Bro Kenny Song
Examining the reason that God’s children face suffering, trials and tribulations in this life.
Grammy-winning Christian music star Steven Curtis Chapman is “desperately hopeful” about the future, a year and a half after the death of his daughter when he did this interview.
On May 21, 2008, 5-year-old Maria Sue Chapman was accidentally hit by Chapman’s son, Will Franklin, after she ran into the path of his SUV in their driveway. Maria later died at a Nashville hospital.
Chapman, 47, told “Good Morning America” that faith is “keeping us going as a family.”
He also delivered a message from Will “straight out of his heart.”Will, 18, wanted his father to “tell them I’m hanging in there. I have some really hard days. I have some really good days. I know I’m going to see my little sister again. It really is my faith that keeps me going.”
The question arose. Why? When things go terribly wrong in our lives, when tragedy strikes, when we go through suffering, we sometimes ask this question don’t we? Why? Sometimes, we ask our Pastors, or our Care Group leaders, or another Christian and often, we ask God this question. Why?
1 Peter 1:6-7 (NIV)
6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire–may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
In the comments section of this article someone asked the question “How could a loving God allow this to happen to one of His own servants?”
To that I would say… the same way He allowed His only Son to go to a rugged cross and die for the sins of the world.
But WHY is a question that has persisted throughout the ages. One that most likely each person here has asked at one time or another…. “Why do bad things happen to good people”? My favorite answer to that question comes for J. Vernon McGee. Someone wrote to him and asked that question and his response was ” The answer is simple, there are no good people. For the Bible tells us in Romans 3:12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” Even Jesus answered this question by saying “why call me good? There is none good but God”.
Perhaps a better way to ask the question would be “why do the righteous suffer?”
That is the question that was asked of C.S. Lewis, He replied “Why not?… They’re the only ones who can take it.”
Suffering is covered extensively in the Bible. The Book of Job spends 42 Chapters on the subject. Jeremiah, Lamentations, Habakkuk and other Old Testament books spend a great deal of time considering human suffering. We read in depth of the struggles that the Children of Israel faced in the wilderness. We read of their captivity and slavery.
About 1/3 of the Psalms speak of doubt, frustration, disappointment and pain. In the New Testament we see the intense sufferings of our Savior. Jesus faced terrible pain and suffering.And if God would allow that to happen to His only Son, then why should we expect to be exempted?
We also see the immense suffering in the lives of the Apostles of Christ. Many times they were arrested and they faced physical harm and even lost their lives as a result of their devotion to Christ. But these men found a way to rejoice in their persecution.
Since the beginning of the Christian church, Christ’s followers have suffered. As a result of their devotion to Christ many in the early church were Beaten, Exiled, Beheaded, Crucified, Stoned, Pierced with spears, Burned alive and faced many other violent forms of persecution.
We just watched Paul, Apostle of Christ last night and it focuses on the intense persecution by Emperor Nero of the Christians then. The movie ended with Paul being beheaded. It was a victorious ending but an oxymoron of sorts that the key person was beheaded.
And there are born again children of God suffering and dying all over the world today. Though we may not have faced physical persecution or death, many of us here know about the “fiery trials” that Peter is speaking of in our selected text. This life is filled with trouble and the Christian may say “I am a child of God, why is this happening to me?” Many times I have heard people say, there is just no answer to that question! That is not the case! In fact there are several answers:
1. We live in a fallen creation. One of the consequences of man’s sin in the Garden is the suffering that the entire world encounters.
2. Troubles and suffering also come as a result of sin in the life of the Christian. Our Father loves us enough to discipline and chastise us. If you look to the life of King David (A man after God’s own heart) you will see great suffering as a result of his sinful choices and actions. If there is sin in our life, we can expect the same result.
3. Perhaps most common reason for suffering, is the fact that God is using suffering and trouble to strengthen your faith.
And that is what I would like to consider today. I pray that you will be encouraged when you see just why you may be enduring troubles and suffering right now.
I would like to look to I Peter 1:6-9 and consider the thought “Understanding Christian Suffering”. I have no illusions that we will ever learn to enjoy suffering, but through the scriptures we can understand the purpose of them, and even rejoice in the midst of them.
Peter is attempting to encourage his readers in the midst of their sufferings. And to prepare them for the trials that they would encounter.
In these verses, Peter shows us 3 Rs I want us to look at.
1. The Reality of Christian Suffering
2. The Reason for Christian Suffering
3. The Rejoicing in Christian Suffering
Let’s begin in verse 6 and examine:
1. THE REALITY OF CHRISTIAN SUFFERING
…though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.
Those who are facing these tough times and “all kinds of trials” are the people of God. There is a common misconception that once you are saved you are shielded from trouble. This idea is propagated by many health and wealth preachers in our day. The seeker friendly churches.
I can tell you from personal experience and Biblical truth that Christians FACE GREAT TROUBLES!!
Christians have bills that they can’t pay.
Christians face marriage troubles and even divorce.
Christians have strokes and heart attacks.
Christians get cancer.
Christians deal with diabetes and arthritis.
Christians have rebellious children.
Christians have to stand at the grave of a child, spouse or parent and say goodbye.
You may be here today and you are walking through a deep dark valley. You are at rock bottom and it may seem that you are alone. You don’t know which way is up… you may even feel that you can’t go on.
Remember this, though you can’t understand WHY this is happening, you can believe in a God who has a plan for your life. In fact, He not only allowed these things to happen to you…in many cases HE CAUSED IT!!!
There is a saying that “If God brought you to it, He will bring you through it!” Sometimes troubles, trials and tragedy hit us out of nowhere. Maybe you are dealing with a circumstance or situation that you never could have expected.
Understand this, God was not surprised! He knew about it before it happened.And He sees your pain and struggles right now. But He also sees the end result and He knows the benefit that this “fiery trial” will have on your life!
In these verses, Peter is talking about much more than just having a bad day. He is not referring to those times when things just don’t go your way. Notice the words that he uses: “you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials” grief means distress, all kinds means various and trials speaks of adversity. The picture that Peter paints is one of trouble on every side and the devastating consequences that come with the trouble.
Have you ever noticed that when trouble comes it just keeps on coming. When you think things can’t get any worse they do. Have you ever hit rock bottom and then the bottom falls out That is “manifold temptations” in the KJV.
Some of you have been there before, some are headed there and some are there as we speak. Difficult times in our lives are real. Well, we don’t just see the reality of Christian Suffering, in verse 7 we see:
2. THE REASON FOR CHRISTIAN SUFFERING – v7
…These have come so that your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire–may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
This verse answers the question… “WHY?” Peter tells us in this verse that trials and suffering prove us and they purify us!
A. TRIALS AND SUFFERING PROVE US – Peter speaks of “the trial of your faith”. Let’s consider the context for a moment…We must remember the time in which this Epistle was written and remember who it was written to. Those in the early church often were faced with the choice to either renounce Jesus and live or to cleave to Him and die. I mentioned about Paul, the movie and in there was one sequence where man, woman and children were sent into the games. And in the arena you hear the roar of lions.
These early Christians lived with the very real possibility of being martyred for their faith. And this still happens all over the world today. Gold is proved to be Gold by being put to the fire. Don’t believe those movies where they bite to gold coin to see if it’s real gold. If the gold is put to the fire and it does not lose its nature, weight or colour then it is the real deal.
My father was a very fearful person. At 24 years old, he was actually on the train to Burma during the Japanese occupation, to build what is today known as the Death Railway when at the last moment before the train left, a Japanese officer wanted him because he knows English. It would have been certain death and that trauma haunted him in the later years of his life.
I remembered there was one night in Alor Setar when he purged blood and he screamed and shouted that he is dying. That was my father before he met Christ.
So when we sent him to the hospital after he complained for a long time of indigestion and gastric, the doctors told us that he has pancreatic cancerand would have at best 6 months. Knowing how fearful a person my dad was, we deliberated whether to tell him or not. In the end, we said we have to trust that he is a changed man and that he will take the news well.
When the doctor broke the news to him with all of us beside him, he turned to the doctor and asked why it happened to him? He said he has taken care of his health, stopped smoking and eat right. To which the doctor told him, uncle, that’s why you have lived past 80 because you lived well.
When the doctor gave him the option of chemo or pain management, to our surprise, my dad said, if God wants to take me home, I’m ready. If he still needs me to serve him, he’ll give me more years.
That is my father who can say “it is well, with my soul”. He asked WHY just once, and no more. It showed us that he passed the trial of his faith.
So is the Christian who is put to the fire of suffering and trials. Genuine faith is proved by adversities. Interesting note: God already knows whether or not our faith is genuine! The benefit of this “proving” or testing our “faith” is for us! When we come through a trial and still trust the Lord we are assured that our faith is genuine. Not only do trials and suffering “prove us”. We also see that:
B. TRIALS AND SUFFERING PURIFY US – Trials are designed to “test our faith”. When we face great difficulty we may question the reality of God. We may ponder whether or not He is there… We may feel that He doesn’t care. And there are many who have walked away in the midst of these “fiery trials”. But it is in these times of intense suffering and trouble that we see God at work. When we are in the valley God makes His presence known in a mighty way.
Let’s consider for a moment who is writing this Epistle. We are reading words of a man who knows first hand about Christian suffering. He is not relaying second hand information, he is an authority on the subject.
In Acts 4, Peter was seized and imprisoned for preaching Jesus. Then again in Acts 12 Herod had him arrested with the full intention of beheading him just as he had done to James. Even as he penned these words he knew that the day was coming when he would give his life for the cause of Christ. He knew this because Jesus had told him so.
John 21:18-19
18 Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” 19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”
Yes, Peter knew what he was talking about! And he reveals why he faced these things. He explained to the early church why they were suffering, and the truth found in these verses applies to us today. Look to verse 7 again – He says “so that your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire–may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
Here he uses the illustration of the refining process that gold goes through. Raw gold is placed in the fire. The intense heat melts the metal. When this happens, the impurities comes to the top. Those impurities are skimmed off. This results in a gold that is more pure and valuable metal than it was before going into the furnace. The same process is used for silver. A silversmith will place raw silver in the furnace and leave it in the fire until he can see his own image reflected on the surface of the silver. That is what God does, He puts us in the fire and He will leave us there until He can see His reflection in our lives!!!
God will not begin a work and then stop halfway. He will continue the refining process until it is complete. – Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
Those trials that you are facing… the suffering that you must endure… these things will purify you and make you stronger in the Lord. These “fiery trials” will remove the impurities from our lives. And this will bring us into a closer relationship with the Lord.
We may not see the benefit of our suffering today. For we may be blinded by circumstance, but when we stand before the Lord in Heaven, and we are rewarded for our walk with Him and for the sufferings we endured below, it will be worth it all – 2 Corinthians 4:17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
No matter what trials, troubles and suffering you are dealing with today, remember Who is in control! And when you grasp the fact that God is leading you through the fire, then you can rejoice even in the toughest times of your life. In fact that is what Peter encourages us to do. Look back with me to verse 6 as we consider:
3. THE REJOICING IN CHRISTIAN SUFFERING – v6
…In this you greatly rejoice
Peter encourages us to be truly glad and rejoice in the midst of these “trials and sufferings”. For there is great joy and blessing ahead for the Child of God. Even in the fire we can anticipate that wonderful day, when we will be with Jesus for all of eternity.
We must remember that though we are in the world we are not of the world. AS we saw in the opening verses of this chapter we are just “pilgrims and strangers” passing through. We can rejoice in the midst of our trials because they are temporary. We can rejoice in the midst of our trials because they were not a mistake or surprise to God, they are a part of His greater plan for our lives.
I had a friend in Design School who graduated at the same time as me. We both came out and started our business. My capital was RM2000 and I started with a salary of RM250. It was a humble office, I rented an airwell and I’ll need to stop working if it rain because I’ll need to use a plastic cover for my table so my work don’t get rain.
He came to me after 6 months and asked me to join him. He said they have a paid up capital of RM36,000 and said I can have a share if I bring in RM6000. Nice office, air conditioned and carpeted. I shared Christ with him and told him I have Christian partners which is my priority at that time. Of course I didn’t say we cannot be unequally yolked, but that was exactly why. I struggled on, being the artist, the salesman, the accountant, the despatch boy and office cleaner. By the way, I upgraded from the airwell, to a staircase after 2 years and that was when I met my wife. And I had air-con finally because I fixed an exhaust fan to pull air-con in from another office.
Six years later, I met him. His business folded and he went through a difficult time. What surprised me was that during that wilderness period, he found Christ. Some planted, some watered, some harvested. Amen. I made him an offer to come join me and work at Ken Ray. He came on board and was with us until he retired at 55. His children are serving God. God sometimes uses difficult times to draw us closer to him.
We can rejoice in the midst of our trials because they are an evidence of our salvation. We can rejoice in the midst of our trials because no matter how hot the fire, we are secure! We can rejoice in the midst of our trials because the Father will receive glory from our lives and even our circumstances! We can rejoice in the midst of our trials because we don’t have to walk through the fire alone.
Yesterday at CG, Bro Tommy was saying that the times he really felt the presence of God was when he was going through very difficult trials in his life.
In your suffering, you become more aware of God.
In your suffering, you see His strength and your weakness.
In your suffering, you will trust in Him and not yourself.
In your suffering, your faith increases.
And it is possible to rejoice in the midst of suffering and trials.
I am not here to tell you that it is easy to rejoice in the midst of fiery trials. But through these verses we can “Understand Christian Suffering”.
Peter has shown us The Reality Of Christian Suffering, The Reason For Christian Suffering and The Rejoicing In Christian Suffering.
I know that some of us are walking through a deep dark valley today. There are some of you who are facing issues that I may never know about. Even in those times when the Pastor may be able to minister to you through a tragedy, he may not fully comprehend the extent of the pain you are enduring.
But I do know this… YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!! Jesus has promised that He will never leave you nor forsake you.
And Peter tells us in chapter 5 to “Cast our cares upon Him, for He cares for us!” Why? is a question that we will ask until we leave this walk of life. Why does a person who has faithfully been in ministry and served God for decades have to deal with the sudden loss of a child and now must endure a long painful recovery process?
Why does a person who has faithfully served the Lord most of his life have to fight cancer for several years… and every time it seems he has won the battle, the Dr. says that the cancer is back and it has spread?
Why does a person who never misses a church service and lives to serve others leave church one night perfectly healthy and the next day she is on life support?
Why do people who raised their children right and taught them the ways of the Lord have to lay awake at night burdened by the rebellious actions of their beloved children?
Why are Christians suffering and dying for their faith in Christ all over this world? Why? Why?? Why??? There are many reasons why!!! But even when we don’t know the reason, through Christ we can still rejoice!!! That is IF we belong to Him!
Some of you are suffering but it is for the wrong reason. Many of you are suffering as a consequence of sin! If that is the case I would like to introduce you to the One who can cure your sin problem! And then you too can look to Jesus to take you through the fire. For those of you who are in the midst of a “fiery trial” ….never forget that God is working out his plan to prove you and to purify you. I pray that through these verses you see God’s plan and that you can trust God even if your WHYs are not answered.
Back to Steven Curtis Chapman and his family.
The Chapmans founded Show Hope, a nonprofit that seeks to provide information and resources to families considering adoption. The ministry’s goal is to help families reduce the financial barrier of adoption, and has provided grants to more than 2,000 families wishing to adopt orphans from around the world. They recently opened Maria’s Big House of Hope in Luoyang, China.
“Maria’s Big House of Hope is a special needs orphanage,” Chapman said. “There are about 130 beds there where special needs orphans in China are loved and taken care of.”
During the holidays, Chapman said it is “the message of Christmas” that sustains his family. “[God says] you’re not alone and I am with you … I will walk with you.”
Chapman released a new album called “Beauty Will Rise,” and he told the interviewer that “these are really my psalms.” We hear David’s many cries to God in his Psalms.
“They really came out as my journal and I want to share them with people,” he said.
He wrote one song, “Heaven is the Face,” because “I’m thinking about heaven … I have a daughter living there now.”
Chapman said that the accident made the family question their faith in God. WHY?
“My son said the other day that, you know, ‘Yeah, we are family.’… But we’re a family with a lot of questions,” Steven Curtis Chapman said. “But that’s what faith is. It’s living with the questions. That doesn’t mean you have the answers. That’s exactly what faith is.”
This morning, if you are going through the deep end, and you find it impossible to even stay afloat, may Peter’s words bring you hope and encouragement. God will never put you in a place he cannot take you through. Rejoice, because in the midst of your pain, he is doing a work of eternal worth.
But this morning, I want you to know you don’t have to go through it alone. Come to God, he is your ever present help in times of trouble, and our pastors here this morning is here to pray and stand with you as we weather your storms of life.
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