Chris Surber

Scriptures & Thoughts, “Redemptive Suffering,” Pastor Chris Surber

The common experience of humanity is suffering. It is the quality of existence which none can avoid. It binds us together in the shared experience of this world. God has not caused, but allowed pain and suffering to exist in the world. It is the result of the fall of mankind into sin in the Garden. If we allow Him by growing closer to Him through faith, God will redeem our suffering for our ultimate good and His ultimate glory.

This begins at the beginning; cultivating an intimate relationship with God through worship, prayer, fellowship with believers, and the power of God's Holy Word. We cannot have the peace of God until we have peace with God . Then, moving from that point, we learn to offer our suffering to God as a sacrifice in recognition that sacrifice brings redemption. This is the message of the Cross of Jesus Christ. Through His suffering we are redeemed! When we offer our pain to God as a sacrifice of worship, allowing Him to use it to bring us to a place of humility and total dependence upon Him, then peace floods our soul. It is in letting go of this life that we find the life of Christ.

It is a matter of focus. Am I focused on me and my pain; my preferences and my will; or His glory manifest through me, as it was in Christ? Sometimes God, in His sovereign will, heals our brokenness, very often He allows it to stay so that a greater good can come out of it; our learning to depend upon Him and trust in His will for our life . We have been created not primarily for our comfort, but for His glory. It is a matter of letting go of a commonplace perspective of “me” in the suffering and being captured buy a far greater perspective of the eternal value of life with God. This is not to trivialize the reality of suffering, but to give it meaning and value.

• “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” (Luke 9:24 NIV) This life is not primarily about this life. It is a place of preparation for eternity. God is seeking those who will worship Him in truth.

• “Because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day . For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. “ (2 Corinthians 4:11-18 NIV) Our outward (bodily) affliction is used by God as a tool to shape our inward and eternal person, as we offer the suffering to Him, for His use, for our ultimate good, and for His ultimate glory.

• “For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken." With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” (1 Peter 5:10 NIV)

When we suffer “well,” God uses it to further His testimony in the lives of those around us. It is a light to them that He is present in us.

• “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” (Romans 5:1-5 NIV)

We have peace with God through faith and our ultimate hope is not perfection in this life – a fleeting and passing notion which is unattainable. Our hope is eternal, imperishable, and the greatest good of God is to create a clean and stable heart within us; to shape us to look like Christ!

PDF Version

Here is guest column that I contributed to the Suffolk News Herald on the subject of a tragic instance of family violence in our community. Evil is ever present. Hope is its greatest adversary.



Learning Hope From Suffering

Here is guest column that I contributed to the Suffolk News Herald on the subject of a tragic instance of family violence in our community. Evil is ever present. Hope is its greatest adversary.

Smother Evil with Hope (Newspaper Link)

Smother Evil with Hope (.PDF of Article)



Preaching The Redemptive Value of Suffering

This is an essay that I wrote on the importance and biblical basis of preaching the often neglected scriptural motif of the redemptive value of suffering. How does God use human suffering? Suffering abounds. What purpose does God have in it, if any? This essay may be helpful for professional preachers, pastors, and all believers alike. PDF Version