Why Do We Suffer?

"If it’s not about Jesus, it’s not about Anything"

Motto of the Fountain of Life

SPS (Sermon Purpose Statement):  To demonstrate the underlying thread of glory which inhabits suffering. 

  

INTRODUCTION

Dear Reader.  This sermon is to reflect upon the reasons behind suffering.  A sermon to offer comfort during suffering is a different topic for a different season.  It is well to remember that while suffering through pain or grief we need human compassion and comfort.  For every time there is a purpose under heaven.  There is a time to grieve and a time to heal and a time to reflect.  The genesis for this article was the death of my mother.  The grief experienced was surprisingly intense; to the point of tears.  I have not attempted to reproduce that feeling in this paper, and therefore it may appear cold or detached or academic.  Please be assured that intense grief was considered in this presentation and that the reflection upon suffering is not disconnected from human feeling.  And now is the season of reflection.  Now is the season to release our hold upon honest and justifiable grief and to seek the spiritual purpose behind trials and our purpose in them.  In finding that purpose, we find glory.  In finding that glory, we find Jesus.          

Key Verse

Rom. 8:17… And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.          

Physical pain.  Emotional Pain.  Which is worse?  But being human beings we ask a more profound question.  Why do we suffer at all?  If the Apostle Paul were here with me and I asked him that question, would he answer, “George, does not the potter have authority over the clay? Who are you O man, to question the Creator?”  Is Paul’s answer cynically evading our question?  Not at all!  Paul was shipwrecked, beaten, and imprisoned.  Paul evaded nothing.  An unspoken issue in Paul’s answer is this:  What is the state of our heart in directing any question toward God?  Read Romans 9 where the question Paul addresses is presented with a Pharaoh like attitude.  Am I Pharaoh-like demanding answers from God, challenging God for an answer, or am I childlike asking dad for help to understand?  If childlike this is an honest question and proper to ask.  And the scriptures are lively oracles, which provide answers. 

A motif of suffering is woven throughout the bible.  In Genesis God said to the serpent.  You will bruise His heel.  God said to the woman, I will greatly increase your pains.  He said to the man, cursed be the ground.  1 Peter 2:21 states that “to this end you were called, because Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow in His steps.  Hebrews 12:6 advises that, “Whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and he scourges every son he receives.”    Rev. Todd Crouch took the congregation and the radio audience through a year-long study of Revelation.  It was impossible to miss the suffering that occurs.      

 6 Points

How do physical and emotional pain connect to spirituality, which glorifies God?  There is a linkage of reasons in Romans 5:1-3.  It starts with faith.

1.  Suffering brings glory to Jesus:

a) We have been justified through faith. Through faith…

b) We have access to grace.  Through grace…

c) We rejoice in our sufferings.  Through suffering under grace…

e) We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God 

Suffering and faith and glory dwell together:  1 Peter 1:7…"That the trial of your faith, being more precious than gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found to praise, honor and glory at the appearing of Christ." 

Rom. 8:17… And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.  

Paul and Silas are my heroes.  In Acts 16 they offered the most amazing example while they suffered extreme persecution in the Philippian jail.  They sang psalms and gave witness of Christ.  Through their suffering glory was given to Jesus. 

When a hammer hits a thumb, or a finger presses on a burning stove and we say, “I love you Jesus” instead of cursing Him; this is the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5); this is glory to Jesus.  When your back is killing you and your spouse says, “You forgot clean the toilet.  And you say “Sorry Dear” rather than shouting back, “You didn’t put gas in the car”; this is glory to Jesus.  Are Christians in their suffering capable of bringing glory to Jesus?  There is a logic of grace that says:  Yes!    

2.  Suffering allows us to recognize our need for Christ: 

We as human beings are filled with pride to levels so deep that we can’t recognize it in ourselves.  When things go well, I relax; pride sneaks in and soon I forget Jesus.  Mind you, I don’t deny Jesus, I just forget Him.  Then when Jesus is far from my thoughts I unthinkingly strike out on my own.  I will trust my own judgments.  I will stick my hand in the fire without a second thought.  Then as my own ability runs its course, I worry, fret, feel anxious, feel alone feel empty.  Then I remember and return to seek Jesus.  Am I that different from any of you?  Perhaps not.

Leprosy, (Hanson’s disease) destroys the nerve endings.  Lepers feel no pain.  They will reach into a fire to pick up a fallen potato.  They cannot react to pain, to pressure, to correction.  Spiritually healthy people feel pain.  Pain focuses disciples back upon God.   

3.  Suffering allows us to know our real selves:

Does God visit us with trials to see how we respond or to learn what we can do or what we can take?  Are trials sent for Him to learn our character?  When we look at Job we see a very different reason.  Job 42:5-6, “Now I see thee, wherefore I abhor myself and repent.”  Job sees God.  And in seeing the greatness of God he honestly sees himself.  God sends trials for us to learn our character; for us to learn what we will do; for us to know our real selves. 

NOTE:  GOD DOES NOT EXPECT US TO ENJOY SUFFERING.  We rejoice in our sufferings we do not enjoy them.  Only days after telling the disciples to pray that they might escape persecution, Jesus himself asked God to spare him the agonies of the cross, if that was God’s will (Luke 22:41-42). It is abnormal to crave suffering.

4.  Suffering yields empathy:

Paul points out this reason in 2 Corinthians 1:4.  “Who comfortheth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble.”  How can we understand those who mourn, unless we ourselves have suffered?  How can we comfort those who mourn, unless we have been comforted? 

How do we offer comfort?  Loneliness is a terrible thing.  Therefore, it helps greatly to know that we are not alone.  Just holding a hand and saying nothing; just being there; just letting someone know that they are not alone often is the stuff of great comfort.

How do we answer grief?  A mother whose baby just died went to a pastor.  Numb with grief she came to him and said that Ephesians 5:20 says to give thanks for all things.  Then she asked, “How can I thank God for the death of my baby?”

I wondered why she quoted Ephesians 5:20.  Did she earlier seek comfort from an immature super Christian?  Did he callously tell her not to fret over her baby?  Because after all, the Bible says be thankful in all things.  I hope she did not receive this type of comfort.  A proper answer to grief is compassion and just being there with them.  At times no words are needed.  At times a human touch is all the comfort a grieving person is able to process. 

It is almost axiomatic that people see what we do rather than hear what we preach.  When our lives reflect our Christianity then our lights shine and our lives reflect Jesus to the world and this a powerful witness.  When people sense Christ in us they intuitively understand that our concern is real.  When concern is perceived as genuine it offers powerful comfort to others.

 Beloved in Christ, please exercise wisdom when offering comfort.  If words or reasons are offered it is important to remember that coldly, dogmatically and clinically asserting the truth that a loved one is now with Jesus, may not comfort.  Using the time to comfort as a time to drive home a doctrinal point is not compassionate.  But gently and warmly offering that same truth as a reminder that the loved one is now with Jesus does offer much comfort.  How the truth is presented makes a difference. 

An appropriate response to the grieving mother’s question mentioned above is to gently affirm that God does not expect thanks for death because death is our final enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26).  And at times, humbly admitting that we don’t understand why God ordains things (Deuteronomy 29:29) is an honest and appropriate response.  A gentle and quiet reply makes a difference. 

 5.  Suffering helps us to share Jesus’ glory:

We also have the glorious result that we will be glorified together with Jesus.

Rom. 8:17… And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together with Him.  Can you believe this scripture?  We will share His glory.  This is so amazing.  Are there suitable words to describe it?       

 

6.  Suffering may bring others to God: 

The man born blind from birth (John 9:1) had the courage to bare witness to the entire Sanhedrin.  With that degree of courage we may well speculate how many friends and acquaintances his suffering through blindness lead to Christ.  Mark reports an incredibly powerful scene.  Mark 5:19.  A man of the Gerasenes was possessed by at least 2000 demons.  Jesus casts them all out.  That man recognizes what has happened and who Jesus is.  He makes a commitment to follow Jesus, not figuratively but literally to accompany Jesus and the 12 in their traveling ministry.  He makes a commitment to devote his life to being with Jesus.  What is Jesus response?  Does Jesus praise his faith and say come follow me?  NO!  Jesus tells him to “Go home to your people and report to them what great things the lord has done for you, and how he had mercy on you.”  How many of the Gerasenes did his suffering through possession lead to Jesus?  What witness would either of them had, had they not suffered?

             

The example of Paul and Silas in that Philippian jail is perhaps even more powerful.  They were not healed of blindness.  Demons were not driven from them.  They were not delivered from a false arrest, a severe beating, an illegal imprisonment and confinement in stocks.  Through all that suffering they sang psalms and praised God before all the prisoners.  Their witness occurred without a great display of God’s power and it preceded the earthquake.  At the start of that day, who knew, who understood that the unregenerate jailer, his family and how many prisoners would be led to Christ through their suffering persecution?  At the start of the next day, who knew, who understood, how many unregenerate souls the prisoners and the jailer and his family would lead to Christ because of the persecution suffered by Paul and Silas? 

      

PAIN & JOY

Humanly speaking we can see no relation between suffering and joy.  The child of God, however, knows that Jesus spoke of joy and suffering.  Look at a Crucifix and see Jesus’ broken body.  Now consider this.  He fully knew what would happen to Him.  On the night before He suffered the cross, Jesus said something that my human mind cannot comprehend.  He said, “My joy I give you.”  James, the servant and brother of Jesus, advised us, “…count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.”  (James 1:2).  Divers temptations certainly include suffering and pain.

The child of God has the knowledge that during our suffering Jesus is with us and we are with Christ.  We are not alone.  The life with Christ has tremendous blessings.  The unregenerate are totally unaware of and unable to experience them.  The life without Christ is always searching and never finding, never satisfied, never full, never comforted.

G. K. Chesterton spoke of joy and suffering.  He indicated that for a life with Christ suffering and sorrow are peripheral, but joy is primary.  For a life without Christ suffering and sorrow are primary, and joy is peripheral.

My mom’s daily devotional examined a life with and without Christ.  The blessings realized are a cause of great comfort and joy.  It is doubly significant for me that this was the last entry she ever read from it.

With Christ                                                                            

1.  You are loved by God                                                      

2.  Your sins are removed                                                      

3.  Your future home is secure in Heaven                              

4.  Your tears will be wiped away                                         

5.  You are never alone                                                          

6.  You are the King’s child.                                                  

7.  You have peace                                                                 

            Without Christ

1.  You don’t know His love

2.  You feel guilt

3.  You don’t see a future

4.  Your tears remain

5.  You feel alone

6.  You are what you are

7.  You have anger and denial

Here are some thoughts from mom’s daily devotional that glorify Jesus:

-To face a titanic hour with cool calm is grace.

-To speak words of wisdom when the boat is sinking is grace.

-To swim in deep waters of adversity rather than drown in despair is grace.

CONCLUSION

We want to serve and glorify God.  Suffering enables us do that.  We can also glorify Jesus without suffering.  That is good news.  How?  John 15:8, “By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be my disciples.”   What is bearing fruit?  Is it altruism in building super hospitals and feeding the hungry?  Is it self-sacrifice in giving our bodies to be burned?  Paul says in I Corinthians 13, “No.”  We learn that without grace there is no godly love and without love there is no spiritual fruit.  We learn that with grace there is love and where there is love fruit abounds. 

The logic of grace leads to an amazing conclusion.  Bearing fruit is as simple as accepting and living a life guided by grace.  When filled with grace the Holy Spirit is in every action.  That means that building the hospital with grace and changing a diaper with grace, suffering illness and losing a job with grace, or perfect health and getting a job promotion with grace all bring glory to Jesus because there is the love of Christ and a divine purpose in all the acts in which He is present. Glorifying Jesus is done in as many millions of ways as there are disciples who are bearing fruit.    

Brethren, go and bear fruit for the glory of Jesus.

Beloved in Christ:  The Grace and Joy of Jesus be with you through all your times and purposes.  Amen.

Rev. George Relic, Assistant Pastor

The Fountain of Life

2021 Old National Pike

Washington, PA 15301

A congregation of Grace Communion International