Suffering and Glory

Good morning.

My name is Matthew Capone, and I'm the pastor here at Cheyenne Mountain Presbyterian Church,

and it's my joy to bring God's Word to you today.

If you're new or visiting with us, welcome.

We're glad that you're here, and we're glad that you're here not because we're trying

to fill seats, but because we're following Jesus together as one community.

And as we follow Jesus together, we become convinced that there's no one so good that

they don't need God's grace, and no one so bad that they can't have it, which means that

God has something to say to everyone in His Word, and so that's why we come to it in this

portion of our service, week after week, to study what God has to say to us.

If you've been with us, you know we're in the book of 1 Peter, and the book of 1 Peter is

a letter, and it's a letter written by a man named Peter to churches in the first century

that are in what is now modern-day Turkey.

At the time, it would have been called Asia Minor.

And these churches are struggling, and they're struggling because they're living as Christians,

and as they live as Christians, it's causing them to feel out of place in the world, and

it's also causing them to face opposition from the world.

Peter writes to these churches to instruct them and to encourage them.

He writes first to encourage them, to let them know that Jesus is worth it.

Jesus is worth living for, He's worth loving for, and He's also worth suffering for, and

He's worth dying for.

He doesn't just write to them to encourage them, but He also writes to instruct them.

He instructs them how they should live as Christians in this world, and He also instructs them how

to respond when they face opposition for following Jesus.

And if you've been with us, you know that this beginning of the letter where we're at has

been mostly, if not exclusively, encouragement rather than instruction.

Knowing that these folks are facing opposition, He wants to start out from the very beginning,

encouraging them of everything that's true about them and everything that's true about

God because they belong to Him.

And so we've looked at this encouragement in verses 1 and 2.

We saw that He helps them understand their identity.

They're chosen by God.

They're elect, but they're also exiles.

It's because they belong to God that they feel out of place in the world.

And then after that, we saw He talks about the fact that they are sons of God and daughters

of God.

God's their Father, and so they have benefits from that.

God's coming back to rescue them, no matter how bad things get now, and He has an inheritance

for them.

And then last week, we began to talk specifically about the topic of suffering, and we asked how

can we find joy in our suffering?

Peter shows them that because they suffer, when they suffer, they can find joy because it confirms

the fact that they belong to God.

They're not with God.

They're not following Jesus for the snacks, for what they can get, for the benefits that

they can receive, but they're following after Him because they have true faith.

We're going to continue on that theme a little bit this week.

We're ending up this section of encouragement.

Next week, we're going to head into the instruction.

We're going to continue talking about suffering.

Remember, there are three kinds of suffering.

There's general suffering that happens because of the brokenness in this world.

There is specific suffering that happens because of our foolishness and our sin.

Maybe we do something stupid, and so we have to suffer the consequences.

And then there's the third type of suffering, which is suffering specifically for the name

of Jesus Christ.

Now, all three of those kinds of sufferings matter.

If you were with us two summers ago, in the summer of 2018, we looked at the book of Ruth,

which is all about type one suffering.

Type two suffering, suffering because of our sin, shows up from time to time.

In fact, we talked about it with at least one of the Psalms.

And then type three suffering, suffering for the name of Jesus.

And you were with us last week.

You know that I talked about the fact that we have to be clear about the kind of suffering

that we face here in the United States, that it's nothing like the suffering that's faced

by people all around the world.

And in fact, this is one of the easiest times and the easiest places, most comfortable

times and the most comfortable places to be a Christian, which raises a question.

Why are we talking about suffering for the name of Jesus Christ if this is one of the easiest

places to follow Jesus Christ?

And of course, there's several reasons.

One, this is God's word for the church.

He's given us the book of 1 Peter for the church in all places at all times.

Second, there are Christians all around the world, our brothers and sisters, who are facing

suffering because they follow Jesus.

I mentioned last week that one in nine Christians around the world right now are facing intense

persecution.

But the other reason is similar to the reason I mentioned to you all over and over again

when we looked at the book of Ruth, which is that even if we're not suffering now, we

probably will one day.

And so God gives us his word to prepare us.

We have to have a theology of suffering.

We don't wait until suffering comes and then go back and try to figure out what's going on.

But God's given us his word, as I mentioned in the very first sermon in Ruth, now over

a year ago.

He's given us his word to prepare us for situations that perhaps we don't face, but

we will one day.

Just like you read stories to your child to help them understand situations they haven't

encountered yet and talk through it with them, God also does the same thing in Scripture.

And so it's with that word about suffering, we're going to ask a slightly different question

than we asked last week.

Last week the question was, how do we find joy in suffering?

And this week we're asking the question about, how does the story of the Bible encourage us

in suffering?

How does the grand story of the Bible help us when we're facing opposition for the name

of Jesus Christ?

Christ.

We're going to be starting in chapter 1, reading verses 10 through verse 12.

And as we come to verse 10, this is in your worship guide printed near the end, as Jim

mentioned earlier.

You can probably load this up on your phone, or you can find it in your Bible.

As we read this, remember that this is God's word.

And God tells us that his word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

In other words, God has not left us to stumble alone in the dark.

But instead, he's given us his word to show us the way to go.

And so that's why we read now, starting with verse 10.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched

and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating

when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.

It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you, in the things that

have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy

Spirit sent from heaven.

Things into which angels long to look.

I invite you to pray with me as we come to this portion of God's word.

Father in heaven, we thank you that you are a loving Father who wants us to not be ignorant,

but to know how to live in this world.

And we thank you that you want to prepare us for what may await us in the future, that

we wouldn't be caught by surprise.

And so we ask that you do that with your word this morning.

That is where people who want to follow you and people who love you, that you teach us

how to think through what happens when that leads to hardship and suffering.

And most of all, we ask that you'd help us to understand your grace, the grace that's mentioned

in this passage that you've been telling the story of for generations.

We ask these things not because we have earned them or deserve them, but because Jesus has earned

them for us.

And so we ask them in his name.

Amen.

A few years back, a theologian proposed a thought experiment, which has now become quite popular

and I'm going to pose to you as well.

Imagine that there was a work of Shakespeare, a play that we did not know existed, and suddenly

we found it.

We discovered this great work.

People have been studying Shakespeare for generations, but this was something that no one was aware

of and it came out of the dark, except there was only one problem.

This Shakespeare play, let's say it had five acts.

The problem was that the fifth act, you could do four acts if you want, the final act has

a large section that's missing.

We have the beginning of the act and we sort of have the ending of the act as well, but we

don't know what falls in the middle.

And so what are we going to do?

One option would be to write what goes in between those missing parts.

And of course, how would we write that section if we had to?

We would have to be faithful to what's come before.

We'd have to look at what happened in Acts 1, 2, and 3.

What are the characters like?

Whatever the characters are like, that's going to bind us, right?

We're not going to suddenly make the characters radically different than what they've been

in the previous chapters.

And we can't write it in such a way that the ending doesn't make sense.

And so what's happened before is going to bind us, it's going to direct us.

If there's themes that have showed up at the beginning in the first two acts, those themes

are going to have to carry through all the way to the end.

We're going to have to remain committed to what's actually been given to us in this play.

There could be another scenario.

Another scenario would be not that we have to write what's in between, but that we suddenly

find another copy, and perhaps this copy doesn't have the first several acts, but it has the

last act.

Well, how are we going to determine that this last act is actually authentic to everything

else in this lost play?

We're going to have to compare it to what's come before.

Do the characters that show up in this section, are they faithful with what's come before?

Are the themes the same themes?

Is there something that disrupts what's happened?

Now, you may be tracking with where I'm going here.

Of course, this is proposed by a theologian to help us understand what it's like to be

the church right now.

We live with a story that's come before us, and we have some idea of how the story ends.

And yet there's a gap in between.

We live after the time that the book of 1 Peter was written, and we also live before

the time that the book of Revelation talks about.

And so there's a sense in which we are part of this play, except we're the parts that have

not been written yet.

We're in the part that's being written.

That's part of what Peter's getting at here in this passage.

He tells us that there is a story, verse 10.

First, concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to

be yours searched and inquired carefully.

So there's prophets who are telling part of the story.

He's talking about Old Testament prophets who would have written books like Isaiah and

Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

And these prophets are the storytellers in part.

Now, God's the great storyteller, but he's using them as his instrument to write sections

of the Bible, and so they tell us things, and they tell us certain themes.

They know, verse 11, that there's going to be a time when there's a Christ who's going

to have sufferings and glories.

And we'll get to later what they're doing when it says they're inquiring, but here the

first point is this.

There's a story, and there's storytellers.

And these storytellers have been telling something, and this play that they're telling us about

has themes to it.

It has a consistency.

It has ideas that run throughout it.

What are those ideas?

Verse 11, they're predicting something, the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.

In other words, they're telling us, they're predicting what is going to happen later in the story.

There's foreshadowing going on among the prophets as they talk about what's going to happen later

with Jesus.

And there's these themes here.

It's the three themes, the grace, the salvation of the grace, and the sufferings and the glories.

And so you might be wondering, what does it have to do with suffering for the name of Jesus Christ?

And the question that we're asking is, how do, how does the story of the Bible encourage

us in our sufferings?

It encourages us in this way.

When we suffer for the name of Jesus Christ, we can have confidence that we are living in the right story.

This is not a mistake.

Recently, I went to go see that great cinematic triumph, Toy Story 4.

I joke, but some people say it's the best Toy Story.

I'm not going to ruin it for you.

But I will tell you, at some point in Toy Story 4, Woody comes up against evil toys.

At no point while I was watching the movie did I say, this doesn't make sense at all.

This is Toy Story.

This is the perfect world where evil toys don't exist.

And why didn't I say that?

Because I've seen Toy Story 1 and Toy Story 2 and I've seen Toy Story 3.

I know that part of the story is that there are going to be toys in this world that have evil intentions.

And so there wasn't a point at which I thought, man, they really switched up the writers for this one.

Something's wrong.

Maybe I walked into the wrong movie.

No, this is how the story goes.

And so I shouldn't be surprised, as the story progresses, that that's going to be one of the themes that keeps on showing up.

Peter is telling these people who are suffering for the name of Jesus Christ, you are in the right story.

You should not be surprised when you suffer because that is part of the theme that has come before.

The theme is suffering to glory.

That is how the story works.

That's how this narrative arc has been going.

That's what the prophets prophesied.

This is nothing new.

And this is not a mistake.

You shouldn't be wondering at this point,

is Jesus actually the Messiah?

I was thinking this Messiah was going to come and he was just going to bring victory, right?

There wasn't going to be any suffering.

No, this character is exactly the character he was supposed to be.

Peter hits this home when he tells us something somewhat strange.

Verse 12,

Now we think of these Old Testament prophets as coming to their audience in the Old Testament, right?

God's people Israel, and giving them God's prophecy at that time for their good.

In other words, for the good of people in the Old Testament.

And that's true.

But Peter tells us there's even a greater good here,

that they don't have all the details of the things that they prophesied,

but even in not having the details they are serving,

these people living now after the time of Jesus,

how are they serving them?

By confirming for them that this is how the story works.

They can look back and go and see what has come before in the Old Testament and say,

Aha!

There's nothing surprising about suffering.

This is what it means to belong to God.

If we're following after Jesus,

we are going to follow the same pattern that he follows.

Jesus was predicted to experience suffering and glory.

Jesus experienced suffering and then glory.

There's a pattern.

We who follow him will also experience suffering and glory.

We are in the right story.

And we're in it because we follow after Jesus.

This is not a mistake.

I put it in a different way.

If there were not suffering,

then we would know that we were living in what is called fan fiction.

And there are fan fictions that exist in the Christian world.

One of them is called the prosperity gospel.

That is fan fiction.

It's not written by the real author.

There's another fan fiction.

It's called the Book of Mormon.

That was not written by the real author.

And that's the next point that Peter makes here.

Not only is this the same story,

but it's the same author.

Verse 11.

The spirit of Christ in them was indicating

when he predicted the sufferings of Christ

and the subsequent glories.

Jesus, who suffered,

his spirit was the one in the past

who inspired these prophets to write down this story

so that you would know what is to come

and that you would know that what has come is true.

The story is the same

and the author is the same.

You all know sometimes if you

follow a book series,

perhaps sometimes someone makes the choice

to keep the series but change the author.

Things can get a little weird.

Maybe you followed a television show

and they had a certain writer for two seasons

and then they switched the writer

and suddenly the characters changed as well.

Some of the themes changed.

The overall feel of the show was different.

That is not what's going on with the Bible.

We have the same story

and the same author.

And so as these people are suffering,

they know this is not a mistake.

This story is being written by the right person

and that person is Jesus.

And so even as we are facing opposition from the world,

we know that we're living in the right story.

We know that it's not a mistake.

It's more than that though.

It's not just the same story

and the same author.

It's also a new chapter.

We hear that these prophets,

they know that they're predicting something.

They don't know exactly what it is

and how it's going to work.

They're inquiring

into what person or time

is being indicated.

In other words,

they're trying to figure out.

We know that this is a

going to be a Messiah.

It sounds like he's going to suffer.

That doesn't sound quite right.

So we're going to try to figure out

what time is this going to happen?

What kind of world events

would be occurring

that this could take place?

What kind of Messiah would this be?

The kind that's not just going to come in

and conquer for us

but the one who would suffer.

And they're trying to figure this out.

They have clues in the Old Testament.

They can't find the solution.

Same thing happens today.

Just a few weeks ago,

Apple did their annual unveiling

of all their new products.

And if you followed tech news beforehand,

you know that there were many prophets

who were searching and inquiring,

carefully inquiring

what type the new iPhone might be.

Of course, they didn't know, right?

They had many different hints to work with,

hypotheses, guesses.

I saw one article that said

everything that we know

about the new Apple Watch.

And you open the article,

there's nothing that they know.

It's all guesses, conjectures.

Oh, that's clickbait.

Okay.

These people are revealing,

these prophets are seeing a story

that's now been revealed.

And so they don't just know

that they're in the right place

and the right time

and the right story,

but they're also at a specific time

in the story.

So I'm going to ask you a question.

If you had a major illness,

at what time would you want to be alive?

Would you want to have that major illness

in 1989 or 2019?

Easy, right?

You're going to want to have it in 2019.

If you are a college student

and it's the night before a big paper is due,

would you like to be living

in the age of the typewriter

or would you like to be living

in the age of the computer?

Some of you are going to say typewriter

just to be ornery.

The answer is computer.

We live in a time

that is privileged medically

and a privileged time technologically.

We experience and know things

that people in previous generations

longed to look into.

And we have things and privileges

and benefits

that people in previous generations

could only dream of.

Peter is telling these people

that they live in a time

spiritually of incredible privilege.

Because they know and experience

the full benefits of God's grace

which previous generations

could only dream about

and wanted desperately to know.

In other words,

if you were going to choose

any time to be a Christian

or someone who belongs to God,

when would you choose?

Do you want to be in the time of Moses?

Would you like to live

under the time of Abraham?

Do you have some nostalgia

about being in the desert

for 40 years?

What time would you choose

to be in the people of God?

Peter is telling them,

despite what you're facing,

you are in a privileged time spiritually.

You are in the time

that people want to be.

Now you might think or say,

well, you know,

if I was going to choose a time,

I would choose

when Jesus is walking on the earth.

That's the time spiritually

I would want to be.

That's the real highlight.

Okay, let's work with that.

You want to live in the time

when Jesus walked on the earth.

That's great.

You are in Western Europe.

You never meet Jesus.

You're in Northwest Africa.

You never meet Jesus.

You're like me,

some kind of Western European mutt.

Wow, you never meet Jesus.

You live in Israel,

but you live kind of

in the southern part of Israel,

far away from Galilee.

Odds of you meeting Jesus,

very low.

These people receiving this letter

lived after Jesus

and never met him.

It's the time

after Jesus returned

that is the time

of spiritual privilege.

Remember,

Peter told them earlier

that they love Jesus

even though they haven't seen him.

That wasn't because

none of them were alive

when Jesus walked the earth.

It's because Jesus

didn't visit Asia Minor.

And so it was after his death

that the gospel was carried out

from the place

where it started

from Jerusalem

and it's taken to these believers.

And so you're not just

in the right story,

you're in the right place.

Everyone else

in redemptive history,

those who came before you,

only got to read

the beginning of the mystery novel.

And they got to see

all the clues

but they didn't see the answer.

You now

live in the part

of the story

where you get to see

the answer.

You get to see

how that suffering

Messiah was revealed.

You get to see

the goodness

and beauty

of the gospel

that it was more

than anyone

in the Old Testament

could imagine.

And so

Peter's telling them

in one sense,

yeah, it's stressful.

But what a great time

to live.

No one

in the history

of the church

would trade places

with you.

And there's a sense

in which no one

in the history

of the church

would trade places

with us.

Because even more

than the recipients

of this letter

we've been able

to see

how the gospel

has expanded

throughout the world.

And we can find

on the internet

in five seconds

more information

about the revelation

of Jesus Christ

than anyone

before 33 A.D.

could have.

Feeling out of place

in the world

and facing opposition

from the world,

Peter reminds these people

that while the world

may feel like

a place that's not

their home,

spiritually,

they live

in the best time

possible.

And they live

in the best time

possible because

of this grace,

the salvation,

verse 10,

that the prophets

who prophesied

searched and inquired

carefully about.

Things into which

angels long to look.

People are longing

to know,

angels are longing

to know,

the reality

of this grace.

And what is the grace

that they're longing

to know that we

understand the recipients

of this letter

embrace and know

and have as their

confidence and their hope?

It's the reality

of this suffering servant.

And so I'm going to

turn back to Isaiah 53,

which you'll have

in your worship guide.

We read it as our

Old Testament reading

this morning.

This is what the prophets

prophesied that they

did not understand

that the readers

of this letter did.

Isaiah 53.

Who has believed

what he has heard from us

and to whom has the arm

of the Lord been revealed?

For he grew up

before him like a young

plant and like a root

out of dry ground.

He had no form

or majesty that we

should look at him

and no beauty

that we should desire him.

The prophets didn't know

exactly what that was

talking about.

We do.

It's talking about Jesus

who is a real man

in real time

in real space

and actually came

and lived on this earth.

Lived a perfect life

that we couldn't

and died the death

that we deserve.

And by doing that

he was a young plant

and a root out of dry ground.

He didn't have

the former majesty

that he would have had

had he stayed in heaven.

Verse 3.

He experienced

the themes of this story.

He was despised

and rejected by men.

A man of sorrows

and acquainted with grief

and as one from whom

men hide their faces

he was despised

and we esteemed him not.

Even those who follow

after God

did not see Jesus

for who he was

sometimes.

And Romans 5

tells us that it was

while we were still sinners

that Christ died for us.

And so part of the privilege

that these people have

is they know

how it's going to work.

The grace comes

when Jesus dies

for people who hate him.

Verse 4.

Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows

yet we esteemed him stricken

smitten by God

and afflicted.

But he was pierced

for our transgressions.

He was crushed

for our iniquities.

Upon him

was the chastisement

that brought us peace

and with his wounds

we are healed.

All we like sheep

have gone astray.

We have turned

everyone to his own way

and the Lord

has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

This is what the readers

of 1 Peter understand

and we understand as well

that those who came

before them did not.

The full reality

of God's grace

that he comes

for sheep

who have gone astray

and he lays

all of our sins

on Jesus

as that sheep

to take them away.

And so as they're

facing suffering

in this world

for the name

of Jesus Christ

the readers of 1 Peter

know

that they are

in the right story.

That story

is written

by the same author

and they are in

the most glorious chapter

that has come

so far.

And they're in

the most glorious chapter

because they finally

understand Jesus

that he's the one

who comes

and dies

for his enemies.

And those who are

his enemies

can turn

in faith

to Jesus Christ

and experience

this same salvation.

And so that

is how the story

of the Bible

encourages

those who are

facing suffering

for the name

of Jesus Christ.

Christ.

Please pray

with me.

Father in heaven

we thank you

for the privilege

of living in a time

when we understand

and know the gospel

that we're not

wondering or searching

but we know

about Jesus

and we have the privilege

of having access

to your word.

We ask that you'd

encourage us with it

that when we face

the themes of suffering

and glory

we would know

that we're doing it

because it's part

of the story

and it's part

of what Jesus

has done for us

the pattern he sets

and the way

we follow him.

We ask all these things

in Jesus name.

Amen.