Suffering and the Christian

Good morning, Sacred Mission Church.

We are so encouraged to be able to gather, albeit digitally, this morning.

We have been gathering in person over the last few weeks, but as a leadership team, we decided to hit pause for at least this Sunday to be able to put your health at the top of our priority.

Now, listen, something about this I'd like to say is that we are progressing forward.

Our goal was to create a safe and confident space for you and your family to worship Jesus together.

So that's what we're working toward.

And that hasn't changed.

This isn't a step backward.

What we have to realize is that in this COVID world that we live in, this is a possible, ongoing, repeating reality to our forward progression.

So we're not looking at this from a leadership point as a step backward.

We're looking at this as a potential reality as we continue to press forward toward normalcy.

When will we get normalcy?

I don't know.

What will normalcy even look like when we get there?

That's even at this point hard to describe and discern.

But I do know this.

We're going to keep moving forward.

And so we are excited about in the very near future to gather again as a people when we have confidence that we can create that safe space for you and your family to worship Jesus together in.

And so we're using outside sources and voices and uh professionals to help make those decisions and guide us.

But I do know this without a shadow of a doubt, we haven't stepped backward.

This is a part of us continuing to move forward so that we can again worship Jesus together as the church of which he has called us to.

So this morning we're going to be picking up back in our Hold Fast to Faith sermon series that we've been working through in 1 Peter.

And we're going to be in 1 Peter chapter 4, looking at verses 12 through 19.

1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

So if you're joining us, grab your Bible, grab your phone or tablet, and make sure that you open it up and get there so that we can work through this text together.

While you're turning there, I'm going to try and help us see and remind us where we've come in this sermon series.

So Peter has written a letter encouraging Christians that he refers to as elect exiles in the dispersia, those who are scattered throughout this region known as Asia Minor.

These Christians are in various contexts made up of various demographics, and they're experiencing various trials and suffering.

And Peter has been laboring to encourage them to stay faithful, to hold fast to their faith in the midst of these trials and sufferings.

And he has worked to build out this theology of assurance and confidence that these Christians should have.

And these things coming together help to build assurance to the Christian that what they're going through, the suffering or the trial, is not in vain, that it's for their good, and that they will come out on the other side of it tested and tried, but yet more faithful and righteous through perseverance.

And so what we're looking at today is Peter's trying to help us understand, yes, as a Christian, you will suffer.

And kind of paradoxically, you will find joy in that suffering.

But he's also going to help us understand that not all suffering that we experience is because we are a Christian or because we claim the name of Jesus.

And so, 1 Peter chapter 4, hopefully you're there already, verses 12 through 19.

1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

Let's take a look.

It says this 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 in so far as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer, or as a meddler?

Yet if someone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.

For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God.

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

And if the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?

Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

May God bless the reading and the proclamation of his promises.

Now, as we start to engage with this passage, uh one thing I do every week is try to break it up into certain chunks.

It's how my brain works, and it equips me to be able to really try to extract from the text what God is trying to communicate even to us today.

And so if I took the very first section of this passage in 12 through 14, I would try to summarize that chunk as this suffering for Jesus should be a natural part of the Christian life.

Now, here's what I mean by that.

Peter tells his listeners in the very beginning, beloved, do not be surprised.

Do not be surprised.

At what?

He clarifies when the fiery trials come upon you to test you.

Now, as we look at that simple sentence, there's a few things that we have to note.

Number one, suffering should be something we expect in our Christian life.

It should be a natural part of our existence as a believer in Jesus.

Now, we've been talking about how critical it is to embrace suffering as a part of our theology, because there's a purpose to our suffering.

You see, if there was no purpose, if there was no better outcome on the other side of it, if we just suffered because of bad natural circumstances, or even worse, if we just suffered because God really wasn't a good father, there'd be really no hope or point in our suffering.

But we suffer for a purpose.

Now there is a Christian theology that wants to try and remove suffering from our existence.

And that is such a pitfall in the way that we think.

Because here's what will happen.

What we know, without even the Bible needing to tell us, is that suffering will happen in our life.

And so what will happen is if we embrace a theology that tries to remove suffering out of our existence, when suffering does come, often we'll make shipwreck of our faith and of our very life.

And so when we expect suffering, in the way that Peter's encouraging and exhorting us to, and we understand the theology or purpose behind that suffering, we can have confidence and assurance to go through that suffering when it comes.

So we have to expect this as a natural part of our Christian life.

Number two is the fiery trial is purposed by God, but inflicted by men.

So when we look back at chapter one, we talk about Peter actually talks about how this fiery trial is this sort of cosmic furnace that God puts us through to refine and test the faith that we say we have.

He relates it to that of purifying precious metal as you place it into the furnace to get out the impurities and to on the other side of that process get a more pure precious metal.

He actually parallels that process with the testing of our faith.

And we see throughout his letter that he's trying to communicate that suffering is actually purposed by God.

And so we have to realize that God is sovereign, God is all-powerful, God is in control, God sees you in your state.

When we experience trials, when we experience suffering, for Christ's sake, for his name, we can have confidence that we are being tested, that we are facing suffering from the will of God, even if it's inflicted by men.

Number three is that the purpose of God is to test our faith.

So why does he do this, right?

Why does God allow this to happen to us as Christians?

Ultimately, it's due to conformity.

You see, the purpose of our salvation, one of the primary purposes of our salvation, according to the book of Romans, says that we were predestined.

So even if we believe in, even those of us who believe in election and predestination have to realize that what God has revealed to us through the Apostle Paul in the letter to the Romans is that we were predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

You see, there's an end goal in mind, and that's to be conformed to Jesus.

You see, we were we are image-bearers of God, but that image, because of our sin, has been marred and perverted.

And a primary work of the Holy Spirit, a primary goal of salvation, is to renew that image within us.

So we have to be stripped of our flesh, we have to be stripped of our sin, we have to be cleansed of our impurities so that we can come out the other side of the process more conformed to the image of Jesus.

And so God has a purpose in our suffering.

Here's one way to think about it: God loves us so much that he permits trials and suffering to come upon us so that our faith will be purified and strengthened.

So that's the love of a Father.

He knows that this is a tried and true measure to create those results.

And he actually providentially and sovereignly allows those trials and sufferings to come into our life so that our faith might be tested, so that it might be purified, so that it might be strengthened.

Peter goes on to say that we're able to actually rejoice in our shared suffering in Christ, because we have assurance that we will also share in his glory.

You see, we don't add to Jesus' finished work.

We talked about this last week.

So the sufferings that we face aren't making up for sufferings Christ didn't.

We're not adding to Jesus' work by through, by or through sufferings in our own life.

What we're doing is we're sharing in the sufferings of Christ, not adding to them as if something was lacking.

But our righteous reality, he purchased for us, and his suffering becomes more realized in us.

So here's a part or a way to try and understand the suffering that we share in with Christ.

Through his suffering, he accomplished and purchased for us perfect righteousness.

And when we encounter suffering, it allows for that righteousness to be more fully realized in our life.

And so it's a way to remove or draw out or away from us that which blocks, mars, or covers the image of Christ or the righteousness of which he's given us.

And so when we share in Christ's sufferings, our righteous reality that he purchased for us in his sufferings becomes more realized in us.

You see, he suffered for righteousness to obtain for us righteousness, so that we being made righteous by him now suffer for righteousness.

We can be glad in this experience of suffering, because faithful through it, on the other side we will be more like Jesus.

You see, conformity is the goal, and God uses the furnace of fiery trial as the process.

I then want to look at verses 15 through 16.

And I'd summarize those this way: that suffering alone does not cause us to share in Christ.

So suffering alone does not cause us to share in Christ.

In this life, we often face suffering that is not due to the faith we have in Jesus or because we're living in obedience to him.

Peter seems to be battling a very similar framework that we still struggle with in today's time.

We have an identity versus action issue.

And so what happens often is that we misunderstand what we do with who we are.

Now there are times when those things should line up, but there's often times where those things don't line up, where actually what we do has no bearing or any real semblance of who we are.

And so when someone tries to correct our behavior, when someone tries to rebuke or correct an action that we do, we often take it as a rejection or rebuke of us in our personhood.

We have to try to work to separate those two things because oftentimes we have and struggle with an identity versus action problem.

Too often we face suffering because of ungodly actions, but we misconstrue it for the Christian identity that we hold.

We think to ourselves, I must be facing this suffering or trial because I am a Christian.

In all honesty, you're facing this suffering or trial because you have acted very contradictive to the Christianity that you claim.

You see, one time at times what we do is we act unlike the faith that we claim to have.

And we experience suffering through that.

But because so often we misconstrue our identity for our actions, when our actions are corrected or when they're rebuked, or when we experience suffering and trials because of actions that are not related to the faith that we confess or we say that we hold, we think we're being suffering or we're experiencing suffering as Christians.

When all honesty, we're experiencing suffering because we acted very unchrist-like.

Now, Peter, when he starts off this kind of segment, he starts off really strong with examples of murderer and thief.

And many of us are probably sitting there thinking, well, obviously, I'm not a murderer, I'm not a thief.

Obviously, if I was to do those things, then I wouldn't be identified as a Christian, right?

That can be an easy framework for us to try and think through, but Peter doesn't leave us with these kind of really stark, contradictive realities.

He leaves us with something so simplistic, a meddler.

Now, when we look at what a meddler is, it's this it's to involve oneself in a matter without right or invitation.

It's for us to interfere unwantedly.

Now, to me, this kind of just sounds like most of our habits on Facebook or Twitter, right?

We meddle.

I mean, honestly, how many times have you posted something and then out of left field insert somebody you haven't talked to in ten years and they say something negative or contradictive about the post of what you put out there?

They insert themselves unwantingly, without invitation.

They interfere with what you're trying to accomplish.

And a lot of us behave that same way as well.

We meddle.

We meddle in places we weren't invited, we meddle in places that uh we are unwanted.

And it doesn't just happen on social media.

Sometimes we do that with family members, sometimes we do that with friends, sometimes we do that with complete strangers.

And so what he's not trying to say is that only these extreme behaviors uh uh could provoke suffering, but even these minor, more insidious behaviors could actually inflict suffering and trials on you, but you're not facing them, the suffering and trial, because of Jesus.

You're suffering because you're acting not like Jesus.

You see, maybe you're feeling persecuted for your faith when really you're just meddling and acting in a way God does not desire for us.

But if we do suffer for our faith and our obedience to Jesus, we should not be ashamed.

It should cause us to glorify Him even more.

As I was studying, reading through, uh trying to just pull out one story of martyrdom, someone who suffered to the point of death for their faith because of the way that they were living obedient life to Jesus and proclaiming his gospel to people around them.

What I found was this, that there was this kind of common denominator in the stories of which we're able to see and read about those who have given their life for the gospel.

And so to pull out one seemed almost dismissive of all the rest of the underlying reality that I read, and it's this that most of the time they are filled with such joy and rejoicing, even at the point of death.

Many of them would sing hymns or songs as they were being put to death.

Some of them would pray for the very ones who were killing them and murdering them in the moment.

Some of them would preach the gospel as they were being saved, pray for God to forgive them in their sins.

Some of them would rejoice uncontrollably, even while they are being crushed, burned, beheaded, you name it.

In the midst of suffering, in the midst of trials, even to the degree of death, martyrs throughout history have ended those sufferings with joy.

Not just ended them, but they embraced them.

They went headfirst into them, rejoicing and with joy.

And many of us, when we face suffering in this life, we often just ask the question, Why me?

We ask the question, why me, and some type of response of doubt of who God is, or that he's really good, or that he has a purpose for what's going on.

Instead of realizing the gospel truth that God is causing these trials and sufferings to come upon you because he loves you, because he has a purpose for your life, and on the other side of it, Christ will receive more glory, which is more glory of which you will share in in the time.

So let's look at verses 17 through 19.

If I was to summarize this last two verses, I'd say this that God's judgment begins with us.

You see, this ropes us right back to the beginning of this passage.

The fiery trial is God's will for his people.

We enter the fiery trial for the purpose of sanctification.

Only in Christ can we come out the other side of it alive.

And we have to realize that.

The only way that we can experience God's judgment, God's trial, is and come out the other side of it alive is if we're in Christ.

And so all of us living have and are and will experience God's judgment.

It's not just something out in the distant future that we're waiting for.

We have experienced it in that Christ has uh purchased for himself the church through the shedding of his blood.

So, so in that act, there was judgment.

Uh, in our lives now, there is active judgment, and all of us are awaiting a final judgment, not the only, but the final judgment in to come, in the future.

And so, but the church has first been receivers of that judgment.

And here's the beauty of the gospel is that because we were in Christ, we were able to come out the other side of that alive.

He stood in our place, and his righteousness became our righteousness so that we could be justified before the Father, so that we could be adopted into his family, and so that we could live with him forever.

Now, what's our main idea?

It's this that suffering for Jesus brings rejoicing with Jesus.

Suffering for Jesus brings rejoicing with Jesus.

How peculiar it is for us to have a reality where trials and sufferings should bring us joy.

That's not in the way that we are prone to think.

That's not naturally the way that we engage with suffering in our human existence.

In fact, often we only think as the other side of suffering bad, not good.

But the Bible tells us very concretely otherwise, that on the other side of suffering for Christ is goodness for us.

And so we should rejoice in that suffering.

And so instead of when we suffer, Suffer to look to God and say, Why me?

God, are you good?

God, are your promises real?

God, is this really what I deserve?

Right?

We can ask all these questions of doubt, as if there's no purpose in our suffering, or as if God really isn't sovereign over our state.

Or what we can do, like in the uh book, The Bruised Read, is an old Puritan book, and it's he kind of works through this framework of way of thinking when you experience suffering.

God, what is in me that is so hard and rebellious that it takes this for Jesus to shine brighter in me?

You see, we should have this kind of mentality.

Whatever it takes, Lord, make me more like Jesus.

Whatever it takes, Lord, make me more like Jesus.

For some of us, it was to the uh it has been to the point of death to make us look more like Jesus.

For some of us, it'll be these smaller sufferings and trials that we experience in our life.

But all trials and sufferings that are experienced by us in Christ are for that end goal.

To make us more like Jesus.

See, there's a purpose in our suffering.

There's a purpose for the fiery trials of which we face.

But here's what often happens in our life.

Some of us we suffer for anti-gospel reasons.

Some of us experience suffering because we live hypocritical and unbiblical lives.

We don't love our neighbor, we don't live in obedience to Jesus, we don't show a life that is counter to the world, even though we will bear a name that is counter to this world.

The tricky part is, though, we're wrapped up in our identity that says we are Christians, but we live lives that are very contradictive to it.

You aren't suffering for Jesus, you're suffering for sin that you continue to allow to rule in your flesh.

And we have to be honest about that, we have to be aware about that, we have to allow the Holy Spirit to convict us of that.

There's many of us who just suffer because we're not living the way that Jesus has actually called us to.

We're actually living anti-gospel lives instead of gospel-centered lives.

But because we have an identity as Christian, and that's probably a cultural identity because of where you grew up or how you were raised.

Maybe it's a cultural identity as far as the group of people that you belong to and you found some type of identity within the church and some type of home inside of the church.

There could be several reasons, but at the core of it, uh we have some type of identity issue where the identity we claim we have as Christians doesn't match up to the actions of which we live, and they should line up.

Now, sometimes they don't.

We understand this.

But when there's a pattern in your life that they don't line up to the faith of which you confess, there's something within you that has to start wondering what's going on.

And if you're facing suffering because you're living unbiblical ways, because you're living anti-gospel life, then we don't say that we're sharing in the suffering of Christ.

No, we are experiencing the suffering of our sin.

Some of us, though, we suffer for assumed gospel reasons.

We suffer for assumed gospel reasons.

This is an identity issue as well.

And as I was trying to work through this and understand it to our modern-day context, I had to look at our current cultural climate of what we're going through.

And here's too often what I see is that we've intertwined identity politics with Christian identity, and that the two are often seen as inseparable from one another.

I want to say this with sobriety, and I want to say this with deep concern for the people of Sacred Mission Church.

Listen to me when I say this.

Jesus doesn't love America, but to the point of death, he loves every person in America.

And that is something that we have to fight relentlessly to be a part of our heart, to be a part of our worldview, to be a part of our convictions.

You see, we assume the gospel too often means part of our identity politics.

Whether it's Democratic or Republican, liberal or conservative, citizen or refugee, constitution or deconstruction.

We often misconstrued the gospel for these other things.

And ultimately, it means none of these things.

We often face more suffering because in idolatry we have elevated our identity politics above our identity in Christ.

It's an idol that we have to put to death, that we have to beg for the Holy Spirit to destroy within us.

We cannot be sold out to the kingdom of God if we have sold part of our soul to a government institution.

You see, the coming of the Son of Man in glory to cosmically redeem and renew his creation is the apex of God's story.

Not July 4th, 1776, and not some upcoming date of revolution.

It is when Christ will come for his church.

It is when Christ will redeem us fully.

Consummate that covenant that he has with his bride.

And he brings with him the new heaven and new earth.

And all of this that we're fighting over is burned up and destroyed.

Because the reality is it was never meant to last.

The kingdom of God was always meant to last.

What's our gospel conviction this morning?

It's this Jesus suffered for the gospel.

Plain and simple.

Jesus suffered for the gospel.

He suffered because he boldly proclaimed who he was, the Son of God, the coming Messiah, the promised one.

He proclaimed boldly why he came, to save sinners, and what he was accomplishing, to usher in the true kingdom of God, not the kingdom of God, not the kingdom, not the ruling power that any person thought that he was supposed to bring with him.

But he was bringing a different kingdom that was not a part of this world.

You see, he suffered refusing to entangle himself with political structures.

He suffered for living righteously and countercultural to both the Romans and the Jews.

He suffered so that the father's children will be brought into the home whom he would go to prepare for them.

Jesus suffered for the gospel.

What is the gospel?

It's this that you and I, because of our relationship to our first father Adam, and our participation in his sin, we deserve death and wrath and judgment from God the Father.

But his mercy would not keep us in that state.

And so he sent his son Jesus, who was born like us, who suffered like us, who tempted like us, was tempted like us.

But he lived in perfect righteousness and in perfect obedience to the will and command of his father.

And then he stood in our place.

He stood in our place, and that is where we've experienced the great exchange, where he suffered under the crushing wrath of his father for us.

What judgment our sin demanded, what death our sin accomplished, was put on Jesus.

And the righteousness he accomplished, the justification, the relationship that he obtained, he gave to us.

He was put to death and he was buried in a tomb.

Three days later he rose again victoriously, and he left death and he left sin and its damaging, destructive effects in the borrowed tomb of which he once laid.

And he invites us in to that eternal life, to that new life, to that kingdom of which he was bringing with him.

If we repent of that sin which separated us from the Father, and we put our faith in the accomplishing works that brings us back into relationship with him through Jesus.

We are forgiven of all our sin.

We're made justified.

We're given righteousness, and we're adopted into the family of God forever.

And we, in that faith, wait with such anticipation and hope for Jesus to come back and all of this world destroyed.

But the new world of which we will reign with him forever in glory and joy to be brought with him.

You see, that's the gospel.

That's what we wait for, that's what we have to stand for.

And if we're going to suffer, let it be for that.

If we're going to face fire trials, let it be because we proclaimed or we're living that.

How should we then live?

I have three quick points as we close.

Number one, we would embrace a theology of suffering.

We've been talking about this over the last couple weeks.

Suffering has to be a central part of our theology because it will be a central part of our experience.

If we live lives that are unashamed of the gospel, if we live in obedience to God's commands, if we live subjected to the Lordship of Jesus, suffering will be a natural part of our experience.

Therefore, it should be a natural part of our theology.

Number two, we would not pursue suffering.

We don't have to chase suffering down.

What the Bible says is that if you just live a gospel-centered life and you proclaim the gospel faithfully, suffering will come.

We don't have to go and chase it down or seek it out.

In fact, oftentimes when we do those things, we find ourselves suffering not for Christ, but for our own actions or our own sin.

So what should we do?

Again, we should have suffering as a natural part of our theology.

And we should live unashamed lives of gospel-centered realities that will have natural implications of suffering and fiery trials.

Number three is this.

We would actually welcome it.

Because when we experience suffering, we should count it all joy.

We should rejoice.

Those are the things that the Bible calls us to do.

And so when it comes, we should welcome it.

Because here's what we have to stand upon.

A good father, a loving father, has willed for you to go through this.

And he has a purpose that on the other side of it, you'll be more like Jesus.

And so we should welcome that suffering.

Because again, our heart's cry that should mimic that of even John the Baptist, he must increase, I must decrease, right?

Our heart's cry should be whatever it takes, Lord, make me more like Jesus.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for the truth of your word.

We pray that we're able to submit and align our lives to it.

I pray, Father, that you help us to have a new perspective and view on suffering, that sees your will in it, that sees your purposes in it, and that sees Christ on the other side of it more real for us.

I pray, Father, that you give us strength to go through suffering and fiery trials.

I pray that you help us to put off sin in our lives so that we don't go through unnecessary suffering and fiery trials.

And I pray that you cause us to be more unashamed of the name of Jesus, to live radically gospel-centered lives where naturally fiery trials and sufferings will come.

But we know that we are held in your sovereign hand.

We know that Christ has uh uh conquered all of our enemies, and we know we will reign with him in joy forever.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

We're so thankful for you this morning.

We hope that you've enjoyed this home worship guide that we've put together for you.

And we're gonna be praying for you.

We're praying for God's uh provision of health for you and your family.

We're praying for wisdom in making the right decisions for us as a church as we continue to progress forward during this season.

And we are praying in anticipation for the time where we can gather as a people again here in the very near future.

We love you deeply and we're so thankful for you.

We will see you guys soon.