Bring It On: Finding Meaning in Suffering - Peter's Principles for Prevailing Over Problems

Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.

I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.

Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

Now, today we're coming to the last two weeks of 1 Peter.

We've been in 1 Peter, and in 1 Peter, we've been talking about Peter's principles for prevailing over or through problems.

So you're getting a theology of suffering at the road.

It's not a popular message for sure.

Who wants to go to church?

It's already hard enough to get people to go to church.

But then to come and hear, oh, I'm going to hear another message on suffering.

But we're going to talk about it again because here's what I believe.

I believe if you can have an attitude to suffering, that there's actually meaning to it.

There's actually a purpose to your suffering, I think it can change your life.

And I think that most Americans don't have that, they don't understand that.

So we spend the majority of our life running from problems, running from issues, running from our pain.

And I want to challenge you to run to your problems and run to your pain and deal with it.

Now, this is scary for me to ask this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway.

How many of you have had to go through or felt the need for counseling in your life?

And I'm the first one to raise my hand.

Okay?

Almost everybody in the room.

So, you did counseling because you recogniz something that you needed to work on.

I want to commend you.

I want to commend you for that because I personally believe everybody needs counseling at some point in their life.

Some of us need it for the rest of our life.

But the reality is you're living in a broken world.

How many saw the Paris Olympics start yesterday and they had the opening ceremonies?

And I didn't see it.

I didn't watch it.

I think the opening ceremonies are super boring.

Just watching groups of people in colorful outfits waving at a crowd is not what I dig the Olympics for.

But some of you like that, and maybe you saw it that they actually did a rendition of the Lord's Supper or something like that.

I got some pictures from it.

I don't know what that was about, but here's what I do know.

There's demonic, satanic activity in our world.

And it's growing.

Here's the good news.

The good news is Jesus builds his church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

So just as satanic power grows within our world, God's power is growing too.

And so learning to deal with the sufferings of this world, the pain of this world, the hardships of this world, can release you into a new kind of bring it-on mentality that I think can change your life if you haven't already discovered that.

So that's where we're at.

We're going to be talking about hardship.

So here's my thesis today.

My thesis is this as a Christian, if you want to live a life of meaning, if you want a life of truth, if you want the authentic life, you will have to choose a life of suffering.

In other words, running from suffering is still going to catch up to you anyway.

Everybody suffers.

Everybody goes through suffering in this life, whether they're a Christian or not.

But learning to face it and have the spiritual sinew to say, bring it on.

I have what it takes in Christ.

I don't have what it takes, but Christ in me, the hope of glory, has what I need, and his power is sufficient for any kind of demonic, satanic power that's coming my way.

Man, you guys, that's confidence building.

I mean, that's pretty confident.

There's a strength of confidence that comes when you realize there's nothing out there that's greater than Christ in you, the hope of glory.

It gives you vision, it gives you meaning, it also gives you authenticity to say it's really been hard.

It's really been difficult.

This has been a tough summer.

We just got another diagnosis about this or that.

Whatever it is that you're going through to be able to say, Christ in me, the hope of glory, the power of the Holy Spirit, the kingdom of God within me, can take it.

That is confidence building in our life.

So it was Frederick Douglass, the former slave and leader of the abolitionist movement during the Civil War, who said, if there is no struggle, there is no progress.

Here's a shocking proposal.

Write this down.

Shocking proposal.

We need pain and suffering to live rich and happy lives.

We need pain and suffering to live rich and happy lives.

When you see people who've had everything go their way, mostly you find people with an undeveloped character where everything has gone their way.

So bring it on.

Why we rejoice in suffering?

Turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 4.

1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

I was in a phone call with a leading realtor here in the city.

He's been a close friend of mine.

Well, not a close friend, he's been a good friend of me for 30, 35 years.

The house that I'm in right now, which we've lived in since 1998, he was the one who brokered that deal.

And we were talking on the phone, and he has had two daughters that are mentally challenged, and how he's navigated that.

And we were talking about suffering and what they've been through and the pain of that, but how rich and how good that is worked out in their lives in understanding and having empathy for others, but also the work that God's done in their lives.

So if you're at 1 Peter 4, would you stand with me and let's read God's word, starting at verse 12.

1 Peter 4:12.

1 Peter 4:12

Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing is happening to you, but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's suffering, that when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.

If you're reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory, God rest upon you.

On their part he is blasphemed, but on your part he is glorified.

Verse 15, but let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people's matters.

Yet if anything if any one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.

For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God, and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?

Now, if the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?

Therefore, let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good as to a faithful creator.

So, Father God, we just ask you to take the word and drive it into our hearts and minds that Father God, you've got a word for us today to build into us the kind of people as disciples of Jesus that you want us to be.

So, Father, we give it to you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Alright, you guys, you can be seated.

Now look back at verse 12.

And what I'm gonna attempt to do as best I can is take this passage verse by verse apart as it relates to rejoicing and suffering.

Isn't that crazy?

I mean, it kind of seems like an oxymoron to rejoice in suffering.

But I'm telling you that this lines up with Romans 5.

This lines up with James 1.

There's a lot of passages in Scripture, Old and New Testament, that deal with this crazy conundrum of the Christian life that there are trials you're going to go through, and actually God is working in them.

Now, are they all from God?

And I'm not saying that.

I am saying, though, that whether it's demonic, whether it's even dumb decisions that you've made that have caused suffering, God does allow them through kind of the fingers of God that's around you because he's actually doing something in your life.

So he starts off in verse 12 with this Beloved, so he's speaking to believers.

Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial, which is there to try you as though some strange thing is happening to you.

That's isn't that often our battle?

It's like, it seems like really strange that life is hard, that we've had a hard summer, or that we got a bad diagnosis when we saw the doctor, or a bad diagnosis went to a pediatrician.

I mean, it's like he's saying, I want to set your heart at ease to understand everybody goes through trials.

Everybody has issues in their life.

It's not strange, it's actually normal.

So if you so if you've gone through, let's say you've gone through the last three months with not a lot of problems, that's weird.

Okay, that's abnormal.

Okay, in other words, normal life is hardship.

Normal life is suffering, normal life is difficult, and he talks about fiery trials.

So here's my first point: rejoice in suffering because you're passing God's test.

You're passing God's test, and he's building character in you.

He's building character in you through the test that you're going through.

Well, what do you mean?

You mean God tests us?

Well, that's exactly what he's saying here.

It's that it's a fiery trial.

It's actually pyrosis, where we get pyrose.

Pyrosis here for fiery.

It's like it's the idea of a smelting pot.

It's like the exaggerated heat that they put gold and silver through to actually melt down the metals and purify them.

So you might be today going through the smelter of God's fiery trial, and he says, trial to try you.

So God tests us.

God takes us through tests.

And so, for you men and women that travel a lot, and you're alone, maybe with your job at a hotel, there's going to be trials there.

That I would call them fidelity trials.

There's always the opportunity for infidelity.

There's always the opportunity for sex outside of marriage.

It's just right there.

It's everywhere you look.

There's trials.

There's honesty trials.

And usually that's at tax season.

And I've gone from preaching to meddling.

But you know, you're looking and you've got those finances and you have a test.

Nobody knows those tests but you and God.

Nobody knows those tests but you and God.

And listen up, you guys.

If you keep failing the test, guess what?

There's another one coming.

And another one coming.

You start passing those tests.

You start passing those tests, and God is forming character.

God is forming character.

So honesty, let's just take honesty, because I think honesty is like really hard for people.

Um, honesty is built by not lying.

I'm really smart, I figured that out.

Okay, honesty is built by not lying.

That means you have opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to lie.

I mean, you you can lie about this, you can lie about that, and you know, we see what's happening right now in our political process among pastors in the churches who've lied.

They've lied for years, and eventually it catches up to them, right?

Eventually, God loves them enough to let them get caught in their lie.

Why not catch yourself in the lie and start being honest?

One of the greatest things for anybody that's come out of alcoholism, one of the greatest things for those that have come out of drug addiction is they start to be honest.

I've got a problem.

I have a weakness in this area, so I can't drink.

I can't do drugs, I can't do that.

That kind of honesty is passing a test, it's building character in you.

And people who always come across like they've got it all together are total liars.

We all know you're a poser.

Okay?

So quit doing it.

I mean, that the church is gets the Academy Award for the most posers in one room.

Outside of Hollywood, which doesn't talk about posers.

I mean, watch the image, you know, watch the Academy Wars.

Those guys are such posers.

It looks like, you know what that looks like?

Whenever I look at any of that, which I never do, but whenever I see the pictures later that are, you know, on something, you're like, this is like, these people never grew up.

They're still in high school.

It looks like you're junior, senior in high school where you're a total poser.

And it's like, so the church does that too.

We pose, we act like we've got it all together, everything's perfect, and yeah, someone, oh man, couldn't be better.

Whenever anybody says, by the way, if anybody says to me, couldn't be better, I already know you're a poser.

Like you just won the Academy Award, man.

Because it can be better.

And you're hiding something.

And so I want to challenge you that fiery trials come and be honest about it.

Be authentic.

The authentic life is being honest about hardship and trials and difficulties.

And when we get prayer, we call people for prayer.

You know, every service.

If you need prayer, come get it.

Join the team.

I need prayer.

I come up and pray for people half the time because I need to be praying for somebody because I need healing in my life about something.

So don't walk away from opportunities that are given to you to be authentic and real.

And I think those kind of tests are part of God's way of building character.

So in Romans we read, we glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance.

And perseverance, character, and character hope.

So that's how it works.

So untested character is an oxymoron.

Untested character is an oxymoron.

Character is only built through passing God's test through difficulties.

Character is only forged through hardship.

That's why it's called a testimony.

I'm gonna give my testimony.

Test.

I moany.

We like I, we like mony, we just don't like the first part of the word.

The test, you don't get a moy until you get a test.

And you don't become an overcomer without something to overcome.

And guess what?

You're wired for this, you guys.

You're wired for it.

How many of you regularly exercise, and when you exercise, you feel some pain?

How many of you like to go to scary movies?

How many of you like to watch movies where the good guys win?

Okay?

How many of you like to watch movies where the good guys win where it looks difficult but they still win?

Alright.

So see, you're testing.

So you're you and I are built for suffering.

We actually admire people who suffer, we admire their character, and we and we vicariously experience the victories that they experience, and that's why we go to the movies.

That's why we work out because we want to get in shape.

We know there's suffering involved in that.

And so if you've ever been around someone who's a spoiled brat, everybody's laughing, like, oh yeah, I can name them.

Not me, but them, yeah.

Okay.

So, you know, if you get around a spoiled brat, and there's there's an inordinate number of them in America, um, or maybe you created them, maybe you created some spoiled brats, I don't know.

Okay, it's it's the worst, right?

Because there's entitlement.

They have this entitlement, selfish attitude.

But you get around, you get around someone who suffered and been through tremendous pain, had to battle a little bit, that's my kind of buddy.

That's a blood-stained ally.

Because they they know.

And there's an empathy, there's something about them, there's uh an honesty and authenticity because they've had to go through a lot and they've struggled in that.

And so I think that we rejoice in suffering because it's building character in us.

Embrace fiery trials, and God will build the character of Christ into you.

So embrace fiery trials and God will build the character of Christ into you.

Look at verse 13.

Verse 13.

But rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.

So, number two, rejoice in suffering because you're entering into identity, you're identifying with Christ's suffering.

So we're gonna do that next weekend.

We're gonna identify with Christ's suffering.

So, a few days ago I felt the Lord speak to me that we needed three days of fasting and prayer as a church, as a whole church.

So next Sunday would be day one.

I want to encourage you if you've ever fasted, if you haven't fasted and you feel like you can't do it for various reasons, then don't do it.

I'm not saying you should, but I feel like something's coming down.

I feel like something's coming down.

And it uh this black wave that Liz prophesied about at the beginning of the year, and then we talked about two weeks ago.

Um, I don't know if there's just an urgency, but I'm calling for fasting and prayer.

We're not gonna have any special meetings or anything like that, except that we have Monday and Tuesday, we have noonday fire.

So all of you know about that that are members of the road.

That's at 12 o'clock, 12 to 1.

We we're in the chapel and we're praying in there, and I'm calling for those meetings to be well attended.

So if you feel led to join us for that, we'd love to have you.

But here's the theme.

I feel like the theme is God bring revival.

God prepare my heart for what you're gonna do all around us in our country, in our county, in our city, and in your life.

You're gonna be affected.

Whatever's coming down, man, we will all be impacted.

And there's such demonic, satanic activity going on.

God wants you at the road to be a worshiper and a warrior.

To be able to stand tall and say, bring it on to the enemy, because Christ is empowering you from the inside out to be ready for that.

So if you would, that's Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.

One of the guys came up to me after the first service and says, Man, Steve, I love Tuesday morning breakfast.

Does that mean I have to fast?

And I said, dude, eat Tuesday morning breakfast.

Do Sunday, Monday, and then break it on Tuesday.

I don't care what time you break it on Tuesday, you know, join us.

And for some of you if you've never fasted before, maybe just do it one day.

Just do like a skip, go supper to supper, dinner to dinner, something like that.

Um, you guys can can, each of you can work that out.

But I feel like that we're entering into Christ's suffering.

He did it for 40 days and 40 nights.

So before Jesus began his public ministry, before he began to announce the kingdom of God had come, he battled with the devil in the wilderness, fasting and praying and taking on literally Satan.

The real Satan, I mean, the real fallen angel, as it were, there.

Um, and I believe he broke the power of the devil through fasting and prayer that set him up for the victories that came later.

So all of us who are Jesus' disciples have been crucified with Christ.

All of us who call ourselves disciples have been crucified with.

Christ.

No longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

The life that I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who delivered himself up for me.

So it's not, listen, this is important.

It's not, I'm crucified for Christ.

That's a religious perspective to what Paul's saying there.

I'm crucified for Christ.

It's not what it says.

It says, I'm crucified with Christ.

Now, why is that important?

It seems like just a small nuance, but I think it's a big difference.

Being crucified with Christ means that we choose, it's a choice that we make in our suffering to be in Christ in our suffering.

Because somehow, mysteriously and powerfully, he's most present in our suffering.

Christ is most present in your suffering.

That's I feel like that's where Jesus loves to be.

I feel like he loves to be when we're suffering, to be with us.

To let his crucifixion become a reality in our lives, that his presence and his power and his intimacy and his love is there for us and it ministers to us.

And so he said in Luke 9: if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

For whoever desires to save his life will lose it.

But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

Isn't that amazing?

That somehow by surrendering to Christ, we actually find that which we're surrendering.

So as we surrender our life to Christ, we actually find the life that we're surrendering.

Isn't that amazing?

Isn't that weird?

I mean, it's kind of strange, right?

We think the pursuit of our own happiness is the route to our happiness.

That's what all the psychologists tell us, right?

But actually, the astute psychologists, the astute counselors know that actually it's the opposite.

That the more you give, the more you're willing to embrace hardship, the more you discover the life that you are always looking for.

Because you're built for this.

You literally have what it takes.

So in verse 14, he says, if you're reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you.

For the spirit of glory and God rest upon you.

On their part, he's blasphemed.

We saw that at the Paris Olympics in the opening ceremony.

He was blasphemed.

We've seen that at the Super Bowl, blaspheme.

We've seen that at the Emmys, blaspheme.

We've seen that at certain artist concerts where they blaspheme God.

But on your part, he's glorified.

So number three, rejoice in suffering, because the Spirit of God and his glory rest upon you.

Look back at verse 1 of chapter 4.

Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves, arm yourselves, garrison yourselves with the same mindset, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.

So what does that mean?

Does that mean we need to self-flagellate ourselves and stuff, and the more we suffer, then the more we're ceasing from sin?

That's what medieval Christianity taught.

You had monks that lived in caves, starving themselves to death practically, self-flagellating themselves because of that verse.

That somehow, if they could suffer more and more as close to like Christ, then they ceased from sin.

I don't think that's what it means.

What it's saying is that when you choose suffering over comfort, at that point you're ceasing from sin.

Because there's no way you would do that unless Christ were empowering you so.

So we have the choice of comfort, we have the choice of the cross.

So we come to a place where comfort would be the easier way, but we choose the cross, you cease from sin.

You choose actually the sin in this case of comfort, and I'm not saying every time you choose comfort, it's a sin.

I'm not saying that.

But I'm saying in a particular situation, let's say it's drugs.

Let's say it's black tar heroin.

Someone's into black tar heroin, and they are an intravenous addict of heroin, and right there they have a choice to make between the comfort that comes from the ecstasy of heroin, but they choose the cross, they choose not to do that, and then there's a hardship and a pain involved with the body not getting what you're addicted to, and wanting that, you ceased from sin.

There's a ceasing of sin.

So in our lives, we start making it a habit of embracing suffering, not running from it, but being able to say, I am crucified with Christ, and I'm going to take the path of the cross.

Verse 15.

He has to have verse 15 in here.

Gotta have verse 15 in here.

Right smack dab in the middle of the passage.

Let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people's matters.

Yet anyone, if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.

So he's saying, look, don't confuse what I'm saying as you're suffering from sin is making you more righteous.

Because guess what, men and women, you're gonna suffer as a sinner.

But don't somehow, he's saying, don't somehow equate that with the character that God wants to build in you.

You're suffering because you're an idiot.

I mean, that's kind of use a theological term.

I mean, that's what he's kind of saying, right?

And we've all and we've all done that, right?

So, so in other words, if you're in bankruptcy because of bad choices you've made in your finances, don't put that on God.

And definitely don't put it on the devil, it's because you need to grow up and how to, you know, follow a budget.

Or if when we could go through all kinds of things, right?

But the reality is all of us do that too.

All of us make that mistake too, but as we grow in that, he's making us smarter, he's making us wiser, and he's giving us greater and greater character.

So rejoice in suffering, because God is building you into a complete person.

So James 1 says, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.

Listen to this, but let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

So a survey of a million people, that's a pretty good survey, found they were asked these two questions.

How hard is your job?

And secondly, how meaningful is your job?

The meaningful jobs were not the jobs of high status, nor the jobs that paid the most.

They were jobs like educator, medical professional, military, starting one's own company, entrepreneurs, involving great struggle and difficulty.

The survey indicated that the harder the job with the most benefit to others were actually the most meaningful.

So, church, hardship completes us.

Hardship completes us.

There's a saying in the Navy SEALs, the only easy day was yesterday.

So when you see men and women that have oftentimes chosen difficulty in their life, they find meaning in that.

We can't be overcomers unless we have something to actually overcome.

Verse 17 for the time has come for judgment again at the house of God.

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

Now, if the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?

Therefore, let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good as to a faithful Creator.

So, lastly, rejoice in suffering because you will eventually be rewarded by God.

You're wired for suffering.

You were made to be able to handle great suffering.

Every one of you in this room.

Every one of you in this room knows in your heart that character is built through suffering, and you have what it takes.

Not only do you have what it takes, even as a non-Christian, you have what it takes now of the Holy Spirit that lives within you because of the hope of glory that's being is guiding your heart.

So, church, embrace it.

It's gonna come.

Why not let it come with a passion for purity, with a passion for character, with a passion to be crucified with Christ, not crucified against Christ, not crucified for Christ.

He's with us.

Man, he is with us, he's right here, and he's never closer than when we're going through deep, deep suffering in our lives.

Some of you in this room have been through tremendous suffering.

It's not fair.

It's absolutely not fair what you've been through.

But I know you and you've embraced it, and in embracing it, God's doing something deep and intimate in your heart.

And we stand with you because you're living the authentic Christian life.

You're living with authenticity, difficulty.

To me, it's very similar to having a baby birthing.

I don't know what that's like, my wife does, but I've watched it, and that's enough for me to see what's going on.

Okay?

But I feel like suffering is sort of like that in the sense that the deep pain that a woman goes through in having that child, there's a purpose to it.

There's a joy on the other end.

So I think rejoicing in suffering is not rejoicing with the suffering, it's rejoicing with what's on the other side of the suffering.

Because God's going to use it in a mighty and powerful way in our lives.

Thank you for listening to the Forn for War podcast.

We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steveholtonline.org.

God bless.