The Struggle of Suffering

Introduction

This is a popular Christian culture passage.

Found on posters, framed prints, t-shirts, bracelets, pens, coffee mugs, keychains, graduation cards, and Bible journals.

It’s one of those warm fuzzy verses that makes us feel comforted that the next step we’re facing, the next job opportunity we apply for, the doctor’s visit we have tomorrow, or the relationship you hope to have fixed will be taken care of in short order.

But then the job never comes, the doctor says it’s cancer, you’re told you’ll never have children, he dies, she leaves, and you’re simply left with a t-shirt and a mug that seems to hold nothing but lies.

This passage has nothing to do with leading us from comfort to prosperity, and everything to do with leading us through suffering with hope.

I believe it is long past due for the church to stop finding ways to avoid suffering and start learning ways we can suffer well.

Background to the letter from Jeremiah:

nation divided

Israel began to walk away from God worship idols and sin

God sent prophets to warn them

Israel taken by Assyria led into exile

130+ years later, Jeremiah is warning Judah same thing will happen to them by Babylonians

40 years he warned them

586 Jerusalem captured and majority of people are carried into exile

Few still left in Jerusalem - Jeremiah one of them.

He hears about what the people were saying and hearing from prophets who were taken in the exile to Babylon.

They were saying that the exile won’t last long. They would be home soon. The suffering would surely not last.

They thought since they held a privileged status with God, they would be spared suffering.

To them Jeremiah writes the following letter.

Letter is from a specific place, to a specific people, at a specific time, in a specific context, but since it tells us about the God who does not change, it has implications for us as well.

(ESV)

4 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. 8 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, 9 for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the Lord.

10 “For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

An Unpopular Message (4-9)

God ordained Israel to suffer

Prosperity Gospel:

John Avanzini proclaimed on a TBN program, Jesus had “a nice house,” “a big house,” “Jesus was handling big money,” and he even “wore designer clothes.” 

Copeland’s statement that “the basic principle of the Christian life is to know that God put our sin, sickness, disease, sorrow, grief, and poverty on Jesus at Calvary.” 

Suffering is to be expected.

Suffering is to be expected

The popular message both in Jeremiah’s day as well as ours is that “God has not planned for you to suffer or to suffer long.”

God’s plan for your life is one of health, wealth, and prosperity.

Prosperity Gospel:

John Avanzini proclaimed on a TBN program, Jesus had “a nice house,” “a big house,” “Jesus was handling big money,” and he even “wore designer clothes.” 

Copeland’s statement that “the basic principle of the Christian life is to know that God put our sin, sickness, disease, sorrow, grief, and poverty on Jesus at Calvary.” 

If everything in the world today is aimed at bringing me comfort and fulfilling my desires than why wouldn’t God?

If we believe that the fruitfulness of our faith leads to increased comfort and prosperity, then we will believe that the opposite is also true - that a decrease in our comfort and prosperity due to suffering is an indication of a lack of faith, or worse, a lack of God’s presence.

"The prosperity gospel will not have anyone praise Jesus, it will have them praise prosperity.” - John Piper

Satan knows if he can twist God’s Word, he can cause mistrust in God’s promises, which leads to doubt about God’s goodness and even his existence.

This teaching is not found anywhere in Scripture. In fact, it’s the opposite that we find throughout Scripture.

Let him take up his cross

(ESV)

1 “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.

(ESV)

16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

(ESV)

29 For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,

(ESV)

8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God,

- share in suffering

(ESV)

33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

God loves you and cares more about your holiness and relationship with him than he does about your comfort.

‘But I wasn’t far from him when the suffering started.’

would you have been as close as you are now?

ILLUST - Me holding girls getting a shot - I care more about my girls than their momentary comfort.

This doesn’t mean that we do not pray for healing, for new jobs, good relationships, etc, and expect that God can and sometimes does bless us, but we cannot use that as a thermometer of faith or proof of God’s existence.

A doctor who does not give an honest diagnosis gives you no hope.

As your pastor who loves you dearly, I will speak the truth even when it is hard.

To indulge in false hopes is to miss what God has planned for us.

6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. 8 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, 9 for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the Lord.

— Warren Wiersbe, Be Decisive

God is in charge of suffering.

God

expect to suffer

to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile

Contra Open Theism - God knows and cares and is in charge of your suffering.

He didn’t create evil; rather he allows evil and actually uses it to accomplish the good he intends.

I would rather follow a God that can identify with and lead me through suffering than one who never saw it coming.

In other words, God’s promise was not, “It’s in your hands now. Hopefully you can make it out.” God actually says the opposite. God says, “You’re still in My hands and I am going to bring you out. I will restore your fortunes. I will gather you up and bring you back.” God says, “I will take responsibility for bringing you through this.”

*This unpopular message leads to an. . .

An Unbelievable Promise (10-11)

God promises to bring Israel through their suffering.

10 “For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

God’s promise is that the suffering will not last forever.

(ESV)

31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

(ESV)

20 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.

God will bring us through suffering.

the world offers false hope

The world can only offer:

an attempts to escape suffering

through comfort

Ways to numb suffering.

through dulling pain (drugs, alcohol, etc)

or increasing pleasure (sex, risk-taking, etc)

Only God (who is in charge of your suffering) can offer real hope.

Because of Christ we can trust the promise.

Jeremiah 31

*Patient endurance through suffering is only possible through an . . .

An Unshakeable Hope (12-14)

God will hear Israel in their suffering and reward them from their suffering.

Unshakeable hope in suffering.

God hears our cries to Him.

12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.

Suffering draws us closer to Christ.

13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, declares the Lord,

The result of suffering should be that we a

After months of suffering, Job finally says to God, “I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee” (). Job had been a godly and upright man, pleasing to God, but the difference between what he knew of God in prosperity and what he knew of him through adversity was the difference between hearing about and seeing.

ILLUST - John Piper’s difference between knowing honey by reading the label and tasting it.

Suffering forcibly smashes our idols, but many times we are more concerned with the broken pieces of our idols to notice that it actually revealed to us the One, True, Living God.

God leads us through suffering to joy.

I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

How can we have joy not only to look forward to but in the midst of suffering?

it increases our sanctification.

it points toward our glorification.

it increases our sanctification.

it increases our sanctification.

Our faith and Christ-likeness grow.

(ESV)

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

The tree that never had to fight For sun and sky and air and light, But stood out in the open plain And always got its share of rain, Never became a forest king But lived and died a scrubby thing.

— Douglas Malloch, The Good Timber

7

6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

it points toward our glorification.

Because of Jesus we can be guaranteed that this life is not the best life.

8,9,16-18

8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed. . .

16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

13 Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak,

ILLUST - dot on the string of eternity

(ESV)

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

An unshakeable hope means:

If I were to lose anything or everything this world has to offer, I will NOT lose my hope or my joy because I have not lost Christ - He has not lost me.

OUR JOY IS NOT FOUND IN OUR EVER-CHANGING CIRCUMSTANCES. OUR JOY IS FOUND IN GOD’S NEVER-CHANGING PROMISES.

— David Platt, sermon

Three things to do in the midst of suffering:

Three things to do in the midst of suffering:

1) Expect to suffer.

2) Draw close to Christ.

“One of the first steps in turning tragedy into triumph is to accept the situation courageously and put ourselves into the hands of a loving God, who makes no mistakes.”

— Warren Wiersbe, Be Decisive

3) Focus on hope.

The missional aspect

Conclusion