Finding Purpose in Suffering: A Christian Perspective

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The answer is no it is not, and yes it is. No, it is not that God delights in pain as an end in itself. It is not that God commands or endorses or approves sinning, but yes, those are God's will in that he could easily prevent them and does not but rather guides them for higher designs than the destructiveness of sin and the deceitfulness of Satan and the pain that you have to endure. [00:09:57]

When Jesus was crucified, did sin happen? It was the most sinful act that has ever happened in the world when nails were driven into the hand of the son of God, and God willed it. God wills that sinful acts be without sinning. If you reject that, you reject the cross and God's design in it. I don't think you want to reject it. I think you want to struggle with me with it, try to learn how to live under that strange design. [00:11:12]

There is a Divine Design in your distresses and so we must ask what is it, because to understand what it is will be the root and foundation for our joy in a life of pain. Briefly, I see five elements in the design in these verses. Number one, in God's design in our distresses, it is made up of various trials. [00:12:01]

The point simply here is to say to a group this large, they come in every possible shape and form and intensity and in and length and and perplexity and and and you will probably feel yours are absolutely unique and they probably are. There are so many kinds of distresses, so much variety in the perplexities and trials of life that you would have never dreamed them up that it would happen to you this way. [00:12:37]

Verse 6 again, in this you greatly rejoice even though now for a little while, a little while if necessary you have been distressed by various trials. Now this is relative, time is relative, right? If I ask you how long can you hold your breath and you say I can hold my breath for three minutes, I say that's a long time. [00:13:31]

When this text says that our suffering is brief, it's a reflection of what we saw last summer from second Corinthians 4 and what we saw in James chapter 4 where James says what is your life it is but a vapor that appears and then is gone. Life is sure, that's the point here. You could suffer from the day you were born to the day you die, some of you have. [00:14:24]

So sorrow and joy go hand in hand in the Christian Life. It is a life of painful joy. There is a place, a necessary place for real authentic grieving and sorrowing amid our trials, but because we're Christians a fundamental alteration has come into that grieving. We grieve not as those who have no hope, and that doesn't just apply to the loss of a loved one. [00:17:09]

Our distresses are like the fire that refines gold from its impurities. Number seven, verse 7, that the proof or genuineness of your faith being more precious than gold which is perishable even though tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. [00:18:04]

When you melt down gold, the impurities in it rise to the surface and you can skim them off and when you let it harden again after the fire it is more valuable. That's the analogy Peter uses for your faith. God loves your faith, he's going to praise your faith someday and give it honor and a crown of glory, but he loves it so much he wants to purify it and therefore he puts it in the fire. [00:18:44]

God willed for Paul to be so pressed, so burdened, so on the brink of death that the only thing he could hope in was Resurrection from the dead and then God led him up and his faith was purer because all the props had been knocked out from under him. Your health gets knocked out, your family may get knocked out, your job may get knocked out, your esteem in the community may get knocked out. [00:20:23]

In God's design, the result of this refining is that our faith would receive praise and honor and glory. Verse 7, that the proof or the genuineness of your faith may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Two things are going to happen when Jesus comes back, the revelation of Jesus. [00:22:14]

The one is his glory is being magnified in our relying upon him and rejoicing in him and hoping in him. He gets the glory for all of that, but in his getting the glory for what we are doing by faith he looks down and he says I love that, I love that, I praise that, I honor that. Chapter 5 verse 4, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. [00:22:57]

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