A Reason for Every "Ouch!"

Now I'm not going to suggest that God's truth is going to make you immune from problems and pain, but I am going to suggest to you that God's truth can prevent the bullets of doubt as to the purpose and the reason. If there's any doubt in your mind, can there be anything good behind this at all? Peter would say God's truth can stop those bullets of doubt. It's hard to imagine now, but the devastating pain we experience in this world is only temporary. The Apostle Paul said, Our light and momentary troubles are achieving us for an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

Today on Connect with Skip Heizig, Skip encourages you with a message on the purpose and power of suffering. Right now, we want to tell you about a resource that will spur you on in your own faith journey as you explore the inspiring stories of women in the Bible. Who comes to mind when you think of great, godly women? Probably Jesus' mother, Mary. Maybe Ruth, the unlikely ancestor of Christ.

But what about you? Here's New York Times best-selling author Eric Metaxas. Clearly, if God created us male and female in His image, it's leaning into who we are as women, if we're women, that is going to show God's greatness. Discover how the lives of some of the greatest women in history will show you the path to true greatness in your own life as a woman made in God's image. That's what you'll find in this month's inspiring resource by Eric Metaxas.

In every one of the seven women, I think you see a different side of femininity. Seven Women is our thank you for your gift of $35 or more today to help connect more people to God's Word. And right now, we'll also send you a special bonus resource, Pastor Skip's six-message CD collection on prominent women from Scripture.

connectwithskip.com slash offer to give online securely or call 800-922-1888. Now, as we join Skip Heitzig for today's teaching, we're in 1 Peter chapter 3. Ouch! It's a common expression of pain.

Whenever you say that word, you're announcing to the world or to your world, the people around you, that you are experiencing some sort of suffering. So, when you stub your toe, ouch! When you hit your thumb with a hammer, ouch! When you poke yourself in the eye, ouch!

When you get up in the middle of the night and you walk into a wall or a door instead of the bathroom, ouch! When you wake up from surgery, ouch! Now, you may say other things besides that, but that's a typical expression of pain. It announces that we are sufferers, because pain is a messenger that demands all of our attention, right? When you're suffering, you think about little else, except the pain you have and how to get rid of it. And then, some pain isn't just episodic, it's chronic.

It's not just an event or an episode that comes and goes. There are some people that live with chronic pain. There's even an association called the American Association of Chronic Pain. And they tell us that every single year, pain in our country costs us $600 billion.

That averages out to $2,000 per American person. $2,000, that includes the cost of healthcare due to pain and lost productivity like hours or days that a person would miss work. And then there are people who feel pain more intensely than others. And studies have been done, brain studies show that there is a correlation between the thickness of the brain's cortex and the ability to feel pain stimuli.

Basically, if the cortex of the brain is thinner rather than thicker, that that person is going to feel pain more readily, more easily. Now, I have a hunch that everything I just said, you don't care about, if you're suffering especially. If you are a person who is experiencing pain or suffering, you could care less about explanations or reasons for suffering.

What you are more concerned about are resources while you're suffering. And that's where Peter comes in. Peter is addressing a group of people, largely they're suffering because of what they're experiencing. They're undergoing persecution, some are undergoing even physical pain, torture.

And he gives them truth and he gives them an example that is unlike any other example and that is Jesus Christ in the verses we're going to read. I don't know if you saw in the paper, my wife gave me this article this last week. Last Monday, a man in Dayton, Ohio was shot in the chest twice. Now, he survived. His name is Ricky Wagner, he's a bus driver.

And he got out of his bus, was working on something mechanical, had his jacket on and a few young men, ages 15 to 18, about three of them came up and basically one of the messages Ricky heard was, one of the kids said to the other, you have to kill him if you want to join our gang. And so two shots were fired and then the kids ran. Ricky Wagner survived because he had underneath his coat a Bible. He had put it under his coat when he was inside the bus, he walked outside the bus working on something, his Bible was still underneath his coat and so the Bible stopped the bullets. God's word stopped the bullets.

I just can't help but think an iPad probably couldn't have done that as much as a real book. Had to get that in. Now, I'm not going to suggest that God's truth is going to make you immune from problems and pain but I am going to suggest to you that God's truth can prevent the bullets of doubt as to the purpose and the reason. If there's any doubt in your mind, can there be anything good behind this at all? Peter would say God's truth can stop those bullets of doubt. And he asks us here now to consider Jesus Christ who suffered immensely for us, to prove to us, here is somebody who suffered and look what good came out of it. So we begin in verse 18, 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 18. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit by whom he also went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared in which a few, that is eight souls were saved through water.

There is also an anti-type which now saves us. Baptism, not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to him. Now I want to say that when I first read this passage, there's a few passages in the Bible, let me put it this way, I don't get really excited about teaching. Number one, if they're very difficult passages to understand, and this ranks up there pretty high, and number two, when they promise suffering.

And both of those properties are incorporated right here in this text. So what I'm going to do in unraveling these verses for you is touch on four different things that marked the path of Jesus in his suffering. First was his crucifixion. Second, his resurrection. Third, his proclamation. And fourth, his exaltation.

Those four stages are mentioned here. Jesus' crucifixion shows purpose. His resurrection shows permanence. His proclamation shows planning. And his exaltation shows power.

Let's quickly look at those and make application. First of all, his crucifixion. Verse 18, Christ also suffered. See, in verse 17 he says, it is better if in the will of God to suffer for doing good.

And then he points to Jesus. For Christ also suffered. He suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust. That is, he was just, we are unjust.

He took our place. That he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit. Now, if ever there was anyone who suffered unfairly for doing nothing wrong, but doing everything right, it was Jesus Christ. He suffered and he died. And he didn't just die.

He died an excruciatingly painful death. In fact, I don't know if you know this or not, but the word excruciating literally means from the cross. It's a word that depicted the worst form of ancient torture and death out of the cross, excruciating pain. The Romans did not invent crucifixion. The Persians did, around 300 B.C.

But the Romans, they perfected it. It was designed to inflict maximum physical torture on the victim before they died. A person who was crucified usually lasted several days, not hours, days. That's why the soldiers would often break the legs of the victim so they couldn't pull up or push up on the nails and take any more breaths.

They would just die sooner rather than later. Jesus suffered that kind of death. But his suffering began before the cross, didn't it? And Peter was there when it happened in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus sweat great drops of blood. Medical experts say that there are tiny capillaries that can burst up inside the sweat glands in the forehead, called hematidrosis.

It's a rare condition, but in extreme emotional conditions, a person can actually sweat blood mixed with his sweat. Jesus in the garden was then arrested and brought before a trial. Not one trial, not two trials, but six trials, all of them illegal, done usually most of them in the middle of the night. He was wrongly accused. Then Pilate had him beaten with the flagellum, beaten his back like raw hamburger, and then taken to the place called Golgotha where he was crucified for the sins of the world. So Peter, writing to a suffering group of people, is saying, Jesus, your Savior, also suffered and died in the flesh. Meaning he physically died.

He was actually crucified. As much as we might suffer, here's a perspective check, we will never suffer like this. Most of us will never experience anything like what Jesus experienced.

Oh yeah, life can get bad, yes there can be pain, yes there can be chronic pain, yes there can be extreme episodes of pain, but nobody will suffer like this. The writer of Hebrews puts it this way, in your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. You haven't given your life like Jesus did.

And why did he do it? What good is in his suffering? Well the verse tells us, and look at it, that he might bring us to God. That's the whole reason. That's the good behind the bad.

That's the benefit behind the pain, the suffering. That he might bring us to God. When Jesus died, what in the temple was ripped in two?

Tell me. The veil was torn in two from top to bottom. The veil that kept people separated that said, don't go any further, this God is holy, you are unholy, you cannot approach him. Now God is saying, you can approach. Now the way is open. I'm going to bring you to God the Father by what I did on the cross. And the veil was torn to prove it.

Here's the point. The very worst thing that did happen became the very best thing that could happen. Let me say that to you again. The very worst thing that did happen became the very best thing that could happen. What's the very worst thing that did happen? Killing God. The death of God.

How's that for a rap sheet on the world? We killed God. It was a calamity.

It was the very worst thing that happened. But actually, it became the very best thing that could happen. It brought us to God.

The death of Jesus Christ became the basis by which God can forgive sinful men and women and they can be made right with God. Yeah, world's greatest calamity, our greatest bounty. I'm going to read to you a little piece from a philosopher from Yale University, Peter Kreeft.

Brilliant insight into this. He says, suppose you're the devil. Now, it's going to be hard for some of you to do that. For some others of you, it might not be so hard, but suppose you're the devil. You're the enemy of God and you want to kill him, but you cannot. However, he has this ridiculous weakness of creating and loving human beings whom you can get at.

Aha, now you've got hostages. So you simply come down into the world, corrupt humankind and drag some of them to hell. When God sends prophets to enlighten them, you kill the prophets. Then God does the most foolish thing of all. He sends his own son and he plays by the rules of the world. You say to yourself, I can't believe he's that stupid.

Love has addled his brains. All I have to do is inspire some of my agents, Herod, Pilate, Caiaphas, the Roman soldiers, and get them crucified. And that is what you do. So there he hangs on the cross, forsaken by man and seemingly forsaken by God, bleeding and crying, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? What do you feel now as the devil? You feel triumph and vindication.

But of course, you couldn't be more wrong. This is his supreme triumph and your supreme defeat. He struck his heel into your mouth and you bit it and that blood destroyed you. So here's Peter's point. Suffering in the hands of a loving God can bring forth great benefit. And the best example is look at Jesus' crucifixion. His crucifixion shows purpose. There's a second phase to that journey of pain for Christ. Yes, he died on a cross.

Yes, he experienced crucifixion, but that led to something great, resurrection. So let's look in verse 21 where it says, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit. Now I just want to give you a little footnote.

Hold on to it in your head. I'm going to get back to that little explanatory, made alive in the Spirit. I do not believe that refers to his resurrection, even though it looks like that.

But go down to verse 21. There is also an anti-type which now saves us baptism, not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God through, here it is, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So Peter mentions his death, his crucifixion, and then his resurrection. Jesus' crucifixion led to Jesus' resurrection, which makes him alive permanently. He'll never die again.

The Bible says he always lives to make intercession for us. When Jesus was hanging on the cross, one of the last words he said were these, it is finished. What was finished? Well, a lot of things were finished. Our redemption was finished, to name one. But something else was finished.

I don't know if you've ever thought about this. His suffering, his pain was just about over. All of that horrible pain he was feeling in his body, that excruciating suffering was over. He had been at the hands of men for six hours. They did to him whatever they wanted to do. They had arrested him, they yelled at him, they cursed at him, they beat him, and they killed him. He was forsaken by his disciples. He felt, at least momentarily, forsaken by the Father.

All of that is about over. He will die, but he will be raised. And the resurrection changes the playing field, assures a permanence of life. Suffering led to death, but death led to resurrection. And resurrection ensures, not only for Jesus, but for all of us, the Bible says, that we'll live forever.

Permanence. Paul puts it like this, Romans 8, verse 18. I consider that the sufferings of this present age aren't even worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed in us. I don't know what you're going through in your life, but if you're a believer, take solace in this. This is the closest you'll ever get to hell.

This is it. This is as bad as it gets. Well, it's pretty bad. Okay, try to remember it, because you won't have that last very long.

It's momentary. And compared to what's coming, you can't even compare it. Now, let me flip the coin. If you're not a believer, this is the closest you'll ever get to heaven.

As bad as it is now, it'll get a lot worse. If you're a believer, it's all uphill from here, if you know Jesus Christ. There's a permanence. In fact, you know, heaven is so great, it is so unlike our earthly experience, that when the Bible wants to describe it, it often has to do so in negatives. To say, well, let me tell you what heaven is like. It's not like here. Because you know here, you can relate to here. There, you can't.

So listen to it. This is Revelation 21. This is what you can expect in your resurrected body. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.

Just think about that. God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, there'll be no more crying, no Kleenex in heaven. You'll never go, I need to wipe my nose.

Not there. This life is scarred by periods of tears. Can you think back and remember a few days in your life filled with tears?

One that really stands out to me, the first one that is most memorable in my earlier years was my first day of kindergarten. I'm embarrassed to tell you this, but I was the biggest crybaby in school. I wanted my mommy so badly, I cried all day long.

Goofy, huh? Well, there were other days besides kindergarten that were more profound than that. The day my brother died was a day filled with tears for me. My father's funeral was a day of tears.

Sitting at my mother's deathbed, watching her take her last breath, that was a day of tears. Those are tears of loss, we all experience them before this life is over. But there are more tears than that. There are tears of loneliness, misfortune, poverty, sympathy, persecution. And how about tears of regret?

Ever cry a few of those? Like the two teardrops that were floating together down the river of life. And one said to the other, who are you? And the teardrop said, I'm a teardrop from a woman who loved a man and lost him.

And then quickly said, and who are you? To the other teardrop. And the other teardrop said, I'm a teardrop from the woman who got him. So either way you spin it, there's tears of regret in life. No more tears. John also says there will be no more death. You'll never go to a cemetery ever again. You'll never attend a funeral. And if there's no more death, there'll be no more conditions that bring death.

No more disease, no more hospitals, no more doctors, no more dentists. That doesn't mean doctors and dentists won't be in heaven. I don't want to infer that at all. I'm being very careful not to say that.

But you'll never have to see one to get treated. John even says there will be no more sorrow. You ever just have a bad day, a sorrowful day where it's just like, like Pigpen, the cloud follows you all day long. And so when you see each other and you part company, you usually say to them, Have a good day.

That's a nice wish. Have a good day. You'll never say that in heaven.

You never need to. The stupidest thing you could say in heaven is, Have a good day. Every day is a good day. There will be no more sorrow. And then it says there will be no more pain. No more pain, no more chronic pain, no more episodial pain, just gone. Think of how much aspirin we consume. No more pain.

You will have, you will have a perfect body. That's Skip Hyten with a message from the series Rock Solid. Now we want to share about a unique opportunity to take your knowledge of Scripture to a new level. Calvary College is now open for registration. Calvary College is offering select online classes as an opportunity for individuals to take their life's calling to a whole new level with an educational emphasis in Biblical studies. With our unique partnerships with Veritas International University and Calvary Chapel University, you will have the opportunity to obtain your bachelor's or master's degree with complete online programs. Whether you're looking to obtain an accredited online degree or take individual courses to become better equipped in your knowledge of God's unchangeable truth, Calvary College has you covered with a range of opportunities. For updates on classes and registration information for Calvary College, please visit calvaryabq.college. That's calvaryabq.college.

For Calvary College, calvaryabq.college. Did you know that God's Word works in you as you read and study it daily? The Bible is powerful and it changes lives. And today you can help keep these Biblically solid teachings on the air with your generous gift of support. Visit connectwithskip.com slash donate to give today. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Or call 800-922-1888.

800-922-1888. Thank you. Tune in tomorrow as Skip Heise gives you a startling glimpse into the spiritual warfare you're part of and shares how you can make a difference on the battlefield. Make a connection Make a connection At the foot of the crossing Cast all burdens on His Word Make a connection Connection Connect with Skip Heise is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.