Category — Suffering

From Mark to Peter

As I wrapped up our eighteen-month study of Mark earlier this year I thought, “This is the perfect opportunity to teach First Peter!”Mark drips with the thinking and words of the Apostle Peter. With all of these “Petrine” thoughts in our minds, moving toward the actual letter that he wrote seemed logical. I had never studied First Peter in depth, so it just seemed like a good decision.

I have to admit I had no idea what the study of First Peter would mean to our church.This is the most difficult year financially we’ve faced since I’ve been pastor. We’ve cut our budget severely and our staff and missionaries have been living on reduced pay since January.

I can’t remember a time in the decades I’ve been leading churches that so many Christians have been persevering through tough times. Foreclosures, loss of jobs, cutbacks, business failings. It’s a tough economy and God’s people are right in the middle of the mess.

Add to that the weekly reports of struggling marriages, diagnoses of dread diseases, prodigal children, and the usual array of relational hurts and scars in a local church.

These are tough times. God’s people are suffering.

Then I hear from Christians in churches all over America that they’re studying First Peter too. And I’m noticing an inordinate number of Bible study resources concentrating on First Peter.

From God’s Heart to Ours

I think God is preparing His church for troubled times. Sure, we’re suffering economically right now. But this is nothing compared to what could happen in this world out of control and so antagonistic toward Christ and His people.

These truths hit our hearts pretty hard, don’t they? I believe God is shifting the focus of His people from understanding the Christian life as a sure-fire way to live the “happy life”—have a perfect marriage, perfect family, perfect community, and perfect nation. I believe He’s turning us toward the more biblical priority of living a life that really counts—counting the cost for following Christ as His devoted disciple and paying it!

When this reality hits our hearts—that if you want to live for Christ in this alien and hurtful world, you’re going to suffer—it scares us…it brings fear to our hearts because it should. 1 Peter 4:12-19 is the paragraph you need to read and meditate on. It’s written to Christians who, like you, were realizing that serving Christ and suffering for Christ go together.

The fiery trial speaks of the purifying or refining power of suffering in the life of a believer. For Peter and his readers, it was also a reality. Nero blamed Christians for burning Rome. The evil emperor retaliated by rounding up Christian leaders, covering them with pitch, and using them as living torches to light the imperial gardens at night.

1 Peter 4:12-19 is God’s Word to Christians who admit that the prospect of suffering for Christ scares them. Peter makes three points: In verses 12-14 he connects our suffering for Christ to the glory of God. Verse 15 warns us against using our suffering as an excuse to sin. And verses 16-19 encourage us to entrust our lives to our Faithful Creator.

The entire paragraph insists on viewing suffering for Christ as initiated by God Himself to bring glory to His name and guided by the One who is our Faithful Creator.

From a Fellow-Sufferer

This is the only place in all of Scripture that God uses that title to describe Himself. Faithful Creator—the same One who brought the world into being is caring for you during your darkest days.

As a cancer survivor, this touches me deeply. My God has one name that He uses only when relating to His suffering children—Faithful Creator.

I don’t know the suffering of your life, but I know Someone who does. His name? Faithful Creator!

Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator (1 Peter 4:19).

Could You Pray for Me?

I was standing on the lawn talking with people after our Sunday services. A young lady I’d never met stood off to the side with one of those, “I have to tell you something” looks every pastor knows.
When the crowd cleared, I walked over to her. “Thank you for being so patient. My name is Ed, how can I help you?”
Tears streamed down her face. “Could you pray for me, please?”
I would love to.
Words poured from her heart. Story after story punctuated by sidebar explanations I could not connect. “And then my mother told me that she heard…” “Well, I really didn’t say that, but my husband thought I did….” “I just don’t know if I can go on with all of these people saying….” “And then I lost my job….” “So you can see why I….”

Telling or Asking?

We’ve all been there, haven’t we?
• The leader of your small group asks, “Does anyone have a prayer request?” and you spend about thirty minutes talking about the problem and maybe two or three minutes actually praying.
• Standing at the bedside of a close friend, you decide to pray. The Christians in the room immediately start talking. “You know, my aunt had something like this. It was her liver. Have the doctors tested your liver?” “Oh, I was sick like this once. Is your neck stiff? That’s really bad! When my neck got stiff….”
• Someone from the church calls you to report a terrible accident. “I don’t know where they are taking her. I hope it’s not to this hospital. I went there once and the emergency care isn’t very good. I almost died when the nurse gave me….”
The prayer request sounds more like a novel strung together by a series of “and then’s.” You think to yourself, surely this is the last twist of this plot, but the end never comes.
That’s the way it was with this brokenhearted woman on the church lawn. As she poured out her heart, some verses came to mind:
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplications, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7)
“Let your requests be made known unto God.” Not your stories, insights, and follow-up questions and explanations.
“Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” (Jeremiah 33:3)
“Call to Me,” rather than “explain to Me” or “enlighten Me.”

Just Ask!

I put both hands on the young lady’s shoulders and broke in, “What do you want God to do?”
She seemed confused. “Huh?”
I repeated, “What do you want God to do?”
Startled back to the real issue of prayer, she said plainly, “I want God to put my marriage back together again.”
And so, finally, we asked God to do something, “Father, we ask you now, in Jesus’ name, please heal this marriage.”
It’s a revolutionary idea-to actually ask God for something-but it shouldn’t be.
“What do you want God to do?”
Your answer to that question is the only one that really matters at the throne of grace.

Every Sunday I stand before some courageous Christians who get what the Bible says about our desperate need for one another. They understand our inability to live the Christian life alone. Struggling forward locking arms, they grasp the universal teaching of Christ and the Apostles that we must learn not only to trust God with the truth about our lives, but we must also trust one another with the truth about our lives. These are friends who are living as if what the Bible says about community is true.

Sadly, tragically, there are believers choosing not to worship with us who are proving that they do not believe what the Bible says about community is true. Maybe someone hurt their feelings. Maybe they didn’t get their way. Maybe they’re waiting until they “get their Christian life together.” Maybe they have a secret.

I would be the last pastor to tell them they need to come to church to keep our numbers up.

But I do beg them to come to church because they need us and we need them.

Especially during times of suffering.

The Apostle Peter connects the suffering of our lives to our need for community in 1 Peter 4:7-11 by exposing the mistaken assumption those who decide to “go it alone” are making when they run from church: Time is short!

“The end of all things is at hand—gather in groups, pray hard, and love well!”

Christians who say they don’t need one another are acting as if they have forever to sort out their little feelings or hide their big secrets.

We don’t!

Even if you don’t agree with me that Jesus could show up any day for His church to take them to heaven, you have to admit that your days are numbered. And speaking for all of us who have heard the doctor say, “It’s cancer,” I promise you that you don’t have as many days as you think.

Stop wasting your time hiding and pouting. Find a healthy church and throw in, for better or worse. Give and receive love by praying hard for one another and loving well.

You’re going to suffer. There’s no way around it.

You can either suffer alone or with friends in the messy glory of community.

A lot of Christians think that our only spiritual option in the face of suffering is to just try to survive and somehow keep your faith.

Peter would disagree.

In the most extended discussion of suffering in the New Testament Peter tells his readers to take up arms against suffering.

And he’s not talking about picking up some verbal or theological weapon to beat your enemies or the devil over the head with.

He’s talking about putting on the same battle armor the Lord Jesus wore on the cross.

“But,” you protest, “if Jesus was clothed at all on the cross, it was only a loin cloth. How do you get armor out of that?”

I’m not talking about anything Jesus wore on the outside. He chose not to protect His body against the beatings, the scourging, the thorns and the nails. If the people He loves were to have any hope, He knew He had to pay for our sins by dying that cruel death.

I’m talking about what Jesus was “wearing” on the inside—in His heart and mind. We can’t know everything that Jesus was thinking as He died for our sins on that cruel Roman cross, but we do know that Peter highlights two thoughts paramount in His mind in 1 Peter 3:

1) He was entrusting Himself to the Father as He suffered for others.

2) He was trusting in His Father to vindicate Him.

And then, in 4:1, Peter encourages Christians to “arm yourselves also with the same mind” as Christ who suffered for us in the flesh.

Christian, there’s your battle-armor in the warzone of suffering.

I can’t know what your specific suffering is today, but I do know that there’s something that is breaking your heart—physically, emotionally, or relationally.

Maybe you’ve lost your job and you don’t know how you’re going to pay the mortgage.

Maybe your prodigal son or daughter is out there somewhere living a lifestyle that causes you to live expecting a call from the coroner some sad night.

Maybe you just heard what you thought you would never hear from your spouse: “I don’t love you any more.” “I’m leaving you.” “I had an affair.” “I’m addicted.”

Maybe strained relationships in your family or your church have just worn you out and you don’t know if you can go on.

Or maybe, like me, you live with a dread disease that could take you out without warning.

May I encourage you to take Peter’s words to heart and put on your battle armor?

Arm yourself with the same thoughts Jesus was thinking when He suffered for you:

My Loving Father is still good and I can trust Him with this pain so that I can live for others.

My Loving Father will never let me down and someday He will vindicate me so that I can see clearly why this had to be.

Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind (attitude, mindset) (1 Peter 4:1).

Sex, Not Words

Hers was the first cabin on the right down the most desperate street I have ever walked. Like her neighbors, she hurried onto her “porch” at the sound of men’s voices. And, like her neighbors, the hard eyes in her young face stared disappointment when she recognized our missionaries.

In the few weeks she had occupied her shack of a bungalow on this lonely island in a forgotten corner of Lake Victoria, she had learned from her “coworkers” that these missionaries only wanted to talk. She didn’t come here to make conversation with men. This was a street where lonely fishermen with fast money came to pay for sex, not for words.

Just One More Whore

As our friends who had dedicated their lives to the hopeless citizens of these island fishing villages described the deep injustice of the place, she reached back into her one-bed-room for something—a straw broom. Slow mechanical strokes brushed cigarette butts, candy wrappers, and small wads of filth into the street. She never looked up; never spoke. Just one more whore living on a street of whores until the aids virus erases her from the scene.

And then, in the cruel rhythm of life on this exploited frontier, her brutalized replacement will take up housekeeping.

When we came to the end of the street, I wondered aloud for our group, “Why was she sweeping?”

Someone’s Little Girl

On the long boat ride back to our missionary’s home in Kahunda, Tanzania on the southern shore of Lake Victoria, I thought about when and where the little girl-turned prostitute learned to sweep.

Who taught her? Was it her mother, her grandmother?

What were they imagining for her when her little hands grasped the handle for the first time?

What pictures came to her little mind as she swept the dirt floor of the little house she grew up in?

What ordinary innocent dreams of husband, home, and children?

Hate Sin; Beg God

I hated sin more than ever before, begged God for her soul, and asked Him to please break the cycle of generational sin in that evil place.

And I thanked God for the privilege of sending Andy and Margaret Anderson to her world.

“But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest’” (Matthew 9:36-38).