Sermons
Learning Obedience Through Suffering
Series: Endurance In Days Of Extremity - The Journey And Journal Of JobLEARNING OBEDIENCE THROUGH SUFFERING
Sermon Outline By Terry Siverd
Cortland Church of Christ / April 02, 2017
Jeannie & I will be out of state for two Sundays later this month, spending time with family in Yuma, AZ.
We will be visiting with the Wongs - - Isaiah, Sydney Jeanne, Mia and the twins, Charlotte & Cienna.
The twins arrived last September and we are quite excited about visiting.
This will be my first trip to Yuma and the first time I have been absent on an Easter Sunday in many, many years.
Vic Rossi will preach on Easter, April 16th, and Rob Espinosa will preach on April 23rd.
As I mentioned last Sunday, I want to add two postscript sermons to our study of the book of Job.
Early on in this series on Job, I suggested that the book of Job is not so much about SUFFERING as it is about FAITH.
The key question (in Job) is not, “Why do God’s people suffer?”.
The more important question is, “How can we grow stronger in our faith because of our sufferings?”.
Life is sometimes a bundle of contradictions.
I read a humorous article recently that was titled, “Indecisive Idioms”.
An idiom is a form of speech that articulates an idea in a somewhat regional setting (a colloquialism).
Different cultures have different ways of saying things.
Having stood the test of time, many idioms become “truisms” (statements of obvious truth).
But some truisms are contradictory. For example:
Out of sight, out of mind! …… Absence makes the heart grow fonder!
The pen is mightier than the sword! …… Actions speak louder than words!
What you see is what you get! …… Don’t judge a book by its cover!
Birds of a feather flock together! …… Opposites Attract!
Many hands make light work! …… Too many cooks spoil the broth!
Each of the above is a truism, yet each of the five couplets mentioned above appear contradictory.
So which half of each couplet is true? The truth is they are both true.
A similar tension (not always strictly idiom-related) is found in The Sacred Writings.
With God all things are possible (Mt.19:26) …… It is impossible for God to lie (Heb.6:18)
God is a spirit (Jn.4:24) …… (God gave Moses) tablets of stone, written by the finger of God (Ex.31:18)
Being justified freely by His grace (Rom.3:24) …… By grace you have been saved through faith (Eph.2:8)
If it is by grace, it is no longer on the basic of works (Rom.11:6) …… Faith without works is dead (Js.2:26)
Come unto Me and I will give you rest (Mt.11:28-30) …… All who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution (2Tim.3:12)
I have come that you might have life (Jn.10:10) …… Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies (Jn.12:24)
We reap what we sow (Gal.6:7) …… God sends the rain on the just and the unjust (Mt.5:45)
These textual couplets are claimed by skeptics to be discrepancies in Scripture, which render The Bible untrustworthy.
The truth is there are no discrepancies - - both halves of each couplet are true.
On the surface they may sound contradictory, but we you look deeper, both elements are true.
Why must life be accompanied by troubles?
Job addresses one of his friends (Job 14:1) saying - - Man, who is born of woman, is short-lived and full of turmoil.
A life full of turmoil surely includes pain & suffering … headaches & heartaches … troubles & sorrows.
If, as part of our humanity, this is our plight, how shall we handle it?
We can go out kicking and screaming and mad at the world and angry with God.
Or we can accept the terms of life and whatever comes our way and try to make the best of every the worst.
We often get hung up in asking “where does pain come from?”.
A far better question is to ask, “where will my pain and troubles lead me?”.
There is a concept that is often misunderstood - - redemptive suffering.
Some religions use this term to refer to purgatory. I can’t really find that idea in the Scriptures.
In the context of the eschatological events of the first-century, saints were moving from the Old Covenant
era to the New Covenant realm. This version of “redemptive suffering” can rightly be identified as Biblical.
In Col.1:24, Paul writes: Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share
on behalf of His body (which is the church) in filling up that which is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.
In 1Pet.4:13, Peter refers to the same: to the degree that your share in the sufferings of Christ,
keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation.
As “firstfruits”, the first-century saints suffered considerably in securing redemption for the whole.
cf. Rom.8:23 & 11:16; 1Cor.15:20; Heb.12:23; Js.1:18 and Rev.14:4
I want to speak of another kind of redemptive suffering.
By “redemptive” I do not mean that we merit our salvation by our suffering.
What I simply mean is that there is redemptive value in the sufferings we sometimes experience.
Mary Craig had four sons, two of whom were born with severe abnormalities.
Her second son, Paul, suffered from the disfiguring and incapacitating Hohler’s syndrome.
Her fourth son, Nicholas, had Down’s syndrome.
For many years Mary struggled greatly with a life filled with melodrama and self-pity.
In the final chapter of her book, significantly entitled, Blessings, Mary meditates on the meaning of suffering.
In this chapter she introduces the idea of “redemptive suffering”. She writes,
In the teeth of the evidence, I do not believe that any suffering is ultimately absurd or pointless...
The value of suffering does not lie in the pain of it, … but in what the sufferer makes of it…
It is in sorrow that we discover the things that really matter.
(As conveyed by John Stott in The Cross Of Christ, pg.318).
If you don’t like the term “redemptive suffering”, Dr. Paul Tournier wrote a book titled, “creative suffering.”
For fifty years his patients had confided in him their pains and conflicts.
He writes, I have seen them change through suffering.
Suffering was not the cause of their growth, but rather the occasion of their growth.
It is not so much that the suffering itself matures people, as is it the way they react to suffering.
Suffering is often an important pathway to both maturity and holiness.
I’m trying to be brief this morning (it is a covered-dish Sunday).
You have been so good to bear with me through a number of challenging sermons throughout this series.
I can’t promise that the remainder of this sermon will be simple, but it will be brief.
In closing, I want to highlight two passages from the book of Hebrews.
Heb.2:10 / For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things,
in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.
Heb.5:8 / Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.
What are these two passages saying?
Regarding the first (Heb.2:10) - - God the Father chose to perfect (mature) Jesus the Son through sufferings.
As to the second (Heb.5:8) - - Jesus learned obedience through sufferings.
He was never disobedient. But His sufferings were the testing-ground in which His obedience became full-grown.
Isaiah prophesied of Jesus saying (Isa.53:3) - -
He was despised and forsaken of men, a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with much grief…
Let us close with one more really important question.
If the way of suffering was the path God charted for Jesus to travel in learning
obedience, why would we venture to think that our lives should be any different?
One more passage (1Pet.2:21) and then we will pray.
For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you,
leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.
