Suffering on Purpose

1:00They're not something you hope to have, they're something that you really have and really possess. And I think that's a helpful distinction for us as Christians as we think about those same ideas with respect to our theological beliefs and what I will call our functional beliefs. Our theological beliefs are what we believe in our head that the Bible teaches. But our functional beliefs are how we actually act. And react in daily life based on what we really believe in our hearts. And I think there's a big discrepancy in our lives when it comes to certain areas, and one of those areas is suffering.

1:44Look at what Ajit Fernando wrote. The Bible often describes suffering as an essential aspect of the Christian life. Therefore, this should be a theme that appears often in Christian thinking and communication. Yet, with the affluence and technological advancement of the 21st century, many have come to regard comfort and convenience as essential human rights. As a result, the biblical message of the cross has become culturally incompatible with the way many think today. Without an adequate theology regarding suffering, Christians avoid the cross and move away from their call, and they are also unnecessarily unhappy when they face pain.

2:32We need to think about that idea as it pertains to our own lives and as we seek to live out the Christian life. Does our theology of suffering actually match up with our functional theology of suffering, how we act and react in a daily sense with respect to trials and suffering? And I think the way that we can get there to a place where those things are connected is by reflecting on this passage. In Philippians 1, where Paul helps us to realize that suffering has a purpose. We're going to learn this morning through this section that God never wastes our suffering but uses it to advance the gospel.

3:17Let's take a look here at verse 12. He begins with this attention-grabbing phrase, I want you to know brothers. Now, he usually uses phrases like that when he is about to say something really important, when he wants to draw special attention to what follows. And what follows is essentially an extended meditation on the truth that God doesn't waste our suffering. You see, if you hold a materialistic worldview, if you don't believe that God exists, if you believe that what we can see and touch and verify with the scientific method is all that exists, it is very difficult to see any meaning or purpose in suffering.

4:04If this life is all there is, then any suffering lessens our comfort, our enjoyment, our pleasure during this life, and so it often leads us to anger and despair. But, friends, what we learn in Scripture is that in the Christian worldview, no suffering is ever pointless. It always has meaning, it always has purpose. And in verse 12, Paul writes this. I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.

4:36I want to focus on this phrase, what has happened to me? Well, what happened to Paul? What he's referring to is during his third missionary journey, Paul was making his way back across Asia toward Jerusalem, and he stops in Caesarea. Take a look at Acts 21 on the screen. Luke records, While we were staying for many days, a prophet named Agabas came down from Judea. In coming to us, he took Paul's belt and bound his own feet and hands and said, Thus says the Holy Spirit, this is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.

5:17When we heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned, but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. And since he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, Let the will of the Lord be done. Agabus foretold that if Paul went to Jerusalem, the Jews would arrest him and turn him over to the Gentiles.

5:48And Paul replied, I'm ready to suffer for Christ. And suffer he would. As Agabus prophesied, he was Nearly killed by an angry mob in Jerusalem. He was arrested. He was led before one government official after another for years. And along the way, there were many attempts to murder him. After he got the runaround, for years and years, he exercised his right as a Roman citizen to appeal to Caesar and to have a trial before him. So a detachment of soldiers began this long, arduous process of transporting him from there in Jerusalem to Rome. And during that time, he endured two weeks without food, a shipwreck, and a bite from a poisonous snake.

6:45When he finally got to Rome, he spent at least two years under house arrest, wearing a chain every single day, being under the watch of elite soldiers every single day. I want you to just imagine that for a minute. What his life has been like for years, in chains every day, never having a moment alone. Even if you're an extrovert, that doesn't sound good. Here's what I want you to notice, though. Paul doesn't recount any of this in this passage.

7:21He doesn't draw any attention to his suffering. He doesn't ask for any sympathy. He doesn't throw himself a pity party. And I think, friends, when bad things happen to us, what is our natural response? Our natural response is to ask the question, why is this happening to me? And behind that question are two assumptions that have to be challenged. The first assumption is that we are good people. The second assumption is that good people deserve good treatment. So I want to look at both of those assumptions. Let's look at the first one, that we're good people.

8:02Well, look at the track record of our lives. Are we good people? Even if it could be objectively proven somehow that we were actually better than some or most people around us, we don't live up to God's definition of goodness. During Jesus' life, there was a time where a rich young ruler came up to him to ask him what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. And when he addressed Jesus, he called him good teacher. And Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. Now, of course, Jesus was and is God.

8:40But he was simply pointing out the fact that this man, this rich young ruler, thought that he was simply speaking to a good rabbi, a good teacher, who was good in the same sense that he was good. He was trying to keep the law, and this rich young ruler was trying to keep the law. We're all just trying our best, so we're good people. But the rich young ruler is Who may have objectively been better than a lot of people in his life still wasn't perfect. In fact, as Jesus talks to him, it becomes clear that he loves his money more than he loves God. So he doesn't meet God's definition of goodness.

9:17Now, let's tackle that second assumption that good people deserve good treatment. Well, let's just consider Jesus, who wasn't just good, but who was objectively perfect in every way. Did he deserve good things to happen to him? Absolutely. He never did anything wrong. But what did happen to him? He was mocked and ridiculed. He had no place to lay his head. He didn't even have a coin to pay the temple tax. He was betrayed by a friend.

9:53He was arrested. He was unjustly tried and brutally executed to satisfy a bloodthirsty mob. And yet, here's what we find in Hebrews chapter 5: Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. In being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. You see, it's perfectly natural for every one of us to ask. Why me when we start going through trials and suffering of various kinds? And it's natural because what we assume is that we are good people and that good people deserve good treatment. But if that were true, friends, then Jesus would have never suffered at all because he was perfect. The truth is that God uses our suffering, what Paul calls what has happened to me. He uses our suffering for many good purposes, including and especially advancing the gospel.

11:06You see, making our lives comfortable and easy just isn't a priority for God. Advancing the gospel, though, is a priority. He desires that people from every tribe, every tongue, every nation, across the world and across the street, come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior. And so Paul writes that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. How exactly did what happened to him serve to advance the gospel? Look at verse 13.

11:45He says, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. Well, the Imperial Guard was a division of elite soldiers who. Who formed the emperor's personal bodyguard? Wherever he was, at the palace or at one of the summer or winter homes, or anywhere that he was traveling, he had this band of elite soldiers. These were the special forces of the Roman Empire around him. These were influential, well-connected soldiers. He says it's become apparent to all the rest. Who is all the rest referring to? Well, that could be all the rest of the military. That could be all the rest of his government. That could be all the rest of his own household. But what Paul is saying here is that the people around him in the government and the military figured out pretty quickly why he was in prison. It wasn't because he had committed any crimes. It wasn't because he was leading a rebellion against Caesar or his government. It was because he was preaching and teaching that Jesus is the Christ.

12:57He was a disciple of Jesus, living to make more disciples of Jesus. And that was obvious as he spent every day in imprisonment preaching and teaching the gospel to those who had come. And every one of those soldiers is stigma. Their job is to keep watch over him. They have to listen to him, explain the gospel and its implications over and over again. And all of his preaching and teaching is being backed up with this lifestyle that he's living as he's bearing the fruit of the Spirit under these terrible circumstances.

13:31His faith, his hope, his joy was not taken from him because of all that he had endured unjustly for all of these years. Friends, just think about this for a minute. If Paul wasn't arrested in Jerusalem, if he hadn't appealed to Caesar, if he hadn't been taken under guard all the way to Rome and been placed under house arrest, if those things hadn't happened, would he have had these opportunities to advance the gospel? Would he have this opportunity to influence and witness to the Imperial Guard?

14:07Almost certainly not. Would he have had this kind of access to Caesar's household, the most important and influential people in the world? Almost certainly not. If God told one of us, I want you to go witness to the President of the United States and his family and all of the Secret Service agents that protect them, you might come up with one of many different strategies. You might say, I'm going to get online, I'm going to apply for an internship at the White House, or I'm going to apply for a job in the Senate or the House. You might say, maybe I'll book a tour and maybe we'll run into the President. I could share with him then. You might even say, I'll go to a rally and just hope for a chance encounter. Maybe the Lord will bring that about and I'll talk to him there. But you almost certainly wouldn't say, You know what I think I'll do to get in front of the president and his family and the secret service? I think I'll get arrested. That would be just the way to get in front of them.

15:11And friends, that's the point. God's ways are not our ways. His kingdom is backwards. It's upside down. The first is last, and the last is first. So it shouldn't surprise us that some things, some of his ways, are just not going to make sense. That's why Paul writes in this verse, what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. It's so backwards to what we would think that he has to say, no, really, this has been a good thing for the gospel.

15:45But you can only define years of chains and imprisonment as a good thing if you see suffering the way that Paul does. Look at what he wrote in Colossians 1. Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known. The mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to the saints.

16:27That's a man who could see the Gospel advancing through his suffering, so he had unwavering joy, even amidst uncertain times. And look what his suffering did to advance the gospel through the church. Take a look at verse 14. He writes, And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. You know what's even better than having one gifted gospel preacher in your church?

17:08Having an entire church full of faithful gospel preachers. You see, when you've got a gifted gospel preacher in your family or your circle of friends or your church or your ministry, the tendency for us is to step back and say, you know what? I can't say it that well. I'm not that courageous. I'm not that good at evangelism. I'm going to let them do it because I couldn't do it that well. And if the first century church was counting on the Apostle Paul to be the lone evangelist, the lone church planter, the lone disciple maker, well, that strategy was dead the second he got arrested because he can't be there in person and travel the world anymore to do those things.

18:00Paul gets arrested and he doesn't stop preaching the gospel in prison. And the church sees that Paul isn't around anymore. He's no longer traveling and preaching and planting churches. And most of them say, Paul's in jail and the gospel is not going to preach itself. So I guess we better go out there and we better do the work. Even if we get arrested, we can preach and teach the gospel in prison just like Paul. We don't have to be afraid of what's going to happen to us.

18:36Look at this great observation from Alec Motyer. He writes, Paul was in prison for the very reason that he was bold and without fear in his stand for Christ. Yet suddenly, the instinct of self-preservation began to wither in the church, and a new fearlessness took over. Fear is contagious, but so is courage. Courage is contagious. And you see, what the Jews did is they made the exact same mistake with Paul that they made with Jesus. They thought, if we can just take out the leader, the most influential one among them, then the movement's going to die.

19:23But, friends, that only works if a movement is based on a personality. That only works if The movement is only based and contrived with human strength and ability. They didn't understand that in the church, every one of us is filled with the Holy Spirit of God. So, by taking out the one person that you would be tempted to depend on and let them do all the work, all they did was multiply, multiply the effort, multiply the work.

19:55So, church, if we want to see the gospel advance in our community and around the world, we can't leave gospel proclamation to the few people who are gifted, to those who are called to the mission field, for example. We have to all do the work because it's better for us to have a church full of faithful gospel proclaimers than it is for us to have one or two or ten gifted gospel proclaimers. The church at Philippi was blessed, they had a lot of faithful preachers. Unfortunately, not all of them were preaching with the right motives. Let's pick up in verse 15.

20:43Paul says, Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of rivalry, not since. Sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. So, those who are confidently proclaiming the gospel because of Paul's imprisonment fall into two camps. The first group are those who are preaching Christ out of envy and rivalry, because of selfish ambition. They're seeking to afflict Paul in his imprisonment. The second group are proclaiming Christ out of goodwill, out of love.

21:30And it seems clear that the members of the first group, those who are preaching Christ out of envy and rivalry, they're not preaching a false Christ or a false gospel. Because if they were, there's no way that Paul could rejoice in their proclamation, since they would not be preaching the true Christ or the true gospel. All we have to do is read chapter 3 of this very letter, or go back and read Galatians to see how Paul deals with people who are preaching a false Christ or a false gospel. He would not have tolerated that. He certainly wouldn't have rejoiced in it, as he's going to say in verse 18.

22:09So it seems clear that the members of this first group, they're preaching the right Christ. They're preaching the right gospel. They're just doing it out of the wrong motives. So we're going to return to those people in a second. For now, let's get to the second group, those who are preaching Christ out of love and from goodwill. Now, this phrase, out of Of love, it probably is referring to love for Christ for sure, but given the context, they're probably also referring to out of love for Paul because the first group of people is not acting in love toward him. He says that these believers knew he was in prison for the defense of the gospel. In other words, it was God's doing, putting him there, so that he could do what we talked about last week in the introduction: defend and confirm the gospel. That second group, preaching out of love, from goodwill, they knew that.

23:05So it may have been the case that this first group of people who are preaching from envy and rivalry might have been questioning Paul's imprisonment. Let's go back to what we said earlier. What is our default assumption when it comes to suffering? Bad things happen to bad people. Good things happen to good people. That's our default assumption. So if bad things are happening to the Apostle Paul, namely, he gets arrested, he gets put in prison, he gets bit by a poisonous snake, he goes two weeks without food, he gets shipwrecked, all these bad things are happening. Our default assumption is: well, if bad things are happening, you must be a bad person, or at least you've done some bad things.

23:56So maybe they're looking at this situation, they're going, why is Paul in prison? If God is Really blessing him in his ministry. If he really has the favor of the Lord, why is this all happening to him? It's not hard to get there. Because I think for all of us, our temptation is to interpret anything bad that happens to us as a sign that God is upset. He's angry with us or with some part of our lives. But, friends, that's just not a biblical view of trials and suffering.

24:28God uses suffering for many purposes, but one of the main reasons that he uses it is to advance the gospel. That's why Paul can say this here: what's happened to him has really served to advance the gospel. So let's go back to that first group now, that group that's preaching Christ from envy and rivalry, and let's talk about those words, what they mean. The word envy is, it could be defined as a state of ill will towards someone because of some perceived advantage.

25:05A state of ill will towards someone because of some perceived advantage. And so maybe these preachers, these evangelists, they envied Paul's influence, his standing in the church, his reputation in the Christian community. They wanted those things, but they didn't have them. So when Paul gets arrested and imprisoned, they're like, hey, now's our chance. We can steal the limelight. Can have the influence and gain the reputation that Paul has. They envied him. The other word is rivalry.

25:42That means strife or contention. It's conflict resulting from discord. And in a college town, we know all about rivalries. We used to have one with another school. When you have a rival in a sport, it's a zero-sum game. One team wins and one team loses. The other team, your rival, is an obstacle in the way of your team achieving their goals for the season. They wear different jerseys. They have a different set of fans. You root against your rival as much as you root for your team.

26:28The problem here is that Paul is not on a different team. He wasn't in some kind of zero-sum game with these other evangelists where either he wins or they win. They were looking at him as a rival, as competition, instead of as a co-laborer in Christ. And unfortunately, that mentality still exists among many Christians and church leaders today. That's not good. And so the question is, how do we do that? Is Paul going to deal with these people? They're preaching the right Christ, they're preaching the right gospel, but they're doing so with wrong motives. Look at verse 18.

27:10What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. As long as the gospel was being preached, Paul wasn't going to lose any sleep trying to sort out the motives of the people who were preaching it. He's in prison. He is doing his best to preach and teach the gospel every day. He's writing letters to all the churches that he planted. He wasn't going to waste any time trying to do the thing that only God can do, which is judge the hearts and motives of people.

27:52Now, if someone started preaching a false gospel, yes, Paul was going to step in. He was going to speak out against that. He always did. If somebody came up to him in theory and said, I hope to get rich and famous by preaching the gospel, I bet Paul would correct that guy. But when it's unclear why people are preaching the gospel, he didn't waste any time trying to read hearts and minds. Instead, he rejoiced because Christ was being proclaimed. His gospel was advancing.

28:28And friends, we've got to take that. Same mentality to rejoice when the gospel advances, even when it's advancing through other Christians who are being seemingly blessed and we are enduring trials and suffering. Church, it's important for us to regularly examine our functional beliefs. Not what we think up here or what we say we believe, but what we really believe, which is evidenced by how we act and react in our daily lives. I think that most people here today could articulate a biblical theology of suffering. You'd be able to say that suffering is to be expected in a fallen world, that Christians are not exempt from suffering, that God uses suffering in our lives for His good purposes, and that suffering is not always or even usually tied to sin or disobedience.

29:35And yet, when God appoints suffering in our lives, it often takes us by surprise. Where did this come from? Why me? What did I do to deserve this? And so we're caught off guard, and we often respond like those who don't know and believe the truth. So, friends, we have to remember that we are not good people who deserve good treatment, easy and comfortable lives. We've rebelled against God. We've sinned against Him, the creator and sustainer and King of the universe. What we deserve is death and eternal punishment. But that's why Jesus came. He came to live the life of perfect obedience that we should have lived. He came to suffer temporarily, but greatly, emotionally and mentally and physically, and certainly spiritually. He came to suffer temporarily so that we could be comforted eternally through his life and death and resurrection.

30:46So, if you're here today and you've been going through suffering and you've been asking that question, why is this happening to me? This is not fair. What did I do to deserve this? I want to point you to Christ, who was perfect, objectively perfect in every way, and yet suffered for you, for your sin, for your disobedience, for your rebellion against God. And I want to urge you to turn to him in faith. Receive him. Trust in his life and death and resurrection rather than in your own goodness.

31:24And if you are already a follower of Christ, then I want to urge you to examine what you really are. Believe about suffering. Not what you say you believe, but what you really believe, what your actions and reactions show. Friends, the world needs to hear the message of Jesus Christ and His promise of forgiveness and reconciliation with God. It needs to hear our hope in resurrected bodies, living forever in a new heavens and a new earth without pain or suffering of any kind. Now more than ever, in the midst of a pandemic, the world needs that message of hope.

32:05But friends, they also need to see that we really believe this stuff by the way that we live our daily lives. That it's not just beliefs up here, but it's beliefs in our hearts. The truth is, God never wastes our suffering, but He uses it for His good purposes, especially to advance the gospel. Let's pray. God, this is an area that we really do need to be challenged as 21st-century Americans, or at least those who have come from other countries to our country.

33:18Because Ajith Fernando is right. All of our affluence, all of the technological advancement that are good things, they are at war, though, against what your scripture says about suffering. And we've come to this place where we think that we are good people who deserve good treatment, that we shouldn't have to go through suffering. And, Father, in the midst of this time, where people are suffering from a disease or its effects on their loved ones, where people are hurting because of injustice, where people are going through great difficulty economically.

34:24There are a lot of trials and a lot of suffering right now. And my prayer, our prayer, is that you would. Show us all to view suffering the way that Paul did, the way that you command us to in your word. That it is a good thing, it's a hard thing, but it's a good thing because it achieves your good purposes. And so, Lord, we pray that you would make us ready to suffer for you as Paul was ready to suffer for you, so that your gospel could advance.

34:56I pray that when we go through trials and suffering, our family members, our friends, our co-workers, our classmates would be able to say to us, How is it that you are walking through that with such joy? How is it that you have hope and faith when you're going through that? We pray, God, that we would be able to testify to you in your great goodness to us. We pray that people would come to faith through our trials and through our suffering and the way that we respond to them.

35:33Thank you, God, for your word. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.