Better to suffer for doing good than to suffer for doing wrong

I Peter 3:17-18 (NLT)

Remember, it is better to suffer for doing good, if that is what God wants, than to suffer for doing wrong! Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the Spirit.

Biblically, suffering is a fact of life.  God’s judgment upon Adam and Eve after they chose to disobey God in the Garden of Eden was to bring suffering into this world (Gen 3:17).  The word “suffer” in the Greek is “pascho” that means to be affected, to feel something, but that something is usually “a bad plight”.  Suffering is a biblical doctrine.  Can you think of or find one person in the Bible who did not suffer one way or another?  The whole book of Job focuses on the topic of suffering.  Abraham, Moses, Joseph, David, Daniel, Jesus, Paul, all the prophets and all the disciples suffered.  A main characteristic of a mature Christian is understanding that suffering has one or more purposes in our lives, e.g. God’s “pruning tool” to develop our Christian character and greater dependence on God than on ourselves.  Suffering is part of God’s sovereign plan for our lives although most of the time we do not understand His reasons for our suffering.   

Since you will suffer in this life, Peter writes that it is better to suffer for doing good.  Suffering for doing wrong is a tragedy.   Suffering for doing good seems very unfair, and it is, but think of Christ who never did anything wrong, yet suffered horribly for sinners.  When you suffer for doing good, you suffer with Christ.  It is Peter’s hope that you suffer for doing good……if that is what God wants.  What is suffering for doing good?  Well, an easy answer is that any suffering that is not the result of doing wrong is suffering for doing good.  Some specific examples of suffering for doing good are:

·  Being persecuted for your faith (II Tim 3:12, John 15:20, others).  Persecution can include not only physical, mental, and emotional suffering, but also deprivation, rejection, and loss.  I think of many Christians who have given up everything to serve the Lord and go places where no one else would go and do things that no one else would do. 

·  Helping others without being appreciated.

·  Being taken advantage of for generosity, hospitality, serving others.

·  Following the example of Christ, being a disciple of Christ, suffering for doing good like He did.

I think of the Scottish Olympian, Eric Liddell (“Chariots of Fire”) who gave up a life of fame and fortune to become a missionary in China.  He could have escaped when the Japanese invaded China, and indeed arranged for his wife and children to escape, but he stayed to continue his missionary service and died in a Japanese internment camp a few months before it was liberated.  I think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (author of “The Cost of Discipleship) who could have escaped Nazi imprisonment, but stayed to protest Nazi rule and was executed for his faith just three weeks before the concentration camp was liberated.  I think of men and women who have sacrificed their lives as missionaries, pastors, chaplains, and other selfless Christian service because of their faith in Christ and suffered for doing good.  They are eternal heroes and heroines who have earned great heavenly rewards because they suffered for their faithfulness.

I Peter 3:18 is a memory verse.  Jesus suffered and died for our sins once for all time.  This one act of selfless love by almighty God through His only begotten Son paid the price once and for all for all of our sins.  His death on the cross and your belief in what He did for you permits you to enter heaven for all eternity.  Without Jesus dying for your sins, you would never make it to heaven.  In the Old Testament God required the sacrifice of innocent lambs or other animals for Him to forgive sins.  Jesus became that sacrificial lamb once and for all so that no other kind of sacrifice is ever needed any more.  What an incredible truth that so many people still do not believe or accept.  Jesus died on the cross for our sins, yet it’s also a wonderful truth that He did not stay dead, but was raised to life according to the Scriptures.

Do you believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to the point that you are willing to serve Him even to the point of having to suffer for what you believe and who you serve?