The Benefits of Suffering for Christ 1 Peter 4:12-19

No one enjoys suffering, but it is beneficial for our Christian endurance and growth! Just like James said, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trails of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” (James 1:2-3)

Samuel Rutherford said when he was put in the cellars of affliction: “The Great King keeps his wine there” — not in the courtyard where the sun shines. What’s true is what Charles Spurgeon said: “They who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls.”

You will see what you’re made of and if you are His child! You are tested and found either in Christ or out of Christ!

Your identity is in Jesus!

Why? Because you have been found to be a servant of Christ! No one suffers for the name of Jesus, if they have not been transformed by Christ! It’s like the Marines! They hear gunfire, they run toward the gunfire. Others hear gunfire, they run from the gunfire!

If you are persecuted for Christ, you have found that nothing in this world is sweeter than being with Jesus! Nothing! There is rejoicing in this fact that you are born again!

In an article about CH Spurgeon by Michael Reeves called Suffering Taught Him to Look to Christ, Reeves wrote, “It comes as a surprise to some that Spurgeon had a lifelong battle with depression. His reputation as a famed and powerful preacher, his cheery wit, and his cigar-smoking manliness might lead us to imagine there could never be a chink in his Victorian Englishman’s armor. It shouldn’t be a surprise, of course: life in a fallen world must mean distress, and Spurgeon’s life was indeed full of physical and mental pain.

Aged 22, while preaching to thousands in the Surrey Gardens Music Hall, pranksters yelled “Fire!” starting a panic to exit the building which killed 7 and left 28 severely injured. His mind was never the same again. Susannah wrote, “My beloved’s anguish was so deep and violent, that reason seemed to totter in her throne, and we sometimes feared that he would never preach again” (Susannah Spurgeon: Free Grace and Dying Love, 166). Severe illness, fierce opposition, and bereavement all made their mark on the great preacher’s life, so much so that today he would almost certainly be diagnosed as clinically depressed and treated with medication and therapy.

In all this, Spurgeon believed that God had a good purpose in all his suffering, and because of it felt he had become a better prepared and more compassionate pastor. Spurgeon believed that our heavenly Father ordains suffering for believers, and indeed the suffering the Lord granted to Spurgeon tenderized him and allowed him to be a doctor of souls in a unique way.

What do I mean by this statement? Look at verse 19 closely. Even though I suffer, I still realize God is good, He has a purpose in all of this, and that my suffering must be an investment for the Kingdom. People see how I praise God in the storm, how He gets me through horrible circumstances and they say, “something is different about him. I want what he has.” Listen to 5:9-10