A Biblical View of Suffering Webinar

So greetings and welcome yet again to our minister webinar on the biblical view of suffering. And this is a large topic. It’s a topic that can go in a lot of different directions. And tonight, we really have two objectives. We want to lay out briefly and in a few high points, what does the Scripture say about suffering with the intent that it would then help us as ministers to consider how we can more aptly minister both on and off the pulpit.

And to frame this up, I want you to just think back and maybe it can be a deeply personal topic as Matt prayed in his prayer. Maybe some of you have walked through and are walking through very difficult times yourself personally or maybe you’ve walked closely with someone recently through that.

And I want you just to think back to that experience and what it was like to try to minister and support during suffering. That was the topic and the question that was asked of us in one of our email surveys. How do we step into this space? And this tonight is our attempt to at least raise some conversation and some dialogue.

And we will not be exhaustive in it, but we will at least attempt to do a few things. We’re going to hope to provide some definition. We’re going to hope to provide some grounding and we’re going to hope to provide some direction all while respecting and honoring that suffering is hard and difficult.

And so, Matt and Fred, thankful to have you both join us and to help walk through this with different perspectives and different ideas. But when you think of suffering, I guess I’ll just start out with this question to you both. When you think of suffering, what are some of the things that come to your mind as just kind of a general experience that we experience as humans?

It’s easier to go ahead on this question here, the first thing I think of in terms of a biblical view is the persecution that a lot of the apostles write about. So, when I think of a biblical view, I’m thinking of kind of more directed towards the persecution, the voluntary suffering that we do for Jesus in all of its different forms.

The more obvious one in today’s world would be the suffering that happens because we live in a broken world, which is disease and death, various forms of grief among either our own selves with those of our loved ones in the church or family. So those are kind of more obvious ones I would say.

Appreciate that, Fred. Matt, anything to add to that or where does your mind first go when you hear the word suffering? Yeah, I think a lot of times my mind probably goes to my life today in the conversations I have with people today, which can be a little bit clumsy, right? Because the suffering we have today in America is very real. As you talk to people and you see tears and pain, you know it’s real. And then as we talked before we started, the challenges you also compare it to stories that you read throughout the history of believers. You compare it to our brothers and sisters today across the world.

We were talking about China and so it can be a complicated topic. But when I think of suffering, honestly, the first thing that comes to mind is the people that I’ve looked in their eyes and the suffering that they’re dealing with today is probably the first thing that I think of.

It’s very real and it’s a strong emotion, right? There’s a strong reaction when we go through suffering. I mean, on this next slide, just as a way of definition or just laying this groundwork, look at the different words here. All these different synonyms, you can go from grieving and mourning to the idea of agonizing, anguishing, groaning, weeping, sighing, and there are variable levels of emotion within it and the depths that it faces.

Fred, I’m going to switch to the next one again to keep building this definition. You alluded to this already a little bit. Where does suffering come from and where do you start to see suffering and what is the cause of suffering and, perhaps oversimplifying, here we state the suffering as a result of sin and several different layers of sin.

You’ve got the original center of the fall of creation that has led to a broken world and the things that we experienced there. You’ve got others who sin against us, or we could sometimes have our own sin, which leads to consequences, but there’s probably more depth to mine out of this.

Fred, you talked about this idea of even voluntary suffering. Speak more into that if you would. Yeah, so I think this is something that is very prevalent in the Bible if not among the American church today. And that is the idea that we could actually volunteer, not ask for it, not seek it, although that has also been things that Christians have done, but I’m not really talking about self-flagellation or doing something to make ourselves miserable. I’m talking about just saying, Lord, I’m going to follow you and pick up my cross and follow you. And even if that means some kind of suffering or deprivation. I think of the missionaries who went around the world in the 19th century and experienced all sorts of diseases they had never encountered before, or outright persecution, putting themselves out there in a way that that makes them liable for somebody to express hatred and maybe even violence towards them.

So, I would say that to me I would call that, I need to use a better word for it, but I would call it voluntary suffering in the sense that it’s something we could escape. Especially if we denied Jesus, right? Then we could escape it, but we’re not going to as we are faithful, right?

Then there are results that happen from that. It actually strikes my mind because one of you submitted a question which laid out this scenario, which I would almost put into this category of voluntary suffering. What if you see an individual that you know is perhaps engaging in something that is not helpful or sinful in some way, and you could just ignore it or let it pass by.

Or you could engage that person knowing that there will be a reaction or a consequence for engaging that. So, by seeking to be faithful to the scriptural commandments of speaking the truth in love and that kind of a thing, you put yourself into a place where it is not pleasant potentially, right?

I mean, that’s a level of suffering that we can engage with. Yeah, I think there are various aspects of our work as ministers that we really enjoy that feed our soul. And we just love to do it. We just feel so blessed by those things. Then I’m guessing, I don’t think I’m the only one in this group, where there are things that I feel called to do or obligated to do as a minister, but frankly, I’d really rather not do. It intrudes on my time. It takes up my energy. It doesn’t feed me. It drains me. And it can cause me a lot of mental distress, but we do it. Yeah, and that starts to get into this place, right? And we’ve talked about this before altogether. It starts getting in this place where we want to compare, right?

And then be like, oh, well, that fades in comparison to this story that we heard about this deep persecution or tragedy or whatever. And on the next slide, we have a whole list of different ways that you can describe suffering. But the danger of that comparison is it starts to put value on which one is greater than others.

And I think there’s an aspect of where this just becomes a very personal and a very real experience that we walk through and then we have an opportunity to walk through with someone else perhaps in our role as ministers. Matt, this slide speaks to this idea of suffering as a reality.

It’s out there in the world and there’s a whole list of things here and this is not exhaustive. There are many more things that you could put in here as aspects of suffering. You can have traumatic situations, you can have injustice, you have poverty, you can have relationship conflicts, lingering sickness, different things. What have you seen in your work as a minister? Where do you see this reality of suffering coming face to face, so to speak with your work there with the ministry?

I appreciate what you said, and I feel like it comes in so many different ways. It comes with the person who has had health issues and is trying to work through them, and oftentimes that can be a young person. Where they’ve had multiple health issues, and so you see them, and I think that is real suffering to them. I’m thinking of the young people that I’ve been able to walk beside and some of them have had situations where they’ve been in homes that have been broken.

And that is a real suffering for them saying, how do I live life? And I have so much hurt from some of the scenarios that I’ve been in. There are people who suffer, whether it’s real or it’s perceived, just feeling even maybe like they’ve been hurt by us as church leaders, right?

They feel like we have hurt them, or we have done something to them and then I think there’s also the bigger suffering. I hadn’t thought of this before tonight, but I was thinking as you brothers were talking and there’s been a couple of funerals, I’m thinking of three different ones that I’ve been to of young children. And just hearing the wailing of the parents, that’s a suffering I don’t think I can comprehend but I think it’s very real. And then I also think there’s, if I can call it, I don’t want to call it the small suffering because when we’re in it, it doesn’t feel very big but day to day, I feel like sometimes I suffer, and this sounds really silly, but I feel like maybe my kids said something to me that was unfair and that feels so small on this continuum.

But I do think it’s starting there and realizing I’ve got to be able to deal with those little things as well as deal with those big, massive things because they both, I think, fit in this continuum. It’s a little more embarrassing to talk about the little ones where you’re like, yeah, I suffered today, like somebody at work made fun of me, but I still think it’s real and we’ve got to deal with that reality also.

But if you would go back to that list of synonyms that we just had a couple slides ago, like you’re experiencing that emotion, that feeling in the midst of those things, even though if it maybe feels small in the comparison of things. It really brings out this almost again, relativistic or just this, I think I have the right word there, but just, it has varied over time and by culture, I’m guessing, And Fred, we’ve talked about this before, I think, and I want you to speak into this a little bit more. I mean, if you’d go back historically speaking and consider the history of the Christian church, suffering has looked differently and just with society and history and as time has advanced, there’s like different levels that we can almost think about.

That’s a question. Yeah, I’m sorry, I was having trouble getting my time up there. Yeah, so this is a really interesting question. So it reminds me, I think it was in graduate school in history, and the professor is saying that historians used to think that because so many parents regularly lost children before the age of 10 to plague, to disease, that they therefore must have grown callous, maybe didn’t really invest in their children or love their children like we do today.

And so that’s what they would teach for a while because historians thought that was true. And they begin to realize, no, actually the pain was just as real a thousand years ago or 500 years ago or 2000 years ago as it is today. The difference was maybe the shock factor. Today we’re shocked when a young child dies because it’s so rare. And it’s just as painful, just as tragic as it was a thousand years ago. But a thousand years ago, if you had five kids and three of them lived to adulthood, you counted yourself very, very fortunate.

So, I think the church and even non-church people sort of framed suffering a little bit differently. Not that it was more pleasant or easy, but it was more of a fact of life than we perceive it to be today. So, I was just reading this morning a news article about a young couple who, when Roe v. Wade came down, their state passed a law restricting abortion. And so, they couldn’t get an abortion. And so, now it’s been a year since they have twins a couple years old. These are 19-year-old people. And the gist of the article was, look at these people, they have to change diapers. And in the middle of the night, they have to change diapers. And he would love to do more skateboarding and play video games but can’t do that. And she just really paints a picture that is really kind of like this family life, you know? I mean, it’s kind of family life. But the whole gist of the article, because it was the Washington Post, I think, was look at these poor people and what we’re putting them through because they couldn’t abort their children.

And my whole point in that is I’m sure it is difficult for them because it’s difficult being parents, but the point was almost like, it’s hard so something must have gone wrong. Oh, it’s the law. This is the back point to something because something went wrong because I have to get up in the middle of the night to change a diaper.

Yeah. And it just struck me as a different mentality, different approach to suffering than for pre-modern age, I would say. I don’t know if that makes sense or not.

I appreciate that, Fred. It’s almost like we get normalized to like, whether it’s comfort or whether it’s suffering, and then that shock factor that’s really helpful for me to kind of capture that in my mind to realize that’s what’s going on. The pain is still intense. But it becomes a little bit more normalized. And so, the shock isn’t quite as there. I took my kids just recently through our cemetery here in Gridley. And there’s a section there from the early 1900s where you would see all of the infants that died or all of the young children that died and they just kind of lined them up by date that they died.

And I showed them to my kids. I said, look at these dates and it’s something that we just can’t really comprehend probably in today’s world. And to your point, it doesn’t minimize the pain that someone is feeling or the hurt or difficulty someone’s feeling. But when our expectations are at a different place, it can make that gap seem bigger.

Matt, I’m sure you’ve probably seen that in your work with other cultures as well, as we would compare maybe what is American culture to other cultures around the world or other situations that you’ve seen. Yeah, I mean, it’s so much like Fred said, historically, I think it’s that way just across the world.

I remember one of our missionaries in Haiti during COVID. The question was, is COVID impacting Haiti? And they said, you know, we really don’t know. Yeah, people are dying, but people die here all the time. And so, there is definitely a different mindset for different areas of the world what we see today.

Yeah, you have Helen Keller here, well known for walking through disabilities, but I appreciate her quote here. She said, because we say we believe you’re not alone. We belong to the largest company of the world, the company of those who have known suffering. And so, I think as a definitional piece, I think we would say that it is a fairly universal experience. Most of us in some way will experience that feeling of suffering. Now, that’s where the question perhaps comes in as we finish this portion on definition, because it brings in this idea of pain and difficulty and some struggle in their theology and just theoretically why does suffering happen? And why are we so helpless in the midst of suffering or is God really good if this happens?

And I think one of the things that’s kind of interesting when you think about those questions is what does that speak to us like what as humans as we process through this, what are we expecting from that?

Have you brothers walked with individuals through some of these questions or seen these questions play out in people’s lives as they’ve experienced a level of suffering? Just curious if you have any examples to share with us. I have, Arlan, and I think when somebody is suffering, it is not uncommon for all of these three pieces to come out.

When somebody is going through a hard time, it’s so easy to ask why. It doesn’t make sense to me. I feel helpless. Is God really good right now? And I think it’s encouraging, and we’ll talk later about some of the biblical answers to those hard questions, but I think the encouragement is I like to let people ask those questions.

We see that in the Psalms. We see David being very open. I think it’s good to let it out. I think what we don’t want to do is say, don’t think that, because it is what they are thinking. Allow those thoughts to come out, allow those questions to be asked. And sometimes those questions aren’t real, sometimes it’s just an emotion that somebody really doesn’t mean that, but they’re just expressing the immediate emotion and that emotion’s real at that point in time.

I’m going to keep moving here just because I think this just begs us to get into some of these things of what does the Scripture say. These are the realities out there and there are great apologetics written on how to walk through the problem of pain or difficulty with someone.

But tonight, let’s think about how we ground ourselves, that second objective, how do we ground ourselves and find the foundation in the Bible and just a couple of points and then we’ll dig deeper. One of the beautiful things is that, in the Scriptures, you see that God knows and he cares about suffering.

You’ve got this passage from Exodus there with the children of Israel and they’re in the midst of their suffering in Egypt. And it says they lifted up their cry and God heard their groaning through their hard bondage that they were experiencing. He heard their groaning. That tells us something right there about the God that we serve.

And then you see the Bible speaking all throughout about suffering so much so that we would probably say it’s a fairly centralized experience or condition. Within the Bible, again, this is not an exhaustive list, but you could go through the suffering of creation, the suffering of Job, the suffering of the Israelites, of Christ, of Paul, the suffering of the believer. Historically speaking, Fred, as you think about this suffering being a centralized condition with the Bible and with the believer, where does your mind go with that or as you’ve pondered this throughout your own personal life, where does your mind go with this? What have we seen in the history of the church with this?

So, I hope this is useful. This is what has been on my mind recently, as I’ve included studying Romans 8, and the book of Romans in general that suffering is naturally the Christian life, because we are to be like Jesus and Jesus suffered. One scholar calls this the cruciform life that we are meant to live the cruciform life. Cruciform like crucifixion and form as the shape it takes. So, our life should take the shape of the cross. And I think, Arlan, if you look at Romans 8, that’s what Paul is really getting at. Sometimes we quote that, 8:28, hey, it’s all going to work out. You’re a Christian, so it’s all going to work out.

So, you just lost your job. Well, don’t worry because it means you’ll probably get a better one tomorrow. But where Paul seems to be going in Romans and really through the Scripture, the apostles are saying that our world is messed up. Jesus came to fix it and he fixes it in part through suffering. He fixes it through sacrifice and service. That brought about suffering for himself and we, as we live a cruciform life, follow after him. And so, this means that we’re going to have to suffer. But don’t worry, he says, for I reckon the sufferings of this present time, whatever you are giving up for the gospel to preach and live the gospel, whatever it is, is not worthy to be compared with the glory of which shall be revealed to man.

And so, I know it doesn’t speak to what happens if you get cancer or you get in an accident or something like that, but it seems like the biblical frame is generally speaking, even if you look like Job, which is suffering natural consequences, it’s meant to be a witness to God. It’s meant to make us more like Jesus and live like him and do his work of redemption in the world.

I really appreciate how that places it in a broader context and just starts to cradle it in that bigger understanding with that. Matt, any thoughts that stirs within your mind? Yeah, so when we look at that passage of Romans 8:18 Fred, it says it’s not even worthy to be compared and I like to say it’s like putting a feather on one end of the scale and an elephant on the other.

And again, when we’re hurting, it doesn’t make sense, but that is what God says is real and I think we got to remind ourselves in that truth. Yeah, that passage is quoted there. I want to go back to it. One more piece of the Scriptures and then we want to dwell on this a little bit further.

You mentioned it, Fred, Christ comes to bring a level of healing. There’s this great passage in Isaiah, which is again quoted by Christ himself as he begins his ministry. And he speaks to the idea of binding up the broken hearted and proclaiming liberty to captives and beauty from ashes and oil of joy from mourning and a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness and this restoration that is possible through Christ.

This is the promise of the Scriptures, but one of you said it, in the midst of the pain and the difficulty, these words don’t ring as true or it’s harder, right? We have to keep reminding ourselves of those but sometimes the emotion or the feeling can be stronger than the truths that we know.

Yeah. It takes tremendous grace, the grace of God to remind us of these things. I think of my brother-in-law who was in an accident maybe 10 years ago, I think it was. He’s a very big, vigorous guy who worked like crazy, long days and in one short day he went from that to spending his time in bed or in a wheelchair.

He can’t communicate very well. They needed to move because he needed better wheelchair access, and they couldn’t figure out why the Lord wasn’t providing. It occurred to them there was somebody in their building who hadn’t heard the gospel. And they felt like the Lord was laying on their heart to share the gospel with them. And so, they worked it out to invite this man into their home, served him meals, and shared the gospel with him. And then they got a different place. I think they were able to rent a house.

But all the way through it, my brother-in-law was there asking how can I serve the Lord through this? In his case, it was something thrust upon him, right? Something thrust upon him. He didn’t choose it. It was thrust upon him, but he chose to suffer as Romans 8:17, to suffer with Christ. How can my suffering lend itself to the extension of the gospel and redemption of the world? And the rest of us were just in awe because we can’t imagine living in his condition, but somehow the grace of God was powerful enough. I didn’t think of the brother up in Bluffton, who was diagnosed with cancer. I mean, that just takes a tremendous amount of grace in all of those situations.

Matt, any thoughts as you think about Christ’s mission here? At some point, the church is called into this as well, right? He calls us into this role in some shape and form and how do we begin to engage suffering with that mindset?

So, I think what Fred said earlier is crucial if we’re going to engage this rightly. Is saying how can we see God’s view on this? Our next slide is going to talk a little bit about God’s view, but I do want to take a moment to lay out some key passages of Scripture and Fred, I think was referring to Romans 8 which is one of them. I’m going to just give a few of them if I can. The first is Romans 5:3-5. And again, I won’t read through all of these. But that is where he says clearly at the beginning of that passage, we glory in tribulation.

And I’m not going to go through it all, but basically through our glorying, God says, I will grow you into my likeness. And then Fred was referring to Romans 8:28, and a lot of times we like to quote Romans 8:28, and we leave off verse 29, but I believe the key in 28 is all things are working together for good.

And then 29 becomes a big theological argument, verses 29 and 30. But the point I think in 29, is that God has planned these events for the purpose of Him to be glorified and us to become more like Jesus Christ. And the thing that’s very fascinating about that Scripture is that God is working everything for the purpose to make us more like Jesus and to make Himself more fully known.

The next one I want to give is James 1:2-4, and again, James says the exact same thing. He says, knowing this that the trial of your faith works patience, but let patience have its perfect work that you may be complete and entire, lacking nothing. It’s through our difficulty that God is, basically through the crucible of the difficulty, he is forming us to be like him.

Another one is 2 Corinthians 4:17-18, where Paul states in that passage, and sometimes I almost feel bad saying this to somebody in suffering, it is but a momentary affliction.

Yeah. That just sounds almost crude for somebody that’s hurting. But that’s what Paul says. And Paul understands suffering, I think, better than any of us. Right. I mean, in his shipwrecks and his beatings and all those things. And yet he says, your affliction is light and it’s momentary compared to the eternal glory that we will experience in the presence of Christ someday.

And then the other one, and again, I don’t want to go terribly long here, but 1st Peter 1:3-9. Again, Peter is writing to the Christians that have been dispersed because of suffering and persecution. And he goes on, he says, you are born again to a lively hope by the resurrection of the dead. And he tells them the great hope they have in Christ. And then he says in verse six, and so if need be, you rejoice if for this short time you have to be in suffering. And it’s just like the Bible is chronically, I think, reframing our perspective to say, when we see the big picture, we’re able to look at the thing.

And Fred’s brother-in-law is an exceptional example, right? He saw something bigger than himself. And he saw a bigger picture. I’ll stop there. I’ve got some other thoughts too on some examples, but I think that’s just really important to have some scriptural foundation to help encourage people with, but we have to be very, very careful when we do it.

Because we can come off calloused if we’re not careful. Matt, can I just take us back to 2 Corinthians? There’s something you said earlier on, or at the very beginning where you said, it’s so important to bathe ourselves in scriptural truth before we hit this. Yeah, the crisis of suffering and I think one of the truths that we need to do is going back to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. If you back up to verse 15, he says, I’m going to read this in the Lexham English Bible, for all these things are for your sake in order that the grace that is increasing through the many may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.

Therefore, we do not lose heart, but even if our outer person is being destroyed, yet our inner person is being renewed day after day, for our momentary light affliction is producing in us eternal weight of glory beyond all measure and proportion. He takes the Corinthians from look, all these hard things that we’re walking through Corinthians, all these things, the decisions, the tough things I’m asking of you, the really hard things I’m asking of you, they’re going to lead to increasing grace in many people’s lives. And that’s going to lead to thanksgiving to God and the glory of God. So, we can’t lose heart. Don’t lose heart because there’s something bigger going on.

I totally agree with you, Matt. I think the wrong time to say that is when you’re in an emergency room counseling a wife whose husband had just been declared dead, you don’t say, hey, we don’t lose heart. I mean, that’s just absolutely the wrong time. And eventually I think that foundation that you talked about, Matt, when we have this in our mind that can emerge over time through the grief and settle us on some level. It’s hard, but I think you’re exactly right.

And I think that’s the opportunity as we gather together tonight as ministers of the gospel. That is we have the opportunity to open the Word and to share and to preach on these truths. It’s an opportunity to equip people with the truth that when they walk through very, very hard times and every part of them wants to deny the truth, they’re still going to cling to it because of love for God.

I still remember a situation, it’s been about 15 years ago, my wife and I were going through a very difficult time. There were some things that happened we didn’t understand, and I remember us walking down the long lane in Fairbury, Illinois at our place and I just remember tears pouring down our eyes and we knew these truths. We had had these truths impressed to us by other people. We could have taken you to some of these passages. And we still looked at each other, and I remember Dana saying, why? And we had to bathe ourselves in these truths again in the middle of the hurt, but had we not had the truths, it would have just felt utterly despairing.

I really appreciate that, Matt, just that last piece to this idea of this discipline of forcing ourselves to, what does the Scripture say? And as this slide lays out, what does it say and what does it not say? Because I find the pressure of society or just the normalization that we talked about earlier will mess with my interpretation.

Well, surely a bad thing like this won’t happen to someone who is doing what they’re supposed to be doing or, you know, there are these narratives that we can get into our minds that are not in the Scriptures. But they have been created by the stories we see around us and then we need to push ourselves back to what does the Scripture say.

And so, we have some of these laid out and I mean, there’s more you could lay out there, but God is aware of the suffering. He cares. He allows suffering, but he uses it and redeems it for his glory as we’ve talked about. And to do that early, right? Not in the midst of the hurricane, but ahead of time to be surrounded by that.

Other thoughts, brothers, before we shift to a more practical, how do we begin to walk with others through this, other thoughts in this area? You’re stimulating one other thought, Arlan, and I could do this conversation with you brothers, I think, for about three or four hours, so I’m enjoying this.

But one other thought that I think, too, is I think it’s easy for us to try to figure out the why, rather than trust who God is and what He says in the moment. So, we said earlier, suffering can be because of our sin, suffering can be because of the fallen world we live in. And suffering can be something somebody else is putting on us that maybe we don’t deserve.

And so sometimes we spend a lot of time saying, you know, why am I suffering? And I’m not sure that’s always a valuable question. I think the opportunity for us to say, God knows this is happening. God cares this is happening. God is making me more like Christ through this suffering. And I am going to continue just to walk through it and cling to him through it.

And I think I was going to wait on this, but I think it’s worth saying now. I think if you look at the example of Joseph, Joseph was suffering because somebody had been mean to him. You could even say maybe he was suffering because of some of his own arrogance and pride. You know, we could argue that’s possible, right?

He was suffering because of the fallenness in this world, but the key wasn’t the why. The key was, as Joseph gets to the end of his life, I mean, Joseph spent years in prison because of his brothers, years in prison because of Potiphar, years in prison because he was forgotten. And yet you go to Genesis 50 verse 20.

And Joseph’s dad has died, and his brothers are coming back and they’re saying, Joseph, why? You know, they’re saying, Joseph, are you going to kill us now that dad is gone? And Joseph looks directly at them, and he said, basically, you don’t understand. He says, you meant this for evil, but God meant this for good to bring to pass this day.

I am certain it took Joseph all of those multiple years. You know, from 17 to 30 in prison from 30 to 37 not seeing his family. But through that, he learned, I think what God wants us to see is even when somebody is being mean to us, even when life hurts, God has a bigger plan that he’s longing for us to embrace.

And that is so easy to say to you brothers tonight, it is so hard when my life hurts.

Yeah. I appreciate that, Matt. And I think what we’ve highlighted here is that there’s an importance to force ourselves to have that proper perspective, that biblical perspective, that big picture perspective. To see the forest from the trees, so to speak, and to help gently encourage ourselves and model that for others, and then also support others.

And I think there is an aspect, I’m going to switch to this, this piece here, but I think there is an aspect as we engage others. I think that’s one of the beauties of the church when Christ established the church that we would not walk through this by ourselves. And we can go through very difficult things and people do and have done by God’s grace.

But there is also an aspect of where just the fellowship of suffering together and walking through suffering together is a really powerful tool that God gives. And so, when we think about how we engage others, the first point here is, I think, find ourselves to be in a place where we actually care about the suffering of others.

In Corinthians, Paul speaks, and he says, the God of all comfort who comforts us in our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble. This idea that we are comforted so that we can support others, that giving back. That takes place. How do you speak to this? There is no shortage of needs around us.

Brothers, how do you find yourself engaging with those that are suffering or has that become a place where it’s easy to maybe want to hold back or not as quickly go just any thoughts as you kind of consider this step?

Well, I’m going to give an answer that it comes as much from my own weaknesses in counseling people as it does, like some word of wisdom. But I have a hard time when I can come up with various ideas and concepts and preach them and talk about them and teach them and so forth but when somebody sits in front of me and says I’m going through this.

What should I do? I have a really hard time with that one-on-one kind of thing where it plays to my advantage or to other people’s advantage is, I think, actually in this situation right here. Because I think not having anything to say is maybe the best thing to do. I’d like to just on that slide there the endure half of suffering.

I like to just raise the issue of I think we do really good when somebody is in a crisis of suffering. The church comes around and just loves right and supports in so many ways, bringing meals, sitting with them, visiting hospital, paying bills, sending cars. And I think our church does a fantastic job of that.

A while back, somebody’s family was very much hurting because of a mental and physical health situation was not being resolved and initially there was a lot of sympathy, a lot of listening, a lot of encouragement, but as time went on, and the problem was not solved, it turned to bickering, actually, because well, we solve problems. Something must be wrong, but this problem isn’t getting solved. So, whose fault is it? And pretty soon it was, well, that person isn’t making the right decision there, and that person is stubborn about the care this person receives, and that person’s this, and recently was fighting a veteran who was causing immense difficulty.

And one of the primary members of his family told me, he said, Fred, we don’t do long term suffering very well. We don’t know what to make of it. We think there has to be a solution. And if there’s no solution and something’s wrong, people get blamed, and we need to learn how to just simply sit long term with people in suffering.

And that, that was a couple years ago, and I’ve been pondering it until yesterday, a sister came up to me with something of a similar situation. And she said, this has gone on for 30 years. And just recently I thought, I’m still not doing this well. And we had a really great conversation.

She actually recommended a book that I thought about recommending tonight, but I haven’t read it. And, well, okay, it’s called, This Too Shall Last. And I looked up the author. It seems like a decent author. It’s by Zondervan. I think it should be a pretty good book. But she just said it’s so helpful.

You know, we have to learn how to sit long term with suffering. To really highlight that sprint versus marathon. Sometimes we talk about the idea that we do well with the sprints, but the marathon and in sometimes the end, the unsolvable situation or the forever situation, how do we navigate that?

And just, I want to make a beginning here with this slide, but then Matt, I want you to chime in. So, we have the contrast here that sometimes there is suffering that can be alleviated. And the gospel, of course, that can bring so much alleviation, especially with that big picture salvation perspective that we’ve been talking about. And just the grace and change that can happen in a person’s life if they go from being a nonbeliever to a believer. And sometimes there’s healing that happens for an illness. And sometimes there’s things like just recently we had a report out in Gridley church of the winter work project down in the south where roofs are now in place that were not in place before.

And people have physical needs met that were not met before. And there’s some alleviation of suffering that takes place. But often on the other side, you have this enduring suffering that does not go away. And how do we engage with that as ministers? How do we support and pastor individuals through this endurance of walking and journeying with someone for years through hard situations?

What does that look like? Matt, thoughts that come to mind as you see this contrast between these two responses that we can have sometimes. Yeah. As you were asking the question, my mind went to Hebrews 11. We often call it the faith chapter or the hall of faith.

And you’ve got all these great examples at the end of that chapter, it talks about people that had all these persecutions going on, but they continued to persevere. And then you get into Hebrews 12 and it talks about this great cloud of witnesses, but then it goes on and the ultimate thing I think the author wanted to get to was, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despised the shame, and is sat down on the right hand of God. And then he says, consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your mind.

And I think, again, Fred brought us back to this at the very beginning, and I believe it’s the key to this whole piece if we can see our long term difficulty in the light of our suffering Savior, it gives us the perspective to endure one more day and one more day and one more day, because I see the big picture that He has endured for me.

And he has died in my place for me. And he’s asking me to continue to look to him, day by day, moment by moment. And again, and I think the author goes on and says, you have not yet resisted unto blood. If you had, you’d already be dead. As we haven’t quite done what he’s done yet and as I say that it always challenges me because I can feel almost, I never would want to walk to somebody calloused with that.

You’d want to say that with tears in your eyes and pain as you walk alongside them. But I think that is how we endure is looking unto Jesus. I think you bring out a key point there, Matt, though, that we walk alongside, and we listen, and we engage. We have the idea of lament here under the endure speak the indoor side, this whole idea of this, read the Psalms and see the laments of David as he cries out to the Lord and the power of being able to sit with someone as they do that without going immediately into, to your point, Fred’s fixing mode or how do we have a resolution of this? Because this is uncomfortable, and this is hard. I do think I will make this point and then there’s just a few minutes left.

So, if you have a question or you’re positing up a question in your mind, please get ready to unmute and share out. We have so much access to so many things in the world today, technology has put the world in our back pocket. Suffering has been around, and I think we do have to wrestle with that as believers, because we can come to a point of, I think, overwhelmedness.

If our goal is resolution of all difficulty and hardness, and that’s not our job, that’s God’s job. And sometimes he will bring resolution and peace to the entire world. But it really forces us into that discipline of saying, okay, Lord, who is around me in my sphere of influence that you want me to engage with and support and help with this. I cannot fix it all, but can I fix, or can I help and support someone in the midst of this? Who’s near me?

Can I throw one more thing in here? The Grief Bible study is on sale at the AC Bookstore. It’s one of the adapted Bible studies. And, so I wanted to throw that into the mix there too as a resource. I appreciate that. It’s a good study and I would encourage that just the journeying together is a powerful aspect of grief.

If there’s a way to learn and find someone to walk through things together, just a place to talk and share is powerful. Let me share the last verse and then I want closing thoughts and then any questions anyone would have. But I love where Peter takes us here at the end of first Peter.

And he again brings in that big perspective, the God of all grace, who’s called us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. After that you’ve suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, then that word has always caught me, settle you.

Thoughts that you’ve had on your, on your mind, brothers, that you want to share out or any, any kind of final comments before we turn over to questions.

I’ll give one more thought, Arlan, as I’m thinking through. You know, we’ve talked so much about God’s big plan, but I think another piece that is so crucial in this is our diving into the character of God. If I believe God is good, and God is just, and God is love, and God cares, my view is different than if I believe he is distant, with his eyes closed, and unengaged in my suffering. And I know we’ve probably referred to that, but I just rely on my heart to repeat that one more time. That all of these pieces we’ve talked about hinge on the fact, do we have a God whose character is worthy to be trusted?

I really appreciate that, Matt. Fred, any thoughts in closing? No, I just appreciate the time together. It’s been a blessing to me. Thanks for that, and thanks for both of you sharing. Any questions that are out there, if you have a question, please feel free to unmute your mic and share it out. Or Isaac, if there’s any questions that have been chatted in, please feel free to offer those out as well.

We did not promise, as I said at the beginning, to have all the answers to this topic that has been an unanswerable topic in many ways throughout all of history. But hopefully, I heard it once and this has always stuck with me. They said, if something can be discussable, then it can be manageable.

And so hopefully in some ways we’ve helped to make some level of discussion happen with this topic of suffering. And as we engage, as you engage, as God gives you opportunity to walk with individuals through the midst of suffering, or as you walk through suffering yourself, our prayer and our hope is that it can be cradled in that deeper and greater understanding of who God is and the work that he is doing in the midst of it and the promise of redemption that he has in his Scriptures.

Matt and Fred, thanks so much for the time together. Really appreciate it and wish you all God’s blessings this evening. Thank you for being with us.