Our Trials: Union with Christ

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This morning, our New Testament lesson is a reading from the first letter of Peter.

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to God's elect,

exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.

In all this, you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith, of greater worth than gold,

which perishes even though refined by fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you,

as though something strange were happening to you.

But rejoice as much as you participate in the sufferings of Christ,

so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed.

If you are insulted because of the name of Christ,

you are blessed, for the spirit of glory and of God rests on you.

If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer, or thief, or any other kind of criminal,

or even as a meddler.

However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.

For it is time for judgment to begin with God's household.

And if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

And if it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?

So then, those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful creator and continue to do good.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Thank you so much, Cherubah, and good morning, Christ Church.

We have, over the past three months, been exploring this amazing letter from the Apostle Peter.

And as we draw near to the end of this letter,

Peter is just kind of gathering up various themes that he's laid down.

And today we're going to talk about one of the great themes of the letter, which is suffering.

And he uses that word four times here in this text.

And I want you to know up front that Peter's not addressing generic human suffering,

the kind of suffering that comes through unmet needs and disease and loss and grief and death.

Every human being has to experience and endure those forms of suffering to varying degrees.

And, of course, the Bible gives us a theology for how to endure that kind of moral evil and natural evil.

But Peter is talking about something altogether different than that.

He's talking about something more specific and more particular.

And if you just draw your eyes to verse 13,

he talks about participating in the sufferings of Christ.

What does that mean?

He talks in verse 14 about being insulted because of the name of Christ.

And then he talks in verse 16 about suffering as a Christian.

Now, we become so used to that word, Christian,

that we forget its original intended meaning was an insult.

It was meant as a nickname of derision and contempt.

If you look at the Acts of the Apostles, they go to the city of Antioch in Acts chapter 11.

Acts 11 · chapter mention

And it's there that the disciples of Jesus are first called Christians.

And this word, this insulting word means little Christ or Messiah people.

So the gist of the insult is it's basically like saying Messiah freaks.

That's what a Christian is.

And Peter wants to talk to us about suffering as Christians.

And his basic assumption is that if we live as a minority group of Christians

in a majority culture that does not know Christ or follow the way of Christ,

then we're very likely going to be insulted because of the name of Christ.

We're very likely to suffer because we're Christians.

And Peter's goal, his project, I think, with this whole letter is to toughen us up,

to toughen Christians up, to give us thicker skin,

and to give us more resolve, more resilience.

In fact, as we'll see in a moment, more rejoicing in the midst of our suffering as Christians.

Does this make sense?

Where he's coming from?

Maybe just a nod or, yes, I'm awake.

I'm alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic this morning,

and so excited for this sermon that's coming my way.

Yeah.

So I want to engage two questions.

The first question is, what is Christian suffering?

Not generic suffering, but Christian suffering.

And then I want to ask the question, how does God want us to respond?

What is Christian suffering?

How does God want us to respond?

So let's explore this idea of Christian suffering.

In chapters 2, 3, and 4 of this letter,

Peter is talking about these Christians he's writing to as being reviled,

being slandered, being maligned and verbally abused,

and socially rejected.

And he says in chapter 2, verse 12, he says,

Gentile, the Gentile pagans, they accuse you, Christians, for doing wrong,

and they speak against you as evildoers.

Now, why in the world are these Greco-Roman family members and friends

and coworkers and neighbors seeing these Christians as evildoers?

What's up with that?

What are these Christians doing that is causing their culture to judge them

as doing something intolerable or something wrong?

Or chapter 3, verse 14, Peter says,

you Christians are suffering for what is right.

You're suffering for righteousness' sake,

and you're being reviled because of your good behavior in Christ.

What is that?

What is the righteousness?

What is the good behavior in Jesus Christ that's being disapproved

as unacceptable to the broader culture?

Well, I want to suggest a few things.

First of all, like Israel, these Christians were theological exclusivists.

So every day in Israel, morning and evening,

people would confess their faith with Deuteronomy 6,

and they would say,

the Lord our God, the Lord is one, or the Lord alone.

And basically, in these polytheistic cultures,

the people of God, they were committed monotheists.

And so they said that all the gods of the nations around us are actually false.

They're not real.

They're just blind, deaf, and dumb idols.

And there's only one true, living creator God.

And that was a reason why Jewish people were not very liked

from Egypt to Babylon back then and maybe even still today.

And likewise, these Christians were monotheists.

They were monotheists with a Christological twist, right?

Because they said, there's only one God, and Jesus is Lord.

But they didn't stop there.

They said, Jesus is Lord, and therefore, we're calling everybody

to abandon their money gods and their sex gods and their power gods,

and we're calling all of you to come and worship this Jesus

and follow this Jesus as Lord with us.

And as if this were not provocative enough,

in this Greco-Roman society,

it was your civic duty to burn incense in honor of the emperor, right?

It was your duty to pledge allegiance to Caesar as Lord of all.

And of course, the Christians couldn't do this.

They were refusing to do this.

And they were seen, therefore, as subverting the stability of their families,

of the city, and of the empire as a whole.

In fact, in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 17,

the Christians are accused of, quote,

turning the world upside down, right?

Because when it came to this question of who is in charge,

who or what has authority over the cosmos and over society,

Christians had distinctive doctrinal beliefs that answered that question.

And that was not very popular.

And they were being critiqued by their peers.

They were being critiqued by the elites and the intelligentsia of the time.

In fact, if you fast forward about 50 years beyond this letter

to the early 2nd century, there was a guy named Suetonius.

He was a Roman historian.

And he writes about Christianity as a, quote,

wicked superstition, right?

Another of his colleagues and contemporaries, Tacitus, another historian,

and he said that Christianity is a dangerous and destructive superstition.

Or think about in the late 2nd century, about 100 years after this letter,

there was a cultured despiser of Christianity.

His name was Lucian.

And this is what he says.

He says,

So how does this cultured critic of Christianity define a Christian?

And he says,

A Christian is a person who lives under the laws of the crucified Christ.

And Lucian, I think, was right.

In addition to these distinctive doctrinal beliefs that there's only one God,

only one Lord, only one Savior, only one hope of the world that can cause us to live for all time,

Christians had these distinctive ethical practices

that were tied to the laws of Jesus,

or the commands of Jesus,

concerning the character and the conduct of his followers.

And what were some of these Christian practices that these Christians were suffering for?

Well, earlier this summer, I introduced you to the work of a scholar,

and I'd like to put him back on your radar.

And if you weren't here to teach you about it for the first time,

his name was Larry Hurtado.

He was a professor at the University of Edinburgh.

He's since passed away.

But he wrote a book in 2016 called Destroyer of the Gods.

And the subtitle is Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World.

And what he argues in this book is that the early church engaged in a Christian social project

and that they were seeking to be this unique kind of human community

that defied the categories of their time.

And what Hurtado says, he said that the Christian social project had at least five elements.

First of all, they were committed to multi-ethnicity and the equality between the races.

They said that we all have a common identity in Jesus that's more fundamental than our racial identities,

which are still important, but they've been radically relativized because we're all now one in Jesus Christ.

The second aspect of the Christian social project is that they were unusually generous with their money.

They were highly committed to caring for the poor, for the weak, and for the marginalized,

to caring for vulnerable widows and orphans and strangers.

And they weren't just caring for those from their own group.

They were caring for people of all backgrounds.

And the third aspect of this Christian social project for which these Christians were suffering

was this commitment to be non-retaliatory.

They were marked by a commitment to forgiveness, radical forgiveness,

especially toward the people who were criticizing them and excluding them.

They said, we're going to be bridge builders and peacemakers toward those who are insulting and accusing us.

You with me so far?

This Christian social project had a fourth element,

and Hurtado says that they were strongly and practically against discarding unwanted babies,

either through abortion or infant exposure.

These kids, mostly girls, were thrown out and left on the garbage heap to die

or to be sold into slavery or prostitution.

And the Christians came along and said, no, that's wrong.

And they rescued them, and they brought them into their families.

And then fifthly, he says the Christian social project was all about this revolutionary ethic of sex.

And they regarded, they prohibited all sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman.

And they said that sex is not this irresistible appetite,

but it's rather a way for us to imitate the God who's given himself to us in Jesus Christ.

And Hurtado says each of these five practices are there

because Christians sought to submit themselves to biblical authority and to the lordship of Jesus.

And as we said before, the first two of these practices,

ethnic diversity and caring for the poor, those sound liberal.

They sound like they're coming to us from the left, right?

And the last two of these practices, sanctity of life and sexual ethics,

they sound conservative, like they're coming to us from the right.

And yet this third practice of non-retaliation and forgiveness

sounds like no particular party on offer,

no particular platform or agenda in our society.

And that churches today are under enormous pressure,

incredible pressure,

to jettison either the first two or the last two of these practices

and not to keep them all.

And yet to give up on any of them would be to make Christianity the handmaid

of a particular political program on the left or on the right

and would undermine the church's missionary encounter with our culture.

Now why am I refreshing your memory and putting this back on your radar?

Because this category-defying Christian social project,

in addition to their Christian beliefs, was deeply offensive.

It was deeply offensive.

The earliest Christians, they were ridiculed as a threat to the social order

because they would not honor all deities and all identities,

all teachings and all practices, all doctrines and all ethics.

And so they were accused and seen to be exclusive and narrow.

And this is again why Peter says in chapter 2 verse 12,

the Gentile pagans accuse you of doing wrong and speak against you as evildoers.

Chapter 3 verse 14, that you suffer for what is right, for righteousness' sake,

and you're reviled because of your good behavior in Christ.

And yet, this Christian social project that was so deeply offensive

was also somehow mysteriously attractive.

And it was convincing many people.

There was a growing number of converts, a staggering number of converts,

especially in the urban centers of the Roman Empire.

And the question is, why is that?

What was attracting them?

And what's interesting is that Hurtado,

he basically, the same year he published this book,

he went around giving these lectures.

He published these lectures in a book with a wonderful title

called, Why on Earth Did Anyone Become a Christian in the First Three Centuries?

And he's exploring this question,

why did people begin to follow the way of Jesus

knowing full well that it had serious negative consequences?

Why would you take on obvious relational costs,

social costs, financial costs, and political costs?

Right, given that Christians at this time

were met pretty much with negativity and disapproval,

given that Christians were seen as different,

strange, bizarre, weird, odd,

out of step with and intention with the dominant culture,

why become a Christian?

Hurtado says,

if what you desired was greater social acceptance,

early Christianity was hardly the sensible route to take.

So with a full awareness of all these Christian teachings and practices,

with a full awareness of all the consequences and the costs,

why become a Christian?

And Hurtado says,

it's because of the Christian message,

because of this message of the gospel,

that this one, true, radically transcendent,

almighty, sovereign God

was moved with powerful love

to come and seek you.

He was moved to take on flesh

and to come and give himself in sacrificial love

to save you.

And he came to welcome you

into a direct personal relationship with him

so that when you worship him,

he draws near to you.

And when you pray to him,

he bends his ear and he listens to you.

And when you die,

he's going to share his life with you forever.

And Hurtado says,

the logic of these converts was this,

that this God is so powerfully loving

that suffering for him

because of distinctive beliefs or practices,

that's not a loss for us.

Given his powerful love,

it's a gain for us.

Does that make sense?

The question is,

do we believe this?

Do you believe this?

Are we as a church willing,

like our mothers and fathers in the faith of old

and our brothers and sisters around the world today,

are we willing to link arms

and suffer together

for the way of Jesus Christ in this world?

That's the question

that Peter puts before us.

That's what he wants us to think about

in terms of Christian suffering.

Does that make sense?

I've done my best to try to tell you

what Christian suffering is all about.

But I also want to engage this question

of how does God want us to respond?

How should we respond to it?

Well, you've got to remember

that Peter is an authority

on suffering as a Christian.

In fact, in the Acts of the Apostles,

we're told that two times

when the church was being initially planted,

Peter was arrested,

thrown in jail,

and put on trial before the authorities.

He was flogged.

A few years after he writes this letter,

he's going to be executed

by the emperor.

And of course,

many Christians are suffering like this

in the world today,

in North Korea,

in Iran,

in Libya,

in Bangladesh,

if you've been following

that news this week.

And yet,

the challenges that the church

is facing

in our mission to Western culture

are quite different

than those challenges, right?

Our challenge is that

we are entering into an era

in which there's not only

no more social benefit

to being a Christian,

if there used to be one,

there is one no more,

and there's now

an actual social cost

to being a Christian.

Right?

As beliefs in God,

in truth,

in sin,

in the afterlife

are increasingly disappearing

in our society

and in our culture,

Christianity becomes

more and more offensive

and more and more

incomprehensible.

And suffering,

then,

as a Christian,

in the secular age,

it's subtle

and it's nuanced,

but it's real.

It's real.

And I want us to think

about a few examples

and a few illustrations

of how we might

suffer as Christians

and how we might

respond to that.

Think about your work

and your career.

You might be,

as a Christian,

excluded

from circles

of influence

and business

because your faith

is perceived

not as an asset

but as a liability.

You might be passed over

for a promotion

because of your standards

of what's right

and what's wrong

and because of your convictions

about how we,

as Christians,

are committed

to treat other people.

Or think about

your school

and your friends.

If you're in high school,

you might not get invited

to social gatherings

because you're a Christian

because they know

that you're not going

to join in

with the drinking

and drugs

and all the other aspects

of that party culture.

Or if you're in middle school

and you're a Christian

and because you're a Christian,

you don't laugh

at that cruel joke.

You don't engage

in that inappropriate conversation.

You don't join in

making fun

of your classmate.

Because you don't go along,

you might be the next person

to be made fun of.

Or think about your family

and your friends.

People might say to you,

gosh, you know,

I thought you were smart.

I mean, how can you,

how can you say

there's only one God,

only one way of salvation,

only one hope of the world?

I thought you were smarter

than that.

Or how can you go along

with this Christian social project?

I thought you were more caring

than that.

And Peter says,

if you're in one

of those situations,

how do we respond?

And he gives us

several imperatives,

several exhortations,

starting in verse 12,

he says this.

He says,

Dear friends,

do not be surprised.

Do not be surprised

at the fiery ordeal

that has come on you

to test you

as though something strange

were happening to you.

And when Peter talks

about this fiery furnace,

he's referring back

to Psalms,

Proverbs,

the prophets,

and this idea

that God puts his people

through the fire

to test them

and to refine them.

And the picture there

is that, you know,

when we dig up

out of the earth

this piece of,

this hunk of metal ore

that contains both metal

and dross,

right,

both the pure

and the impure,

both the worthy

and the worthless,

both the true

and the false,

that the only way

to separate those things

from one another

is with fire.

And Peter says

in chapter 1,

verse 7,

he says this refining fire

of Christian suffering

is God proving

the genuineness

of your faith,

God testing you

to see who

and what you really trust

and where your allegiances

actually lie.

And when he puts you

through that fire,

all those things

that you're trusting

that are not God,

all of your inadequate

false trusts,

all of your self-interest,

all of your disordered priorities,

all of your unhealthy attachments,

in that fire

they're going to be incinerated,

right,

they're going to be destroyed

like dross.

Why?

So that the depth

and the quality

of our Christian faith

in God

can shine like gold.

And so Peter says,

if you're suffering

for the right reasons

as a Christian,

don't be surprised

that God's using that

to refine your faith

like pure gold.

Okay?

And then what's the next

imperative and exhortation

that Peter gives?

He goes on in verse 13

and he says,

but rejoice.

Rejoice in as much

as you participate

in the sufferings of Christ

so that you may be overjoyed

when His glory is revealed.

Rejoice is that same word

that Jesus uses

in the Sermon on the Mount

when He's giving His beatitudes

and He gets that final beatitude

and He says this.

He says,

blessed are you

when people insult you,

persecute you,

and falsely say

all kinds of evil

against you

because of me.

Rejoice and be glad.

Really, Jesus?

Really, Peter?

You want us to respond

not with sorrowful self-pity?

You want us to respond

not with stoic toughness?

You want us to respond

with joy?

Where does that joy come from?

How in the world

can we rejoice

in the midst of suffering?

And Peter's answer is this.

He says,

because you have the privilege

of participating in Christ.

Because you have the privilege

of being united to Christ.

Think about that union,

Peter says.

Our union

with the highest

and most important

and most powerful

and most sacrificially loving

and most joyful person

in the universe,

that is the source

and that is the secret

of our joy

and suffering.

And that doesn't mean

that we don't hurt.

It doesn't mean

we don't feel sad.

It just means that

undergirding

and infusing

all of those experiences

and all of those emotions

is this kind of unspeakable joy.

A joy that only Christ

can give.

And Peter here,

he's not theorizing

about joy.

He's just relaying

his own experience.

If you, again,

go back to the Acts

of the Apostles chapter 5.

It says this.

He says that they,

the authorities,

they called Peter

and they called the apostles in

and they had them flogged

and they ordered them

not to speak

in the name of Jesus anymore.

And then it says

that the apostles

left rejoicing

because they had been

counted worthy

of suffering disgrace

for the name.

You see,

for Peter

to bear this royal title

of Christ,

of Messiah,

for Peter to share

in this kingly name

of the resurrected

Lord himself,

for Peter to suffer

disgrace

for this name

that is above

every name,

that was his source

of joy.

And Peter goes on

in verse 14,

he says,

if you're insulted

because of the name

of Christ,

you are blessed

for the spirit of glory

and of God

rests on you.

In verse 16,

if you suffer

as a Christian,

do not be ashamed

but praise God

that you bear

that name.

See,

to not be ashamed

means the opposite

of that.

It means

be honored.

Be honored.

There's no higher honor

than bearing that name

at which every knee

is going to bow

and every tongue

is going to confess

that Jesus is Lord.

There's no higher honor

than having

that same spirit

that raised Christ

from the dead

living inside

of you.

That same spirit

that's going to glorify us

and make us like Christ.

You have that spirit,

you bear that name,

and so Peter says,

praise God.

Praise God

for who you are

and what he's made you

to be.

And then Peter

gives us one final

imperative,

one final exhortation.

He says,

dear friends,

don't be surprised

but just know

that your faith

is being refined

like pure gold.

And then he says,

you know,

rejoice

and consider yourself

blessed

and honored

and praise God

because you've been

united to God's Son

and filled with his Spirit.

And then the last thing

Peter says is this

in verse 19,

so then

those who suffer

according to God's will

should commit themselves

to their faithful creator

and continue

to do good.

And what is the good?

What is the good

that Peter

is encouraging us to do?

Well, the passage

just before this one

that we explored

last week

is all about

building up the church.

It's all about

strengthening and enriching

the Christian community.

The passage

just after this one

that we're going to

finish this sermon series

in next week

is all about

the elders

and leaders

of the church

and this family

of believers

standing firm

in the faith.

And so when Peter

says that we should

entrust ourselves

to our faithful creator

and continue to do good,

he's referring

to all the good stuff

we talked about

last week.

He says,

continue to do the good

of persevering

in prayer together.

Continue to do

the good

of loving

and forgiving

one another

so that you cover

a multitude

of sins.

Continue to

do the good

of loving strangers

and welcoming

newcomers

and practicing

hospitality

without grumbling

and with gladness.

Continue to do the good

of speaking

truth to one another.

Speaking to one another

with God's truth.

Continue to do the good

of serving one another

with God's strength.

That is the good

that Peter encourages us,

the family of faith,

the community

of believers,

those who have the honor

to bear the name

of Christ.

That's the good

that we're to continue

to do.

And so the question

as we conclude

is,

is this worth it?

Right?

Is it worth it

to live the way

that Peter

and the apostles

teach us to live?

Is it worth it?

Is it worth all the costs?

Is it worth all the consequences?

Is it worth all the sacrifice?

Well, I want to end

with this

in verse 13.

Peter says,

But rejoice

inasmuch

as you participate

in the sufferings

of Christ,

so that you may be

overjoyed

when His glory

is revealed.

Peter says,

Listen, friends,

if you persevere,

if you don't give in

to the temptation

and the pressure

to relax your faith

so that you can

relieve your suffering,

if you continue

to do the good

of building up the church,

he says,

the time is coming

when joy

will overwhelm you.

You're going to be

overjoyed.

Why?

Because Jesus

is going to reveal

the fullness

of His glory.

And Jesus

is going to put

this sad

and sinful world

right.

And Jesus

is going to

wipe away

all the tears

from our eyes.

And Jesus

is going to make

all things new.

And when you're there

just flooded

in that glory

and overwhelmed

by that joy,

you'll have

the answer

to your question,

is it worth it?

Of course.

Of course

it's worth it.

This is what

our hearts

are longing for.

Is it not joy

and glory?

This is the way

to joy

and glory.

So may God

enable us

to walk in this way

in the name

of the Father,

Son,

and Holy Spirit.

Amen.