Have You Put Christ Into Your Conversation About Suffering?

1 Peter 3:18 “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:”

Many people cite “suffering” as the reason they do not believe in God.

Siddhartha Gautama, aka “The Buddha”, framed his whole philosophy of Buddhism around the issue of suffering.

He had no answers to it, nor found any true meaning in it… though he tried to make sense of it. Buddhism offers no salvation, no hope, no Saviour from suffering.

… Without Christ you have no answer to anything, just people in the dark fumbling in the dark.

Yes, suffering exists, and suffering is a horrible reality of living in this world, this sin cursed dark evil world as the Bible says… God knew about suffering before you became aware of it… but nonetheless, it is heart breaking to see the suffering that so many people experience in this life, situations and circumstances people are thrust into which make you inevitably question what is God’s role in it all.

And it’s not wrong to have questions, in fact God invites us to come reason with him… and if the evil of suffering is an issue to you, well… elite company was there a long time ago, it was to people like Job and Solomon also!

Ecclesiastes 4:1 “So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.”

Would someone tell Solomon about Jesus?!

Navigating suffering without the consolation and comfort of Christ provides not little comfort… NO comfort. And thus Solomon went through a long season of hating life as he observed the evils of this world.

Look, you’re not the first one to have all the big questions of life. The Bible is the book of life, and it reaches to where we are at.

And it’s fine to have questions, I’ve had a few myself.

… but are you interested in answers, or only in asserting the injustice and perverseness of God?

Is God really perverse, the God you say doesn’t exist yet you are so angry at?

And would you ever, seeing as you are so concerned about suffering, not look at the suffering you have inflicted on others?

There’s not much integrity to a symposium on suffering without considering your contributions also!

You see, inconvenient to this whole discussion as it may be… fact is, suffering is not just something we endure, but something we also inflict and perpetuate… so if suffering is a problem, we contribute to it also… we contribute to suffering in this world. “God be merciful to me a sinner”

So when you care about suffering, I hope you also consider your role in it! I know you’re not a bad person, but you may have caused a lot of grief to someone else… just guessing though!

Today I hope you have enough room in your heart to sincerely consider the Bible. If you have questions for God, would you wait long enough to hear the answers from God? “but stand thou still a while, that I may shew thee the word of God.”

If you’ve got questions, the Bible has answers. Remembering the gospels are full of people asking Jesus questions, and for very different reasons, with very different motives… which Jesus discerned. He knows your heart when you come with your questions.

So if you are legitimately open to God’s answers, you will get them. The Bible speaks at length not only about suffering… but also LONGsuffering… which is actually a fruit of the Holy Spirit… you see, Christians are also far from exempt from suffering. Just how a Christian with the hope of Christ in them has a very different purpose in them.

Yes it would be nice to not even have the word suffering in our dictionary. I would never voluntarily choose to suffer. And who would? But suffering was introduced, as the Bible teaches, by the choice of man to sin in the book of Genesis. Genesis… beginnings, origins… how it all came to be like this. If you are interested in the genesis of things, go to Genesis! “

Just a few chapters into the Bible and you get your answer to why suffering exists… when man ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, believing the lies of the devil, thinking disobedience could enrich their lives further in a way God could not, and doubting the character and word of God…

See, they had questions too about God… and they were in a perfect creation. So where are you getting your questioning of God from?

… but when man chose to sin, the evil of suffering was introduced to this world, and is a fact of life which will only finally be healed in the new world which Jesus has promised when he returns “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

And so suffering is a consequence of sin. It is an evil that was introduced by disobeying God’s word… and still is today. When you disobey God’s word, someone suffers.

And how horrible it is when someone “innocent” suffers. Well, none more innocent than the sinless Son of God right? Does your heart bleed for him?

Hebrews 2:9 “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”

And so, dear reader, while I most humbly have your attention, what I would like to ask you to do today is something you may never have done before. Which is to consider in your conversation on suffering something you may never have considered before in all your musings upon it.

I’m asking you to consider Jesus Christ in your conversation on suffering. Because if you use suffering to try and hang your concept of God and God himself upon… remember this, that the Son of God lived a life where he suffered the sins of the world… for you. He hung on a cross, he who had done no evil, taking upon himself, in his own body the sins of the world.

That’s suffering.

And Jesus, God in the flesh, suffered for the sins of the world. He never did evil, he was not crucified because he had done something wrong. And he didn’t suffer for his own sake, he suffered for every single person who ever would live, past, present and future.

So when you rail on God like the thieves on the cross did, before one of the thieves had a change of heart, remember in your conversation of suffering the sufferings of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Noone suffered more than he did, think about that the next time you falsely accuse God on this topic.

Maybe, just maybe, you’ve had this issue of suffering back the front in your mind the whole life. The real suffering of God is not the suffering he puts you through and doesn’t care about, it’s the longsuffering he has had toward you your whole life.

Isn’t suffering the reason TO believe on God and his love toward us, not the reason to reject him?

Hebrews 2:10 “For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”

God’s only begotten Son suffered so we could be saved.

And not just that, as if that was not enough, but he takes our sufferings and turns them into glory. And so if you are suffering dear reader, I don’t write to minimize that, nor does God, but I write to tell you that God is with us in our suffering, and he gives his promises of purpose, hope and comfort in it.

And he’s so wise, and caring, and able, he not only promises a reality free from suffering, but uses the sufferings of now to work FOR you rather than AGAINST you…

Jesus Christ overcame suffering also… so that it could be written “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” You ever known a true believe who has gone through something terrible, and it made them sweeter not sour. Because God has been using that for glory, while not negating the trial of it. Sufferings are part of what God uses to perfect Christ in us, someone who has never suffered as a Christian is yet to grow in the ways that can only be realized through them.

Paul said “I reckon”

But do ya reckon?

Have you reckoned on Christ yet, is he in your reckoning when it comes to sufferings also.

So let’s talk about his sufferings when we talk about suffering. Because when you use suffering as a reason God doesn’t care, the sufferings of Christ proves he cares more than you will ever know, and he proved that by choosing suffering himself more than we ever will.

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