How to Suffer Successfully - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, September 20th. When you face opposition to your faith, do you get angry or choose to turn to God instead? This week, continue listening to the series providing practical helps to holiness. 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. Some of that suffering is the result of sin. Some of that suffering is the result of persecution. Some of that suffering is the result of sickness and disease. There are many reasons and many causes, but all suffering ultimately comes from one original source. When God created this world, He created it perfect.

He created it beautiful, and He created it as a paradise for mankind. But because of the desire to fulfill the appetites, human appetites, Eve foretook Adam's sin, the whole fountainhead of the human race went down the drain with Adam, and every man who's ever been born since then has suffered one of many causes. 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 of the suffering that comes not because of sin or sickness, but the suffering that comes because we are believers. Now let me explain to you what's happening in 1 Peter 2 here. When Peter wrote this epistle, he wrote it to a number of churches. He wrote it to the Christians who were being persecuted this particular time. In fact, all of Asia mine at this particular time was under great persecutions.

And what he was doing at this particular point was this. He was addressing this particular passage to those Christians who were slaves, those Christians who were bondservants in the households of unbelievers, of infidels, of heathens, of people who did not believe in their God or their Christ. It was very important to Peter that they understand how they should suffer. Most of us don't suffer very successfully. You see, you just do anything to keep from suffering. And there's all kinds of suffering.

And we're going to talk about some of those in just a moment. Let's begin here for a moment now, beginning back in verse 18. And let's talk about the steps to successful suffering. 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. 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. For what glory is it if when you be buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently? 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, 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. Watch this. To suffer patiently means that you and I, 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 their 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. The second step involved here, let's just keep reading here. The second step, verse 21, for even here unto were you called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow his steps, which is to imply we're going to suffer. And we ought to follow the same steps that he followed. And Jesus Christ was never impatient. He had many people he could righteously blame, but he never did. And you think about the way he was mistreated.

He never said one derogatory thing about the people who were mistreating him. Now, he says he's left us an example, and he says we are to follow his steps. What is the second step? First of all, we're to suffer patiently, and that's the length of it. Secondly, verse 22, who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. We are to suffer undeservedly. We're to suffer patiently, and we're to suffer undeservedly.

Now, what does he mean by that? That is, our suffering should not be the result of something we've done wrong, but our suffering should be the result of our lifestyle in obedience to God, not because we violated the law or because we've criticized someone else or because we have sinned against God. You see, if we're going to suffer, we need to be sure when we're suffering that it is undeserved suffering, and that I want to call the cause of it.

What is the cause of our suffering? Well, when you and I disobey God, we know that we're going to reap what we sow. So then, if God sends a chastising hand toward us, how are we to respond to it? We are still to respond in the same way, patiently, graciously, saying, Lord, I know that I've sinned against you, and I know that I'm deserving what you're sending my way, and I want to thank you for it.

If you cannot thank God for his chastising hand, then you will not be patient, your spirit will not be gracious, and you will lose your testimony, and you will lose your influence, and your witness will become null and void around the people where God has placed you to change their life. But you see, we need to examine the cause of it. Some of that suffering, the devil sends our way. It is his attack upon us. Some of it is suffering that God sends our way to shape us into the likeness of Christ.

So now, watch this. It is very important that you and I examine the cause of our suffering. All right, the third step, verse 23. Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again.

When he suffered, he threatened not. All right, the third step in our suffering is this. That is, we are to suffer forgivingly. We are to suffer forgivingly, and that is the spirit of our suffering.

Now notice what he said back in verse 20. What glory is it if when you be buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently. But if when you do well and you suffer for that, you take that patiently, this is acceptable with God. Now listen, we are to suffer with a forgiving spirit.

What is one of the last things he said to his mockers and his persecutors? Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. Now listen, any man or woman who lives for Jesus Christ and sells out everything for God, you're going to be misunderstood. People are going to blame you for all kinds of things. They're going to misinterpret your attitude, misinterpret your motives, misinterpret your actions.

There's no way to escape that. But what is the believer's response? Now listen, and don't you ever forget this. When someone starts a fire against you, you just have a forgiving spirit, and you just keep on loving. And what happens? The person who starts the fire will get singed before it's all over with.

Don't you get the hose at putting up the fire. The Christ-like response is what? Just keep talking to God about them.

They cannot resist that. And keep loving them and be quiet. You see, a forgiving spirit is able to accept it. Now how in the world can you keep on forgiving when you keep on being abused and misused and falsely accused and misunderstood and your motives misunderstood? How can you have a forgiving spirit? I'll tell you how you can do it. When they shoot the air at you, you just hand it up to him.

God has given us all the capacity to hand them to him. But if you catch them and then you throw them back, you know what you're doing? You're acting like the world, and that is exactly what they want you to do. Now, when you and I have a forgiving spirit, what does that do to the person who is attacking us? Well, most of the time it'll irritate them.

And let me tell you why. Listen to this. The ultimate goal of the devil is to break the power of your witness.

You see, that's what he's after. Because you see, if he breaks the power of your witness, then he doesn't care whether you like it or not, whether you're hurt or not. The important thing is that he hurts your witness. And I've seen people tempt and prod and maliciously attack, and the person just sort of stand there and not say a thing. You say, well, I don't believe you can do that. Yes, you can. I can tell you that you can do it. And it is amazing how much garbage and filth and junk and stubble that somebody can dump on you, and somehow you never feel one bit of it.

And you know why? You just keep giving it to him, and he'll protect you. You see, the natural reaction is to defend ourself, but that's not the spiritual reaction.

All right? He says we're to have a forgiving spirit. That is, we're to suffer forgiving me.

That's the spirit of it. Notice the next verse. Verse 23, who when he was reviled, not again, he forgave them. When he suffered, he threatened not.

He could have called down legions of angels, but he didn't. But listen, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. The next step in suffering successfully is to suffer committedly. To suffer committedly, and that's the devotion of it.

When Satan begins to attack and suffering comes your way, what do you do? You just make a fresh new commitment. Listen, a fresh new commitment of your life to the Lord for that particular experience. Now somebody says, well, I've already committed myself to him.

Well, let me tell you something, friend. There are many times and many experiences when you need to stop and make a fresh new commitment of your life to him for that particular experience. Because sometimes Satan gets up on your blind side, and when he does, he sometimes may not be ready for it. But make a fresh commitment that in this experience, I want to just lay it down before you. Now what does commitment mean? Commitment means that you and I lay our life down before the Lord. That is, we take our hands off of it. It is as if we deposit it to his keeping, to his sovereign control, and then what happens?

We back off. And that means I'm willing to accept whatever he sins. You see, when I committed to him, Lord, I want to commit myself to you that in this period of suffering that you will be able to get glory out of my reaction and out of my life. If you just sort of go along and say, well, you know, God, you just help me.

No, there's something about it because listen to what he said here. You see, Jesus did it. Verse 23, he threatened not but committed himself to him. Now if anyone were committed to God the Father already, Jesus was. But in the Garden of Gethsemane, what did he do? Sweating blood and tears, he made a commitment to the Father to suffer the crucifixion of the cross and to suffer it without retaliation or calling down those legions of angels. And that was not easy for Jesus to do.

He committed himself to the Father for the experience of suffering. And I want to say to you that you and I need to do the same thing. When we see something brewing on the horizon, we need to back off and stop and say, all right, Lord, I see what's coming. I want to thank you for what you're going to allow and I want to commit my life to you. Now listen, there are some things, the intensity of which reached the degree that you and I have to keep committing.

And as the intensity and the heat of the persecution increases, we feel the need to make fresh new commitments to him. Lord, I want you to keep on controlling my lips. Keep on controlling my spirit. Don't let me say anything.

Don't let me do anything. But I just want you to sovereignly overrule in my whole attitude that the Spirit of Christ might be evident in everything that I do. We must suffer committedly.

The next step. He says in verse 24, who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live under righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed. Why did Jesus suffer? He suffered a sacrificial death for you and me.

Now I want to use that verse to bring out this particular point. And that is that you and I are not only to suffer committedly, but we're to suffer sacrificially. We're to suffer sacrificially and that's the cost of it. Now listen, Jesus didn't suffer because of his sin. He suffered for your sin and my sin. Now listen, when we are maliciously attacked, when we are suffering because of something someone else would do to us, because of our faith in Jesus Christ and our relationship to him. Listen, as Jesus saw himself suffering for us, we likewise need the Spirit that we are suffering for him.

Because what happened? When you were saved, the Holy Spirit came into your life. Why did he come into your life? To live through you the life of Jesus Christ.

So that in essence, Jesus Christ is alive in your life in my life. So who is it they're really persecuting? They're not persecuting you and me. And there have been times in my life I look back and see the things that people may have said and I think to myself, Lord, I'm sorry they're so blind. They think I'm their problem. I'm not their problem.

You are. And you see, where you work and where you live, there will be people who will maliciously attack you verbally and they're going to say you are their problem. When you and I know that we may not be the problem in that situation, it is Christ living within us.

So what are we doing? You and I in this present age are suffering for him. And you see, that's why we ought to be able to thank him. That's why we ought to be able to praise him.

That when we're suffering, what we suffer because of our relationship to Jesus Christ and our obedience to him, we are doing for him what he did for us. And listen, there are not many things that you and I can really do for him. He's done so much for us. He does so much for us.

There are not many things you and I can do for him. All we can give and we can pray and read about. But listen, can you tell me anything any sweeter, any more gracious, anything that God would favor us for any more than to have taken the Lord's place in suffering for what he taught while on earth? You see, we need the sacrificial spirit, not what are they doing to me? Oh God, look what they're doing to me, but no. Thank you, Lord, that I could take what they throw at you if you were here living in the flesh. Thank you for listening to part two of 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.