Why Do We Need to Suffer?

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Why do we need to suffer? Suffering is something that we like to avoid. That is why we take lots of pills and the pharmaceutical companies are some of the richest companies in the world. We have whole industries built around avoiding or alleviating suffering – doctors, hospitals, hospice, massage therapists, chiropractors, even spas. Technology is often aimed at making life easier and more comfortable. But the problem is as Warren Wiersbe states, “suffering and discouragement is no respecter of persons.”[1] You can be rich and even quite young and still suffer with illness. Listen to Leah Sottile telling her story of her husband’s illness in the journal The Atlantic, “We were standing at Target in an aisle we’d never walked down before, looking at things we didn’t understand. Pill splitters, multivitamins, supplements, and the thing we were here to buy: a long blue pill box—the kind with seven little doors labeled “S M T W T F S “ for each day of the week, the kind that old people cram their pills into when they have too many to remember what they’ve already taken. My husband, Joe Preston, shook his head. “Do I really need this?” I grabbed it off the shelf and threw it in our basket. And when we got home, Joe—then a fit and fairly spry 30-year-old man with a boss-level beard—stood at the kitchen counter, dropping each of his prescriptions with a plink into the container. I guess it’s true that life is full of surprises, but for the three years since Joe’s crippling pain was diagnosed as the result of an autoimmune disease called Ankylosing Spondylitis, our life has been full of surprises like this one. Pill boxes, trips to the emergency room, early returns from vacation. Terms like “flare-up” have dropped into our vocabulary. We’ve sat in waiting rooms where Joe was the only person without a walker or a cane. Most of our tears have been over the fact that these aren’t the kind of surprises either of us thought we’d be encountering at such a young age.”[2] Closer to home I have a cousin younger than me that has had chronic medical issues that the doctors just can’t pin down. She has taken care of herself, didn’t abuse drugs or alcohol and even is a physician’s assistant. Maybe you are like her, you have the money, but not the health? 1 in 6 Canadians over the age of 15 suffer from arthritis[3]. How many of you suffer from arthritis?

Or unlike Leah Sottile’s husband or my cousin, maybe you are healthy and are not able to find a job. You just finished school, but can’t find a job in your field or you have worked for many years in a field and there have been cutbacks and now nobody will hire you. Or maybe you are really intelligent, but you have a disconnect in your relationships? All these things and many more have caused you to suffer. They might be first-world sufferings and pale in comparison to third-world problems of not having enough food to eat, but they are still sufferings. Why do we need to suffer?

Today we start a series in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian Christians on the topic of grace. It is a fundamental topic because grace is the way to deal with suffering. In a sense, grace and suffering co-exist. You don’t need grace unless you suffer. But this raises the question whether you need grace if you aren’t suffering. What we will discover is that are in need of grace more than you think. Let’s discover this truth in reading 2 Corinthians 1:1-11! To give you some background, Paul cared very much for the church at Corinth. In Acts 18:11, we know he stayed there 18 months before continuing on his missionary journey. To stay 18 months in a place is long enough to get attached and form relationships. So when Paul left Corinth, he would write letters back to the church there that he helped to start. He cared so much about Corinth that in his first letter to the church, he wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:1, “Are you not my work in the Lord?” Paul repeats this in his second letter in 2 Corinthians 3:2, “You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men.” So this letter is personal. It mattered to Paul how the Corinthians were doing! It mattered how they were relating to one another and to outsiders. Paul “is fighting not only to win back the rebellious, but also to support the repentant.”[4] It mattered how they were dealing with suffering. And as we will discover, how they dealt with these issues is the way we are to deal with these issues – all through grace. Read 2 Corinthians 1:1-11!

Why do we need to suffer? Here are four reasons why we need to suffer: 1) To show God is a compassionate Father (v. 3); 2) To comfort fellow sufferers (v. 4-7); 3) To remember the rescue of the resurrection (v. 8-10); and 4) To cause us to pray (v. 11). Let’s start with the first reason of why we need to suffer. To show God is a compassionate Father. Obviously, I need to qualify something immediately unless you think God is a sicko and some kind of sadomasochist who loves to see His children suffer. Some of you might be thinking that the heavenly Father might be like your earthly father who abused you and set you up to fail. That is not the case at all. This is evident in verses 1 and 2 where Paul greets the Corinthian Church, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth with all the saints who are through Achaia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Notice how Paul talks about how the Corinthians belong to God by calling them “the church of God.” And then Paul describes what God wants the Corinthians to have – grace and peace. Paul warmly reminds them that they are a spiritual family of which Timothy was their brother. And because they were family, God would never ultimately hurt them. And God won’t hurt us either. God is a compassionate Father. We need to know that because some of us fathers, including myself, aren’t always that compassionate. Lori and I are more of the generation that you play hurt. We grew up without car seats and bicycle helmets. Lori grew up in the U.S, where motorcyclists don’t wear helmets. You get stitched up and get back out there. Whining was always for wimps. We are of the mindset that suffering is part of life and part of following Christ. Paul understood that too. When God called Paul, the Lord said to him in Acts 9:15-16, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.” We just finished studying the Book of Acts and as we saw suffering and persecution were a routine part of the early church. We know that Paul was beaten numerous times, jailed repeatedly, stoned with out the use of drugs, and shipwrecked. Paul was told he was going to suffer and God’s Word came true in his life as it will in our lives. But Paul didn’t get bitter or think that God wasn’t compassionate. He actually praises God in 2 Corinthians 1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies (compassion) and God of all comfort.” Warren Wiersbe explains this means “God originates mercies!”[5] God is the source of all comfort.

Maybe you recently lost a loved one? Grief counselors will give you strategies to cope, but only God will give you comfort. Only He can reunite you with your loved one for all eternity. Maybe you lost your job? The government may retrain you, but only God will comfort you by providing another job. Maybe you feel alone? Only God can comfort you with His constant presence. God as the compassionate Father will comfort you.

Why do we need to suffer? Not only to show God being a compassionate Father, but to comfort fellow sufferers, God’s children, our brothers and sisters in Christ. Paul declares this reason in verse 4, “God who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” This is the only hope we have to offer people. One of the most difficult funerals I ever had to do was for baby twins who only lived a few minutes after being born. What would you say to the parents and those in attendance at the funeral? There are a lot of unhelpful things like “maybe they would have grown up disabled” or “maybe you should not have taken fertility drugs.” What was helpful was to declare that God knew their pain. He lost a Son as well and He will comfort you. But God doesn’t just empathize with people in their pain. That is important, but He personally enters into your pain. Verse 5 says the most peculiar, but amazing truth, “For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.” The peculiarity of this verse can be summed up in Margaret Thrall’s question, “Why are Paul’s own sufferings designated sufferings of Christ?”[6] I believe the answer to that question is found in the great comforting truth that Christ in us continues to suffer. Christ’s spirit, the Holy Spirit, is the one who the attack of evil is aimed at and as containers of the Holy Spirit, we take the outside blows. Paul mentions this in another letter to the Colossians in chapter one, verse 24, “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 what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” In other words, being united to Jesus may be dangerous to your health, but life-giving to your soul. In contrast, living life without Christ is dangerous to your soul. Jesus explicitly taught that “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.” (Luke 9:24) So are you living dangerously? To your body or to your soul?

And here is the even more radical truth, how you are living is dangerous to others around you. The easy life will not save anybody. But suffering saves others! Paul wrote in verse 6-7, “But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and your salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort.” That sounds crazy. We need to suffer to save people? “We suffer for the sake of those we evangelize?”[7] Here’s the explanation. Let’s say you have a loved one and they are living a nice life, but have little to do with Jesus. Then all of a sudden they get sick and they turn to Christ for comfort and help. You see the change in their life that Jesus is making and you want what they have. Even if they die, God has saved them for all eternity and then you turn to Christ too and are saved. In eternity future, would you say the terminal disease of your loved one was worth it? God saved both of you through it. He didn’t cause the disease, but allowed it. This is what Paul means. You and I don’t save anybody by ourselves, but God uses our afflictions, our sufferings to save others. This is why we shouldn’t despise the sufferings, but ask God how He is going to use it to save others. Maybe this is why Manny Pacquiao recently didn’t beat Floyd Mayweather, Jr. in their recent title boxing match? Maybe the reason wasn’t just because Manny had shorter arms as well as an undisclosed injury? Maybe Manny’s suffering and loss was meant to showcase God’s comfort? Manny, an outspoken Christian who has helped so many less fortunate, would have more of a platform for Christ by losing than winning. People will be interested in how he deals with loss and whether he turns to Christ in the hard times and not just in the good times.

But I am not saying that suffering is good in itself, but how we respond to suffering may result in a good outcome if we turn to God. “Nor does the comfort of God reside in His actions as a ‘fourth-quarter quarterback,’ who is brought in after things have fallen apart to save the day just after the whistle blows.”[8] That would be cruel of God, especially when we suffer terribly. Paul recalls in verse 8 that he and his companions “were burdened so excessively, beyond their strength, so that they despaired even of life.” Paul had inclinations towards suicide. He wished he was dead, rather than alive. But what got him through? What will get you through on your worst day ever? Why do we suffer? Not only to know God the Father’s compassion and to comfort fellow-sufferers, but to also remember the resurrection. This is what Paul says in verse 9-10, “Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. And he will deliver us.” Paul knew that he would be rescued, even if it was the resurrection. The God who raises from the dead would rescue him and He will rescue us. This is what we have set our hope on!

This hope is full of faith. It looks to future grace! And faith and grace are embodied in our prayers. The fourth reason why we suffer is to cause us to pray. Paul says in verse 11, “you also joining in helping us through your prayers, so that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the favour bestowed on us through the prayers of many.” In other words, Paul’s suffering caused the Corinthians to pray for him, which resulted in people getting saved and thanking God for the Corinthians’ prayers. Do you see how often suffering is a motivator for prayer? Suffering is the first cog in the wheel of salvation. Or like an official’s gun at the start of a track and field race, suffering is the bang that starts you racing toward God with your problem and God will comfort and you, in turn, will thank Him. In fact, all sorts of people will be thankful.

So the suffering you are going through now, may in the future, if you turn to God, cause great thankfulness in those who are watching you. And we know this to be true because you were once a spectator, watching the man Jesus Christ suffer and die for you. Christ has enabled us to see God as a compassionate Father who comforts fellow sufferers and rescues them with the resurrection. Christ’s suffering caused you to pray and be thankful.

Maybe today, you showed up and God has been speaking to you. You now see how God uses suffering to save you. Isn’t it time to finally receive God’s grace from the suffering you caused by your self-inflicted sin? Isn’t it time to receive God’s grace because your Saviour died for you? If that is you, you come and pray with me and thank God for the 10,000 reasons He has blessed you, especially your salvation.

CONCLUSION: “Anicia Proba got married as a young teenager and was a widow by her early thirties. She was present when Rome was sacked in 410 A.D. She had to flee for her life to Africa with her grandbaby girl Demetrias, where they met Augustine. Her life was never secure again. Augustine tells her story and argues not only that we can grow in prayer in spite of these difficulties, but because of them. He writes, ‘Should not a widow commit her widowhood, so to speak, to her God as her shield in continual and most fervent prayer?’ What a remarkable statement. Her sufferings were her ‘shield’ – they defended her from the illusions of self-sufficiency and blindness that harden the heart, and they opened the way for the rich, passionate prayer life that could bring peace in any circumstance.”[9] You suffer to know Jesus and His grace!

[1] Warren Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary – Volume 2 (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1989), 628.

[2] Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/living-sick-and-dying-young-in-rich-america/282495/. Accessed May 14, 2015.

[3] Source: Canadian Arthritis Society, http://www.arthritis.ca/facts. Accessed May 14, 2015.

[4] Scott J. Hafeman, The NIV Application Commentary on 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 19.

[5] Wiersbe, 629.

[6] Margaret E. Thrall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians – Volume 1 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994), 98.

[7] Thrall, 111.

[8] Hafeman, 74.

[9] Timothy Keller, Prayer (New York: Dutton, 2014), 88.