No one can deny the universality of pain and suffering. No one. We all experience them. Even the

believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, those who are redeemed by His precious blood, they suffer.

Why? Because we still live in this sinful, fallen world. But unlike what happens to the non-believers,

when suffering comes uninvited and unwelcome to the believers in the believers' life,

it is not judgment. It is not God's judgment. And so I want to give you four things as to why

a believer suffers in this life. First, it is to purify us. It's to purify us as gold and more than gold,

actually, more precious than gold. According to Peter in 1.67, he said,

you greatly rejoice in your salvation. We rejoice in that we are saved and we are eternally forgiven

and we are on our way to heaven. He said, you rightly so. You greatly rejoice. Keep on rejoicing.

Even though, can you say that with me, even though

you suffer for a little while to purify our faith being more precious than gold.

Secondly, the second thing I want to tell you about suffering, when it is not the consequences of anything

we've done, and suffering comes, what it does, it presses us deeper and closer to the heart of God.

Second Corinthians, chapter 1, verses 8 and 9, Paul speaking of his suffering. He suffered so much, but then he comes

at a point in his life, 2 Corinthiansius 1 of 8, he said, our affliction was excessively

beyond our ability to bear. Think about this. The guy who have been through so much, he says,

but this affliction that I'm going through right now is it excessively beyond our ability to bear.

I can't take it. But why? He gives us the answer. Thank God. I don't have to come up with the answer.

So he goes on to say, so that, so that we should not trust in ourselves, but in the God who raises the dead.

For the lovers of the Lord Jesus Christ, any form of suffering should make us long for heaven. It should make us long for heaven.

Where there is no suffering, no pain, no tears. The third thing I want to share with you,

why God allows suffering for his children, the believers, is that so we may have compassion

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