Perfection Through Suffering

For in bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was entirely appropriate that God—for whom and through whom all things exist—should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

To prepare for this sermon, I listened to a lot of older, wiser, and more Godly men than myself to try and figure out the best way to proclaim the truth of what Scripture tells us in this verse.

I am not sure which is more difficult, preaching a sermon on suffering or preaching on tithing. The main thing that makes suffering so hard to preach on is that God is pretty clear about how to view suffering in this world. And what God says does not sound enjoyable. We will have lots of opportunities to talk about suffering as we work through the book of Hebrews, because the author of this book talks a LOT about suffering.

As we will see today, God established Christ as our mediator through the process of suffering. Christ calls us to follow him in suffering.

Big Idea: Suffering is part of following Jesus.

Hebrews 2:10

The God who has brought many sons and daughters to glory, for whom and through whom all things have their existence, made Jesus the pioneer of our faith. The word translated as pioneer (arxegos) can also be translated as originator, founder, or source. Jesus is the source of our faith. Christ, as our source, or pioneer, or originator, is the head of the church as Paul says in Ephesians 5. Jesus went first on the path of suffering and guides his people along that same path to the glory he achieved. As our head, Christ is our leader, our example to follow.

In human physiology, our bodies get signals to move from our brain. Just as the brain coordinates and directs every function of the body, ensuring that all parts work together harmoniously, Jesus guides and sustains the church, with its various and diverse members, empowering each one to fulfill their unique role.

When going to battle, some ancient kings and generals were adored by their soldiers. The reason for this was that those kings and generals did not normally sit behind the lines directing their troops on which way to go, but instead were on the field of battle, often leading the charge.

Just like those kings and generals, God is always with us. In giving his final speech to the Israelites who were about to enter the Promised Land, Moses said this:

Deuteronomy 31:8

The Lord is the one who will go before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or abandon you. Do not be afraid or discouraged.

Jesus led the way. He walked the road of suffering and showed us the path we must follow. We get to this idea more in just a little bit.

As the source, the originator of our salvation, Christ is the only one through whom we can have salvation.

John 14:6

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

There is no salvation outside of Christ. You can believe in God and still not go to heaven. In the sermon on the Mount, Jesus himself said that there will be people who approach him, trying to enter the kingdom of heaven, who believe in him, but they will not be allowed to enter.

Matthew 7:21-23

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!’

These examples that Jesus gives of people who prophesy, drive out demons, and do miracles “In the name of Jesus,” but they do not obey his law, he says that they will not enter the kingdom of heaven. These are people who are doing all of the outside things for people to see, but their hearts are not transformed. They are actors in movies who, once the camera turns off, go back to their normal lives.

In the book of James, the apostle tells his readers that believing in God is not enough.

James 2:19 - New Living Translation

You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror.

In the words of RC Sproul, “Believing that God exists only qualifies you to be a demon.”

There is a difference between believing in God and believing God.

What could the author of Hebrews mean when he says that Jesus was “perfected” through suffering? Jesus is God. His divinity cannot change. The Holy Trinity — Father, Son, and Spirit — is already perfect.

About a month ago, I mentioned that in his book Knowledge of the Holy, AW Tozer says that there are three ways in which a moral being can change. It can go from worse to better, better to worse, or, granted the morality of the being remains constant, it must go from immature to mature. We talked about how Christ cannot do that.

I once heard a comedian talk about the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. “We the people of the United States, in order to form a ___________ union…” The blank there is “more perfect.” That's not possible! You can’t make anything “more perfect” in this world. It is either perfect or it isn't.

So what does it mean that Jesus was “perfected?” The Greek word that we have translated here as “perfect” (teleiow) is also translated as “to complete or finish.” As our Savior, Christ was put in human flesh. By doing this, He is completing the work necessary for our salvation. Part of that work, or perfection, or completion, established Christ as our mediator to God.

1 Timothy 2:5-6

For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, a testimony at the proper time.

In an article on this passage on the Ligonier Ministries website, the author of the article says that Jesus came to earth to share in our humanity so that we could be joined to Him and, therefore, be able to stand before God. To be an effective mediator, Christ must be truly God and truly man. A mediator is someone who can represent the interests of both sides of a conflict. As God, Christ brings divine justice and mercy to bear on our relationship to God, and as man, Christ brings the perfect human obedience we need and only he could provide to be reconciled to God.

But how was this perfection or completion accomplished? It was done through suffering.

The 19th Century Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon said this when commenting on Hebrews 2:10:

“Christ could not be a perfect sympathizer unless he bore our suffering. He did not look at sin from the distance of heaven, but he walked and lived in the midst of it. He knows all shapes of suffering: disease, sickness, poverty, need, friendlessness, hopelessness, and desertion. You cannot cast human suffering into any shape that is new to Christ. In him there is every pang that tears the heart, every grief that forces tears from the eyes. Everything that is inevitable to flesh and blood, to hearts that break, and spirits that are depressed, Jesus knows.”

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Jesus knows our suffering. He knows your temptations, your struggles, your insecurities, your faults, and your failures. Let's look at this list that Spurgeon mentions in this quote. Though we do not see Jesus ever deal with sickness or disease in his own body that we know of, he saw the pain and anguish that many dealt with as they lived with such maladies. He had compassion on such people and healed the sick and diseased, even raising the dead.

Jesus did not only see poverty and need, though. He experienced it. In Matthew 8, there are crowds following Jesus. In that crowd, one of the Jewish scribes said to Jesus that he would follow him wherever he went. In the next verse, we see Jesus’ response to the scribe:

Matthew 8:20

Jesus told him, “Foxes have dens, and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Jesus, for lack of a better term, was homeless. He did not have a house to live in regularly. Jesus lived as a nomad, travelling from city to city to proclaim the kingdom of God. He and his disciples often relied on the generosity of others for shelter and food. Remember that as Jesus was traveling around with his disciples, they had a person in charge of their “treasury”, which, to be honest, was probably more like a coin purse or two that carried the money that had been given to their ministry.

Jesus faced friendlessness and desertion. During his last supper with his disciples, Jesus tells them that they will all abandon him. We can see this in Matthew 26.

Matthew 26:31-35

Then Jesus said to them, “Tonight all of you will fall away because of me, for it is written:

I will strike the shepherd,

and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.

But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.”

Peter told him, “Even if everyone falls away because of you, I will never fall away.”

“Truly I tell you,” Jesus said to him, “tonight, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.”

“Even if I have to die with you,” Peter told him, “I will never deny you,” and all the disciples said the same thing.

Three of the gospel accounts say that when Jesus was praying in the garden of Gethsemane, Judas came with the temple guard who were there to arrest Jesus. After Peter’s rash decision to slice the ear off the servant of the high priest, Jesus is tied up and taken away, and then all of the disciples run off. Peter follows at a distance to not be seen, though. But even then, when he denies three times that he knew Jesus outside of the house where Jesus is on trial, Jesus looks at him the moment the rooster crows. Filled with remorse and self-loathing, Peter then runs off as well.

Jesus knows what it feels like to have his friends abandon him. Jesus understands what it is like to have everyone close to him leave when he needed them most.

This is the m.o. of God’s people! How many times do we see in the Old Testament something like, “Again, the Israelites did what was right in their own eyes.” How many times can we look back and see how we have told our friends, or even God, “Sorry, I’m out”

In many ways, Christ also experienced such deep despair that some, like Spurgeon in the previous quote, would call it hopelessness. Going back to Jesus praying in Gethsemane, he understood what was about to happen to him. Jesus knew that his body was about to be beaten and whipped, tearing the skin from his body. He was about to have nails driven through his wrists and his feet. He was about to suffocate on the cross, being unable to breathe with his arms stretched wide, applying pressure to his diaphragm so that he could not inflate or deflate his lungs without the extreme pain of pushing his body up with his nailed feet.

But the most intense part of Christ’s death was enduring God’s wrath for the sins of all who would believe in him for salvation. In Isaiah 52 and 53, we see the prophet’s description of the Suffering Servant. As Christians, we understand this to be Christ. Just listen to some of these verses and phrases from Isaiah 52 & 53:

“...his appearance was so disfigured that he did not look like a man.” - 52:14

“He was despised and rejected by men…” - 53:3

But he was pierced because of our rebellion,

crushed because of our iniquities;

“He was oppressed and afflicted…” - 53:7

Knowing that he would endure all of this, Jesus asked God in the garden if it were possible for this cup, the cup of God’s wrath about to be poured upon him, to be taken away. Luke 22 says that Jesus’ sweat was like drops of blood. This is a phenomenon called “hematidrosis.”

Hematidrosis occurs when the tiny blood vessels (capillaries) that feed the sweat glands rupture, allowing blood to mix with sweat. This can be triggered by intense stress, fear, or anxiety. In the context of Christ's experience in the Garden of Gethsemane, the immense emotional and spiritual anguish He faced—anticipating crucifixion and bearing the weight of humanity's sins—could have induced such a severe stress response.

Jesus’ human nature was so overwhelmed by what he was about to endure that capillaries in his body began to burst, moving blood into his sweat glands, making it look like he was sweating blood. That is severe anxiety. And even in that anxiety, Christ would go on to say, “Yet, not my will but your’s be done.”

As the author of Hebrews said in our verse today, we see the perfection or completion of Jesus work was accomplished through suffering. This was not just so that he could be our mediator, but also to be an example to believers.

If Jesus was made perfect through suffering, and he is our leader, our source, our pioneer blazing the trail on which we are to tread, then we will face suffering in this life and be made perfect through it. This is the process of sanctification.

Sanctification is the process by which God makes us holy through the working of the Holy Spirit. It is a trial by fire. To turn a chunk of steel into something useful, like a knife or a sword, you have to heat up the metal, usually to about 2000°F. Then, when the metal is hot enough and glowing, you must shape the steel through the means of pressure, placing the steel against an anvil and using a hammer to flatten some spots or to curve the steel around a different part of the anvil. This process is repeated over and over and over again until the steel is shaped as the craftsman intends. Finally, that knife or sword is taken to a grinder, where the edges are ground down at an angle on both sides of the blade to create a sharp edge that can tear through whatever it comes in contact with.

Heat, pressure, hammering, shaping, bending, grinding.

How many of us today can admit that we feel like that piece of steel getting heated up and hammered on over and over as God works and shapes and forms us into the image of Christ? It never feels good to be bent, and hammered, and stretched, and shaped in the moment. But we cannot let our discomfort change how we see God.

“We are not prepared for our Canaan but by (suffering). By war the soldier is fitted for peace; by a storm the traveler is fitted for home; by toil the laborer is fitted for his bed. Yea, we are better prepared by greater sufferings for a richer heaven, and it will be sweeter to us when we arrive there: ‘For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. (2 Cor 4:17)”

Thomas Jollie

The more we suffer in this life, the more we will understand just how good God is. The more pain we endure in this life, the more storms we travel through, the more heartache we experience, the more glorious the presence of our good and loving God will be to us. We will also see that God was the one carrying us and providing the strength needed to sustain us through the trial.

We don’t like discomfort. That is why so many people have fallen prey to the wolves of the “Word of Faith” and “Prosperity Gospel” movements. These were two of the false teachings that I listed in the PDF a couple of weeks ago. I have added it again to this week’s sermon notes.

To have a little bit of fun with this, I found a comic/meme that displays how I view the ideas, not the people in the Word of Faith movement, but the ideas of Word of Faith and the Prosperity Gospel.

The book of Job and the book of Ecclesiastes are beating down the idea that all we need is enough faith to get what we want in this life. And so let’s look at what these two books have to say about suffering and pain in this world.

(Quick synopsis) When Satan approached God in Job 1, saying that he was observing all the things happening on earth, God says, “Hey, have you seen this Job guy? He has more integrity than anyone else on the planet.”

And Satan was like, “Well, yeah! You don’t let anything bad happen to him. He is rich, so he has nothing to be sad or disappointed about! But if everything is taken away from him, he will curse you to your face!”

So God tells Satan he can take whatever possessions he wants away from Job, as long as he does not harm Job physically. So Satan leaves.

After finding out that his 500 donkeys and 1000 oxen had all been stolen, all of his 7000 sheep and goats had died in a brush fire, his 3000 camels had been stolen, and all 10 of his children had died when the house they were in collapsed in a wind storm (and I struggle when my phone doesn’t upload as fast as I think it should), finding out all of this on the same day. As one messenger finished giving his report, the next messenger showed up.

Job 1:20-22

Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped, saying:

Naked I came from my mother’s womb,

and naked I will leave this life.

The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Throughout all this Job did not sin or blame God for anything.

With all of this adversity Job faced, he still fell to the ground in worship to God. He did not question God (at least not at this point), but understood that everything we have in this life is a gift from God. This is his world, not ours. He can give what he wants. He can take what he wants. In this passage, Job understands that God does not owe him anything. God owes me nothing!

Then, God allows Satan to inflict Job again. This time, it is Job’s health, as Job has boils that cover his body from head to toe. And as he is scraping off the boils with a piece of broken pottery, his wife comes up to him and does not have the most encouraging response.

Job 2:9-10

His wife said to him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!”

“You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?” Throughout all this Job did not sin in what he said.

Job is saying to his wife that, though every good thing we have is from God, the times of trial, suffering, and adversity also come from God.

Now let’s look at what Ecclesiastes has to say about suffering. The book of Ecclesiastes is believed to have been written by Solomon as he was reaching the end of his life. He is commenting on how nothing in this world happens as you would expect it to, leading him to repeatedly say that “Everything is meaningless!” or “Everything is vanity!”

Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

There is an occasion for everything,

and a time for every activity under heaven:

a time to give birth and a time to die;

a time to plant and a time to uproot;

a time to kill and a time to heal;

a time to tear down and a time to build;

a time to weep and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn and a time to dance;

There are times when suffering is part of life. This list goes on for another 4 verses and covers most of life. There will be times of joy and times of grief. Suffering is a part of this world. Another verse in Ecclesiastes tells us where times of joy and times of suffering come from:

Ecclesiastes 7:14

In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity, consider: God has made the one as well as the other…

God is the one who has made the good days we get to experience. He is also the one who made the hard days that we get to experience.

If God completed his work through Christ by having Christ, his own Son, suffer pain, torment, death, and endure the wrath of God’s anger against sin, so that we can be saved, why would we ever think that we can avoid any type of suffering in this life?

Jesus told his followers that the path to following him is a way of suffering.

Matthew 16:24

“If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

Not only that, Paul says in Philippians 1:29 that suffering is a gift!

Philippians 1:29

For it has been granted (in other words, it has been GIFTED) to you on Christ’s behalf not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him…

The Prosperity and Word of Faith movements would try to tell us that it is never God’s will for us to suffer.

"Suffering is a part of the curse; you don’t have to accept it." - Kenneth Copeland

If Paul tells us that suffering has been gifted to us, that means that Copeland is telling us to throw that gift back in the face of God. Just say, “No thank you, God.” See where that gets you. This statement spits in the face of both “deny yourself” and “carry your cross.”

"God wants you to be healed and whole; suffering is not His plan." - Joyce Meyer

We have already seen that suffering was the plan of God for Christ. If the Holy Spirit is to be conforming us to the image of Christ, that means we should be looking more like Christ. Which means that suffering is going to be a part of that conforming. That suffering is not to be done in a complaining manner, though. We are to suffer well, enduring the hardships we face with grace and truth just as Christ did.

"Suffering is a result of not knowing your rights in Christ." - Creflo Dollar

Isn’t that the perfect name for a prosperity gospel preacher? Creflo believes that Christians have certain rights in their walk with God. We have the right of prosperity and the right to healing. Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, and Benny Hinn all believe this stuff, too.

They teach that believers have a right to live a prosperous life, which includes financial well-being and abundance, suggesting that poverty and lack are not part of God’s plan. Only in a prosperous country like America can we be so conceited as to believe that a lack of prosperity means you are outside of God’s plan.

What makes me sick is that this message is spreading like a disease across the continent of Africa. People who are poor, destitute, and desperate are going to these prosperity crusades, looking for a Jesus who will bring them out of their bondage of poverty instead of the God who will deliver them from the bondage of sin!

Word of Faith and Prosperity teachers frequently assert that by Jesus' stripes, believers are healed. This implies that physical suffering or illness is not something they must accept. People who believe this will have a fever of 102*, look green like they are about to throw up, and can barely stand up. But they will say, “I am well in Jesus’ name!” No. You are not well. You are very unwell and need to lie down so that your body can do what God designed it to do in fighting off the virus invading your body by drinking water, eating some chicken noodle soup, and sleeping.

Thinking you have the “right” to speak against the pain you are facing, when we have already seen that the trials we face come from God, means that you think your assumed “rights” trump what God is trying to teach you.

We should not deny our suffering. We are actually supposed to embrace it.

James 1:2-4

Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.

This maturity that James is talking about, this experience in the world and in the faith, is a gift to be able to give to others. I do not ever want to see anyone go through the pain of miscarriage. But Emily and I, having experienced the loss of two of our children in the womb, enduring heartache and pain, and eventually coming out on the other side, have been equipped to be able to talk with other couples who go through the same experience.

I have painfully concluded that too often, I don’t trust God. If something is going well, it seems He wants to take it away from me, perhaps to see if I love him more than what I’m holding onto. He becomes a “taker” in my mind, a spoiler, a teaser. That’s a perverted view of God, of course; but emotionally that’s pretty much what I’m feeling…

We aren’t asked to be happy about our circumstances or our suffering. We’re told to consciously consider the deeper joy that will result from it. (2 Corinthians 4:18 - So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.) Calvin Miller wrote, “Happiness is not the goal of the Christian life, rather it is the result of it.”

William H. Gross - The Gift of Suffering (https://www.onthewing.org/user/Dsc_Gift%20of%20Suffering%20-%20Gross.pdf)

Next Step: I will seek God in my suffering

“I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me upon the rock of ages.” - Spurgeon. Our trials and suffering should send us to the one who is all sufficient to take care of our needs.

Next Step: I will ask God what he wants to teach me in my trials

Maybe it is to learn to depend on him instead of yourself.

Flowers by Samantha Ebert

Well, blue skies and hillsides feel so far away

And I wrote in my notebook that I've seen better days

Than the ones as of late

I can't bear the weight

The rain won't stop pouring out my windowpane

And I haven't left my bedroom in 76 days

I wish something would change

'Cause I'm losing faith

So I brought it up in a desperate prayer

Lord, why are you keeping me here?

Then He said to me, "Child, I'm planting seeds

I'm a good God and I have a good plan

So trust that I'm holding a watering can

And someday you'll see that flowers grow in the valley"

So whatever the reason, I'm barely getting by

I'll trust it's a season knowing that you're by my side

Every step of the way

And I'll be okay

'Cause I brought it up in a desperate prayer

Lord, why are you keeping me here?

Then He said to me, "Child, I'm planting seeds

I'm a good God and I have a good plan"

So trust that I'm holding a watering can

And someday you'll see that flowers grow in the valley

When I'm on the mountain and looking down below

I'll see a valley of flowers that needed time to grow

And I'll thank you for the rain

The hurt and days of pain

And I'll bring it up in a grateful prayer

Thank you, Jesus, for keeping me there

You know just what I need, and you've planted seeds

'Cause you're a good God with a real good plan

And you hold my world in a watering can

So I can have peace 'cause flowers grow in the valley

Maybe God is trying to plant some flowers in your life

Next Step: I will ask God for the strength to endure my trials

God is the one who gives us the strength to endure. We are not seeing growth in this church because of my or the elders' talent. We are seeing this church grow because God is moving in the hearts of people. Christ builds His church; we need to trust Him and walk in His truth, His grace, His mercy, and His strength.

Finally, in a world filled with suffering and uncertainty, the call to salvation through Jesus Christ is more urgent than ever. As Hebrews 2:10 reminds us, Christ, the pioneer of our salvation, was made perfect through suffering. He understands our pain, our struggles, and the weight of our sins. Jesus walked the road of suffering to show us the way to glory.

You may feel overwhelmed by life's trials and wonder if there is hope. The truth is, Jesus invites you to lay down your burdens and submit your life to Him. This is not merely about believing in God; it requires an active, heartfelt commitment to follow Christ. It means repenting of your sins and turning toward Him, embracing the grace that He offers.

Do not let the distractions of this world pull you away from the truth. Instead, recognize that true fulfillment comes from surrendering to Christ, who has conquered sin and death. Will you respond to this invitation? The path to a transformed life begins with a decision to trust Him and follow His lead. Embrace this call today.

Next Step: I will submit my life to Christ

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