In his book Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Tim Keller surveys views of suffering through all the major historical periods, religions and philosophies down through the ages and comes to the conclusion that modern western culture is the absolute worst at dealing with pain and suffering in all of history. We are the first group of people to reject a purpose for suffering and to buy the idea that pain and grief and loss are simply mistakes to be avoided at all cost.
A fantastic argument offered for why modern Westerners are so bad at dealing with pain and suffering is that if this world is purely material (materialism being such a dominant view today), then if your life is going to have meaning and purpose and significance it will be found in something material…but material things break, die and can be lost, leaving us without the source of our meaning and purpose. This is why other people have suffered much more severely and have dealt with it much better than we do and have.
Viewing suffering in this way, an accident to be avoided, is a major reason why Christianity is distorted. It must be distorted. If this is our understanding of  suffering and pain, then Christianity MUST necessarily be distorted to be believed. I’m not going on just another rant against prosperity preachers and health & wealth gospel advocates. Plenty of those exist. Instead, I just want to point out the reverse found in the Bible, the idea that tremendous joy and confidence come from suffering. Sadly, beccause many of us haven’t done much reading of our Bibles, we don’t even have a category for this type of thinking.

The necessity of suffering, predominantly persecutions, is found in every New Testament book, and shown by example throughout many Old Testament books as well. We can’t get away from its pervasiveness in the New Testament. We have a tendency to gloss over those words. For example, we evangelicals LOVE Romans 8:15-17.

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs–heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ in order that we may also be glorified with him. (ESV)

We love those verses…except that I left out what we gloss over, that little phrase in verse 17 in between “heirs with Christ” and “in order that we may also be glorified with him.” In between those words Paul says, “provided we suffer with him.” “PROVIDED we suffer with him.” He doesn’t say, “Oh and by the way, this might happen to you while you go, but as long as you feel you have the Spirit, you’re good.” No, he says we are heirs with Christ PROVIDED we suffer with Him. That means being treated poorly for the sake of His name as he was, as the apostles were, as hundreds of missionaries have over the years. Our being raised and glorified with Jesus at the end of the age is contingent on having suffered with Him.

2 Timothy 2:12 has a similar phrase in it: “If we endure, we will also reign with him.” The word “IF” carries a huge weight. It’s not optional. Without suffering with Christ, there is no reigning with Him. I’m not trying to reach for an extreme interpretation. I don’t know what else to do with these words. That’s what it says. So we can either believe it, ignore it, or make up a different meaning as the majority of the American church has done for so long.

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This morning my reading plan put me in 1 Thessalonians 2, and in this chapter Paul is emotionally thrilled over what has happened among the Christians in Thessalonica. In short, the people were worshiping false gods, heard the gospel from Paul and his team, and shortly thereafter Paul and his team were arrested and taken away. Paul grew skeptical about the Thessalonians’ faith, saying in 3:4-5.

For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pas, and just as you know. For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain. (ESV) 

He sends Timothy to check things out, who comes back reporting that these Thessalonians are booming in their faith. They are more solid than ever, so in love with Christ for whom Paul is suffering and for whom they had been suffering too. In 1:6 Paul says that they “received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit.” Simultaneous joy and suffering. 

At the end of chapter 2 Paul says something pretty outrageous…that the Thessalonian’s continued joy in Christ while suffering was Paul’s hope and joy in the return of Christ.

“For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy.” (ESV)

In a country where Christians are rarely ever persecuted, confidence/assurance of salvation takes on a very self-focused approach. “Well, I go to church, and I don’t cuss that much, and I’m not an alcoholic or drug addict. I’ve read Spurgeon and Calvin, and I listen to John MacArthur on the radio. I read the Bible, and my family is in order, and I’m nice to my neighbor, and there’s not a lot of sin in my life or anything, so my ‘fruit’ tells me I’m a true believer.”

Paul didn’t know about this kind of Christianity. Both Paul and Jesus knew that if a person lives a life after Christ’s mission he or she will be persecuted, and for Paul, confidence of being saved had to do with continued joy while being persecuted. If you can boast in Christ and exult in His name, and be persected for the name, and have a growing joy in Christ through all of that, what amazing confidence you will have in being a chosen one of God, united with Christ.

Paul’s evangelistic goal was not to “win souls,” but to labor and labor and work himself half to death (read the 2nd chapter of Thessalonians in its entirety) in order to produce people who glorified Christ while being afflicted and persecuted, thus multiplying hope for himself, for those afflicted, and those watching. I believe this applies to all sorts of suffering, not just persecution.

Jesus did not die to give you a happier life…except that He did, just not in the way Americans tend to think. Happiness is not tied to smooth sailing, but in taking joy in the one who saves through the storm, knowing that your survival was because He is carrying you and will never let you go.

As a follow-up note, you may wonder, what about the lack of persecution in America? If there is assurance of salvation that comes from enduring persecution, then what am I to do since I’m not being persecuted here? Two things come to mind: First, there may be a breakdown in the kind of Christianity we live out, and the fact that doing Christianity America-style doesn’t usually evoke persecution because it’s not all that offensive, while the gospel carries great offense. It could be a watered down Christianity that’s more palatable, and that would account for the absence of persecution. Second, the other possibility, and likely goes along with the first, is that God could be withholding persecution from the American church since so many American Christians don’t really want God. Please read that last sentence again. He knows it could set this whole nation on fire if persecution came, so He could be withholding HImself in that way because we don’t really want Him.