Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / Your Suffering Is Not Meaningless

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Your Suffering Is Not Meaningless · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Welcome back to another week on the Ask Pastor John podcast. In our Bible
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  reading, this week, we're in the thick of it reading through Leviticus,
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  a notorious book that ends a lot of well intended Bible readers in the month
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  of February, and a book that includes a hard text like Leviticus twenty one
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  verses sixteen to twenty four, forcing Bible readers to ask the question why did
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  God shun the disabled in the Old Testament. We looked at that question last
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  time on Thursday. Today, we talk about personal suffering and the meaning fullness,
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  the meaningfulness of Christian suffering. So often suffering feels meaning less and we
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  can get disheartened and feel like giving up, leading to today's question from Samuel,
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  Hello, Pastor John. The apostle Paul says in Second Grinthia Is four
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  verses seven to nine that he was afflicted in every way but not crushed,
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  perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken. What does he
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  mean that he was persecuted but not forsaken. When I imagine the sufferings of
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  Paul hitting my life, I would be immediately tempted to think that such harsh
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  persecution would make me feel completely crushed and abandoned by God. Much lesser pain
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  in my life brings me to the brink of this already. So how did
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  Paul endure such pain without feeling totally defeated? And what does faith looked like
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  in your life when your life was at its hardest. So here's the text
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  that we're being asked to get inside of two Christians four seven to nine.
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  We have this treasure, namely, this treasure of vital faith in Christ,
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  who is the image of God. We have this treasure in jars of clay
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  that his fragile bodies and minds to show that the surpassing power belongs to God
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  and not to us. We are afflict, did in every way, but
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  not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken,
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  struck down but not destroyed. And Samuel is asking, how did Paul endure
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  this? This being afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down? How did
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  he endure this the way he did? And he has in mind the magnitude
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  and frequency of Paul's sufferings. And I doubt that most of our listeners have
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  an immediate consciousness of how terrible that was for Paul's I'm going to read it.
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  This is one of the most surprising and staggering and appalling statements of Paul's
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  life in the Bible. This is Sewod queens Is eleven twenty three following He
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  endured far greater labors, far more imprisonments, countless beatings, often near death.
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  Five times I received at the of the Jews the forty lashes last one.
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  Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three
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  times I was shipwrecked a night and day. I was adrift at sea on
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  frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my
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  own people, danger from gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the
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  wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers, in toil and hardship,
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  through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food,
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  in cold and exposure, and apart from other things, there is the
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  daily pressure on me of my anxiety. For all the churches and we complain.
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  Samuel's question is relevant because of how easily we grumble about our own circumstances,
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  when in fact none of us. I'm willing to say this to everybody
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  listening to me. None of us endured what Paul did. So Samuel asked,
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  how did Paul endure such pain without feeling totally defeated, indeed abandoned by
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  God. That's what he asks, And I think Paul would give three answers.
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  Number one, I think he would say, I was miraculously kept faithful
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  by the Lord Jesus. It was a gift. It was a miracle.
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  It was a work of God to keep me. That's why I didn't give
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  in. His perseverance was a gift. Here's what he says two Timothy four
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  sixteen. At my first defense, no one came to stand by me,
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  but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them. But the
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  Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might
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  be fully proclaimed to all the gentiles. So I was rescued from the lines.
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  That's his basic answer to how he endured. The living sovereign Lord Jesus
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  Christ stood by Paul when nobody else did. He did not infer that because
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  everybody abandoned him, God's not real. Since Christians are all a bunch of
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  fakes. Jesus isn't real. He never went that direction which so many people
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  do today. In First Corinthians one eight, he said that Christ quote sustains
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  us to the end guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God
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  is faithful by whom we were called into the fellowship of His son, Jesus
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  Christ, our Lord. So Paul enjoyed fellowship with Jesus. That's the key,
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  fellowship with Jesus. And God held on to Paul and sustained him and
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  preserved his faith through everything by giving him the enjoyment of fellowship with Jesus.
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  Through it all. God began the work in Paul on the Damascus Road,
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  and according to Philippians one six, he believes God will finish the work.
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  So God calls, God keeps, God establishes, God glorifies. This is
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  God's work. If any of us endures to the end as a believer through
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  suffering, it's God's grace that we endure. It's a gift. It's a
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  supernatural work. So that's Paul's first answer. Second answer, think you would
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  say God preserved me. Jesus saved me and kept me by means of teaching
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  me a true and robust theology of Christian suffering, and in that theology of
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  Christian suffering, which kept him was the conviction of God's absolute sovereignty over Paul's
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  suffering, and that God is not only sovereign, but he's good and he's
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  wise. Nothing befalls Paul but what God sends for his good purposes. If
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  the Lord wills, James says, and Paul agrees, we will live.
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  If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. If
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  he doesn't, we won't. We are immortal till God's work for us is
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  done. God is sovereign. That is basic to Paul's and our endurance.
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  In the first days after his conversion. Remember, even before his blindness was
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  removed. There in Damascus, Anonius was sent to Paul, and he was
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  sent with this message. I will show him, Christ says, I will
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  show Paul how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. In
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  other words, from the beginning, God made it clear to Paul, to
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  serve me is to suffer. Suffering's not a detour, it's part of the
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  past, part of the calling. Paul knew that all of God's wrath had
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  been absorbed by Jesus when he died, so now there's no condemnation for Paul
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  or for us in Christ. None of these horrible things that are happening to
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  Paul are owing to God's wrath a relief. They were all part of God's
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  fatherly, loving, disciplining ministry, advancing purposes for Paul, for the Church,
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  for the world. Some of his sufferings, he says, were the
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  refining of his own faith. The second green is one eight is amazing.
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  He says, we were so utterly burdened beyond strength that we despaired of life
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  itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.
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  But that was to make us rely not on our sels elves, but on
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  God, who raises the dead. That was God's purpose to help Paul trust
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  utterly in God by knocking all the props out from under his life, so
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  that there was only one place to fall on God, who raises the dead.
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  And he trusted God. He trusted this profound knowledge of the role of
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  suffering in the life of the believer. Another part of his theology of suffering
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  was that no pain here is wasted because it's producing a weight of glory beyond
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  all comparison. In two Corindians four seventeen. This light, momentary affliction,
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  he is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. In
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  other words, even in those last horrible days and weeks of suffering before death,
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  they seem so meaningless, But even in those hours, nothing is wasted,
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  because they actually are producing a greater weight of glory after death. I'll
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  mention one more aspect of Paul's theology of suffering. That is, like a
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  ballast in his boat to keep it from being tipped over by the sufferings.
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  He says that his sufferings for the body of Christ were the filling up of
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  what was lacking in the afflictions of Christ Classians one twenty four. I rejoice
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  in my sufferings, which is an amazing statement in itself. I rejoice in
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  my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh. I am filling up
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  what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is
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  his Church. This was not because Christ's afflictions were lacking in any atoning merit.
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  That's not the issue. That's not the problem. It was because Christ's
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  afflictions were lacking in personal presentation to those for whom he suffered. Paul was
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  saying, in my sufferings for you, I am presenting to you Christ's sufferings
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  for you so that you can see and feel His love for you in my
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  suffering for you. And I think that's why many pastors are called to suffer
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  the way they are so. Paul's first answer to how he endured these crushing
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  hardships was one Christ kept him stood by him. And the second answer is
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  he kept him by means of a true and robust theology of Christian's suffering.
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  And finally, the third answer that Paul would give is I was kept by
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  the precious and very great promises of God. Promises like I'll be with you
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  to the end. I'll never leave you, I'll never forsake you. Matthew
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  twenty eight, Hebrews thirteen. I will work every thing together for your good
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  Rome's eight twenty eight. I will strengthen you, I'll help you, I'll
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  uphold you Issaa forty one ten. In the Lord, none of your work
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  is in vain on Corinthians fifteen fifty eight. To live is Christ. To
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  die is gain away from the body, is to be at home with the
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  Lord. So these three answers to how Paul endured are our answers. I
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  think that our answer as well as Paul's answer, Paul lived his life for
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  our sake. That's why you endured these things, so that we could see
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  and learn. Number one, the Lord kept him and we'll keep us.
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  Number two, we should have a robust biblical theology of Christian's suffering. And
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  number three, we should live through it all by the precious promises of God.
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  Hey man, thank you, Pastor John. And I just want to
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  underline tewod Corinthians four seventeen, a text that is so pressure to us at
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  desiring God, so memorizable. No Christian suffering is meaningless, none of it.
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  It's completely meaningful. Our suffering is working for us. Only by faith
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  can we embrace such a truth. It's profound, and that's why two Corinthians
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  four to seventeen comes up over and over on this podcast and dozens of episodes
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  on suffering just a major theme of ours. And to show you how central
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  this text is to Pastor John and his thinking. Here, you might be
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  interested to learn that I wrote a book to collect all those APJA episodes together
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  into one digest to help you see the ground that we've covered in the past
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  on this topic of suffering. And that book is done and it releases soon.
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  It's titled Ask Pastor John seven hundred and fifty Bible answers to Life's Most
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  Important Questions. And there I devote pages three hundred and sixty five to three
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  hundred and ninety four whole thirty paid section to this topic of personal suffering in
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  the meaningfullness of it. And I pray this new book we'll serve you to
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  find your way around the archive to find the right episodes that you need in
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  a timely way. The book launches soon and Pator John and I are going
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  to talk about it coming up shortly. Asked Pastor John seven hundred and fifty
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  Bible answers to Life's most Important Questions. Can't wait to see that in your
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  hands, and it will be soon. Honored to be your podcast host for
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  over a decade from behind a microphone, now I get to be your podcast
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  host in a book format, whether by microphone or by book. It's truly
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  my joy to be your host. I'm Tony Ranky. See you Thursday.