TEXT: Psalm 39:9

SUBJECT: Mute Christian #5

Tonight, with God’s blessing, we’ll continue the Puritan study we started a few weeks ago. The title is The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod. The author is Thomas Brooks. The topic is Suffering with Grace.

Suffering with grace does not mean your pains don’t hurt or your disappointments don’t disappoint. They do. Rather, it means to accept the problems of life without rage or resentment. Is that easy to do? No it isn’t. It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do. It’s so hard, in fact, that it takes the grace of an Almighty God to pull it off.

Last week’s study was strongly negative. The Puritan sharply criticized people for complaining, fretting, speaking ill of God, demanding answers, or sinning to get out of their problems. I, for one, felt the sting of his rebukes. I’m guilty of every one of them. May God have mercy on me and you too.

Now, we’ll turn to something more positive. Thomas Brooks gives some good advice on how to better cope with the heartaches of life.

And so, if you want to suffer with grace, you must

MEDITATE ON THE GREATNESS OF GOD.

I’m always reluctant to say, "This is the key to life". But here, I think I’m on safe ground doing it. Murmuring is not caused by the pains and disappointments of life. It’s caused by resenting the pains and disappointments of life.

How do you get rid of the bitterness? By remembering the glory and character of the One who sent the problems your way. Bad things don’t happen by chance. They come to us from God. Sometimes directly; at other times indirectly. He may positively will them or, negatively, allow them. But in any event, nothing occurs in life without the Lord signing off on it. That is exactly what the Bible teaches. Deuteronomy 32:39 is a fine summary,

If the Lord brings every problem into our lives, we have to ask ourselves, What kind of God is He?

Is He a God capable of doing the wrong thing? Is He a God who must answer to us? Who must defend Himself in the court of human opinion? No, He isn’t. He is the LORD.

Thus, we have to assume—with no evidence but His character—that everything He does is holy, just—and cannot be improved upon! God does the right thing in the right way at the right time. Without exception.

We have to submit to His wisdom, justice, power and goodness. Whether we like it or not. The trick, of course, is leaning to like it. That’s the big lesson from the Book of Job. And one of the most important lessons you’ll ever learn.

Arthur W. Pink set a good example. In 1928 he wrote a book called Sovereignty of God. That was easy for him at the time. He was young, healthy, and very popular. By 1952, he was none of the above. He was old, sick, and isolated. On his deathbed, he looked at his wife who was choking back tears. He said to her,

Not some things, but

Including Pink’s lonely and premature death.

If you know God as He is, you cannot resent His Providence. Even when it hurts. Here’s the quote from Thomas Brooks,

This is precisely what David did in our text. Suffering the abuse of evil men, he kept his mouth shut because—he said to the Lord—"You did it".

If you want to suffer with grace, you must meditate on the greatness of God. That’s Number One.

Some things in the Bible are easy for me to believe. Never once in my life have I doubted God created the world or that our Lord rose from the dead. Walking on the water, feeding thousands with a boy’s lunch, opening the eyes of the blind. Easy to believe.

But what’s not so easy for me to believe is Romans 8:28. I can see how bad things can be good for you. How they improve your character, how they humble you, how they make you more dependent on the Lord, and so on. But what I can’t see is how they work out for me.

Yet they do. God says so. If you can believe His promise, you can also suffer with grace. The pains and hardships of an athlete are a lot different than those of a sick man. He may not like getting up a five in the morning or running until he feels sick to his stomach, but he knows that the suffering he endures is good for him. It makes him healthier and fits him for competition.

Our problems do the same for us. They train us for godliness. For example, patience is a good thing to have, but how can you possibly develop patience without the troubles that require it? Even our Lord, (Hebrews 5:8),

Listen to the Puritan,

Problems are good for us. That’s what God says. On this one, though, we can only pray with the worried father,

That’s Number Two.

It would be wonderful if we always believed our problems do us good and that the love of God is behind them all. But let’s face it, we don’t always believe these things. When we don’t, it’s time to simply obey the Lord.

Some Christians hate the word "duty". If they can’t work up a devotional feeling for something, they won’t do it. But a cold heart does not relieve us of our duties. In fact, the heart often warms when he do what we’re told.

God forbids murmuring, fretting, and raging. He wants us to be composed even when things aren’t going our way. You know your duty. Are you going to obey it? Don’t tell me how you feel, just whether or not you’ll obey God. Yes or no?

Obeying God—even when you don’t feel like it—is another way of saying, "Deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and followChrist".

If you can’t rule your heart, shut your mouth. Because God says so. That’s Number Three.

If God hates murmuring, He must approve of its opposite. Let me give you an example from I Peter 3 and from "real life" too. Most men are not wonderful husbands. They ignore their wives or browbeat them; they micromanage the family or dump everything on to the mom. The woman’s temptation, therefore, is to sulk or lash out at her husband. God understands her frustration, but He doesn’t approve of it. What He likes is something else,

This doesn’t apply to wives only, but to all believers. The Lord not happy to see us suffer, but when we do, He’s very happy to see us take it with grace. Here’s the quote,

Of course it does. What could be less Christlike than whining? What disrupts our fellowship with God more than a pouting spirit? What unfits us for good works more than a rotten attitude and a sharp tongue?

Pleasing God is a high motive for suffering with grace. That’s Number Four.

No one prays to suffer. We don’t ask the Lord to bring grief into our lives, to kill people we love, or to make us sick. No one prays that way.

But we do pray for holiness. We pray for patience. We pray for courage. We pray for wisdom. And other good things too.

Do we ask for these things? If so, we have to remember that God often gives them to us through suffering. We have a song in our hymnal; it’s by John Newton. It goes like this—Read #732.

The Lord wants us to pray for His blessings. And to accept them when they come. Even if they don’t come in the way we wish they had.

These are some encouragements to suffer with grace. I pray God will bless them to our souls. For Christ’s sake. Amen.