27 Mar Discussion Guide: Easter Sunday – On That Day
Prayer
Take the first 10 minutes of your time together to listen to what God is doing in one another’s lives and pray for any specific needs people in your group may have.
Suffering…it’s a reality everyone goes through at some point in life. But what does suffering mean? Does it tell us something about ourselves? Does it tell us something about our world? Does it tell us something about God? The answer is a resounding YES. The real question is what does suffering tell us about those things, and perhaps even more importantly is the question of how can we navigate through our suffering in a way that makes us stronger in the end? That is what we will discuss during our time together.
Discussion Questions
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
“Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.”
What does it mean to suffer? Give some examples
Webster’s Dictionary defines suffering as sustaining loss or damage. This is a general definition, but a good one nonetheless. People experience loss or damage in all kinds of various forms. From breaking the glass on their phone screen to breaking a bone in their body to the breaking up of a long standing relationship. For some the loss of their favorite shirt causes suffering, while for others it’s the loss of a loved one to death. The point is that suffering ranges on a widespread spectrum of loss and damage, but the pain that is experienced from their loss or damage ought not be diminished because the severity of the loss is really a personal experience that cannot be quantified by any other individual.
How has suffering affected your life personally?
What is the question we typically ask when we experience suffering? Why do you think that is?
The first question we tend to ask when we experience suffering is, “Why?” We immediately want to know why we are going through what we are going through. Even before we ask how we might escape the pain we typically want an explanation as to why it is happening first. I think the reason that is is because in our suffering we are inherently aware that some kind of injustice has occurred, that this is not how things ought to be and therefore there must be a reason behind it. Either we have done something to deserve the “punishment” we’re experiencing or God has wrongly allowed the “punishment” to come into our lives. Either way, the question of , “Why?” stems from the fact that we inherently know that pain and suffering is not how the world was designed to function.
Job 2:7-10
So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes.
Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
How can suffering affect a person’s view of God?
Why do you suppose God allows suffering in our lives?
As believers in Christ we can know for sure that any punishment our sin deserves has already been atoned for in Christ’ life, death and resurrection, therefore any suffering God allows to occur in our lives cannot be punitive. This is Paul’s point in Romans 5 when we says that because we have been justified by Jesus we now have peace with God and access into His grace on a daily basis, and because we know those things to be true we can now rejoice in our suffering knowing that in it God is working perseverance, character and hope in our hearts. And the proof Paul gives us of this reality is in Romans 5:8 where he tells us that God has demonstrated His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us and if Christ would die for us when deserved death ourselves how much more will He know give us life and love now that we belong to Him. Therefore, we can look at Romans 8, and in particular Romans 8:28, and now beyond any shadow of a doubt that God is indeed working all things for His glory and our ultimate good. Any suffering God allows in the lives of His children is for our reproof, our growth, our character, and ultimately to draw us into a deeper and more intimate place within the heart of God. The more we know someone the more intimate our relationship is with that person, and there is no greater way to know the heart of a God who suffered than to experience some kind of suffering ourselves.
Looking back at a painful time in your life, would you say God used that experience to accomplish something good in you? Why or why not?
Francis Chan, Crazy Love
“Are we in love with God or just His stuff?”
If a person stops loving you, or even liking you, when you don’t give them what they want, what does that say about your relationship with that person?
It means that person only loved you for what you could do for them. They didn’t really love you at all. You were simply a means to some other end. You were just a step in the path of where they ultimately wanted to get to. In other words you were something for them to use to get what they really desired.
If we turn away from God when life gets difficult, or doesn’t go the way we want it to go, what does that say about our relationship with God?
It means we love God’s stuff more than we love God. It means that God is a means to some other end that we truly desire and that we are simply using God as some genie in a bottle who will respond to our every whim and wish. Fortunately, God loves us too much to let us use Him to get something that will ultimately destroy us and therefore suffering is the wake up call He allows us to experience to remind us that any other god is a false idol that will ultimately let us down and destroy our lives.
Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods
“As many have learned and later taught, you don’t realize Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.”
What does our loving Jesus despite our suffering communicate to the world around us? What does it do for your own heart and faith?
In the same way a person willing to endure great physical strain in training shows the world that person values the physically fit figure or the victory in the arena more than their own comfort or convenience, so when the world sees us loving Jesus despite our suffering or loss it communicates to them that we value Jesus more than anything this world has to offer, even life itself. It says Jesus is our ultimate pursuit and therefore Jesus must be more valuable to us than anything else.
Elisabeth Elliot, These Strange Ashes
“Faith’s most severe tests come not when we see nothing, but when we see a stunning array of evidence that seems to prove our faith vain.”
What typically is the accusation we hear in our hearts towards God when we are suffering?
The accusation in our hearts when suffering comes is the same accusation that was spoken into the hearts of Adam and Eve in the Garden. It’s the accusation that God isn’t really for you, doesn’t really love you and can’t be trusted to bring you ultimate joy. If God really loved you and wanted what was best for you He would give you what you wanted, He would not allow such pain and loss to come into your life. Of course that presupposes that God’s ultimate desire is our comfort and happiness, which, if that were true, would then subject God to our will and desires and by definition would cause God to cease to be God and would put us in the position of sovereign ruler. I don’t thin any of us want to pretend that we would be a better god than God is, but that is the accusation we wrestle with. Fortunately, God is not after our comfort or happiness, but instead is after our true joy and ultimate fulfillment, which is only found in the accomplishment of our purpose to be image bearers of Him and partners with Him in seeing His Kingdom come and His will being done on earth as it is in Heaven.
Romans 5:6-11
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
How does the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus disprove that accusation?
As mentioned in the leader not earlier, Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf in the midst of our sin promises us that our punishment has already been dealt with and therefore any suffering we experience cannot be punitive and therefore, in love, must be constructive.
Closing Thought
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
“The Christian, however, must bear the burden of a brother. He must suffer and endure the brother. It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated. The burden of men was so heavy for God Himself that He had to endure the Cross. God verily bore the burden of men in the body of Jesus Christ. But He bore them as a mother carries her child, as a shepherd enfolds the lost lamb that has been found. God took men upon Himself and they weighted Him to the ground, but God remained with them and they with God. In bearing with men God maintained fellowship with them. It was the law of Christ that was fulfilled in the Cross. And Christians must share in this law.”
Suffering is difficult to endure, so how can we compassionately walk with, and encourage one another in our suffering in such a way that displays God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven?