Normal Suffering

Well, I want to take you back to 1997. Um, this is the summer of 1997, by the way. That's where you're supposed to go back to in your minds with me. I was in college on summer break, and I was waiting on a visa to go down to Brazil, so I kind of had a lot of free time on my hands. In the evenings and on the weekends sometimes, I would go to coffee shops where my guitar teacher would play, and I would go listen to him play music. Then we would sit around afterwards and talk.

One night we were sitting around in this coffee shop talking, and there were these two high schoolers who had been in there for a good chunk of the night. It ended up being that we were the last four people kind of in there besides the one gal working the counter. They came over to us and just started talking to us. As it turns out, they had been to a party, they got drunk, and now they were afraid to go home. They were trying to sober up, you know—they were just sort of laying it all out on the line for us. Then they asked the age-old question. They said, “Can we ask you guys something? Why would God allow bad things to happen to good people?” You know, the classic dilemma, right? And in their case, two high schoolers got hammered, and now they're afraid their mom is going to chew them out when they get home—sort of thing. And that's the bad thing God has allowed to happen to good people. Um, that was really the situation that was playing out there.

So we kind of laughed, even though, you know, maybe we have all asked that question. Um, and in the situation that we're looking at in the book of Second Timothy, the struggle—maybe—or the bad thing that we are inclined to resist happening to us is suffering for our faith. Suffering and affliction has been coming out in the things that Paul has been encouraging Timothy to focus on and to be and to do. And it isn't just any suffering. It isn't just sort of the suffering and pain that comes with sickness or health issues or even just any of the other struggles of life—relationship challenges, employment, economics, all of that stuff. It's specifically and explicitly suffering that one might encounter for being vocal about their faith, specifically the Christian faith and advocating for faith in Jesus Christ as Kevin just prayed—the way, the truth, and the life—that exclusivity of the gospel.

And so that suffering, as we looked at last week, can come in a wide array of forms: everything from just sort of being made fun of or just being left out to what oftentimes people experience, and that is literal persecution and imprisonment and perhaps even death. A wide range. But where Paul is getting Timothy—and really us as well as we read this letter—to come to terms with is to accept and even embrace the reality that for the Christian, suffering should be normal. We're going to unpack that a little bit. But I want you to turn to Second Timothy chapter 2. Second Timothy chapter 2, and I want to look at verses 8 through 13.

“Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. The saying is trustworthy: For if we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.”

When I read this section as Paul is laying this out for Timothy—and really beginning with this statement, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead”—what I understand him to be saying is that when you, Timothy, or when we are faced with the prospect of suffering, we're supposed to keep God front and center. That's the key to all of this. Keep God front and center. Don't be tempted to run away from him. Don't be tempted to minimize that. Don't be tempted to lean on yourself and your own strength and your own abilities.

In order to help us do that, the first thing that Paul would have Timothy do is to keep looking—keep his eyes on Christ. Keep that as his focal point. Remember Jesus Christ. Period. When you're struggling, when you're fearful, when you're afraid, when it seems as if suffering is imminent, and so the temptation is to run and hide, or the temptation is to shut up, or the temptation is to whatever—remember Jesus Christ.

The writer of Hebrews wrote about that. In Hebrews chapter 12, we read this beginning at verse 1: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

What the writer of Hebrews is getting us to do there is to understand that our focal point is on Christ as we are running this race and that he's somebody who suffered and died willingly. He's someone who suffered and died obediently. Someone who suffered and died undeservingly. The testimony throughout Scripture as we learn about the life of Christ is that he was without sin. He was sinless. And what makes his suffering undeserving is that the Bible is clear that it is the wages of sin that are death. And so for one who was without sin to suffer and die, that's undeserving. And yet he did it willingly and obediently. He didn't resist it. He didn't fight against it. In fact, he strategized throughout his life to make it happen exactly the way it was supposed to happen, exactly at the time it was supposed to happen, so that he could accomplish exactly what his Father intended for him to accomplish. He was without sin. He was God in the flesh come down to earth in indwelling humble humanity.

But remembering Christ as Paul is challenging Timothy is meant to do more than just hold Jesus Christ out as an enduring example. It's meant to do so much more than say, “Well, look at what he did. You know, God in the flesh endured all this. He suffered. He did it willingly. So go and do likewise.” Certainly that's something we could take away from it, but that's not ultimately where Paul would have Timothy go with this. He is meant to be more than just an example of enduring suffering for the Father's greater purpose.

In other words, remembering Christ and his resurrection is supposed to do this: it's supposed to have his resurrection be a kinetic reminder of the power that is behind the gospel that we believe and that we preach. If we're being called to endure suffering for the sake of the gospel, Paul is challenging Timothy to remember that this gospel that you are believing and that you are proclaiming has a real power behind it—the power that raised Christ from the dead. Remember that your Savior is not just dead; he is alive. And as Paul challenges, for example, in 1 Corinthians, if Jesus Christ is raised from the dead, then our resurrection—the resurrection of the believer—is sure as well.

This kinetic reminder—Jesus Christ isn't just a man, isn't just a good guy—he is the Messiah. Paul says he is the son of David. John chapter 7:42 says, “Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” For those of you who don't know, when you hear the word “Christ,” it's not just like a middle name for Jesus. It's not a name. It's a title. It's the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew term Messiah, the anointed one of God, the promised deliverer of God's people who would one day rule over God's people on an eternal throne over an unending kingdom of peace. That's the connection to David. The Davidic covenant given by God to David was that one of his descendants would rule on his throne forever. And that was prophesying and foretelling and even promising that the Messiah, who we know to be Jesus Christ, would be that eternal king—the God incarnate who died and yet lives victoriously.

And so his resurrection speaks of his dominion, speaks of his lordship, speaks of his power and his authority—that death and the grave, which are so powerful over us, are powerless over him. All of the suffering on earth and even death itself could not hold him. So as one being challenged to suffer for the cause of Christ, Paul is letting Timothy know, you need to understand, you need to remind yourself of this on a daily basis: that the one who is calling you to suffer for his sake is the one who is powerful, is the one who has dominion, is the one who is Lord and ruler, is the one who has conquered death, the one who faced suffering and was victorious over all of it.

This resurrection, Timothy, should give you assurance that God is in control. Isn't that what we want? Isn't that one of the reasons why we resist the idea of suffering? When you're suffering, typically you don't feel like you're in control, do you? You feel like you're out of control. Things are not the way you want them to be. This is to be reassuring. It's not Paul saying to Timothy, “Hey man, you're not going to have any problems. Just trust Jesus. All your problems are going to go away.” No. If anything, it's a promise that, hey, you're going to suffer a lot, but it's okay. It's an assurance that no matter how bad it gets, it's worth it. And that what's on the other side is a real guarantee by God. And that God who is guaranteeing this has proven himself to be both powerful and faithful again and again and again.

It would be one thing to say, “Hey, you know, uh, you got to go suffer, but just, hey, get on out of there, you know, and just push him out the gate.” And, “Hey, Timothy, good luck with all that. Keep preaching the gospel. People aren't going to like it, but you know, hey, you're doing the Lord's work, so carry on.” That wouldn't be very nice, would it? Here at least he's not sugarcoating it. He's making it very clear through the first two chapters: suffering is a normal part of the Christian life if you're doing it right. And yet it is not suffering without purpose and not suffering without a promise behind it of something that is far greater than we could possibly imagine.

In Romans chapter 8, Paul wrote this in his letter to the Romans: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” In Romans, he was giving them this connection as well for a different reason and in a different way. But the same thing: the power of the resurrection is meant to be a guarantee and an assurance of the resurrection of the believer. The resurrection of Christ means it's all true. That God is God. That salvation is real. That believers are adopted into God's family as full heirs of his promise. That suffering isn't nothing. And that yes, suffering should be expected, but it's not worth leaving the work just to avoid the pain. There's something so much greater behind it that the suffering in the long term is really inconsequential.

And Dietrich Bonhoeffer said this. He said, “Suffering is the badge of the true Christian.” It isn't that we go out and that we're trying to get people to oppose us, that we're trying to get people to come after us or do things to us. It's just the reality that if you are out there preaching the gospel—preaching that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, preaching that there is no name other than Christ under heaven and earth by which we can be saved—people are going to have a problem with that, and many people are going to try and oppose that. Many people are going to try and shut that down.

We were looking at one particular instance in Acts chapter 7 this morning in the equipping hour where Stephen preaches a message to the high priests and the religious leaders, and they don't like it, and so they have him stoned. But Paul's encouragement is, in the face of the reality of suffering, keep looking to Christ. Remember Christ. Remember he has risen from the dead. That's where our eyes, our hearts, our minds need to go to again and again and again.

We also need to keep telling. Don't stop evangelizing. Don't stop sharing the gospel. Don't stop preaching. Maybe you don't feel like you're a preacher, but at least telling people about Christ. Paul's in chains. He's in prison. He's in Rome. He's awaiting his execution. He's literally suffering for Jesus. You know, we joke about it. We go on these mission trips to like Hawaii, you know, stuff like that. And we're like, “Oh, suffering for Jesus, right?” You know, somebody had to do it. Somebody had to go to Aspen on a ski mission trip, you know? Um, suffering for Jesus. Paul literally was suffering for Jesus, right? He's literally in prison waiting for him to be killed. He knows he's locked up. He's somewhat restrained in what he's able to do. But his confidence was that the word of God was not confined just because he was in jail—both the Scriptures themselves as well as the message that people like Paul and Timothy and others were faithfully spreading around the world.

So what Paul is saying is that even though he is confined, the fire that God had started through him in his missionary journeys to these churches all around the Mediterranean—the fire that God had started through the apostles to whom Christ gave the great commission when he told them to go into all the world and make disciples—that fire would continue to burn and to spread even if Paul were to be executed. Paul's going to keep writing while he's in prison. He would keep instructing those who came to visit him, and so many others around the world would continue to preach and proclaim God's word. And many of those people weren't even like setting out to like, “Hey, I'm going to go—I'm going to be an evangelist or I'm going to be a missionary or I'm going to go plant a church.” Many of those people were just regular, ordinary, everyday Christians that were just living their lives. And as they lived their lives, both the power of the gospel exuded from them, and it was so normal for them to talk to people about Christ, about the Savior, that they just did in their conversations. And so as a result, it just spread. It wasn't even anything they were explicitly trying to do. It just happened.

A great example of this is the Thessalonian church in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. We read this beginning at verse 6. Paul tells them, “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction.” So once again, they're receiving it and getting harassed for it as well—enduring affliction. “You received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything.”

And Paul is commending the Thessalonians for just their instinctive witness for the gospel—so that it's almost like he's saying your faith has been so strong and you've been so good at telling people about this that now other people are telling the message that they heard and saw in you. And it had this sort of ripple effect that's just sort of rolling out from this Thessalonian church.

So whether it was Paul or Timothy or the Thessalonian Christians, what is clear is that suffering and affliction and hostility toward them on account of Christ was not going to keep them from telling other people about Jesus. It just wasn't going to happen. And there was no way that they could stop doing it because the effect of the gospel on them was so dynamic, their understanding of their salvation was so real to them, and—as Paul points out—the joy of the Holy Spirit in them and its impact on their lives was so effective that some suffering, some affliction, some opposition was not going to deter them from doing what Christ has called all believers to do. And if there should ever come a day when they were silenced, well, there would just be someone else right behind them telling people the good news of Jesus Christ. There would be other people redeemed by Jesus who were emboldened by his Holy Spirit to do things that from an outside perspective didn't make any sense because they were dangerous or they were—you're going to get in trouble. You're going to get people mad at you. They're going to come after you if you keep saying these things.

I remember when I was a kid not knowing a whole lot about sort of the dynamics between the Soviet Union and the US during the Reagan era and before that. But that's kind of where my first realization of like politics was—the Reagan era. And I remember watching the Berlin Wall come down and seeing them, you know, the people up there cheering and taking sledgehammers to it. And then a couple years later, after perestroika failed and Gorbachev's attempts to kind of revive the economy of the Soviet Union, then the Soviet Union fell. But before that happened, I mean, I grew up in the church. I grew up raised by Christian parents. I heard lots of testimonies of missionaries who would go into East Berlin and East Germany smuggling Bibles in there and into the Soviet Union. I heard a lot of missionary testimonies behind the Iron Curtain going into these closed-off communist countries. And then later on, after the fall of the Soviet Union and the reunification of East and West Germany, you know, then I heard testimonies about people going into China, and they would go deep into China where Christianity was very much highly restricted, and they would conduct these covert training sessions for national pastors who were leading these covert small home churches in China. I remember hearing testimony of a missionary who was actually traveling into North Korea to bring the gospel to people in these sort of covert, clandestine ways, risking literally their lives to do this. And what would compel you to do that unless you were fully convinced that this is true and the Holy Spirit had totally gripped your heart and had transformed you so that you really didn't care if it was this great risk because you realized what God had called you to do and you realized the glories of eternity in the presence of God really make these sufferings fairly minor no matter how significant they are on earth?

Now it's Muslim countries that we often hear where Christians tend to be the most persecuted, and people talk about, you know, Muslim converts being under threat of death and having to leave their countries and things like that, and sometimes returning or, you know—in other words, the word of God continues unbound. It continues to advance even to the places that seem most hostile to the gospel and the cause of Christ. There are people around the world to this day who continue in the spirit of the Apostle Paul to endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

Keep telling people about Christ. People are doing that. Timothy continued to do that. Paul continued to do that until his execution. Others in the early church and to this very day continue to advance the gospel by being willing to be made fun of, being willing to be thrown in prison, being willing to have all sorts of things done to them to oppose their message. And yet through the power of the Holy Spirit, they continue to be emboldened to do that in light of the reality of suffering.

Keeping our eyes on Christ, we also need to keep trusting. The salvation that Paul talks about here in Second Timothy looks toward the future and the complete realization of all that Christ has accomplished for us—no less than full glorification. So the message that Paul was preaching and encouraging Timothy to preach was more than just a “come to Jesus” message. Yes, that's important and important that we acknowledge who Christ is and that only through his work on the cross and his victorious resurrection can we be saved from our sins. But this was also a message that looked to Jesus who endured to the end. It's a message for God's people in the midst of life under the curse of sin. And that curse of sin may even include persecution. It's a message that's to keep us living for Christ and longing for his return.

That's why as Paul talks about here, he says, “Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.” It's the total package: past, present, and future.

Let me remind you of some things that Kevin just read a while ago from Philippians chapter 3. In verse 8, Paul says, “Indeed, I count everything as loss for the sake of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

So Paul is talking about this life that he's going to live and the purpose for which he's going to live in spite of whatever he was living for in the past, in spite of whatever hostilities and persecutions he may experience right now. He was going to continue to preach the gospel. But the thing that he says in verse 20 really helps us to understand the full perspective of his understanding of his life and also the gospel message. In verse 20 he says, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” We're awaiting the second coming of Christ. We have a citizenship in heaven. He will return. He will rule and reign.

And so right now we trust all true believers have died with Christ. Verse 11, he says, “The saying is trustworthy: For if we have died with him, we will also live with him.” So he is our atoning sacrifice. He is our substitute. When he was nailed to the cross and crucified, so too were the sins of all God's elect that he talks about, the sins of all who would believe. In both the book of Romans and in the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul says that the Christian has been crucified with Christ. For example, Romans 6:6, he says, “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing.” In Romans chapter 6, basically the imagery of baptism is in view for Paul. And that baptism—that death and burial with Christ and resurrection—is symbolized in baptism. It's a reminder of that reality: that for all who are in Christ, we have literally died with him. Our sins and the pain and penalty of those sins have been nailed to the cross. Christ has atoned for those, and we're raised to new life in Christ. And so if we have died with him, we will live with him.

So when you think about suffering and maybe even death, there's this assurance of this future eternal life and glorification that is awaiting us, and we trust in that.

But what are we to make of verses 12 and 13? “If we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.” It's really the difference between true faith and what we might call apostasy. The true believer—even the strongest, most mature believer—is going to experience times of faltering faith and doubt and faithlessness, times where their faith is weak and failing. But for the true believer, these are temporary and are followed by things like confession and repentance and renewed desire to follow Christ and to serve him.

The clearest example has got to be Peter, right? I mean, that in the face of potential suffering—when Christ is being arrested in the garden of Gethsemane and then he's taken before Caiaphas and is tried—Peter just, I mean, he wimps out. He's afraid. He's afraid of what's going to happen to him if he is associated with Christ—even by little servant girls down at the campfire somehow if he gets attached to Christ. Peter doesn't know what's going to happen, but he doesn't think it's going to be good. And so he chickens out and says, “I don't know who you're talking about. Who’s this Jesus? I've never heard of him.” But we also know that Peter was completely racked by that and comes back as Christ is so gracious to him on the side of the Sea of Galilee, and we know the kind of life that Peter went on to live and the boldness that he lived for the cause of Christ.

On the other hand, there are those who just outright deny Christ, his claims of divinity, his work of redemption, the gospel message as a whole. When we talk about apostasy, what we mean is there are people who hear the gospel and they understand it and they say, “Nope, I hear it. I understand it and I reject it. I don't want anything to do with it. I don't believe it. Jesus isn't my savior. I don't believe he's the way, the truth, and the life. I don't believe that no man can come to the Father except through him.” And Jesus himself says in Matthew chapter 10:33, “Whoever denies me before men, I will deny him before my Father who is in heaven.” This isn't just Paul who's saying this. Jesus says the same thing: that this kind of outright denial, apostatizing—not just momentary lapses in faith—what Jesus and what Paul is saying is that rejecting Christ is no small matter. This is very serious, eternally serious.

John says in Revelation 20:15 that everyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. This is an eternal damnation that is contrasted with this eternal life and glorification with Christ for the believer. So for someone like Peter, the fear of suffering and persecution led to momentary faithlessness. But what Paul's saying is that for the true believer, even though we may go through those times of faithlessness—maybe the reality of suffering, we don't stand up and we're not bold for Christ and we turn our tails and we run and we chicken out and we do things we shouldn't do—what Paul says is that you can have every assurance that God's faithfulness never wavers for even a single moment. He's always faithful. He's ever faithful. His faithfulness will never waver.

So when the prospect of the real experience of suffering causes us and our faith to falter, we can keep trusting God because his faithfulness is unbreakable. His faithfulness is what we are depending on, not our ability to be strong. Keep trusting him.

You guys know the song, “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus”:

O soul, are you weary and troubled?

No light in the darkness you see?

There's light for a look at the Savior,

And life more abundant and free!

Through death into life everlasting,

He passed, and we follow Him there;

Over us sin no more hath dominion—

For more than conquerors we are!

His Word shall not fail you—He promised;

Believe Him, and all will be well:

Then go to a world that is dying,

His perfect salvation to tell!

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim

In the light of His glory and grace.

It sounds a lot like what Paul is challenging Timothy with. Look to Jesus. Go tell people about Jesus. Trust in Jesus. Look to him. Let the things of this earth, including suffering, grow strangely dim. God's faithfulness is a rock we cling to. His word is a rock we cling to. And the motivating power of the gospel that compels us to go out in the face of suffering and not be okay with the gospel just being for us. We want the gospel to be told to everyone.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Let the things of this world grow strangely dim. Go and tell people about Jesus.

Let's pray. Dear Lord, we thank you so much for this challenging message that Paul relays to Timothy. It's easy to talk about facing suffering, and it's an entirely different thing to actually face suffering. It's easy for us to tell stories about missionaries in difficult places and to be encouraged by their boldness. And it's an entirely different thing to just go across the street and talk to our neighbor about Christ. We ask that you would make us bold. Help us to be eager to talk to people about Christ. Make us like the Thessalonians who just exuded a transformed life and the joy of the Holy Spirit, but also were so eager to tell people about what God had done for them through his Son Jesus Christ. May we be like that, and may that ripple effect just radiate out from our little congregation and the people who are here. May you help us to be lights in a dark world. We ask this in your name. Amen.