Teach Them to Suffer Well, Part 1

Well, I want to start our little journey out together, if you will, with a hypothetical, but morbid set of questions. How is that? All right? It’s hypothetical, but these are morbid questions.

The hypothetical situation is this, but I want you to really do it with me. I don’t want you to lean back and go, Well, it’s hypothetical. I want you to engage and say to yourself, here is the hypothetical situation: if you knew, with absolute certainty, that you would die exactly three hundred and sixty-five days from today. Okay, have you got it?

Exactly three hundred and sixty-five days from now, to the minute, you would have a massive, not painful, heart attack, and you would be dead, and you would be translated, if you’re a follower of Jesus, into the very presence of God. With that as the hypothetical situation, I have three questions.

Question number one: who are the top five people you feel most responsible to prepare for your passing?

Question number two: what would you want to pass on to them in the next three hundred and sixty-five days to bless and promote their success after you’re gone?

You ready for question number three? It gets more morbid. When you make them up yourself, you can make them as morbid as you want. Question number three: if you died exactly twenty-four hours from now, instead of one year from now, what would you most regret that you did not pass on to those you love? What would it be?

Here’s the fact. The fact is, you and I are passing on who we are, and what we value, and what we possess every single day.

In reality, most followers of Christ have given far more thought and energy into developing a game plan to transfer their wealth than they have their faith or their values.

And isn’t it interesting that we are really concerned about who gets money, but how concerned are we that they get our faith? And that they get our values? And they get the kind of stuff that money can’t buy?

Yet the apostle Paul commands his son in the faith, Timothy, to do just that. To pass on what matters most. Notice what he says in 2 Timothy 2:2. “Timothy, the things you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust,” or “pass on these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

He was talking about the principle of transfer. He was talking, in our day, about syncing something. He was talking about, Look, Timothy, let me give you the picture. God has uploaded the truth of His Spirit and these values in my life, in my relationship with Christ, and the application to every area in every relationship, and it’s been uploaded, supernaturally, by the Holy Spirit and the Word of God and the community of the saints, I have a responsibility and, Timothy, the reason I asked you to hang out with me, I am downloading into you in your soul.

I want you, now, to upload it, to get it practical, and I want you to download it to others. But not just anybody, but to others who are faithful, so that they will do – what? They will download it to others. Transfer. Transfer. Transfer.

So, let me ask you: what are you going to leave your kids? Will it give them what they need to make the kind of choices and the kind of decisions that will allow them to be God’s man, God’s woman in their generation?

The apostle Paul talks a lot about life as a race. In 1 Corinthians 9, he talks about running a race and not wanting to be disqualified. When he gets to the very end of his life, 2 Corinthians chapter 4, he says, “I have run the race, I have fought the fight,” and this picture of a race is not only just finishing well, but Paul sees life as a relay race.

And he sees that the relay race is the truth and the life of Christ deposited in him – is like a baton that he has to pass on to the next runner. And see, that’s where failure in the race usually occurs. It’s in the exchange. And what we are going to talk about in our time together, is, What is it that really needs to be passed on? And how practically do you pass it on to those that you love the most?

And you’ll see here, it says: “Five core values that we must pass on to the next generation.”

And I remember a very sobering moment. It was a number of years ago and some of you remember the Columbine shootings. And I was pastoring a church at the time in California. It was growing very rapidly and lots of people were coming and I had kids at all different age levels. And I remember thinking, because of the nature of the people who committed those crimes and what happened, I remember asking myself, What is it that I want to pass on to my kids and what is it that I want to pass on to the church that money could never buy?

And I began to think and pray and by that time, I had been a Christian quite a few years and a pastor for a number of years. And I realized, You know what? At the end of the day, it’s not all these little rules or it’s not how often they do this. And it’s not this external behavior. And it’s not how often they go to church, it’s not that they just read their Bible here, or if they do this, or if they learn to give off the top. All those are practical things.

But what I realized is, there are values. And if there were some core values that you could upload, in your heart, from God – and download into their hearts, and they were really a part of who they were, you wouldn’t have to worry about anything else.

And as I began to pray and ponder that, I realized what I really wanted to pass on to my kids, my grandkids, my friends, and the disciples in the church, I wanted them to learn to suffer well. I want them to learn to work unto the Lord. I want them to learn to manage their wealth wisely. I wanted to teach them to make wise decisions. And I wanted to have them learn to live grace-filled lives.

And I just can’t wait to share those five things in our time. And just not what they are, but how do you pass them on?

And so let’s start with, it says, “Radical, sustained change always begins with our thinking, not our behavior.” And I really want to emphasize this. In our day and especially among Christians, I think we have overemphasized behavior. And out of our fears, we want our kids or the person we are discipling or our grandkids or our friends or the people in the women’s group or the men’s accountability group: their behavior, their behavior, what are they doing? What are they doing? What are they doing? What are they doing?

And somehow we get to thinking if we can just get them reading the Bible, and praying, and giving, and going to things, and maybe even a short-term missions trip… and we focus on this exterior.

And, by the way, no problem. All those things, when done for the right reason, are very, very, very wonderful conduits of grace.

Lasting change always starts with your thinking, not your behavior. When the apostle Paul wanted to teach about how lasting, supernatural change occurs, after eleven chapters of truth, he opens up Romans chapter 12 and says, “It begins with offering yourself as a living sacrifice.” And then he says, “Don’t be conformed any longer to this world, but be transformed,” it doesn’t say, “by going to church more often.” It doesn’t say, “By trying harder.” It doesn’t say, “By cleaning up your externals.”

“But be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” It’s a change of perspective. It’s realizing God is on your team. It’s looking at sin differently. It’s realizing that the things the world offers are cheap and insignificant and won’t pay off and you agree with God about those things.

He changes how you think. And He says, “By the renewing of your mind, and then you will test,” literally: experience or approve, “what God’s will is – that which is good, acceptable, and perfect.”

And so, what we are going to talk about, and I just want to get this on the table early is, this is not going to be a bunch of different things we can get people to start doing. Now, they will do things. But what you want to do is give them a new worldview. You want to give them a completely new perspective. And so that’s what we are going to talk about.

Transferable concept number one, and this may sound strange, but, “Teach them to suffer well.” Teach them to suffer well.

We have raised a generation of people, when they think of suffering, the only concept they can think of is how to get out of it, how to limit it, and how to avoid it. And unfortunately, it’s not biblical and unfortunately, it sets them up with really bad expectations.

We need to help people understand: life is going to be hard and filled with trouble. But God is good.

Jot, if you will, Psalm 84:11, next, in your notes, to, “God is good.” “The Lord God is a sun and a shield; the Lord gives grace and glory. No, no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.” He has a good plan for us, He loves us, He is for us, He delights to be generous to us. But it’s in the context of a difficult world.

Second, life is unjust, but God is sovereign. Sovereign is the key word. Life is not fair.

But God’s in control. Luke 13, you might jot down. A group of people came to Jesus and said, “Hey, what is going on here? Did you hear about this? The Tower of Siloam fell on this certain group of people.” And Jesus said, “Well, do you think they were more unrighteous than other people?” His point is, it’s a fallen world. Bad things, are you ready for this? Non-Christians get cancer. Are you ready for this? Christians get cancer.

Non-Christians get hit by drunk drivers. Are you ready? Christians get hit by drunk drivers. The economy caves in. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think, Was it isolated? Only non-believers’ 401(k)s are now 101(k)s. Right? It’s a fallen world.

But God is in control. Romans 8:28: He will work all things together for good,” – to whom? “to those that are called, to those that love Him.” But the good isn’t always external circumstances going your way. The ultimate good is He will use everything – what? To make you like His Son. Because God’s primary agenda is to make you holy, not happy. Now, there is a lot of happiness that comes with it.

Let me give you the Old Testament roots of this, it’s Genesis 37 through 50. It’s the story of Joseph. Now, think about this. There are fifty chapters in the book of Genesis. This is the most foundational book of all of Scripture. Almost every major doctrine is introduced in Genesis. It’s the book of beginnings. We get creation, we get Abraham, we get the entire line, we get even early with Noah… you get all these thousands of years and, yet, thirteen chapters, that’s over twenty-five percent. It’s about twenty-eight-plus percent of the entire book about one man.

Why? What is the story about? It explains what happened between Genesis 1 and 2 and 3. In Genesis 1 and 2, we have a perfect world with a loving, perfect God, in a perfect environment, who wants His best for His people.

And then we have coup. And there is a rebellion. And this rebellion is, “God, I don’t want Your way,” and there is a willful sin and so sin enters in. It’s called “the fall,” is what theologians call it.

And so sin enters the human race and we have been a rebellious people ever since. But God is a redeeming God and so He takes Adam and Eve and gets them out of the garden and sets a guard so that they can’t eat from the tree of life and be in this state permanently.

But now God, in His sovereignty and in His love is going to orchestrate, even to the bad decisions, the ups and downs and the evil and the sin, He wants to work for man’s good. And the life of Joseph is the story of how God works good in us and through us in the midst of a fallen world, to bring about the highest and best for us and to accomplish His purposes.

And do you remember the very end of the story? I call it “The Genesis 50:20” principle. Joseph is at the end. Remember, God exalts him. He becomes the ruler of all of Egypt. He saves the nation of Israel. He saves the chosen people. He actually saves Pharaoh and Egypt and all the rest.

And then when dad dies, his brothers still don’t get what is going on. And so when dad dies, they start making up little stories. This is a loose translation of the text. This is a little Ingram-ism here. So, I mean, basically, they are thinking, Joseph was really nice to us while dad was alive, but now he is gone. We betrayed him, we were thinking about killing him and we just sold him instead. We used him and abused him and I bet now he’s going to get back at us.

And I just have this picture of Joseph leaning on his staff and shaking his head and saying, “Guys, you still don’t get it, do you?” Genesis 50, verse 20, “As for you, you meant this for evil, but God meant it for good to bring about this present result,” and I think he is looking over the land, “to preserve many people alive.”

See, you have to teach your Bible study friends, you have to teach you kids, you have to teach your grandkids, you have to teach them that, You know what? It’s a fallen world, life is hard, life is unfair, God is good, God is in control, and just like Joseph, He will actually use the most painful, difficult, sinful, injustice, betrayal – everything you go through – to fulfill His ultimate purposes if you, like Joseph, say, “I don’t always understand this, but I’m not bailing out. I’m going to trust God.”

And what would it be like, God gave him this dream. “This is what I’m going to do with you.” I’m just thinking when he’s in that cell. “Hey, God, where are You?” When he gets falsely accused of rape, “God, where are You?” When he gets forgotten by the guys after he interprets the dream, “God, where are you?”

But he doesn’t. “God, I don’t understand, but I am confident of this.” And he didn’t have this verse, but it was still true then, “That He who began a good work in me will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” And so we need to have a clear picture.

The other biblical profile is Jesus. And Peter gives us the explanation of Jesus’ role in teaching us about suffering. 1 Peter chapter 2:21 to 23. It says, “To this you were called,” put a circle in your notes around the phrase, to this, because I want you to think about, What is the, “to this”? You are called to this, whatever it is.

Because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His steps. So circle the word, example, and now you’ve got the answer to the, “to this.”

You were called, I was called to – what? To suffer! What? I thought we were, if we believed in God and we loved Him and we gave off the top and read our Bible in the morning and prayed real hard and were nice to everybody and tried to be a good person, that God was going to make our lives work out and everything would be wonderful and we would never get sick and we would have more money and our kids would be upwardly mobile and someday, some way we would end up at Thanksgiving and sing Kumbaya with all the eleven grandkids. You mean that’s not the way it is? No!

Whatever part of that you get, praise the Lord. Press ahead. I’m glad for you. God didn’t promise it. Here’s what He promised: “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should” – what? Observe it and wonder? What does it say? “That you should follow in His steps.”

And then, by the way, when you think it’s unfair, just so you get the story. “He committed no sin and no deceit was found in His mouth.” What is the point? He is absolutely innocent. I’m not and you’re not.

A lot of the suffering, I get because I’m stupid and sinful. I have made dumb decisions and I have had sinful acts and that’s how I, He didn’t do anything wrong. I get upset when I feel like, Gosh, I’m really innocent. I’m getting a raw deal. Well, He did nothing wrong.
“When they hurled insults, injustice, He didn’t retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats.” You do this, I’ll get you back. I have a couple legions of angels, guys, you just wait. That wasn’t it. Instead, listen to what He did. “He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly.”

Here’s what you have to understand. The model was: it’s not fair, I’m being wronged, I am being betrayed, I have done nothing wrong, I am not going to retaliate, I’m following and blazing a trail that I want you, as My children, My followers to follow with Me. And when you don’t understand it and when it hurts and when it seems unbearable, you entrust your soul to a faithful Creator, a heavenly Father who is sovereign and good and all-wise and will bring about the best possible ends, by the best possible means, for the most possible people, for the longest possible time.

It’s a classic definition of the wisdom of God. And who longs to bless and is the most generous Being in the universe and who is going to orchestrate this present injustice suffering for your good and His purposes, as you entrust it to Him in the midst of your pain. That’s learning to suffer well. That’s commanded in God’s Word.

My fear is we have unconsciously, or in some ways consciously, taught a whole generation of people that if you’re really good and do the right stuff, everything comes out your way. And Jesus, really, is kind of like a self-help genie.

And what He wants to do is make you happy and wonderful and have no problems and if you have enough faith, nothing will ever go wrong.

Do you see how people get set up to be very bitter at God and very disappointed and feeling like God doesn’t care, because this is the truth? So what you need to do is have a very specific game plan to teach your friends, your disciples, your children, your groups, and your kids and grandkids how to suffer well.