96 - The Cup of Suffering

Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to rescue people out of the darkness of this fallen world without suffering. Forces that hold people down won’t let them go without a battle, and people are wounded, and even die in battles. Which explains why suffering is necessary. But not all forms of suffering have the power to rescue people, only a certain kind. Most have no redemptive power at all, they are just the tragic fruit of our own wrong choices or of living in this sinful and broken world. Yet there are times when God specifically asks His people to suffer, because that’s the price that must be paid to bring someone out of bondage or unbelief. In those moments it is a believer’s love for God and hurting people that will constrain them to obey. God never forces a person to make that choice. He indicates His will, and then asks them to drink the “cup” He has placed in front of them. In this passage, John shows us the moment Jesus took that cup and began to drink from it.

Please notice: The suffering God asks His people to perform is not something He imposes on them against their will. It is something He invites us to choose because it is in our willing embrace of that trial that His power can be released. Suffering by itself helps no one, but suffering when it is done by faith and motivated by love, becomes a form of spiritual warfare.

We know that God can bring something positive out of any situation (Ro 8:28), including suffering. But that’s not the kind of suffering Jesus embraced that evening in Gethsemane. He was choosing to do what was necessary to save us. He put our needs ahead of His own, and as a result He provided a way of escape from eternal separation from God for every human who would believe in Him. That kind of suffering is not the misery of disease or injury; it’s not the darkness of depression, or the bruising left behind by demonic attack. Those forms of suffering are our enemies. They are, ultimately, the result of the devil’s war against the human race. They happen to both the guilty and the innocent. They come to all who live in a fallen world, and they aren’t God’s will. They are part of the miseries from which Jesus came to rescue us.

By the time John wrote this gospel, the other three gospels were already in circulation. He knew what Matthew, John Mark, and Luke had written. That’s why he didn’t repeat all the same descriptions of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. He didn’t need to retell what had already been told so well. But He did want us to see a very profound truth which was at work in the heart of Jesus during those events. He wanted us to understand that Jesus willingly went to the cross. Why? First of all, because it reveals His love for us. But I believe there is also another reason. I believe John wanted us to follow Jesus’ example. He was showing us that we too must choose to suffer to rescue others. Now, no one but Jesus could be the sacrifice for human sin. He performed a unique ministry on the cross that no other person, in all of history, could perform. But the fact that He willingly chose to suffer for us models an element of discipleship each of us must choose to follow. We can’t die for lost people; only He could do that. But in order for the power of His redemption to reach lost people, God’s people must be willing to suffer. And as He did with Jesus, the Father won’t force us to drink that cup. He’ll place it in front of us and wait for us to obey.