Unstuck - Overcoming Unjust Suffering, Part 1

There are times in life that simply don't make Christians everywhere to live like Christians. Let's start by sharing one of my, I guess what I'd call big times when I was stuck. I came to Christ right after my senior year of high school, went away to college and began to grow spiritually. And then in my second year, I got in a Bible study with two wrestlers of all things. And one was my roommate and one was his friend named Frank. And it was just a sunny day in the mountains of West Virginia.

And we got close and we were all growing and we were this little Bible study. And we were having a ball and Frank and Bob, my roommate, went on these 10 speeds and were riding around the hills of West Virginia and up in the mountains where it was really, really steep. And Frank was used to kind of an old school bike with foot brakes and these were hand brakes. And so he and Bob went around this real steep corner and they really got going pretty fast. And so Frank went to stop and realized, oh, I don't have any brakes there. And by the time he could get to the brakes, it was a sharp turn.

He went over that curve, went into the air about 30 or 40 feet and then landed head first into a house. And Bob quickly turned around his bike, got back there. And when he was there, he wasn't breathing. And Bob began to pound on his chest and do all the stuff, the CPR type stuff. And an ambulance was called. And within an hour and a half, all of us, we had a little college ministry.

We were down. And I'll never forget, it was in the emergency room. And you know, those little curtain things with the little clicky, clicky things. And you can hear everything. And all we could hear was we're outside. And my friend, Frank, yelling, I can't feel my legs.

I can't feel my legs. And they couldn't give him, the doctors didn't give me pain medication. They wanted to figure out the extent of the damage. And we would soon learn that he severed his spinal cord, that he was a paraplegic. They did not expect him to live because of the internal damage. And being just denied leave, young, brand new college students, we went to the chapel and we just fasted and prayed for two or three days together and said, God, will you save our friend's life? And miraculously, the internal bleeding stopped.

His life was saved. And I went into the biggest spiritual funk. I'd been a Christian maybe 18 months. And I was mad at God. I mean, I wasn't a little mad at God. I was mad at God.

How could a good God, a loving God, I mean, Frank's in Bible study. He's my wrestling team. He's my friend. I mean, I'm living in this world of the 70s where it's wild and crazy and people are doing drugs and sleeping with everyone and doing crazy stuff.

And they're having fun. And my buddy is paralyzed. And I remember, you know, I wasn't official family, so they wouldn't let you go see him. He was in one of these circular beds, you know, that they turn. And so when you wanted to go see him, you kind of had to lay down and look up. And so I would, you know, being the legalistic rule keeper that I am not, I tried telling him I was his brother and that didn't work. And so then I sit around and got in the exit.

And when the nurses went down the other hall, then I would sneak in and I'd lay underneath that circular bed and talk to Frank and drive back up to the hill just as mad as I could be. And I was stuck. And some of you probably have had some experiences where you've been stuck. When something unfair, unjust, difficult, painful. If God is good, if God is loving, how can there be? So much evil and bad things happen to, at least from our perspective, really, really good people.

And let me first say, this side of heaven, I don't think you'll get any cookie-cut, nice, clean answer to that question. But God is clear and tells us that there are very clearly four possibilities of why bad things happen. Some just and some unjust. And at the end of the day, He's going to teach us tonight about how to respond to unjust suffering.

I want to give you a framework. I don't want to just jump into unjust suffering. I want to give you a framework of when really bad things happen.

We often just jump to it's not fair. And they happen to us or they happen to other people. So I'm going to give you a biblical framework of why suffering occurs from Scripture.

There's four possibilities. Number one is what I call just suffering. Suffering may be the result of our own sin and poor choices. We don't like this one, but Galatians 6 verses 7 and 8. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.

God will not be mocked. As a man sows, so shall he reap. The one who sows to please his sinful nature from that nature will reap destruction. The one who sows to please the Spirit from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

I mean, King David, Old Testament example, sins with Bathsheba, commits murder. What happens? He suffers. His kingdom is ripped away. He's humiliated as his son with all his concubines on the roof disgraces him.

He runs for his life. His world is never quite there. He's not the same. He is forgiven.

God does restore. But lots of bad things happen in David's life because David was sinful and stupid. He was a king. He was wise. He knew better. He made some small bad decisions about being at the wrong place at the wrong time. He gave into his flesh. Then instead of owning it when he blew it, then he tried to cover it up. Now all I want you to know, when we get very upset at what's happening in our life, some of the really bad things that have happened to us in relationships, in our finances, in issues in our life, with some of our children, with some of our parents at work, the reason we're suffering is we've made some sinful or sometimes just stupid choices and you sow and then you reap.

But you never reap in the same season that you sow. And it's very interesting. I mean, I know we all have high levels of denial and we all are very good at blame shifting and causing, you know, they did it and they did it and they did it. It really helps to at least start off and ask the question when you're in a really, really tough situation, what part of this do I need done? God, is this?

Because there's a real quick solution to that. You confess your sin and you repent and you'll always find a loving, merciful God that wants to restore and to repair. The second reason that people suffer, suffering may be the result of spiritual attack. Ephesians 6, 10 through 12 says, you know, we don't battle against flesh and blood but against rulers and powers and principalities and evil forces of wickedness. Satan is alive and well. You've got the classic Old Testament picture of Job. Job didn't do anything wrong. Job didn't even know what was going on.

I bet if Job would have had the book of Job, he was gone through it, he would have done better. I mean, he didn't get in on that little conversation between Satan and God and have you looked at my servant Job and all that. All he knew was, I'm walking with God. I love God. I'm righteous.

Bam, bam, bam. I mean, it was just like, if he went into the what did I do to deserve this pity party mode, he'd been in bad trouble. But you see, Job's real issue, we'll learn in the end of that book, was an issue of some very subtle arrogance and pride. But Job was a righteous man. He suffered unjustly.

He didn't do anything wrong except love God, live a pure life, be a righteous man, and in so doing, expose the evil of the world for what it was, so much so that he got the attention of the author of evil who was given permission by God to buffet him. Some of you are going through very difficult, painful times that aren't fair and it's not because you sinned, it's not because you did anything wrong. In fact, often it might be because you're doing a lot right. So when you're going through things, you need to ask some diagnostic questions. Lord, is there something that I'm aware of or maybe I'm really aware of and it's my choices or some things I've done? You know, the Spirit says, no, no, you check that out. And then you need to ask, is this spiritual attack?

Because you respond to different kinds of suffering with different biblical responses. The third scriptural indicator of when suffering may occur is because we live in a fallen world. Genesis chapter 3, sin enters the world. Imagine sin entering the world like a major coup.

A major coup is a lot like the atomic bomb of sin happened in Genesis chapter 3 and our first parents rebelled against God. Sin entered the world. It separates man from God. It separates man from himself.

It separates man from his wife. And even what happens, the creation even begins to groan. Romans 8 tells us that there's fallout.

So imagine that as like an atomic bomb going off and then for centuries, there's like these clouds of radioactivity. You know, they just sort of, bad things happen to good people just because it's a fallen world. We get the example in John 9 of here's a blind man. Whose fault is this, his or his parents? What does Jesus say?

Neither. A sovereign God in a fallen world has purposes of unjust suffering. Or I think it's Luke 13, the Tower of Siloam. Jesus is preaching and a runner comes in and we get the story, did you hear about this tower that fell on these people? And Jesus said, do you think that they were more unrighteous than others? And what he was saying here is that, but all of us need to understand in a fallen world where there's sin, he says, we will likewise if we don't repent.

But he said, you know something? That wasn't like God's judgment on those guys who happened to be at that tower at that time. You know, in a fallen world, things rust. In a fallen world, wood rots. In a fallen world, little patios over time with people, over decade after decade, the concrete begins to give way.

And we've all heard of stories of five people out on a patio, bam. You think they're evil and God is punishing them? Some evil in the world is because there's a fallen world.

It's like the spiritual radioactivity. Bad things happen to good people in a fallen world. Good things happen to bad people in a fallen world. If your expectations are that a good God is going to make everything come out right and the world, quote, it ought to be in a certain way, you will live with unrealistic expectations for the rest of your life. The fourth reason the Bible says that suffering may occur is, are you ready for this?

The result of doing good. So you have just suffering for when we sin. You have unjust suffering because of spiritual attack. You have unjust suffering because of just a fallen world.

And here, sometimes you suffer for doing exactly what's right. He reaches again. He gets beat up. The closest people to Jesus, right? The eleven apostles and then the apostle Paul. Eleven of the twelve take the gospel to the world, are empowered by the Holy Spirit, love God, have faithful prayer lives, are doing the will of God, turn the world upside down, and eleven of the twelve get martyred. And the other one ends up on a rock writing books about the future.

You smoke it. No, I'm serious. I mean, you're saying that Paul didn't believe enough? You're saying that the disciples didn't love God enough?

You're saying that if they would only, they did exactly what God called them to do. First Peter would write and say, if you suffer for doing evil, this is not commendable to God. But if you suffer for doing good, this finds favor.

Do you hear that? This finds pleasure in God's eyes. For you've been called to this purpose, for Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you might follow in his steps, who when he suffered, didn't revile back, but entrusted his soul to the faithful creator. Did you ever think that sometimes you're suffering for being a good, godly, wonderful Christian, doing exactly what God wants? And he's going to use suffering as a grace gift to do something deep in you and something amazing through you?

Allah, Johnny, Erickson, Tada, and others? And so all I want you to get is that there's at least four reasons. Maybe there's more, but those are the big, clear ones in Scripture of why we suffer.

Three of them don't feel very fair to me. I mean, when I sin and do stupid stuff and I suffer, I'll be honest with you. I just kind of like, I get it. I try and repent really fast. But I've had big struggles when I, or what's worse, at least in my world, when people I love suffer, when people I care about and I can't control, which none of you have that issue, but some of us do. And so what I want you to see is the Apostle Paul is going to give us a model for how to respond to suffering. How do you respond to suffering? Now, at first glance, you're going to look at this, and if you read it very quickly, you would say, how in the world is this a model for suffering?

One, we need to make sure that we get the context. Ephesians chapter 2, verses 11 to 22. What we learned is there's this miraculous lack of hostility, one new man, unity, and in this unity, the very presence of God that the Jew and Gentile in the supernatural community his presence and his power dwells.

And then he opens chapter 3 with a, therefore, in light of this new supernatural community called the church, where when in unity we are together, the spirit and the presence of God dwells. He says, I, now he's going to talk about a little suffering. Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for your sake of the Gentiles. And you notice I put a dot, dot, dot, because God's prisoner is Paul. He's God's prisoner. He's not Rome's prisoner. He's not Nero's prisoner. He's God's prisoner.

Now, what I want you to do is you've got to see the structure. If you don't see the structure of this passage, it'll feel like some of Paul's writings. And some of Paul's writings, like verse 2 through verse 12 is one sentence. This guy couldn't pass an English course if his life depended on him. He depended on it.

This is a run-on sentence. And he gets filled with the Holy Spirit, and he just gets on a roll. But what you need to understand is verse 1 is the opening sentence, and verse 13, the very last verse, is his reason for writing everything. He says, look, I am a prisoner of Christ Jesus. Skip down to verse 13. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram.

We'll get back to our series Unstuck in just a minute. But first, if this teaching has ministered to you, consider becoming a monthly partner. Your regular financial support goes a long way to help us encourage pastors, create resources, and share Jesus with today's youth.

Visit LivingOnTheEdge.org to learn how to support us today. Well, with that, here again is Chip. And so, very interestingly, Paul doesn't say that the answer to suffering is to sort of macho up. I can take it. Don't worry about it.

I know I'm in prison. It's really hard. There's the few, the proud, the Marines, and me, Paul.

I can do it. I mean, some of us go through suffering like that. We just buck up. His second option is not, oh, it's deterministic. Whatever we'll be, we'll be. I guess God is sovereign. The world is the way it's going to be. My response doesn't matter.

He's going to massively endure this. That's not His. It's not the prosperity lie of, if you all just believe hard enough and I believe hard enough, then somehow I'm going to get out all of this and everything will go great for you and great for me.

That's not it. By contrast, Paul's answer to unjust suffering is sound biblical doctrine concerning God's program in human history, concerning God's divine, sovereign purpose in His life, ultimate purpose in Paul's life and ministry, and in this low emotion, high content answer, he's going to say, understanding unjust suffering is about not getting God to change your circumstances, but beginning to understand how your circumstances are a part of His divine plan and you responding to that plan. And part of this, by the way, since you're not Gentiles in the first century, you're not going to have a lot of liver quiver emotional moments in the next 8 or 10 minutes. Okay? I mean, we need to explain what was he saying in verses 2 through 12, right?

And if you were a Gentile, you'd be on the edge of your seat. Wow, this is us. I can't believe he did this. You mean, by the way, when the word mystery comes up, I'll have you circle it. But the word mystery doesn't mean mysterious.

This word simply means this. Something that was previously unknown, like a secret. And Paul's actually going to say, there was a secret. There was a secret that was hidden in God. And there was a secret that from the foundations of the earth was part of the plan. But no one knew about the secret and God didn't tell anybody the secret. And he's going to say, I got to be the one to share the secret or the mystery. And he's going to say, don't feel sorry for me because I'm in prison. I actually have had an unspeakable, unimaginable privilege in this tiny little thing called time in light of all eternity.

Don't get discouraged. It is an unspeakable privilege for me to be granted the gift of suffering on your behalf. And what he does, so contrary to sort of our American worldview, he looks at his suffering through the lens of what are God's purposes and what is God trying to do and what's my little role in it? Instead of what are my purposes and what are my agenda and why doesn't God fix it soon? Does it make sense? See, it's a very different paradigm.

So let's look at it together. God's secret plan, are you ready, is the church. His secret plan. Every time the word mystery comes up, I want you to circle it. Paul, I think, is kind of excited because when he gets excited, he has these long sentences. He forgets to stop. I can identify.

I think maybe Paul talked really fast too. Surely you've heard about the administration of God's grace that was given to me for you. That word administration is a stewardship of trust. Surely you've heard about the amazing thing that God entrusted to me.

Well, what is that? That is the mystery made known to me by revelation as I have already written briefly. In reading this, then you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of the secret of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations, and has now has been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel, Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and shares together in the promise in Jesus Christ. Now, most of us in this room are Gentiles, alright?

And we've got a couple thousand years of history. I don't even fathom how radical this is and what occurred, but here's what he's really saying. Don't be discouraged. I'm a recipient of revelation from God about his secret plan, the church. What a privilege. Wow. You guys are all uptight because I happen to be in this cell for a while and I'm in prison.

Don't be discouraged. You understand? That in all the past history of all mankind, it hasn't been revealed. The word for revelation there means being laid bare. And here I am, not just one tiny little human being, but a murderer, a persecutor of the church, a sinner and an alien far from God who hated him and killed his followers. In all the glory and riches and privilege, he has allowed me to be the bearer or the steward of the secret, unimaginable thought of Jew and Gentile having direct access because of the work of Christ on the cross and his resurrection and his brand new game plan for all the future called the church.

Different perspective. Next he's going to say that Paul's role in God's game plan is a servant or a minister. So first he says don't be discouraged because he entrusted this secret, this mystery to me and now this is my role.

I got to be what? I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given to me. Would you circle gift, grace, given? Is Paul's focus on his chains? Is Paul's focus on his circumstance? Is Paul's focus on this really isn't fair after all that I've done for you, God? I became a servant of the gospel by the gift, grace, given me how? Through the working of his power. And then he kind of does this sober self-evaluation. He goes, although I'm less than the least of all God's people. And he's not blowing smoke here, people. This isn't false humility. People were trying to snuff out the church and were killing people.

Ooh, I think I was the one. And when he looks at him and he thinks of all of God's people and I think he's marveling at God's grace. I think he's overwhelmed with this sacred stewardship. I think he's thinking, you know, later he would write that this suffering isn't to be compared with the glory that will follow.

It's an effective that just colored everything. And so notice, he goes on to say, I am the least of all of God's people. This grace was given me to do two things. One, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery for which ages past was kept hidden in God.

Who created all things. Would you circle the word grace and given again? What I want you to do is I want you to look at Paul's role and his perspective and see words like grace, given, grace, gift, grace, given. And this privilege to preach the gospel.

He doesn't care where he gets to preach it from. And where he says to make plain, we get our word photon. He says, I got to photon. I got to photo eyes. I got to bring to light.

I got to be the conduit. So he says, don't be discouraged. I had the privilege of transmitting the supernatural grace, even though I was a murderer. And then he moves from the secret plan that's the church. And just, you know what he's doing? The goal is that they won't be discouraged and they get a perspective on suffering.

But what's he teaching them? Truth. You've been on the edge with Chip Ingram and you've been listening to part one of chips message overcoming unjust suffering from our series unstuck. Chip will be back shortly to share some helpful application for us to think about pain. It's an unfortunate part of the human experience, whether it's a broken promise a dysfunctional family relationship or prejudice.

We've all had to deal with being hurt. So what are we supposed to do when that heartache cripples us to our core in this insightful series chip reveals the hope and restoration that Jesus promises as he studies the book of Ephesians chip will remind us who we are, whose we are and why our past pain doesn't have to define our futures to learn more about this series visit Living on the Edge. dot o RG one joined in studio now by chip and chip the you know the idea of discipleship is at the heart of this ministry, and we believe there's a specific group of people responsible for continuing that work all around the world.

So if you would identify these difference makers and how we're investing in them. Well, Dave, the fact of the matter is this is that we want to help Christians live like Christians but God has ordained there is a place there's a supernatural community. And it's called the church and the church is in a building. It's a group of people and there's a person or a group of people pastors who are morally responsible to lead churches. If there is a godly pastor who's healthy who teaches God's Word practically clearly relevantly with Orthodox theology.

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That's absolutely right Chip. And if you're considering becoming a monthly giver, it would make all the difference. If we can depend on your regular support, we can continue ministering to pastors all over the globe. Learn more about becoming a monthly donor by going to LivingOnTheEdge.org or by calling 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or visit LivingOnTheEdge.org. App listeners tap donate and thanks for giving whatever the Lord leads you to give.

Well here again is Chip with his application. As we close today's program, I want to give you a challenge because this issue of unjust suffering, it really can get you stuck spiritually. And one of the things I think that's very unfortunate about growing up in America today is our view of things like suffering, especially for some of you that have never been out of the country.

And I don't mean that like, oh I've traveled all around and you haven't been out of the country. I just mean there's something that happens when you grow up in a world where suffering and difficulty and pain and people not having enough to eat and injustice is just a part of the culture. They really respond differently and the Christians in those countries, they read different parts of the Bible.

I mean like they memorize 1 and 2 Peter and Romans chapter 5 and we sort of skim over it. And one of the things I want to address, I just want to be honest here, is I think as American Christians our unconscious tendency is that anytime anything goes bad, we think it's unjust suffering. I mean, you know, I'm not happy today. That's unjust. People aren't very nice to me.

That's unjust. There is for real unjust suffering, but I'm going to suggest that there's three or four other reasons why we suffer and if we always think it's unjust suffering, we'll get stuck. I mentioned these briefly, but suffering can be a result of our own sin and poor choices. Well, most of us go into denial and blame other people and guess what, that takes you nowhere. Sometimes you're suffering and you need to realize, you know what, I shouldn't do that next time.

I mean that was a dumb thing to do. God forgive me. Or suffering may be the result of spiritual attack. God's not down on you.

I mean, you are making great progress and there's for real spiritual attack where you need to respond in a different way. Or sometimes suffering can occur because you just live in a fallen world. It isn't anybody's fault. There's no one to blame. Wood rots.

Steel rust. Bad things happen. Ever since sin entered the world, this is not the happy camper's place. It's not going to be made right until Jesus comes back. And then finally, suffering can happen just for doing good. Some of you are doing good and you're discouraged and you feel like God's down on you and what did you do wrong? Well, you know what? Paul did good and ended up in prison.

Jesus did good and they crucified him. So all I want to say today is let's review our perspective of suffering and then in our next broadcast, I'll really unpack the scriptures and let's talk about how do you deal with that one kind that's the worst, unjust suffering. Good word, Chip. And I hope all of you will join us again next time to learn more. Well, before we go, if you want to revisit any part of this series or get your hands on Chip's message notes, visit the Chip Ingram app. It's an easy way to get plugged in with our resources or share them with others. We long to see every Christian living like a Christian and the tools available through the Chip Ingram app can help. Check it out today. We'll listen to next time as Chip picks up in his series, Unstuck. Until then, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.