“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 1:6-7
We reflected on the causes of suffering. Now let’s consider the purposes of suffering. It’s a theme that runs through the whole Bible.
Peter, in the passage above, shows two primary purposes: 1) to prove the genuineness of our faith in Jesus and 2) to praise and glorify God. His analogy is to gold being refined in fire to purge away the impurities, which brings us to the third and probably most prominent purpose of suffering: 3) to purify us and make us more like Jesus.
“Not only that, but 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.” Romans 5:3-5
Pain and struggle forge character. “No pain, no gain,” is a common phrase among athletes. Or, “Pain is weakness leaving the body.” The only way to build muscle strength is to exercise those muscles to the point of pain. It’s an irony of the human body that you have to damage your muscles in order to strengthen them. We shouldn’t be surprised then, that the same is true spiritually.
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1:2-4
What stands out in Romans 5 and James 1 is the opening of these passages and the command to rejoice in our sufferings. This aligns with Paul’s message in Philippians 2-4. He concludes that progression with the overall directive to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!” (Php. 4:4). But notice how he gets there.
“Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus… [who] emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Philippians 2:4-5, 7-8
Jesus is our Lord, our Rabbi, our Master and our model. To follow Jesus is to embrace His teachings and way of life; it is to commit ourselves to become like Him in every way. We embrace His mindset and His lifestyle and by so doing, we put our faith in His reward. To quote the Phil Wickham song above, “I choose the Jesus way.” And look at the promise when we do:
“For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” Philippians 3:8-11
Paul joyfully gave up status, success, material comfort and physical safety (as Jesus did) to “gain Christ.” In fact, the only way to save your life is to “lose it” (Matt. 16:25). Only by dying to yourself can you be raised to new life in Jesus (Matt. 16:24; Rom. 6:4-6). So this is another way of referring to that first purpose for suffering: to prove the genuineness of your faith. But there’s another important purpose and result of suffering: a closer relationship with Jesus, a deeper experience of His power and a greater intimacy with Him by sharing in His sufferings.
C.S. Lewis points us to the larger purpose of God in our lives. You would be content if God would only make you into a cozy little cottage, but He is determined to make you into a palace, because He plans to live in you Himself (Mere Christianity).
“If God is Love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness… though He has often rebuked us and condemned us, He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense… It is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less… Love, in its own nature, demands the perfecting of the beloved; that the mere ‘kindness’ which tolerates anything except suffering in its object is, in that respect, at the opposite pole from love.” C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain