YouTube video sermon
1 Peter 4:12-19
Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to 1 Peter 4. As you know, last weekend was the remembrance of 9/11, and someone gave me a copy of David Goggins 2018 book, Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds. (I meant to bring it out here.) Anyway, the author (David Goggins) is a pretty remarkable guy. He grew up in the Williamsville-Buffalo, NY area with his mother and brother and very abusive and violent father. He said that he used to sit in his bedroom at night and wet himself because he would hear his dad coming, and he knew he would beat him.
Finally, his mom decided to leave, and she took him, and his brother and they moved to rural Indiana (where her parents lived). And he said that he ended up in a school where he suffered constant racism and prejudice. After high school, he enlisted in the US Air Force and completed the Air Force’s version of special warfare training and became a Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) member. He served in the USAF for 5 years, and then left and completed the US Navy’s special warfare training (BUD/S – Basic Underwater Demolition/SEALs) and served in SEAL Team 5 where he did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. During his time as a Navy SEAL, he also secured permission to complete the US Army’s special warfare training (Ranger School), and was awarded with the title Enlisted Honor Man.
Now, if you think that’s pretty tough (and it is), after he graduates from Ranger School he begins to train and compete in ultramarathons. He entered the San Diego One Day, a 24-hour ultramarathon held at Hospitality Point in San Diego, where he ran 101 miles in 19 hours and 6 minutes. At one point, he held the record for pullups: 4,030 in 17 hours. (You could give me 17 years and I might be able to do 40 pullups.) This guy is a beast. He’s an animal. And as you read the book, you can’t help but say to yourself, “He’s doing all of this in order to suppress the hurt in his life.”
Now, I don’t know if that’s true, but there’s something that’s motivating him to do all of these amazing things, and you can’t help but wonder if it isn’t the pain from his past. Pain can do that. It can motivate you to do all sorts of things in an attempt to overcome and suppress the hurt. But it can also lead in the other direction; where you’re constantly quitting, constantly giving up, constantly throwing in the towel, constantly walking away from anything and everything that produces hurt in your life.
Peter is writing to Christians who are hurting, Christian who are suffering, Christians who are experiencing real and significant trials in life because of their faith. In fact, we’re going to hear Peter refer to the fiery trial in just a minute, and many commentators believe that he had the image of Nero burning Christians in his mind, which is why he used that phrase (fiery trial). Either way, they’re hurting, and Peter wants them to understand that suffering is standard – it’s not strange.
Some of you are there, this morning. You may not be thinking about it all the time, but it’s there. Some hurt… Some pain… Some trial… Something, and you’re being tempted to run away from Jesus, rather than allowing that pain, that hurt, that trial to drive you to Jesus. Let’s see what Peter says:
12 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. 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed. 14 If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. 16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. 17 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? 18 And
“If the righteous is scarcely saved,
what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”
19 Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.
“Father, we pray that with our Bibles open upon our laps that the Spirit of God will teach us. We come from a variety of backgrounds. We are facing all kinds of different circumstances – many of which are not immediately known to the people around us – yet, we want to understand Your faithfulness to us in the experience of affliction. And so, we pray that You would bless these moments for Jesus’ sake. Amen.”
Samuel Rutherford was a presbyterian minister and theologian of the 1600’s. He’s probably best known for writing the book Lex, Rex. When he was arrested and put in irons and thrown into the cellars of prison he said, “The Great King keeps His wine there” – not in the courtyard where the sun shines, but in the cellar of affliction. (Oh, and he wasn’t referring to real wine. He was using wine as a reference for God’s presence, God’s ministry, God’s nearness.) Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preaches, once said, “They who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls.”
So, in light of the fact that suffering is standard, I want us to see six reasons that we can keep on rejoicing, six reasons to allow that trial, that pain, that hurt to drive us to Jesus, rather than to drive us away from Jesus. This isn’t gonna be a little piece of advice about the power of positive thinking. This is an utterly radical, abnormal, supernatural way to respond to suffering. It’s not in our power. It’s not for the sake of our honor. No, it’s the way spiritual aliens and exiles live on the earth for the glory of God.
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,” is how James puts it (James 1:2). This is foolish advice, except for one thing – it brings glory to God. And Peter gives us six reasons why we can “keep on rejoicing” when the suffering comes.
Not a Surprise but a Plan
Keep on rejoicing because the suffering is not a surprise, it’s a plan. It’s standard for those that follow Christ. That’s what verse 12 plainly says, “…do not be surprised…as though something strange were happening to you.” It’s not strange. It’s not absurd. It’s not meaningless. Rather, it’s purposeful. It’s for your testing. Look at verse 19, “Let those also who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator.” Suffering is not outside the will of God. It’s in God’s will. This is true even when Satan may be the immediate cause. God is sovereign over all things, including our suffering, and including Satan.
Buy why? For what purpose? Compare verses 12 and 17. Verse 12 says your fiery trial comes “to test you.” Verse 17 says, “For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God…” The point is that God’s judgment – like a fire that purifies gold – moves through the church: testing, proving, purifying. But when that same fiery judgment moves through the world, they either wake up to their spiritual slumber or they’re destroyed.
Verse 18 says, “And if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved, what will become of the godless man and the sinner?” Believers pass through the testing fire of God’s judgment – not because He hates us, but because He loves us and wills our purity. God hates sin so much and loves His children so much that He won’t spare the pain needed to rid us of what He hates.
We’re going to sing this hymn in just a moment, but listen to one of the verses of How Firm a Foundation:
When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
for I will be near thee, thy troubles to bless,
and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
my grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
the flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.
So, reason number one why we keep rejoicing is that suffering is not surprising, it’s planned. It’s testing. It’s purifying. It strengthens real faith, and it consumes artificial faith.
Evidence of Union with Christ
Keep on rejoicing because your suffering (as a Christian) is evidence of your union with Christ. Look at verse 13: “But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings…” In other words, your sufferings are not merely your own. They’re also Christ’s.
Some of you will remember the name Richard Wurmbrand. We watched a movie about his life. The movie was actually titled after his wife’s name, Sabina, but it outlined their Christian ministry during and after WWII. In his book Tortured for Christ he writes, “I have seen Christians in Communist prisons with fifty pounds of chains on their feet, tortured with red-hot iron pokers, in whose throats spoonfuls of salt had been forced, being kept afterward from water, starving, whipped, suffering from cold – and praying with fervor for the Communists.”
Josef Tson, once the best-known pastor in Romania, was one such suffering saint. And although he’s in his 90’s today, he’s still ministering and speaking at conferences. He wrote about an experience he had in a book called A Theology of Martyrdom:
During the time I was expecting to be crushed by the Romanian secret police interrogators, God became more real to me than ever before or after in my life. It’s difficult to put into words the experience I had with God at that time. It was like a rapture into a sweet and total communion with the Beloved. [T]his union with Christ is the most beautiful subject in the Christian life. It means that I am not a lone fighter here: I am an extension of Jesus Christ. When I was beaten in Romania, He suffered in my body. It’s not my suffering: I only had the honor to share His sufferings.
Keep on rejoicing, because your sufferings (as a Christian) are not merely yours but Christ’s, and they give evidence of your union with Him.
Attaining Greater Joy in Glory
Keep on rejoicing because this will strengthen your assurance that when Christ comes in glory, you will rejoice forever with Him. Look at the second part of verse 13: “…that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed.”
Notice: keep on rejoicing now, so that you may rejoice then. Our joy now – in the midst of suffering – is the means of attaining our joy then, a thousand-fold in glory. The apostle Paul puts it this way in 2 Corinthians 4:17, “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”
I was thinking about how to illustrate the truth of this, but we’ve all experienced it. Maybe not exactly like this but imagine (for a moment) that I gave you a simple wooden broom and told you to hold it horizontally with your arms stretched out in front of you. Could you, do it? Sure. I doubt there’s anybody in here that couldn’t hold a broom in their hands, away from their body, parallel to the floor. The question is: how long?
If I gave it to you and said, “Just hold this for a second while I plug the vacuum in.” You could probably do it. Like, it wouldn’t take but a few seconds for me to plug the vacuum in. But, if I said, “Just hold this while I go down the hall to the janitor’s closet and get the vacuum and plug it in.” Now… That’s a different story. And the longer I ask you to hold it, the more relieved you are when I take it from you. In the first scenario – the one that only lasted a few seconds – you probably wouldn’t give much thought to rejoicing. “Egh, no big deal.” But the longer the scenario, the longer the suffering, the longer the trial, the great the rejoicing. “Thank goodness, you’re back.”
Now, I’m not suggesting that we all go out and find ways to suffer just so that we can experience greater joy when Jesus comes back. And that’s not what these verses are suggesting either. All that Peter is saying is that when God (or life) brings trials into your life, allow those experiences to prepare you to rejoice when God’s glory is revealed.
You Are Blessed
Keep on rejoicing in suffering because you are blessed. This is where we’re tempted to think that the Bible is being contradictory. In our world, in our society, in the normal way of looking at life we usually put suffering and blessing on opposite sides of the paper. Like pros and cons, black and white, antonyms and synonyms, blessing and suffering seem opposite. The key to understanding this is how and why Peter says we’re blessed.
Look at 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.”
There are at least two biblical illustrations of what Peter is talking about here. You’re probably more familiar with the first, so we’ll start there. Do you remember Paul’s thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12)? You remember that? Paul is speaking rather cryptically in those verses about a man that had special visions and revelations of heaven – things too wonderful for man to talk about. Now, the text doesn’t explicitly identify Paul as the man, but the inference is that Paul was speaking of himself in the third person. And he’s describing all of this, and then we get to the verses that most of us remember.
Paul says, “So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.” (Pause.) There’s no use in trying to figure out exactly what the “thorn” was, because the text doesn’t tell us, but notice that God allowed Paul – by way of a messenger of Satan – to be harassed. This sounds a lot like what Peter is talking about in these verses, right?
How many times does he ask God to take it away? (Three.) Then he says this, “But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” It was in Paul’s moments of weakness and insult and hardship and persecution that the glory and rest and power of Christ were tangibly present.
The second story is found in Acts 6-7. The disciples go and get some men that they call deacons and one of these deacons is a guy named Stephen. Stephen gets to preaching and finds himself in front of the Sanhedrin – maybe not all the same men, but the same group that falsely tried Jesus. Acts 6:15 says, “And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel.” What’s that? What’s Stephen doing right there? (Resting.) God’s glory is resting on Stephen as he’s standing before the Supreme Court of his day.
Stephen begins to preach (Acts 7), and he goes all the way back to Abraham and says “Every time that God sent a man, you killed him.” Listen, “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered” (Acts 7:51-52). Ooo, Stephen is calling them on the carpet. He’s on fire. He’s getting ready to do a mic drop.
“Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. (They’re livid.) But [Stephen], full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’ (Oh my, they can’t stand it any longer.) But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ (Sound like anybody to you?) And when he had said this, he fell asleep” (Acts 7:54-60).
Now, we know that “falling asleep” is another way of describing death. But the interesting thing to me is that “death” or “died” isn’t the word that’s used. Believe me, Luke knew the word for death. Luke was a physician. He could have used the technical term, but he doesn’t. Luke says, “he fell asleep.” What’s he doing? Steven is resting in the glory of God.
It Glorifies God
Keep on rejoicing in suffering because this glorifies God. Verse 16: “Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.”
Glorifying God means showing by your actions and attitudes that God is glorious to you – that He’s valuable, that He’s precious, that He’s desirable, that He’s satisfying. And the greatest way to show that someone satisfies your heart is to keep on rejoicing in them when all other support for your satisfaction is falling away. When you keep rejoicing in God in the midst of suffering, it shows that God, and not other things, is the greatest source of your joy.
God’s Faithfulness to Care for Your Soul
Finally, keep on rejoicing because your Creator is faithful to care for your soul. Verse 19: “Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.”
How we suffer will differ. Not every one of us will suffer the same way, or even for the same duration. But one thing that we all have in common (until Jesus comes back) is that we will all die. All of us will come to that awesome moment of reckoning. I don’t know exactly what it’s going to be like. I’ve not experienced yet (obviously). But I imagine, in my mind’s eye, that if you and I have time, then we’ll see our whole lives played out before us as we ponder if it has been well-spent. I imagine that we’ll tremble at the unspeakable reality that in just moments we’ll be face to face with Almighty God. And in that moment, the destiny of our souls will be irrevocable.
Here’s the question: will you rejoice in that hour? You will if you entrust your soul to a faithful Creator. He created your soul for His glory. He is faithful to that glory and to all who love it and live for it. Now is the time to show where your treasure is. Now is the time to
shine with the glory of God. Trust Him, today, and keep on rejoicing.
“Father, the Bible tells us that if we lean on Jesus, if we cast our hopes upon Him, if we put all of our trust in Christ (and Christ alone), then You will not desert us. Indeed, even if hell itself should try and shake us, and torment us, and harass us, for the person who has thrown themselves down at the foot of the Cross and upon Your grace and mercy, You will never, no, never, no, never forsake. Lord, I pray that we might see suffering as standard and not a surprise. That we – with our gaze being firmly planted on Jesus – might keep on rejoicing in spite of and in the midst of our trials, and that by our very lives and testimonies, the Spirit of God might bring others to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Amen.”