1084. Session 2 - Gospel Hope: Why Am I Suffering?

[Music] Welcome to the Paul Trip podcast where Pastor and bestselling author Paul David Trip connects the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life. You're about to listen to the second of three sessions from Paul Trip Ministries free teaching series Gospel Hope. You can download the full curriculum which includes three video lessons and a robust study guide at PaulTrip.com/GospelHope. In it, Paul Trip shares his own story of suffering, the lies he believed, and the life-changing truth he found in the Word of God. Our prayer is that this free Gospel centered, Hope-filled resource will comfort you with the right here, right now power, presence and promise of Jesus Christ. Again, it's available completely free at PaulTrip.com/GospelHope. Here's Paul answering the question, why am I suffering? [Music] Well, I want to take you to a passage that in the New Testament, that is a treatise on suffering. And not just the experience of suffering, but how God meets us and our suffering. It's Romans 8. And I want to read for you verses 18 through 25 of Romans 8. That's the wrong passage up there. There you go. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to fertility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it. And hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. And hope that is seen is not hope. Or who hopes for what he sees. Romans 18 to 25 is in the Bible because God loves us. And he does not want us to live with unrealistic expectations. For the rest of the day we are going to talk about God's grace. In Romans 18 to 25 we have his preparing grace, preparing grace. God wants us to be prepared for the life that he has chosen for us between the already of our conversion and the not yet of our home going. And if you notice the beginning of the passage, Paul assumes the universality of suffering. Let me say that again. He assumes the universality of suffering. If you are not suffering now you will someday and if you are not suffering now you are near someone who is. Suffering is a universal human experience. Now that is very, very important. That means your suffering is not an indication that God is punishing you for your sin. Suffering is not God's punishment of you because the gospel says that Jesus on the cross took every aspect of your punishment. You stand before your Lord, debt free. And so suffering is not his punishment. Suffering is not God lacking power. Suffering is not God ignoring you. Suffering is universal because of the world that we live in. God has chosen between the already of your conversion, the not yet of your home going, to keep you in a world that is dramatically broken, dysfunctional. In case you haven't realized it, this world doesn't now function the way God originally attended. This world no longer functions the way God originally intended. When you have some provocative descriptions of the world that we live in in this passage, it says it's been subjected to futility. Think about that. There is no futility in the garden. We face futility all the time. You've said to yourself, what difference does it make? I do and I do and I do and I still get this stuff. You've been frustrated. Of course you have. Why is it marriage? It's honestly beautiful. You look at me like you don't know what I'm talking about. Why does that person that I married whose voice I used to hear in my heart would lift? Why does that person now have a deep abiding ability to irritate me? Why do I have to get sick? Why do I face painful experiences? It's because of your address. It says this world is groaning as if in pains of childbirth, that acute pain. There are moments when it's not just frustrating, there are acute moments of pain. Will you cry out? Will you weep? And the reason we groan is because the world itself is groaning. Do you know what this passage says? It's not just us waiting for redemption. The created world is waiting for redemption because it's breaking under its bondage. Right now creation is crying out for release. That the creator would finally enter in and finally create a new heavens and a new earth. And groan for release. The creation that is your present address. Another phrase, in bondage to corruption, I actually think a better translation there is bondage to decay. That's what it's talking about. Another shocking reality of life is right now that everything that is alive is in the process of dying. Not a happy thought, is it? If you're in one of your glorious, high moments as a husband, now buying flowers for your wife, it may be that you're trying to pay her off for being a jerk. But let's say you're not doing that. Let's just say you love her and you buy her flowers. You know what happens in a minute? You put those on the table? You just watch slow death. It's honey. I brought you some death. I love you. This is our address. And the Bible is quite specific and clear about the reasons we suffer. And it's so important for you to realize that God is honest about that so you wouldn't mistake who is and you wouldn't mistake your experience. You'd be prepared for the things that everybody faces in this world that we live in. So many people are unprepared for suffering because they've been living with unbiblical, unrealistic expectations. Listen, you know this with your children. Unrealistic expectations always lead to what? How many said it? Disappointment. Because your disappointment is directly related to whatever expectations you were carried. We need to have a good, clear theology of suffering so that when it comes you don't fall into all of that wrong thinking and preach yourself a false gospel. That's why the verses that I read are so important this is God preparing you, letting you know the world that you live in. Now I want to be in this time we have even more specific than that. There are in the New Testament five clear reasons that God gives us why Christian suffer. And I'm going to give these to you. The first one is here in Romans 8. We suffer because we live in a broken, groaning world. Universal. But there's a second reason that we suffer. We suffer for the purpose of our spiritual growth. I love the example that's given in 1 Peter 4. Actually it should be 1 Peter 1 but I don't know why that's up there. In 1 Peter 1 Peter used the example of metallurgy. You might a metal and it's in an or state. Now or is not very attractive and not very usable. So the metallurgy has to apply white hot heat to liquefy that metal so it reaches its highest state of beauty and its highest state of usability. Now listen to me, when you come to Christ you're an horrific Christian. You're just like ore. Yes, you're in the kingdom but you're a bit of a mess. And it would be unuseful and unloving for God to leave you in that or state. So because he loves you he will boil you. God will take you where you haven't intended to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own. God will take you where you haven't planned or intended to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own. You know what the Bible calls that grace. We need to teach and preach and cover one another with a theology of uncomfortable grace, uncomfortable grace because often God's grace comes to us in uncomfortable forms. I'm around people all the time that are saying where's the grace of God and they're getting it. But it's not the grace of release and it's not the grace of relief. It's the grace of refinement. Just the kind of grace we all need. You have never, ever heard somebody say I've had three of the most pleasurable and comfortable years of my life and I learned so much. But you hear story after story after story who people of people went through hardship and say I am so thankful I learned so much. Third reason. This is 2 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 3 to 9. You will suffer so that you can be one of God's messengers of comfort to every other sufferers. God says He meets us with His comfort in our time of suffering so we can take that same comfort to other sufferers. Isn't that beautiful? Your suffering, even your suffering is not about you. It belongs to your Lord and He wants to use your suffering so you can bring that comfort that that person needs. You know what the model is? God makes His invisible grace visible by sending people of grace to give grace to people who need grace. I could say it this way. God makes His invisible comfort visible by sending people of comfort to give comfort to people who need comfort. Fourth reason. You will suffer for the sake of the glory of God. See life is not about our glory. The glory of my success and the glory of my appreciation approval and the glory of my possessions and whatever you would fill in there. I love this passage. This is, "Sec Corinthians 4, beginning with verse 7, this passage has been a huge and faithful friend to me." But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. Let me stop there. It's a treasure in jars of clay. Guess who's the jar of clay? That's us. In case you hadn't figured that out, that's not a compliment. Because a clay jar is weak and delicate. You drop it, it's going to shatter. It's a picture of weakness. We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the all surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. Your weakness, your limits of strength, wisdom, righteousness is not an accident. It's not a divine mistake. It's a divine intention. So that you would not mistakenly think it's all about you. You could argue that every night the fact you have to go to sleep is a definite proof that you're not God. Because the Psalm says he never slumbers nor sleeps. Your weakness doesn't get in the way of the gospel. Your weakness doesn't contradict the gospel. Your weakness preaches the gospel. We need as a church to quit promoting big personality, self-sufficient people. We have been cursed with so many of those leaders and it never goes anywhere good. I want to be preached to by a weak man. Not weak in faith, but who is not promoting himself, but promoting his God. That's what this passage is about. If you're leading a small group, if your preaching or teaching, be transparent. Because if you're not people, instead of wanting to know your God, they'll want to be you. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed. Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus. Now watch this so that means a purpose. For this purpose that the life of Jesus may be manifest in our bodies. Weakness is not in the way of God's plan. It is the plan. So that we would be living demonstrations of the presence and glory of God. It's actually saying we're just a bunch of crackpots. That's exactly what it's saying. And through those cracks gets what seed, the all-surpassing power of God himself. Yes, Paul Tripp called you a crackpot. God designed it that way so people would look at you and see the Redeemer. The last reason you will suffer is because of your faith. In 1 Peter 4, Peter says, "As a good pastor, why are you surprised?" as if something strange was happening to you. Don't you know you're an alien and an exile. You're living for a different kingdom than the people around you. And because of that, you're going to be misunderstood. You're going to be misinterpreted and you're going to be mistreated. Listen, we are in a generation. We better understand what's coming. Where you may be a believer and you don't get into university because you won't endure things that that university endorses. You won't get a promotion at your job. You'll have neighbors that will turn their back on you. You may even have loved ones who walk away from you because of your faith, because of the moral stance that God calls you to. You see, the Bible is very specific and very clear about suffering. God doesn't hide it. He's not embarrassed to talk about it. He doesn't talk about it in whisper tones. It's everywhere. Why? Because you know that we would be prepared. It's a grace of preparation. Because if you're unprepared, you will bring all the wrong things to your suffering. And what often is sacrificed in a person's suffering. You're ready for this? Is there faith? And they begin to say, "I don't know if I can read my Bible and I don't know if I can go to church and I surely can't be with my small group and it's just a beginning to wander away. God who loves you has given you His Word so that you will be prepared." Now God's sovereign and we're not. That means I don't know what's around the corner. I don't know. A day can change, a life can change in just one phone call. One visit to the doctor, one incident with another person and it all changes. And God is not going to unfold His secret will to you. In case you hadn't put this together, His secret will is called His secret will because it's secret. If I want to be honest about my experience, if I had known what I was going to face that day and the change in my life, I would have lost my mind. It was love that God didn't tell me what was happening. So you don't know. And you can't figure out the future. Listen, rest, rest of heart. Oh, hear me say this. Rest of heart is never found and you're trying to figure out the future. Rest of heart is not found in your personal understanding. Rest is found and entrusting yourself to the one who holds the future and understands it all. I have rest because I understand it's impossible for my God ever to be surprised. It's impossible for Him to ever be confused. It's impossible for Him to be ever be unprepared, impossible. And so my rest is because I believe that there's somebody who is in charge of this who understands it all. Don't waste your time trying to figure out the future. It's close to you because God loves you. It doesn't mean you don't plan. It doesn't mean you don't think. But those limits are set by God's goodness for us. And if you could see it all and know it all, you would be crushed. And that means there's a final thing I want to say in this session is your suffering is never meaningless. Your suffering is never meaningless. No brothers and sisters, we don't believe in bad luck. We don't believe in karma. We don't believe in fate. We believe that sitting on the throne of the universe is one who is perfectly holy all of the time in every way and he's the definition of wisdom and love and goodness and power. Let's pray. Well, thank you for the honesty in scripture about the hardships that we face. Thank you that you have been honest so that we would experience the grace of preparation. So we would not live with unrealistic expectations and we never think that our struggles are meaningless. Thank you that you love us. Jesus name Amen. 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