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Christian suffering is a reason to rejoice and not to retreat. To suffer as a Christian is to be blessed. It is to know God’s glorious presence now and be guaranteed a glorious future. The hallmark of having the Spirit of God is to experience this kind of suffering. If we are to see a revival of the faith, we need to have a radical rethink of understanding Christian suffering.
12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. 16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. 17 For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18 And
“If the righteous is scarcely saved,
what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”
19 Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.
This transcript has been automatically generated
The reading is from 1 Peter chapter 4, verses 12 to 19, and they’re either on the sheet or on page 1222 in the church Bibles.
1 Peter chapter 4, verse 12: Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice insofar as you share in Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer, or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for judgement to begin at the household of God.
And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And if the righteous is scarcely saved, What will become of the ungodly and the sinner? Therefore, let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.
A number of years ago, I attended a church history lecture given by Dr. Peter Adam in St. James’s Church in Clerkenwell. Right towards the end of the talk, he said this: It is the normal pattern for Christians to be persecuted by the state. Most Christians in the world today are persecuted by the state. The state has persecuted Christians through the history of the Christian church. This was St. James’s Clerkenwell, and as he spoke, I looked across the church to a memorial on the wall just to the left of where he was standing.
It contained the lists of about 100 names. And above it, these all died for the faith in the fires of Smithfield. That is, they were martyred, they were burned at the stake. William Sawtree, 1400, William Sweeting, 1422, John Brewster, 1529, John Frith, Andrew Hewitt, 1533, Anne Askew, Nicholas Bellne, John Adams, John Lascelles, 1545, and so it went on. And on and on.
Our subject this lunchtime is Christian suffering. I’ve mentioned Lord Shaftesbury, described as in Parliament that aristocratic and canting simpleton, that bigot, a fool, a fanatic, a Puritan.
One of my favourite books is this, Grace, Grit and Gumption. It speaks about the Welsh Revival. In the early years of the Welsh Revival at the beginning of the 20th century, this produced a fierce reaction from the publicans who saw it solely as a killjoy attempt to deprive them of cash and custom. In the open air, we were much opposed by a publican. While I was speaking, he was very wrathful.
Monday the 7th of July, 2 publicans got enraged. The next time he holds a meeting outside our pub, said the landlord of the public house, I’ll shoot him. What disturbed the brothers most were the police restrictions on their open-air gatherings. But actually, you look at any historical biography and almost every single one of them, you’ll find hostility and opposition. Another of my favourite books is the biography by Arnold Dallimore of George Whitefield.
And there are stories there of people climbing into trees and throwing bits of dead cat at Whitefield as he preached. Wilberforce, Bonhoeffer martyred, Cranmer, Luther, Calvin. Did you know that they named their dogs after Calvin in Geneva so that they could shout abuse at him in the street whilst pretending to direct it at their dogs?
But I want us to see today that the Christian who suffers as a Christian in the name of Jesus is blessed.
Christian suffering is the grounds of great assurance.
Christian suffering is the source of great joy.
Christian suffering is the cause of great intimacy with the Lord Jesus.
Furthermore, until and unless we Christians in the city come to see the necessity of Christian suffering, there will be no reversal of Christian fortunes or Christian revival here in the city.
Many young potential Christian leaders listening to this talk, you will have no significant spiritual influence if you do not understand that Christian suffering is integral to Christian ministry.
2 points Peter has for us: Christian suffering and the assurance of God’s glory today; Christian suffering and the guarantee of God’s glory tomorrow; suffering and the assurance of God’s glorious presence. Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
Now, the theme of glory runs all the way through the final section of this letter. The beloved in verse 12 marks a new section. The old section, the last section finished in verse 11, to Him belong glory and power forever and ever. Amen. Beloved, the 3rd section begins.
But the theme of glory runs all the way through this section. Verse 14, if you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because of the Spirit of glory. 5:1, I exalt the elders among you as fellow elders and witnesses of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. Verse 4, when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. 5:10, after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory, will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
The word glory comes from the word to seem or to appear. God’s glory is what God essentially is. It is what God essentially does. His glory is seen most profoundly in the character and work of Jesus on earth. He turned water into wine.
He thus revealed His glory. He raised Lazarus. Did I not tell you, you would see God’s glory?
God’s glory is displayed at the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus. It’s witnessed in the Transfiguration as Jesus appears in dazzling splendour and blazing brightness. And God’s glory is the final state of blessedness into which all believers will enter after this life. They are brought to the likeness of Jesus and come to see him face to face.
Supremely, God’s glory is seen at the cross. Now is the Son of Man glorified. Here, God’s character is dazzlingly on display.
But in this letter and in Peter’s writings across 1 and 2 Peter, God’s glory frequently refers very specifically to to the present heavenly position and glory of Jesus today, ascended, reigning in power and glory, and to his future glory when he returns. God raised Jesus from the dead and gave Jesus his glory. To him belong glory and power forever.
The glory of God contrasts absolutely with the glory of man. Chapter 1, verse 24, all flesh is like grass, all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower falls. Did you see Pogba’s goal last night? It was a screamer.
Sadly, the French were knocked out. I to include that bit, but it was an absolute screamer, wasn’t it? It was glorious, but Pogba will go the way of all flesh.
In this letter and across his writing, Peter frequently speaks of the glory of Jesus, and he is speaking about Jesus’ heavenly exalted position and his future triumphant return in glory when we will see him. In all His glory.
But verse 14 is so striking, isn’t it? That as the Christian suffers now, so Christian, you have the hallmark of glory today.
If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
Now, you may have noticed that in my introduction I used some particularly extreme examples of Christian suffering. Not all of them were, but many were. I’m not sure quite how helpful that was. I haven’t quite managed to change them in the time allowable. But verse 12 speaks of fiery trial.
And so, some have suggested that Peter is speaking now of a turn, if you will forgive this, a turning up of the temperature in Christian suffering. That the fiery trial indicates a ramping up of suffering, as if the Christians to whom Peter is writing have suddenly begun to experience something more fiery than what Peter wrote about at the beginning of the letter.
But at the beginning of the letter, when Peter talked about trial, He said, these trials have to come so that the tested genuineness of your faith might be found to result in praise and glory at Christ’s return. But he spoke there of faith being tested like gold in the refiner’s fire by everyday trials. So, because he uses the language of the fiery trial, it doesn’t necessarily mean that these trials are more extreme that these Christians are suddenly experiencing. It’s just they are the trials of fire that purify faith.
The Old Testament frequently uses that image. Faith is purified through suffering. And so, the fiery trial does not necessarily refer to a more extreme form of suffering. The testing of all Christian suffering purifies.
And in verse 13, Peter speaks of Christians sharing in Christ’s sufferings. Did you see it there? Rejoice insofar as you partner share in Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed. The point, of course, is not that our suffering achieves somebody else’s salvation. Our sufferings are not redemptive in that sense.
The point is that as we live the Christian life openly and without shame, so we will suffer because we are living for purity, truth, We are living for God in a world that is instinctively hostile to God, and so you will share in His sufferings if you follow the Lord Jesus, as day follows night and night follows day. We will suffer for our public witness and for our consistent life.
And, of course, as we suffer for our public witness and our consistent life, So, we will find ourselves suffering, and the truth of Jesus will be on display.
We might even say that Christian suffering is an unavoidable part of God’s communication strategy. A person stands, people are hostile, people are hostile, people notice, People notice. They think about Jesus. People think about Jesus. They come to faith.
Rejoice and be glad in your suffering, insofar as you share in Christ’s sufferings. Do rejoice because it shows that you are joined to Jesus, and when He comes in glory, you are His. And so you will rejoice and be glad.
Notice that the assumption of the whole letter is that Christians will suffer.
Not if you suffer, when you suffer. Chapter 2, verse 12, keep your conducts amongst the Gentiles honourable so that when they speak against you, as evildoers they may see your good deeds.
Chapter 4, verse 12, don’t be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you.
But here is the extraordinary point, and it’s there in verse 14, that as you suffer, the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. You are blessed.
And rests there is the present continuous. The point is that the Holy Spirit of God, in all his glory, rests and remains on the Christian who suffers.
In other words, Christian suffering is evidence of Christian authenticity. Christian suffering is evidence of God’s presence. Christian suffering is the mark of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit of God, in all His glory, rests and remains on the Christian who suffers. Well, inevitably, because if the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of glory, rests upon you, you cannot but speak about it and live for it. And if the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of glory rests upon you, and you cannot but speak of it and live for it, which is the whole of the central section of of 1 Peter, you cannot help but speak and live for it, then this Spirit of glory who glorified Christ, who will return in glory, rests upon you as you share in Christ’s sufferings. Your suffering is evidence of the Holy Spirit dwelling upon you.
I meant to bring a teaspoon with me, but I couldn’t find a silver one anywhere. All I could find was a cheap stainless steel one. Nonetheless, that also had the hallmark And I left it in my office upstairs, so it was going to be produced from my pocket as a visual aid. Anyway, I haven’t got it, so there you are. But take my word for it, it has stainless steel from Melksham or wherever it happens to be stamped upon it.
There is the hallmark. You suffer Christianly, the hallmark, you’ve got the Holy Spirit.
You want to know that you are genuine and that you have God’s Spirit resting upon you. Christian suffering is one mark of it.
This, of course, runs completely counter to so much Christian teaching today. I’ve spoken about the American gospel. If you really want to understand the American gospel and you’ve got a lot of time on your hands, you can read Kate Bowler’s book entitled Blessed. She suffered at the hands of the prosperity gospel fraudsters. A recent Time poll found that 17% of Christians surveyed identified themselves as part of the prosperity gospel.
A Pew survey reported that 43% of all Christian respondents agreed that the faithful receive health and wealth. 3 in 4 Latinos, believers across all Christian denominations, agreed with the statement, God will grant financial success and good health to all believers who have enough faith. The prosperity gospel centres on faith, wealth, health, and victory. Faith, wealth, health, and victory.
Peter’s gospel, if you have the Holy Spirit, you will suffer, and boy are you blessed.
And of course, without that, it’s so important, isn’t it? Because without that, you will retreat.
The centre section of this letter, as I said, concerns the public life of the Christian. Christian in the state, Christian in the workplace, Christian and his spouse, her spouse, Christian and brothers and sisters in the church. It’s all about bold and clear Christian speaking matched by consistent and unashamed Christian living. The Christian cannot but proclaim the the excellencies of the God who called him. Of course, because God is so glorious, you cannot keep your mouth shut.
And lip and life, word and deed, speech and action, they will go together. And so, you will stick out, as somebody once put it so expertly, as a healthy thumb. You will stick out like a healthy thumb in your office and in your workplace, and therefore, you will attract hostility. But if you think, having the Holy Spirit means a nice, easy, quiet, comfortable, middle-class life, then you will retreat.
So, this is absolutely essential, isn’t it, for the Christians of Asia Minor in the first century?
And if, of course, if you have been taught that the mark of the Holy Spirit is triumph, victory, and me achieving my life goals, then when you experience the real mark of the Holy Spirit, suffering with Christ, you will become utterly disillusioned.
Suffering and the certainty of God’s presence for the Christian.
Suffering and the guarantee of God’s glory.
You can see that all of these verses are full of rejoicing before God and the glorification of God. Verse 13, Rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed. Verse 16, Yet if any suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. That is the name of the Christian. Praise God, I am a Christian.
I am suffering. Here’s evidence that I have the Holy Spirit. Praise the Lord for the name of the Christian. I will meet him in glory. I experience his glory today.
But that means that the Christian must be sure that their suffering is Christian suffering. Make sure you don’t suffer for being a prat or for being obnoxious. And that’s verse 15, isn’t it? It’s a fascinating verse. It suggests both something about the pre-Christian background of those whom Peter is writing to, and also something about a particular Christian tendency.
The pre-Christian background is there in the substance of the verse, let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or an evildoer. This, I think, gives further indication of the background from which Peter’s readers came. They were converted out of paganism. They were from ancient Asia Minor. We have already seen, chapter 4, verse 3, that sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, bingeing, and lawless idolatry were the canvas of their lives prior to them being converted.
This is the sex life of the Prime Minister, the city on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, the lifestyle of the former Secretary of State for Health.
But now we see that the murderer, theft, rank wickedness are also part of the backstory of those to whom Peter was writing. They had been born again, they had been saved from out of the swamp, but look at what their life was like. So, make sure you don’t suffer for those things. Peter has touched on that theme before, hasn’t he?
The word at the end of verse 15 is fascinating, make sure you don’t suffer as a meddler.
Now, the way the wording of the verse has it suggests that he is talking about a separate category here. Have a look at verse 15, let none of you suffer as a murderer, thief, or evildoer, or as a meddler. And the word meddler simply means, the actual word itself, another person’s overseer. Another person’s overseer. Literally, you would translate another person’s bishop.
So, make sure you don’t get abused, insulted, reviled, and slagged off because you are trying to oversee somebody else’s life. I think this is immensely important for the Christian, isn’t it? You have been converted out of this swamp, and how quickly we become another person’s overseer.
Busybody. Stop sticking your Christian nose into your non-Christian neighbour’s moral choices.
Alan Stibbs is one of the finest popular commentators, and his little commentary on 1 Peter is terrific. For while it is imperative for the Christian to begin to order his own conduct according to new standards of purity and justice, this new awareness and concern does not qualify him officiously to interfere in the lives of others, particularly non-Christians, to try to make them live according to his light. So, I’m sure you will agree with me that Matt Hancock’s recent life decisions, are catastrophic, not least for his poor children.
That the leaders of our nation can have got into a position where they consider an individual’s personal life irrelevant for their fitness to hold public office is a national disgrace, and it should cause us to hang our head in shame. The single most significant promise a man or a woman ever makes in their life is the promise to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. To suggest that a person who flouts such a promise can be trusted in any sort of office to tell the truth beggars belief. It leads to the base morality of the gutter, to farmyard ethics, to Neolithic morality.
But it’s what you expect of pagans.
So, in your office, don’t go running around busybodying yourself with everybody else in the office and their morality. Don’t stick your Christian nose. Don’t be a meddler. Don’t suffer for doing that, says Peter.
So, we must rejoice in our Christian suffering. We must make sure that what we suffer is Christian. We mustn’t suffer for being obnoxious or for being a busybody or a murderer or a thief. But as we suffer, it is the guarantee of future glory, for it is time for judgement to begin at the household of God. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel?
I think what Peter is saying here, I’m still working hard at this to try and get clear on it. I think he is either saying that God uses our suffering to purify us, it’s back to the refiner’s fire image. Suffering, if you like, is God’s means of exfoliation. It’s his pumice stone, his facial scrub, his sandpaper for the Christian. But thus, Suffering, Christian suffering, is a guarantee of God’s glory.
Oh, He is working on you. He is sculpting you. He has got an interest in you. And so, if judgement begins with you, wow, when real judgement comes, you will be safe. But it could also mean, remember in the Gospels, Jesus describes the sufferings of Christians as being a mark of His coming judgement, like the birth pangs.
I am not going to go into details on the birth pangs, Fathers in the antenatal ward, still I am scarred by that whole experience. But it’s like the birth pangs of God’s final judgement. And so, you suffer for being Christian, people laugh at you, they mock you, you bigot. There is the first contraction of God’s coming judgement. Of course, because that hostility of the world shows which side the world is on when it comes to the judgement.
And it also shows which side you’re on. And judgement will come. And if you have the hallmark of the Holy Spirit, and you suffer, you’re with Him.
And so, judgement begins, sifting begins, even in the church, and we discover whether we’re standing with Him or we’re not. This is something that the House of Bishops in the Church of England has failed absolutely to grasp. It makes me wonder how many of them are actually Christian at all.
Perhaps the most shocking statement over this last weekend came from the Bishop of Manchester. I’m more worried about the fact that he failed to keep the social distancing laws than I am about the fact that he was a middle-aged man having a fling. But immediately prior to that, the Bishop of Liverpool wanting to change the church’s teaching on marriage because the world beyond the church has found traditional marriage teaching, quote, offensive, oppressive, and hypocritical. So, let’s change it. We don’t want to suffer.
We don’t want to stick out like a healthy thumb. Let’s keep quiet. Let’s go the way of the world. Are you Christian or aren’t you? Do you stand with Christ or don’t you?
Will you suffer? You have the Holy Spirit, Christianly, if you suffer Christianly. Will you not suffer? Well, I really wonder, do you belong to Jesus?
So, without a proper understanding of Christian suffering, there will be no renewal, no revival. You long for Christian revival in your office, I hope.
You must be ready to suffer.
Let’s pray together.
Thank you for these wonderful promises. Please change our thinking, we pray, Father, so that we see suffering for what it is and rejoice in the glory of the Lord Jesus, both now and forever. We ask it in his name. Amen.
