By HUNTER GREENE
I remember hearing as an athlete growing up, “No pain, no gain.” Although I hated the phrase (because it often meant running my guts out), I did eventually come to appreciate its value. I since have come to a place in life where I realize that anything worth having is worth struggling for, even if that means I must endure pain. However, I cannot honestly say that my walk with Christ can be described as a painful struggle.
Most of our lives would be defined as comfortable and convenient, especially as Americans given our relative global prosperity and wealth. We find happiness in being God’s people of joy with our pontoon boats and convertible cars, but we aren’t so excited to sign up to be God’s people of suffering.
As Christians, we live in this paradox that we are to be both a people of joy and a people of sorrow. You will often hear sermons and lessons on how Christians are to be the “happiest people alive,” but my hunch is that no one is preaching a sermon on how we are to be people of pain and suffering as well. While I do believe Jesus calls us to a life of joy and happiness, I believe that it is a joy and happiness that runs deeper than our circumstances. We often let our given situation in life determine our mood and outlook on life. Yet, Jesus calls us into a peaceful and joyful relationship with Him that is so rooted in His goodness that even the darkest of nights cannot shake our trust in God.
With that being said, I find it interesting that scattered all throughout the Gospels Jesus warns us that there will be times of tribulation and suffering. John 15:18-19 reads, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”
I was never taught a lesson on these verses in Sunday School. I don’t recall anyone telling me on an altar when I accepted Christ that I would soon be hated. Honestly, these verses on suffering are the kinds of verses that we read and try to domesticate and tame so that we can tell others what they “really mean.” We assume that Jesus would never ask us to bear our cross and suffer for His sake, but Jesus never asks us to do anything that He has not done.
Jesus suffered and so should we. We don’t suffer as an end for the sake of suffering. Rather, we decide that we are going to follow Jesus in every aspect of our lives. When we follow Jesus, suffering and persecution are soon to follow for we are not of the world. When we live into the life of Christ, we will be rejected by our family, friends, and neighbors because the way of Jesus is so countercultural and radical to the way of the world. This is more than simply offering our theological opinions and convictions on Facebook or at work. The life that Jesus calls us to is that of radical, scandalous love. It is a love that is dangerous for it threatens the powers that be, namely the rich, powerful, and comfortable. The love of Jesus was so revolutionary that it nailed Him to a cross at the hands of the religious leaders, and I believe that if we are also loving like Christ then we too will feel the weight of the cross on our shoulders, probably at the hands of our own “religious” leaders.
John 16:32-33 says, “Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
Suffering is one of the marks, if not the mark, of a true Christian. I am not talking about the aches and pains that come with our fragile bodies, for everyone gets those. I am talking about the kind of suffering that comes from living a life with and in Jesus Christ. It is a life the world has rejected. Jesus did not call us to convenience and comfort but to service and suffering. But don’t be afraid. Jesus has already overcome the world.
(The Solution Column is provided by Pastor Brandon Young of Harmony Free Will Baptist Church, Hampton, and his associate, Hunter Greene.)