Suffering and Striving

Big Idea

Tension: Why does God allow persecutions and sufferings?

Resolution: So that in our struggle with sin, we might see and be healed by his grace.

Exegetical Idea: God allows persecutions and sufferings so that in our struggle with sin, we might see and be healed by his grace.

Theological Idea: The Father uses suffering so that we might see our sin and be healed by his grace in Christ.

Homiletical Idea: The Father uses our suffering to show us our sin and give us healing by his grace in Christ.

Outline

Introduction: Why does God allow suffering?

God disciplines us as a good Father for the sake of our struggle against sin.

Throughout this section, the author calls suffering “discipline” and assumes that the one who is in charge of our suffering is God. So God does not cause our suffering in the sense of he himself is the direct cause of evil that comes upon us, but he oversees our suffering, controls it, and allows it.

If God is disciplining us, it is because he loves us as a father. (vs. 5-6)

What a comfort this is! For the nonchristian, suffering has no love, no comfort, and no purpose. The best that suffering can do for the non believer is that they can learn a lesson, but they cannot feel the love of God for them.

God actually has “received” or, in Paul’s words, “adopted” us as his sons and daughters.

If God does not discipline us, then we are not sons. (vs. 7). We would be “frauds” if God does not discipline us. (vs. 8)

Ultimately, parental discipline leads to respect (vs. 9-10), even though sometimes their discipline was not always motivated correctly.

He disciplines us for our good. Listen to this, vs. 10, his discipline is a form of his generosity towards us!

Two outcomes of his discipline

That we might share in his holiness (cf. 3:14)

His discipline is painful now, but pleasant later. It yields a harvest of “righteousness” later.

If you and I don’t endure (vs. 7), then we won’t get the prize.

Now, all this actually would be relatively easy if it weren’t for vs. 4… “struggle against sin.”

he is not saying that our sin causes our suffering.

The author is juxtaposing hte dya in day out Chrisitan life with the discipline of the Lord because the two are intimately related. It is in times of suffering that our struggle against sin takes place. Why is that? Because suffering si a time for heightened emotion, it’s a stressful time, it’s a time where all our worry and bitterness and panic and anger and selfishness show their bitter fangs. Suffering is a time where all the masks that we wear come off, where the worst of us comes through. Which means this, if God never disciplines us, then our struggle with sin will never get aggressive. But it’s in times of suffering that we realize there is sin holding us back. There is anger holding us back there is rebellion and insecurity and selfishness that we need to lay aside so we can run the race.

We ought to respond by seeking the healing that only comes for Christ.

Lift your drooping hands and weak knees (vs. 12; Is 35:3-4)

Make straight paths for your feet (Prov 4:26-27)

How do you do that, you let the Lord heal you (vs. 13). It is only by the grace of Christ that we last. Suffering is an opportunity for us to see our sin and to turn to CHrist and to be healed.

Healing will produce this: peace with everyone, and hte holiness without which no one will see the Lord. In other words, in times of suffering, we should see the ways in which we have conflict with others and and anger against others and we’re harboring bitterness and resentment, and we should see the ways in which we are stuck in grievous sins and far from God. But in those times of suffering, where we realize that we are far from others and far from God, that we can turn and be healed.

Transition: But there is a danger in suffering that we must be on watch for

If we are not careful, suffering can introduce a “root of bitterness” that springs up and “causes trouble.” If we’re not continually turning to Christ for his grace in our suffering, we could easily allow our sin to swirl up and tangle up and calcify and rot. ANd not only will it pollute us, it will defile and ‘pollute’ many.

This will happen if we fail to attain to the grace of God

Like Esau - driven by lusts and impurity and sexually immorality. Who sold his birthright for a meal.

Afterwards he sought the blessing, that is the birthright, he was rejected. He later sought it with tears, but he was still rejected.

Why? He did not come to repentance. He wasn’t on guard. His sin calcified, and ossified, and hardened within him. And his bitterness was his undoing.

Application: What is suffering for

Suffering is for revealing - Suffering reveals our sin.

Suffering is for healing - Suffering is a chacne tof us to embrace all the grace God has for us.

Suffering is for striving - Suffering is a chance for us to strive then in God’s grace to have both holiness before God and peace with others. For us to be reconciled for God and for us to have peace with others.

Suffering is for watching - Suffering is for watching ourelves and others. Note here where he says see that no one “among you”. Which means we need to go about checking our own hearts for bitterness, and lovingly confronting others who are in sin.