Restoring Calm, Part 9: The Promise of Suffering and Hope

RYAN ERVIN, ADULT MINISTRIES PASTOR

People ruin their lives by their own foolishness
and then are angry at the Lord.
Proverbs 19:3 (New Living Translation)

Romans 5:3–5
…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

James 1:2–4
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

“It is remarkable that in all of his writings, Paul’s prayers for his friends
contain no appeals for changes in their circumstances.” – Dr. Timothy Keller

Job 1:6–8
One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”
      Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”
      Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

Job 1:21
Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
     And naked shall I return there.
The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
     Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Job 19:25–27
I know that my redeemer lives,
      and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
      yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
      with my own eyes—I, and not another.
      How my heart yearns within me! 

Isaiah 53:1–6
Who has believed our message
      and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
      and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
      a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all. 

4 Ways to Suffer Well

1. Breathe
2. Pay attention to what hurts, and why it hurts
3. Be in community
4. Offer it back to God

Small Group Questions

1. How quickly do you reach out to God when you’re in pain?
2. How has faith played a role in your suffering?
3. How have you experienced God in times of pain and suffering?
4. What could it look like for you to reorient yourself to the pain in your life as an opportunity to be formed by God?
5. How can we pray for you right now and throughout the week?