Finding Significance in Our Suffering

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I’m often amazed by how much people are able to endure and are willing to endure when they see that there’s an end to it and when they see that there is a significance to it, that there’s a payoff, there’s something that they’re moving toward. And I don’t think there’s anything that illustrates this better than childbirth. I mean, are you kidding me?

Now, I’ve never had to go through childbirth, thank the Lord, But it doesn’t look like, you know, I don’t have to be shot either to know I wouldn’t enjoy that. Right? And if it were up to men to bear children, humanity would have died out thousands of years ago.

Right? I’m not sure we would have gotten past the first child. If Adam had to have Cain, then that would have been their only child.

We would have been done there. And yet women are willing to go through this. The pain and the agony.

And for what? it’s because they know that there’s going to be this baby at the end of that pregnancy. And as a matter of fact, are willing to go through it again for another baby.

It’s because we’re willing to endure things that we wouldn’t normally endure because of the significance of it, because it leads to something, because there’s something greater involved. Back in the fall, I talked about our trip to Black Mesa that was on my bucket list. I’ve always wanted to hike to the top of Black Mesa, the highest point in Oklahoma. And we planned on going in October because we thought it would be cool.

But it’s Oklahoma, so it was not. Just like we planned on going hiking yesterday thinking it would be warm, and it was not. So we didn’t.

You can’t plan anything here. It’s like roulette. But that was a long hike, especially once you start heading upward.

And we took Charlie with us, I told you that. That was a mistake, right? Because what I ended up doing was this four-mile up and four-mile back hike carrying this solid four-year-old a big part of the time when it was hot.

And really, we’re dumb. We did not plan on enough water for the trip. And I would have stopped two miles in when I realized how this was going.

You know why I kept going? Because I knew that at some point we were going to get to that big granite obelisk at what you can’t really tell is the highest point in Oklahoma, but you take their word for it. I knew we were going to get to that spot.

Now that may seem like a silly payoff to you, a silly significance to you, but it was important to me, and so we kept going. We’re willing to endure things if we see the significance of it. But even worse than suffering and having to endure is having to endure something when we see no end in sight and we see no payoff to it.

We see no significance to it. We’re just suffering for no reason. That makes it even worse.

That makes it even worse when we’re suffering through something and we don’t see the point to it. I began last week talking to you about the book of Philippians. I’m hearing all these stories talking to various people in our church and outside of our church who are dealing with different struggles in life.

And probably there are more people in this room struggling than not struggling. You just may not be talking about it. But we all go through these things.

We all go through difficulties in life. Sometimes it’s connected to our faith and suffering as a Christian. Sometimes it’s just suffering because that’s the reality of the world.

And hearing all of those stories, I prayed about where to go next with our messages, and I felt like the Lord led me to, we’re going to walk through Philippians together. And so today’s the second message on Philippians, And we come to a point where Paul talks about this idea of significance in our suffering, where he talks about the suffering that he was going through and finding meaning in that. And because of finding that meaning, being able to push forward.

So this morning, if you would turn with me, if you haven’t already, to Philippians chapter 1. And we’re going to start in verse 12 this morning. Philippians chapter 1, if you turn there in your Bibles, if you’re using a device, there should be a link in your bulletin to get you there, or it’ll be on the screen.

And if you would, stand with me once you find it. If you’re able to, and we’ll read together from God’s Word. Philippians 1, 12 through 18 this morning.

Paul says, But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which have happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel. And I want to add there, I like the wording of the King James where it says things have shaken out for the furtherance of the gospel. I just like that phrasing of things.

It always made me think of the game Yahtzee. You never know what the dice are going to do when you shake them out of the cup. And when you shake the circumstances of life out of the cup, you never know what’s going to happen.

And Paul says, Yahtzee, it turned out for the furtherance of the gospel. Who’d have thought? So I like that phrasing in the King James.

But he says here, it’s turned out for the furtherance of the gospel so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard and to all the rest that my chains are in Christ. And most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill. The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains, but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel.

What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached, and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice. And you may be seated.

So the first thing that hit me as I was going back over this passage this week, this is one of those that I’ve read dozens of times. You’ve probably read it dozens of times. And I love it when something pops out at me that I’ve never seen before.

And I don’t mean by that coming up with some new doctrine that nobody’s ever seen before, but just something that’s right there in black and white in the Scriptures that’s easy to move right on by and not even notice. The first thing that popped out at me was here that he says, my chains are in Christ. My chains are in Christ. And that became evident to him and everybody around Paul, that his chains were in Christ. And we need to understand, folks, that when we come to times of suffering, you may be in a time of suffering right now. You may be in a time of struggle.

You may be enduring something that you don’t understand. And what we need to understand is that our circumstances are not in charge. Jesus is.

And so sometimes we look at our circumstances. I do this. And I think, why am I going through this?

God, I shouldn’t be having to deal with this. God, let’s be honest, sometimes I do cause the problems that I’m in. Anybody else or is it just me?

Sometimes I am the cause of those problems. But you know what? There are other things that I have gone through and am going through and will go through that are not of my making. And I look at those things and I get a little angry.

I won’t say I get a little angry at God, but I get a little angry at the circumstances. I get a little to where I’m having a pity party and say, Lord, why am I having to deal with this? I didn’t do anything to cause this.

I’m trying to live for you. I’m trying to be faithful. I’m trying to do the right thing.

I shouldn’t be having to go through this. And I’ll get all worked up in what the circumstances are causing in my life. And, well, I could do this if it just wasn’t for these circumstances.

And before long, it’s like I think the circumstances that I’m dealing with are running the show. But Paul didn’t whine about his chains. He didn’t say, my chains are doing this to me.

He said, my chains are in Christ. The things which have happened to me have actually turned out to the furtherance of the gospel. It almost seems like it would be surprising news to some of them, the way he approaches this. Everything has turned out to the furtherance of the gospel.

We maybe didn’t expect it because we were suffering. Doesn’t that kind of surprise you sometimes when you’re suffering and then you see something good come out of it? And often we think, oh, that’s why that happened.

It’s just in the meantime until we see that, we get a little frustrated. But he says the Lord has actually used this to further the gospel. And he adds there, my chains are in Christ. That means more than just being in prison for being a Christian.

We could say that that’s the cause of his chains being in Christ. Yes, he’s in chains because he belongs to Jesus Christ. That’s why the Romans put him in chains. Because he was preaching the resurrection. He would not stop preaching the resurrection.

And it was causing an uproar every time he preached it. But what this really means is that he is bound for the sake of Christ. As a matter of fact, other places in his letters, he talks about being an ambassador in bonds. He talks about being in bondage.

Not to the world, not to sin, not to the law, but being in bondage to Jesus Christ. Meaning, I work for him. He’s the one in control of me. So when he says here, my chains are in Christ, he’s talking about being there by the will of Jesus Christ to represent Jesus through his suffering.

I don’t know if that makes the suffering feel any better, but it certainly changes our perspective when we realize it’s not that I’m here and if Jesus only realized or cared or paid attention, he’d do something differently. When we realize instead that I’m here because Jesus has allowed it, it ought to change our perspective. Because it means here that for Paul, the Romans are not in control.

They think they are. The Romans don’t have him in bondage. They think they do.

He’s really there because of the will of God. This was the same for Jesus. Pontius Pilate said, don’t you know what I can do to you?

And Jesus said, you could do nothing to me if God didn’t allow it. I’m paraphrasing there a little bit, but they’re not the ones in control. He’s there for one reason.

Paul is in bonds for one reason and one reason only, and that’s that Jesus put him there to fulfill the calling on Paul’s life. Jesus Christ had called Paul for a purpose, and part of carrying out that purpose required him to be in chains at that moment. That’s what that means when he says, my chains, my bonds are in Christ. Folks, we need to remember that our chains are also in Christ. Whatever you are struggling through right now, whatever you’re having to endure, is only there because God caused it or God allowed it.

So you’re saying every bad thing that happens, God caused it? No. I’m not Pat Robertson.

I’m not going to every morning wake up and look at the weather and say, oh, God must not like Oklahoma today. You know, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. But there for a while he was saying every natural disaster was God’s judgment on somebody.

Every bad thing does not mean it’s because God zapped you. but we also need to understand that God didn’t wake up surprised by it in the morning either and it wouldn’t have happened if God hadn’t allowed it it doesn’t mean that he caused it but everything that happens to us God either caused or allowed even sometimes those things that are of our own making God will allow us to deal with the consequences that we’ve gotten ourselves into but our bonds are in Christ we are where we are because of God’s calling on our lives and God being willing to use those circumstances for what we’re supposed to do. Now, we can look at that and we can say, well, that’s awfully mean of Jesus to let me be in this situation.

And that is our natural human instinct to think that way. But if we trust Jesus, if we get to a point where we really trust Him and say, I don’t see what’s coming down the road. I don’t know what this is going to entail.

I don’t know what I’m going to have to deal with or what I’m going to have to go through, but I know you. If we can get ourselves to that point, if we can get ourselves to that kind of faith like Paul had, to say, my bonds are in Christ. And even if I don’t like the bonds, you know what, we don’t have to like the bonds or the chains. We don’t have to like them, but if we’re willing to trust that he knows what he’s doing, and that what he’s doing is ultimately going to turn out for his glory and our good, if we can get to that point, then it should be reassuring for us to recognize that our chains are in Christ. because what we’re enduring is something that He can use for His purposes.

And it doesn’t mean that He enjoys our suffering either. I think sometimes we don’t want to think about Jesus having a hand in our suffering because we confuse that and think, well, He must enjoy watching us suffer. It’s not that He enjoys watching us suffer.

And by the way, there’s nothing we could suffer for Him that even approaches what He suffered for us. But we’re not here because He enjoys our suffering. We’re here because the Savior who loves us and who died for us has chosen us to endure this present hardship so that He can use it to bring something good out of the situation.

And we may think, well, where is it? We may get to see it or we may not. We may not understand until.

. . What is that song?

We’ll understand it better by and by. We may not understand until by and by. We may not understand until we’re out of this world.

But it’s not because He enjoys our suffering. It’s because He’s chosen to use us in His work. And He suffered to accomplish His purposes.

He suffered far more than we ever will to accomplish His purposes. And we have the privilege even if it doesn’t feel that way. Let me tell you, there are some things in my life that do not feel like a privilege.

Can I tell you, I was just whining to God about some of it this morning. Things that do not feel like a privilege. Don’t worry, it’s none of y’all.

Things that do not feel like a privilege, and yet we are privileged to be called to serve in His work. So He’s called us to be here and to endure so He can bring something good out of it. Now how can this be?

How can it be that something good comes out of things that are so terrible sometimes? Well, Paul gives us a couple of examples of how this worked in his own life. First of all, Jesus can use our circumstances to reach the lost. He can use our circumstances to bring people who don’t know Him and who are destined for an eternity separated from God to a point where they are reconciled to God and have real hope.

He says this in verses 12 through 13 where he says, I want you to know these things have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard and to all the rest that my chains are in Christ. Paul endured the hardship of imprisonment. He was under arrest. He was imprisoned. He was probably beaten.

and who was there to watch this day in and day out? It says the palace guards. If you know Roman history, we’re talking about the Praetorian guards.

We’re talking about people who were some of the scariest troops of that time. They were the ones that protected the emperors. They were an elite squad.

And they would rotate through on guard duty. Guess what? They thought they had Paul captive, but they were really the captive audience.

because Paul’s attitude was, I’m going to preach the gospel. What are you going to do to me? What, are you going to throw me in jail?

You’re already beating me. What, are you going to beat me some more? Paul even said, if they kill me, I just go to be with Jesus.

If they let me live, I just get to stay here and keep telling people about Jesus. So let me ask you, who was really captive, Paul or the Praetorian Guard? They both were in different ways.

But Paul had a captive audience. But he wasn’t just there to irritate them. as they held him captive and they treated him like a captive, they got to watch how he responded to that treatment.

They got to watch how he reacted to things. They got to watch how he lived. They got to watch how he went through day by day.

They got to hear his message of hope that he had. They got to hear him continue willingly to preach the gospel, even though it had already gotten him in so much trouble. And they saw this intense dedication that Paul had to Jesus Christ. Do you think they thought that was a little weird?

You’re in there being imprisoned and beaten by the Praetorian guard for this message. Most things I’d probably stop talking about after a while. There are some things that I like talking about, that I’ll have a conversation with anybody about.

But if you’re going to start beating me, I’ll probably learn to keep my mouth shut. For Paul, it wasn’t just that he enjoyed talking about Jesus, but he was dedicated to Jesus. And over time, Paul says even they began to realize what was going on here.

Even the Praetorian guard began to realize why he was in there and that he was in there to further the gospel. Some of them, I’m sure, had conversations about the gospel with Paul. Some of them may have even come to know Jesus.

Not just the palace guard, but everybody that was around. He said that his relationship to Jesus had, in verse 13, become evident to the whole palace guard and to all the rest. And he said this whole thing, everything that he went through was for the furtherance of the gospel so that the gospel would advance. So that the gospel, so that the message of Jesus Christ would make inroads into the darkest places where it had never been before.

Paul’s suffering meant that numerous people who were unlikely ever to have heard otherwise had the opportunity to hear and to believe the gospel. Now let me ask you, in your own circumstances, in your own chains that are in Christ, Is there any reason that God cannot use those in a similar fashion so that others around you will have an opportunity to know Jesus? Some of the worst things that have ever happened to me have been on the other side opportunities for me to engage people with the gospel that I never would have had under any other circumstances.

I had a man show up at church one day years ago. I was preaching on Sunday after we had just lost my second child, a stillbirth at 38 weeks, and I believe that was on Thursday. And you may think I’m nuts for being at church on Sunday preaching after that, but I had to have something to do to not go crazy.

And preparing messages filled that gap. I had a man show up at church that Sunday. His family had dragged him in there because everything he was going through, they were worried that he was going to be a suicide risk.

And they brought him to me before church, and I sat down and was asking him questions and was willing to talk to him. And the man was a police officer, very tough guy. He looked at me and said, why would I want to talk to you?

You don’t know anything about how hard my life has been. I said, no, sir, I don’t. And I’m sorry that you feel that way.

Just know that I’m here if you want to talk. And I got up and preached. And I preached the Word.

I preached an unplanned message on the book of Job and talked a little bit about my son. and that was hard. That was rough.

But that man came back to me right after church and said, I had no idea. And our circumstances were not the same. But suddenly he didn’t see me as a, I don’t know what, 24-year-old punk kid who had never been through anything bad in my life.

He realized I could relate to the idea of suffering, even if it wasn’t exactly the same as his own. And I got to share the gospel with that man. You may be going through something incredibly difficult today that you don’t understand.

And the fact that you don’t understand it or see any purpose to it, man, it just seems to make it that much worse. But let me tell you, don’t lose hope. Don’t lose hope because you don’t know how God intends to use that suffering.

If you’ll just realize your chains are in Him and adopt that approach to things and say, Lord, use it however you want to. I don’t have to enjoy it. I don’t have to like it.

I just have to let you use it. And then very quickly, he gives another example of how this had worked in his own life. And I told you I was going to try to be quick.

I started my timer when I got up here, and apparently I didn’t hit the button in the right spot. So I have no idea how long I’ve been talking. But I’m going to move through this as quickly as I can.

Here’s his second example. That Jesus can use our circumstances to strengthen our fellow believers. Paul said in verse 14, and most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.

So there were others around Paul who were already believers, who watched how he kept going. They watched everything he suffered. They watched everything he endured.

They watched him persist in preaching the gospel and serving Christ and loving Christ and being obedient to Christ. They watched this and they thought, well, if he can do it, why can’t I? There’s something about courage. When we see another person stand up, we tend to be more willing to stand up too.

It’s always the first one over the edge of the trench that is the hardest. But they saw Paul and all that he was willing to endure, and they said, we can do that too. The very fact of his imprisonment stiffened their resolve. I’m sure that was the opposite of what the Romans intended to do.

By the way, that happens a lot in countries all over the world. I doubt anybody from Russia or China are watching on our feed today, but if you are, persecuting the. .

. Here’s a little history lesson for you. The more you try to persecute Christians, the more Christianity breaks out and spreads.

It’s just the way it’s always worked. They thought they were going to break the resolve of the Christians by keeping Paul in prison, and yet others looked at it and said, if he can do it, we can do it too. As a result, they went out and preached Jesus, and they went out and preached with a boldness that they had been missing up to that point.

And the gospel continued to spread, And that spread is directly attributed to the way Paul handled his circumstances. To the way Paul endured. To the way Paul didn’t just lay down and die and have a pity party and say, I don’t know why I’m going through this.

My life is so hard. My life is so miserable. I don’t deserve this.

I don’t see any end in sight. I don’t see any purpose in it. Paul didn’t lay down and get bitter and weep.

Paul kept on loving Jesus and kept on serving and kept on keeping his eyes on Jesus. and as a result, the gospel spread. And others were inspired to step forward and pick up the banner of the cross and keep marching on.

You don’t know today how your endurance and how your suffering and the way you live for Jesus amid those things, even when you don’t understand why it’s going on, you don’t know how that will affect somebody else, how that will encourage somebody else, how that will strengthen somebody else to do what they’re supposed to do. And if God could use Paul’s circumstances to strengthen his brothers and sisters in Christ, is there any reason in this world why God could not use your circumstances to strengthen those around you? We are tempted, as I said, to get discouraged and to get bitter when we run into these times of suffering that we don’t understand, we can’t explain, we don’t see any end to.

That’s our natural inclination. or we can do what Paul did, what God strengthened him to do, and we can rejoice when Jesus is glorified and the gospel is proclaimed. He said in verses 15 through 17, some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, some also from goodwill.

He said some people are out here not serving for the right reasons, and some of them preach from selfish ambition, not sincerely supposing to add affliction to my chains. So not only are some people out here doing it for the wrong reasons, Some people are out here trying to make life harder for me. And through their ministry, they think that they’re doing something to make life harder for me.

But his response in verse 18 is, what then? In other words, what am I supposed to do about it? Only in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached.

And in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice. He said, what am I supposed to do about this? That people keep piling on.

That it just keeps getting worse. That I don’t see any end in sight. What am I supposed to do about this?

Nothing. I’m just going to rejoice that whatever the circumstances are, God’s working them out so that Jesus Christ is preached. That gave Paul hope.

It caused him to rejoice despite his suffering. When is the last time that you sat down in a time of intense suffering and rejoiced about it? Yeah, I’m not asking that to be mean because I have a hard time thinking of when it was for me either.

But Paul was able to rejoice despite his suffering. It doesn’t erase our suffering. It doesn’t mean that our suffering doesn’t count or it doesn’t matter, but it gives it a worthwhile purpose.

As I said at the beginning, that’s what makes it worse. Not what we’re suffering. That’s not the worst part.

It’s thinking there’s no reason for it. There’s no purpose. There’s no benefit to it.

It gives it a worthwhile purpose when we know that our suffering, the things we struggle through, are being used by God to introduce other people to Jesus. So that people who don’t know Him can find the hope that we have even in our suffering. Because even in our suffering, we do have a hope that those circumstances can’t take away.

And that’s the fact that Jesus Christ died to save sinners. When we deserve to be separated from God because of our sin, because of our disobedience, Jesus Christ took responsibility for all of that sin. And he was punished in our place.

He was nailed to the cross. He shed his blood and died so that we could be forgiven. And he rose again three days later to prove it.