The Purpose of Pain

Before we get into First Peter this morning, I have a correction and an apology to make to you.

If you were in the second service last Sunday, I had an illustration that I used referencing a children's book that we read to our son, Adam Raccoon.

If you're familiar with that book, the problem was I said that Adam Raccoon was written by Charles Schultz's son, the creator of Peanuts.

And that was incorrect.

It's actually created by Glenn Keane, the son of Bill Keane, who is the author of Family Circus.

So I got my comics mixed up.

I apologize to you for that misstatement.

That is what happens when you don't have enough detail recorded in your notes and you're speaking off the top of your head.

So my apologies for that.

The elders have encouraged me to make an announcement this morning and to fill you in a little bit.

I am going to be having a major surgery in about a week and a half.

I am going to be having a disc removal and fusion surgery in my neck.

I have pretty severe spinal stenosis in my neck and degenerative discs and bone spurs that are pinching off nerves and kind of gotten to the point where there's no options for me for pain relief anymore.

So we have known that this was coming.

We just hoped that it would be years from now.

But we've reached that point very quickly, and we're disappointed that it's so soon in our time with you.

But we just have to go with what the Lord puts in front of us.

So don't worry.

The uh the pulpit ministry here is well taken care of between Pastor Vic and Pastor Scott.

Don't know how long that I'll be out.

We're just gonna have to take it week by week.

Uh we do know it's gonna be a little bit, though, so appreciate your prayers for that.

So that I don't have a time yet, but that'll be on November 30th.

And somebody commented to me, really, at Christmas time?

Well, you know, it's what it's what God brings, and so you go with it.

So we appreciate your prayers for that.

Uh and please please take your Bible and open it to 1 Peter chapter 1 if you have a Bible with you.

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

If not, you can use the one that is in the Pew Rack in front of you.

My favorite writer from the past is Puritan pastor J.C.

Ryle.

You might hear me from time to time refer to him sort of tongue in cheek as my favorite dead guy.

It's true.

You will hear that.

But because he's my favorite dead guy, you will hear me quote from him quite often.

I'd like to share some quotes from his writings with you this morning.

He wrote, There is nothing which shows our ignorance so much as our impatience under trouble.

There is nothing which shows our ignorance so much as our impatience under trouble.

He goes on to say, we forget that every cross we bear is a message from God and intended to do us good in the end.

Trials, he wrote, are intended to make us think, to wean us from the world, to send us to our Bibles and to push us to our knees.

Health is a good thing, but sickness is far better if it leads us to God.

Prosperity is a great mercy, but adversity is a greater one if it brings us to Christ.

Anything, anything, he wrote, is better than living in carelessness and dying in sin.

End quote.

That mirrors what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 8 and 9.

2 Corinthians 1:8

He wrote to the Corinthian church, we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the great affliction we experienced in Asia.

For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.

Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.

But that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on the God who raises the dead.

Some of you have communicated the same truth to me.

That trials and sufferings in your life make you cling to Christ even more.

See, the truth is that trials come to God's people, trials of many kinds, but they come with a purpose, a purpose designed by God Himself.

I'd like you to look with me at that truth from 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 6 and 7 this morning, as we continue on in our study of 1 Peter.

1 Peter 1:6

Peter wrote, In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Again from J.

C.

Ryle, writing in his book Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, and he's referencing here the disciples going across the Sea of Galilee in a storm by themselves.

J.

C.

Ryle wrote, We would rather cross the lake with calm weather and favorable winds, with Christ always by our side and the sun shining down on our faces.

But it may not be.

It is not this way that God's children are made partakers of his holiness.

Abraham and Jacob and Moses and David and Job were all men of many trials.

Let us be content to walk in their footsteps and drink of their cup.

In our darkest hours we may seem to be left, but we are never really alone.

That truth is woven throughout this passage.

God is seen to be with his people in his foreknowledge of them, in the sanctifying work of his spirit, in the living hope found in a living Savior who, by means of his power, keeps his suffering people safe for all eternity.

They may even be exiles who are suffering greatly, but he has not left them alone.

We need to keep that in mind as we look at this passage and see here six realities about trials from these two verses.

We don't have time this morning to go into too great of depth about each of these, but I want you to note the importance of them.

And the first important reality that I would like you to note in this passage is that trials are grievous.

Not all trials are the same, are they?

Duration is different, intensity is different.

The type of trial varies from situation to situation and person to person.

And you know, we need to be careful not to judge someone else's grief or their trial, because what may be a grief to you may not be a grief to me.

And what may be a trial to you may not be a trial to me.

We all have different strengths and different weaknesses and different levels of endurance.

And so if we look down on someone else who's going through a trial and we judge them, the day may come when the situation is reversed and we are going through a trial and they judge us.

You know, Christians are great at looking down their noses at one another, unfortunately.

We've become proficient at thinking and maybe even sometimes saying, can you believe what so-and-so went through?

I wonder what they did to bring that about.

So we judge one another's trials sometimes when they've not done anything worthy of that judgment, when in fact they may be grieving in the midst of that trial.

Do you remember the Pharisees' questions to Jesus?

About an invalid, they asked Jesus, what did this man do to bring this about?

Or what did his parents do?

You remember Jesus' response?

You're going down the wrong road there, people.

Neither one.

This was brought about to bring God glory.

Trials come in many forms.

There are health trials, all kinds of physical trials.

There may be mental trials, there may be family issues, there may be aging issues.

We could go on and on and on.

They can be internal, they can be stresses and anxieties that take place inside of us.

They may be external, situations that are coming at us from outside of ourselves.

They may be maybe both.

External situations may push us to the place of having internal trials.

And so we need to recognize that we all suffer.

We just don't suffer in the same way.

We all endure trials, they just don't look the same.

But they are still grievous to the one enduring them.

You know, sometimes grief is the result of a trial.

Sometimes grief is the result of a trial.

For example, in 2006, my dad was diagnosed with an aggressive brain cancer.

And our church at the time was very gracious to us and allowed Allison and I to go and spend his last 12 weeks with him, basically being his caretakers during that time.

That was a trial.

As I look back on it, it wasn't that great of a trial because Allison and I purposed at the beginning of it to see God's grace.

And we asked God to show us his grace during those 12 weeks, and he did.

He did.

But it was a trial, it was a burden.

But grief came at the end of it.

When the Lord took my dad home.

So sometimes grief comes as the result of a trial.

Sometimes grief is found in the length of a trial, its duration, or maybe in its intensity.

Sometimes grief is found in the perceived outcome of a trial.

We're looking down the road of a trial and we feel like we can see the end.

And that brings a grief to us.

Sometimes grief comes because we we don't understand.

Or we don't trust in God's sovereignty and his providence.

We don't understand or trust in the fact that God is sovereign over all things, and we don't trust his providential leading every single step of the way.

And so because we don't trust in that, we don't lean on that, we don't rely on that, there is no place for our souls to rest or find comfort.

Sometimes grief in trial is found because we're alone.

Maybe we're physically alone, or maybe we feel like no one understands.

The word that Peter uses for grief here has the basic idea of sadness or sorrow, but it's not something that is simple.

And just, oh, I feel sad about that.

This is an intensive emotion.

And it's found throughout Scripture and it's used in very intensive ways.

Let me show you what I mean by that.

We can see this in Matthew chapter 17, verse 23, where Jesus references his death, and he says, They will kill the Son of Man, and he will be raised on the third day.

Matthew 17:23

And his disciples responded by being greatly distressed.

That's not a minor thing.

That's being moved in the core of your being, being distressed because of what's going to happen.

John chapter 16, verse 20, Jesus says, Truly, truly I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.

John 16:20

You will be grieved, but your grief will turn into joy.

Do you see the contrast there and the parallels?

There's this rejoicing versus lamenting.

There's this sorrowing in a way that produces lamentation, something that comes from deep inside of you.

2 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 9.

2 Corinthians 7:9

Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, I rejoice not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting, for you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us.

Do you see that the grief there produced repentance?

So there was something going on inside of them that moved them to respond with repentance of sin.

It's intensive.

It's a word also used of grief in death.

1 Thessalonians 4 13.

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others who have no hope.

There's the grief of loss in death.

There's one more though that I want to show you.

Because we need to see as Peter talks about being grieved, that Peter knew what he was talking about.

He had experience in grief, personal experience, and we see that in John chapter 21.

John 21 · chapter mention

So as we go to this, you need to be reminded that Peter denied the Lord Jesus not once, not twice, but three times.

Then at the end of John, Peter confronts Peter and he says to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me?

And Peter was grieved.

It's like stabbing you and turning the knife.

Peter was grieved.

So this is an intensive emotion that comes about as the result of trials that we endure in life.

Trials are grievous.

The apostles recognize that, and God himself recognizes that.

But that does not eliminate the possibility of joy.

This is our second reality.

In this you rejoice.

In Greek, that's a present tense verb, meaning that it's it's continuing action.

You are rejoicing, you are now rejoicing, and you will continue to rejoice.

Though now, at this very moment, you are experiencing trials.

Do you see that those two go hand in hand and they are operating at the same time?

There is rejoicing and there is grieving over trials.

Now that's not grieving for, or I'm sorry, that's not rejoicing for the trial.

That's not saying, yay, I'm in a trial.

Now, if we are suffering for Christ, being persecuted for our faith, then it is appropriate to rejoice in that way.

The apostles demonstrated that in Acts chapter 5, verse 41.

Acts 5:41

They were brought before the Jewish council, the Sanhedrin, and told not to preach in the name of Christ anymore.

And they left that gathering, the presence of that council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ.

So if you are persecuted or suffering, going through a trial because of your faith, then it's appropriate to rejoice that you're in that trial.

But what it means here is that we have a reason to rejoice in the midst of the various trials that we endure.

The Apostle Paul demonstrated this for us in Philippians chapter 2, verse 17.

Philippians 2:17

He said, Even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and I rejoice with you.

That's the language of death.

He says, Even if I have to give up my life for your faith, I will rejoice.

I think that's part of why he said later in Philippians 4, 4, rejoice in the Lord always.

And again I say, rejoice.

In this you rejoice.

Now, in this is pointing us back to the previous context.

Specifically, verses 3, 4, and 5, but really going all the way back to chapter 1, verse 1.

That is the truths of God's mercy in salvation that bring life with a living hope and the power of God to keep us secure and safe for our future and our inheritance.

We've learned God chose Himself, chose us for Himself to accomplish and to guarantee our salvation and our future inheritance in heaven with Christ.

In that we find reason to rejoice.

There is reason to rejoice in the midst of our trials because of what God has done.

That shows us that we are not defined by the trials that we endure.

Beloved, hear that.

You are not defined by the trials you endure.

Our trials are not who we are.

Rather, we are defined by who we are in God's grace.

And who we are in God's grace provides reason for us to have joy in the midst of grievous trials.

And there's a very important truth to pick up there.

Being in Christ does not keep us from trials.

Instead, being in Christ gives reason for the trial to not overwhelm us.

Philippians again, chapter one, verse 29.

Apostle Paul spoke of those trials to the church at Philippi.

He said, It has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake.

That word granted literally means graciously given.

It has been graciously given to you to suffer.

Boy, what a mind warp that is.

Your trials are God's grace to you.

Will we see our trials as God's grace?

Will we see them as reasons to have joy in God's work?

If you will permit another illustration from my dad.

My dad didn't think well because of the brain tumor that was impacting his brain.

And Allison and I knew that immediately upon arriving at their home in Montana.

We were sitting around their dining room table, and dad was going through the mail, and he was just opening mail and shredding it.

And I asked, Dad, Dad, what was that?

Oh, it's some credit card bill.

Yeah.

Approximately 10 weeks after that, we had we brought hospice in, and dad was talking to the hospice nurse just about his attitude and his his view of things.

And even though his brain wasn't working well, he got this right.

He said to that hospice nurse, God could have given me hell.

Instead, he chose to give me a little cancer.

That kind of attitude, that kind of response to trial only comes as the truth of what God has done for each of us seeps deep into the recesses of our being.

There is reason to rejoice in trial.

But what is difficult for us to process is reality number three that trials are sometimes necessary.

Puritan preacher Charles Simeon wrote, Grace does not destroy, but only moderates our natural feelings.

Grace doesn't take away our feelings, it only moderates them.

Christians therefore may be deeply oppressed with grief.

Not that God will suffer them to continue always in heaviness, nevertheless, he permits them to be in this state occasionally and for a season.

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while.

Hebrews chapter 2, verse 10 tells us about Jesus' suffering.

Hebrews 2:10

The writer of Hebrews says, For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

It was fitting that he suffer.

If it was fitting for Jesus, if it was appropriate in some way for the Son of God to suffer, then we should not think that it should not be necessary for us.

Sometimes it is necessary.

We see this in the life of Joseph, don't we?

Joseph went through all kinds of trials and suffering, and at the end of that period of time when he was facing his brothers after all that they did to him, he said, God planned it for good.

He says, God put me here.

It was necessary for this to take place.

But thankfully, these necessary trials are brief.

For a little while.

This is when we begin to see things properly.

When we see them from the perspective of eternity.

Some of you have suffered trials your entire life, and you say, How in the world can that be brief?

Right?

Any trial does not seem brief, no matter how long it may be.

But when we as God's people begin to see things from the perspective of unending time, that makes everything in this life brief.

No matter what it is.

Trials never feel brief.

But for the Christian, anything in this life should be considered brief.

That's what the Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4 17.

For this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comprehension.

This momentary light affliction.

Preacher, you don't know my weight.

No, I don't, but God does.

And God knows that from the perspective of eternity with Him, everything we endure here will be considered light and momentary.

But what is difficult for us to comprehend is that sometimes trials are necessary.

Really?

Sometimes, if necessary.

It's not the best illustration, but it may help to picture this truth in a related way.

When I first started hunting as a kid in western North Dakota, my dad told me that anything that I shot and killed would have to be cleaned.

And I would have to do the cleaning.

So I gutted and skinned and processed my first deer.

I did the same with the first bird that I brought home from a hunting trip.

I did some trapping and I had to skin animals and prep the hide for sale.

And dad said it was necessary that I do that.

Why?

I didn't understand at the time in my childlike mind, but I needed to know because the time would come when dad wouldn't be around to help.

The time would come when I would need to show someone else what to do.

And he thought that I needed to know the cost of taking an animal's life so that I treated it properly.

But in my young mind, that first time cleaning a deer was a bit of a trial.

And Dad said it was necessary.

We may not know or see how our trials are necessary, but sometimes they are.

And we know that whatever God brings into our lives is somehow for our good.

It is designed to make us like his son.

You might be familiar with the name Augustus Toplity.

We sing some of his ancient hymns.

He wrote, Afflictions are as nails driven by the hand of grace, which crucify us to the world.

Afflictions are then blessings when we can bless God for the afflictions, whose single view in causing us to pass through the fire is only to separate the sin he hates from the soul that he loves.

We go through the fire to purify us, and it's there that we begin to see a little of what Peter wants us to know about the purpose of trials.

He tells us that trials test the genuineness of our faith, so that the tested genuineness of your faith may result in praise, glory, and honor.

You're probably familiar with James's parallel.

James says in chapter 1, verse 2, Count it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

There are some examples of that.

Most notably, Hebrews chapter 11, verse 17.

Hebrews 11:17

By faith, Abraham, when he offered up Isaac, was tested.

Was tested.

God tests our faith.

Now we need to make sure we're clear there.

God never brings trials to tempt.

God does not tempt anyone.

That's what James says in James 1.13.

Instead, trials for God's people are intended to prove the genuineness of faith.

That's illustrated by Jesus in the parable of the sower and the seed in Luke 8.

Jesus said of the seed that landed on the rock.

He said, These are the ones when they hear the word receive it with joy.

But these, because they have no root, believe for a while, but in a time of testing they fall away.

God's intention in testing trials is not to see whether your faith will fail.

It is to prove that it is genuine, to show or to demonstrate that it is real.

Why do I say that?

Because Jesus himself promised that we would never fall away.

Jesus said, of those who have their faith in him alone, he said, This is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day.

Jesus is not about to lose you because you fail the test.

Instead, he will ensure that all who belong to him will survive the test and prove their faith genuine.

Now that's not to say that your faith will remain unshaken or that it will be consistently strong.

It means that the trials of life may beat you, they may whip you, they may trip you up, but if you belong to Christ, you will endure in your faith.

That's why James wrote, Blessed is the one who remains steadfast under trial, because when he has endured the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him.

See the connection there?

Those who love him are those who are tested, and those who are tested will endure and will receive the crown of life.

We also know that we will endure because Jesus prays for us.

In Luke chapter 22, Satan demanded to have Peter to sift him.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

But Jesus said to Peter, I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.

Book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus continues to pray for us to this very hour.

If you are one of those who love him, your faith will not fail, but it will be tested, because testing proves the preciousness of our faith.

Not simply the genuineness, but the preciousness of our faith.

And note that Peter assumes here that his reader's faith will be proven genuine.

It will survive the testing.

That is, faith will be proven real.

So that the already tested genuineness of your faith, which is more precious than gold, will result in praise.

The proven genuineness of faith is precious.

Precious here is a compound word.

It's a word that basically means, that the base word means costly or valuable.

It's the same word used in the gospels for the woman that took that alabaster jar and she broke it open and poured out the expensive ointment on Jesus' feet.

You know, the same one that Judas said, Hey, wait a minute, why isn't that sold and given to the poor?

He wanted to pocket it.

It's valuable.

To that word is added a prefix meaning much or great.

It has great preciousness, much value.

Faith that has been proven genuine is very costly.

It is very valuable and therefore very precious.

Tested genuine faith is compared to refined gold.

Precious metals are refined by heating them until they melt so that impurities can float to the surface and be removed.

Pure gold has all the impurities removed because of its testing, because of the fire that proves it.

But even that tested gold will perish.

One day it will be gone.

It's valuable, very valuable, but it will perish.

How much more valuable then is a tested faith that will never perish.

God tests our faith to remove the impurities so as to have a most precious, genuine faith.

And that is nothing new.

Solomon wrote of it in the book of Proverbs, in Proverbs chapter 17.

Proverbs 17 · chapter mention

He said, The crucible is for silver and the furnace is for gold, and God tests the heart.

Peter has a very interesting statement here in the end of his book, towards the end of his book in chapter 4.

He says in chapter 4, verse 12, Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice insofar as you share Christ's suffering.

There is a fiery trial that they're going to endure.

They're going to go through the fire, the impurities are going to be removed, and they're going to rejoice because their faith has been proven genuine and it will be precious.

The last reality is that trials set our perspective in the right place on Jesus.

Peter's mind throughout his entire letter is on the Lord Jesus' return.

We saw here in chapter 4, verse 13, that he wrote of when his glory is revealed.

That is when he returns.

In chapter 5, verse 4, he writes of when the chief shepherd appears.

Chapter 1, verse 13, we see the revelation of Jesus Christ.

In chapter 1, verse 7, we see the revelation of Jesus Christ.

There's a hint of it in verse 5 where it speaks of our this thing that's bet ready to be revealed at the last time.

Peter has in mind the revelation of Jesus Christ when we see him as he is.

The problem is that we are myopic in nature.

We are nearsighted.

We only see what's around us.

And add trials of many kinds to that myopia, and it becomes even more difficult to see what's ahead, to see in the distance.

But that's what we're called to do.

And God uses trials to accomplish that.

Trials make us love this world less and less and make us long more and more for heaven.

I've lived with pain for a long, long time.

It makes me want my resurrection body now.

Death makes us want the living Christ to rule and reign so that death will be no more.

Disease makes us want God to make all things new.

The struggle, the daily, hourly, minute-by-minute struggle with sin makes us long for Christ's return to put an end once and for all to sin and Satan.

If you are a believer in Christ, that's what God is doing within you.

If you're not a believer in Christ, you're like atheist Bertrand Russell, who wrote, The center of me is always and eternally a terrible pain, a curious, wild pain, a searching for something beyond what the world contains, something transfigured and infinite.

I do not find it.

I do not think it is to be found.

But C.S.

Lewis found it.

In Mere Christianity he wrote, If I find in myself a desire which no experience in the world can satisfy, which is where Bertrand Russell was, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

Which is why he could then write in the problem of pain, quote, God whispers to us in our pleasures.

He speaks to our conscience, but he shouts in our pains.

It is his megaphone to rouse a dead world.

God's megaphone in trials is intended to focus our attention on Jesus, especially his revelation, that moment when we will finally see him as he is in all of his glory.

And that will be a time when our faith, our tested, genuine and precious faith, will result in praise, honor, and glory first and foremost to Christ in praise of him.

But we will also hear, well done, good and faithful servant.

Enter into the glory prepared for you.

We will receive honor and praise and glory because of the genuine, precious faith given to us by our God.

And it is only when trials have set our perspective on course that we can rejoice in the grief of those trials.

Only when we look to Christ's appearing can we endure with a living hope.

And we can have that living hope because he holds us fast.

But well do I know my guide.

With childlike trust, I give him my hand, the mighty friend by my side.

The only thing that I say to him as he takes my hand is, hold it fast.

Suffer me not to lose my way.

And bring me home at last.

One of my favorite songs that teaches us all that is here.

He will hold me fast.

Would you stand as we sing together?