Using the suffering

You waste your suffering when you fail to use it as a means to witness to the truth and glory in the Lord Jesus Christ.

A woman sent me an email at Christmastime telling me how she had been married for 40-some years and early on in their married life her husband hurt her deeply and “for three decades I made our married life hell on earth for him because of my hurt,” recalls Richard Jordan.

She went on, “Time and again he’d ask me to forgive him, and I would say no. Just weeks before he died, sitting at his bedside, he asked me, ‘Would you please forgive me?’ ”

She said, “In that moment in that hospital room, with all those years of bitterness swelling up in my heart . . . Tears in my eyes, I could not say the words that my heart was saying and I never said to him, ‘I forgive you,’ and he died and went into eternity knowing that I held that grudge. Not only for all those years, but in the last moments of his life.”

She asked me, “Is there any help for me because I can never tell him, ‘Yes, I forgive you.’ I can say it now, but I could never say it to him. Is there any forgiveness for me?”

When I preach, I think about people like that. Someone asked me just the other day, “When you preach on the TV, how is it that you can talk to people so personally?”

You know how I do that? I look into that camera and I know I’m looking into your eye, because when you look right in the eye of the camera, you’re looking into the eye of the viewer, and I think about people like that lady.

When I want to talk about the grace of God entering into your life, I think about someone like her and I just talk to her.

I learned years ago that you don’t just preach as a dying man to dying men, you preach as a hurting, suffering person to other hurting, suffering hearts.

Your heart might be happy and joyful today and you don’t have any of that, but just keep turning the calendar and you will, because you’re obviously very young.

When I say to you, don’t let it drive you into solitude--let it deepen your relationships; love that manifests itself.

I think of that lady, and because of her inability just to relax in the greatness of God she was unable to use the suffering as a means to witness to the truth of Christ and how valuable and cherished He is in her life. Can I tell you that in all of your sufferings, get that.

II Corinthians 1: [3] Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;
[4] Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.

[5] For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.
[6] And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
[7] And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.

Then comes verse 8: [8] For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life:

Paul’s telling them, “I’m facing death, and I know it’s coming. Why? That (here’s the result of it) we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raiseth the dead.”

He didn’t waste his suffering; he let it teach him what it ought to teach him. He let it teach him, “I can’t trust myself; it’s not I, it’s Christ!”

The result: [10] Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us;
[11] Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf.

There’s the manifest affection that these people had for him. They’re praying for him, and when they heard about his situation, what did they do? They encouraged him. They sent a gift.

They were praying for him, talking to God about him. They were motivated to do some things to help out his ministry and his life and reach out to him and manifest their love to him.

But what Paul learned was that, “The only thing that’s real is Christ and I can trust in the living God. HE can be the one who I demonstrate is more precious than any of these circumstances.”

He comes in and what does he do? He says, “Hey, don’t trust yourself. Trust in the living God!” Why does he do that?

Remember what he says in verse 4: [4] Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.

You see that?! The trouble, the suffering comes. You reach out and appropriate the sufficiency of God’s grace for you and, all of a sudden, it turns out not just to be for you! It turns out to be that it equips you so you’re able to minister something to others who are in trouble.

Don’t fail to use the sufferings as a means to witness to the truth and the glory of the sufficiency of Jesus Christ and allow your thanksgiving . . .

II Corinthians 4: [15] For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.

Paul’s saying, “All of the things I’ve suffered are for your sakes,” that the abundant grace he receives from Christ to be comforted in all those things might, through the thanksgiving of many (they’re watching him, seeing him have victory in the grace of God no matter what the circumstances are and they rejoice in that) and it redounds to the glory of God.

That’s why he said, “That Christ might be magnified in my body.” That it might be obvious that the one person you can cherish above everything else is Him; the one who will meet all the needs.

Now all of a sudden, if I’ve got a bunch of needs, instead of them crippling and destroying me, and me saying, “Woe is me, I’m undone because I’m a person with all these needs,” I can, “Wow, it’s pretty good to have a bunch of needs because Christ can meet all those needs and, man, I can show people that Christ met this need, this need, this need. . . ”

All of a sudden, instead of it being, “Gloom, despair and agony on me,” now it’s, “Though our outward man perish our inward man is renewed day by day,” and there’s light to say, “It’s but for a moment.”

Before it was a heavy weight wearing me down and encompassing everything in my life. Now it’s just a light affliction which is but for a moment and it works and produces an eternal weight of glory.

II Cor 4: [16] For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
[17] For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
[18] While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. 

By faith I’m looking at the truth of who I am in Christ, because the things that are seen are temporal (they’re going to go away anyway) but the things that are not seen are eternal.

That’s why in II Corinthians 5:7 he says, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”

So, I say again, I just want to invite you into that wondrous, mysterious grace life that says, “Sorrowing (the sufferings of this present time are there) yet always rejoicing.” I can rejoice because I’ve got the key; I’ve got the answer.