Understanding God's Purposes for Suffering: 7 Steps Part 1 with Randy Bell

God's purpose for suffering is to develop character and bring about righteousness.

Suffering is a sign of God's love and a guarantee that He loves you.

God uses suffering to correct and discipline His children, to bring them to holiness and make them partakers of His righteousness.

Suffering can be a source of strength and comfort, not just a source of pain and hardship.

Thank you. Thank you. Now, if you remember, if you've been with us, we've been trying to establish through the Scripture, looking at 1 John and 2 Peter, that God has revealed there's actually four phases of the Christian life. Obviously, you must be born again before any of this has any impact on your life. But once you're born again, the phase one is your deliverance from sin. And God, in his intention, begins working immediately. His will is that you turn from all sin and follow him. And so phase one is that beginning. Phase two begins character development, character change, so that it's not just a half-hearted change, but it's a consistent life-altering event in your life that on all avenues you're strong in character, becoming like Christ in every aspect of life. Now, really you can use the word suffering here because this is really what we need to look at when we think about it. The word suffering is what God uses to develop your character. Unpopular in subject matter, but this is the truth. In the old days, that's how parents used to raise their children. They would spank them. That would be called suffering to the child. It seemed unhappily or not joyful to have that kind of hand upon you. But that is God's method that we explain here. He uses suffering in your life to bring about your character. So number one, God's hand of suffering causes character change because his desire is to develop in you not knowledge, but that you actually are in action and character in life, being righteous in all your activities. Now, failure to understand suffering will produce bitterness. You'll literally not like it when somebody does something to bother you or offend you. Bitterness will be not the proper response God wants you to take from suffering. That's the human level that will bring destruction and cost you. If you look at suffering as God's hand of mercy or grace, you should say, then you might understand. God's grace is the divine influence of his hand coming upon you to cause you to have a desire first, and then the strength or the power to accomplish his will. Now, if you understand that definition, you'll understand what we're saying here, that when we say grace is being influenced upon you, God doesn't take a magic wand and hit you and give you a change. He instead brings suffering in your life to push you to listen to his voice. Just like a parent punishes a child to force them or push them into obedience for their good. That's what he explained as we read Hebrews. So you must learn that God's purpose for suffering. And first, there's a first one I want you to think through on as we talk about it today. Number one, you must learn that God's purpose for suffering is your guarantee that God loves you. You must see that suffering and see we don't connect those two, do we? We say, Lord, give me a good life. Bless my family. Bless my home. That means no suffering. We want it to have good stuff, right? That's what we're thinking of when we say, God, bless me. But literally, when we just read Hebrews, and let me look back at the Scripture again. It said, for whom the Lord loves, he does what? He chastens. So you can't get past that statement, can you? The one that God loves, he chastens. That's what it says right there in Hebrews. He brings to you, bears upon you, chastening. And it says, scourges every son whom he receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father does not chasten? See, over and over again it says it. God takes and brings to bear upon you suffering or chastening upon you because that's a sign that he loves you. Therefore, if you do not have that experience in your life, that means God does not love you. That's what it says, right? Are we with it there? Does that make sense? So you must understand, if you don't feel that God pressures you to do right, if you don't sense that he brings circumstances to crunch you, to make you go his way, then you need to think, maybe God doesn't love me. Maybe I'm not really in. And that's what actually Hebrews says as we look at it a little further. So remember, three kind of key words in this portion that are very clear is number one, chasing. It literally means training. And by implication of the Greek language, it means discipline correction. That's where we get the idea of spanking. And that's what he's illustrating, that a father takes care of children here. Secondly, here in Hebrews, he writes the word rebuked in the King James. It says God also rebukes those he loves, meaning that he will literally convince, tell them their fault and pressure them that they're wrong. Trying to convince us to change our direction. Third word is the word scourge, which is the most scariest. That literally is the same word they used when they flogged Jesus before they crucified him. Literally, it's saying that God will come breaking into your life to stop you from doing evil. This is a great comfort. You know, this should be telling you this is God at work. He won't allow you to keep doing that if you're really his. Now, if you're a wicked hypocrite, you go on and on in your sin and nothing will happen. But if you're truly his, God won't let you get on with it. His grace does not stop. It comes after you with full force to bring you to correction, to correctness. So as you must learn to understand this, when we look at the scripture here, it says, For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and he does it for your profit. Notice, for our prophet, that we might be partakers of one thing, his holiness. The whole reason that God will pressure you and cause you to suffer is that you truly experience his righteousness or his holiness. In other words, that you become truly like Jesus. No longer talk, but walk. That's the key. Now look at how it's stated then. It says, when you realize God's love and suffering, you become stronger. because instead of having the understanding that God's really doing something for you, you can think, oh, God must hate me or God doesn't love me. I have no hope. And you get discouraged and you break down thinking God has abandoned you. Instead, God is at your side correcting you, pushing you along. That's a good sign of His love. He's there with you, not only just abstractly watching, his hand is involved in your life, pushing you along to do what's right. See what is different? That's what shows love. He's really there, right, involved in your life in the everyday situations. And it says because of that, he says strengthen the hands which you hang down. Stop being discouraged over this. Be excited that God actually is punishing you That means he loves you I know it doesn sound right does it But be excited that he punishing you because he actually is loving you So stop being discouraged Get your heads up there Stop being feeble on your knees and get your past straight. Chase, let him do what he wants with you and work with him on it. Now, verse 8 says, But if you are without chastening, of which all become partakers, you are illegitimate and not sons. There's where we get the idea. If you're not receiving these punishments from him, the suffering of his hand, you are actually not really his child. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect, as we noticed there. Now look down in the note here at the bottom. It says, a harvest of fruit which consists in righteousness will come if you submit to God's hand of punishment or suffering or discipline or chastening, whichever area it has to be. It doesn't always have to be scourging, but scourging can be a part of it. It doesn't have to always be chastening. It can be just correction by verbally you hear the word of God, talking to you to change, but he'll go to whatever level it takes to make you change your lifestyle or your direction. Therefore, second issue here then is suffering is God's way of getting your attention. God uses suffering to get your attention when you're not listening to him when he's trying to tell you his truth. God's stiffest competition for your time, for your attention, and for your heart, in other words, your passion, is the cares of this world. The cares of this world choke out your love for God. Look at Matthew 13 if you want to open your Bibles or look up here either one, but follow through the wording of Jesus to understand why this is such a concern to him. It says, listen to the meaning of the parable of the sower. While anyone is hearing the word of the kingdom and does not grasp and comprehend it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart snatches it away this is what was sown along the roadside that is simply the person who just rejects hearing anything about it so we're not worried about that person right now we're worried about the next section verse 20 and for what was sown on thin rocky soil this is he who hears the word and at once welcomes and accepts it with joy The person who gets excited about hearing about Jesus and comes to church is what we're talking about. Church people. And it says they're excited. They hear the word at once and welcome and accept it. Yet it has no real root in him and is temporary and it only lasts but a short while because when affliction or trouble or persecution comes on account of the word, at once he is caused to stumble. Notice what we talked about. when you see suffering, it's for God's giving you His love, His correction, is what we said in Hebrews. He says here, but some people, they get excited about church, but the moment they're brought to a place of suffering or trouble, they say, I'm out of here. I don't want this. That's a sign of being illegitimate, it says, not really a kid. Because as it goes on and explains up through verse 21 and 22 here, it says that as for what was sown among thorns, And here's the competition for your heart. What he uses the term thorns or weeds. This is he who hears the word, but the cares of this world and the pleasure and delight and glamour and deceitfulness of riches choke and suffocate the word and it yields no fruit. No fruit. And as for what was sown on good soil, then it talks about the person who definitely hears and receives. The competition that God is talking about in this section is the things of this world. The things of money, the things you can buy, the houses and the stuff and the pleasures and the things. This is exactly what Jesus warns are a choking factor that will ruin you spiritually. That's what He's saying. So therefore, because it's such an overpowering power in our world, especially America, He has to in many cases bring suffering to get your attention. He will have to crunch you and pressure you to get your attention off of the things that you want to hold and play with and so forth. Therefore, God's stiffest competition for your time and attention is the cares of this world. They do choke out the word. And therefore, while you're busy with your career plans, your personal goals, your projects, and your relationships with people around you, God patiently is trying to teach you basic principles. In Jeremiah 35, it says, The command which Jonadab, son of Rechab, gave to his sons not to drink wine has been carried out and established as a custom for more than 200 years. To this day, they drink no wine. But they have obeyed their father's command. But I, even I, have persistently spoken to you, but you have not listened to or obeyed me. Notice God speaking through the prophets saying to Israel in this example, I've talked to you over and over and over again. You will not listen to me. You will not listen. I can give you examples of people in my country who they even listened to their father tell them something that's not popular in our day. And they obeyed. But you will not listen to me and follow my instructions. This is the very thing. And if you follow the context of Jeremiah, it goes on to explain then God brought judgment to Israel. Affliction and suffering to force them to listen. Correct? Now, this is what we're saying God is teaching out of Hebrews. He will bring chastisement to you. He will bring suffering to you when you will not listen. People in America choose to make excuses for what they do. They do not necessarily listen to the teaching of God. Therefore, God brings pressure upon you to force you into that level. And that's a good thing if you're again. It'll happen if you're truly born again. So when suffering comes, we are suddenly faced with problems. That's what he's talking about. You are faced with problems in your life. Pressure is too big for you to personally solve. You can't handle it. You can't deal with it. You do not have a way to take care of the issue. Your response, according to what God wants at this point, is for you, like in Psalm 25, to say, Oh Lord, I bring you my life. Oh my God, I trust, I lean on, I rely on, I am confident in you. Let me not be put to shame or be disappointed. Let me not be defeated here. And it goes on to say, let not my enemies triumph over me. The point of him getting your attention is he's trying to force you to cry out to him, make changes. That's why the point is so big. The suffering is bigger than you can handle. Does that make sense? Why? God loves you and needs to change you. Exactly, He needs to change you. But you're not listening. And you see your troubles, but you won't go to His solutions. You suffer the consequence and don't connect them together. You don't see them as God's hand of bringing you discipline. You just think it's some kind of the devil attacking you, life's just got problems you don't see the connection of God's sovereignty but you must understand God is sovereign in your life everything that happens He brings to you nothing happens to you as a child of his without him taking it right That if you understand how big he is then you understand This is why it says in Hebrews, God brings discipline in your life. Now, as he continues to get your attention, remember, suffering continues and human strength gets weaker, right? The harder it comes, the weaker you become when you cannot solve those issues. Human solutions are not effective. The Lord's call becomes real to you only when you finally give in. I've tried everything to get around this issue and I can't make it happen. I can't solve this problem. These problems are growing to a point where they're breaking me and I can't make any difference. Well, it's perfect because this is the call of Jesus. He said, come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, I'll give you rest. Do you have rest? Or do you find yourself crushed under the circumstances of life? If you're being crushed, hear his voice. He's calling to you to come to him for solution. God's final purpose in this thing to get your attention for the suffering is to get your attention to actually conform to the Christ-likeness that he's trying to teach in you. Character. Be like the Lord Jesus. All suffering works for your benefit. The Bible says in Romans, all things work together for good, doesn't it? For those who love God and are called according to his purpose. That means the suffering is working for your good. Just like daddy when you were little caused you to suffer when you disobeyed. It was for your good. Same here. The things that are coming on and pressing you in your life are for your good because you're not listening. He has to turn up the pressure to bend you. That's true character because when you break, you've been broken for good. You've been moved on to the situation. And remember, we've said this a lot of times as an illustration. The old-fashioned shepherds of Israel used to have problems with certain sheep that would never obey them. They constantly wandered off, got lost, in trouble. They had to keep chasing him down, trying to solve the issue of why they were gone, afraid that the foxes or the wolves were going to destroy them. They found a simple solution. They literally took that sheep and broke his leg. Physically harmed that sheep. Then they mended it, and they wrapped it. And then, for the next six weeks, they carried that sheep on their shoulders personally. And as they carried that sheep around, they fed him, they watered him personally, and he stayed right with that guy on his shoulder because he couldn't do anything. He was harmed by or suffered the consequence of his disobedience. When the healing was over and they unwrapped it, they put that sheep down. You know, that sheep never, ever left the side of that shepherd again. He was always at his heels with him forever. Obedient and there with him. They learned that suffering brought obedience. And so in the same case for you, if you see that example, you will be brought to suffering if you're truly his child because it's the only way he's honestly going to teach you to be obedient because otherwise you'll wander and chase after the cares of this world. Your heart will be after the cares of this world. You will not be brought to a place of true walking or in obedience with the Lord Jesus. Now, thirdly, suffering also, God brings your way, is for the simple idea to cause you to examine yourself. To examine yourself. Because the Bible says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. You can't see yourself generally. You're blind to your problem. Everybody else can see how bad-mouthed you are or whatever. They see you, but you can't see yourself. You make excuses, you justify what you've done, and you've got all these reasons why it's okay for you to do what you're doing, but you don't hear or obey God when others notice. It's a blind spot. Suffering is a way to call you to examine and truly look at yourself. And I want to give you a couple illustrations of what it means here. First of all, in 1 Corinthians 11, talking about communion, it states that if you were searchingly examined yourselves or ourselves detecting your shortcomings, you should not be judged and penalty decreed by the divine judgment of God. But when we fall short and are judged by the Lord, here it goes. Here's the same thing. We are disciplined and chastened so that we may not be condemned with the world. God brings self-examination to you or encourages you to do it because He does not want you to be condemned. So He will bring chastening, again, pressure to you to make you suffer. Revelation 3.19 says, Those whom I love, I tell their faults and convict and convince and reprove and chasten them, according to Revelation. So be enthusiastic and in earnest and burning with zeal and repent. Examination is to call you to turn away from what you're doing. Now, self-examination must be done by comparing yourself to what the Bible says. It's not to sit around and examine and ponder whether you think you're doing pretty good for yourself. You're not here to say, well, I think I'm doing all right. I think I've done well. What's the big deal? I am not here to compare myself to others or compare myself to what I think is good. The comparison or examination always comes by looking at the Word of God. Think about what a court case. Now, when you go to court and face a judge, are you examined according to what you feel? Do you get up there and the judge say, well, how do you feel about your shoplifting? Oh, I feel pretty good, judge. Okay, you're off. You're not examined by what you feel. Or what do you think? Well, I needed it, so I feel I did a good job. Now, I'm sorry. You're not measured by what you think. What about, do they measure in the court law by what other people think? You're measured by what the law says, correct? The only thing that matters is, did you break the law or did you obey the law? And the whole point of going to a judge in court is to see, first of all, if you are guilty and did break the law, then you'll be brought to punishment, correct? That's what it's about. Well, the same thing here. You are to get it in your mind once and for all to examine yourself. You look at the Bible. The Bible is what gives you the place of comparison to see if you can examine yourself to see whether you are obedient or not. Let me give you example number one. If things are not going well for you, if you're finding yourself struggling, things are not going well at all, well, look at the Scripture. Now, could it be that you have dishonored your parents? Because if you go to Ephesians chapter 6, we find these clear statements. Honor your father and mother, which is coming out of the Ten Commandments, he's quoting. Honor your father and mother, that it may go well with you. If you did not honor your father and mother, it says it will not go well with you. Therefore, you can measure your life and say, things have not gone well with me ever since I left home. You need to examine yourself and think, well, how did I treat my parents? Did I honor them back then? How did I honor them? Did I show them obedience? Did I show them respect did I follow the scriptural concept of being honorable to them If you did not yes your life from that point is going to show problems and not going well with your life Therefore, what does God want you to do once you examine yourself and find out that things aren't going well, and this is a good reason why, what do you do? What is God after now that you examine it? What does He want you to do about it? Repent and change. Make restitution. Go back to your parents, correct things. Yeah, that is what he's talking about. The Bible gives the reason to examine yourself, shows you exactly why. You can take and look at your life and say, hmm, this makes sense. Things have not went well. Here's a good answer to what that is. That is examine yourself by biblical concept. Now, notice what it says. God requires that we search out, confess, and forsake every sin. According to Proverbs 28, it says, he who covers his transgressions will not prosper, will not gain anything from God, but whoever confesses and forsakes his sins will obtain mercy. So what you have to do in your life, you must not keep making excuses, covering your sin, blaming others for your problem, blaming others for why you're having a situation. You must admit it. That's what confession means. When there's a confession into the police station, that means a guy admits he did evil, he did wrong. He's confessing to his crimes. This is the same thing. You have to confess your crime before God. I did not honor my parents in this example. Therefore, I'm wrong in what I did. I asked God to forgive me. Now you have to go back and make it right. That's what restitution is, isn't it? Remember back years ago here when we had our place broken to and they stole all our stuff and they caught the people. They found their stuff down at a pawn shop in Fort Pierce. that guy that did that he took his thumbprint and put it on the paper when he sold the goods to the pawn shop so they had him red handed took him to court, they called me up as a pastor made me go to court, he came in in chains he was convicted for his crimes of being a thief he was sent to jail and then he was ordered to make restitution well it didn't last long we did receive one check in the mail for about 15 bucks for restitution. But he did have a command to make restitution. Now, I don't know if he ended up going back to... I never heard after that, but we did get one check for restitution. But even in law today, restitution is a part of it. But see, God looks at you and says, that's not... Throwing a couple bucks in is not restitution when you harm somebody. Restitution is making sure what you pay in restitution is equal to the crime you made. He's looking for you, and he seeks in his will is for you to be like Jesus. Right? And that's thorough and complete and up to snuff so that no one could put their finger in your face and say, you offended me, and you never tried to make it right. Is that correct? He expects you to go back in restitution so you can look him in the eye, and you've done exactly like Christ would have done to that person. And that's a lot of restitution in many cases. I remember when I first became a Christian at 19, I began to feel a lot of conviction and guilt. And I found myself having to go back to old girlfriends that I offended. And I had to make restitution and an apology to them because of my pride and selfishness and the way I treated people. I was very evil. And so I had to go back and find these girls and other people too and make restitution. That's a hard thing to do. That's a hard thing to do. But God says, this is part of what I'm saying. Make sure that things are corrected. This is the reason for suffering. God will press you to this, first by guilt, then by His Spirit talking to you in His Word. If you don't listen, He brings suffering your way because a whole thing is grace is pressing you to the point of physically forcing you to do what's right. Isn't that grace? Causing you to have the desire and the strength to do what's right. See, we don't understand grace. Grace is an impacting force that's beyond words. It goes into great action by God to making you and He won't let up. He's relentless. If you don't hear it one way, He brings further force. If you don't listen there, He brings a bigger hand against you until He brings you to a place where you repent and obey. Does that make sense, everybody? And I want you to see this is clearly a part of character development, phase two. And if you're there, you need to understand that God's going to keep keeping you in phase two until you get through it. Now let me give you a second example so you understand how important this is. Self-examination is done by comparing your actions and attitudes to the Word of God to every part you can see. Look at example two. Evil will not depart from your household is what you notice in your life. It seems like you have the worst problems of your life. You think of different people maybe that seem like evil never stops. Somebody gets busted for this. And then hard times fall upon. I mean, evil seems to just crush them at every step. And they see that, or you see that even in your household or your relatives. Well, we go to Scripture to compare this again. We go to say a simple question. Have you rewarded evil to someone who did good to you? Now, where do you get that from? Proverbs 17, 13. Whoever rewards evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house. Whoa. When someone does goodness towards you, and instead you take advantage of them, think of all the cons and all that kind of stuff, and you turn back to them and do evil to them, God says he so hates that that you will be brought to a place where evil will not depart from your house. You will find that chasing you all your days. Again, remember, that's unless you repent. This is what happens until you fall before God and ask his forgiveness. But otherwise, that's constantly a pressure of God or a consequence of disobedience toward the ways of God. Does that make sense? And it doesn't say you have to be a Christian. In fact, I hope that's not. the wicked of this world do these things and they suffer the consequences in their life all their days from this very thing. Understand that this is a principle of God that will come upon you. The crashing upon your head, this will be brought to your life to bear upon you. And you must see it. If you can examine the word, you say, whoa, I never realized that all these troubles I've had in my life has to do with how I treated that person back when I was in college. Whoa, I need to make this correct. See, again, showing you that once you've done something, it doesn't say you have to do it a hundred times, but if any time you reward evil for good from someone, you have then brought this curse, if you want to call it, this punishment upon your head. Now. Thank you.

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