How to Suffer Successfully - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, September 17th. Most of the time, people think life on earth will get better as a result of trusting Jesus as their Savior. Today, you'll learn why it shouldn't be a surprise that often the opposite happens. Here's a lesson in how to suffer successfully. If you'll turn to 1 Peter chapter 2, how to suffer successfully.

And I want us to begin reading in verse 18, where Peter is talking to those Christians who are servants and slaves in the household of unbelieving masters. And he says, Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and the gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy if a man for conscience toward God in due grief suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it if when you be buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently? But if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereto were you called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow his steps. Who did no sin?

Neither was guile found in his mouth. Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him to judge it righteously. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed?

For ye were a sheep going astray, but are now returned the shepherd and the bishop of your souls. I think one of the greatest things we could do for a new believer who's received Jesus Christ as their personal Savior is to make sure that person understands that when you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you accept with it the potential and the possibility of suffering. That though we talk about the joy and the peace and the goodness and the kindness and the love and the answered prayer and all the insights that God teaches us, there is suffering that is a part of being a Christian or belonging to the body of Christ. Look, if you will, in Philippians chapter 1 and verse 29, and Paul says in verse 29 of Philippians 1, for unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake, having the same conflict which you saw in me and now here to be in me.

He says it's given to us. It is part of the heritage of believers, not only to receive the forgiveness of their sins, but suffering is a part of being a Christian. So that you and I know that suffering is a part of the life of the believer. It is part of knowing Jesus Christ as our Savior. Now I want us to dwell for just a moment on this matter, the suffering that comes not because of sin or sickness, but the suffering that comes because we are believers. Now listen, if you're living and working around people who do not know Christ as their Savior, and you don't bother them, my friend, the reflection is on you, not on them. Because when we're living a life of holiness and righteousness and obedience to God, the unbeliever is going to be affected. And the more holy we live and the more obedient we are, the more irritated he's going to become. Now listen, it may begin with irritation that will evolve into conviction that will result in conversion.

Or it may be that it will evolve into irritation and the irritation will become stronger and stronger and more intense and more open in their conversation and in their reaction to you. But you see, for a believer, listen, for a believer who's to be light, a believer who's to be sought to live and to work among unbelievers, and they can be comfortable around us and not be concerned about the way we live, not be shocked by how we live and how we react, and really can be able to ignore us, the reflection is upon us. If we put one candlelight in a darkened sanctuary, auditorium, one candlelight would brighten up this place.

It wouldn't be a whole lot of light, but it would be light. And God intends for us to be light. And one of the most effective ways to get the attention of the unbeliever around whom you associate is to be able to suffer in the way that God has ordained that we suffer. It is part of our heritage. It is part of our life. It is part of the family of God to be able to suffer.

It is part of the gift of becoming a Christian. So that if those with whom you work can literally ignore your Christian experience, you have lost the twang in your saltiness. You see, it's like salt that has no twang to it.

It's dead. It's like sand that has no taste. But if your life is salty, you're going to rub some folks the wrong way. Now that's their point of view. They say you're rubbing them wrong way.

You and I say, oh no, you're rubbing them the right way. Because as you live for Jesus Christ, what are you doing? If you and I are able to suffer the way we ought to, what we are doing by the way we're suffering, we are forcing them by our attitudes and actions to look at life from a whole different perspective.

And they are forced by your lifestyle to ask, what is it that you have I do not have? How can you take persecution? How can you take malicious gossip? How can you take being overlooked? How can you take being ignored?

How can you take a being talked about and criticized and still smile and still go on your way and do your work so energetically and enthusiastically? The unbelieving world needs to see such a dramatic shift from their lifestyle in ours, that they will be stunned and shocked and magnetized to ask, what is it that you have I do not have? Now we would prefer to be able to share our testimony delightfully with them and win them all.

Listen, suffering is the only way many people will ever be one. When you and I look back to see what happened to the Roman Empire, the Roman Empire was shaken in its foundation, not simply by the witness of the gospel upon the lips of the believers. In fact, as the believers shared the gospel, they could be ignored as one of those of the way for a long time.

It was only as believers began to suffer and to suffer in a way that could not be humanly explained. And let's take a good example of Saul of Tarsus. He'd heard about this way business. He'd heard about Jesus Christ. He'd heard about the followers of this Nazarene, this carpenter who was just another itinerant preacher coming along and who's shaken up the status quo.

That he could explain away. But when he stood and at his feet lay the cloaks of those, the persecutors of Stephen, and he watched them stone Stephen to death and he watched Stephen kneel before God and with this beautiful, indescribable, incomprehensible peace and radiance upon his face and the blood dripping down his face until the last stone knocked him over on his body, that Saul of Tarsus could not explain. But it was the suffering of Stephen that grabbed his attention. It was the suffering of Stephen that focused in upon him, something he could not understand about the followers of this itinerant preacher. You see, there is power in suffering and God intends that you and I suffer in a way that the unbelieving world will be magnetized and turned to Christ.

There is supernatural power in the suffering of a saint. And yet today we want to avoid it. Man, we want to avoid suffering like the plague. We don't want to suffer. We don't want persecution. We'd rather be acceptable. And one of the problems, one of the reasons the Church of Jesus Christ is so ineffective is that we either do not know how to suffer or we've been shrewd enough, smart enough, intelligent enough and played in the devil's hand. Today we've got it rigged up so the world thinks we're not so bad and we've said unconsciously, we won't bother you if you won't bother us.

And so we have an unspoken coexistence. The New Testament Church didn't have that. The New Testament Church marched under the banner of the blood of Jesus Christ and they intended to win every single person in the world, including the emperor himself. And when Paul went to Rome as a prisoner, I'm sure that Paul had in his mind, it just may be, it just may be that one of these days either I or someone will get to the emperor of Rome. They were willing to die for their faith because they knew the supernatural power that exists in suffering. But now there are many types of suffering and I'm not going to go into all that because each one of those would be a message within itself. But I want to focus in upon the kind of suffering you and I have because we're believers. But what I'm going to show you here could also be applied to suffering as a result of sickness or suffering because of maybe something that we have done, we've gotten ourselves in a jam in some way.

But I think in this particular chapter, 1 Peter, he lists the steps towards successful service, verse 18. Now Peter said, servants, be subject, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to those who are good, but those who are forward, who are unfair and treat you unkindly and take advantage of you and use you and misuse you. Have you ever felt on your job that your boss used you, misused you? How did you react? Did you go back and tell one of your fellow employees that rascal, he's unfair, I work, he doesn't pay me enough? What did you say? Or did you say, praise the Lord, I'm being misused?

No, more than likely you didn't say that. All right, verse 19. He says, now, when we submit ourselves to our masters who are mistreating us, verse 19 says, for this is thank worthy if a man for conscience toward God endured grief and suffering wrongfully. Now when it says thank worthy, that means we're going the second mile. In other words, when we're able to suffer wrongfully, when somebody's misused and goes, we're able to do that and we go the second mile, we don't complain, he says, that is commendable to us. He says, it is thank worthy.

That's going the second mile, you to be commended for your response. Verse 20, for what glory is it if when you be buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently. That is, if you've done something wrong and you deserve it, there's no big glory in that, you're just getting what's coming to you, you're just giving an account.

You're just reaping your awards. He says, you shall take it patiently. But if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable to God. All right, the first step in suffering successfully, the first step is this, and that is we must suffer patiently. And that is the length of it.

I'm gonna give you about six words, a little phrase after it. To suffer patiently, that is the length of it. Now what does he mean by patiently? When he says we're to suffer patiently, and let me include several things here because somebody sitting out here, maybe many of you, you may be suffering from different things. For example, you may be suffering physically from some disease or maybe you have a problem with somebody's attitude toward you or maybe you're suffering because of financial setbacks or in your home or your friends, you know, but there are all kinds of suffering.

These six steps apply to all of them. Number one, patiently. He says we're to suffer patiently. And what Peter does in this passage is to give us the example of Jesus Christ. He says, here are the steps that you and I will follow if we're going to suffer successfully and be able to reap the reward that God has for us in suffering because it's a part of our natural life. And when he says patiently, what does he mean? The word patient means to bear up under a thing. Now, when I said patiently, that's the length of it. This is where we get in trouble. We don't mind suffering if it's just a little prick. It's when the prick lengthens into a step and another step and another step and another step. And we ask God, when are you going to stop this?

How long is this going to last? You see, he says, we must learn to suffer patiently. And the only way we can suffer patiently is to get our focus correct. Now, if we are suffering and our focus is upon someone who is mistreated us, misused us, or abused us, I can tell you it's going to be very difficult to suffer patiently.

You see, watch this. To suffer patiently means that you and I are able to enjoy the strength of bearing up under the weight of persecution or whatever that suffering may be. You bear up under it. Now, the only way we can do that is to get our focus right.

And what is our focus? Jesus said, come unto me all ye that, what? Are heavy laden. And he says, take my yoke upon you.

And what he's saying is, let me get under your burden with you and let me take the weight off that. The only way that you and I can suffer patiently is to, by faith, involve Jesus Christ in that suffering. The only way we can do it patiently, because you see, what is the opposite of suffering patiently? Well, all of us know that, don't you? How did you react last time?

Anxiously, impatiently, irritatedly, criticizing, questioning, doubting, coming to God in prayer and saying, Lord, take it away. I hope you will. Yes, you will. Maybe you will.

Why don't you do it? You see, there are all kinds of things. We have all kinds of frustrations. To do it patiently means that I'm able to accept it from God.

Now, watch this. If you don't see the suffering coming from God, you're not going to be able to take it patiently. Your response is you're going to accuse someone else. You're going to be quick to blame someone else. They may be to blame.

They may be totally wrong. But it makes no difference. He says that as a believer, we are to suffer patiently. Because now listen, if it is something that the devil has sent our way, what do we do? We see it as the fact that God has allowed Satan to sin because God wants to do something in our life. If we see it as something that God has sent into our life purposely, again we see it as God doing something in our life. Even when we cannot explain why it's happened. Maybe it's the sickness that has come your way and you don't understand why it's happened.

If we don't see it as a tool in the hand of God, we won't be patient. Listen, the worst thing that can happen to you or one of the worst things is to be sick and to be impatient. You want to get out of that bed. You want to get going. Now, I know because that's exactly what I have to face. I get very impatient if I get stretched out. After I get over asking God why and when and how and all the other things that He doesn't answer, then it finally comes down to the fact I've just got to lie here and trust Him and be patient and wait upon Him. You see, patience demands waiting.

And listen, when you don't know why you're waiting, it is awfully difficult to wait. But the first step in suffering successfully is to be able to acknowledge the fact that God is in control of what He's allowing in our life and therefore we will have to wait until He's finished. You see, listen, if God strings out your suffering, now watch this, if He strings out your suffering and puts time into it, then you can bet your life that God has something delightful in mind. And so what you want to do is to be able to wait upon Him, to trust in Him, to look to Him. You see, if you look at the thing that's causing an irritation or the sickness or the person who's causing you a problem, if you look at them, you're going to get your eyes off God. It's going to be very, very difficult for you to suffer patiently. But you see, it is when we're able to bear up under a thing graciously, when we're able to bear up under it without seeking to blame someone, that the unbeliever looks with a very, very questionable eye to say, how can he suffer or take that and never complain?

Now, you know, you'd be surprised how negative we can get sometimes. But you think tomorrow morning now, as a believer, when you go to your job, you ought to walk in as a light. And if you walk in as a light, you're going to be radiating something.

Now, you might have come out of your home and all hell broke loose before you left. But when you get to your job, my friend, you ought to be all lit up for Jesus. And you see, what does He say? He says, notice how He put it. He says, when you can do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently.

You're able to bear up under it. This is acceptable with God. And the word acceptable here means, listen, it means this, that you are the object of the favor of God. God will favor every believer who is able to take the suffering patiently and bear it with a gracious spirit. Thank you for listening to How to Suffer Successfully. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.