What Parts of My Suffering Are “Trials”?
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:05.000 | We launch into a new week of episodes with a question from a podcast listener named Brad.
00:00:10.000 | He writes in to ask this, "Pastor John, I have a question about passages like 1 Peter 4.12.
00:00:16.000 | Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you,
00:00:20.000 | as though something strange were happening to you.
00:00:22.000 | In James 1, verses 2-4,
00:00:25.000 | count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.
00:00:30.000 | For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness,
00:00:33.000 | and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
00:00:39.000 | Do we use those types of passages to encourage a fellow believer
00:00:43.000 | when they are dealing with issues like sickness or recovering from an accident?
00:00:48.000 | Or do these verses pertain only to the types of trials that come as a result of following Christ?"
00:00:55.000 | Pastor John, what would you say?
00:00:57.000 | Well, my own view is that most of the passages in the New Testament
00:01:01.000 | that encourage us in suffering deal with persecution,
00:01:07.000 | but that the principles of how the suffering serves us
00:01:15.000 | and how we are to handle it applies to all suffering in the path of obedience,
00:01:22.000 | including disease or calamity, natural disaster, or whatever.
00:01:26.000 | In other words, if you're on your way to visit a sick person,
00:01:32.000 | according to obedience to Jesus, and you want to go in Jesus' name and for Jesus' glory
00:01:36.000 | and build up their faith and encourage them, and someone doesn't want you to do that,
00:01:40.000 | and they shoot you in the arm, and you have to go to the hospital
00:01:45.000 | because you've now shared the sufferings of Christ,
00:01:49.000 | you're in the same position you would be basically
00:01:54.000 | if you had a car accident on the way and broke your arm and had to go to the hospital.
00:02:02.000 | The same basic truths would sustain you and guide you in both cases.
00:02:10.000 | Now, of course, there are different challenges in both cases.
00:02:14.000 | In one, you'll be challenged to love your enemy.
00:02:16.000 | You didn't have any enemy except your own stupidity, maybe,
00:02:19.000 | in taking the wrong turn or not putting your brakes soon enough.
00:02:24.000 | And so you might face the challenge of feeling guilty.
00:02:28.000 | So the challenges are going to be different in both cases.
00:02:31.000 | But the basic principles of what is God up to in ordaining these kinds of sufferings
00:02:38.000 | and how are we to spiritually grow in them, those are going to be the same.
00:02:45.000 | In both of these, faith is being challenged by the devil to get you to doubt the goodness of God,
00:02:50.000 | and in both of them, God is testing your faith to see if you'll trust him and grow in grace.
00:02:58.000 | So let me give two reasons from the Bible, one from the Bible, one from experience,
00:03:03.000 | why I think suffering from persecution and suffering from accident or disease or natural calamity
00:03:13.000 | are all included in the principle when the New Testament talks about how to handle suffering,
00:03:20.000 | how to grow in suffering, what God is up to in suffering.
00:03:23.000 | And here's my key text, Romans 8, 16, following.
00:03:28.000 | "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.
00:03:34.000 | And if children, then heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him
00:03:42.000 | in order that we may be glorified with him."
00:03:45.000 | Now, that's an amazing statement.
00:03:47.000 | It says, "If we suffer with Christ, we will be glorified with Christ."
00:03:53.000 | So does that only mean persecution?
00:03:56.000 | Is that what suffering with Christ means?
00:03:58.000 | Christ suffered crucifixion-like persecution, and we must suffer some kind of persecution in order to be glorified?
00:04:06.000 | Well, here's the catch.
00:04:08.000 | The very next verse goes like this,
00:04:10.000 | "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us."
00:04:20.000 | Now, what are those?
00:04:21.000 | The sufferings of this present time.
00:04:24.000 | Is that just persecution?
00:04:26.000 | And you go on and read 18 to 23, and it's really clear.
00:04:30.000 | He talks about the fall and God subjecting all things to futility and corruption,
00:04:36.000 | and within that there are groanings and pain.
00:04:39.000 | You get to verse 23, and he says, "And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Holy Spirit,
00:04:46.000 | groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."
00:04:51.000 | Now, there you have a statement about groaning because these bodies get sick, they get diseased, they get hurt,
00:05:00.000 | they grow old and aged and they die, and we groan waiting for their redemption.
00:05:05.000 | And that is included clearly in Paul's flow of thought with sufferings of this present time.
00:05:13.000 | And that is part of the explanation of "suffer" in verse 17, where it says,
00:05:19.000 | "provided we suffer with him in order that we may be glorified with him."
00:05:23.000 | So the upshot, it seems to me, is that Paul explains the sufferings with Christ in verse 17
00:05:30.000 | as the sufferings of this fallen world, and then he says that they include groanings that come from these bodies that need resurrection.
00:05:41.000 | And the reason these are all sufferings with Christ is that they are sufferings that we endure with him in the path of obedience.
00:05:53.000 | We were in the car going to take ourselves to the visit of our friend who needed encouragement when either the accident or the shot happened.
00:06:04.000 | They may come from persecutors, these sufferings.
00:06:08.000 | They may come from disease or natural disaster, but we're walking with Christ step by step in reliance upon the Holy Spirit,
00:06:15.000 | whichever way they come, and so we're with Christ and we're called to hold fast to him.
00:06:21.000 | So my answer is yes, James 1, 2, and other texts, they are applicable to cases like either way.
00:06:29.000 | "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
00:06:35.000 | for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness."
00:06:41.000 | Now that could be natural evils that befall you because you're in a tsunami or a flood or an earthquake, or it could be persecution.
00:06:51.000 | God is testing you. Will you trust him? Satan is tempting you. Will you doubt God?
00:06:58.000 | So that's my biblical argument, mainly from Romans 8.
00:07:01.000 | Why, I think, when you read the principles of how to manage suffering and what it's doing in our lives in the New Testament,
00:07:07.000 | it doesn't matter whether you've got cancer or whether you've just been put in jail by hostile people to Christians.
00:07:14.000 | Both of those situations are covered by the principles of how to deal with suffering.
00:07:21.000 | And I said there was one other argument from experience for why I don't make this distinction between persecution and sickness,
00:07:29.000 | and it goes like this. It really is impossible to draw a clear line between suffering that comes from persecution and suffering that comes from disease.
00:07:40.000 | If you are flogged, for Jesus' sake, and your back is ripped open like Paul's was five times,
00:07:48.000 | suppose a week later, since you may not in those days know anything about infection, infection sets in.
00:07:56.000 | You thought you were done with that persecution, and weeks later, when you're almost healed, you get this residual infection.
00:08:05.000 | A fever comes, and death threatens because of the fever.
00:08:11.000 | Now, are you dying because of a disease, or are you dying because of persecution?
00:08:18.000 | Of course, the answer is yes.
00:08:21.000 | Or here's a more relevant example. If you get malaria because you're a missionary on the ground in the Amazon,
00:08:28.000 | is that because you're diseased or a missionary?
00:08:33.000 | And there are countless such ambiguities. We just can't make that distinction hard and fast, and thank God we don't have to.
00:08:41.000 | So my conclusion is that all the teachings on suffering in the Bible can apply to both persecution pain and kinds of pain that come from other contexts.
00:08:53.000 | And the application would be to both, and it would be a mistake to say, "Oh, this kind of pain that's coming from persecution, that's handled in one way.
00:09:04.000 | This kind of cancer that's coming from that, that's handled in another way. God relates differently in those."
00:09:09.000 | No, he doesn't. He is testing in both. He wants you to trust him in both. He's sovereign in both. He's good in both.
00:09:15.000 | The devil is wicked in both, and you need to resist him in both.
00:09:19.000 | Thank you, Pastor John, for that, and thank you for the question, Brad.
00:09:22.000 | We will return tomorrow. A listener wants to know if Philippians 1:23 proves that Christian hedonism is wrong.
00:09:30.000 | That should be interesting. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you tomorrow.
00:09:34.000 | [END]
00:09:36.000 | Philippians 1:23
00:09:41.000 | (Session concluded at 4pm)