same attitude Moses demonstrated (Heb 11:25-26) toward suffering and hardship in this world. He chose to endure ill-treatment in a hostile environment with the people of God, rather than to enjoy the momentary and passing pleasures of sin.
Why? He considered the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the tremendous treasures of Egypt because He focused on Christ and maintained an eternal perspective. The text says it was because he was looking to the reward.
So also Christ who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Heb 12:2
We want the glory without the grit. We want the gain without the pain. We want to experience the blessing without the obedience. God wants to give glory, gain, and blessing but it must come by His methods. God honors those who suffered for His sake. He promises a blessing. Sometimes that blessing comes now but for sure later.
28 Peter began to say to Him, "Behold, we have left everything and followed You." 29 Jesus said, "Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel's sake, 30 but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last, first." Mark 10:28-31
For those who suffer for their own sake or suffer with bad attitude, there is no reward.
E. Spreads the Word of God
Often times God must use persecution and such to get His people to go where He wants His word taken.
Now those who had been scattered by the persecution in connection with Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, telling the message only to Jews. Act 11:19
Paul stated that his affliction caused the Word to spread to many.
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. 2Co 4:15
The church in communist China not only survived but thrived in severe persecution and suffering.
F. Brings glory to God
Reflecting on the healing of the man born blind in the Gospel we have some of the same questions and answers that go through our mind. Why was this man born blind? Terrible suffering. Some of the standard reasons. Personal sin, ancestral sin.
Jesus revealed one they had not seriously considered. Simply to bring glory to God.
You see, we often think that God has committed Himself to our wonderful well-being.
We are taught that He is here to serve us and give whatever we ask for our gain. We forget that we were saved to His glory not our personal gain.
To study the songs and teaching of our day one might think that God has committed Himself to be the servant of man and bring man glory. We are in an age where humanism is the national religion where man is the center of all things. Everything is measured by how it benefits mankind. A dog says, “You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me, you must be God. A cat says, “You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me, I must be God. We must return to a God-centered focus where God’s glory is the primary goal even if it means personal suffering.
Even today some may have come to church wondering what God was going to do for them.
We ought to be contemplating what we can do for God’s glory. Suffering becomes a precision tool in the Master's hand to demonstrate His power and love to an unbelieving world.
G. Discipline
This is directly related to our sin and the need for correction.
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Heb 12:9-11
Suffering is often the result of a violation of God’s ways. When Israel was routed soundly by tiny Ai after stomping terrifying Jericho, Joshua in a moment of weakness assumed it was God's fault. God made it clear that it was because of sin and told Joshua to stop blubbering and take care of the sin in the camp. It was simply their own disobedience that brought on the suffering and death from Ai. God demonstrated that things must be done His way or there are consequences.
Galatians does not leave any room for misunderstanding when it states that we are responsible.
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Gal 6:7
God disciplines in many ways. Often, the harder the heart, the harsher will be the 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 discovering the purpose behind it.
First we should realize that we live in a fallen world intended to drive us to God and we will never be completely comfortable or pain free till Jesus returns.
Next, we should ask, "What can I learn from this trial and how can I bring you honor as your child?"
All the while, we need to keep in mind just how our concepts of God will affect my response to suffering that flood into our life. 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 I believe that God is obligated to keep me comfortable, I will be continually disappointed and will become bitter and indifferent to dynamic relationship with God.
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.
Knowing that reason can help me respond to the trial in a Biblical manner which we will take up next week.
