SALVATION AND SUFFERING
by Doug Goins
I heard Bryant Gumbel comment on the Today show last week,
"You know, now we need to hear some good news." I'm sure this
has been as difficult a week for you as it has been for me and my family.
These are unsettling times that are raising many questions about our society,
our relationships, and our personal responsibility in all that is taking
place.
In the midst of reflecting on these things, I had the joy yesterday evening
of performing a wedding for a dear old friend of mine named Helen and the
man God has sent into her life, Joe. (I had participated in the memorial
service for Helen's first husband several years ago, and now Helen was remarrying.)
Helen and Joe are both in their mid-fifties, and their wedding was a bit
more traditional than some of us might be used to, but I was struck by a
statement in their wedding service, which they took out of the Presbyterian
Book of Order, especially in light of the times that we found ourselves
living in last week:
"Our Savior has instructed by his apostles those who enter into this
relation to cherish a mutual esteem in love, to bear with each other's infirmities
and weaknesses, to comfort each other in sickness, trouble, and sorrow."
A bit later in the service Helen and Joe exchanged vows and said to one
another, "I do promise to be thy loving and faithful husband (wife),
in plenty and in want, in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow,
as long as we both shall live," acknowledging the reality that at some
point death would invade that relationship and take one or both of them.
Usually the weddings I participate in emphasize more the part about plenty,
joy, health, and long life; those prospects are what most newlyweds are
excited about. But Helen and Joe, being in their mid-fifties, had a more
mature understanding of their wedding vows and the expectations they should
have. They realized that the part about want, sorrow, sickness, and the
certainty of death was real. It had come from their personal experience
with death and with parents in failing health. As a matter of fact, Joe
had an aunt who died suddenly Thursday morning just before the wedding,
who would have been a part of the celebration last night. Both Helen and
Joe have also been through serious financial struggles as a result of recessionary
times. They both have had struggles in relationships with grown children.
The events in Los Angeles even intruded on our ceremony, because Helen's
cousin, a delightful young Catholic priest named Kevin, who serves a parish
in the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles, told us about how the rioting,
looting, and fires came within two blocks of his church. He was an eyewitness
to all the tragedy and human suffering before he flew up here Friday morning
to be a part of this celebration of joy.
The wedding was delightful, a great time of celebration, but the service,
the rehearsal, and the reception were all tempered by an objectivity that
you don't find in most weddings. There was a realization of how tough life
is and will probably continue to be. The vows themselves, which talk about
that tapestry of suffering and joy, sickness and health, plenty and want,
life lived in the realization that death will invade, spoke much more powerfully
last night than in other wedding services I have performed.
This balanced perspective comes right out of the Bible. The wedding service
I quoted from a moment ago says, "Our Savior has instructed by his
apostles those who enter into this relationship...." The apostolic
writer who weaves that tapestry of joy and suffering together most tightly
and perhaps most beautifully is Peter in his first epistle. The great central
theme of this letter through all five chapters is that we as followers of
Jesus Christ have a joyful, hopeful certainty that remains through the inevitable
times of suffering, struggle, and sorrow. In Peter's thinking hope and suffering
are always tied together. The word suffering or some cognate occurs sixteen
times in this short letter; we see the words trials, testing, pain, sorrow,
abuse, reviling, and ordeals.
The Lord laid it on my heart to teach this series in 1 Peter three months
ago. I had decided to excerpt from each of the five chapters one paragraph
that focused on the reality and the necessity of suffering in the life of
people who choose to follow Jesus. This week I began to understand God's
timing for us as a church family. We need good news and we need clarity
when we are going through difficult times such as these. The question has
been raised in the media, "Could this be the beginning of a long hot
summer?" That is, is this just a foretaste of what is to follow? Whether
or not that is the case, our hearts need to be encouraged and our thinking
informed on how to respond to what we have seen this last week. In our next
five weeks together, Peter is going to examine this reality of suffering
in our lives from many different perspectives.
In verse 13 of chapter 1 Peter speaks about the need for hopeful, mature
objectivity as we go through the experience of suffering:
Therefore gird up your minds, be sober, set your hope fully
upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
He calls us to sobriety, clear thinking, and objectivity. Without a clear
focus on Jesus-who he is, what he has accomplished, and what he is continuing
to do in our lives---we are going to become overwhelmed, wiped out emotionally
and physically by the fearful concern, the subjectivity, that comes from
suffering. It will undermine our ability to think clearly and to live life
the way we are designed to live it. Focusing on Jesus will keep us safe
from anxiety.
That was certainly true among the congregations to which Peter wrote in
the first century. This letter, written sometime between 64 and 67 AD, was
sent to groups of Christians in Asia Minor, five provinces of the Roman
Empire located in what is modern-day Turkey. Peter had gone west to Rome
from Asia Minor in about 63 AD. He arrived in that city just before the
terrible outbreak of violence against Christians in 64 AD, which was precipitated
directly by the emperor Nero. That summer a terrible fire burned the entire
western section of the city of Rome. Early historians all pretty much agree
that probably Nero himself set the fire, but he blamed the Christians for
it, using them as scapegoats. A terrible wave of persecution broke out against
the Christian population (as well as against the Jews). A Roman historian
named Tacitus lived through that time, and he said that in the five-year
period between 63 and 68 AD, every Christian in Rome either lost his life
or fled the city for safety. Peter was probably there when this happened,
and he watched the flaming conflagration and all the suffering unleashed
on Christians in the city. So he wrote this letter to the brothers and sisters
in Christ to whom he had preached the gospel in Asia Minor, people he had
led to Christ personally, to warn them. He saw the writing on the wall,
and he knew that persecution was probably going to spread and that they
would all suffer because of it.
The word terrify is used several times in this letter. Peter realizes that
circumstances like this cause terror in our hearts. It's just as true for
us today as it was for those first-century Christians. It is not just Roman
persecution that terrifies, but the things swirling around us right now
in our modern world. The prospect of the infirmities, weakness, sickness,
trouble, and sorrow listed in that wedding service terrifies us.
Let me ask you this: What are the things going on in the world right now
that scare you to death? What causes you to lie awake at night, to live
with a sense of apprehension? Perhaps, as some have suggested, this conflagration
in Los Angeles is just a symbol of violence, destruction, and social anarchy
to come, triggered by hatred, a sense of hopelessness and helplessness across
a whole segment of our population, racial unrest, anger over disparity in
economic status, just plain greed, and frustration with our criminal justice
system. The experts are certainly apprehensive about it, and their concern
filters down to us. It was frightening for my children as they watched the
television this week, saw the pictures in the newspaper, and listened to
the radio. They had never seen their country this way before.
Perhaps your fear is more centered in your own personal experience, in relationships
or difficult circumstances that you're going through right now. We prayed
for one of our brothers in leadership in our body on Thursday night at the
elders' meeting; he is going back into the hospital tomorrow morning for
his third angioplasty on an artery that they just can't get to stay open.
He is greatly anxious about it. I got a phone call yesterday morning from
a dear friend of mine on the east coast, a lady I've known for twenty years
since she and her husband were first married, and she told me through anguished
tears that her husband said he wants a divorce, and on top of that, the
very same week they found out that their seventeen-year-old daughter, a
junior in high school and an athlete, has an arhythmic heart problem that
seems pretty serious. Across the continent I sensed this dear friend's terror
over those prospects. I spent Thursday morning last week with another dear
friend in our church family, an older gentleman who is dying of liver cancer.
He discovered that five months ago, and our relationship has been deepened
and strengthened since then. We planned his memorial service as he anticipates
his death. There are probably similar concerns in your own heart about things
that impact you directly.
Peter's concern for the Christians in Asia Minor and his concern for us
this morning is going to come through very personally. This letter is not
Peter's philosophy of suffering; we are not going to find theory or ivory
tower scholarship here. He is going to share out of the experience of his
own personal suffering and that of watching the sufferings of Jesus. These
will inform his thinking consistently through the letter. They affected
him deeply, and this letter is strongly emotional at times.
We have read and heard a lot of scholarly reflection on the riots last week.
All the experts are on television now, examining and evaluating what is
happening. And we have seen politicians at every level making appeals for
order and understanding. But I don't think anything has touched me as deeply
as the halting, stumbling, emotional plea from Rodney King when he said
on television, "We've got to stop. This isn't right." There was
a man speaking out of his own personal crucible of emotional, physical,
perhaps even spiritual suffering. And that is how the apostle Peter is going
to speak to us about the experience of suffering.
But in the middle of this Peter introduces the theme of joy. He is going
to explain to us how in spite of suffering, struggle, and sorrow, paradoxically
we can be joyful. Look at chapter 1, verses 6 through 9:
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer
various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than
gold which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and
glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Without having seen him
you love him; though you do not now see him you believe in him and rejoice
with unutterable and exalted joy. As the outcome of your faith you obtain
the salvation of your souls.
Joy is mentioned twice in that paragraph, first in verse 6 and then again
in verse 8. The source of joy is not our present experience, which is one
of suffering. No, this joy that he talks about is rooted in truths we find
back in the opening paragraph, verses 3 through 5:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his
great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance which is imperishable,
undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are
guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
That is an explosion of praise and worship, a doxology, because of the absolute
certainty that our ultimate salvation in Jesus Christ, our security in him,
is confirmed. This is the foundational truth that this whole investigation
of suffering is going to be built on. It was echoed in Romans chapter 8
as we read together responsively this morning. The apostle Paul is totally
convinced of the same wonderful reality.
In summary, verses 3 through 5 of 1 Peter are telling us that our salvation
as individual believers was according to the eternal purposes of God; it
was not an afterthought for him. From eternity, before time began, God decided
to save each one of us individually. It was accomplished through Jesus,
through his sacrificial death and resurrection, and through the new birth
that is ours because of that. This salvation is being born again to a new
kind of life-a divine life really, a resurrection life, being changed from
the inside out.
Peter says that believing this gives us a dynamic, confident hope for the
present and for the future. He says we have a wonderful eternal inheritance,
reserved and protected for us in heaven. And it is not just our inheritance
that is being protected, but we ourselves are being guarded through the
power of God, guaranteeing that we are going to be able to cash in on that
inheritance when we get to heaven. The word guard is a military word. The
power of God is active in our lives right now as he garrisons about us and
protects us through everything, no matter what the circumstances are. That
is why we can be hopeful.
Our security in the Lord is not tied to any immediate circumstances---for
example, to material resources that could protect us or sustain hope. It
is not even dependent on our own emotional resources to "hang in there"
and tough it out. Those resources can be violated, undermined, and destroyed.
Last week we watched people's material resources going up in smoke and people's
emotional resources crumbling; they had nothing left to draw on. Peter says
those things can be corrupted and defiled. But our security is tied to God's
saving and keeping power. This is the source of joy that is unutterable---it
can't even be put into words---and exalted. This is a joy that the rest
of the world doesn't understand at all.
Now, verse 6 takes suffering very seriously. Peter does not make light of
the experience of suffering in our lives. He gives us the objective reality
of it. Verse 6 tells us four things about suffering that God is totally
in charge of. First, we see this little phrase at the beginning of verse
6: "though now for a little while." What this says about the experience
of suffering is that it won't last as long as it feels like it's lasting.
When I was with my friend dying of cancer Thursday morning, he talked about
how time has slowed down for him in the last five months. He says his days
are long and his nights are longer. That represents his physical reality
as well as what is going on inside of him emotionally. But in light of eternity-and
he is going to enter eternity in a very few days to be with his Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ-it is going to be only a little while longer for him,
no matter how much longer it feels like it's going on to him, and no matter
how much longer the Lord really keeps him on earth. We affirmed that truth
in unison this morning when we read together Romans 8:18:
"I consider that the sufferings of this present time [duration
or time span] are not worth comparing with the [eternal] glory that is to
be revealed to us."
The second thing Peter says is that suffering is necessary. The phrase translated
in my Bible, "You may have to suffer" is more accurately translated,
"You will have to suffer." It is not an option for us, but an
absolute necessity, and if it hasn't touched your life yet, thank God for
that, but know that it is coming because it is the human experience. It
is part of God's providential activity in our lives, and there is a purpose
for it. We are going to see Peter develop this theme of God's purposes every
week that we study this together. What is God doing through the bad things
that come into our lives? Peter wants us to understand that. God is sovereignly
at work through our suffering.
The third thing about suffering is that it does cause us distress. The word
is translated suffer in my Bible. The New International Version says suffer
grief, and the New American Standard uses the word distress. Literally,
it means to be in great heaviness; to be tearful or sorrowful. It is a strong,
intense word. As Christians, we do not make suffering a matter of stoicism,
keeping a stiff upper lip and getting through it somehow. Through the last
five months, my friend with cancer has talked about his own discouragement,
how emotionally debilitating this disease is for him. Our brother on the
board of elders who is going back into the hospital for the third time is
experiencing discouragement, and that is what we prayed about for him Thursday
night.
We grieve, we struggle. We don't say, "Praise the Lord because things
are so awful." Jesus uses the same word for suffer twice in the gospels
in describing his own experience. When he is telling the disciples that
he is going to have to go to the cross, he says, "....and suffer grief."
And in the Garden of Gethsemane when he is wrestling with his heavenly Father
and asking the question, "Could this cup pass from me?" he uses
the same word again. He admits to his Father that he is in anguish, that
this is awful to go through.
The last thing verse 6 says is that suffering is going to come in a variety
of different ways. My Bible says you will have to suffer various
trials. Some of your translations may say manifold trials. The word
literally means variegated or multicolored, and it's telling us that suffering
is going to come from every conceivable direction, from an incredible array
of sources. Peter is going to examine several of those sources of suffering
in the letter. He is going to teach us about Satanic attack; sometimes there
is a flat-out supernatural demonic onslaught against us, individually and
collectively, and Peter wants us to understand that source of suffering.
Sometimes suffering comes because of the sinfulness and rebellion of the
human heart. Jeremiah tells us that our hearts are deceitful and desperately
wicked, and desperate wickedness results in suffering and struggle for us.
Sometimes suffering comes out of the social order itself; we live in a world
system that is in rebellion against God. All three of those sources of suffering
have been powerfully at work in Los Angeles this week and around the rest
of our country.
There is one more source of suffering that is part of our experience: We
live in a fallen natural world. The whole physical order, the creation,
has been blighted ever since sin came into the human experience through
Adam and Eve. Romans 8:20-22 affirms that reality; Paul writes that the
creation was subjected to futility, it is in bondage to decay, and it is
groaning in travail. That wasn't God's original plan for the world or for
the human race. He ordered things to work in perfect balance and harmony.
But when Adam and Even sinned, not only were we affected by it, but the
natural world was affected as well. Entropy was introduced into the physical
world at the fall, I'm convinced. Our universe is dying just as we human
beings are. So whether we experience an epidemic that rages through a population
and wipes out hundreds of thousands of people, Alzheimer's disease, earthquakes
like the one that devastated Humboldt County two weeks ago, cancer as we've
talked about this morning, mechanical failures that maim and kill people,
allergies, deep depression, dementia, tidal waves, volcanoes, or tornadoes-whatever
destroys life and the quality of life, even peaceful death in one's sleep
at age 92-it all testifies to the fact that we live in a world that is in
rebellion, that is out of whack.
Now in verses 6b-7 Peter gives us the ultimate purpose of suffering in the
life of a Christian. It is easier to go through even bad things when you
understand that there is a point to it.
"You may have to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness
of your faith, more precious than gold which though perishable is tested
by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of
Jesus Christ."
Peter says that suffering for us is like a refining fire. It's proving,
testing, or assaying us; purifying us; preparing us for something. Suffering
purges the impurities out of us just as fire purges precious metal; as the
metal is heated hotter and hotter it turns to liquid, and the impurities
float to the top where they can be identified and skimmed off by the silversmith
or the goldsmith. That imagery is all through the biblical writings. In
Zechariah 13:9 God identifies his role in this: "I will put this third
[of the nation of Israel] into the fire, and refine them as one refines
silver, and test them as gold is tested." There God identifies himself
as a silversmith or a goldsmith doing the refining. Later on in the history
of Israel, in Malachi 3:3 God is described not as the silversmith but as
the fire itself: "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver,
and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver,
till they present right offerings to the Lord."
The purpose of suffering is for us to be made into something more beautiful
and more acceptable before the Lord. Our suffering, whether large or small,
is part of the process that God uses to conform us to his own image. God
isn't like some perverted mad scientist performing experiments on us, fiendishly
rubbing his hands and saying, "I wonder if they're going to make it."
No, he knows we are; he is committed to completing the work he himself is
doing in our lives. He is going to use the pressure and the heat to purge
out the fleshly dependencies that are built into us, the sinful, rebellious
elements in us that we need to get rid of. He wants our faith to be increasingly
pure. What he wants to do is separate confidence in ourselves from confidence
in him. He wants to purge out our confidence in material wealth, education,
human relationships (people who prop us up or reinforce us), intellect,
background, planning, and manipulating. God says dependency on those things
has to come out. So he turns the heat up, and they start to come to the
surface. That is how it works in me. I do fine when there's no pressure,
but when things get tough, the ugliness comes floating to the surface, and
then I can identify it and repent of it, and God can skim it off. The quality
of my character becomes a little bit more pure in the process.
It's interesting that in both the Malachi passage and in 1 Peter, the ultimate
result is that we will engage in pure worship or present right offerings
to the Lord. We will stand before the Lord on the day he calls us home,
and the praise we offer him will be wonderfully pure, not characterized
by ulterior motives or hypocrisy, but by total integrity in what we say
to the Lord and offer to him. Making us better worshipers is the ultimate
purpose of suffering that we have to keep in mind. Peter is going to come
back to this again in chapter 4.
In verses 8 and 9, Peter says suffering can have an immediate, even discernible
effect in us; it can help us in our relationship with Jesus in three ways.
First, he says, "Without having seen him you love him." Suffering
somehow is going to help us love Jesus more. Then in the middle of the verse
it says, "...though you do not now see him you believe in him."
Suffering will help us believe in Jesus more. And finally, "[You] rejoice
with unutterable and exalted joy." These are not commands to try to
love more, believe in Jesus more, or be more joyful. They are wonderful
descriptions of what God is going to do for us through suffering.
Let's look at each one more closely. We love Jesus more, first of all. When
you suffer, you feel helpless, vulnerable, powerless. It will drive you
into the arms of your Savior, and you will feel more and more secure in
his love. I was reminded of the apostle Paul's writing to Timothy from the
Mamertine dungeon in Rome just before his own death. He is about to be executed,
he is physically uncomfortable, and he is lonely because his co-workers
have abandoned him and bailed out on the faith as well. But he is able to
say at the end of 2 Timothy that he takes his place among those who have
loved the appearing of Jesus Christ. Suffering has made his love for Jesus
deeper, stronger, and tougher.
Secondly, we learn to believe in Jesus more. Here belief means obedient
submission to his word. So we learn to obey him more through suffering.
It sounds kind of strange, doesn't it? Psalm 119:65-72 illuminates this
for us a bit. In verse 67 this anonymous writer says, "Before I was
afflicted I went astray; but now I keep thy word." Then he says later
in verses 71-72, "It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might
learn thy statutes. The law of thy mouth is better to me than thousands
of gold and silver pieces." That man learned something through suffering.
He is saying, "Before God put the pressure on me, my heart wandered
off. It wasn't loyal to the Lord; it wasn't submissively obedient to him.
But it was really a good thing that God turned the heat up and put me through
suffering, because I learned obedience. I learned to value the truth that
God had been communicating to me." I know from my own experience that
suffering softens me; it makes me more tender. It forces me to have a teachable
heart. It gets me to the point of saying, "Okay, Lord, I give up! I'll
do it your way, play by your rules, and quit trying to figure it out on
my own."
Finally, suffering causes us to rejoice in Jesus more. Again, we don't rejoice
because we're suffering, but we rejoice because of the absolute certainty
that he will finish the salvation that he has begun in us; we rejoice in
the end result. And suffering really sensitizes us to that end. The writer
of Hebrews says in 12:2, "Looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter
of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."
What do we learn about Jesus and his suffering from this? He didn't take
any delight in his humiliation and crucifixion, but his eyes were fixed
on the end result, which was salvation for us. That's where he found joy,
and he could rejoice more and more. My memory is drawn to John 15:11, the
Last Supper. Jesus talks about joy to the disciples at the very last meal
he will ever eat, on the last night he will have on earth. He says to them,
"These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and
that your joy may be full." We can know joy, and it can be strengthened
and deepened even in pain, difficulty, and struggle.
During the five months that I have spent together with my friend dying of
cancer, ever since he got what amounted to his death sentence, he has exhibited
all three of these qualities: loving the Lord more, being more confident
in and more obedient to Jesus, and even experiencing increased joy. That
is less clear to him than it is to me because I've been listening to him
and watching him in our interactions. He has really encouraged me with his
quiet confidence that soon he is going to be with the Lord Jesus whom he
loves so deeply. He expresses that joy, and he is more and more confident
that he can really come into the Lord's presence with no embarrassment.
He is working through the embarrassment of his past life, and he knows now
that he is going to be presented to the Father by the Lord Jesus, and his
praise will redound with a purity. His suffering has strengthened that confidence
in him.
Up to this point in Peter's discussion about suffering, he has just been
talking about our present experience and the future hope that we have in
Jesus. But now in the final statement he's going to make in the last three
verses of this passage, he's going to take a look back into past salvation
history. Now, that's a good way for any of us to gain perspective. When
you get involved in suffering, you get emotionally sucked into it, pulled
up tight against it, and you lose objectivity and perspective. Peter is
saying, "Let's take a giant step back and remember God's activity and
involvement that have taken place historically. What you're experiencing
right now is not all there is." That helps us overcome the myopia that
pain, whether it is physical or emotional, introduces into our lives. So
what he is going to do in the closing verses of this section is remind us
of God's gift of salvation that could come only through the sufferings of
Jesus Christ. Look at verses 10-12:
The prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours
searched and inquired about this salvation; they inquired what person or
time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them when predicting the
sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory. It was revealed to them that
they were serving not themselves but you, in the things which have now been
announced to you by those who preached the good news to you through the
Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.
On the face of it Peter is saying that the salvation that he has been teaching
us about was predicted by the Old Testament writers. The sufferings of Jesus
on the cross, the victory of the resurrection, and his glorification to
the right hand of the Father were all foretold in the Scriptures. Now, this
paragraph teaches us wonderful, important things about the inspiration and
authority of the Bible-how God sovereignly worked through human intellect,
the minds of the Old Testament prophets and New Testament apostles as they
preached and wrote about God's grace, about God's salvation, the good news
or gospel that was sent down from heaven. It powerfully affirms the supernatural
work of the Holy Spirit in revealing divine truth, helping them understand
God's plan of salvation. He also talks about how the Holy Spirit motivated
them not to be selfish, to live with a degree of uncertainty. They didn't
understand everything they were writing, but they understood through the
Spirit that somehow it was going to benefit generations down the line. They
weren't serving just themselves and their own generation of hearers. We
today in the twentieth century wonderfully enjoy the benefits of that selflessness
on the part of the prophets and apostles.
But the question that I wrestled with this week is, why does he talk about
that here in the context of an investigation of the difficulty of suffering
in the life of the believer? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First,
at the heart of the Old Testament teaching on the Messiah are linked together
two realities: He is a suffering, dying, humiliated Messiah; but linked
with that is his identity as the ruler, the conqueror, the triumphant Messiah.
Peter says here that the Old Testament writers didn't totally understand
that; they couldn't quite sort it out. It took the revelation of the New
Testament to make it clear that these two realities meet in one and the
same man. He says in verse 11, "when predicting the sufferings of Christ
and the subsequent glory...." What Peter wants to do here is encourage
us through the life of Jesus and his experience of suffering: Crucifixion
had to precede the resurrection, and humiliation had to precede exoneration.
There is a logic to the phrase, "the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent
glory."
The other reason Peter includes this paragraph about the prophets' inquiries
into the sufferings of Christ is that he wants us to understand a critical
truth: Because we are followers of Jesus, we must go through this same logical
sequence that Jesus went through. Remember, Hebrews 12:2 says that he is
the pioneer of our faith. He went ahead of us, and we watch how he did it
and learn from him. Suffering is going to be a part of our experience. But
it was purposeful in Jesus' life; it was for the benefit of others that
he sacrificed himself. If we follow him wholeheartedly, we're going to suffer
as he suffered; we'll pay a price on behalf of other people, too. It is
part of our calling. Are we willing to enter into the sufferings of Jesus?
The promise is that if we are willing to die with him, then we will reign
with him. We will be glorified with him and filled up with that resurrection
life that helps us overcome and gives us impact and effectiveness. So even
as we look at a week like this, we can know beyond a shadow of doubt that
God will use us. We can make a difference as we enter into a relationship
with another person, speak a word of truth, or lend a hand materially, financially,
or physically.
Paul was gripped by the same reality, and he makes an amazing statement
in 2 Corinthians 4:8-11:
"We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed,
but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but
not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus [this is our
identification with his suffering], so that the life of Jesus may also be
manifested in our bodies [this is the glorification-the impact, the effectiveness]."
For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake,
so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh."
Then in verse 15:
"For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends
to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God."
Do you know what Paul is saying? If we are willing to suffer with Jesus
and for Jesus and to trust him to make our lives count, it will have an
unstoppable impact on other people to their benefit. The grace of God that
is at work in us, preserving us and protecting us, will influence other
people.
In the five months I have spent with with my dear friend who is dying of
cancer, as we have prayed together, read the Scriptures together, and really
prepared for death together, I have watched his suffering intensify his
concern for his children, grandchildren, and circle of friends. He is concerned
about their salvation. He wants me to preach the gospel at his funeral.
He even told me what to say, because he has friends he is really burdened
for. The suffering of our brother who is facing the angioplasty has also
intensified his concern for others. He's not absorbed with his own pain
or the uncertainty of the outcome, but with other people. That is what suffering
will do for us if we let the Lord use it in our lives instead of resisting
it.
1 Peter 2:21-25 gives us a great summary statement of these things:
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered
for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. He
committed no sin; no guile was found on his lips. When he was reviled, he
did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he
trusted to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on
the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds
you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned
to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls."
"That we might die to sin and live to righteousness" means making
a difference this week in this confused, discouraged society. God will use
us this way.
Catalog No. 4322
1 Peter 1:6-12
First Message
Doug Goins
May 3, 1992
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