Sermon by Pastor Brent Kompelien
July 23, 2023
INTRO
In the classic 1987 film The Princess Bride, Princess Buttercup thought she had lost her beloved Wesley to the dread pirate Roberts. (SLIDE 2) Yet when Wesley shows up in disguise as the very pirate who supposedly took away Buttercup’s true love, she snaps at him, “You mock my pain!” Wesley replies, “Life is pain, Highness; anyone who says differently is selling something.”
(SLIDE 3) Friends, sometimes real life is stranger than fiction. Because in today’s world there are literally multi-billion dollar industries whose main goal is pain-avoidance. We live in a day and age with a woefully inadequate understanding of suffering, and instead we are told that we are entitled to comfort, ease, visions of the good life. Yet for a culture obsessed with pain-avoidance, we are some of the most miserable and unhappy people on earth.
You see, we need a joy that does not come from circumstances. We need to dig deeper into the reality of suffering, to realize how each one of us struggles with difficulty and pain in different ways, and to discover God’s purposes and what biblical perseverance looks like.
ILLUST — Professor Robert Clinton wrote, “God will teach you one thing perhaps in a thousand ways: I am forming Christ in you.”
This morning we aren’t going to address the broader picture of suffering in this world, we’ll have to save that for another time. Here’s our goal this morning: We are going to see what the Scriptures say specifically about Christian suffering and the grander redemptive purposes God has ordained for the pain and difficulty in our lives.
ASIDE — Let me stop here and acknowledge something. This topic is not something abstract or distant for many of us. A sermon about suffering is something deeply personal for me, and I’m sure it is for you. I have watched people I love, like my twin brother Brad, suffer the effects of cancer. I have lost loved ones. I have endured the pain of major injuries. I have suffered failure and disappointment. You probably have too. This message is for me and for you. It is for all of us who live in this broken world and want to find real hope in Jesus.
The first thing we need to do is lament. Then we need a gospel-centered hope in the midst of suffering. The Apostle Paul says in Romans 5:1-4, (SLIDE 4) “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”
There is hope, dear brothers and sisters. Real hope because our Savior is the Suffering Servant, the Man of Sorrows, the One who endured suffering for us on the cross, making it possible that one day all suffering would end in the new heavens and new earth because of the resurrection life we have in him.
We can draw near to Jesus in our difficulties, we can know his peace and presence in the midst of the darkness and pain. ILLUST — The great preacher Charles Spurgeon said, “Tears can clear the eye to see with an improved vision and perspective…Losses reveal the insufficiency of all the things around us that we cherish, enabling us to appreciate the all-sufficiency of Christ alone.”
(SLIDE 5) Open your Bibles to 1 Peter 4:12-19. We are going to zoom in on a specific situation in the 1st century where Peter is writing to Christians scattered across the Roman provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia who were being persecuted intensely and were struggling to understand why they were undergoing such physical and emotional suffering.
Now, this passage is specifically about persecution, which is one kind of suffering. Yet many of us suffer because of illnesses, relational conflict, or emotional turmoil, and much of it we don’t choose. This passage speaks directly about persecution, but I believe it has some wider application to how we endure suffering that is beyond our control. This is like a case study in what it looks like for Christians when suffering comes knocking on the door. Let’s read. READ 1 Peter 4:12-19.
ORG SENT — There are three parts to this passage that help us understand how we receive suffering (vv. 12-13), how we understand suffering (vv. 14-18), and how we respond to suffering (v. 19).
MAIN 1 — How do we receive suffering? (vv. 12-13). (SLIDE 6a)
Peter’s primary goal here is to change the perspective of these early believers. They evidently were surprised by the persecution they encountered. They weren’t expecting to suffer because of Jesus!
And so he uses specific words here that are hospitality words. In verse 12, the words “surprised” and “strange” are the same root word in Greek (SLIDE 6b) and they refer to the surprise that a host feels when a guest suddenly shows up at your door. (SLIDE 6c)
ILLUST — Maybe you’ve had this experience. Many of us would prefer some notice before someone shows up at our door because we’d like to clean up a little bit or mentally prepare for entertaining a guest. But if someone just pops in, you can feel thrown off and flustered as you scramble to try to be a good host without any preparation.
This is exactly the picture Peter is painting here. He says to these Christians, “Don’t be flustered when suffering comes knocking on your door! (SLIDE 6d) You may not be prepared, you may not know when it is coming, you may feel like suffering is an intruder in your life, but let me help you change your perspective…rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ!” (SLIDE 6e)
WHAT? Rejoice? Why would I rejoice at unwelcome suffering? Let me tell you a story.
The great preacher Charles Spurgeon was a man full of life with a big personality and a zeal for preaching God’s Word. But he also was a man who struggled with depression.
It all began at age 22. He and his wife Susannah had twin babies at home, and Charles was the young pastor of a large church in London. One evening as we was preaching to thousands in the Surrey Gardens Music Hall, pranksters yelled “fire!” which started a panic in the crowded auditorium, resulting in a stampede to the exits that killed 7 people and severely injured 28 others. Spurgeon’s mind was never the same again.
His wife Susannah said, “My beloved’s anguish was so deep and violent, that his reason seemed to totter, and we sometimes feared that he would never preach again.”
Then from the age of 33, physical pain became a constant part of his life. He suffered from a burning kidney inflammation called Bright’s Disease, as well as gout, rheumatism, and neuritis. The pain soon kept him from preaching. He was not only suffering physically and overworking himself, but he began to feel guilty about his limitations and the negative impact it was making on his family and his church.
His critics jumped on him. They said that his suffering was a judgment from God. This only multiplied the pain. It was not only unhelpful, it was theologically wrong!
Guilt, physical pain, and the scorn of critics affected Spurgeon deeply. At his darkest moment, he confessed, “I become so perplexed that I sink in heart, and dream that it were better for me never to have been born than to have been called to bear all this magnitude upon my heart.”
But God began to do something extraordinary in Spurgeon’s life. The Lord began to use this suffering to engender a new compassion for others and a new perspective on God’s goodness and sovereignty. Spurgeon believed that even though our trials may come through the world, the flesh, and the devil, they are overruled and ordained by God who treats them as an important part of our new life in Christ.
He said that it is quite clear in Scripture that through believers’ suffering, God refines them like gold in a furnace (1 Peter 1:6-7). Spurgeon wrote, (SLIDE 7) “When the gold knows why and wherefore it is in the fire, it will thank the Refiner for putting it into the crucible, and it will find a sweet satisfaction even in the flames.”
This kind of perspective is only possible when you understand suffering through the lens of God’s sovereign sanctifying work in our lives. This is where Peter turns next.
MAIN 2 — How do we understand suffering? (vv. 14-18). (SLIDE 8a)
There are three “if” statements that further explain the paradigm shift Peter desires in these early Christians: (SLIDE 8b)
v. 14 — If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed.
v. 15 — If you suffer, it shouldn’t be because of evil choices you have made.
v. 16 — If you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear the name of Jesus!
KEY: In these three statements, Peter is reframing these specific insults and persecutions they are encountering as a blessing from God that should result in praise. In other words, Peter takes a circumstance that is outside of their control and he recasts it as an opportunity to know God’s blessings in Christ.
You see, Peter offers a purpose statement here in verse 17: (SLIDE 8c) “For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household.”
Why would he talk about judgement here? If we are in Christ, isn’t Romans 8:1 true that “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”?
IMPORTANT — We often only think of judgment as punishment. Yes, we are free from the punishment of our sin. But there is a purifying dimension to judgment in the scriptures. (SLIDE 8d) OT prophets foretold that judgment would begin with God’s people and in God’s own temple in passages like Ezekiel 9:5-6; Jeremiah 25:29; Malachi 3:1-6. This theme continued up to the 1st century where the NT writers picked up on the idea and applied it to the purifying of the church.
This is the key: (SLIDE 8e) For those who are in Christ, difficulty and suffering can be redeemed to be the very tools by which God forms Christ in you.
But friends, we need to be clear: This doesn’t diminish or overlook the real pain of your suffering. It is not meant to be a trite nicety or platitude. Rather, we lament and draw near to God in his purifying grace because we become desperate for him.
ILLUST — Kelly Kapic wrote a book I recommend to you entitled Embodied Hope: A Theological Meditation on Pain and Suffering. He talks about lament and hope in this book. Lament is when we cry out to God “why?” in the midst of suffering. Kapic says, “Lament affirms God’s shalom even as it confesses our present trouble…lament enables us to look for God’s deliverance even as the sandstorm of life threatens and swirls.” He says that we can only find hope when we are honest about our desperate need for Jesus.
ILLUST — I think of my friend Dustin. He is the new pastor at River of Life in Hastings. Just five months after starting in his new role, his wife had a still-birth. They lost their daughter Paisley just weeks before her due date. They were devastated, and as I talked with him afterward, all I could do was listen and lament. I could hear in his voice a deep pain and a sense of desperation for the Lord. I was impressed by his abiding trust in Jesus. Unwelcome suffering has only purified his desire for the Lord and made real his hope in Christ.
ILLUST — Remember the pain and despondency that Charles Spurgeon experienced? He grew desperate for Jesus. Spurgeon once preached, “In the old Pilgrim’s Progress I used to read in my grandfather’s house, I remember the picture of Hopeful in the river holding Christian up. Hopeful has his arm round Christian, and lifts up his hands and says, ‘Fear not, brother, I feel the bottom.’ This is just what Jesus does in our trials; he puts his arm round us, points up, and says, ‘Fear not! The water may be deep, but the bottom is good.’ Christ’s nearness to us in such times will instill a sweetness into the bitterness of suffering. Indeed, that is the redemptive purpose of the darkness…that we will share more and more of the joy that will be ours when we live in the world to come that is beyond all suffering and sorrow and pain.”
It is this desperation for Jesus that is our proper response to suffering. And this is where Peter ends with an encouragement to the believers who are encountering unwelcome pain.
MAIN 3 — How do we respond to suffering? (v. 19). (SLIDE 9a)
Back to our case study. This is what Peter says about our response in verse 19: “So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.”
Friends, when God should choose by his sovereign will that you should suffer, let it not draw you away from the Lord, but let it draw you nearer and nearer to the Lord Jesus Christ as you trust in the Chief Shepherd and his good plan for your life. (SLIDE 9b)
This reminds me of Psalm 23:4 — (SLIDE 9c) “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Rod = club to discipline the sheep, to whip them into shape
Staff = support and help to guide the sheep, to direct their path
KEY: These are a comfort! Not something to be shunned or despised. We need the Lord’s discipline and his guidance, and the rod and the staff reveal that he is present with us! We need to be shaped and formed to be like Christ. And if you are being refined in the purifying fire of suffering, it is actually a sign that you are a child of God and that your Heavenly Father loves you and wants you to grow in maturity and in desperate dependence upon him!
You see, the Scriptures are full of encouragement for the suffer to seek God and to find comfort in him.
ILLUST — Paul David Tripp wrote another book I’d recommend called Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn’t Make Sense. He says, “The Bible never minimizes the harsh experiences of life in this terribly broken world…Scripture never looks down on the sufferer, it never mocks his pain, it never turns a deaf ear to his cries, and it never condemns him for his struggle. The Bible presents to the sufferer a God who understands, who cares, who invites us to come to him for help, and who promises one day to end all suffering forever.”
ILLUST — Puritan pastor and theologian John Owen knew this well from experience. In the second half of his life, not only was he hampered in ministry and harassed by the government; he also had to witness the burial of all eleven of his children, as well as his wife, Mary.
Yet, after the death of his children, he wrote these words: (SLIDE 10) “Contemplating the glory of Christ will restore and compose the mind…It will lift the minds and hearts of believers above all the troubles of this life, and is the sovereign antidote that will expel all the poison that is in them; which otherwise might perplex and enslave their souls… (SLIDE 11) Let us assure ourselves, there is no better way for our healing and deliverance, yea, no other way but this alone,—namely, obtaining a fresh view of the glory of Christ by faith, and a steady abiding therein. Constant contemplation of Christ and his glory, putting forth its transforming power unto the revival of all grace, is the only relief in this case.”
This is biblical perseverance: To cling to Christ, to have your faith refined by the fire, and to stand firm in the grace of God as he forms Christ in you. In the words of John Owen: May you, dear brothers and sisters, obtain a fresh view of the glory of Christ by faith, and steadily abiding therein.
Questions:
How have you seen God’s faithfulness in the midst of difficulty or suffering?
What promises from Scripture encourage you in difficult times?
How has the Body of Christ been an encouragement and support to you?
Describe biblical perseverance.
Resources:
The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions — Arthur Bennett
Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn’t Make Sense — Paul David Tripp
Embodied Hope: A Theological Meditation on Pain and Suffering — Kelly M. Kapic
“The Test” Video — The Bible Project