What a strange thing to say! It’s not that the apostle Paul enjoyed suffering anymore than anyone else. How then could he write “we rejoice in our sufferings”?
It’s not Paul hadn’t really suffered, he had faced intense personal suffering, including being shipwrecked, stoned, beaten with rods, sleepless nights, time in prison. He had the continuing pain caused by what he described elsewhere as a thorn in the flesh (2 Cor 12:7). And he knew the other pain that comes from living in this fallen world, the pain of bereavement.
How then can he say he rejoices in his suffering? It’s not because of something he feels, but something he knows. He knows that the suffering produces endurance, which in turn produces character. He knows that somehow, perhaps a bit like a metal refined by fire, he’s going to become more like Christ through his sufferings.
How could this be? Imagine a man makes a financial investment that goes wrong and he loses lots of money. How could that be for good? Well it might make him realise that he was looking in the wrong place for security and lead him to rely more on the Lord day by day. J C Ryle writes “Trials are intended to make us think, to wean us from this world, to send us to the Bible, to drive us to our knees.”
When writing about his thorn in the flesh, Paul tells us he learnt that God’s grace is sufficient for him. Often trials that come lift our eyes from temporary things we had been putting our hope in, to the eternal God who will not disappoint us.
How do we know that He won’t disappoint us? “Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (v5). And how do we know God’s love?
V6-8 show us how we can know that God loves us. We see God’s love at the cross of Christ. We can understand someone giving their life in exchange for a family member or friend, but the gospel tells us that Christ gave His life for ungodly sinners! He didn’t give His life for us because there was something attractive about us, but when we were up to our necks, going away from God, not loving Him. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
That’s how we can know He loves us, and if we know that He loves us, then we can rejoice in our sufferings, because we can know that He knows what’s best for us. Even in the trial, He’s helping us to persevere, and He’s shaping us to be more like Christ. It’s a bit like the famous sculptor who was asked how he produced such masterpieces. He said that when he looks at the block of wood or marble, he sees what he wants to create, e.g. a horse, and then he chisels away at whatever is not “horse”. In a similar way, as God looks at us, He wants to form us to be like Christ, and He chisels away whatever is not Christlike.
So we can rejoice in our sufferings because we can know God is doing something wonderful through them. It doesn’t make them less painful, but it does make them more purposeful. And as Paul goes on to tell us, that means the future is very bright (v9-11).
Lord, you know how painful our sufferings often feel, help us not to doubt your loving kindness to us but to know that you are producing endurance and shaping us to be more like Christ.
Light and Momentary Troubles 
Leave a comment