What the Global Church Teaches Us About Suffering

I live in a country in North Africa where following Christ is difficult for natives of this land. One brother I know has experienced many painful trials throughout his life with Christ. They began the moment he confessed to following Jesus.

Many of his family members cut him off. Neighbors have caused him many problems in the community. He has lost jobs, been slandered, and often mistreated. Recently, someone burned down his small business kiosk in the marketplace.

Despite this, the last time we met, he had a cheerful disposition, and he even sang a hymn out loud with great joy and no shame in the café where we were meeting for our Bible study.

For many Christians in the West, suffering for the faith is not something we expect. When hardship does come because of Christ, it can feel strange. But if we look at the global church, especially believers living under cultural pressures, governmental persecution, financial poverty, and family rejection, we remember that suffering isn’t abnormal for the Christian life. It’s actually a basic part of following Jesus.

The Bible doesn’t present suffering for Christ as a surprising exception, but as an ordinary reality for those who belong to Jesus. Jesus himself said, “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20).

In light of that biblical reality, here are four lessons the global church teaches us about suffering for our faith, and how following Christ means taking up a cross.

1. LEARN TO REJOICE IN SUFFERING

Many Christians in the West can’t imagine the kind of opposition my friend here in North Africa has faced. But his joy in suffering is a reflection of Hebrews 10, where the writer encourages believers who “joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.” 

In God’s great kindness and grace towards us, suffering exposes what we treasure most. When earthly securities are stripped away, if Christ himself is what is most precious to us, we will learn to rejoice in our suffering as we wait for the better and abiding treasure in heaven.

2. DEPEND ON GOD IN PRAYER

I think about another brother in the church I pastor. His faithfulness to Christ has come at enormous personal cost: He endured divorce because of his faith, almost immediately after his baptism. His wife took their son and moved seven hours away. She said she wanted nothing to do with Christianity. 

He also continues to experience pressure and instability at work because of his bold witness for Christ. He is scrutinized and mistreated. Yet through these trials, his prayer life and dependence upon God have only deepened. 

For a season, he lived and breathed the Psalms because they gave words to his pain and his prayers. The Lord sustained him by his grace and grew him significantly. Today, as a member of our church, he is often used by God to bring great encouragement to us all.

In the West, we’re often too comfortable, and sometimes we believe these comforts are our rights. We don’t realize that comfort and self-sufficiency often weaken our dependence on God in prayer. Hardship, on the other hand, drives believers to the throne of grace.

In the beginning of 2 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul described the intense affliction he experienced in Asia. That trial drove him to understand God’s purposes in his suffering more profoundly: “But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9). 

3. SUBMIT TO CHRIST IN SUFFERING

The global church also teaches us that suffering trains us in submission to Christ. Western culture often prizes control, independence, and personal autonomy. But suffering humbles us. It reminds us we are not sovereign. We are creatures dependent upon our faithful Savior.

One dear member of our church faced great persecution from his family after he came to know Christ and was baptized. He actually fled the country for four years. As he grew in knowledge of the Scriptures, it became clear to him that he must return to preach Christ to his family and his countrymen. He saw this is what it meant to be obedient and submit to Christ’s Great Commission.

So, he returned and planted a church he pastored for several years. He continued to labor in this role until most recently, when his health became so poor that he could barely even care for himself. The last several years he has had chronic sickness from a kidney disease, which has kept him in bed. His circumstances have not improved quickly or easily, and I am not sure they will. Yet through prolonged weakness, the Lord has been teaching him to trust Christ daily. 

I have tried to lovingly care for this suffering brother with the truth, but it is he who often encourages me. He has learned to be content with his circumstance because he trusts that the Lord is good and has good purposes in his suffering, so he joyfully submits to Christ’s will as he suffers. 

“We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame …” (Romans 5:3-5).

4. EXPECT CONFORMITY TO CHRIST IN SUFFERING

Finally, the global church can show us how suffering conforms believers to the character of Christ. Scripture teaches that God is not wasting our pain. Romans 8:29 declares that God’s purpose is to conform his people “to the image of his Son.” Trials become one of the primary tools God uses to shape Christlike character within us.

When I look at believers like these brothers above, I do not merely see hardship. I see evidence of the work of Christ. Through suffering, the character of Jesus has become increasingly visible in them. There is peace amid uncertainty, patience amid injustice, hope amid loss, compassion amid hardship, and love even toward those who oppose them.

Christ Himself is manifest in them. Jesus was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). And yet through suffering, he displayed perfect obedience, love, gentleness, and trust in the Father. As believers in Christ share in his sufferings, we too are increasingly shaped into His likeness.

Christ is sufficient in all things. Perhaps the suffering global church can teach us this more profoundly than any other.