1 Peter: How to Suffer Like a Christian (4:12-19)

Hi, I'm Pastor Creighton, and thank you for tuning into Newsung Churches Podcast.

We're a typically faithful, gospel-centered Anglican church in Port Perry, Ontario, proclaiming the true and life-giving word of Jesus as we love and serve our neighbors.

You can learn more about us at Newsongportperry.ca.

May God bless you today through his life-giving word.

Our second lesson today is from 1 Peter chapter 4, verses 12 to 19.

1 Peter 4:12–19

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.

For 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 anyone 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.

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

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we come because you are the way, the truth, and the life.

We know no other way, Lord.

But we need no other way.

Lord, we come to you by way of your cross.

We come to you by way of your resurrection.

We pray that your grace would fill our hearts with hope.

That in the midst of our trials and tribulations, our difficulties, our sufferings, we would know, Lord Jesus, the sure and certain hope of our redemption.

So Lord, would you impress this upon us?

Would we leave glad for having seen you with our hearts, Lord?

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Boy, five lines for sermon notes here.

Use them wisely.

We've been going through 1 Peter, of course.

This is a letter that Peter is writing to Christians living in the Roman province of Asia Minor, a kind of Turkey, modern-day Turkey.

And Peter is reminding Christians living in difficult times of the hope that we have.

In being Christians, we are born again to a living hope, is how Peter describes it.

Through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus.

No matter what sufferings or difficulties we can face in life, if Jesus is alive, we have hope.

We have a living hope.

We have a living hope with which we can face all of the trials and tribulations and difficulties of this world.

And indeed, Peter has been writing to us to remind us of who we are in Christ, what Christ makes us, his holy people, living stones, building up his temple, as it were, the church, his people, his meeting place, God's meeting place with humanity.

That's what the Lord Jesus has designed for us to be, if you can believe it.

We're also heirs, heirs of heaven, heirs of hope.

All of this being the case, we might forgive Peter's readers to wonder why they're still suffering.

If all of this is true, if I have a living hope because of the resurrection of Jesus, if we are made holy, if we're living stones, if we're heirs of heaven, why is it that we still face such difficulties, such trials, such tribulations in life?

One commentator writes that the more firmly Peter grounds their hope, the reader's hope, and the more eloquently he states their privilege, the more strange it must seem that they should have to suffer.

I wonder if we've been wondering the same.

We've been encountering these promises, we've been encountering this living hope, and yet life as it is is not always as it should be, right?

In Peter's day, he was ready to Christians who knew abuse, they knew mockery, they were often threatened with arrest.

And even if in Canada in 2026 we're not too worried about being arrested, we do know that there are sisters and brothers around the world who gather today under the looming threat of legal consequences, right?

And perhaps we know what it is to be to suffer social consequences or diminishment or what have you, mockery, right?

Mistreatment, what have you.

We might know something of the kind of mistreatment that Peter is writing about here.

So, all of this being the case, the fact that we still experience suffering, what are we supposed to do with that?

How do we respond to that?

And Peter is writing to us, Christians, to instruct us today.

How do we suffer like Christians?

What do we bear in mind and what do we practice?

That's Peter's point today.

Here's three things Peter wants us to bear in mind, to practice, to suffer like Christians.

Number one, don't be surprised.

Number two, don't be ashamed.

And then number three, which I guess is three and four, but we're gonna call it number three.

Trust God and do good.

Right?

Two don'ts, and then one bottom line, right?

Don't be surprised, don't be ashamed, trust God and do good.

This is what it means to experience suffering, trial, difficulty like a Christian.

And friends, I suspect that's many of us here today.

We come today, perhaps not feeling the exuberant joy of the Lord, but perhaps feeling crushed by life, by burdens, by expectations, what have you.

I hope that today we can catch both a glimpse of hope, but also find the grace to live into our suffering for the glory of God.

Okay, so let's open up our scriptures to 1 Peter chapter 4, verses 12 to 13.

1 Peter 4:12–13

You can open up your um order of service.

I forgot to look up the uh the page number in the Bible, so if someone has the page number, call it out in the pew Bible there.

You know, when I was a kid, my uh pastor, he would always used to say Pew Bible page number, da da da da.

I thought he had the whole Bible memorized.

I thought he had every page number memorized and he would just call it out.

It was years later, as a teenager, I realized he probably looked it up beforehand.

That took me a little too long to figure out, but if you have the page number, call it out.

Okay.

How do we suffer like Christians?

Number one, don't be surprised.

Don't be surprised when we encounter suffering.

Okay.

Verse 12.

Beloved.

Okay, just by the way, I love that.

I love that Peter begins by addressing these Christians, by addressing the church as beloved.

I mean, both because pastors should love their congregations, but even more so, pastors need to remind their congregations how well loved they are.

You are Christ's beloved.

If you don't know that already, I hope that's the one thing you take away today.

You are beloved in Christ.

Okay.

Beloved.

Do not be surprised at the fiery trial, right?

The burning ordeal, when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

Okay, don't be surprised by suffering.

That's Peter's first point.

Now, why would we be surprised?

Why would we be surprised to suffer?

I wonder if it's some version of this.

Christianity, we might safely assume, has to be the best way, the most efficient way, God's chosen way, however you want to phrase that, of securing God's favor.

If we're going to do this religion thing, surely that's because God likes it, right?

And if God likes it, and he likes us being Christians, then surely being Christians results in the things that we like, right?

The material blessings, the security, the prosperity, the good health, all the outcomes that we desire most in life.

So therefore, if I'm going to be a Christian, you know, we kind of think, well, you know, if I'm going to do this thing God likes, he really ought to do this thing that I like, right?

Isn't that the deal, right?

Maybe we're surprised because when we suffer, as we practice our Christianity, we think our Christianity really isn't working the way it's supposed to, right?

We think if Christianity is meant to result in the blessings that I want most, then we're surprised when we don't experience those blessings.

In fact, we experience the suffering.

Isn't that the sort of thing I'm being a Christian to avoid?

Maybe that's what we think.

Maybe that's what Peter's readers are thinking here.

Why wouldn't we be surprised by suffering, Peter?

Well, one, Peter is writing to faithful exiles.

That's his way of referring to us Christians, right?

Here we are on our pilgrimage from this side of eternity to new creation, right?

When all things are going to be restored and redeemed and renewed at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, when all things will be glorified on this side of eternity, we're not quite home yet.

We pray things would be on earth as they are in heaven because things on earth lag behind.

Yes, the resurrection has inaugurated that new creation, but that new creation is still yet to be fully realized.

So here we are, exiles, trudging along in this pilgrimage to eternity.

We shouldn't be surprised to experience suffering as earth lags behind heaven.

That's the first reason, but the second reason we shouldn't be surprised is this blessing, we've already seen, is not merely material, right?

Blessing is not merely the material good in life.

Those are blessings, don't get me wrong.

And we should thank God for the good health we experience or the prosperity or success we might experience.

Those are good gifts from God for which we ought to give thanks.

But those aren't what we mean by capital B blessing.

What is the blessing from which all other blessings emanate or come from?

We might want to say this: the blessing of being a Christian is this communion with the Lord.

It's being one with God in Christ.

It is knowing his sure and certain promises which will bring us to that resurrection day.

That is our greatest blessing in knowing the Lord.

And we've already seen in chapter three that knowing that blessing for ourselves is expressed through honorable conduct, right?

Virtuous living, and it's also expressed through honoring Christ, even when life is the most difficult.

If our greatest blessing is knowing, loving, delighting in the Lord, and knowing that that will resonate into all of eternity, then all circumstances have a way of have a way of getting ordered around that.

Do you see?

Those aren't our greatest goods.

They are goods.

But our greatest blessing is our greatest good, and that is the Lord Himself.

So we shouldn't be surprised when we have a deficit of material blessings.

We have true blessing in the Lord.

So what do we do instead?

Verse 13.

Rejoice.

Rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

Don't be surprised, Peter says.

Instead, rejoice, right?

Be glad, be joyful, be delighted.

And this is where I want to say, Peter, you sound like a psychopath.

What are you talking about?

Rejoice in your sufferings.

See, we should pay mind, because it's not as though Peter doesn't know suffering for himself.

Right?

He has seen our Lord Jesus go to the cross.

He has experienced arrest, persecution.

We see that in the book of Acts.

He sees his fellow Christians that he's writing to suffering.

And Peter is probably only a few years away from his own martyrdom.

So we shouldn't think that Peter just doesn't understand my suffering.

He understands suffering.

But our perspective on suffering is somehow strangely changed by our communion with the Lord Jesus.

It's this perspective we have of our greatest blessing that changes the way we look at the sufferings we might experience in life.

And that's why I think insofar is such a key word here in verse 13.

Rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings.

Don't rejoice that you suffer.

Of course, suffering is undesirable.

Of course, there will be a day when suffering is past tense, but insofar as right now we Christians share in our Lord Christ's sufferings, we have reason to be glad.

No, we don't share Christ's sufferings exactly.

We haven't been nailed to crosses, I hope.

Nor has our sufferings achieved the same things that Christ's suffering has achieved, which is atonement, right?

But as followers of Christ, we do suffer in the following.

We do suffer after our Lord Jesus and with the attitude of our Lord Jesus.

We've seen that already in chapter 4.

Suffering is an invitation to the imitation of Christ.

And for that, we can rejoice for the opportunity to follow after the Lord Jesus, who is our greatest blessing.

Insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, rejoice.

That you may also rejoice.

Here's a second reason to rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

What's Peter talking about?

He's talking about Christ's second coming.

He's talking about the renewal and restoration of all things at the end of history.

We rejoice presently, yes, in the following of Jesus, even when that means suffering, but we rejoice knowing that there will come a day when suffering is put away, when all things are restored and renewed, when God's fullest glory is revealed at the coming of our Lord Jesus.

We Christians always have reason to rejoice because suffering doesn't end with more suffering, and then more suffering, and then we die.

For Christians, suffering will always end in glory.

Because that's the promise.

It will end in resurrection.

We are never without hope, no matter how badly we suffer in life.

That is the greatest hope a Christian can have.

And this perspective of the future should change our perspective on the present.

We share, we will share in the new creation glory at Christ's return.

Okay, but Peter wants to offer a clarification.

He wants to offer an example as well.

An example in verse 14, a clarification in verse 15.

Verse 15, clarification.

We're not talking about the kind of suffering we experience when we, you know, I don't know, when as a consequence of wrongdoing or something like that, right?

Don't go commit a murder and then say it's persecution or something like that.

That's that's not let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler, right?

Clarification.

We're not talking about the sort of suffering as a consequence of wrongdoing.

Of course we're going to experience that, right?

Love that term meddler, by the way.

Like, seems a little out of place at first glance, but that's really interesting, isn't it?

I mean, if at its core sin is an issue is a choice to reject God's will and insert my own will, you know, for my own desired outcomes, whatever that may be, even if that requires thievery or murder or whatever, meddling might just be an everyday example of that same thing.

You know, I've got an idea of the way life should go, so I'm just going to meddle in someone else's business until I get that what I want.

Boy, that can really rip churches apart, don't you think?

Very interesting to me.

You know, we're not talking about the sort of suffering that comes as concepts like a wrongdoing.

Let me give you an example, Peter says, Verse 14.

If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you, right?

If you're insulted, don't think God stopped blessing me.

Be reminded of your true blessing.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for my sake, Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Be reminded that God's own spirit rests on you.

You have the life of God pumping in the heart of your soul.

And this spirit who rests on you guarantees you a share of God's own glory.

As surely as Christ suffered on the cross, he will be glorified in eternity, and we who suffer presently will share in that glory.

That's Peter's point.

So we read the present, present suffering in light of the end of the story.

Do you ever skip to the end of the book and then read the rest of the book knowing where things are going?

That's what we should do as Christians.

We should know the final chapter and read our present sufferings in light of where all of this is going.

The same commentator writes, suffering then is not a threat, but a promise.

The pattern of Christ's life, that is, cross, then glory to follow, is the pattern of our lives too.

And maybe we're reminded of what Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

Love the way the NIV puts it.

This is a great reassurance, I think.

If you are experiencing great trial, great difficulty, if you're experiencing suffering that you would not have chosen for yourself, don't wonder if this means you're a failure as a Christian.

Don't wonder if this is a result of your own failure to measure up to God's standards.

Right?

This is a release from that sense, that crushing sense that it's my job to earn it before God.

Don't be surprised, Peter says, when you experience suffering.

That might be part of the deal for us.

But also part of the deal is a share in Christ's glory.

Because the cross always precedes the resurrection.

Anticipate future glory and rejoicing when Christ returns.

Don't be surprised, Peter says.

And don't be ashamed either, Peter writes.

Verse 16, if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glory God in that name.

Let him, pardon, glorify God in that name.

Okay, don't be ashamed of suffering, Peter writes.

Why would be be ashamed of suffering, right?

Why would to feel shame, right?

It's like feeling dishonor.

We shrink back, we shrivel into ourselves, right?

Why would we do that?

Well, suffering, we might assume, means that Christianity isn't working, right?

It's not doing me any good.

I'm not achieving the goals that I want in life.

I'm not getting any further ahead.

If it's not doing me any good, how can I think it'll do anybody else any good?

And we shrivel back and we shrink away, don't we?

Maybe that's the temptation for these Christians Peter's writing to.

Don't be ashamed, Peter writes.

Why?

Verse 17, Peter gives us a reason.

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

And if it begins with us, the household of God, right?

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?

So Peter's making two points here.

Don't be ashamed of suffering, because God's refining fire begins with us, his church.

We've already encountered that in chapter 1, verses 6 and 7.

God, our Creator, has good purposes for us, and his chief purpose for us is that we would share his glory with him forever.

We will shine like the stars in heaven, is what Jesus says.

Think about that for a second.

That is the outcome of your life by God's design.

You will shine with the radiance of Christ Himself, like a mirror, shining it out into all of creation, forever and ever, in greater and greater intensity.

What amazing destiny we have.

Don't be ashamed of suffering because suffering is a means that God can use to refine us for the purpose of his glory, of sharing in his glory, of reflecting his glory.

God loves us too much, in other words, to leave us unrefined.

The image here is very much of a furnace, right?

Fiery trial, burning ordeal.

We're getting this language from uh Places like Malachi chapter 3, where God refines his people as by fire.

Malachi 3 · chapter mention

This morning I was reading, what was I reading, Deuteronomy 4.

God is a consuming fire, right?

The idea is all these impurities and imperfections and sinfulness and proclivity, all these things we have that pollute the glory that God intends to bring into its fullness, all of these things are the impurity that God is doing away with.

And suffering is one means by which he can burn away the dross of our hearts and reveal a greater glory that he intends for us.

He does not spare us from his refining fire because he loves us too much for us not to share in the glory he's purposed for us.

And if that's so, if God's refining fire begins with us, then the second point Peter's making is this how much more so for those who would reject the good news of Jesus?

That's the second half of verse 17.

Obey the gospel is an interesting phrase, isn't it?

Because we obey commands, and we might say, well, the gospel I thought is good news.

How do you obey good news?

Well, good news makes a claim, doesn't it?

Good news says, this is what has come to pass, and I can either accept that or I can reject that.

If I disobey or if I reject, then that good news, well, that good news has made a claim in my life that I've done away with.

The proof Peter appeals to is from Proverbs chapter 11, verse 31.

Proverbs 11:31

He's quoting the Greek translation.

Sounds scary, doesn't it?

What does he say?

He says, The righteous, if the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and sinner?

Peter is not trying to say that salvation is difficult for God to achieve, and even the most righteous of us are even likely to just skirt by or something like that.

Leaves us feeling like, boy, what's the hope for the rest of us, right?

The point is not that salvation is let me let me put it this way.

Peter's not saying that our salvation is unsure.

Our salvation in Christ is sure.

But it is not simple.

It is not easy.

It's not to be taken for granted.

Salvation does not mean avoiding God's fire and you know going down the kind of, what do they call those uh lazy rivers?

Yeah, you ever been on a lazy river?

Yeah, that's not the Christian life, is it?

It's not the lazy river into heaven.

It's the pilgrimage.

It's a pilgrimage as through fire.

It's not being it's not avoiding the fire of God's refining purposes, it's being saved through God's purifying fire.

One of my favorite poems is T.

S.

Eliot's Little Gidding.

And he has a section where he describes something like this.

He describes the human predicament like this the only hope, or else despair, lies in the choice of pyre or pyre to be redeemed from fire by fire.

In other words, Elliot is saying we have a choice.

The choice is not do I want to experience God's fire or not?

The choice is what is the outcome that I desire from God's refining fire?

Do I want my sinfulness, my self-interestedness, all the things that refuse the share in God's glory to be refined and done away with?

Or do I want to cling to those things and find myself consumed in that fire?

That's the point Eliot is making.

In fact, we sang, even better, we sang it in our hymn this morning.

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, my grace, God says, all sufficient shall be thy supply.

The flame shall not hurt hurt thee.

I only design thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

That's what Christian theologians call sanctification.

God is in the business of not leaving us where we are and patting us on the head.

He wants us to be holy as he is holy, because he wants us to be glorious as he is glorious.

That's the end goal for Christians.

So instead, instead of being ashamed of our suffering and shrinking away from it as if our Christianity isn't working, Peter says, glorify God in your suffering.

Don't be ashamed, but let the Christian glorify God in that name.

And that name is the name Christian.

Glorify God, praise him, exalt him.

What diminishes us can serve to glorify God.

It seems strange.

It seems counterintuitive to us, doesn't it?

And it is certainly not what we'd call the prosperity gospel, which means the more you please God, the more he'll, you know, toss you those bones in life that we really want, the health, the wealth, the prosperity, all those sorts of things.

It is not prosperity gospel, but it is what we might call the theology of the cross.

That was what theologian and church reformer Martin Luther was most known for.

The theology of the cross.

He puts it like this it is not sufficient for anyone, and it does him no good to recognize God in his glory and his majesty unless he recognizes him in the shame and humility of the cross.

In other words, if I were to go looking for God's glory, I'd probably go looking for what's most elevated, most grand, most transcendent.

And Martin Luther would say, that's one idea, but here's where God reveals his glory at the cross.

If I as a Christian want to know God's glory, I have to look at that.

I have to behold Christ's sufferings and consider that God's glory is not revealed behind it, somewhere obscured by it, it is in it.

Friends, I think this is freedom from feeling like Christianity has to be nothing but triumphant living.

Nothing but being on the up and up and up, which frankly is exhausting.

I don't know if you've tried it.

Because life doesn't work that way.

Jesus is not good news for those who have it all together and then come to him.

Jesus is good news for those honest enough of themselves to acknowledge we are broken and we need him desperately.

Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest.

Don't be ashamed of suffering as a Christian, Peter says.

Instead, glorify God as a Christian by letting him refine you for even greater glory.

Don't be surprised.

Don't be ashamed.

But bottom line, Peter says this, verse 19, trust God and do good.

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

So here's a reminder.

And we want to say, really?

Because that doesn't sit well with us moderns, does it?

In fact, it creates a theological tension we really don't like.

And often I find what we want to do is we want to buffer God's will against our suffering.

As though the two have nothing to do with one another.

And while this theological move is well-intentioned and, you know, ascribes to God all of the good and pleasant things we enjoy in life, and whatever suffering might endure, we say, well, God has nothing to do with that.

That might be a well-intentioned move, but it has this really disastrous consequence, and it's this.

Functionally speaking, our suffering is now outside of God's jurisdiction.

And if it's outside of God's jurisdiction, then we might wonder, is it outside of his redemption as well?

If I have wandered so far off the map into suffering, is there any guarantee that I will make it back into what God's will requires?

God becomes functionally, if not actually, impotent in the face of suffering.

Christianity doesn't explain our suffering away.

It is not a mathematical formula for us to go, oh, I get it.

That makes sense.

No, suffering is never just a cold academic exercise, is it?

Christianity does not explain our suffering away.

It offers something even more important to us, and that's this.

Christianity guarantees our suffering will be redeemed.

There is no suffering we experience on this side of eternity that will not finally be answered by our Lord Jesus.

And he will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

And sadness and death will be no more.

The old things will pass away.

There is no such thing presently as purposeless suffering.

And friends, I have to think the greatest suffering conceivable would be this: suffering with no purpose and no guarantee of redemption.

Christianity says your suffering is not purposeless, and your suffering will be answered.

It will be redeemed.

And this gives us a promise that our present suffering will give way to greater glory.

And the guarantee, of course, is the cross.

That is the pledge that God will answer our suffering, because God Himself has entered into the fullness of our suffering as the suffering servant who rescues us.

As Christians, suffering gives way not to more suffering and then more suffering and more suffering until you die.

Suffering gives way to resurrection and new creation and eternal glory.

The outcome of God's will for our suffering being our redemption, we can do two things, Peter understands.

Number one, we can trust God, right?

It's a pagan spirituality that sets up basically a transactional relationship with God.

If I do the good things you want, then I get the good things that I want, right?

And so when we suffer, we either think, well, one, I have to try harder.

I'm just not doing the good things good enough.

I got to do even gooder things, you know?

And we just get on that endless treadmill.

Or option number two, with Job's wife, we curse God and die.

Screw you.

Right?

The Christian knows that she is not exempt from suffering, and that the Lord Jesus, through his suffering, has already secured her redemption.

Therefore, even in the bleakest circumstances, the Christian can pray, Thy will, not my will, be done.

And that's why we entrust our souls to a faithful creator.

God is not only the architect of all things, he does not abandon us.

The cross is proof of that.

He's faithful.

So when we feel the despair and the crushing burden of suffering, friends, we need to preach the gospel to ourselves.

And we need those we trust most, those we love in our church family, to preach the gospel to us, to remind us that this suffering will give way to an even greater weight of glory.

No, there's no academic answers to it.

But Jesus will finally answer it.

We trust God, and the second thing we do is this we do good.

See, when suffering, it's easy to collapse into self-pity and despair, isn't it?

I find it easy to do that.

I get real preoccupied with myself and how awful my life is when I'm suffering.

And the thing that suffering robs us of is the love we have for our neighbor, the concern we have for others.

And friends, I think there is nothing more dignifying we can have than a concern for our neighbor that outweighs our concern for ourselves.

It makes us human.

And when suffering plummets me into my own self-pity and despair, it's as if it's robbing me of my very humanity.

Friends, Christ has come to restore our humanity and to glorify our humanity.

And so therefore, even in our suffering, we endeavor to do good to others.

What can I do for my neighbor's sake that will will his or her greatest goods?

So I can think of one dear saint I've met with many times and prayed with her many times on her deathbed.

And every time I would come, I'd say, How are you doing?

And she would tell me, Not so good, because her body was just, you know, failing.

But then she would say this.

I have an endless list of prayer requests in my mind.

So I just go through them.

And then our meetings kept getting so irritating.

Our meetings kept getting interrupted by all these people she was making friends with on the ward and encouraging.

And I could never, you know, get through a whole conversation with her because she was making a point of going around and getting to know each and every person who lived on her ward and to pray for them and to share the gospel with them as she had opportunity.

Even on her deathbed, she refused to let this collapse her into despair and self-pity.

It was unbelievable.

Christians, we will suffer.

Don't be surprised, don't be ashamed.

Instead, trust God and do good.

And friends, we ought to bear this in mind.

Peter is not asking us to do anything which our Lord Jesus has not already done for us.

When Christ suffered, he's written in chapter 2, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

Friends, Jesus did not fail to trust his heavenly Father.

And Jesus did not fail to accomplish our greatest good through the cross.

He has suffered to secure our redemption, and this is good news.

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

Amen.

We hope that you've been blessed by God's word today.

If you live in the area, we hope that you'll come and worship with us in person on Sunday at 10 a.m.

If you'd like to learn more about Newsong Church, we'd love to connect with you.

Please find our contact information at newsongportperry.ca and reach out to us.

Newsong's ministry is entirely funded by the generous giving of those who worship and journey with us.

If you feel called to support our ministry with a financial gift, please go to newsongportperry.ca slash giving to make your contribution.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.