Trust in Suffering

Good morning! My name is Matt Martinez, and I am the pastor here at Renovation Church Shoreview.

House Church announcement:

Before we get into the message, I want to highlight House Church once more. House Churches begin this week, and so if you have not signed up yet. Stop whatever you are doing right now, stop listening to me, and sign up. Use the House Church Card at your chair, and scan the code on the back to the sign up.

Being a part of the Sunday service is so important, but the other half of our church takes place in House Church. This is what we do here, and we want you to make it a priority.

If you have any questions, head to the Welcome Table area, there will be House Church elders and others there to help you!

Anyone who has been around children for more than two minutes has heard them say the popular phrase, “That’s not fair!”

And if you are the adult watching the children (or standing next to the adult watching the children), you have also heard them respond with a phrase just as famous. You know it, “Life’s not fair.”

This phrase that has been said to all of us at some point in our lives implies that suffering (in its many forms) is a part of life, and how we handle that suffering or unfairness is a crucial part of our maturity.

And yet, there are people willing to go to great lengths to do whatever it takes to avoid suffering.

When the unfairness of life (or suffering) touches our lives, we experience shame, guilt, humiliation, anxiety, stress… and I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to feel those things… but let me be clear, they are unavoidable.

And so the question we must wrestle with is,

If we cannot avoid the unfairness and suffering in life (and all the feelings that come with it), how do we deal with it well?

The Bible talks about different pathways or postures people take when dealing with suffering.

So if you would, please turn in your Bibles to 2 Timothy 1:8-18. We have a Bible available for you under your chair-

you can use this Bible and take it home with you after service. It is our gift to you. If you are using the Renovation Church Bible under your chair, you can turn to page 813 of that Bible.

Last Sunday, we began teaching through the book of the Bible called 2 Timothy. This book is actually a letter written by a man named Paul to a young pastor named Timothy. As Paul is writing this letter, he is in prison waiting to be executed for his faith in Jesus. Paul has also heard the news that since he has been in prison, many people had abandoned him and the faith in Jesus. Paul writes to encourage Timothy to continue to stay faithful to God and not give up in spite of opposition and persecution. That’s why this ten week teaching series we are in is titled, “Faithful Endurance”.

Let’s read 2 Timothy 1:8-18 on page 813 of the Renovation Church Bible. We will start reading where you see the small number 8.

8 So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. 9 He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

Let’s pause here for just a moment. In verses 9–10, we see a powerful explanation of what Paul and Timothy believe. These verses are also what every follower of Jesus believes. It’s the message Paul preached that got him into prison—and the reason for his suffering. We are going to come back to these verses later in the message.

Let’s continue reading our passage in 2 Timothy starting in verse 11.

11 And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. 12 That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.

You do not have to be in prison with your life on the line to know about suffering.

You can be a parent picking up your child’s mess for the 67th time that day (when you know, you know). You can be someone who feels unloved because they just got dumped (when you know, you know). You can be someone who lost a job and is suffering the anxiety of not knowing how you will provide. We all know about suffering.

Today, I want to look at the two pathways we can take as we encounter suffering: A posture of shame or we can take a posture of trust.

When we rely on ourselves to make sense of suffering it leads to a posture of shame. Suffering is shameful because it can be embarrassing to lose a job. It can be painful when we get sick. There is no purpose to any of it.

But if we trust God in our suffering, we can find purpose, direction, and meaning in the midst of it.

In 2 Timothy, Paul says that suffering can lead us to either

1- Self-protection or Generosity

At the beginning of our passage in verse 8, Paul is telling Timothy and his other readers not to be ashamed of Jesus or himself. What was it about the stories of Jesus and Paul that were so embarrassing to people?

When early Christians proclaimed that their Savior Jesus willingly suffered and died on a cross, it clashed with every expectation of what a “god” should be. At this time in the

Bible crucifixion was not just execution—it was public humiliation. It was reserved for the worst criminals and designed to shame. How could a powerful god be subjected to that kind of humiliation?

Paul was in prison on trial for his life.

The truth of Jesus and Paul raised some hard questions for those early believers:

If this message is true, why does our God and one of his most faithful messengers look like they are losing?

Can I trust a God who doesn’t always remove pain, but walks through it and asks me to do the same?

• The natural instinct when facing hardship is to guard ourselves against pain, against shame. The walls come up and we grasp what we can hold onto and do not let go.
• But the posture of a closed fist can also lead us to the posture of a fighter- seeing anyone as an enemy including God.
• “It is God’s fault all of this has happened.

But look at verse 12 again, Paul doesn’t deny the hardship—he reframes where safety is found. “God is able to guard what I’ve entrusted to Him.”

Instead of gripping tighter, Paul opens his hands.

There was a time when my daughter would stay up late into the night worrying about all the different things that could happen the next day. It would keep her up and she would keep coming upstairs and tell us she couldn’t shut off her brain. (I have the same problem).

And I shared with her what I do when I struggle to sleep because of worry.

• I pray 1 Peter 5:7- “Give your cares to God because he cares for you.”
• I would say, Hold your hands out and grab each thought that pops into your head. Put each one in your hands, and after you get them all, just simply hand them to God… because he asks us to do that in 1 Peter: because he cares for us.
• Then go to sleep in peace knowing God is holding it all for you.

I could spend all my nights self-protecting: holding onto every worry and figuring it out. Or I could generously give all my worries to God- who guards me.

Will you trust God enough to open your hands—or will you keep fighting to hold it all yourself?

Let’s come back to verse 13 of our passage.

13 What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. 14 Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

In these two verses, Paul highlights two more ways we can take when suffering. Depending on if we take a posture of shame or the posture of trust in suffering, suffering can lead us to

2- Self-help in suffering or being God-directed in suffering.

Because the early Christians couldn’t deal with the shame of what had happened to Paul and Jesus, they did some deconstructing and reconstructing of their faith. This led to all different kinds of false teaching:

• Some turned to prosperity: If we do these things, and pray this way, we will get this… and we will avoid suffering. But when suffering still came into their lives…
• The suffering pushed them to agnosticism- This false teaching says “if God is real, then He must not be involved or care about our life because bad stuff is still always happening.
• Which would lead to the final false teaching: God must not be real…

These false teachings are tempting and very natural for people to follow, but they are not sound teaching. Why?

Tim Keller addresses this idea really well in his book, ‘Making Sense of God’.

He says, “No one has absolute certainty about God, and so they always have to take a step of faith toward God or a step of faith away from God. The real choice isn’t faith vs. facts, but faith vs. faith. You cannot just doubt faith, you have to doubt your doubts as well.”

Let me explain it a little more:

If you reject God because of suffering, you still have to ask: Then what does my worldview say about my suffering? In a secular view, suffering has no ultimate meaning—life is accidental, and pain is ultimately pointless. Follow that to its end, and it leads toward hopelessness and despair.

But Christianity offers a different lens: suffering is real, but not meaningless. Life is not an accident, and pain is not the end of the story.

You don’t get to avoid faith—you only choose where to place it. And only one option gives suffering purpose instead of emptiness.

Years ago, I visited a woman in the hospital diagnosed with terminal cancer. Before her cancer, she ate healthy,

worked out, had friends and a job. As I sat next to her hospital bed trying to process this moment, she said something to me I will never forget:

“So many things defined me before my cancer. Now with all of that gone, God gets to define me, and I am at peace with that.

Her salvation and identity were rooted in Christ. She did not feel shame about her suffering, she wasn’t scared about it- she had hope in her suffering. Everything else in her life had failed her. But as a believer, this was not the end of her story. She would be with God one day in heaven completely restored.

The sound teaching Paul is talking about in verse 13 is the story of Jesus we read in the Gospels which are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. You should regularly read through those books (they are also the first books you read in our Renovation Church Bible reading plans found on the front cover of the Renovation Church bibles).

When we read the Word of God (the Bible), God speaks to us and directs us through the Holy Spirit- the sound teaching of the Bible revealed to us by the Holy Spirit is what guides us through our suffering.

It’s what guided my friend through her cancer.

Let’s come back to 2 Timothy now and read the final verses of our passage.

15 You know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes.

16 May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. 17 On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me. 18 May the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! You know very well how many ways he helped me in Ephesus.

In the final verses of our passage, Paul highlights two more postures we can take in suffering:

3- Self-pity in suffering or thankfulness in suffering

What we can see from his writing, this was probably one of the toughest times in Paul’s life. He is in prison in Rome with no hope of freedom. He is undergoing persecution for the sake of the gospel that he loves and for which he will soon give his life. He is also experiencing such a staggering defection from him and the faith. So I can completely relate with what he writes in verse 15.

15 You know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes.

I love how Paul calls out two guys specifically in the entire province of Asia. “including Phygelus and Hermongenes…”

Can you imagine if they were in the room when Timothy was reading the letter?

How bad do you have to be to be blacklisted for all time in the pages of the Holy Word of God. I looked around for other places in the Bible to find more about these two guys, but I couldn’t find anything. So, you know it must have been bad.

Look again at verse 15, Paul is so annoyed here that he exaggerates… he says “the entire province of Asia has deserted me…” That is impossible to know, but it shows his frustration, maybe with those two guys in particular.

Some people may get nervous about this moment: Paul is exaggerating?? He can’t be! But I think this is what makes the Bible so real and relatable. Paul is expressing a real feeling and genuine pain in the face of widespread rejection. It feels bad and Paul is writing about it.

A posture of shame in suffering can always magnify the problem and we can slip into a posture of self-pity:

• No one cares about me
• I am unloved
• There is no hope
• All those people are bad and everyone is out to get me.

And while Paul may have had a moment of self-pity, Paul did not stay there. He expressed his frustration, and then immediately moved on to talk about Onesiphorus. Look in verses 16-18.

“Onesiphorus refreshes me, is not ashamed of me. He searches for me and helps me.”

Instead of getting stuck on the negatives, he focuses on the positive reality.

Paul could have written more about those other two, but he chooses to be thankful.

Paul is not thankful for the trials, but he is thankful in the trials.

Part of suffering while being a believer is both remembering that the moment is sad, but also being thankful for what Christ has done in your life. It is also having the faith to trust that God can use your darkest/toughest moments of suffering to bring about something new and beautiful. Think about Easter just a couple of weeks ago. God took the darkest moment in history and redeemed it!

Let’s come back to verse 9-10 again in our passage.

9 He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

Gospel Invitation

Suffering exposes something we cannot ignore:

this world is broken.

No matter what you believe, suffering reminds us that things are not the way they should be.

And if all we have is ourselves, then when suffering comes, we have nowhere else to turn.

2 Timothy 1:9 tells us:

God “has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of His own purpose and grace.”

This is the gospel:

• You are not saved by what you do
• You are saved by what God has done

Verse 9 continues: “This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,”

Before time began, God already had you in mind.

Like a loving parent preparing for a newborn, God planned for you.

You did not find God.

He came for you.

Now for verse 10:

This grace given by God “has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

This means:

• God turns death into life
• God brings light into darkness
• God replaces corruption, brokenness in the world with immortality

Because of Jesus:

• Death is no longer the end
• For the believer, it becomes a doorway to life

When life is centered on ourselves, it leads to more destruction.

But life centered on God leads to life in eternity with Him.

In Christ:

• Your suffering is not meaningless
• Your failure is not final
• Your shame is not your identity

You are:

• saved
• called
• given purpose
• invited into a holy life

The question is simple:

Will you accept this gift offered to you?

You don’t need to clean yourself up.

You don’t need to prove anything.

You simply need to turn from relying on yourself and trust in Jesus as your Lord and Savior.