May 17, 2026 | Discovering Greatness in Our Trials

This is the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come.

Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.

And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.

Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you, for I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them, and have come to know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.

I am praying for them.

I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them, and I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.

Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one even as we are one.

The gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Father, we thank you for your life-giving word.

And we pray for the grace to hear your voice in our lives this morning.

Come, Holy Spirit, and open up the pathways to our hearts for your word to find root in our lives and bear good fruit.

We pray this in the great name of Jesus.

Amen.

You can be seated.

Good morning.

It's a special Sunday here at St.

Paul's.

We are celebrating our high school graduates who are getting ready to make a big transition in their lives.

Looking forward to a little bit more freedom and independence.

I'm sure they're all very excited about that.

I know ours is.

It's an exciting time stepping into a new season.

It's like a blank canvas, right?

You get to write a new story.

Hopefully a beautiful story.

Hopefully, a story filled with great things, great accomplishments, a great adventure in many ways.

I'm sure that if you haven't already, you're going to be sitting through some graduation ceremonies and hearing speeches about your potential and your capacity to do great things, which is fitting and it's true, especially if you're a Christian.

Because the Bible declares that we are made for greatness.

We're made for greatness.

We were made in the image of God.

We were made in the likeness of God.

We were created to be like Him.

And who is greater than God?

We were created to make beautiful things.

We were created to accomplish great works for His glory.

We were made for greatness.

I don't know about you, but in my experience of life on that great adventure of following Jesus to a life of greatness, I've discovered that it's not always rainbows and butterflies.

It's not always an easy, well-paved road to greatness.

The road can get really rough at times.

It can get really bumpy.

Maybe some of you have already experienced that in your life.

Even up to this point of finishing high school, you've experienced what it's like to go through trials and adversity.

And if you've ever noticed any great adventure story that you've read or seen or heard involves the hero going through the fire, going through a period of trial, of adversity, of hardship, and sometimes great suffering, in order to make it through into an experience of what it really means to be great.

This morning, Peter starts out this letter talking about suffering, and it's a dominant theme throughout this letter that Peter wrote to some Christians that were really up against it.

They were experiencing very real opposition and adversity and hardship and trials.

And at this point, in the letter, he says, 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.

Do not be surprised when the fiery trial comes upon you.

Suffering is a part of the human experience because we live in a broken and fallen world that does not work the way that God originally designed it to.

Are we going to handle it in a way that might be even more difficult in the moment but actually leads to greatness?

Don't be surprised when you suffer, especially if you're a Christian.

Now I'm going to be honest with you this morning.

I've been very surprised at some of the fiery trials that I have been through.

And my family have been through.

I've been very surprised and disturbed and upset by the fiery trials that I've walked through in my life.

As I've attempted my best at my best to follow Jesus.

But Paul here says, don't be surprised when that happens.

It's a part of the human experience and especially a part of the experience of following Jesus.

You will have trials, you will face adversity.

I'm not as surprised anymore.

I'm not as disoriented or upset or thrown off course when I face a fiery trial.

Because I know, like Peter discovered, it's part of the package of following Jesus.

It's part of the package of living the great adventure and a life of true greatness.

You will suffer.

You will face adversity and hardship, just as Peter said.

You know, our suffering, our trials, they come in lots of different forms.

When we make a decision to follow Jesus, it means that we make a stand.

And it means we're in opposition to those who are opposed to God, which includes God's adversary, the devil, and every evil force behind him.

When we become a Christian and when we begin to follow Jesus, we become an enemy of God's enemy.

And in many ways, we have a target on our backs as a follower of Jesus.

The devil does not want us to walk in the true greatness and calling and purpose that Jesus has for our lives.

And he will throw everything at you possible to make that road as rough as possible.

And also present us with other paths that seem so much easier and better and more pleasurable.

Peter, in this passage that we read this morning, says that when we follow Jesus, when we're representing him well out there in the world, we can especially expect opposition.

He says in verses 13 and 14, but rejoice insofar as you share Christ's suffering, that you may also rejoice and be glad in his glory as it's revealed.

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

If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed.

I have a lot of friends around the world who are following Jesus in some countries and places where the cost of following Jesus is a lot higher than it is here in our country.

When the cost is perhaps your family or your livelihood and even your life.

It's not, do you have faith or not?

It's an opportunity to grow in your faith, which is more valuable than gold.

To establish a stronger foundation of trust in your relationship with God, who's the one that makes us great.

Suffering is not just a fire that we walk through.

It's an opportunity to grow.

To grow into greatness in many ways.

To grow more into the image of Jesus, who shows us what true greatness looks like, who went through an incredible fire and trial in his life as he did the will of his father, which was to save us and bring us home, to reconcile us to him so that we could enjoy life as it was meant to be, as it was designed to be.

Jesus shows us how to suffer well, how to walk through a fiery trial.

And as he did that, the glory of God was revealed in the most profound way, in the most unexpected way.

When he laid down his very life on the cross for our sake, he went through the fire.

He went through the cross.

That's greatness.

That is greatness.

We all have the potential of that inside of us.

The presence of the Holy Spirit guiding us if we're listening, if we're paying attention, is leading us in the direction of life.

The hard road is often the best road to travel.

It's the road that leads to true to true greatness in our lives.

Peter also says, there's a form of suffering which is self-inflicted.

Let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler.

In other words, don't suffer as a result of being stupid.

Don't suffer by making poor decisions in your life, by just basing your decisions on what the crowd says is the best thing to do in the moment.

I don't want you to experience self-inflicted suffering.

Because we can do that.

Sometimes the mess that we're in, the trial that we're in, is of our own making.

True?

That's a true statement, I think.

In my own experience in life, at least.

Peter's basically saying, best if we avoid that kind of suffering.

That's not the kind of suffering that leads to greatness.

We need to choose that more narrow path that Jesus invites us to walk with him.

And that's the true blessing, is that when it's having his presence and guidance on the road.

When you've got him there with you guiding you, directing you, cheering you on, bringing you comfort and encouragement, bringing people around you that remind you, hey, we're all in it together.

If we're not in the fire right now, we've been through the fire, or we're coming out of the fire, and we need each other in the midst of the fire to say, don't give up.

Keep going.

Persevere because your faith is of greater worth than gold.

In our gospel reading from John, Jesus said, And this is eternal life.

Anyone interested in eternal life?

That sounds good to me.

And this is eternal life.

That they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

This is eternal life.

To know God and to know Jesus whom He sent.

You know, sometimes we get to know God best in the middle of the fire.

In the middle of the trial.

We have an opportunity to know God on a deeper level than we could experience when everything's hunky-dory and going really well and the road is nice and smooth and straight.

We have an opportunity to truly know God.

Which is how we experience real life, true life, abundant life.

Just as he is.

We were made for greatness.

We were made for the adventure of following Jesus.

It will be rough at times, it will be bumpy, it will be tempting to take an easier, smoother path.

But Jesus is, I believe, saying to all of us this morning and reminding us stay on my road to greatness.

Stick close to me.

Follow the path that leads to life and true greatness.

It might be hard at times, it's going to be hard at times, but it's worth it.

You come out the other end like Jesus, full of the glory of God, God being seen and reflected and experienced on a level that you can't when everything's going really well.

That's my hope for our graduates.

As God continues to form and shape you and lead you on the particular Path that He has for your life, that you wouldn't miss it.

You wouldn't miss the opportunity for greatness.

You wouldn't be tempted to turn to the left or to the right.

You would fix your eyes on Jesus in the midst of the fire.

Whenever and however it comes.

Amen.

Father, thank you so much for your word to us.

It's not always an easy word.

It's not always in an easy way.

But it's the way that leads to life.

It's the way that leads to greatness.

It's the way that leads to you being seen and glorified in a powerful way.

We pray for your grace, Holy Spirit, to persevere in faith is, as Peter said, to entrust our souls to a faithful Creator in the midst of whatever trial or fire we're walking through.

And that that faith would be refined like gold.

And it would shine like gold, pure gold, so that you are seen and experienced and heard.

Not just in our lives, but in the people, the lives of people around us.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.