Glorify God in Suffering

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. And the Psalter that have a lot of historical background to them, the psalm we just sang was a lament. We're not used to seeing laments in worship because American worship is supposed to be happy. But that was a psalm that they sang remembering the destruction of the temple, of the destruction God had brought, of the suffering they had gone through. 1 Peter chapter 4. We're going to read verses 12 through 19. The sermon will specifically be coming from verses 15 through 19. If you're using your pew bibles, you'll find that on page 1078. Brothers and sisters, hear now God's perfect word.

Beloved, do not think it a strange thing concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you. But rejoice, to the extent that you partake of Christ's suffering, that when His glory is revealed you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part he is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a busybody in other people's matters. Yet, if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.

For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God. And if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Now, if the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear? Therefore, let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good. as to a faithful creator. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.

Prayer for Illumination

Let's pray. Father, we have heard your word. We pray now that your Holy Spirit would take that word, that only rule for our faith in life. And Father, you would instruct us how to glorify and enjoy you with it. Lord, we pray that you would help us understand it and that your spirit would not just take the truths contained there in it, but Lord, that you would lift up our eyes to Jesus, apply it to our lives and give us hope. God, we can't just muster this up. We need you. We need your spirit to work through your word. We pray these things, knowing you hear us for the name and by the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Sermon

Peter's been moving through again and again and again. Chapter one, he talks about trials and suffering. Chapter two, trials and suffering. Chapter three, trials and suffering. And now we're in chapter four, and guess what he's talking about again? trials and suffering.

I hope you're getting the point of kind of what's going on in the church that Peter is writing to. And in chapter 4 verse 12, why I read the whole context was to get us back up to speed. He's told them not to think it's strange that these fiery trials would come upon them. And then verse 13, he told them to rejoice because their suffering was in Christ. And then in verse 14, he told them that they were blessed because the spirit of God and the spirit of glory rests upon them.

So the question we have to ask ourselves is if we're suffering, why? If you're suffering in this life now, why are you suffering? What's caused it? What's brought it about? Because that will answer the question next of how do you glorify God with that suffering? What are you supposed to do with this suffering that you may be going through in your life?

Now, I know that the paragraphs in the New King James are broken up a little bit different, and that's fine. I often don't look at the translation, I'm just breaking it up by the original Greek, and this is where the paragraph is in the old Greek manuscripts. And so, as we work through this, we're gonna look at 15 through 19, and kind of answer those questions, asking the diagnostic question, why am I suffering? And then secondly, what am I supposed to do with this suffering? So first, I want you to know that there are wrong reasons for suffering. There are wrong reasons for suffering.

Look at me at verse 15. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a busybody in other people's matters. Right, Peter says, hey, look, look, I understand that some of you are suffering, but you should not suffer because you're given over to sin. Right, if you're suffering because you're so filled with anger, as Pastor Duel preached last week, that your anger has worked itself out into envy and envy into murder, you should be ashamed of that. Or if you're stealing people's stuff and you're suffering because of the just consequences of that, you should be ashamed of your actions and you should suffer for that. If you are evildoers, this is a very broad term that Peter uses here, an evildoer. Suffering comes from that type of stuff.

And if we're honest with ourselves, we know this last part, maybe it's a little bit closer to home because we think, well, I'm not a murderer. Well, I don't steal stuff. Yeah, but how much do you mind your own beeswax? How often do we meddle in people's business, get in their affairs, gossip, slander, and just, we're almost like we have to rule everybody else's households.

And Peter says, no, no, no. In Hellenistic culture, in the Roman culture that they're living in, it was extremely rude to go butting into other people's business. And you were likely to get especially verbally assaulted for doing something like that. And he's saying, if you're doing that, no wonder why you're going to suffer. You shouldn't suffer like that, because you shouldn't be doing those things.

So we sometimes want to think about the first century church, and we want to think, oh, these people must have been very sanctified, right? These were the first century church, and they were often persecuted for their faith. They were people just like us. They needed their pastor to tell them, hey, guys, you know that stuff? Some of it marked what you used to be like.

Don't do that anymore. That's not the Christian suffering I'm talking about. So if we suffer for things in this life because of our sins, sometimes that suffering is just. And there's something I said previously that you may not be a little bit comfortable with. I said if you do these things, you should be ashamed of yourself. Notice verse 16. I'm just gonna pick this up for a second. We're gonna go back to 16.

Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed. Especially in today's therapeutic culture, shame is like a cuss word, right? You don't talk about shame. You don't talk about feeling bad about yourself. If you're murdering people, you should feel bad about it. That's the Holy Spirit working in your conscience to convict you of sin. If you're stealing people's stuff and people catch you, you should feel bad about it. You should feel bad about your actions and how you have betrayed even your best moral sense.

We live in a culture where people don't want to talk about shame, but there is moral shame because God has given each one of us a conscience. We know that we ought not to do certain things. So people today might be rebelling against anything that makes them feel bad, and Peter's saying, no, no, no, no, no. If you're suffering as a murderer, an evildoer, as a thief, or as a busybody, you shouldn't suffer that way because you shouldn't be doing those things.

And sometimes when you do suffer for those, God is even using that. If you are a Christian, sometimes the shame you feel because of those sins, people calling you out on it, if it's true, Even that God's going to use by his spirit to lead you towards Christ, to confess those sins, because you've got a place to go with that guilt. You've got a place to go with that shame. You've got a way to go unto God with repentance, pursuing holiness.

And so the first step I want you, as we talk about the suffering, verse 15, let none of you suffer as a murderer, thief, evildoer, as a busybody. Ask yourself, is the suffering that you're in doing now self-inflicted? But it's not always that way. Notice verse 16, there is a right reason to suffer. Verse 16, the right reason to suffer. Yet, If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter. Key word there, two key words, yet, if.

If you're suffering because of your own sin, you shouldn't suffer that way because you shouldn't sin. But, or yet, if you are suffering for the sake of Christ, that's a whole different ballgame. Now we're in a whole different category. This is a whole different area we're talking about.

If anyone suffers as a Christian, you should not feel shame. You should not be ashamed of the suffering that you endure. It's interesting here. that even says, if anyone suffers as a Christian, the word Christian is actually used only three times in the New Testament.

First Point

First, in Acts chapter 11, where the people in Antioch, there are people following Christ, and they're called, it's almost like a slur word, it's like speaking bad about those Christians, they follow that Christ guy they think rose from the dead. And then again, later in the book of Acts, when Paul is before King Agrippa, he says, do you think that you're gonna turn me into a Christian? It's not because they think highly of Christ or the way in which the disciples are walking, but it's because they're looking down on Christ.

And so he says, yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, meaning if anyone has the name of Christ upon themselves and is suffering because of that name, you have no need to be ashamed. They may try to heap up guilt on you. They may try to put you in the corner of society and treat you like you don't belong and try to say all sorts of accusations against you. But you need not be ashamed of the name of Christ or the gospel that you believe and follow.

It's interesting as we think about Peter writing that. Remember, Peter was once ashamed of Christ. When Jesus was being tried by the high priest, and Peter was in the courtyard of the high priest, three different times, he was confronted of being a disciple of Jesus. I don't know him. I don't know what you're talking about. You're outside your mind. I've never known this.

And calling down curses upon himself from God, ashamed of Jesus. That same Peter, Zoom forward just a few months, Acts chapter 5 is put in prison. Because he goes to the temple and he continues to teach about Christ, continues to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ, and they persecute him, they beat him, they throw him in prison. And what does he say when he gets out of prison? Acts chapter 5, verse 41, So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.

They were not afraid to suffer the shame that came with being called a Christian. Peter had been ashamed of Jesus in the court of the high priest, but now Peter, by the power of the Holy Spirit, had confidence to glorify Christ with the reproach of Christ's name. The Holy Spirit had changed him. That shame that once came with being associated with Christ became the thing that he gloried in.

That's what we find in Paul, who had not just been ashamed of Jesus, right? He persecuted the Church of Jesus Christ. He tried to destroy the Church of Jesus Christ. And yet, once he came into face-to-face contact with Jesus Christ, we find him being beaten, shipwrecked, whipped, stoned, left for dead, and imprisoned.

And yet, when we find him in the Philippian jail with Silas, what is he doing? Is he saying, oh, I'm so ashamed, I can't believe I'm in jail, this is so bad. Silas, just be quiet, let's just get out of here. No. No, Acts chapter 16, but at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. They weren't ashamed of their reproach that came from following Christ, they embraced the shame because it was for God's glory.

And again, the Holy Spirit was so wonderfully kind to the people that Peter was actually writing to. Remember, in 1 Peter 1, he's talking about the different regions of Turkey where these churches are. So modern day Turkey, there's a number of different regions, right? And one of those regions is eventually gonna get a ruler, his name is going to be Pliny the Younger. And in that region of Pontus, The Christians there would get tortured, they'd be imprisoned, and some of them even executed.

Just a few years after Peter wrote this, why? What was the charge against them? They were obstinate in their inflexible stubbornness. These Christians were so obstinate in their inflexible stubbornness, they just wouldn't turn away from that Christ figure. because the shame had become their glory. So don't be surprised if persecution starts. It's nothing new. We look to the Hall of Faith in Hebrews chapter 11 and we read, "...still others had trials of mocking and scourging, just had chains and imprisonment.

They were stoned and sawn in two. They were tempted, they were slain with a sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy." They wandered in the deserts and mountains and dens and in caves of the earth.

And the author of Hebrews holds that out for us and says, that's what faith looks like. So don't be surprised. Don't be surprised when suffering and trial come for bearing the name of Christ. Don't be ashamed of being called a Christian. But some of you might say, well, man, this sounds a lot like, ooh, doom and gloom. Does that mean I just have to like endure suffering? Or should I even run into suffering? Shouldn't I live at peace with people? Well, yes. Yes, we should seek peace wherever it is possible. God even says that Romans chapter 12, 18, if it is possible, as much as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all men. I'm not here telling you go run into martyrdom. Please do not hear me say that. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying, is that Jesus tells you to pick up your cross and to follow Him.

So when suffering and persecution come because of the name of Christ, you can glorify your Father who's in heaven. If the world hates you, know that it hated me beforehand. If you are of the world, the world will love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. That's what Jesus said to Peter and the rest of the apostles in John 15.

So endure that suffering when it's for the name of Christ. Because there's a purpose in your suffering. God has a purpose in suffering and judgment begins in the household of God. Look with me at verse 17. For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God. And if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Suffering is part of God's plan. And part of it is for judgment.

Now, there's a difficult part here. I have three different questions as I was wrestling with this and working through this in my own mind, and I can anticipate, hopefully, maybe some of you having these same questions that might arise from this. The first question is, why would God allow his people to suffer first? Did you catch that in the text?

For the time of judgment, for the time has come for judgment to begin, at the house of God, and if it begins with us first. Hold on, I thought God's people didn't have to face judgment. I thought that's what Jesus did on the cross. So what's it talking about that there has to be judgment on the house of God first? Well, God's judgment on believers, for us who are in Christ, isn't for our condemnation. It's not for us to be condemned, but it's for us to be sanctified. This judgment is what Hebrews chapter 12, six talks about.

For whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives. God is as a heavenly father. He doesn't just say, okay, This is what some, by the way, there are some people in the Christian world who think this, right? God has saved you by grace through faith alone. It's all about Jesus's imputed righteousness. And so you're never going to face any of God's displeasure with any of your actions because God is fully satisfied in Jesus. Well, hold on. Yes, God's wrath is fully satisfied in Jesus.

But that does not mean that our Heavenly Father looks upon obnoxious kids, poking other people in the eyes, and just turns away and says, oh, they're a good boy, I'll just ignore their behavior. No, He disciplines us like children. Not for judgment to condemnation, not to put us in the pits of hell forever, but as a loving Heavenly Father, correcting us, training us, turning us away from our sin.

That's what God was doing regularly with His people. Three examples of this. This is why we had to read Jeremiah. But three different examples of God judging his people first is the golden calf incident. Remember, God redeemed his people out of the land of Egypt by his mighty right arm. He brings them through the Red Sea.

They're at Mount Sinai. And as Moses is up there talking face to face with God, getting the tablets of stone for the covenant, what do the people do? They collect all their earrings and nose rings. They get all their necklaces. Sometimes I think they must look like Mr. T coming out of Egypt, but they take off all their jewelry and they give it to Aaron and he puts it and he molds a calf. Now, one of my favorite things about that story is he sits there and says, when Moses says, what have you done? He says, I threw it into the fire and boop, out came an idol. I don't know, it just happened. Okay. Right, Aaron, okay. But the point is, God judged them for that. God's wrath burned against his children.

Now, I think there was a mixed multitude in the camp, and that's one of these difficult things. There were people who were born Israelites by blood, but did not trust God. They did not have faith, and that's why they went that way. Other people were drugged along with the party. But 3,000 people were killed by the Levites that day, and a plague struck the people as a further consequence. This was not, as we think about those two different camps within the tribe of Israel, there were those who were facing God's judgment because they were unfaithful, because they did not love God. There were others, though, who were facing that same judgment in the house of God because their hearts needed to be turned away from those idolatrous temptations.

We find it again in the wilderness generation in Numbers chapter 14 when they send out the 12 spies. And we find it there, don't we? We have 12 spies who go out, one from each tribe, they go up into the promised land, they're searching out whether or not the land is good, whether this should be happening, how are they going to strategize. They all come back and it's 10 to 2. 10 tribes or 10 spies who do not believe God, don't trust his goodness, and say, he's just brought us out here to die. There are giants in the land and we're like grasshoppers, squashes like a bug. But there's two who do believe, two who are faithful, two who said God's made a promise and we can go and do it.

But the people sided with the 12. are with the ten unbelieving ones. And God pronounced judgment on the entire unbelieving generation because of their lack of faith and rebellion. And what was he doing in the hearts of the younger generation? As a heavenly father, he was training them, don't be like your fathers were, who were rebellious at Meribah.

See, God is doing multiple things at one time in this judgment. He is both judging those who do not believe and sanctifying those who do believe. And that's exactly what he did. What we sang about in Psalm 79, what we read about in the book of Jeremiah.

The people during the time of the Kings found it far easier to go the way of Balaam. Go and worship on the high places. Sacrifice to Asherah. Go and turn their hearts to Baal. And as they turned away from the Lord in their disbelief, there was yet still a remnant who believed. But God judged his house first before he judged the nations. He destroyed his own temple. He brought the judgment he had told them he would bring in the covenant in the book of Deuteronomy. Because judgment starts with the house of the Lord.

We're a mixed multitude here. I cannot, I don't have regeneration goggles. I don't have x-ray vision into your soul. All I can do is believe what you've told me out of your heart that you believe in Jesus Christ. But I do not know, standing up here with 100% certainty, who in here truly does believe the Lord.

But the Lord does know that. And so even though he may judge even these specific churches that Peter is writing to, just like the Lord could judge our church as a corporate body, he may be doing so to one, weed out those who do not believe by bringing them to judgment in this life. But for us who are remaining, he's doing it so our hearts would be turned back to him. That's what it means in verse 17, for the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God. And if it begins with us first, notice, interesting, this is one of the very few times in 1 Peter, us. Peter includes himself in this judgment, knowing that God sits over him. That judgment is first upon the house of God.

The Puritans would talk about this judgment in salvation. in three different ways. They would say that we have been saved, right? That was our justification. At the moment we believed, punctiliar as R.C. Sproul used to say, at one time, one moment, we believed we were declared righteous. But in this life now, we are struggling with being saved, sanctification. God is making us more and more into the likeness and image of Christ. And then the Puritans would say, but we are still, we still need to be saved. Glorification.

You know this in your heart, don't you? You know that you are in Christ. You know that God's doing a good work in you, but you know that that work's not going to be done until you go to heaven, until you go to the other side of glory. And there you will be made perfectly righteous. That's the way God is speaking here in verse 17.

Judgment is coming, but for the Christian, it's not a judgment to throw you into the depths of hell, but it's a judgment to make you more like Jesus. My second question, does this mean believers have to endure suffering to be truly saved? No. No, you may be one of those who are blessed that, you know, by grace alone, through faith alone, right, you're saved. You may not go through a great deal of suffering in this life, and don't let that throw you for a tailspin.

This is saying don't be surprised when it does happen. Suffering is not a condition for salvation, but an evidence of God working patience in us. One of the ways that I was thinking about trials and temptations and things like this and the difficulty of persecution, there was this video that came up on one of my, I don't know, social media feeds somewhere. Somebody was planting little seedlings. They were talking about how they had all their plants inside their house and they were getting them ready to go outside. And he was saying, here's a trick.

Take your box fan and put it on low and put it right next to the fan. It's like, don't let it break, but you want to put just a little bit of pressure on that seedling, because what happened is, as the wind is blowing on that seedling, it actually has to make deeper and stronger roots throughout the soil to root it in the reality of being strong. That's what God is doing, even in the judgments in your life now, as he's saying, hey, this area of your life, that's sinful. You need to get that out. He's making you stronger, not weaker. So you may not like it. You may feel like, oh, you're getting pushed around by the Holy Spirit. He's using it for your good.

But thirdly, third question, why would a loving God judge unbelievers more harshly? Did you catch that last part of verse 17? What will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? unbelievers will be judged more harshly. And I think specifically here, this is saying that these are those who heard the gospel, know the gospel, and yet turn their hearts away from the gospel of God. It's what Paul says about Jewish people in Romans chapter two. But in accordance with the hardness of your heart, of your hardness and your impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God."

The end of those who heard the gospel. By the way, the gospel is that what they would have heard, right? God so loved the world that he sent his only son that whoever should believe in him shall not perish but have everlasting life, right? That same gospel that it was a God who demonstrated his own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Peter is saying those people who heard that and went, nah, I don't want it. To reject the message of God is to reject God himself. And he's saying what's going to come of their judgment is going to be a different type of judgment. It's going to be much more or much worse because of the hardness of their hearts for rejecting Christ. And indeed, I think specifically verse 17, I think these are the ones who are not just rejecting Christ, but also now persecuting the Christians. To reject God's good news is to reject God himself. And that's what the judgment that's going to come for them is.

I don't say that with just like, ah, yeah, they're going to get what they deserve type. We have family members like this, don't we? Who have heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, hardened their hearts and turned away. And which one of us do our hearts not weep? knowing the judgment that they're heaping upon themselves. I don't think Peter said this callously. I think he said this with sorrow. As he points in verse 18 to Proverbs chapter 31, or Proverbs 11.

A stiffering end of God's judgment, he says, if the righteous one is scarcely saved, Where will the ungodly and the sinner appear? It took a lot for us to be saved, right? If the righteous one is scarcely saved, right? It was hard for us to be saved. It cost the blood of God's own son for us to be saved.

What's going to happen to those? Although they have heard the gospel remain ungodly, irreverent, and loving their sin. So what do we do with all this? We entrust our souls to God. We entrust our souls to God. Look with me at verse 19. Therefore, let those who suffer according to the will of God, commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful creator. When he speaks there of entrusting your souls to God, this is a language type thing.

It's called, I'll spell it out for you because it's a weird spelling, a weird word, synecdoche, S-Y-N-E-C-D-O-C-H-E. You have to go on Google and say, how do you pronounce this to get that, right? But synecdoche. And this is like when somebody says, somebody buys a new car and somebody walks up there and goes, oh, nice wheels. Are they just talking about the wheels? No, they're talking about the whole car. Or when I was in the Navy and they would say, all hands on deck, right? Do people cut off their hands and just go throw it up? No, it meant the whole, everybody needs to get up there. Everybody, right? So you're entrusting your whole being, your whole person to God. something valuable to you, who you actually are, you hand over to the Lord. But you wouldn't do this unless you knew who He was. Why would we commit our souls to Him?

First Point

First, He's sovereign. He's sovereign.

Therefore, let those who suffer according to the will of God. Thank the Lord your suffering isn't haphazard and random, but the Lord is actually in charge of what's going on in your life and using it for your good and for his glory. He's also a God who is faithful. Therefore, let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to him in doing good as a faithful.

He's faithful. He's not a man that he should change his mind or a son of a man that he should repent. Has he spoken and will he not do it? Has he declared it and will he not make it good? He's not like a shadow, blown away and changing. He's not like a vapor.

He's the one who says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. He's the one who has told us that he has begun a good work in us and will not stop, but he will bring it about unto the day of completion in Christ Jesus. Your sovereign God is faithful. He started a good work in you, and he's going to continue that good work because he doesn't change, because he doesn't give up on his promises.

And we entrust our souls to him. doing good because He indeed is our Creator. He's the one who made us. He knit you together in your mother's womb. Every sinew in your body, every hair on your head, He created for His glory. Every good thing you experience in this life, He created. As you drove this morning and you saw the sunshine reflecting off the snow, he created all of it. The breakfast you ate this morning was because he is the good creator. The mountain peaks are his. The ocean is his creation. He's a faithful creator. And he's done something remarkable. He's even recreated you. He's given you a new heart. He's taken out a heart of stone and given you a heart of flesh.

So my question is, are you continuing to entrust your soul to Him as you do good, even when suffering might come? But maybe there are some of you who have held Him off. Maybe today is the day of salvation. Maybe today is the day that you will entrust your soul to Him. that you'll see that He's good. He created you for something far more than the pleasures that are fleeting in this life, but for His glory. Brothers and sisters, if you're suffering in this life, ask yourself why. If it's for your own sin, repent of it and turn away. Just be done with it, right? If you're stealing, steal no more, but labor with your hands so you can give to those who are in need. If you're sinning, turn away from it.

But if you're suffering for the name of Jesus Christ, rejoice. Rejoice and bring glory, praise God. Do not be ashamed for suffering as a Christian. This isn't a strange trial that's come upon you, but God is bringing judgment even first upon his house to sanctify us. So trust in your good and faithful creator who is doing these things according to his will. May you glorify God even in your suffering as you look to Christ.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Father, we thank you. You have a will. And you are sovereign. And you bring even hard things in our lives for your glory. God, please. We do entrust our souls to you. Knowing that you neither slumber nor sleep. but you watch over your loved ones day and night. You are our heavenly Father. You do all things for our good and for your glory. So Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit would please not just let these be truths that we know in our heads, but Lord, we pray deep down in our souls, we would truly trust doing good for your glory.

In Jesus's name, amen. Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.