In this sermon, Greg Ho examines 1 Peter 1:3-9 and the word Peter gives there to Christians wondering, “Why does God allow our suffering?” Peter gives a three part answer to help Christians endure joyfully for the sake of Christ.
1. The Promise to the Suffering Christian (vv. 3-5)
2. The Purpose of the Suffering (vv. 6-7)
3. The Picture of the Faithful Sufferer (vv. 8-9)
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well that was beautiful singing um thank you for that today I want to talk a little bit about the subject of suffering now it’s no secret that in the last few years there has been some difficult times in our church many of us have had some health issues some of us have had difficult relationship issues and we even had three brothers and sisters that we lost in the last year it’s no secret then that many of us in the congregation are even today struggling under the weight of heavy issues and you know when Christians go through tough times a number of extremely difficult issues always get raised and some of these issues are are where is God at this time where is God in my suffering if God loves me why would he allow me to go through this fire and in fact has God forgotten about me entirely these questions come up and indeed many people when confronted with suffering view it as evidence that God must then not exist or if God exists then God must be a cold-hearted God who does not love them does not care for them and has abandoned them after all how can a loving God allow so much suffering I even am personally familiar with people who have begun to in the time of suffering bitterly blame God for their troubles and as a result walk away from the face I know people personally for whom that has happened well today I want to look with you at the subject of suffering and I want you to see that these thoughts these reactions stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of suffering in a Christian’s life so in light of a coming off a difficult season in our church and maybe even an anticipation seeing some storm clouds in the horizon I’d like to refresh with you our understanding of suffering so we can be armed for the Times perhaps to come question that comes up is is suffering meaningless is there any meaning to the suffering is there a purpose so we’ll be drawing the answers to these questions and more primarily out of the book of First Peter which Brian has helpfully read to us this morning at least chapter one so please turn with me to First Peter chapter one the uh the Pew Bible it’s on page one one two one one last week when Khalif asked for the Pew Bible number I gave the wrong one and some people were confused so one two one one sorry Khalif one two one one all right and I would like you to if you can please please turn there I’ll try to have some of the verses up as well on the screen maybe a little later so yeah but um I think it’s helpful to have the verses in front of you and you can look down you can look at the context and make sure that I’m not saying anything that’s not in the text okay all right now it could be said that out of all of the books in the New Testament possibly the Bible first Peter is the one that deals the most with suffering and it’s because of first Peter’s profound treatment of the subject of suffering that it’s possibly one of the most useful books in Christian Counseling whenever people are going through a difficult time or a difficult marriage situation A traumatic event first Peter is often the first book that I’ll reach for because of its rich treatment of suffering so remember that whenever you know I mean even if you don’t get anything else out of this room and whenever you have a trial in your life or you’re going through a difficult time I encourage you to open the book of First Peter and read through it it’s a it’s a short book it’s probably only 15 minutes to read it from beginning to end but the book is uniquely written for us to deal with times of suffering now just a little bit about the context of the book Peter is writing to a group of very persecuted Christians in Asia Minor which is in the modern day country of Turkey where being a Christian at that time was an offense punishable by death and around the time of the letter Emperor worship was the law so you had to worship Caesar and not participating in the worship of the emperor was then interpreted as an act of treason of course for the pagans that didn’t bother them much because they just added the emperor simply to their Pantheon of gods they were already worshiping we’ll have one more before the Christian s couldn’t do that and so as a consequence there are stories of Christians being torn apart by wild animals or even burned alive for the refusal to bow down but if you read carefully through the book you see that in addition to overt religious persecution these Christians were also dealing with what we would call normal everyday struggles they had Bad Bosses unreasonable bosses some of them had difficult marriages maybe some of them were married to unbelievers and some of them even it looks like dealt with anxiety and depression so when Peter writes the book of First Peter in a sense he’s really he’s not addressing only religious persecution but he’s encompassing in his treatment all of these trials that are besetting the churches in Asia Minor and of course they would be asking the same questions that we do doesn’t God care for you and if so why would he allow this why would a loving God seemingly abandon you in your moment of great need so our text today will be from First Peter 1 chapter 1 verses 3 to 9 and as we go through it I’d like to consider this passage in roughly three parts so I’ll just give you the outline to begin with first Peter will want us to remember God’s promise to the suffering Christian second that’s in verses three to five second Peter will tell us God’s purpose for the suffering in verses six to seven and finally we’ll see the picture of the faithful sufferer in verses 8 to 9. so our outline will be the promise and then the purpose and then a picture and I was really proud of myself for coming up with three p’s wanted to uh just kind of point that out that we got that all right so that’s an auspicious sign promise to the suffering Christian from verses um three to five so you can put that slide up now Juliana now Peter is seeking to encourage these suffering Christians obviously and what Peter decides to do first is he decides to remind you of who you really are who you really are if you are a Christian you are not like everyone else if you’re a Christian you’re not like everyone else wandering around in the world you are not you are something special there’s something special about you there’s something fundamentally different about you versus everyone else around you because God has chosen you and made you special God has chosen you out of all the people in history he’s chosen you in fact that’s what it said in verse one if you look at your Bibles he’s chosen you and made you special but we forget that we forget that in our moments of trial we forget that in the moments of suffering and we tend to forget what God has done for us because we grow maybe too used to hearing it maybe we grow too numb to the realities of our new lives in Christ so in times of distress we tend to lose perspective right I’ve been there I’ve experienced that um we lose perspective and we over fixate on our present circumstances to the exclusion of the Heavenly truth that the Bible tells us about ourselves so to refocus us this is what Peter tells us in verse three you can look down on your text or you can look at the screen here which is a little small but might be able to read it says blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to his great Mercy has caused us to be born again to a Living Hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead stop right there so Peter is reminding us that we are people not like everybody else we have a Living Hope we have been born again to a Living Hope so what does it mean to be born again let’s break that down a little bit you know as uh Pastor David has been telling us as we go through the Book of John every Christian is born twice right born two times every Christian has a physical birth which is what everybody else also has and we have a spiritual birth and the Bible tells us that every person in the world was born physically but then starts out spiritually what dead spiritually dead and why are we dead we are dead because of sin everybody is dead because of sin the whole world and since God is Holy since God’s law is perfect then God’s law when held up to your sin however slightly may be in your eyes sentences you to spiritual death spiritual death which judgment is punishment in Eternal Health Eternal punishment in hell so that is the death sentence on everybody in this world and what else does it mean to be spiritually dead well it means that you have no relationship to God except as your judge you know you can in the popular culture people people will pray to God but in reaction in actuality God will not hear their prayer he is not their friend he’s not their friend he is your enemy no amount of your good works despite what um other religions may tell you no amount of your good works can wipe even one sin away from your account and that means everybody who was born into this world in a physical birth and is spiritually dead is condemned condemned to hell but if you’re a Believer God did not leave you there with no hope verse 3 tells us in First Peter here in verse 3 tells us that God caused you and and those words are critical he caused you to be born again from spiritual death to spiritual life and he made that which was dead into that which is alive again because of Christ and that’s what is meant by the second birth that’s what it means by being born again he made you alive right not you made yourself alive or you worked your way into life God himself made you alive he calls you to be born again you did nothing and he did all the work and that second birth comes through your faith in Jesus Christ it comes through your faith in Jesus Christ when Jesus died on the cross he suffered the punishment that Sinners deserved because of their sin although he himself knew no sin and then Jesus turns to you after that sacrifice is complete and he makes this offer to all Sinners the offer is this if you will believe in him that’s another word for faith if you believe in him Jesus offers you a trade and he says I will trade my righteousness for your sin you’ll trade that for you so that he will give you his righteousness and when you go to heaven and you stand in the courtroom of God will see on your record the righteousness of Jesus and you will get the rewards that Jesus deserves and in return he takes your sin and he suffers the penalty of that sin on that cross that’s the trade that’s offered to every person if you believe and if you believe not only do you have your sins forgiven but you now have righteous not only do you have righteous standing before God but he also changes your entire being it’s not just a swap in status but it’s also a resurrection he resurrects you spiritually so that you have new life and now you have a relationship with God you did not have a relationship with God before remember he was not your friend but now you have a relationship with God and now you want to live to please God and he will bless you so that’s a pretty good trade that’s being offered and that’s what it means to be born again and so what Peter wants you to do as a suffering Christian going through a hard time so lift up your eyes from your present circumstance and to remember to really remember that whatever your current problem is it does not compare to what your greatest problem was which was sin and death in the Eternal punishment to come because that problem has been taken care of fully and completely and so that is cause for Joy isn’t it celebration every day it’s cause for joy and celebration and suffering Christians easily forget that but we must be diligent to consciously have it in our minds that is really the work that you must do as a suffering Christian you must consciously remember this truth every day and don’t grow numb to it when uh Ian and I had our first child I remember he would have night terrors he would wake up in the middle of the night and he would scream for about 15 minutes sometimes five minutes sometimes ten minutes but um he would scream and really he would wake up the whole house with his screaming and there will be no reason for the screaming that we could tell we would go through the checklist maybe he’s hungry maybe his he needs a diaper change or or maybe he needs to be burped everything everything will seem fine and he just won’t come to calm down no matter what we did and now I don’t know about you but in the middle of the night for me anything that happens is extremely stressful um it doesn’t really matter what you’re waking up by um but when it’s a screaming baby it’s also pretty stressful because you have no idea what’s really happening especially when it’s your first child and uh you know one piece of advice that somebody told me was you know just tell yourself when you’re in that stressful time just tell yourself to wait five minutes just wait five minutes and things will likely change and I would say to myself during that time where I’m holding the baby and screaming in my ear nothing else nothing I can really do I would say to myself you can hold that for five minutes you can do this for five minutes and uh and it becomes easier to bear because you know that this will end you know that this is not forever and to this day I thought this advice really helps me no matter what struggle I’m dealing with or what trial I tell myself I can make it five minutes maybe I can make it five more days or uh maybe five more weeks and it helps me to get through that time and I realized some situations may not be that easy it could be five years or 50 years but the idea here is the same someday soon Peter is telling you to look forward to the time where things will get better we will live one day in God’s forever perfect Kingdom and we will keep looking for that and we will keep hoping for that and because we know that that’s our reality we can hold out for a little longer can’t we and that is what is referred to what he’s talking about when he talks about a living hope you’re born again to a living hope that’s the hope we have and it’s so interesting how he phrases that because I thought about this for a long time while I Was preparing for this tournament what is that’s such a weird construction what does that mean what does it mean to be to have a Living Hope you know a while ago Ian without shopping with the kids I was away and uh she got back in the car uh she she pushed the ignition and she heard click click click click so everybody what does that mean s your battery’s dead right that’s like my worst nightmare um especially in the middle of the night or when I’m not around um that means you have a dead battery and dead hope is like that dead battery right it’s supposed to start your car so the role is supposed to do but it has no power and it sits there and does nothing for you and why is that because apart from Christ’s Resurrection no other hope in this world no other hope can solve for us the problem of death that is the shadow in fact that continually hangs over us isn’t it and if you really think about it death is the root of all of our problems in this world it is death it’s either our own impending deaths or death if we you know don’t keep our job or the threat of that of starving to death is the threat of health problems leading to death or is the the threat of the death of loved ones these are really the roots of all our problems has to do one way or the other with death at best all of the hope that we have in this world can only delay your death a bit can only delay death the best Medical Treatments can only prolong your life by maybe a few years cannot ultimately save it money can buy you health insurance it can buy you a healthier lifestyle Maybe but even money has no power to solve the problem of death otherwise billionaires would never die right yet what other people what other things do we do because there’s no ultimate solution to death people then distract themselves entertainment alcohol drugs sex all these things that people gravitate to become addicted to or ultimately to solve to sorry to distract us from the reality of death so that we don’t have to think about it for a little while that’s all we can really do I I was uh I heard this interview from a former drug addict who said the reason that they were seeking out these drugs was because they just wanted to not feel anything for a while and that’s what the drug did to them it just eliminated feeling that was The Lure of drugs to get you get your mind away from the reality of death none of these things can ultimately solve the problem of death and deep down we all know that don’t we that that knowledge is in all of us that we are on the treadmill of death so these dead hopes are just really empty lies one person I was one of my friends in church I was recently talked to Painted this Vivid picture for me that I’ll share with you imagine rats being tied to a treadmill I don’t know why they’re thinking about this but um rats are tied to a treadmill and uh at the end of that treadmill is a guillotine and all the rats are being carried down the treadmill at a slow rate but that treadmill is on and it’s going and the rats are being carried closer and closer to their turn on The Chopping Block and they’re tied down there’s no hope for escape as a rat you can struggle you can shrink back a little bit from the guillotine as you struggle against your ropes but there’s no chance you can get away and maybe you can binge Netflix as underway down the treadmill or you can go on Facebook and distract yourself with memes and you know pictures of cats But ultimately that treadmill is going to win and one day you’ll find yourself in front of that treadmill in front of that guillotine and that will come down on your head and that is the reality of life without Christ isn’t it that that’s it that’s the reality of life without Christ and indeed even secular experts have noticed in in the last 10 20 years that there is an epidemic of hopelessness that’s what they call it in fact they call it an epidemic of hopelessness this is not Christians talking this is secular psychologists despite all of the progress that we’ve made technologically despite the ridiculous wealth that we have in this country here’s the statistic that shocks me do you know that from the year 2000 to today the suicide rate has increased by 50 percent 50 percent increase in the suicide rate that’s enormous and you know psychologists are at a loss to explain why that’s the case but it’s because people have no hope there is no hope apart from Christ all of these hopes are dead hopes but as Christians we have a Living Hope see Christ was raised from the dead he is living and then because of that we know we will be risen from the dead as well that is a certainty that is and Christ being raised is the proof of that so because of this we know that death has been conquered your Living Hope as a Christian is unique from all the other dead hopes in the world because it does solve the problem of death you have the only hope that actually solves the problem of death do you realize that and so this hope is alive in fact in the in the Greek um you know I’m told that this word actually means lively it’s a lively hope it’s and active it’s not something that just sits there and so just like a live car battery that can provide you power to start your car your Living Hope gives you the horsepower to plow through any and all obstacles you can encounter in this life it gives you the strength to power through because you know that this is not all there is you know that this is not the end you know that whatever trial you are in right now is temporary it’s temporary in verse 4 Peter describes for us an even more amazing truth because this Living Hope is not just a hope of the lack of death it’s not just I’m not going to die and that’s it look at verse 4 it says to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away reserved in heaven for you wow think with me about this how many of you would like before you were born if God would take you to the side and say hey you know I would like to uh to extend you the opportunity to choose the parents you’re going to be born into how would you like that who would you choose obviously you’re gonna have to say real parents but if it were not for that you see out of all the things in this world I think being born whatever family you’re born into that has the most profound difference in your life doesn’t it um it determines how you look determines your race it determines your gender oh I guess emphasis with your gender but no you’re not in this country it determines your socioeconomic class right it determines what country you get to live in it’s a profound profound effect on your life and if you’re born into a good family you’re basically set for life if you’re lucky enough to be bored into a wealthy family like King Charles you may have never even inherit a fortune King Charles inherited 50 no sorry 500 million uh when he was crowned the king of England people you know you might say that’s a lot actually that’s not really a lot compared to what some people inherit right um that’s a fortune but I want you to realize this you’re not born only once right as a Christian you were born twice and who are your parents in that second verse is the king of kings the Lord of lords and in a real sense as children of the king of King you are royalty you are royalty far beyond the king of England you are royalty of the king of kings and as such you have an inheritance to look forward to much more than just Earthly money much more than just 500 measly million dollars because what we already really saw money is dead hope money is that hope it can be lost it can be stolen it could be wasted sometimes by your children and it has no power ultimately over death but see what this is telling us what Peter is telling us is that your inheritance by virtue of your second birth is worth far more it’s worth far more it’s imperishable inflation will not degrade its value the eternal life is just the start of what God has given you this inheritance that Peter is describing is even more above and beyond eternal life it’s for you to enjoy forever to enjoy forever unless you worry that somebody will take it from you or steal it away or defraud you of it Peter tells us in the same verse that God is in fact guarding it for you himself standing guard over it for you I was at a Starbucks preparing the sermon and uh the woman the girl next to me uh she uh was she needed to go to the bathroom I shared her laptop out and she said hey can you uh kind of watch my stuff for me you know as I go to the bathroom and she was gone for like half an hour the hell is thinking to myself I could just like take her laptop and walk out nobody would like why would she trust me for that right I’m just like some random guy but God himself is watching your stuff you can trust God he’s watching your stuff it’s as sure a thing as a thing can be you will come into this inheritance and you might say maybe um if you’re really thinking about this deeply enough you might say this so if it’s if it’s secure on that side maybe something will happen to me you know maybe it’s not you know God is God is guarding the inheritance but maybe something will happen to me maybe I’ll disqualify myself or maybe something will take me out and I’ll never be able to enjoy this inheritance and verse 5 Peter writes that to you he says you who are protected you who are protected by the power of God through faith for a Salvation ready to be revealed in the last time see what Peter is saying is not only is your treasure protected but God is also right there protecting you so he’s acting he’s actively protecting both sides he’s protecting you for the treasure and he’s protecting the treasure for you and if that’s the case there is really no possibility left at all that you will not come into this inheritance there’s none it’s a sure thing more Shore than the sun rising in the East tomorrow morning right and I want you to also notice what this verse means it means it implies that God has not in fact abandoned you God in fact has not left you alone in your circumstance as some might accuse him of doing but God is actively protecting you in your life through the trial well Pastor Dave referred a lot to Psalm 23 during his pastoral prayer this morning and as we all know in in Psalm 23 it says even though I what walk through the shadow of the Valley of the shadow of death I fear no what I feel no evil for you are with me now think about those verses think about that that line is the promise then that we will never walk through the valley of the shadow of death yes or no no in fact it’s kind of the opposite right because it says as I walk through this Valley of the shadow of death it’s almost assume that you will be walking through the valley of the shadow of death and the promise is not that I will never walk through the promise is that we will have nothing to fear because he is with us he is with us you may be Christian in the shadow in the Valley of the shadow of death as we speak it may be that you are in the valley but what Peter is trying to tell you here is that better times are surely coming you will not be in the valley forever you’re passing through the valley as Pastor Dave was saying and you are not alone through the suffering God himself is there with you in fact he is the one who led you into the valley and he is there shepherding you and protecting you all the way to your inheritance in fact that’s why you’re in the valley you’re on your way to your inheritance so having been reminded now of the benefits of our new birth and of our coming inheritance and of God’s protection Peter can tell us in verse 6 that you greatly rejoice you greatly Rejoice see the effects of these truths we were listening to Peter and we allow these truths to seep into our hearts the result will be what Joy great rejoicing and I hope you I hope you understand that I hope you’re understanding what the Bible is saying here it’s that your joy should come from these truths that this is where Joy comes from if you lack Joy if you find yourself lacking Joy then take the time to regularly contemplate these truths that’s the source of true Joy so that having described for us God’s promise Peter is now ready to turn to the purpose of suffering you can flip the side there the purpose of the suffering and finally we will now answer the question why does God allow us to suffer why is it that we’re suffering as Christians and is there a point to it or is it meaningless suffering the answer is here in verse 6.
in this you greatly rejoice even though now for a little while if necessary you have been distressed by various trials okay stop there for a second it’s very interesting that the phrasing here is very purposeful and we want to just make sure we tease out uh the what Peter is saying here first of all he says for a little while right even though now for a little while um of course some suffering we know is lifelong but what Peter is saying here is look you are an eternal creature okay we just talked about this inheritance as Eternal you are an eternal creature have you thought about that your life span is not whatever it is 50 60 70 80 years your lifespan is eternal that’s what you are and uh what’s the what’s 90 years in the face of that eternity it’s a little while just a little while and the next words are also the construction here is also or else is also interesting and he says if what necessary if necessary so you know what this means then this means that if you are going through a trial as a Christian if you have found yourself in the valley of the shadow of death God himself has deemed this trial necessary God has deemed this trial necessary in fact he ordains every trial and it was not an accident It Was Not Mere misfortune it was not an act of random chance that you have found yourself in the Valley of the shadow of death you are there because your Shepherd has led you there because it is necessary and further notice in the verse it is not just a single trial it is not just a few trials but the word here that he uses is various trials various and the Greek word here means multi-colored all different colors multifaceted or myriad all different types of Trials many many many different trials later on in the book he uses the same word to describe the spiritual gifts in the church the the wide variety of spiritual gifts in the church that God has gave us it’s the same word there’s a wide variety of trials that God has given you and has deemed necessary some of these trials are predictable some are underpredictable unpredictable some are accidents some are diseases some come through old age some come through persecution some come through broken relationships some even come through being a victim of a crime or an injustice even betrayal by your closest friend as what happened to our Lord Jesus Christ these trials that you are suffering have been deemed necessary by God and in fact personalized they’re not only necessary but they’re personalized for you so why why why are these trials necessary why well the answer is in the next verse and it’s a profound answer and I want us to wrestle with this answer here’s the answer in verse seven so that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold which is perishable even though tested by fire may be found to result and praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ you see what Peter is telling us is that there is a purpose to this trial there is a purpose to the valley and the purpose is to prove to prove your faith the purpose is to prove your faith who is it proving to who are you proving your face to I don’t think it’s God God doesn’t need any proof he already has full knowledge of what your faith is he knows what you’re whether your faith is real or whether it’s inauthentic the problem is you don’t know you don’t know necessarily and your friends don’t know and your family might not know and the unbelievers in your life may not know and the rest of the onlooking creation yes even perhaps the Angels which he refers to later on in Brian’s reading if you were paying attention they may not know and you know reflecting on this you think the problem for many as CR of us Christians here in the United States is that we often live lives that are fairly indistinguishable for non-believers right I think if you’re honest we can admit that we get up go to work come home next day we get up go to work come home and uh at the end of the day is there really anything different about you than your Catholic neighbor or your Muslim neighbor they do the same things you may not be cheating on your wife neither are they you might have a strong sense of morality like like Khalif was saying yesterday or from last week well so do they how can you be different well here it is how you react to the trials that God has given you how your faith has held up to the fire that’s what it says in this verse why is that the case well we talked about dead hopes and we talked about Living Hope and what does the fire do the fire burns up all of the Dead hopes all of the Dead hopes in your life that you were hoping in God burns them up maybe you were hoping in your health maybe you’re hoping in your relationship and he burns up all the little false dead hopes in your life until the only thing left standing is your Living Hope if it’s there this is the only hope that would be left standing and then you can see does this person still have the joy that should come from a Living Hope you see Peter makes an analogy here for us in this verse talks about goals which is perishable he talks about the you know he talks about gold being tested Through Fire the melting temperature of gold is a thousand 64 degrees Celsius that’s fairly hot Fool’s Gold I read through knows what this is is something that looks very much like gold but is just iron right and the melting temperature of full of gold is what what do you think it’s about 500 Degrees um it’s not it actually decomposes at 500 degrees so you heat it up and far before the gold itself starts to melt if it’s Fool’s Gold you will see it vanish um and that’s what’s happening with your faith if your faith is the genuine article it will survive the Heat but you’ll know another thing that the fire does is that it can burn out impurities because because of goals exceedingly high melting temperature most impurities will melt out before gold starts to melt so what people will do is they will heat it up and the impurities will melt out and you can separate what is true gold from the impurities so you see not only is God burning out and testing the authenticity of your face but your true faith if it’s there will also be refined so then you will come out of the fire more pure more valuable and more beautiful than ever before does that sound like a thing you want to undergo do you want to become more pure more beautiful more authentic than ever before if you’re a Christian your deepest desire should be to be purified right but this process is never painless but what will be the results the verse tells us that the results of your purification will be praise and honor and Glory and to help us understand why this will be the case I think another way to look at this is to see God as a master Sculptor he’s a he’s an artist he’s making a sculpture and what he what a sculptor does is he takes a block of stone right just a bare block of stone and he starts to Chisel away at it bit by bit until it is a masterpiece now if you ever uh see some of the the the famous sculptures in the world Michelangelo’s David and all of these uh the sculptures you’re down in the there’s a sculpture garden down in Princeton you wonder how long it took to make these right like just chipping at it bit by bit and you make one mistake and like there’s no nose or something you know I don’t know how to how this works but um man God is making a sculpture what is he making a sculpture of what is the subject of his sculpture it’s Jesus Christ God is making sculptures of Jesus Christ and you know Jesus is God and he’s infinite in his glory he’s infinite in his majesty and beauty so every sculpture is unique that God makes and in order to sculpt God starts out with a block of stone and he needs to remove material just right just so carefully enough not to remove too much every hit of the Chisel has a specific purpose now you might not know what that purpose is until the sculpture is complete right that’s often the case where where you watch the best artists work and you know when I was a kid I grew up sort of watching Bob Ross on PBS paint these landscapes and uh sometimes he would paint these lines and I’d be like why would he paint that line in the middle of the sky you know and uh you know you wait for like I mean that’s why you watch it really that’s why you watch this the show is because you want to see what’s going to happen like did he mess up you know like it’s kind of exciting he’s like oh he finally messed up but at the end you understand oh yeah that that’s supposed to be a cloud um and uh sometimes you don’t see until the end and so it is with our Master Sculptor for some of us let’s face it a lot of material has to be removed and that hurts removing stuff hurts but one day this sculpture God himself is going to open up his Art Exhibit okay it’s going to be open to the public and that day is the day of Jesus Christ the revelation of Jesus Christ and his uh our exhibit will be open to the universe and each sculptor on display will be a unique masterpiece and on that day the results will be praise and glory and honor first to the artist first to God himself but of course by extension you will get your praise and glory and honor as well from God but see here’s the amazing implication who was the masterpiece you are God is making a masterpiece out of you and if your faith is genuine then through the fire you are being created into something unique nothing else like you in the world into something spectacular something amazing and trust me when that day comes when Jesus Christ is revealed you will be desperate to reflect as much Glory from Jesus Christ as you can that will be your deepest desire it will all come together on that day and you will see yes that hit of the Chisel really helped that really hurts but that’s what made me more like Christ in this way and this is what made me more like Christ in that way and you will understand on that day and you will be grateful for the attention of God I don’t want you to get the idea that this is a new idea from me I want you to flip over briefly keep your hand on First Peter but flip over with me to Second Corinthians 4 17. just briefly just uh flip over to Second Corinthians 4 17. Khalif what page is that on here’s your chance okay thank you second Corinthians 4 17.
says this for momentary light affliction is producing for us in Eternal weight of Glory far beyond all comparison now the most surprising word in this verse I think is the word producing it’s a surprising word for me I I looked at that and I stopped it’s like producing what does this mean it means that none of your suffering is meaningless none of it is meaningless it is all towards a greater purpose it is all producing that’s what that’s what suffering means that’s what suffering does that’s what momentary light Affliction does it produces an eternal weight of Glory what the suffering does is increasing the amount of Glory you reflect from God and so all of it has meaning all of your suffering has meaning many of you know Elizabeth Elliott maybe some of you if you’ve been gone to her conferences she passed away in 2015 she was a famous Christian Missionary an author and a speaker and her first husband Jim Elliott was killed um by the way Irani tribe in Ecuador while on a missionary journey but instead of becoming bitter instead of being consumed by despair she continued there in her mission for nine more years ministering to that very tribe that killed her husband you might think that’s suffering enough but years later she got remarried and after only a few short years of marriage her second husband died with a long battle with cancer so she now was twice widowed and so if anybody knows suffering I think it would be Elizabeth Elliott but reflecting later in her life on on these tragedies she says this she says the deepest things that I have learned in my own life have come from the deepest suffering and out of the deepest Waters and the hottest fires have come the deepest things I know about God and she understood that Affliction molded her into a better image of the Lord Jesus Christ and this produces a weight of Glory far beyond all compare well back to our our Passage God is testing us and tragically not everybody passes the test whereas real Faith the property of a real Faith just like the property of gold will purify and strengthen Under Fire becoming afterwards even more valuable and refined counterfeit faith placed in the wrong things will burn up and will melt away until there is nothing less left but utter hopelessness and so what I want you to remember brothers and sisters through your trial is you need to watch carefully how your faith holds up to the fire God is telling you something through that trial he is telling you he is speaking to you about the quality of your faith and uh you know that is the most important question in our life isn’t it that’s the most important question do we have true faith so what can we look for for some signs of true Faith well this is a hard question to answer because faith cannot be perceived by human eyes but I think what Peter is telling us here and in this book is that faith can be tested for just like you know remember those a few years ago we’re all taking Copic tests and we’re also um eager to do this because you would have to take a swab and you have to stick it all the way up your nose until you’re scraping the bottom of your brain and that’s unpleasant right you have to do it with the kids too and you gotta go up there and you know that was not not fun but the test of true faith is similarly unpleasant because it always involves God setting a trial in our life but you take the scopa test and you can read out the test and you can then compare the results results of your test with the line on the test kit and you can say hey you know what does this look like how do I how does this look like relative to this line and I think this brings us to the last part of our outline today which is the picture of the faithful sufferer this is the third point and this will be brief the picture of the faithful sufferer and the next verse as well as for the rest the first Peter the Apostle is painting for us a picture of someone who tests positive for True faith we’re going to scratch the surface only in this time we have left but I want you to compare yourself to this picture verse 8 says this and though you have not seen him you love him and though you do not see him now but believe in him stop right there for a second so the first thing we see in this picture is that this man of true Faith this person of true faith has maintained their love for Christ even in the midst of suffering person has continued to believe just like job did back in the Old Testament book of Job who remained faithful even when being tested by God even when God took all his property even when God took his whole family even took his health and even when his wife turned to him and bitterly told him to curse God and die likewise the man or woman of true Faith does not let bitterness towards God take root in their heart he knows that no matter how hard circumstances are what he deserves is far worse than that right and instead of falling away this man of true faith is driven closer to God by his trial to an even more fervent love for Jesus because it has the understanding of the kind of suffering that Jesus suffered for him you know you got to think about this there’s no suffering that we undergo in this life that Jesus has not suffered ten a hundred a thousand fold for you and nothing you suffer no trial is worse than that Jesus has already endured it so the gospel becomes more real to him and not less and then in verse 8. Peter goes on to say this you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of Glory obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls you say true Faith under pressure will yield this deeply unintuitive response of joy a joy so great it tells us in the text that you cannot fully express it in its fullness in your human body it’s too limited for you to express that Joy we already saw this is a Wellspring of joy that comes from understanding your Living Hope because you know that the outcome will be salvation of your souls this is Joy even in the midst of Sorrow that makes you no human sense it makes no sense your neighbors will think you’re weird you’re saying they’ll think you’re there’s something wrong with you because of your joy this is the joy that the Apostle Paul and Silas had in Acts 16 22 when they were beaten stripped naked being with rods thrown in jail and put in stocks which is um it’s not the stocks that go up it’s the it’s the torture devices that make your legs and arm immobile in a in a crouch in a sort of a bent over position so that you will cramp up and so that you have no possibility of stretching it out or relief and in this circumstance we find them in Acts 16 25 praying and singing hymns of praise to God that’s what they were doing in the midst of being tortured and when they were doing that it says that the prisoners were also listening to them see Paul and Silas were overflowing with joy in the midst of adversity well later in the book of First Peter I think this is just really the thesis statement of the book of First Peter obviously we can’t go through the whole book today um but I think that the rest of First Peter is is Peter flushing out what it means to have to be a man of true Faith what does that look like and I’ll just give you a quick helicopter tour not not we’re not going to do anything exhaustive here but you can go read it yourself later and in chapter 1 verse 13 which part Brian read to us we say that this man is a man that prepare his mind for action he continually puts himself under the teaching of the word of God for the man of true Faith looks like he’s saturating it with Heavenly concerns and thereby his faith is strengthened and then in that same verse we find that this man is sober in spirit which means he actively avoids distractions or intoxications that takes his Focus away from his Living Hope in verse 14 we find that this man lives a life of holiness and he avoids worldly lusts later on in the book he tells us why he says like worldly lusts wage war against your soul and when we’re at war in our own Souls it’s difficult to focus on our Living Hope and that weakens our faith in chapter 2 verse 12 we see that this man even through his trials is still concerned about evangelism evangelism is in fact the one thing that you guys you guys can do this to give you instant Joy I mean that’s how it is to be a Christian I think anybody who has shared the gospel can attest to that it is joyful for you to share the gospel and in chapter 2 verse 13 we find that this man is Meek which means he does not retaliate when wrong he submits to Authority he submits to unreasonable Masters he endures suffering like Christ did and in chapter four verse 8 we see that this man is a praying man he prays for God’s strength and strengthening of his faith and in verse 4 and start chapter four verse 10 we see that even in the midst of suffering this man is still serving the Church of God he loves the Church of God and even when he himself is suffering he still finds the time to love and serve in the church and he does this fervently from the heart and he finds that using his spiritual gift for the good of the church also in turn strengthens his own faith this is what a man of God looks like and there’s more we could obviously say Pastor Bobby preached through the whole book of First Peter five years ago you can look that up if you would like but today I just wanted to leave you with this how does your faith match up with this picture of the faithful sufferer is this your reaction in times of trial and distress Great and Small this is not just talking about the big things in life but often it’s the small struggles in life in which our true character is revealed and here’s the thing we’re all going to find out aren’t we because the thing about suffering is that it comes for all of us sooner or later it comes for all of us and that’s why Peter says in verse 12 of chapter 4 he says beloved do not be surprised at the fiery trial among you which comes upon you for your testing that’s though some strange thing has happened to you don’t be surprised this is just a normal experience of being a Christian should be expecting this and on the day of that trial you should Rejoice you should arm yourself with the hope of your new birth and you should remember your impending imperishable inheritance so remember that God is actively protecting you and he is with you and he is making you into a masterpiece unique in all of creation and there will come a day when God will come up to you and show yours show you off to the rest of the universe and he will say this he will say behold this man’s face look at this woman’s face look at this man’s character see how he preserved persevered through trial isn’t it beautiful isn’t this sculpture of mine beautiful and after remembering all of that you can confidently tell yourself you can door you can endure a little bit longer you can endure a little bit longer because the best is yet to come amen let’s pray father we are so grateful that you’ve given us this book of First Peter which has been in help not only to myself but to many in the church and pray that these words would seep into our hearts that we would hear them that we would understand them and that they would make a difference in our lives that we would have a Living Hope in that your testing would come upon us and that it would show us who we really are not for those of us who have the true faith that it would strengthen us and purify us for the glory of your name in Christ’s name amen amen let’s sing hope to carry on
