For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. You can also find us on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/6KKzSHPFT466aXfNT2r9OD
To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Lament Part 4
Grumbling vs Lamenting #4. Psalm 13
For the choir director: A psalm of David. 1 O LORD, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way? 2 How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow in my heart every day? How long will my enemy have the upper hand? 3 Turn and answer me, O LORD my God! Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die. 4 Don’t let my enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!” Don’t let them rejoice at my downfall. 5 But I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me. 6 I will sing to the LORD because he is good to me. Psalms 13
There is more to the spoken sermon than there is to the text here. My right arm is in a sling and will be for several more weeks, so I type these words through voice dictation. But when I record the sermon, I add in things that will not show up in this written version. That’s why I encourage you to listen to the audio versions of these particular sermons.
When you are facing a trial have you asked this? This psalmist, David, continues his lament with, “How long must I… have sorrow in my heart all the day?” (v. 2). Read more from this psalm and you will see some of what David was facing.
What are you facing? Illness/Chronic pain? Divorce? Conflict? Insomnia? Bankruptcy? Legal problems? Loneliness? Addiction? Depression? Abuse?
The problem with trials and suffering is that each new one can seem permanent and worse than the one which preceded it. Suffering is an inevitable part of life on this side of heaven (John 16:33). We’ve learned that some suffering comes simply because we are occupying space here on earth. Sometimes it comes because we have done something to make our situation worse. Sometimes someone else does something which makes our situation worse. Sometimes God is pruning us and bringing us into a “dark night of the soul.”
When you experience a “dark night,” which typically lasts far longer than a single night, your circumstances may not change for the worse, but you will be exposed to a kind of purgation, a spiritual aridness that is exceedingly painful. In these seasons, it can seem impossible to go on.
I remember my first such experience with a dark night. I was pretty new to the faith and had just been baptized in the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist describes that experience as “a baptism of fire” (Matthew 3:11). I was experiencing the fire of purgation, a terribly painful purifying process. I felt like I was being turned inside out. This has been experienced and written about by many who have gone before us, the most notable perhaps, would be St. John of the Cross.
My circumstances were not more difficult than usual. I had some good friends and a budding relationship with the woman who became my first wife, Laura. Yet, internally I was in great distress (Sadly, Laura passed away just a few years ago). I was confused about what I was experiencing. I began to fall into despair and didn’t want to live. In my deepest pain, I heard, “John 15:2!” I didn’t know what it said, so I read that verse. It says, “…every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.” Then I heard the same voice say, “You’ve been bearing fruit and now I am pruning you so you will bear even more…”
When it appears that your suffering has a purpose, it helps. I found hope but the suffering continued. The writer of the book of Hebrews indicates that we should treat all suffering as God’s discipline and something that is useful for our sanctification (Hebrews 12:7, 10).
Then I began to wonder, “How long?” I didn’t receive an answer. I think one of the reasons we may not get a definitive answer to this question is because we’re called to walk by faith, not by sight. God wants us to keep our eyes on Him and not fixate on what we are walking through. He wants us to learn to move forward putting one foot in front of the other, even when, especially when, we are confused, afraid and feeling alone. My first dark night lasted about two years. It was hard but it was an important season in my life. It helped me to know that God doesn’t remove His presence from us even though He sometimes will remove our awareness of it.
If you can get an answer to the “why?” question, ask “How long?” You may or may not get an answer. God’s silence is sometimes an answer. Sometimes it’s an invitation to trust Him when nothing makes sense. For now, perhaps it will suffice to acknowledge that God wants you to simply proceed without any assurances that your suffering has an end date. Ouch.
(Tom here, for a bit). In fact, there is a definitive end date for all of our suffering. We have the promise that when we leave this mortal life, if we have put our hope fully in Jesus, our sufferings are at an end. Sometimes I quail at the thought that I have another thirty years or so to suffer my kidney stone pain. At the same time, I know that it won’t be forever. The Lord has been faithful to me for these past ten years of physical suffering, and I can trust him to continue to be faithful to me, and walk with me, as long as my suffering endures, and in whatever other suffering I may experience. As it says in Hebrews:
For God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.” 6 So we can say with confidence, “The LORD is my helper, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?” (Hebrews 13:5-6, NLT)
Our culture, now more than ever, is all about instant gratification. I find myself frustrated that when I order something from a place like Amazon sometimes it takes three whole days to get to me. It’s insane that that length of time bothers me. But the economy of the entire world has grown by providing what we want ever more quickly. It makes life comfortable, but it leaves us confused, and at a loss, when things don’t work out for us the way we want them to. The promises given to us in and through Jesus are so very worth waiting for. There is literally nothing better that we could have than the fulfillment of those promises. Can we hold on in faith, knowing that what we wait for far outweighs any of the struggles we might have here and now?
The spiritual practice of lament encourages us to recognize our feelings. It isn’t wrong to feel like our struggles are long and drawn out. It isn’t wrong to say that to God, and to wish for them to end soon. But in lamenting, we don’t simply complain. What separates it from grumbling is that we also turn our hearts towards God in faith. In lamenting, in a sense, we preach to our hearts. We remind ourselves of God’s promises, and his goodness, and his presence with us in every moment.
So, go ahead and ask “how long?” You may or may not receive a satisfactory answer. You will receive a satisfactory Presence, whether or not you perceive that Presence. For the entire length of your struggle, the Lord does, and will, walk with you, no matter how long. And though we may not know exactly how long we will have to suffer, we know that there is a certain end to the suffering, and a real beginning of an incredible life free from our struggles, infinitely longer than the amount of time that we may suffer here in this life.
Here’s a promise we can speak to our hearts today, any day in which we wonder “how long?”
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” 5 And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.” (Revelation 21:1-5)
For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. You can also find us on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/6KKzSHPFT466aXfNT2r9OD
To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Lament Part 3
Lamenting vs Grumbling #3. Romans 8:16-18; 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
This week, I’ll start with some thoughts from Pastor Kevin McClure, but most of the message is my own, since I have wrestled a great deal with the main point he raises.
Lamenters, as you will see from a study of the psalms which are known as the psalms of lament (there is some lament in Psalm 12, 13, 22, 44, 86), eventually get to three questions: “Why?” “How Long?” “Where are You:” Today, I begin to explore the “Why?” question.
When we are suffering, even though we live in a world that is “fallen” and is actually a spiritual war zone, we wonder if there is a particular reason for our suffering. In a moment we will turn our attention to some possible reasons for your individual suffering.
Though we wonder about a specific reason, it is good to remind oneself of the ramifications of living in a world where everything is fallen, meaning, everything has been influenced by the power of sin and Satan. Everything. Though redemption has been brought about through the Person, life, teaching, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, that redemption is both “now and not yet fully.”
For example, God has given us infallible truth, and yet we are told by the Apostle Paul that even so, we know only in part and look at truth as if through a smudged window. Later, in the new age, we’ll see perfectly (1 Corinthians 13:9,12). Also, God provides miracles of healing and yet not even Paul the apostle was able to help all of his friends and ministry associates receive healing (1 Timothy 5:23; 2 Timothy 4:20). God has revealed Himself as the Provider for our every practical need and yet Jesus acknowledged, “…the poor you will always have with you” (Matthew 26:11).
If you were living in Ukraine right now, the likelihood of suffering injury or premature death would be greatly increased. Flying bullets, buildings being bombed and falling down around you, and shrapnel, all pose a threat. Similarly, we live in a world where there are sickness-inducing chemicals in the air, water and ground, where frustrated people behave impatiently, people drive drunk and children are exploited. We do our best to make life work in the midst of such challenges, but we can’t control everything. With God’s help we aim to experience God’s promises for health, deliverance, provision and joy while living in this fallen world. Yet disappointment and hardship remain part of this life. Some of the suffering we experience is simply due to living and breathing on this planet.
But, sometimes even in a war zone like the world we live in, there are additional reasons for suffering. It may be that I am suffering consequences for my sin. Maybe I’ve been sexually permissive and have contracted a STD. Maybe I’ve stolen and gotten myself arrested and have landed in jail. Maybe the reason for my suffering is that God is pruning me or perhaps I’ve entered a dark night of the soul. Each of these is very, very difficult. Asking God “why?” is okay, especially if you are truly confused about why you are suffering your particular hardship. It is good to ask God if He’d like to bring some clarity into your suffering that will lessen your confusion about it. When you ask, ask in the company of your faith community. Don’t try to figure this out by yourself. Yes, God can and often does speak to us personally, but sometimes He wants us to learn to lean into our brothers and sisters so they can not only pray for us in our suffering, but so they can walk alongside us in it.
This is Tom, here, now, and it will be my own thoughts for the rest of this message. I want to add some things about the “why” question. In my own struggle with physical suffering, I’ve grappled with this in a very personal way. As Kevin says, it can be helpful to ask the Lord about your suffering. Is the Lord trying to teach you something, or trying to address something in your life? At times, that is indeed the case. At times, the Lord allows suffering because he wants to root out something in your life: a lack of faith, or a persistent sin, an attitude that completely unbiblical, a way of relating that hurts others, and so on. It is good to ask “Why?” and then listen for the answer.
But as Kevin also mentioned, there is a whole lot of suffering that simply defies explanation.
One of our most distressing and puzzling questions concerning suffering is the question of why we or our loved ones suffer, when there is no obvious answer along the lines that Kevin offered. My own suffering does not have any easy answers to the “why” question.
I’ll be honest with you: In all of my fifty-five years, with half of those as a pastor, I have never seen any real good come from this question when the answer isn’t already obvious. It is the question that often leads people to reject the God of the Bible. It leads to angst and anger and frustration. I’m not saying it is wrong to question God. The Judeo-Christian tradition has a very healthy attitude toward expressing all feelings – including anger and frustration – toward God. It is neither wrong or bad to question God. He is patient, and he can take it. However, I happen to believe that the question: “Why is this happening?” is not a particularly helpful question to ask, and I’ve rarely seen it lead people to greater peace. Other questions are more constructive.
I think we might find it more useful if we step back and consider why we ask why. I think that what most people are really looking for when they ask the “why” question is to find some reason to believe that their suffering has meaning and purpose, and will ultimately result in something good.
Human beings have a tremendous capacity to suffer when we know that it is for a worthwhile cause. Billions of women each year go through intense pain in order to deliver a child into the world. Many of them have done so multiple times. Soldiers will endure hardship, terror, anguish and pain if they believe in what they are fighting for, if they believe that what they endure is necessary, ultimately, to benefit others. Many soldiers say that what they are most willing to suffer for is each other. There is enough value in knowing that to sustain many.
So, it is natural to want to have a reason, some solid explanation we can cling to, so we can say, “I can endure this terrible thing, because it will result in something good or worthwhile. I can endure, as long as I know that this suffering is not meaningless.”
Some people are blessed to see why they suffer. But many people never find out why they, or their loved ones, have to suffer. Their struggles, pain and hardship all seem so pointless. This is often why people reject the Bible. The Bible reveals God as all-powerful, and all-good. If he has the power, why, then won’t he use it for good? Often times, we want him to do something that, as far as we can tell, God himself tells us is good, right in the Bible. Why then won’t he act? The “logic” continues: either God must not be good (not even by his own definition, as given in the Bible) or he must not be strong enough to make sure good happens instead of evil. Therefore the God of the Bible doesn’t exist.
But there is something missing in this reasoning. The Bible does indeed tell us God is good. It tells us that he is powerful and loving. But it also tells us that we will never be able to fully understand him, or his ways. There is no logical reason for us to suppose that we will always be able to comprehend how God is making our suffering meaningful.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (ESV, Isaiah 55:8-9)
The Bible also reveals God as infinite in all ways. His power is infinite, his goodness is infinite, and his knowledge, wisdom and intelligence are infinite. He has no beginning, no end, no limit beyond those he sets for himself. It doesn’t take a Bible to realize that human beings are not infinite. As a race we had a beginning. As individuals we have beginnings, and so far, every human being that has ever lived, save one, also had an end, at least to this life. Our brains are finite both in physical size and in mental capacity, and in how long they last.
The finite cannot hold the infinite. It’s like turning on a garden hose and trying to contain all the water in a small shot glass. The shot glass can hold some of the water, but the water never stops coming. It is ridiculous to compare the capacity of a shot glass to that which comes endlessly out of a hose.
In the same way, logic compels us to conclude that if God is infinite, we will never be able to understand everything he does, nor why he does it. He has told us some of it, the most important parts, in the scriptures. But He is infinite. There is no book, no library, no collection of libraries, that can tell us everything about an infinite being.
If I believe in an infinite God, then it is not only likely, but probable, that something that looks like terrible suffering to me could actually be something that God is doing that will be better for me than anything I can imagine.
A few years ago a friend of ours brought her baby to stay with us while she went to the dentist. The baby was about nine months old. He was at that stage that most babies experience, where he was realizing that he was a separate being from his mother. Babies at that point tend to be very clingy, and they become very upset when separated from family members.
When his mother left, he was heartbroken. He sobbed – well, he sobbed like a baby. As far as he knew, he would never see his mother again. We took care of him, and tried to comfort him, but there was really no way we could make him understand that in reality, everything was perfectly all right. We spoke to him, and explained, but of course, he really was too little to understand our words, let alone the concept. We knew that his mother was going to come back, and neither he, nor she, would come to any harm.
This little baby boy was entirely safe. With our fully developed brains and much greater experience, we could clearly see that there was nothing whatsoever for him to cry about. But his still-developing brain did not have the capacity to understand our explanations and reassurances.
The truth is, it was entirely appropriate for the baby to cry. He thought he had lost his mother. He had no way of understanding that he hadn’t. Crying, based on his developmental level, was perfectly normal. We weren’t upset with him for crying; we understood that he couldn’t understand. To tie this with our current series, it was perfectly appropriate for this baby to lament.
At the same time, while his grief was entirely appropriate, in the big picture, there was nothing actually wrong.
Sometimes I think we are like that little baby. The grief that we experience is real and appropriate. It would be cruel to make light of our pain and suffering. It makes perfect sense, and it is even good, for us to lament. At the same time, I believe that we simply do not have the capacity to see the bigger picture. If God is infinite, it is entirely possible, even probable, that there is a deeply satisfying answer to why we suffer, but we simply cannot comprehend it.
This is exactly what the Bible tells us about pain and suffering.
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:18, ESV)
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. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, ESV)
We can’t see it. We can’t quite grasp it in the here and now. But the promise is that when we stand face to face with Jesus, we will be more than satisfied with what we receive in return for our sufferings.
We may or may not ever know the reason why. But the All-Good, All-Powerful, All-Wise, Infinite God invites us not to understand, but to trustHim.
Abraham walked with God for many years, decades in fact. God made promises to him, and those promises were delayed for years and years. Abraham and his wife Sarah made many false moves and missteps during all this time. Finally, Abraham’s son Isaac was born. Isaac was the fulfillment of all of Abraham’s lifelong hopes and dreams. Thirteen years passed, years in which Abraham grew not only to love him, but feel for him the overwhelming combination of pride and gratitude that only a father can fully appreciate. On top of all of this, Isaac was God’s own answer to Abraham’s many prayers. I don’t think it would be too much to say that Isaac meant the whole world to his father.
One night God came to Abraham. He commanded Abraham to take his son, this object of fatherly-pride, and love and joy and promises, and kill him as a sacrifice to God.
Now, God is always God. He can always give whatever he wants, take whatever he wants. But the question for Abraham was this: “Do you agree that God hasthe right to do that in your own life? Will you trust that God is good and right and loving even while he takes away your lifelong dreams, your hopes of a future, you pride and joy, your fiercely beloved son?” It wasn’t just about whether or not God was capable of it. It was about whether Abraham would trust God while he destroyed Abraham’s life in front of his eyes.
Abraham answered the question with a resounding “yes.”
As it turns out, God did not make Abraham go through with it. The question of God’s right to ask everything of Abraham was settled for once and all.
Instead, God was the one who offered up his one and only Son, his fiercely, eternally-beloved son. It was Jesus who trusted even while God abandoned him, and withdrew the eternal sense of presence that had been the wellspring of his eternal joy. God turned his back while his Son was condemned, covered in sin and shame that were not his own, and sent to hell to pay a price he did not owe.
No matter what God asks of us, it will never be as much as what he himself has already done for us. No matter what we or our loved-ones suffer it will never be as unjust as the suffering of Jesus.
We can trust God, even when we don’t understand, because he has shown that he is trustworthy. He is not a God who sits distant in heaven and demands that we perform. He himself suffered on our behalf. He promises to be present with us in absolutely everything we encounter, including suffering. In my own experience, he is present in suffering in a particularly powerful way. Author Tim Keller puts it like this:
“So suffering is at the very heart of the Christian faith. It is not only the way Christ became like and redeemed us, but it is one of the main ways we become like him and experience his redemption. And that means that our suffering, despite its painfulness, is also filled with purpose and usefulness.” (Tim Keller, Walking With God through Pain and Suffering)
God shines his glory not just through David, but also through the many people who were part of what the Lord was doing at the time of David. As each part of this epilogue shows, once again we see that salvation does not come from David, but from the Lord. He used some amazing people to build the kingdom of Israel. Just as those people shared in David’s hardship, and then, finally, David’s glory, so we too will one day share in the glory of Jesus, even when we suffer with him in this present life.
To listen to the sermon, click the play button:
For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. You can also find us on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/6KKzSHPFT466aXfNT2r9OD
To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 2 Samuel Part 27
2 Samuel #27. 2 Samuel 23:8-39
As I have mentioned before, 2 Samuel chapters 21-24 are a carefully crafted epilogue to the book of Samuel. The content is arranged in a common ancient middle-eastern pattern called chiastic structure. We are now in part B1.
A. The need for atonement
B. The Giant-killing warriors who took over that role from David
X. David’s psalm declaring that the Lord alone saves his people
X1. David’s last words depending on God’s promise alone to bring an eternal messiah
B1. The warriors who helped David throughout the years
A1. The need for atonement and the provision for it.
One of the purposes of this epilogue is to encourage people to hope not in an earthly leader, not even a really good one, like David, but rather, to put all of their hope in the Lord alone. We can see looking at part B, above, that when David could no longer fight there were other warriors who stepped up. The point was, the Lord is the one who saves his people, and he is not dependent on any one person. That point is being reiterated now. Now, the author of Samuel is saying, “Look, even when David was young, it wasn’t only David whom the Lord used. He was surrounded by these amazing warriors, even in his prime.” Again, the message is that we shouldn’t look to any single person like David. The Lord is the one who saves.” There’s something else too. The beginning and end of this epilogue are focused on our need for salvation. Ultimately, there is something deeply ugly and rebellious at the core of every human being. But the Lord also made humans in his own image, and people are not only sinful: they are, at the same time, beautiful and amazing too. So here we see some of the amazing things done by David’s closest associates.
We are introduced first to “the three;” that is, the three most famous and honored warriors led by David. First was Josheb Basshebeth, also known, in 1 Chronicles 11, as “Jashobeam.” He killed 800 enemies with his spear in a single battle. Next of “the three” was Eleazar. He and David stood alone together against the Philistines at a place called Pas Dammin. They fought so long and furiously that Eleazar’s hand cramped around his sword, and he couldn’t let go of it for some time afterwards. Although David was a part of that battle, the point in this passage is not about David, but his men. Third was Shammah, son of Agee from Harar. He defended a field from the Philistines, apparently all by himself, and won a great victory. Apparently, one of the “thirty mighty men,” a man named Jonathan, was the son of this Shammah.
In verses 13-17 we have another exploit that “the three” undertook together. Some translations, in verse 13 say something like: “And three of the thirty chief men went down (ESV).” This casts doubt on whether it was “the three” or just three unidentified men out of “the thirty.” However, the text has not yet introduced us to “the thirty” and verses 16 and 17 seem to be talking specifically about “the three.” So I prefer the NLT. “The Three (who were among the Thirty—an elite group among David’s fighting men) went down to meet him there.” There is a bit of interpretation, or clarification, added to the Hebrew here by the NLT, but I think it’s the right interpretation, and it is supported by the context.
In any case, the incident took place when David was in the cave of Adullam, and the Philistines were in the valley of Rephaim, and had spread out all the way to Bethlehem. Although this could have been before David was king, when he was hiding from both Saul and the Philistines, I think the context best fits 2 Samuel 5:17-25. In fact, we looked briefly at this story in 2 Samuel #5.
David had only recently become king, and the Philistines invaded up the valley of Rephaim, getting as far as Bethlehem, which was David’s hometown. David, being a great strategist, had already taken his army and concealed it in the caves that were found in the south side of that valley. They were in a good strategic position, but it broke David’s heart that he had to let the Philistines occupy Bethlehem. It was probably a hot day, and he exclaimed how much he wished he could have a drink from the well at Bethlehem, the clear, cold water he grew up drinking. He was certainly wishing for that drink because he was hot and thirsty. But he was also wishing that the battle was over and the Philistines were defeated, and his hometown was safe. But “the three” took David at his word, and broke through the Philistine lines, drew water from the well, and brought it back to David without getting hurt themselves. David’s response is interesting
But he refused to drink it. Instead, he poured it out as an offering to the LORD. 17 “The LORD forbid that I should drink this!” he exclaimed. “This water is as precious as the blood of these men who risked their lives to bring it to me.” (2 Samuel 23:16-17, NLT)
The reason the author of the book of Samuel tells that story here, and not in chapter five, is because it illustrates his main point in this epilogue. David is not the hero. Salvation does not come from David. Instead, David is just a servant of the Lord. It is through the Lord that salvation comes, and even David himself consistently testified to this.
When I first read this, I thought, “I’d be angry if I were one of those three warriors.” But actually, I think what David was saying was this: “I am not worthy of such a costly drink. I can’t claim it. Only the Lord is worthy of that kind of effort and self-sacrifice.” He was actually honoring the men more by pouring it out than by drinking it. He “poured it out to the Lord.” He was saying that the lives of these men were precious to the Lord. There was a type of offering called a drink offering, where a drink (usually wine) was poured into the ground. The idea was to say, “this is God’s, not mine, and I pour it out to show that everything I drink ultimately comes from God.” So, David did not consider himself worthy of that kind of sacrifice from his men, and he directed their attention to the Lord. Life wasn’t about him, it was about God. The Lord was the one who gave them the strength and flat-out guts to do this amazing deed. He was the one who was to be honored, not David.
The hero of this entire story is the Lord. David consciously realized this, and made statements to draw attention to the Lord, rather than himself.
The author of Samuel goes on to tell about a few more people whom the Lord used to establish the kingdom of his people, Israel. The next one is Abishai. There are some differences of opinion about the original wording of verses 18-19, about Abishai. Here’s one way it could be:
18 Abishai, Joab’s brother and son of Zeruiah, was leader of the Three. He raised his spear against 300 men and killed them, gaining a reputation among the Three. 19 Was he not more honored than the Three? He became their commander even though he did not become one of the Three. (2 Samuel 23:18-19, HCSB)
Or:
18 Now Abishai, the brother of Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was chief of the thirty. And he wielded his spear against three hundred men and killed them and won a name beside the three. 19 He was the most renowned of the thirty and became their commander, but he did not attain to the three. (2 Samuel 23:18-19, ESV)
This difference is known as a “major variant” in textual criticism. Basically, the main Hebrew textual traditions have it the way the HCSB says it. But there are some early Hebrew texts, as well as a translation of this passage into Syriac (an ancient middle eastern language) that have it as the ESV translates it. The ESV contains a note explaining this.
We don’t know which one of these is closest to the original. You can see that it doesn’t matter theologically at all. What we can know for sure either way is that Abishai is one of the four most honored warriors of David. He’s either number one, and the chief of the three, or he is number four, the chief of the other thirty most elite soldiers.
As we’ve gone through the book of Samuel I’ve found myself admiring Abishai more and more. He shared David’s troubles while David was still an outlaw. He and David performed the amazing feat of sneaking into the camp of Saul and stealing his spear and water jug. He was clearly a fearsome warrior. He often didn’t understand, or agree with, the decisions David made, but he went along with David anyway, and submitted to David’s leadership. For instance, when they were standing next to a sleeping Saul, Abishai wanted to kill Saul, for David’s sake. David said, “no,” and Abishai acquiesced. Much later, Abishai accompanied David when he left Jerusalem in shame, fleeing from Absalom. The man named Shimei insulted David in a cowardly way, and Abishai wanted to kill him, but when David said no, Abishai did as he was told. When they returned in victory, Abishai wanted to kill Shimei again, then, but David still said no, and Abishai, again, obeyed. In other words, he followed David, and obeyed him, even when he didn’t understand, or agree. It boils down to this: he trusted David and David’s leadership even when he didn’t understand it. In that respect, he shows us how we ought to follow Jesus Christ.
In all of this, Abishai was very different from his older brother, Joab. We know that Abishai killed at least 300 enemies in a single battle. He certainly fought in many other battles, presumably killing other enemies. But the scripture never mentions Joab killing enemies in battle, except as a general, in which case he, personally, was not likely involved in the fighting. The only time we know for sure that Joab killed anyone was on the three occasions when he committed murder. And Joab committed those murders explicitly in defiance of David. Joab himself is not honored in this text as one of David’s elite warriors. Even though he was the overall commander of the army as a whole, here, he is only mentioned as Abishai’s brother. He also gets a mention because one of the thirty, Naharai, was his armor-bearer. Abishai had the strength of character to be a better man than his older brother, following God’s chosen leader faithfully, even when he didn’t understand, or fully agree.
The final person singled out for special praise is Benaiah, son of Jehoiada. If you want to think about what kind of a warrior he was, simply remember these things: on a snowy day he chased a lion into a pit and killed it; and on another occasion he faced an imposing Egyptian warrior with a spear, while he only held a wooden staff. He took the spear away from the other warrior, and killed him with his own weapon. Benaiah was younger than many of those named here, and only served David later on in his reign. However, he went on to serve as the chief bodyguard of king Solomon as well. In that capacity, he executed both Shimei and Joab.
Next, we come to the list of “the thirty,” who are, along with the others mentioned, the most fearsome, elite warriors of David. You may notice that the list of “the thirty” includes more than thirty people. It’s not clear whether Abishai is to be counted among them, or Benaiah son of Jehoiada. We know that some of those listed died when David was still relatively young. Asahel was killed before David became king over all Israel. We know, of course, that Uriah was killed when David was middle aged. So “the thirty” is obviously a round number, and there was some change in the composition of the group, but it was a special and exclusive company.
As we read about these people, their names are very foreign to English speakers. Even worse, most of them are also identified by their family or clan name, or possibly the town they are from, and those names are difficult as well. These things make this text hard to follow. Because of this I recommend reading a translation like the New Living Translation, since it simplifies and clarifies the names. The God’s Word version helpfully puts each name on a new line so we can keep track of them more easily, and that also helps us separate the first names from the family names and place names. Of course, what remains are still names that are strange to us.
But maybe these names are there for a reason. After thirty centuries, these names have never been forgotten. God knows his own people, by name. He knows you, too, and your name, if you trust Jesus, is also written in God’s book.
Even though we humans have been broken by sin, there is still part of the amazing image of God that shines through our brokenness. David’s gang of thirty were people who willingly gave themselves to serve David; ultimately, to serve God. Because of that, we see God’s glory through them. We too, are called, broken as we are, to let the glory of God shine through us, as we serve God’s chosen one, Jesus Christ.
Another thing I think we are meant to understand is that David did not become king all by himself. Though he was a remarkable man in many different ways, he needed the help of many others. No one really does anything significant without help from others.
We all need each other. We each need to find our own “gang of thirty” and guard each other’s backs, deal with life side by side together, and cheer one another on. Start with a “gang of three or four,” and build from there. In other words, we need close fellowship with a few other believers who will stand with us when we need it. We need to be prepared to stand with them in times of need, as well. If you don’t have a gang of three or four, or a larger support network, start by asking the Lord to provide that for you, and then keep your eyes and ears open to hear from the Lord who you should spend time with to develop that support network. Remember that these people will not only be there for you, but you should be there for them, as well.
Most of “the thirty” joined David when he was still an outlaw. Some of the others were children, who grew up in David’s nomadic camp, and then joined the thirty when they were older. They traveled with him, fought alongside him, planned, did chores and simply lived life together. They willingly shared David’s hardships and suffering, and, at the end of it all, they also shared in the success and honor of David. They were an important part of the kingdom that David was building.
David was not the messiah, but the Lord used him to show us some things about the true Messiah, Jesus Christ. Jesus invites us into close fellowship with himself. He invites us into everyday life with him. He also sometimes invites us into hardship and suffering; but that suffering is to be alongside him—we are not alone in it. In fact, if our lives truly belong to him (as they do, if, in fact, we trust him) then it is really his suffering that we are sharing in. David’s followers encountered that hardship and suffering as, and because, they went through life with David. Though they all suffered, it was, in a sense, David’s suffering; they shared in it because they were connected with him. In the same way, even our own sufferings are not really our own. We encounter them as we are part of the people of Jesus. So, we are not alone as we suffer. We have God’s own promise that one day the suffering will end, and we will share in the glory.
16 For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. 17 And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. 18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. (Romans 8:16-19, NLT)
When we see the earthly glory that David’s followers shared, we should be encouraged to look beyond. Jesus is better than David. His promises are powerful and real. We can learn to have peace and joy now, no matter what is going on, because we know that one day glory will far outshine the worst sufferings we experience.
16 That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. 17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, NLT)
Finally, we should be reminded that hope does not come from earthly leaders, even really good ones. True hope that lasts is found only in God’s promised messiah, Jesus Christ. In Christ we will be led to our support network. In Christ, we will share in suffering, and in Christ we will share in eternal glory and joy so amazing that we will consider the sufferings of this life not worth mentioning.
Hardship is an important and often unrecognized pathway to peace in Jesus Christ. We tend to dodge hardship with denial, control, or escape. But Jesus walks with us in all things, including in difficulties.
To listen to the sermon, click the play button:
For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.
To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Serenity Prayer Part 6
Accepting Hardship as a Pathway to Peace
Scriptures: John 16:33; James 1:2-4 2 Corinthians 4:4-10; Romans 8:15-19; Rom 5:3-5; 1 Peter 4:12-13
Welcome, children of God! I’m Wade Jones from Priest Lake Christian Fellowship, and we are about halfway into our journey through the Serenity Prayer as a tool to encourage the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Let’s invite Him into this time together.
This week we are looking at the line “Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace.” Now, I am not usually one to be pedantic about small words, but this week there is an important thing I want to note right off. You can find several different versions of this prayer, and they have slightly different wording. When we went through this study together at Priest Lake, one of the brothers pointed out the difference between praying “accepting hardship as a pathway to peace” and “accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.” Have you ever met someone who always assumed that God’s will would be to do the most difficult thing possible? I see how they get there; it’s way too easy to “hear” that God wants me to be as comfortable as possible, and never hear things the hard way. But the opposite of a wrong idea is usually also a wrong idea, and if we believe that God wants nothing but the most difficult choice for us, we may miss out on seasons of joy and Sabbath rest. So, while we are going to talk about the pathway of peace that leads through hardship, please understand right from the beginning that this is not the only road God will use in your life to bring you to a place of peace, of serenity. It is a really important one, and it’s often a neglected one, but it is not the only one.
Why would I say it’s a neglected one? Well, we live in a time and place where many things that were hard historically or are hard in other parts of the world are relatively easy for us. I think we all live in homes with indoor plumbing, clean water, electricity to power all our devices, including a refrigerator and freezer so we always have food on hand. If we want to go on a long journey, we have cars or buses or planes that allow us to cover in hours or days what might be a journey of months or years in other settings. This is not to say that our lives are without difficulty and hardship. But I am saying that it is easy for us to come to believe that hardship is an aberration, a distortion of “normal life,” when most of humanity has experienced and continues to experience hardship as a normal part of daily existence. Many of our brothers and sisters around the world and throughout the centuries have prayed, “Give us this day our daily bread” out of basic necessity rather than just a phrase in the Lord’s Prayer.
When we encounter hardship in our lives, whether it is with our health, our family, our finances, our employment, it is easy to miss the opportunity that God has for us along this path simply because we are so unfamiliar with it that we don’t even see it as an option to let God use difficulty in our lives. We see it as something to get out of as quickly as possible so that we can get “back to normal.” But is that a Biblical view?
In Jesus’ long conversation with the apostles on the night before His execution, He talked to them a lot about the difficulties they were going to face. He says it plainly, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) So much of His last conversation is letting them know how hard it’s going to be. They will be cut off from long-term relationships. They will face condemnation and shame from friends and family. The world is going to hate them. They will eventually, according to early church history, be killed for their commitment to trust Jesus (except for John – he lives in exile instead).
Before you say, “But those were the apostles, so their suffering was special. My life is just as an ordinary Christian, so I shouldn’t expect that, right?” Well, James is writing to ordinary Jewish believers when he says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4) This is how he opens his letter to them! And he’s not just talking about persecution, he says trials of many kinds. Later in this letter he talks about wealth and poverty (and the challenges of being poor), conflict between brothers and the harm it brings, and physical sickness. This is a very practical, everyday letter, and James expects hardship to be a part of practical, everyday life for the believer. Almost at the end of the letter, he comes back to it. He talks about the need for patience like the prophets when we suffer. James expects Christians to experience hardship and gives us encouragement to deal with it well.
Paul talks about the hardships of life as well, particularly in Second Corinthians. In chapter 4, he goes into a long list of things that show the value of his ministry to them and to others. Listen to verses 4-10: “4 Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; 5 in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; 6 in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; 7 in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; 8 through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; 9 known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; 10 sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” Persecution is a part of that, absolutely – but so are normal life difficulties. And so are positive things that surely we all want to be part of our normal, Christian lives: purity, patience, the Holy Spirit, righteousness, truthfulness. For Paul, anything on this list should not come as a shock to any believer – this is part of life as a follower of Christ.
There’s a lot more that can be said about the normalcy of hardship in our lives, but honestly, you can just listen to Tom’s podcast (Hope in Hard Times) and get a full and robust teaching from Tom and his sidekick (that’s me). And maybe I’m saying too much about this, but I think it is crucial for our growth as believers that we expect to encounter suffering in our life so that we can respond to it in a healthy and godly way.
If we don’t expect hardship – if we believe it’s not a pathway we can walk toward peace in Christ – then we are likely to respond in unhealthy ways. That list could be long, but I’m going to talk about three unhealthy responses, and then three responses that I believe counter them. The unhealthy responses are denial, control, and escape. The healthy ones are acceptance, the presence of God, and the presence of community.
Denial. It ain’t just a river in Egypt. One unhealthy way we sometimes respond to hardship in our lives is by pretending it isn’t there. This is already a problem, since, as we talked about last week, God lives in the Present and in Reality. When I am refusing to face Reality as it is, I am not living in the world where God can engage my life. Let me give you an example from my past week. As I write this, I am coming off a retreat weekend with about eighty men from at least fifteen different churches where we call each other and a group of younger men to come and stand by Jesus. (We call this retreat the Calling of Men – if you want to know more about it, please ask me, because it is absolutely incredible.) Anyway, the first time we did this retreat I was in my thirties. I could stay up until 2 am talking with guys and still be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to serve the next day. I was proud of the fact that I could still easily get in and out of a top bunk and leave the ones below for the “older men” who needed it. Well, now I’m in my fifties. I can’t stay up all night talking anymore – at least not if I want to be conscious and helpful the next day. But this year I still took a top bunk. And on the last day, trying to get up, I fell out, and now my pinky toe is bright purple. Didn’t break anything, but it did hurt. Hmm…that makes me think about the reality that hardship will eventually make you notice it. Ignore something long enough (like getting older) and a bigger, more obvious problem may emerge. I didn’t break anything – but I definitely could have. I think next year I’ll take a bottom bunk instead of trying to deny the changes that come with age.
Of course, there are more significant examples than a bruised toe. Many of us could tell a story of someone who ignored symptoms of an illness until it was far worse and harder to treat than it would have been in the first place. And the same can be true of financial difficulties (ever refuse to look at your bank balance because you don’t want to hear the bad news?), or our relationships (pretending that all is well in a marriage that is in crisis because we can’t face the fear of what may happen next?), or any other area of our lives. Denial doesn’t fix the problem. We can’t just ignore hardship and hope it goes away (at least, not healthily).
For some of us, we can see the problem, and we are sure that we can fix it. If we can just figure out what caused it, we are sure that we can change our circumstances so that they won’t be as hard. We will work that extra job, have that difficult conversation, change our diet and exercise – whatever it takes to get control of this issue so that it doesn’t hurt me anymore. We try to beat hardship with control. And this is where, in our culture, there are so many things we can control that it can be hard for us to admit that there are things that we can’t. There are things that are beyond us. There are hardships that we can’t fix. And when we can’t fix it ourselves, sometimes we move into blame. I can’t fix it because I didn’t cause it. But if I can figure out whose fault it was, then I can get them to fix it. Sometimes things aren’t someone’s fault. Sometimes we have hardship because we live in a broken world. And trying to pin the blame for that brokenness on someone or something else (or even ourselves) is not going to bring us to that place of peace…serenity…shalom.
When I can’t deny it, and I can’t control it, there’s only one bad option left. I can try to escape it. Escape takes so many different forms: alcohol, sweets, shopping, pizza, sex, video games, exercise, work, entertainment – the list could go on and on and on. Did I hit one of your favorite escape routes? I included a few of mine. These things are not bad in and of themselves, as long as they are used in line with God’s design for them. But when any of those good and Godly things are being used to numb me, to help me detach from a Reality that is too difficult or painful for me to engage, then they are an unhealthy response to hardship. God’s intention for us is to use that hardship to strengthen us and build us up. James said that; Paul says that. But I will not develop perseverance by distracting myself from the things that are hard for me.
So, how do we respond healthily to hardship? How do we come nearer to God and allow Him to form us more into His image as we go through difficulties? This line of the prayer describes the first healthy response: acceptance. We talked about this some when we discussed serenity. Acceptance does not mean saying, “I’m glad that this happened,” or “I’m sure this is better than what I wanted,” or any other pretending that we are not hurting. It does mean saying, “Since my God, who I know is loving and good, has allowed this to happen, He must be at work in it somehow.” An important note here: just because God allows something doesn’t mean He caused it, or that it was what He most wanted. It means He permitted it. This is exactly what Paul is saying in Romans 8:28: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.” Please notice that Paul does not say that all things work together for his specific good – for Paul’s benefit. But for those who love God. We are part of a people, a kingdom-wide community that the Father is shaping and forming through the Holy Spirit into a spotless bride for His Son. The hardship in your life may well be for someone else’s benefit. Are we willing to patiently endure hardship so that someone else may come to know the love of the Father? Then can we trust that anything He allows is something He intends to use to benefit His people? Even exile, even cataclysmic loss, even death itself. Or as Paul says later in chapter 8: hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword. Sometimes, as God works to reconcile all creation to Himself in Christ Jesus, He uses hardship in our lives as one of the paths to get there. And when we can accept that God knows what is happening, and trust that He knows what He is doing, it helps us respond to hardship well.
So, remembering God’s sovereignty is part of a healthy response to hardship. So is remembering His immanence. That may be a new word for you. It comes from the Latin immanere, which means “to inhabit.” One definition of immanence is this: “the state of being present as a natural and permanent part of something.” In this case, the something is us. God always intended to be in deep ongoing relationship with people. The fall fractured that. The resurrection has restored it. Take seriously the language of the New Testament about the people of God being the body of Christ and the temple in which God’s Presence lives. God is present with us and in us, both corporately and individually. This means that when we are going through hardships, God Himself is choosing to go through those hardships with us. This is part of what the Incarnation of Jesus was about, and that incarnation continues in His body now. In First Corinthians 12, Paul is describing what it means for us to be the Body of Christ, and he says (verse 26), “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” We usually think about that in terms of our relationships with one another, and we will come to that in a minute,but it is also true of Christ.Jesus Christ is not just standing idly by watching when you are hurting. He has united you to Himself, and in that, He enters into your suffering and goes through it with you. You are not abandoned or alone. God Himself has lowered Himself so that He is able to enter into our suffering with us. That means that we have permission – even encouragement – to invite Him into a situation with us instead of only asking Him to take it away. We can do both. And He will respond to that invitation. In fact, He already has.
And He has given us a Body to go through these things together. I often need someone to remind me of truths that I believe when I am in a hard place. I don’t mean the platitudes that may, in fact, be true, but that often sound trite and shallow in the middle of our pain. I mean the brothers and sisters who can stand alongside us and say, “I don’t have any answers for this. I can see how difficult it is. I don’t know how to solve your problem, but I will be with you here in it and bring the Presence of Christ in me to comfort you.” We need someone who is able to cry with us as we mourn. We need each other at all times; when we are going through hardship, we need each other even more. I can’t imagine walking through the hardships in my life (addiction, recovery, raising a profoundly disabled child, death) without having people next to me that I could lean on and depend on to hold me up when I could not do it for myself.
That’s what brings me to peace when life is hard – and life is often hard. I accept that anything that happens is happening with God’s permission, I trust that He is walking through it with me, and I am grateful for the friends and companions He has provided to hold my hand in the middle of it all.
Let’s close again this week with the Serenity Prayer. I hope you’ll join with me as we pray.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardships as a pathway to peace.
Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it to be.
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will – that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever.
That’s all for this week. Next week we will be on similar ground with the line “Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it to be.” Until then, may God walk with you intimately in whatever hardships present themselves in your life this week, and may you trust Him even as it hurts. Amen.
Psalm six is a good example of a psalm of lament. There is a pattern here that shows us what a life of faith looks like when times are difficult. It begins with genuine honesty: “I’m struggling. This is rotten. I feel awful.” Then as David, we ask for help: “Deliver me Lord! Be gracious to me! save me!” And then finally, we trust that God does indeed hear our prayers, and will certainly take notice of them. We don’t minimize what we are feeling. But at the same time, we trust and acknowledge that God is more powerful than all things, including our struggles, and we entrust ourselves to him, resting in the faith that he loves us and will deliver us in his way and time. We are honest, but we also cling to God in faith, and that requires that we trust him even when we don’t yet see how he will make it right.
To listen to the sermon, click the play button:
For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.
To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Psalms Part 3
PSALMS #3: PSALM SIX
I know that some of you prefer to read these messages, rather than listen to the audio version. I myself typically prefer to read something, rather than listen to it, if there is a choice. Also, I’m a writer, so I love it when people like to read.
Even so, every so often it seems to me that the Holy Spirit moves me in a special way when I’m preaching one of these messages, a way that doesn’t quite show up in the written version. This message is one of those times. So, I’m encouraging you to listen to the audio version. If you have time, I’d be thrilled if you read it first, and then listen, and then tell me what you think, because maybe my perception about this is wrong. In any case, I do encourage you to listen this time.
Let’s get a couple of “technical” details out of the way, before we jump into Psalm 6. Some Bibles have created titles for various psalms. For psalm six, the ESV has “O Lord Deliver My Life” written in bold type. This is not part of the text of the actual Bible – it is a title added by the publishing company. There is however, something written in Hebrew before the psalm begins:
“To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments; according to The Sheminith. A Psalm of David.”
These words are not really part of the psalm itself, but they are technically in the text of the Hebrew Bible. Clearly, as with many psalms, they were added by the time the book of psalms was gathered together. Just a reminder: “of David” could mean that David himself wrote the psalm. It could also mean that it was written “in the tradition of David’s psalms.” For simplicity’s sake, I’m just going to refer to the writer as David.
“The Sheminith,” means something like “the eighth,” or “to the eighth.” Some people speculate that it refers to an eight-stringed instrument. Others suggest it is a musical instruction having to do with scales/octaves (there are eight whole-steps in a musical octave). This shows us that at some point, psalm six was probably used musically, probably in worship.
One more little note that is helpful when we read the Old Testament in English. The name of God that God revealed to Moses is “YHWH” which we usually pronounce “Yahweh,” (there are actually no official vowels in Hebrew). The Hebrew people, however, would not say “Yahweh” for fear of taking God’s name in vain. So instead, when they saw “YHWH” in the text of the Bible, they would read it out loud as “Adonai,” which can mean “Lord.” As a result of this tradition, most English Bibles translate “YHWH” as “LORD.” So when you see “LORD” as in this psalm, the Hebrew word is actually “Yahweh.” Also, sometimes the name given to God in the Hebrew text is: “Adonai YHWH.” In those cases it is usually translated “the Lord God.” (Just for additional confusion, the term “Jehovah” is what you get when you combine the Hebrew letters in “YHWH” with the vowel sounds of the Hebrew word “Adonai.”) I say all this, however, so that you can see that David is using the personal name for God – Yahweh – as he prays. He is praying specifically to the God of Israel, and he calls him by his special, personal name.
I chose this psalm because it is a good representative of a type of psalm that we might call “a prayer for help” or “a lament.” There are many other psalms that are similar to this one in both language and structure. Also, this is one of the shorter ones of its type, so it’s easier to cover the whole thing in one sermon.
Before we “analyze” this psalm, take a moment to feel it first. This is one important thing about the psalms – they weren’t written primarily to “teach” but rather to engage us at the level of heart and soul. So, let it engage your heart and soul. Feel what the psalmist feels. Enter into his experience and relate it to your own life. If you want to, speak the words out loud yourself as a prayer, thinking about your own life as you do so. If you can’t relate personally, think about someone you know who might relate to this psalm. (If you’re really stumped you can think of me: I felt very much like the writer of this psalm several times while working on this message). Before you do that, pause for prayer, and ask the Lord to speak to you through this scripture today.
Now, ready? Read the psalm:
1O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger,
nor discipline me in your wrath.
2 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing;
heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled.
3 My soul also is greatly troubled.
But you, O LORD—how long?
4 Turn, O LORD, deliver my life;
save me for the sake of your steadfast love.
5 For in death there is no remembrance of you;
in Sheol who will give you praise?
6 I am weary with my moaning;
every night I flood my bed with tears;
I drench my couch with my weeping.
7 My eye wastes away because of grief;
it grows weak because of all my foes.
8 Depart from me, all you workers of evil,
for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.
9 The LORD has heard my plea;
the LORD accepts my prayer.
10 All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled;
they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment.
I think this particular psalm was probably written by David himself, so I’ll call him “him,” or “David.” Obviously, David is experiencing some kind of pain and suffering, possibly physical. Certainly, he is also experiencing turmoil of the heart, because he says so pretty plainly.
In the ESV, it says, “Be gracious to me LORD, for I am languishing.” We don’t often use the word “languishing” any more, which is a shame, because it’s a great word. It means “slowly wasting away,” or “slowly falling apart.” David’s life is slowly coming apart. In short, he is suffering. Some people assume that the main problem is sickness, because he asks God to heal him, and he mentions his bones. But the Hebrew word for heal, like the English one, can mean physical healing, as well as emotional or spiritual restoration, or even cultural restoration (as in “Lord, heal our country.”)
We know that David was a man of faith, and even if it wasn’t David who wrote this, the words of the psalm itself express faith in God. So I think the first thing to engage with is this: The life of faith sometimes involves suffering, pain and inner turmoil. David was not somehow “out of faith,” when he wrote this. He addresses the psalm to God, and clearly believes that God alone is the source of all deliverance, help and salvation. Someone with no faith would not talk to God, certainly not the way David does here. Even so, he is miserable as he writes this, and he does not pretend otherwise.
This brings me to a second point: People of faith should be honest about where they are physically, emotionally and mentally. Frankly, a lot of Christians in America are terrible about this. In fact, some seem to believe that if you admit you are struggling, that amounts to a lack of faith. I’ve met many people who have really tough stuff going on in their lives, and they say things like: “Well, it’s not ideal, but I’m just believing things are going to turn around.”
They seem to think that if they admit that they are having a hard time, it somehow means that they are letting God down; they apparently believe it indicates a lack of faith, or weak faith, to say: “Life is really hard right now.” They think faith means always thinking positive thoughts, or always looking on the bright side.
However, I’d say it’s the other way around. If you can’t be honest with yourself, God and others, you probably don’t have much faith. You think God is so fragile, he can’t handle it if you are unhappy. Or maybe you believe that God will only come through for you if you show the right attitude, and it seems to me that means you have faith in your own actions more than in God. Maybe it’s a kind of faith in your own faith, if you know what I mean. You might be putting your trust in the fact that you are saying the right kinds of things, and maintaining the right kind of positive attitude. But that is not faith in God.
Even more troubling, some people believe they can control God by always sounding like they have faith (though they wouldn’t describe it as controlling God, that’s what they are trying to do). In other words, they think that if they never acknowledge the negative, it motivates God to “honor” their “faith.” Again, this is a sort of faith in your own actions and attitudes, more than faith in God.
The same people often claim things like: “we speak things into existence.” So they are afraid of saying something negative, because then maybe the negative thing will happen to them. This is superstitious garbage, but unfortunately it is taught by many prominent ministers who use those ideas to make themselves a lot of money from fearful people.
In contrast, right here in the psalm, we find David, the greatest King of Israel, the one who is known as a man after God’s own heart saying: “I’m falling apart. My soul is in turmoil. I’m soaking my sheets every night with my tears. I am so grieved, I can hardly see any more.” If David, the true man of God, wasn’t afraid to say such things, we shouldn’t be either. I think real faith requires that kind of honesty, and if we avoid it, it is because of fear, not faith.
Considering all the negative feelings that are expressed, Psalm Six might be called a kind of lament. Bible commentator Rolf Jacobson says this:
Lament is not the absence of faith or an expression of faith being tempted into despair. To lament is to speak precisely from the position of faith, from a position which recognizes that the Lord hears the cries of those who suffer and is not indifferent to them. To lament is to lay claim to God’s hesed with the faithful expectation that the Lord will vindicate the lowly.
(The New International Commentary, Old Testament: Book of Psalms, psalm 6. I will explain the term “hesed” shortly)
Now, having made that point, I stand by it. I have something else to say also, not to contradict what I’ve just written, but to explain it, and add to it. There are some folks who are not afraid to be honest when they are struggling. They own the fact that their hearts are sad and troubled. But some of those people forget what else is in this psalm. They end up making their own troubles the dominant thing, the main thing. They own their struggles but they forget the lesson here about trusting God. They say: “I am troubled. End of story.” They make everything about their struggles, rather than about God. But that’s not how David approaches his problems at all. He owns his struggle, but he also trusts God.
Where do we see David trusting God? In the very first line, David asks God for mercy and grace. In verse four, he prays for deliverance. In verses 8-10, David expresses confidence that God has indeed heard his prayer, and will answer him in due time.
So that is the next piece I think we ought to pay attention to. We should not only be honest about our struggles, but we should also make our problems submit to our faith. What I mean is, we should say, “I’m struggling. This is rotten. I feel awful.” Then as David, we ask for help: “Deliver me Lord! Be gracious to me! save me!” And then finally, we should trust that God does indeed hear our prayers, and will certainly take notice of them: “The Lord accepts my plea, the Lord has heard my prayer (verse 8).” We don’t minimize what we are feeling. But at the same time, we trust and acknowledge that God is more powerful than all things, including our struggles, and we entrust ourselves to him, resting in the faith that he loves us and will deliver us in his way and time. We are honest, but we also cling to God in faith, and that requires that we trust him even when we don’t yet see how he will make it right.
I want to focus on verse four for a minute. This is the heart of David’s prayer:
4 Turn, O LORD, deliver my life;
save me for the sake of your steadfast love.
There are two key words in Hebrew here that are worth knowing for all Christians. The first is “turn,” which, in Hebrew, is sub (pronounced “shoob”). It means to turn around, to change course. In many contexts, it means “to repent.” David is asking the Lord to change the whole course of events, to turn everything around. Sub is a powerful word, and, as I say, it’s worth knowing for the future. The point here is that David is not asking for just a minor adjustment. He’s asking God to change the whole course of the future. In other words, David feels he is close to dying, and he wants God instead to save his life. It is important to realize that for David, whatever he’s struggling with is a very big deal, and he needs a major intervention from God.
The second word comes at the end of the verse. In the ESV it is translated “steadfast love.” The Hebrew word is hesed (pronounced heh-sed, except use a faint clearing-of-the-throat sound with the first ‘h’). In some ways, it is the agape of the Old Testament, but some of the shades of meaning are slightly different. I might define hesed as unconditional, everlasting love that expresses itself by acting on behalf of the one who is loved. God’s hesed is found in his covenant to care for his people faithfully.
When David asks God to save him, he gives this reason: “for the sake of your hesed.” It is connected to God’s covenant with his people. This is important. David is saying “help me because you have promised to be my God. Help me because you are loving by nature.” Not: “Help me because I’m showing my faith by being positive and minimizing negative words.” Not:“help me because I need it,” or “help me because I ask it,” and certainly not “because I deserve it.” Instead, it is: “help me, because that would be according to your own character and your own promise to your people.”
Many people, when they are struggling, try to make bargains with God. “God, if you just help me now, I’ll give up this, or I’ll do that.” That is never the way of faith. In reality, we have nothing to bargain with. God doesn’t need anything from us. When he wants us to give up something, or start doing something else, it is always for our own benefit, not his. Instead, our only hope, as David knows, is to give up on trying to offer God anything, and appeal to God’s own character, and to the love that he showed us in Jesus Christ. And when we cry for help, we know for certain that God does love us, and that he does have our best interests at heart. We know it because Jesus gave up his own life, and went through unimaginable suffering to save us. Though we may not understand what he is doing, we always have a solid basis to trust God’s love for us.
David ends his lament in faith. He trusts that the Lord has heard his prayer. He declares to his enemies that God is his God, and will indeed come through for him. I think this psalm encourages us to be honest, but also to have faith, as David did.
Suffering and glory are deeply connected. Any story that inspires us involves suffering. The more suffering there is in a story, the more glorious it is when the suffering ends, or is redeemed somehow. God wants to include us in his glory, and that means that suffering should not be considered unusual for those of us who follow Jesus. However, in our suffering, we can be confident that God is holding us in his hands, and remains in control. We can trust that he loves us, even in the middle of difficult times. There will be an end to suffering and then we will be participants in God’s glory.
To listen to the sermon, click the play button: For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Peter Part 29
1 PETER #29. 1 PETER 4:12-19
12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. 16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. 17 For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18 And “If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” 19 Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.
(1 Peter 4:12-19, ESV)
Before we jump into this passage, I want to use it to reinforce something I’ve talked about before. If you look at the New King James Version, it will have this at the end of verse 14: “On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified.” The Old KJV has something similar. These words were almost certainly not written by Peter, but rather, were added in two our three hundred years later by a scribe. The KJV (and versions derived from it) has such things from time to time, because it is based on fewer ancient manuscripts. This is an example of why I don’t rely on those versions (though I do compare them to other versions quite often). It is also why I think the people who claim that the KJV is the only legitimate version of the Bible are seriously ignorant and mistaken.
By the way, although there are a number of things going on in this passage, I’m going to focus on the main thing. Sometimes I worry that I get us too bogged down with every detail. So, let’s get to the heart of the text. There is a fascinating historical aspect to this passage. At the very beginning of this letter, Peter uses the image of gold being tested in fire. He says, at that point, that trials test our faith in a similar way, adding that our faith is more precious and more enduring than gold:
6 So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. 7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.
(1 Peter 1:6-7, NLT, formatting added for emphasis)
Now, in our text this time (chapter four), Peter says, “don’t be surprised when the testing fire comes upon you.” Peter is aware of the political climate of the Roman Empire. He knows that emperor Nero has it out for Christians, and so he wants people everywhere to be prepared to suffer for following Jesus. What Peter did not know was the literal role that fire would play in the upcoming persecutions and sufferings of Christians. Probably within a year of this letter (two, at the most) a great fire burned much of the city of Rome. Some historians speculate that Nero himself ordered the fire to be set, so he could rebuild the parts of Rome that burned. Whether or not that is true, Emperor Nero blamed Christians for the fire, though there was no evidence that they were involved either deliberately or accidentally. He used the fire as an excuse to begin a deliberate, systematic city-wide persecution on Christians, imprisoning many, having some killed for entertainment in the circuses, and executing others outright. Even more horrifically, he had some of them bound to stakes in the complex of the imperial palace, and he burned them alive to light up the area at night.
Many Christians chose to flee from Rome during this intense period of persecution. Apparently some of them convinced Peter to leave, also, but on his way out of the city, he changed his mind and turned back, entrusting himself to Jesus in either life or death, which shows that he practiced what he preached here. He was put to death.
I have to believe that when the believers in the provinces heard of all this, and re-read his letter, telling them not to be surprised at the fire of suffering, they were comforted. There is no way Peter could have known that the coming trials were going to involve actual fire. But God knew what was going to happen, and the Holy Spirit slipped in those references to fire to remind everyone that He was not surprised by it, that nothing whatsoever that happens can take them outside of His loving arms.
Peter connects suffering to glory. Paul does the same thing in Romans 8:16-18
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. 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
(Romans 8:16-18, ESV)
Let’s think about this connection between suffering and glory for a moment. Picture a man who was born into a happy, wealthy family. He grows up with every advantage, and never knows a day’s need in his life. He has been raised as a Christian, and he thanks God for the goodness of his life. His parents send him to the best prep schools, and then an elite university. He meets his wife there. They get married, and start their careers. Set up in life this way, they are successful in their professions, and wealthy. They have two beautiful children who are healthy and happy. They continue to follow God, and then they grow old, and die, and will stand with Jesus in the new creation.
Now, how glorious is that story? It’s a nice thing. We all want that sort of life. There is a glory to the goodness of God there. But let’s compare the glory of that to another story.
Imagine a young lad in the seventeen hundreds in England. His mother is a strong Christian, but dies of tuberculosis two weeks before he turns seven years old. His father is a sailor, and the boy is passed around from place to place a bit, until he is eleven, when he too, becomes a sailor. At this time in history, sailing is a very hard life, with brutal work and even more brutal discipline. He becomes a wild and unruly young man. At one point, after becoming a junior officer, he is given eight-dozen lashes with the whip for disobedience, and is stripped of his rank. After healing, trying to find a better situation, he transfers to another ship, this one used in the African slave trade. His new shipmates don’t like him much, and when they arrive in Africa, the captain illegally binds him, and sells him into slavery. This did happen to Europeans at times. The young man ends up in slavery to an African princess who mistreats him horribly.
After three years as a slave, during which time life is miserable, he is finally rescued. And yet, on the trip back to England, his ship is caught in a storm, and almost sinks. During the storm, he prays to God, and begins, slowly to open his heart to Jesus Christ. The ship finally limps into port safely. He continues to work in the slave trade, eventually becoming the captain of a slave-trade transport ship. Yet, at the same time, this man continues to grow as a Christian. Eventually, he realizes that the slave trade is incompatible with his Christian faith, and he leaves the trade to become a pastor. In fact, not long after, he begins to work for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. He grows older, still working hard for abolition, but still seeing great resistance to it. He has almost despaired of living to see the abolition of slavery, but when he is a very old man, at last the English parliament passes a law making slavery, and the slave trade, illegal. During the middle of his life, while working for abolition, this man writes the most famous Christian hymn of the English language: Amazing Grace.
The second story is, obviously, the true story of John Newton. Newton went through a great deal of hardship and suffering, and involved himself in the shameful slave trade. Yet, I would have to say that his story is more glorious than the first one. It is glorious precisely because of the suffering.
Most people would not be interested in a movie about the first life. Many people did watch the movie of John Newton’s life: Amazing Grace. The truth is, the stories that capture our imagination, the ones that mean the most to us, involve suffering. The story of a young woman from an elite family who had advantages and connections and then became a successful CEO is not particularly interesting. But a story about a woman who grew up poor, and was dyslexic, and was mugged four times as a youngster, who taught herself to read, and overcame all her disadvantages to become a CEO – that is inspiring.
My point is that glory and suffering are connected in some way. I would almost guarantee that any story (true, or fictional) that ever captured your imagination, or inspired you, involved suffering of some kind. The more suffering in the story, the more glorious when finally the suffering is overcome, or redeemed. When Peter says: “But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed,” he means that because we are destined for a glorious future, we should not be surprised about a difficult present. When we suffer in Christ, glory is being created in our future.
This raises a question, then, about what it means to share in the sufferings of Christ. First, Peter clearly means suffering that comes about because we are Christians. So, if someone mocks us for being Christian, that is “sharing in the sufferings of Christ.” If we lose a job because of our Christian principles, it is the same. Obviously, if we are beaten, imprisoned or executed for a being a Christian, those things are sharing in the sufferings of Christ. Peter clarifies that he’s not talking about suffering for things like committing a crime. We can’t claim that a proper punishment for a crime that we actually committed is suffering for Christ. In other words, sometimes you suffer as a consequence of your own bad choices – this is not the same as sharing in the sufferings of Christ.
I do think however, that Peter has more in mind than only persecution when he speaks of sharing the sufferings of Christ. He adds, in verse 19: “Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good,” (1 Peter 4:19, ESV). I think the primary meaning of “suffer according to God’s will” is not, “God desires you to suffer,” but rather, “when you encounter suffering, God desires you to go through it in a way that is consistent with your faith in Jesus.”
There is a secondary meaning, I believe to “suffer according to God’s will.” I think all of Christian suffering ends up connected, in some way to the cross of Jesus Christ. Was it God’s will for the Romans, and Jewish authorities, to sin by accusing an innocent man and putting him to death? No. Was it God’s will for the soldiers to indulge their brutality and sadism by beating Jesus, and mocking him? No: God desires no one to sin. God did not desire to inflict pain upon Jesus. So, in one sense it is entirely accurate to say: “God did not want Jesus to suffer the way he did.”
And yet, was it God’s will for Jesus to take on himself the sins of humankind by his suffering and death on the cross? Yes. Ephesians chapter one tells us that it was planned from before the foundation of the world. So, in another sense, just as true, it was God’s will for Jesus to suffer the way he did.
So we have a mystery here: God did not desire anyone to sin by hurting Jesus. And yet, when Jesus was suffering, he was completely fulfilling the will of God the Father. Jesus was not at the mercy of sin, or even chaos, while he suffered. He was held in the everlasting arms of the Father.
So it is with us. Because of Jesus’ suffering, we have seen the lengths God will go to save us. We have seen how much he loves us. When we suffer, we can trust God’s love for us, even when we don’t understand. And when we suffer, we can also trust that the universe is not spinning out of control, that God has a purpose in our emotional and physical pain, and that purpose will ultimately work for our good. When we suffer we must trust that God is still in control, and also that he is good, and he still loves us.
Let’s return to the image of the fiery trial. Did God want Nero to burn those Christians alive? Of course not! But were those Christians ultimately safe in the hands of a loving God, even in their terrible trial? Absolutely yes.
I think we have plenty to think about so far. It is a great comfort to me, thinking about the history connected to Peter, to know that God knew ahead of time what would happen to so many Christians. Those first readers of Peter’s letter would be able to see, from the words about the fiery trial, that God knew what was going on, and nothing could take them out of his hands. Perhaps that is what you need to hear today. God knew exactly where you would be, exactly what you would be going through at this time in your life. You are not adrift and alone in a chaotic universe. Through Jesus Christ, you are safe in the everlasting arms of our loving Father. I am not sitting comfortably just proclaiming theology with no suffering of my own while I write this. I am in the fiery trial as well, and I have been for some time. This is not a meaningless platitude. It is true. Receive it in faith whether or not you feel like it, the truth is that if you belong to Jesus, you are safe and secure.
Remember also that your sufferings are creating a glorious story. Last time we learned that when God is glorified, we are blessed. So, through your suffering, as you share in the sufferings of Christ, God is indeed being glorified, and you are being blessed. Again, this is not a truth we always feel, but we hold on to it in faith.
Finally, we should not be surprised when we suffer. This is normal for those who follow Jesus. We should be surprised, instead, when we don’t suffer, and we should be deeply thankful for those calm, peaceful times. Millions of Christians in history, and certainly at least many hundreds of thousands today, are in a fiery trial of one sort or another. You are not alone. God has not looked away from you, or abandoned you. You are in good company, and in God’s loving hands.
Suffering loosens our focus on getting what we want in this present life, and instead, helps us to focus on our amazing eternal future in the New Creation with the unlimited joy of God filling us entirely. It also has a way of carrying us further down the road of discipleship, which means further from an interest in sin, more towards an interest in God, and his kingdom. Therefore, Peter tells us to equip ourselves with the mindset of suffering that Jesus shows us.
To listen to the sermon, click the play button: For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Peter Part 26
1 PETER #26. 1 PETER 4:1-2.
1 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.
(1 Peter 4:1-2, ESV)
Though we paused to look deeply at baptism, the main point Peter has been making in this section is that we should be inspired, and empowered, by the example of Jesus to follow in his footsteps – particularly with regard to suffering. He began this section in 3:13, saying we should not fear to suffer, and that it is a wonderful thing in God’s sight to endure suffering even when we have done no wrong. We can live this way (says Peter) because Christ has suffered for us, once for all, and saved us through his grace (using baptism along the way). Chapter 4:1, our first verse for today, is basically a summary of all that: since Christ suffered, we should equip ourselves with the same way of thinking.
The first puzzler comes in the next phrase: “for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.”
First, we need to take into account the teaching of the whole Bible, so there is at least one thing that this cannot mean: It cannot mean that by suffering, we somehow atone for our own sin. Only through Jesus are our sins forgiven. Only Jesus, and his work can address the inner problem of the Sin that lives in our hearts.
But within a Biblical framework, there are a few things it might mean. Most of the possibilities have various problems. I feel badly that I got so deeply into baptism, so I won’t bore you with all the ins and outs of this phrase. Many different Bible scholars have different views about it, but rather than get too detailed about those views, I’ll give you my own best guess.
I think there are actually a few different levels of meaning here. First, I think it means that we Christians, (through baptism, as Peter mentions above) have been identified with the sufferings of Christ. We have been brought into union with his suffering, death, resurrection, and new life. Because we are identified with the suffering of Christ, sin no longer has any claim on us. We’re done with it as a factor in our relationship with God. Our sin has been atoned for. There was suffering for our sin, and so now that sin has no more connection to us, in the eyes of God.
There’s a second aspect to this, which Peter mentions in verses 2-4. Because we have been brought into union with the suffering of Christ, sin is no longer our typical lifestyle. We certainly don’t live perfect, sinless lives. Outside of Christ, we lived not for him, but for our own desires, which were corrupted by sin. We lived to make the best life for ourselves, on our own terms, apart from God. In other words, the pattern of our lives was sinful, and the inner problem of sin in our hearts was never addressed. Now, however, we belong to Jesus. Though we are not perfect, the pattern of our lives is not all about ourselves. We may commit sins at times (sometimes, discouragingly often!) but we aren’t living in sin. It is not a consistent pattern anymore, it’s not the direction we are going. As Peter says in verse 2, the point is: “to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.” By “the rest of the time in the flesh” he means “this present life, before our ultimate death and resurrection.”
All this is tremendously comforting. Through the suffering of Jesus, our connection with sin is fundamentally broken, and this is true, in spite of the fact that we still sometimes commit sins.
I think it is right to understand that Peter means all this. However, I don’t want us to overlook the fact that he is also clearly talking about our own personal suffering, not just the suffering of Christ. He has already been talking about specifically our own sufferings in 3:14 & 17. He will speak of our own suffering more, a few verses later in this chapter. So, I think it would be a mistake to make this only about our spiritual union with the suffering of Christ. Clearly, the topic at hand also involves our actual experience of suffering in this life.
My friend Wade Jones is fond of saying: “If you are really trying to live like Jesus, you should expect to have the kind of life he had.” And, of course, Jesus suffered. Not only that, but he calls us to suffer, with the expectation of joy and glory and grace following our earthly suffering.
For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ, we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share in his glory, we must also share his suffering.
Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.
(Romans 8:16-18, NLT)
I don’t want to overstep my own limitations here, but I want to make a comment about suffering and sin. Most of you know that I suffer tremendous pain, on an hourly basis. Right now I am in so much pain that I will probably quit for a while, and come back to this later.
I have found that when I am able to see my suffering as suffering for Christ, and when I joyfully receive it as his will (without, however understanding it, or even liking it), I have a special closeness with Jesus. As a result of this, I am just less interested in sin than I am during the times when I act as if my suffering has no connection to Jesus. I have not been able to maintain this perfectly. But there is no doubt in my mind that my suffering has, in general, led me to sin less often than I did before. Again, I’m not claiming to be without sin. Sometimes, I fall hard. But compared to my life before suffering, conscious sin is less of a daily struggle.
Something I think is more important is that suffering has loosened my focus on getting what I want in this present life, and instead, helped me to focus on our amazing eternal future in the New Creation with the unlimited joy of God filling us entirely. It also has a way of carrying me further down the road of discipleship, which means further from an interest in sin. Theologian Wayne Grudem puts it like this:
Thus, following through with a decision to obey God even when it will mean physical suffering has a morally strengthening effect on our lives: it commits us more firmly than ever before to a pattern of action where obedience is even more important than our desire to avoid pain.
(Wayne A. Grudem The Epistle of First Peter, p 167. W.B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI, 1988, 1996.)
At present, it seems clear that I will suffer whether I trust God, or not. But if, when I suffer, I choose to trust God, rather than reject him because I don’t like it, it has the same effect described by Grudem above. It takes me further down the road with God. My trust in God becomes more important, and more vital than my desire for healing. God’s love for me matters more to me than relief from pain in this life. All of this leads my interests and desires away from the direction of satisfying sinful passions.
Suffering and hardship can be used, in some ways, like a spiritual discipline:
My son, do not take the Lord’s discipline lightly or lose heart when you are reproved by him, 6 for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and punishes every son he receives. 7 Endure suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline — which all receive — then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we had human fathers discipline us, and we respected them. Shouldn’t we submit even more to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them, but he does it for our benefit, so that we can share his holiness. 11 No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
(Hebrews 12:5-11, CSB)
I don’t think this means that God is personally inflicting suffering on people. But when suffering comes, God makes use of it to shape us more and more into the people he designed us to be. He uses it for our benefit, as it says in verse 10 of the passage above.
Sometimes, Christ living in me is able to use my daily pain almost in the same way as he uses my hunger when I fast. The pain becomes a reminder of his presence. I submit to it. I use it to say: “You, Jesus, are more important to me than getting relief right now. Though of course I want relief, I am using this pain to cry out for you first, and relief only in your time and in your way.” The pain reminds me that this world is not my home. It makes it easy to see that my sinful flesh can never be satisfied, never be made whole. Therefore, I crave, not just momentary relief from pain, but ultimate deliverance from this corrupted body and world into the New Creation that is coming.
Now, this process is not automatic. There are plenty of times when I just want relief. But when I come to Jesus with my pain, even if I take a pill soon after, he can and does use it to move my focus from this life toward the glory that is coming. The Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write about this also:
16 That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. 17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
(2 Corinthians 4:16-18, NLT)
Suffering helps us to keep fixing our gaze on the unseen, on the glory that will be revealed that will last forever. Because of this, we can learn to see suffering as a gift. If you know my story, you know I’m not speaking theoretically. I’m not sitting here comfortably imposing some idea about suffering onto the poor souls who actually suffer. I’m in it. I’m not teaching anything here that I haven’t personally had to grapple with.
Many people I know wish for a revival in American Christianity. They hope for a time when the people of God are truly repentant, and joyfully follow Jesus whole-heartedly in such a way that the whole culture is transformed by it. I hope for it too, however I cannot see how it could possibly come about except by suffering.
The broader point Peter is making is that, whether we personally suffer or not, it is time to be done with the values of the world around us. The things he describes are shockingly similar to twentieth century Western culture. Basically, he says, those who don’t follow God live for personal pleasure and excitement. In short they party – using substances, sex, and whatever else works, to feed their endless cravings and emptiness.
Peter also mentions idolatry. We don’t worship literal idols any more, but the essence of idolatry is to make something other than God the most important thing to you. If it is not God, whatever you “live for” is an idol. If you are seeking comfort from something other than God, it might be an idol.
Now, we should understand that God provides things through his creation, and through other human beings, and we can receive comfort through various things. So, for instance, we might be comforted by our families. As long as we remember that our families were given to us by God, and that the comfort we get from them really comes ultimately from him, I don’t think family is an idol. However, if we were to begin making family more important than God, if we made choices in favor of family that took us further from God, than, in that case, family might be an idol.
So the picture Peter gives us of the non-Christian world is that it a)Lives for pleasure and b)Lives for comfort (that is the point of idolatry). But we who follow Jesus live for Him. We live for his love, and for the amazing future that he has promised us. That leads us to be different from the world, to say no to pleasure and comfort as the ultimate goals, even if for a little while we suffer.
As most of you know, if you have followed my writing for very long, I suffer from a fairly extreme kind of ongoing pain. That pain has begun to limit how often I am writing and recording sermons. Even so, I am trying to make the most of the time when I feel up to it, so I am continuing to do sermons, and to write books.
Not only that, but I’m trying to turn lemons into lemonade. I’ve had a lot of time to think about suffering, and difficult times, and how those relate to faith, and peace and hope. With the help of my good friend, Wade Jones, who is also a pastor, and happens to be the father-in-law of one of my daughters, I have been working on a podcast about suffering and hope. I have literally lived the things we talk about.
In the unlikely event that you miss the sound of my voice, you can hear it in the podcasts. If you are interested in how the Lord has guided my journey of pain and suffering, the podcast is for you. Especially, the podcast is for you if you want to prepare yourself for future suffering; or if you, or a loved one, is already suffering. It isn’t easy. But there is joy, peace, and hope, even in the middle of suffering.
Below is a link to the first episode of the podcast, on a platform called substack. Once you click the link, you will be able to listen to the podcast right there on the substack website. You will also have the chance to load it into your favorite podcast app. Before you do any of that, however, be sure to click the “subscribe” button on the substack page, to make sure you don’t miss any episodes.
If you are a podcast veteran, the show is also available on Apple, Spotify, and Google podcasts. Search “Hope in Hard Times Tom Hilpert.”
You will also find, on the show’s web page, a title at the top labeled “It is Well With My Soul.” I will be posting a written version of the content there. If you want to read that regularly, please click on that title, and then subscribe to that, also. If you want those writings, you have to subscribe to that in addition to subscribing to the podcast, or you won’t get the written content.
I hope these things will be a blessing to many of you. Please feel free to pass them on to anyone who might be encouraged by them!
We are called to show Jesus to the world in three important ways: by enduring suffering with patience, by making a verbal defense, and by living a life that reflects the character of Jesus. We cannot do any of this unless we rely upon the life of Jesus within us.
To listen to the sermon, click the play button: For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Peter Part 22
1 PETER #22. 1 PETER 3:13-16
13 Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.
(1 Peter 3:13-16, ESV)
After describing the way Christians need to act toward each other, Peter now says a few words about how we should act toward those outside of our community of faith. In a way, this text is neatly laid out for us. In the first place, in our relationships with non-believers, we should be prepared to suffer – even if it is unjust. Second, we should be prepared to “make a verbal defense” of the hope we have (that is, our Christian faith). Third, our lives should be so directed by the Holy Spirit that the way we live also provides a kind of defense, or testimony.
We might as well start with the first: patient suffering. As we have seen already in Peter’s letter, he is passing on the teaching of Jesus, more or less directly.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. 11 “You are blessed when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of me. 12 Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
(Matthew 5:10-12, CSB)
And:
38 “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. 39 But I tell you, don’t resist an evildoer. On the contrary, if anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40 As for the one who wants to sue you and take away your shirt, let him have your coat as well. 41 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and don’t turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. 43 “You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same?
(Matthew 5:38-47, CSB)
We talked about this a bit, last time: these verses should make us despair of our own efforts and resources. I find it impossible to rejoice when even the company Amazon treats me unjustly simply because they are huge, and can get away with it. How much more difficult is it to suffer because I’ve been doing the right thing? How much more difficult to be criticized, to be lied about, to be considered evil when I’ve done nothing wrong, and in fact, I’ve been trying to do good? I find these words of Jesus, and of Peter, his apostle, to be impossible to actually follow.
I am supposed to find them impossible.
Jesus gives us the answer to this dilemma. He and his followers often warned about the great dangers of worldly wealth. At one point, he described how difficult it was to be rich, and remain faithful to God:
23 And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” 25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” 26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
(Matthew 19:23-26, ESV)
With man – that is, with our own effort – suffering unjustly seems impossible. But with God, all things are possible. When we allow Jesus to live his life through us, we can indeed love those who hurt us. But only then is such a thing possible. We need to despair of doing it by our own efforts, and cry out to Jesus, and lean on him to do it through us. Then, with God, it is possible.
The second piece of our text today tells us to continually make sure that Jesus is first in our lives, and then to be ready to offer a verbal defense for our faith. Paul says something similar in Colossians 4:6. In case anyone wonders if “make a defense,” might include physically defending ourselves in that situation, I need to say two things. First, the Greek word here is very clear – the defense is one made with words. There’s no semantic wiggle room to expand it to mean anything physical. Second, when we read the context, it is all about entrusting ourselves to God, and allowing God to make things right in his own time. One cannot shoot, or strike, someone “with gentleness and respect.” I believe the Bible does allow Christians to be soldiers in a proper, legal army or militia. I believe the Bible allows, and even encourages, us to defend the weak and defenseless. I don’t see anything wrong with fighting back against someone who wants to hurt you in general.
But the Bible does not endorse Christians using physical force to either defend or propagate Christianity. If someone is trying to hurt you in general, I don’t see a problem with physical self defense (although the Bible does not insist that you respond with physical force). But if someone is attacking you specifically because you are a Christian, a different kind of defense is called for.
Yes, during the crusades, and in some of the Roman Catholic Church’s missionary endeavors, they did use force to defend and propagate Christianity. But they did so in contradiction to the scripture. Just go back and read our text for today, and the verses I’ve quoted so far. To the extent that anyone has tried to spread or defend Christianity by force, they have been bad Christians, disobeying the teaching of Jesus and his apostles. In case it is not clear, I condemn the Crusades, the Inquisitions, and the other “holy wars” of the Roman Catholic church, and I condemn them with, and based upon, the words of the Bible. Virtually all true Christians are with me on this.
We are definitely told, however, to offer a defense made up of words. The Greek word here for “offer a defense” is “apologia.” You might recognize a form of the word “logos” there at the end (logia). Logos is a term that means both “words,” and “logical thinking” (just by looking at it in English letters, you can see that the word “logic” comes from “logos.”) Apologia means, essentially, to speak out, to use logic, reason and words to explain and justify. From this word we get a Christian term you might have heard before: “apologetics.” Christian apologetics is basically the process of putting this command into action. In Christian apologetics, we use words and logic to explain, reason with others, and verbally defend the Christian faith.
The first Christian apologist was arguably Paul the apostle, who used the Roman legal system, and Greek philosophy, to argue for the truth of Christianity. Immediately after the time of the apostles we have the letters of Christians who were engaged in explaining the faith, and reasoning with others about the truth of Jesus Christ.
Over the centuries, Christians have developed a wealth of resources for explaining and defending the Christian faith, and reasoning with others. In recent years the internet has brought an explosion of websites dedicated to apologetics. I have to admit – for me, apologetics is like mind-candy. I could read these sorts of resources for hours, and in fact, I often do. Just to get you started, let me offer a couple books and websites.
Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis, is sort of the gold-standard for Christian apologetics. It was written about eighty years ago, now, however, and there are some modern concerns that C.S. Lewis simply never thought he would have to address. Even so, Mere Christianity is well worth reading. A more recent resource that is very good is What’s So Great about Christianity? By Dinesh D’souza. In addition to explaining many of the traditional pillars of apologetics, he addresses issues like the checkered history of Christian behavior, and other things that modern people find important, that are not found in Mere Christianity.
If you are specifically interested in the relationship between Christianity and modern science, Reasons to Believe (https://www.reasons.org) is an excellent place to start. It was founded by Dr. Hugh Ross, who was notable in the field of astrophysics, and later founded the ministry. In general, Reasons to Believe is made up of legitimate high-level scientists who are also Bible-believing Christians.
William Lane Craig is a philosopher who is also a Christian, and he has developed a ministry that touches on virtually all aspects of defending the faith with gentleness and respect. The organization he started can be found at: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/ . The video in the next link is produced by that ministry, and is a great example of Christian apologetics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRyq6RwzlEM&t=317s
There is a widely-held assumption that because Christianity is a religion, there is no evidence in favor of it, and it is not intellectually robust. Even a quick skimming of some of the resources I’ve listed here will reveal how utterly false those ideas are.
Now, apologetics are very interesting and fun to people like me. But you could spend countless hours and days on apologetics resources. These days, you can literally get a Ph.D. in it. However, traditional apologetics might not really be your cup of tea. It is a fairly scholarly, intellectually-oriented discipline. Your own approach should reflect who you are, and above all, it should reflect the things you really know and believe.
Perhaps the best advice I can give you when you start the process of defending your faith, is that you should be willing to say: “I don’t know the answer to that,” when you don’t. Honesty goes a long way in our present cultural moment. I still have to say that once in a while. For instance, several years ago, someone asked me this question: “Can a God who is all-powerful make a rock that is impossible for Him to move?” This is a conundrum. If the answer is “yes,” than how can he be all powerful if there is a rock he cannot move? If the answer is “no,” how can he be all powerful, if he can’t make a rock according to any specification at all? Some people believe that this makes God vanish in a cloud of cold logic. Personally, I think the question assumes facts that are unknown and unknowable to human beings, but I couldn’t absolutely prove that by logic. I could have turned the question around a little, and discussed the alternatives to an all-powerful God, and prove that everyone ultimately believes in something that is absolute (like an all-powerful God, or an infinite multiverse), and that every version of that belief has problems, but that isn’t a direct answer to the question. So, I said, “I don’t have a good a answer for that.”
Since then, I have found a better answer, but of course, no one else has asked the question again. The better answer is that God’s nature is the one inviolable thing in the universe, and if God were able to contradict his own nature, he couldn’t be God in the first place. In other words, “No, he can’t make a rock that he is unable to move, because if he could, he wouldn’t be truly God: something he himself created would be as great as himself.” In other words, the question is a “contradiction in terms,” which, in even more plain language, means: “it is nonsense.” Another example of the exact same kind of nonsense is this question: “Can God make a square circle?” That makes it more clear. If God made a square circle, it wouldn’t be a circle anymore. A circle cannot contain right-angles, or it ceases to be a circle. “A square circle” is nonsense. So, also, is the idea that God can contradict in Himself what it means to be God, while remaining God. So, actually, the question about creating the unliftable rock is nothing more than a cheap parlor trick.
I think that answers the question, but even so, there’s a lot of subtlety built into that answer (such that I could probably write several thousand words about it), and I doubt it satisfies everyone.
Sorry, the last few paragraphs were a lot of fun for me, but, again, that might not be your style. The point is, when I encounter questions I can’t answer, I’m honest abut it. I also then tend to go look for a good answer. I encourage you to do both things as well.
You should also find a way to talk to others about your faith that reflects who you are, and what you do know about Jesus. This is one reason, I think why Peter begins this little instruction with: “Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life.” That’s the way the NLT puts it. It isn’t exactly “word for word,” but I do think it gets at the essence of what Peter is saying. If you want to make a good verbal defense of your faith, it begins with letting Jesus have first place in your life. Only when we orient our lives around him, when we make him our first priority, will we be able to offer a good verbal defense of our faith.
When we get that part straight, we can speak to people in a way that accurately reflects what we know, or don’t know, about following Jesus. But we can start with what we know. For instance, here’s a question everyone can answer, no matter how long (or briefly) they have been following Jesus: “Who is Jesus to you?” When he is Lord of your life, that question isn’t so hard to answer. Everyone has enough knowledge to answer that question, because it is a question about your own experience. Here’s another one: “Why do you trust Jesus?” Again, our answers might differ somewhat, but anyone who does, in fact, trust Jesus, can answer these questions.
Here are a few more: “What has Jesus done for you, and what does he do for you now? What is the best thing, for you, about trusting Jesus? What difference does Jesus make in your life?
The key is to think about what you believe, why you believe it, and who Jesus is to you, and focus on those things. No one will say to you: “No, you’re wrong, you don’t follow Jesus because you feel his love.” They may think your experience is mistaken, but there can be no doubt that it is your experience. People can’t, and don’t, typically argue with personal observations and experiences like that. In other words, you don’t need to be William Lane Craig, Hugh Ross, (or even Tom Hilpert!), to make a good verbal defense of your faith.
Peter closes this section (and begins the next) with another observation about our behavior: that we should maintain a clear conscience, and good behavior, and sooner or later that will bring shame to those who slander us.
Suffering patiently for the sake of Jesus is a way of showing him to the world. Telling people with words about your experience of faith is another. Finally, having a clear conscience and good behavior will show Jesus to the world.
All of these should scare us. All of these should lead us to say: “But I can’t do that!” Because we can’t. But Jesus can do all of these things through us, if we are willing to let him. We need to allow him to lead us to act, or not act, to speak, or not speak. We need to use our hands and voices as he directs. But if we are relying on him, he is the one who will make it all work out. It won’t come from our own strength, but from His. It won’t come from our flawed natures, but rather, from His perfect character. All he needs is our trust.
God the Father made it quite clear that he was pleased with Jesus. It is certain that Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit. And yet, the Father’s approval, and the Spirit’s leading brought Jesus into a wilderness where he had nothing to eat, and had to battle with the devil. Our circumstances are not a reliable guide to understanding how God feels about us. Often, God leads us into suffering, because he is treating us as his children; treating us, in fact, exactly how he treated Jesus.
To listen to the sermon, click the play button: To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Lent 1
Lent 2022 #1. Luke 4:1-4
On March 2, this year, we entered the church-season of Lent. The “church year” with its various seasons – like Lent, Advent, Pentecost, etc. – is not found in the Bible. It was developed over time, in conjunction with “church festivals.” Church festivals include days like Christmas, Pentecost, Resurrection (Easter), All Saints, and also days celebrating the lives of various famous Christians. The church year developed as church leaders found it useful to remember different important parts of the Bible, and to highlight certain Biblical themes and events. Eventually, by the middle ages, the lives of most people in Europe revolved around the church year, and the various festivals of the church. It was helpful, at that time, for people to have their lives rooted and grounded in the Church year. The rhythms of their lives, all year round, were deeply attached to themes and holidays that reminded them of God. The very word “holiday” actually comes from the phrase “holy day.”
There are negatives to the church year. The seasons and festivals of the church year are associated with various Bible readings. Eventually, the Church began to focus only on those particular Bible readings, which were chosen by human beings to create the church year. Most people did not have their own Bibles, so they only heard the Bible when it was read at church. Because of the way the church year is structured, no one ever heard a whole Biblical book read in order – that is, in context. Not only that, but the readings of the church year (called “the lectionary,” or “the pericope” [pronounced per-ik-uh-pee]) leave out well over half of the Bible. Many pastors only preach on the lectionary, which means, in such churches, there is over half the Bible that you will never hear taught or explained. When pastors preach on the lectionary, it is, by necessity, preaching out of context. I know some pastors who would argue that the lectionary, along with the church year, is the context, but those are man-made contexts, not the context given by the Bible itself.
All of this is good to know, and important to take into consideration. The church year is man-made, neither created by, nor demanded by the Bible. Paul writes this, in Colossians:
16 So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. 17 For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality. 18 Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud, 19 and they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For he holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God nourishes it.
(Colossians 2:16-19, NLT)
It is easy to see how those verses apply to the church year. But there is another aspect also. We should not judge those who do find the church year helpful. In addition, the church year is the product of centuries of thoughtful consideration. Times have changed, of course, but I think sometimes we in the 21st century are perhaps too quick to dismiss ancient Christian practices that followers of Jesus found helpful in former times. Even today, millions of people find the church year helpful for following Jesus. I do think it has its deficiencies, but I also want us to be able to draw from what is good and helpful in Christian tradition.
All that is a very long way of saying that this year, I would like to at least experiment with following a church-season – in particular, the season of Lent. I do not intend to follow the church year always, but I do want to expose you to this ancient Christian tradition. As always, we will base it firmly in scripture. In fact, it is possible that we will spend all seven weeks of Lent in just one scripture passage, but we will see.
The season of Lent is arranged to last forty days, in remembrance of the forty days that Jesus spent fasting and praying in the wilderness, and battling temptation, just before he began his world-changing ministry. It also echoes the forty years that the people of Israel spent wandering in the wilderness before they entered the promised land. The forty days of Lent begin with Ash Wednesday, and end with Easter. We will begin this Lenten season by looking at that experience Jesus had in the wilderness.
1 Then Jesus left the Jordan, full of the Holy Spirit, and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over, he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” 4 But Jesus answered him, “It is written: Man must not live on bread alone.”
(Luke 4:1-4, CSB)
Let’s remember the context. Jesus has spent thirty-years living in obscurity, most of it in the town of Nazareth. Most sons in those days probably ended up doing whatever their fathers did for a living, so it is likely that Jesus was a builder, like Joseph. Now, at the age of thirty, led by the Spirit, he visits his cousin John, and is baptized by him. At his baptism, the Father made it known that He was pleased with Jesus. He affirmed Jesus in his Divine Sonship. And then, the first thing the Spirit leads Jesus to do is to go out into the wilderness, where he is to refrain from eating, and face the temptations of the devil.
There is an important point here. I think it is very significant for many of us. The Father was pleased with Jesus. The Spirit was with him, leading him.And he was brought into a desert wasteland where he had no food and had to fight with the devil.
You don’t have to go very far in America to hear a Christian who says something like this: “If you just follow God, he’ll take care of you. Your life will go better.” The Father was pleased with Jesus. The Spirit was leading him. However, his life did not get easier as a result of this, but harder. Following God is not a guarantee that everything will go well for you. That’s hard, but it’s the truth. When we follow God, he is often kind enough to lead us to the place where we understand that this life on earth is not the main focus. He usually uses suffering to help us absorb that message.
There is something else that many people may need to hear today: Our circumstances do not necessarily reflect how God feels about us. Jesus had nothing to eat. He was assailed by the devil, and living in a desert wasteland. And the Father was so pleased with him; the Spirit was with him. The Father had his reasons for allowing Jesus to go through that. But his reasons had nothing to do with his delight in Jesus.
Sometimes, when I’m going through tough times, I think maybe God is angry at me, or perhaps I’ve done something that has caused him to teach me a lesson. Another thought I have sometimes is that I’m going through hard times because I’ve made the wrong choice, and not listened to the Holy Spirit. But that could not have been the case with Jesus. The Father was pleased with him. The Spirit was leading him. And he ended up in a wasteland with no food, fighting the devil.
I think this passage calls us to dare to look at our circumstances differently. Because we are in Jesus, the Father is pleased with us, too. What we are going through is not necessarily a sign of how God feels about us. It’s true that, unlike Jesus, we sin. Sometimes we go astray and hard circumstances are a result of our bad choices. But Jesus shows us that you can follow the Spirit and still end up in the desert with no food and the devil attacking you constantly. Just because you are in a hard time does not mean that God is displeased with you. Trust his love and grace to you – it comes to you through Jesus, which is to say, perfectly!
And here is one of the first lessons we can take from the season of Lent: there is a time and place in the Christian life for hardship and discipline. It is not because you’ve done something wrong. It’s not because God is displeased with you, or that you need to get your act together. It is because that is the best possible thing for you, at this time.
I’ve come to this place with my own intense physical suffering. I have prayed, and received prayer for my suffering, including many types of prayer, and from many different people. I’ve tried literally dozens of things, medically. Yet I am still in pain. I trust therefore, that if God continues to allow it, it is because this difficult thing is, in fact, the very best thing for me. The writer of Hebrews addresses this same topic, telling us to consider the suffering of Jesus. His temptation in the wilderness was part of his earthly suffering:
3 For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, so that you won’t grow weary and give up. 4 In struggling against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: My son, do not take the Lord’s discipline lightly or lose heart when you are reproved by him, 6 for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and punishes every son he receives. 7 Endure suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline — which all receive — then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we had human fathers discipline us, and we respected them. Shouldn’t we submit even more to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them, but he does it for our benefit, so that we can share his holiness. 11 No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
(Hebrews 12:3-11, CSB)
God disciplines us for our benefit, so that we can share in his holiness. Though it isn’t pleasant at the time, later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. It is not punishment, but training; training in holiness. Most importantly, God deals with us this way because he loves us, because he considers us his children, bearers of his own name.
So here is the first lesson for this year’s Lenten season: allow God to use whatever hardship is in your life to bless you, and train you to share in his holiness. If you can alleviate your suffering, go ahead and do it. But if you find yourself dealing with some kind of hardship that you have no control over, perhaps you could be open to the idea that God will use it to bless you. God is treating you as a beloved child, as a member of the family.
All suffering is difficult. But not all suffering needs to be evil.
Let me say this again, because many 21st century American Christians don’t really know this, or want to accept it: not all suffering is evil. In fact, when we are in Jesus, nothing that we suffer needs to be evil. Instead, the Father can use every bit of it to bless us, and to train us to share in His holiness.
We should not miss this fact, also: God didn’t just use the suffering that happened to come to Jesus as he went about life. There was plenty of hardship in the ordinary, everyday life of someone who lived in 1st Century Israel under the Roman empire. There was poverty the like of which most of us have never seen. There was injustice. There was hard work. There was no modern medicine, so even a headache was not easily solved. But God called Jesus deliberately into even more suffering.
I don’t believe we ought to go looking for ways to suffer. But we don’t need to fear it either, and we need to recognize that sometimes, God’s gracious hand is in the thing that causes us suffering. It is a tremendous comfort for me to know that I suffer because it is God’s best will for me. It is a wonderful joy to know that there is purpose in my pain, and it is accomplishing something in God’s Kingdom, even when I don’t understand it. I am being treated as God’s beloved child. I know this not only because of the Hebrews passage above, but because this is exactly how God dealt with Jesus Himself.
Let the Lord speak to you today about the joy and discipline and love that He can impart to you through whatever suffering he calls you to.
Let me add one final thought. I have heard many Christians say that they believe revival is coming to America. Many of the people who say this are people that I know and respect. But even as they are convinced that revival will come to the American church, I am convinced about the way it will come to us: through suffering. I cannot see any way that American Christians can come to a profound, life changing place in their faith, and have a significant impact on our culture, without suffering. I am more and more convinced that a time of suffering is coming to the church at large. When it comes, let us not be surprised by it. Peter, who knew what suffering is, wrote:
Dear friends, don’t be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you to test you, as if something unusual were happening to you. Instead, rejoice as you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may also rejoice with great joy when his glory is revealed.
1 Peter 4:12-13 (CSB)
Let us not be worried, or fearful, or dismayed. Jesus suffered, and part of following him, involves following him in suffering. It can be difficult, yes, but it is not bad, not evil. It might be the most wonderful thing God can do in us and through us.
The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, and if children, also heirs — heirs of God and coheirs with Christ — if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.
(Romans 8:16-18, CSB)
Once again, we see the connection between being a child of God, and being called to suffer.
During this time of Lent, let us use the season to prepare ourselves, to train our minds and hearts to recognize that suffering does not need to be evil, and it can actually accomplish much good for the kingdom of God. Let us use the practices of Lent to train ourselves, so that we recognize we are indeed God’s children, and he will use us in his kingdom, and in this world.
Clear Bible 