Times exist in the life of every Christian where it seems that sorrow will overwhelm the life of faith. Perhaps, death has visited and laid you low. Now, we know from Scripture that we’re not supposed to base our faith on our feelings. For our feelings change from day and day and can even deceive us. We are to ground our faith in God’s unchanging Word, Jesus Christ. Yet, when we stare death in the face, those experiences still put our faith to the test.
Today, many of us have bought into the assumption that being a Christian should bring with it at least some success. After all, if our faith in Jesus is true, if Jesus is the one-and-only Son of God and the Savior of the world, shouldn’t faithful Christians receive honor and glory in this world? Isn’t this God’s world? And if it is God’s world, then why does God let His children suffer?
The Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Ephesus that he was languishing in jail for being faithful to the Word of God. By the standards of this world, Paul was a loser. His contemporaries despised him. The Jewish leaders conspired against him. The Roman Emperor, Nero, was raging against Christianity. Paul felt the Emperor’s irrational hatred of the Gospel, as he was eventually killed for his beliefs.
As the Ephesian Christians faced persecution, as they considered that their father in the faith was being imprisoned, as their faith was put to the test, Paul wrote this beautiful Epistle for their comfort. The Apostle gave three reasons they, and we, should not lose heart and become discouraged when we suffer. First, for the Christian, a direct connection exists between suffering and glory. Second, God remains our loving Father, even when we suffer. And third, the Holy Spirit shows us God’s true love in Christ’s suffering.
First, for the Christian, a direct connection exists between suffering and glory. It’s not that our suffering somehow saves us and brings us to eternal glory. But it is as Paul writes in Romans 8:29 that God has predestined His children “to be conformed to the image of His Son.” As Jesus is now in everlasting glory, so, too, will we!
But what we must remember is that Jesus didn’t enter glory without first going through suffering. Paul further tells us in Romans, chapter 8: “Now if we are children, then we are heirs–heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him, so we may also be glorified with Him” (Romans 8:17). As it was for Jesus, so it is for us. As He suffered, so do His disciples. As He is glorified, so will we be. For Jesus, the route to glory was through suffering. So it is also for us.
But note the difference between Christ’s suffering and our own. When the Bible says that Christ suffered for us, it means that He suffered, in our place, the punishment for our sins. It’s as the prophet Isaiah wrote: “The Lord has laid on him [that is, Jesus] the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). He took our sins away by suffering for us. He made us pure, holy, and righteous by becoming the sacrifice to take away our guilt. That’s what it means that Christ suffered for us.
When we suffer as Christians, we don’t earn anything by it. Christ has already earned every spiritual and heavenly gift that could be earned. Instead, when we suffer, God’s uses such suffering to conform us into Christ’s image. We are learning to live under the cross–under the shelter of grace that His cross provides for us.
That’s why the Apostle Paul could write: “So then, I ask you not to become discouraged by what I’m suffering for you, which is your glory” (Ephesians 3:13). Paul was saying, “You think you should lose heart and be ashamed that I, your pastor and teacher, am stuck in jail. But you should see this as I do, as an honor, for God is treating me as He treated His dearly loved Son.”
Well, what else are we to realize as we suffer as God’s own in this fallen world? It’s that God remains our loving Father even when we suffer. Paul was in jail. He wouldn’t leave jail alive. The powers of this world saw Paul simply as a rabble-rousing preacher from a radical sect of the Jews. Paul was nothing. He would die, and that would be the end of it.
Well, that’s the way it looked. But listen to what Paul said, “This is why I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (Ephesians 3:14-15). In jail, Paul called on the power of God the Father and appealed to His authority, from whom every human father, indeed every human authority, gains its power to govern.
In the end, nothing can prevail against the power of God. God kills, and He makes alive. He’s the Ruler of the universe, who oversees the rise and fall of nations, who also hears the prayers of His suffering children. That means that when you are alone and suffering, with no one to help, God the Father is there and hears your cries. What does that mean? It means that, as a Christian, you are never alone. It takes a strong faith to believe that, but it is true.
Do you want proof? Then listen to the prayer of Jesus from the cross: “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit” (Luke 23:46). There was Jesus, moments after crying out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46). Jesus’ own words show that as He was bearing the sin of the world, God was still His dear Father. That means, that even as you are suffering, you remain the precious child of God through your Lord Jesus Christ.
But some teach in the church: “If you were really God’s child, He would help you. He would take better care of you. He would give you a better life.” Today’s shallow Christianity is swimming in such teaching. And so we have religious entrepreneurs selling a “Health and Wealth Gospel,” a gospel that has banished all suffering. After all, who here wouldn’t rather be healthy and wealthy instead of suffering?
But, what if you’re not rich and healthy? According to those health-and-wealth entrepreneurs, that’s because you haven’t made God first in your life! In the name of empowering Christians to live victorious lives, they place Christians under the burden of false promises.
Know this: God is your Father, your loving, gracious, and generous Father, even when you are poor, sick, and lonely. God remains your loving Father, even when you suffer. That’s what the Apostle Paul tells us today. That’s the reality the Apostle Paul was living out when being imprisoned for the Faith.
What else are we to take in today? It’s that God the Holy Spirit shows us the Father’s true love in Christ’s suffering. We can never measure God’s true love through the riches of this world, which are here today and gone tomorrow. Instead, the Apostle speaks of the “riches” of God’s glory. He’s talking about the riches the Holy Spirit gives us. Those riches are unseen and grasped only by faith.
Paul then tells us how the Holy Spirit strengthens us in what he calls “the inner being.” It’s that Christ lives in our hearts through faith and, that through such faith, we are rooted and grounded in God’s love.
As your suffering humbles you, God drives you to the power you don’t have–the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit prepares room for Christ in your heart, who then takes up His home in you. In your weakness, the Holy Spirit shows you the love of God in Christ.
Only in Christ do you find God’s true love. And Christ is only found in His suffering. That is what you need to know when you suffer. For only in Christ’s suffering can you make any sense out of our own suffering.
On the cross, Jesus suffered a loneliness and sorrow beyond all words. Jesus endured His Father forsaking Him. Jesus became the Sacrifice for the salvation of the world. On the cross, God in the flesh bought you by His blood. And He bought you, so you could know God’s love, so you could be free from the futile life of living only for yourself and for the passing ways of this world. That’s true love!
Jesus, the One who suffered, knows your suffering. True love is not letting you take over as your own god. What a hell you and I would make for ourselves if we did that! That’s why true love is God showing us, even through our suffering, that we aren’t the God of our lives–He is!
So, what are your sufferings? Whatever they may be, God works in and through such suffering for your eternal benefit. Like Jesus’ suffering, your suffering ends in the glory of heaven, where no pain or death can ever enter.
Yet, even while suffering and feeling alone, God remains your loving Father. And, as you continue to receive the words of the Holy Spirit, He will show you God’s true love in Christ’s suffering. It is then that you will know true wealth, which no one can ever take away from you. Amen.
