God’s Work Demonstrated in Your Life
through Suffering and God’s Sustaining Grace
When God has called you and convicted you of your sin and brought you to Himself in repentance and faith and you are born again and pass from death to life, what work is He doing in your life? “Being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:6
And what is that work of God in your life?
1. To Make You More Like Christ
He is making you like Christ in your character and in your spirituality and in your willingness to accept the will of God for every detail of your life. Rom. 8:29 tells us we are “predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.” “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 2 Cor. 3:18 NKJ
Or you could say, God is doing the “work of sanctification” in my life. Sanctification means two things: 1) being set apart for God so He is making you more committed to Him. And 2) holiness. God has called us to live a holy life. “But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, for it is written, ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’” 1 Peter 1:15 NIV
Think specifically of the many things God must change in you to make you more like Christ! So how does God form in us, “the mind of Christ”–the attitude of humility and mercy and compassion and holiness, the maturity, the obedience, the willingness to say, “Not my will, but thine be done.” All the character and spiritual qualities of Jesus that He has to perfection: love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, goodness, faith and faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
2. To Give you Endurance
How does God develop that endurance in us that we need so badly? Hebrews 12:1-3 NKJ: “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, [the people of faith of ch. 11] let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us [the course laid out for us individually by God, tailor-made for each one of us, whom He loves and knows far better than we know ourselves.]
“looking unto Jesus,” [That’s the crucial part: keep your focus on the Lord and on finishing the work He gave you to do–with a willing mind & a joyful heart. Look at Jesus rather that focusing on your problems.] “the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, [how in the world could He endure the cross?! Can you imagine what it was like? What we have to “endure” is very small in comparison.] “despising the shame,” [“scorning its shame” NIV] “and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
“For consider Him who endured [there it is again!] such hostility from sinners against Himself, [have you ever had hostility directed towards you? Do you know what it feels like to have people angry at you and hate you and want to kill you?] lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.”
So endurance keeps us from “becoming weary and discouraged in your souls.” And how does God develop endurance as part of your character? God is showing you how to avoid discouragement, a victory which is vital to your spiritual wellbeing
Inspired and led by the Holy Spirit, James tells us more of the importance of endurance. “Consider it a great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. But endurance must do its complete work, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.” James 1:2-4 HCSB
And he continues in 1:12 “Blessed is a man who endures trials, because when he passes the test he will receive the crown of life that He has promised to those who love Him.”
Testing of your faith–James mentions this twice--how God uses testing to develop our faith and our trust and our dependence on God and how vital a part of our spiritual life is testing. How we can fail and how we can endure and pass the test. And the rewards that come with it.
The Greek word in this text and many others is hupomone which means “endurance,” “cheerful (or hopeful) endurance, constancy.” S.5281 Literally it means “to remain under circumstances and trials.” We’re told, for example, in Hebrews 10:34-36 that we have need of that endurance. “. . . knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience,[endurance] that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.” The word is the same hupomone and we can add to our definition, “ to abide under, to bear up courageously (under suffering).”
Endurance is “the expectation that rests confidently in the character of God and His control.”
3. To Learn How to Depend on Christ
God is teaching us to depend on Him and not to think of ourselves as “self-sufficient.” Because we’re not. We didn’t create ourselves and we can’t keep ourselves alive. We’re dependent on God for even the very next breath we breathe. “In Him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:28
God sent tremendous hardships to the Apostle Paul and his fellow workers and then revealed why He sent them: “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 NIV
There it is: “that we might not rely on ourselves but on God.” That’s an essential key to living the Christian life. We learn to depend on God instead of ourselves.
The essence of sin is pride and pride is self-sufficiency. Paul went on to write in the same letter, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God.” 2 Corinthians 3:5
God is glorified when we realize our complete dependence upon Him. “That no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” 1 Cor. 1:29-31
4. To Humble Us
One of the reasons God sends trials or testing or afflictions or tribulations our way is to humble us and take away that pervasive pride. God told His people many centuries ago, “And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee. . . .” Deut. 8:2
Some 1500 years later God told the Apostle Paul something similar. God sent affliction to Paul, “a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.” And God told him why: “lest I should be exalted above measure.” 2 Corinthians 12:7 He said it twice.
So, of course, Paul besought the Lord to take the affliction from him and God answered his earnest plea. He said, “No!” “My grace is sufficient for you for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
What was the Apostle Paul’s reaction? The same as ours should be! “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9 That’s the key! You know you must have the power of Christ to rest upon you and how will that happen? If you realize your own weakness and look to Christ instead of looking at the trials.
Paul went on to say, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” 12:10
Where does the power come from? from Christ. And on whom does it come? On those who realize their weakness and call upon Christ to supply and meet their need, the need they simply cannot meet on their own. God wants to build up our confidence in God’s sufficiency and He does that by making us more and more aware of our own insufficiency. Then the power of Christ rests upon us.
5. To Give you Victory over Discouragement
One of Satan’s most pervasive assaults on you is his constant effort to discourage you and try to make you quit or “drop out” instead of “remaining under the circumstances or trial.” But you must continue that race set before you so that you will have the full benefits of it. And how do you do that? “For consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds.” Hebrews 12:3 Or “so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” NIV It’s even clearer in the NKJ, “For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.”
“Consider Him” by way of comparison to see 1) how much more He had to endure than we do. And 2) Be encouraged by how much God accomplished through the sufferings of Christ. “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” Romans 8:31-32
He did it “for us all,” to give us eternal redemption, forgiveness, and eternal life. The cross was the only way that our Holy God could be both “just and the justifier of the ungodly.” The “wages of sin is death” and Jesus paid the death penalty to pay for those sins–your sins and mine. And the penalty included intense suffering.
Think of what Jesus achieved in His death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. He defeated Satan, hell, and the grave and obtained eternal redemption for those who turn to Him in repentance and faith, trusting in His finished work on the cross.
Now since God achieved so much through the suffering on the cross, don’t you think He is also achieving something through your much-lesser suffering in your life? He is indeed. And we can see part, but not all, of what God is accomplishing through your suffering. He is in the process of making us more like Christ. And He is working our good through the sufferings. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
6. To be More Fruitful
Sometimes affliction is part of God’s pruning process in order to make us more fruitful. Think of how gardeners prune their vines and trees in order that they may bring forth more fruit. That’s the picture in John 15 NKJ 1. "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2. "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”
In verse 2 the branch that does not bear fruit is not a true fruit-bearing part of the vine so it is cut off. This happens with all kinds of vines and trees. These are called “suckers” and are defined as “a secondary shoot arising from the base of a tree trunk or from the lower part of some shrubs.” They produce nothing (except thorns on rose bushes.) So in the fall or spring pruning gardeners are alert to cutting them off.
For the spiritual picture here, those suckers are not a true fruit-bearing part of the vine. They are nicknamed “Judas branches” because just like Judas, they have never been regenerated and are not part of the body of Christ. Judas was with the other 11 apostles but never knew Jesus as Savior as the 11 did. Notice the last part of the verse: “every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”
3. "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” Or, literally, “you are already pruned because of the Word.” So the pruning can be the Word of God showing you what needs to be cut out of your life.
4. "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
5. "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”
One of the marks of knowing that you know Christ and have been saved is that you bear fruit because you cannot produce the fruit yourself; it comes from the Vine. That’s why Jesus said, “without Me you can do nothing.”
And what is the fruit that Christ produces in your life? Scripture speaks of the “fruit of the Spirit,” Gal. 5:22-23 “the fruit of good works,” “the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.” Heb. 13:15 So all the qualities of Jesus are the fruit He is producing in our lives.
And God the Father who is “the Gardener” or “Vinekeeper” wants to make you more fruitful as you abide in Christ and become more and more dependent upon Him. So He prunes “every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” Do you enjoy being pruned?! Probably not! Using a different figure of speech but the same reality in Hebrews 12:11 “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” So you’re back to gardening and harvesting again.
7. To Comfort the Suffering
Part of the fruitfulness that your suffering produces is to enable you to comfort, encourage, and help your brethren. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ.” 2 Cor. 1:3-5
And that’s another word of encouragement: the greater the suffering, the greater the comfort that comes to us from God. And we in turn comfort others, especially those who are experiencing what God has already taken us through.
“Com-” means “with” and “-fort” means “strength.” When God comforts us, He does so with strength. There is a reality of His Presence and of the actual strength He puts into our souls. His strength is available to us. “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” Psalm 27:14 Use the strength God has already given you by being “of good courage,” and then the promise: “He shall strengthen thine heart.”
Now when we comfort others, we cannot give that strength that God alone provides, but we can point them to the source. “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” 2 Cor. 4:7
8. To Be Blessed of the Lord
When God takes you through a particularly difficult trial, rejoice because you are blessed of God, favored of Him in a special way. “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.” 1 Peter 4:12-13
Jesus said the same thing, “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.” Matthew 5:11-12
You’re blessed of God if you endure sufferings as God intended–with patience and steadfastness and with joy and a thankful heart. That famous verse that talks about “the patience of Job” (James 5:11) is more properly translated “endurance”. Think of the life of Job and you see how appropriate to characterize it as “endurance”. That same verse in the KJV reads, “Behold, we count them happy which endure.” That is an appropriate translation, but the Greek goes much further makarizo (from the same root as makarios) both mean blessed which means “favored of God”! It means you will have a deep spiritual joy and peace and satisfaction that the world can never give you. It’s a far greater gift than simply “happiness” though, no doubt, it includes that, too, in the sense of happiness as contentment. Again you see the importance of endurance–so that you will be pleasing to God and blessed by Him.
9. To Fellowship with the Lord as He walks with you and sustains you in the midst of your sufferings. “Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” 2 Corinthians 4:16 And it is Christ who renews us spiritually day by day in our walk with Him. We are to have the “Fellowship of His sufferings”
and we can fellowship with Him in our sufferings as well because we are part of the body of Christ.
Jonathan Edwards as a young man fell ill on a journey and could not even get home but was taken to a parsonage where he lay between life and death for almost three months. Listen to how he describes his fellowship with the Lord during that illness: “In September, 1725, I was taken ill at New Haven, and while endeavouring to go home to Windsor, was so ill at the North Village, that I could go no further; where I lay sick for about a quarter of a year. In this sickness God was pleased to visit me again with the sweet influences of His Spirit. My mind was greatly engaged there, on divine and pleasant contemplations, and longings of soul. I observed, that those who watched with me, would often be looking out wishfully for the morning; which brought to my mind those words of the Psalmist, and which my soul with delight made its own language, My soul waiteth for the Lord, more than they that watch for the morning; I say, more than they that watch for the morning. And when the light of the day came in at the window, it refreshed my soul, from one morning to another. It seemed to be some image of the light of God’s glory.” Jonathan Edwards,1703-1758 Personal Narrative
God enables us and calls on us to rejoice in the midst of suffering–and all suffering is for Christ if your attitude is right because you are part of his body so that He suffers through you and shares in your sufferings–and you experience the “fellowship of His sufferings.”
Look at each part of this prayer: “that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.” Colossians 1:10-12 HCSB
Your “walk” is your pattern of daily conduct as you run the race set before you.
What produces the fruit “in every good work”? Abiding in Christ–as in John 15. The “knowledge of God” in Greek is a deep and thorough personal knowledge of God Himself. You need to know about Him and you must also know Him personally. In Christ are hidden ALL the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Strengthened is a present participle meaning continuous action. We are continually being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might. “Glorious” is doxa which means “the glory of God” and the manifestation of God’s attributes. God’s limitless power is available as He sees we need it. And what is all this leading up to? “For all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to the Father.” In other words God is providing strength to endure trials and suffering so that they can produce the results we need.
We not only endure the trials patiently, but we endure them with joy. “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” “And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.” Acts 16:25
10. To “glory in tribulations”
Another remarkable scripture is Romans 5:1-5 which gives us two completely different things to rejoice in or “glory” in. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
We rejoice in the expectation (that’s what “hope” means in scripture) of seeing the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We shall be like the Lord when we see Him as He is and then His glory will be reflected in a perfect way rather than imperfectly as now.
But there’s a second reason in this text for “glorying” or rejoicing. “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” Our tribulation sets off a chain of cause & effect: tribulation>>patience>>experience>>hope (expectation, anticipation).
“Experience” here means “test or proof or trial.” So we are to rejoice in our trials knowing what they produce: Christlike character and spirituality and usefulness to God.
When we see Jesus as He is and are changed into His likeness, we will be clothed with as much of that glory of God as is possible even for redeemed “glorified” saints. Glorified means we will have glory from Christ imparted to us.–and the dropping away of all weaknesses and our sin nature like the butterfly emerging from the cocoon. We will have been transformed into the likeness of Christ.
The divine light of God, the shekinah glory in the tabernacle in the wilderness and in the Temple came to be with men and “tabernacled” among us in the person of Christ in the incarnation. He lives within us spiritually now, but then His glory will shine forth because we will be “glorified” into His image. We shall be filled with Christ and in Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead in bodily form.
That is the highest hope of the child of God–to be like Him. To be sure, we glory in the fact that there will be no more sorrow, crying, pain, or death. But the highest glory is to be like Christ. That is the Christian hope–or expectation.
We’ve been justified by faith and have peace with God. Now we have “access into this grace. And “we stand.” There is stability and strength. Then “we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” And death doesn’t take all that away. Instead death is the entrance into eternal life.
“It’s like looking at the crescent of the moon when it is incomplete and know that a full moon is coming with all its beauty. The experiences of the Christian life here and now, good and glorious as they are, are but the first quarter of glory and declare that the fulness is yet to come.” –Donald Grey Barnhouse
The other source of rejoicing is “The Refiner’s Fire: we rejoice in our afflictions, our tribulation, our trials.” Affliction produces patient, joyful, expectant endurance. It produces character but it does it by means of a test–by means of fire–fiery trials sometimes. “Tried integrity”–you’ve gone through the trial and you’ve come out victorious in the strength of the Lord–so you rejoice that you’ve passed the test, that God has burned out some more dross and gotten rid of some more impurities. “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 1:7
And how can you pass that test? How can we be victorious in meeting and going through testing and suffering?
1) Fix your eyes on Jesus–look at Him rather than at your troubles. Be focused on Jesus rather than being preoccupied with yourself. We’re running a race; keep your eyes on the goal when you see Jesus. You’ll still see the problems but you’ll see them in the right perspective. Jesus is not only the Author and Perfecter of our faith, the one who carries it through to completion, but Christ lives in us. We do not live in our own power but in His, just as on earth He did not live in His own power but in the Father’s. Jesus said while he was here on earth, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” He gave us a pattern to follow. And Christ is now living in our lives: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
2) Look in the distance to the joy set before you–in heaven and also in winning the victory in these testings. You’re looking ahead to finishing the race and doing so victoriously. Heaven is already ours (for us who know Jesus as Savior and Lord), but now we are wanting to “finish our course with joy and the ministry God has given us.” When the Apostle Paul was about to depart and leave the brethren he loved from Ephesus and never see them again in this world, they all knew he faced imprisonment and perhaps death. How did he react to all of that? Here are his words that echo down through the centuries and find lodging in our hearts: “But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.” Acts 20:24
