If you hurt this morning, if you're sitting there and you can hardly move and you wish I'd quit preaching so you could get up because your back is killing you, or there's something in your life that's incredibly painful like a marriage. The question I have for is, will you

believe this? Will you believe that it is love from a Heavenly Father? I'm not asking you to

understand fully. I'm asking you to believe. How should we view the painful trials in our lives?

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper turns to Hebrews 12, 3 to 11 to reveal how our father lovingly uses suffering to lead us deeper into His Holiness.

This sermon was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on August 24, 1997.

What kind of suffering is it and where did it come from?

Very simply, it's coming from hostile adversaries. This was true back in

chapter 10, imprisonment, plundering. It was two in chapter 11, verses 35 to 38. You don't get

sawn in two by anybody by an adversary.

We see it most clearly in verses three and four.

Consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners.

There's the phrase.

That's a key phrase.

Such hostility by sinners against himself so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.

You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.

So the link with Jesus draws out the link with hostility.

And so the main source of pain in this chapter is persecution, short of martyrdom so far, but it may be on the way.

Now, where did it come from?

Who's doing it?

Who's in charge of doing it?

And verse 3 said, consider him who endured such hostility by sinners. That's who's doing it, right? Sinners have expressed hostility and shown it against Jesus,

and now they're showing it against these Christians.

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