SIGNIFICANCE AND SUFFERING
by Doug Goins
In the last few weeks I become very much aware that many folks from
our church family are struggling financially---directly affected by these
recessionary times, either through job layoffs, salary reductions, and an
uncertain job market. A college senior this week told me he has had seven
interviews for jobs. Though he's skilled, trained, and ready for work, the
prospects are pretty slim. This sort of concern can create real anxiety
among all of us.
An article this week in the business section of the San Jose Mercury News
was entitled Feeling Sad, Uneasy? It May Mean That Economic Recovery
is Being Delayed. It talked about how depressed economic times affect
our psyche. The psychologist from Los Angeles said, "Feeling states
like pessimism, anxiety, fearfulness, caution and scarcity; those kinds
of experiences are associated with recession." The article states further:
"What you see during a recessionary period is an increase in depression
in people. People lose their jobs. They tie in their sense of self-worth
with the work they do so not having a job means they're not OK. This then
hooks into the basic sense of inadequacy that we all have."
No matter what the difficulties we face---whether economic or physical or
relational---our sense of well being, can be undermined. The passage we're
going to examine this morning speaks directly to that issue of security
and significance. The apostle Peter wrote in the first century to Christians
scattered across Asia Minor. They were being affected very directly by persecution.
Their homes were being confiscated, and their property taken away because
of their stand for Jesus Christ. They were losing jobs and civil rights.
They were suffering in very real material and economic ways because of their
relationship to Jesus. To that group of Christians in Turkey in the First
Century---and to us this morning---the apostle Peter says this:
Beloved, do not be surpised at the fiery ordeal among you, which
comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening
to you. (I Peter 4:12)
Unexpected struggle or sudden disaster in life catches us offguard---we
feel things are out of control. Usually we're, alarmed, outraged, or confused---at
least initially. But Peter assures us that everthing in life really is under
control. Suffering in the life of the believer is normal not abnormal! We
don't want to accept such a concept! At least one major industry is based
on man's desire to escape that reality. Read the travel section of the newspaper
when you go home today. The travel industry is built upon our felt need
to escape stress and hassle and pressure, to "get away from it all."
Yet the scriptures assure us that God knows what he's doing. These "fiery
ordeals" we experience are normal. They characterize the fallen created
order we are a part of. It's part of life in a rebellious world system,
held in place by authorities who can be harsh, cruel and oppressive.
This verse lets us know we can hang onto our identity in times of trial---We
are beloved. We are loved of God intimately, tenderly. God pays close attention
to each one of us, as a loving Father in the midst of the difficulty. Peter
also loved these people. He calls them my beloved. Remember the fact that
even when you're struggling there are people right here in this church family
of whom you are very beloved. Our sense of worth and significance does get
attacked by overwhelming suffering. Yes, sometimes we really do start asking
questions such as, "Does God love me? Does he know what he's doing."
"Do my friends really understand and care?"
My wife Candy recently talked with our sister-in-law. She had cared for
her first husband the last ten years of his life, as he suffered with multiple
sclerosis. Then the Lord blessed her with a second marriage to Candy's brother.
Two families were blended together when she married Candy's brother, and
they now have five children between them, four from their two previous families
and one from this new marriage. She has struggled with glacoma for a number
of years and had two cornea transplants trying to save her eye. Three months
ago she finally lost one eye to the disease. Last year her mother died of
cancer. Dione is a lady who loves the Lord, who has been really toughened
by all the suffering she's gone through but she learned just a week ago
that she has a tumor on her salivary gland right under her ear which will
require very delicate surgery. Her question to Candy this week was, "Does
God really know what he's doing?" Is he really at work in and through
this?
The word the Peter gives us for tough situations like this is: YES! God
has everything under complete control! No matter what it feels like to us,
we are God's beloved children. Suffering is also purposeful. Peter says
that it's purpose is to prove us or test us. Suffering often is a very fiery
ordeal, but it's an important part of the sanctification process in our
life. We need to be able to look at suffering with confidence that God is
working through it to accomplish some greater good. Consider the sixty-sixth
Psalm for a moment. This is a song of worship and gratitude, surveying the
history of the nation Israel, and God's dealings with them. Look at verse
8 of Psalm 66:
Bless our God, O peoples,
And sound His praise abroad,
Who keeps us in life,
And does not allow our feet to slip.
For Thou has tried us, O God;
Thou hast refined us as silver is refined.
Thou didst bring us into the net;
Thou didst lay an oppressive burden upon our loins.
Thou didst make men ride over our heads;
We went through fire and through water;
Yet Thou didst bring us out into a place of abundance.
The Psalmist understood that God was at work in his people even through
their persecution and oppression by evil men who had turned their lives
upside down. God was totally in charge of these things. They also understood
that these trials would purify their faith. So they were able to thank God
for that purification process.
The writer of Hebrews said the same process was at work in the life of the
Lord Jesus---Jesus was made perfect through suffering. What this means is
that he was completed by suffering. Though Jesus was perfect and sinless
to begin with, yet he still needed to learn something in relationship to
his heavenly Father. Hebrews also says that Jesus learned obedience through
what he suffered. If it was necessary for Jesus in terms of his maturation
process, if he still needed to be matured, then how much so for us! Suffering
shouldn't raise doubts in us about whether God loves us. Our fiery ordeals,
Peter says, prove how attentive he is, how committed God is to our maturation,
to our ultimate perfection. Our identity in Christ is strengthened through
these "normal" sufferings and struggles.
In verse 12 of chapter 4, Peter has stressed the value of suffering because
of its end result in our lives. God really will accomplish his purposes
through it. In verse 13 the apostle adds a second idea---we are to rejoice
in suffering, to be joyful. He's not referring to superficial emotion, but
to a settled, confident, joyful certainty that God knows what he's doing,
that's he's going to finish what he's started in our lives. Peter says one
of the reasons we can be joyful is because we are sharing in the sufferings
of Jesus. Our experience is like that of our Lord. Look at verses 13 and
14:
...but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ,
keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may
rejoice with exultation. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you
are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
Three things that we can be absolutely certain of that come out of these
two verses. The first one is in the first half of verse 13. Right now, in
our present experience, we're sharing in Christ's sufferings. The word share
in my Bible is the word koinonia---which means fellowship. We all
enjoy fellowship that's comfortable, with good friends and good times. Peter
defines for us a fellowship of suffering with Jesus that produces joy in
us. The apostle Paul prayed in Philippians 3, asking for the privilege of
sharing in the sufferings of Jesus Christ.
Now why did Jesus suffer? What did he do to deserve the sufferings that
he experienced? Jesus was a good man. He was wonderfully attractive in his
life, the most attractive person who ever lived. There was no self-righteousness
about the Lord. There was no self-consciousness about his own goodness.
But he was killed for it. The world that we live in hates goodness, hates
Christlikeness. The world we live in sits in the very lap of evil. This
world is controlled by Satan and Satan hates anything that's like Christ.
Satan doesn't hate niceness. Niceness is not the least bit threatening to
Satan, but Christlikeness, moral ethical goodness, is threatening to him.
He will attack anybody who attempts to live that way. The Lord Jesus said
to the disciples in John 15, "A servant is not greater than his master.
If they persecuted me, they will persecute you."
At the present time we share in the sufferings of Jesus. The second half
of verse 13, is future tense---we will share in his future glory. Paul wrote
in Romans 8 that if we are willing to suffer with Jesus Christ, we will
be fellow heirs with him and we will be glorified with him. Paul is confident,
and Peter as well, that when Jesus comes back to claim his own we're finally
going to be just like he is. Right now we're aware that we're not like him,
we're not as good as he was, we're not as attractive as he was. And yet
we are going to share his glory. In this context, the glory of Jesus is
his character, his perfection, what's so beautiful and attractive about
him. The promise is that we're going to share that perfect character ultimately.
We'll be just like him---which is what we want to be anyway. Through suffering
our character is being changed so that we really can finally be just like
him. That's a tremendous thing to look forward to.
Verse 14 goes back to the present tense saying that right now we have incredible
resources available to us to draw from so that we are able to endure whatever
testing, or suffering, or hardship, or difficulty God may ask of us.
These resources are defined in the second half of verse 4:14. There is a
little quote out of Isaiah 11 Peter draws from. It's a messianic promise
that there will be One who is going to come forth---the Messiah. He will
come out of obscurity, but he will do powerful things---because the Spirit
of God indwells him, and the power of God controls him and we can be assured
that our lives will also have the same impact. We are protected through
suffering, we can have the same kind of impact that Jesus had---because
the same Holy Spirit indwells us and because the same power of God expresses
itself through us. Peter now introduces another word, glory. The word glory
is not in the Isaiah 11 passage so Peter adds it. It's the Shekinah glory
of the Old Testament. Do you remember that cloud that was visible over Mount
Sinai when God gave the Law to Moses? The shining cloud was also visibly
present over the tabernacle, the tent of worship. Then it shone forth again
visibly when the temple was dedicated in Jerusalem. The cloud of glory was
a symbol of God's active presence with his people. When they saw the cloud
they were greatly encouraged---God was there, they were not alone. Peter
says we actually have the same glory of God, with us, over us, around us,
protecting us, directing us, even though we can't see it.
All three of these great resources of God in our lives are mentioned in
the life of Stephen, the first New Testament martyr. Stephen was arrested,
(Acts 6,7) and brought up on charges of treason before the Jewish high court,
the supreme court. As he was giving his speech in defense of himself, (preaching
Jesus really, the resurrection of Christ), Luke says that Stephen was a
man full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit. That's what empowered him
in the face of his accusers. The account goes on to say that when the death
sentence was announced, his face was like that of an angel. Something supernatural
was at work in Stephen---it was visible to other people. As he lay dying,
in the process of being stoned to death, Stephen looked up and saw the glory
of God, the Shekinah glory! What an incredible thing God allowed him, to
see that wondrous cloud again---"Stephen, you're not alone. You're
going to be with me,"---literally within moments.
Our calling today is to suffer for the name of Christ, Peter says in verse
14, that we are to share in Christ's sufferings. Some of our university
students at Stanford have recently faced increasingly hostile attitudes
towards Christianity on that campus because they have lovingly reached out
to other students---especially gay and lesbian students on campus---with
the simple good news that God loves them so much that he really can change
their sexual orientation. The response has not been gratitude, or appreciation
for the good news. They have been reproached, and reviled---with a vengeance.
Our church, and several other Christian groups on campus, recently sponsored
a speaker on campus who God saved 17 years ago after 15 years in a lesbian
lifestyle. She gave a wonderful, loving witness to that deliverance from
her past lifestyle to a crowd of 600 Stanford students. She told her audience
with great sensitivity how much God loved them. Dorman Followwill, our college
pastor, was subsequently quoted in the "Stanford Daily" account
of that meeting. Dorman did not sound homophobic, nor did he come across
as some fanatical idiot---as often times the press pictures Christians.
Dorman told the students how much God loves gay and lesbians, and he assured
them compassionately that God could change their lives through the power
of Jesus Christ. The responses from Queer Nation and other radical organizations
were amazing---they were both profane, and lewd. Some of our students were
frightened. I was delighted to hear of the Christian spirit of acceptance
and love expressed at that meeting, and yet that very goodness was responded
to with anger, hatred, and outright physical opposition. In reality that's
what we can expect to happen if we choose to stand for the goodness of Jesus.
But God is with us in such difficult situations. His power will guard us.
We really will withstand the pressure.
Verses 15 and 16 of 1 Peter 4 are parenthetical. They warn us about two
dangers to our significance as "beloved," our significance as
those who suffer for Christ. The first warning is the danger that we may
be suffering for the wrong reasons, and the second warning is the danger
we will be ashamed and deny the Lord in situations where we should allow
him to be made known.
By no means let any of you suffer as a murderer, or thief, or
evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; but if anyone suffers as a Christian,
let him not feel ashamed, but in the name let him glorify God.
This is the third time that Peter has warned us about this possibility of
suffering for the wrong reasons. Two weeks ago in chapter 2 verse 20 he
asked the question, For what credit is it if when you do wrong and are beaten
for it you take it patiently. Then last week in chapter 3, verse 17, he
said, For it is better to suffer for doing right, if that should be God's
will, than for doing wrong. Verse 15 suggests that sometimes our suffering
is our own fault. It's not because we're Christlike, it's not because we're
suffering for righteousness sake---it's because we're boorish, or obnoxious,
or stupid, or outright rebellious---and we pay a price for it. Peter has
already said in verse 3 of this chapter that the time is past for outright
flagrant sins of the old life. That stuff is over with, he says. But now
he broadens it and goes further: "Anything that might be alien to a
Christian lifestyle, make sure that's now the cause of your suffering."
He mentions murder. That does include physical assault but it can also include
slanderous character assassination, blind rage, our wishing that someone
were dead. Jesus said if we think it we are guilty of it. He talks about
being a thief. That's robbery, stealing. Whether it's criminal or not, if
it's taking away from somebody else what's rightfully theirs, in God's sight
it's robbery. I believe that even naive, unwise, selfish financial management
of resources is robbery---If we're basically serving ourselves with our
own money then we're stealing from God. The third word that he uses there
is criminal activity. Think of the tragedy every time you hear in the media
that some Christian leader has been convicted of crime, consider the reproach
that sort of thing brings on the body of Christ.
The fourth word Peter uses is mischief maker, (in your Bible it may be translated
troublesome meddler). This is the only place in all of first century Greek
writing that this word is used---as if Peter had coined a phrase, putting
two words together. Literally, it means "trying to exercise oversight
or management in affairs that are foreign or alien to you." It's messing
around in things you have no business being involved with. Peter's saying
"make sure you're not suffering because you're a busybody." Religious
management of somebody else's life can get you in lots of trouble! In contemporary
culture I am reminded of the character that Dana Carvey has created on Saturday
Night Live, known as "the Church Lady." If anybody's a troublesome
meddler and a mischief maker in this context, it's her! I also thought of
the epitaph C.S. Lewis mentioned many years ago he found on a tombstone:
Erected by her sorrowing brothers in memory of Martha Clay.
Here lies one who lived for others.
Now she has peace and so do they.
Our lifestyle, our conduct should be our best argument that we don't deserve
the suffering that we do experience. Too often the messes we end up in are
because we have succumbed to temptation, we have allowed sin to triumph.
Our own flesh causes suffering. Peter says that we are to make very certain
that we're not suffering because of our own careless behavior.
The second danger Peter mentions in verse 16 is being ashamed of the name
of Jesus Christ. Don't deny him, don't be embarrassed about him under the
pressure of opposition of persecution! Think about Peter's own history,
(There's a poignancy in this). I think if Peter had said this out loud we
would have said it very gently, very lovingly, with a great sense of humility.
Why? Because he remembers his own shame, his own failure, when he denied
the Lord. A little girl said "Don't you know this one who's on trial?"
And he swore and said, "I don't. I never knew the man." Years
later, Peter can say, "I've been through it. I know what you have to
live with when you give in to that sort of embarrassment and shame."
Remember the wonderful reconciliation on the seashore of Galilee after the
resurrection? Jesus came to Peter and gave him a chance to affirm his love
for him again so that the security of their relationship was reaffirmed.
It's important not to be ashamed of the name of Jesus because it's really
that name that provides us the very strength we need to go through suffering.
The name of anything, the name of a person, represents the value, the worth,
everything inherent in that person. It's the name of Jesus Christ, the Lord
that sustains us and strengthens us through suffering. Paul wrote to Timothy,
a young pastor who was struggling with insecurity and timidity, with opposition
and persecution from heretics who were trying to run him out of his church.
"Don't be ashamed then of testifying to our Lord, nor of me his prisoner.
Take your share of suffering for the gospel in the power of God." Don't
be ashamed!
In the beginning of verse 17 the apostle returns to consider further the
significance the value we have in Jesus as we go through difficult times.
Verses 17 and 18 say that we have significance in suffering because it's
happening as a family. We don't suffer in isolation. We're part of the church,
a spiritual family. Verse 17:
For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it
begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey
the gospel of God? And if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved,
what will become of the godless man and the sinner?
This verse is sort of good news and bad news you might say. The good news
is that the purifying judgment of suffering going on in the body of Christ
is good for us. God is sovereign over all this process of judgment at work.
The apostle of Paul, teaching in Asia Minor on his first missionary journey
(Acts 14), said , "We must go through many hardships [or tribulations]
to enter the kingdom of God." We're to suffer together as the church,
as the household of God. God has always been at work, consistently throughout
human history, purifying his own people. It happened consistently in the
Old Testament. We read the passage from Psalm 66 earlier. This image of
God refining or purifying the nation of Israel through fire is a common
Old Testament theme. Ezekiel 9, Zechariah 13, Malachi 3 all say that God
will even use evil kings, pagan rulers to judge and purify his nation. You
see, God can not tolerate sin in his people. He'll purge it out of them,
and us as well, because he wants us to be a light of purity to the people
we work with and live with. God will be at work even through the perversity,
the cruelty, the capriciousness of our society, through movements and organizations
that oppose us and oppose the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. He'll use
people around us to purify us, to put pressure on us. The hands of the persecutors
of the members of the church are actually the hands of God. Evil activity
against the church is the judgment of God---we have to be very clear on
this, so we won't panic. The reality is that evil is not running rampant
in the world. Satan and evil men do not have ultimate control. God uses
the worst things that Satan can do to purify us, to turn up the pressure
on us. And we will survive! That's the good news.
The bad news is this: nobody else will survive! The persecutors, the tormentors,
those who reject the good news of this purifying judgment, they are all
going to perish. Their lives will become hell on earth as they resist this
good news. Ultimately, Peter says, they're going to suffer eternal condemnation,
and total separation from God. They're going to go to hell when Jesus comes
back. Peter quotes Proverbs 11:18 to reinforce his statement. Verse 18 ought
to invoke in us tremendous concern for the people who oppose us, who make
fun of us, because as Jesus said, we ought to pray for those who despitefully
use us. Proverbs 11:18 says that we are barely saved. Our salvation hangs
on a thread, really, the thread of Jesus' death on the cross, upon our being
justified by his saving work. That's all that we can count on---nothing
else---certainly not on any of our own merit or own resources. If we're
saved that way---with great difficulty---what about all those people who
totally reject the saving grace of God offered to the world. What about
those people who don't want Jesus to cleanse their sins. Tragically, they
are going to hell---without hope. This sobering truth ought to help us look
at the people who oppose us differently. They are the victims. They are
the ones whose end is frightening to think about.
The final sentence in this passage, verse 19, is really a summary statement
of everything we've talked about his morning. Peter says,
Therefore [or in light of all of this], let those also who suffer
according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in
doing what is right.
Whenever we suffer, when we're persecuted, this verse says that these things
are actually "according to God's plan and purpose." Our response
ought to (always) be to do the right thing, to live obediently, with integrity,
morally and ethically, even in the face of suffering. Peter says we are
to trust God all the more, we are not to "demand answers" and
we are not to challenge God's right to put us through tough times. When
I don't trust people I find that I become demanding, "Give me answers!",
or "What are you doing?" If I really trust someone, their intent,
their motive, I don't need a lot of information. Peter says we are to view
our heavenly Father like that. Entrust your life to him, commit yourself
to him. The word in my Bible entrust (or commit, in your Bible perhaps),
is same word that Jesus used when he called out from the cross as he was
dying. "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." Unhesitatingly
he was able to give that confession of faith in his heavenly Father. Why
could he do that? Because he believed that God was lovingly faithful to
him, totally sovereign over every circumstance.
To sum this all up, we really need to believe that all this counsel from
the apostle really works---knowing we're beloved of God, knowing that we're
sharing in Christ's sufferings, knowing that our good behavior in Christ
does make a difference in this world, knowing that suffering as part of
a spiritual family serves God's purposes, knowing God really will sustain
us when the pressure is the greatest, we really can trust him with our very
lives.
There's a powerful illustration and example of this truth from the life
of the early church. There was a baby boy born in the city of Smyrna in
Turkey---one of the cities where Peter's letter was circulated. He grew
up in the bosom of that church, gave his life to Christ, and became a pastor
there, spending 60 years shepherding the Christian flock in that city. There
still exist today a number of the letters of Polycarp---this dear man's
name---written to other churches scattered around Asia Minor. Forty years
after Peter wrote his letter, Polycarp wrote a letter to the church in Philippi
in 110 AD, as they were undergoing great persecution:
Let us then hold steadfastly and unceasingly to our hope and
to the pledge of our righteousness that is Christ Jesus, who bore our sins
in his own body on the tree, who committed no sin, neither was guile found
on his lips. But for our sakes he endured everything that we might live
in him. Therefore let us be imitators of this patient endurance. And if
we suffer for the sake of his name let us glorify him. For he set us this
example in his own person and this is what we believe.
Polycarp wrote those words when he was in his early forties, pastoring a
thriving congregation. Some 45 years later he was arrested as one of the
leaders of the church during a persecution under the emperor Trajan. The
authorities searched for several months to find Polycarp as he had moved
from house to house. The police finally caught up with him in a farmhouse
outside Smyrna. An anonymous member of the church in Smyrna has written
the account of his arrest, public trial, and his execution.
Even so he could have escaped to another farm, but he did not
wish to do so, saying, "God's will be done." Thus, when he heard
of their arrival, he went downstairs and talked with them, while those who
looked on marveled at his age and constancy, and at how there should be
such zeal over the arrest of so old a man. Straightway he ordered food and
drink, as much as they wished, to be set before them at that hour, and he
asked them to give him an hour so that he might pray undisturbed. And when
they consented, he stood and prayed---being so filled with the grace of
God that for two hours he could not hold his peace, to the amazement of
those who heard. And many repented that they had come to get such a devout
old man.
The next morning he was brought into the city to stand before the Roman
Governor in the public amphitheater. Here is his final conversation before
he was burned at the stake for his faith.
"And when finally he was brought up (into the public arena),
there was a great tumult on hearing that Polycarp had been arrested. Therefore,
when he was brought before him, the proconsul asked him if he were Polycarp.
And when he confessed that he was, he tried to persuade him to deny [the
faith], saying, "Have respect to your age"---and other things
that customarily follow this, such as, "Swear by the fortune of Caesar;
change your mind; say, 'Away with the atheists!'" (Christians were
accused of being atheists because they wouldn't worship the emperor, they
wouldn't acknowledge his divinity. So the proconsul says, "Just say
'Away with the atheists,' meaning the Christians). But Polycarp looked with
earnest face at the whole crowd of lawless heathen in the arena, and motioned
to them with his hand. Then, groaning and looking up to heaven, he sald,
"Away with the atheists!" But the proconsul was insistent and
said: "Take the oath, and I shall release you. Curse Christ."
Polycarp said: "Eighty-six years I have served him, and he never did
me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?"
Catalog No. 4325
Fourth Message
May 24, 1992
Copyright (C) 1995 Discovery Publishing, a ministry of Peninsula Bible Church.
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Doug Goins