Suffering as a Christian

Now, as we continue our studies this morning in 1 Peter 4, I’d like you to turn initially to Matthew chapter 5. Put your finger into 1 Peter 4. And when you find Matthew 5, we’re going to bow just for a moment and ask God to help us as we study the Bible, because none of us can do anything as we ought to do it without God’s help. We certainly can’t teach it, and we can’t listen to it and apply it as we should unless he enables us.

And so, as we open first to the words of Jesus in Matthew 5, we pause for a moment to ask God to help us:

Father, as we come to study your Word this morning, we pray that you will be our helper. You’ve promised this. Indeed, Jesus said that the Spirit would come and would lead the apostles into all truth,[1] that the apostles then would write down that which you had given them, and that we in subsequent generations would learn it and store it and apply it. And here we are, on the first day of a new week. We are a variety of lives before you. Some of us have hungry hearts, and we’re eager for the Word. Some of us are kind of blasé, and we need you just to prick us and to encourage us. Some of us, Lord, are buffeted, and we need your peace to be granted to our minds that we might be able to think in these moments. Certainly, all of us are in need of your help, which we seek now in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Matthew 5:11–12, the words of Jesus: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” These words of Jesus, which must have hit the disciples with amazing forcefulness as he uttered them here in the Sermon on the Mount, as we refer to it, certainly must have been a part of Peter’s thinking as he comes once again—and for the final time, actually, in this letter he’s written to scattered believers—to address the subject of suffering. And for those of you who would like to take notes this morning and have that lovely blank page in your bulletin there, let me tell you that our heading, if you want one, is “Suffering as a Christian,” and our text is 1 Peter 4:12–19. And I’ll try, if you care to take notes, to guide you as per the notes I have here, and perhaps it will make sense to you, in some measure at least, as I’ve endeavored that it would make sense to me.

The question of suffering for these believers in Peter’s day was something very real. And as I was preparing for this, both before I left and since I’ve returned, I made a note to myself that to deal with the question of suffering as a Christian and because we are Christians may not seem immediately relevant to each of us today. Some of us may not be experiencing a great deal of suffering at all. Oh, there are those bumps and indifferences. There are those clouds across our horizon. But to actually talk in terms of pain, of fiery trials, or of suffering simply because we are Christ’s is actually a wee bit removed from our reckoning on this particular Sunday morning in August 1990.

If that is the case, let us recognize this: that those days will inevitably come. Jesus said that it would be so.[2] And so whether we’re in them or whether we’re going to meet them, we need to pay diligent attention to the Word of God, so that, storing it up a bit like squirrels do for their time of winter, we may have that which we are able to eat when the fiery trial hits us. And others of us, of course, will be keenly aware of their relevance, because as we look at this, we say, “Dear me! That just seems to be a description of where my life is, where our family is, where my health is, where my whole experience falls.” It would seem that Peter had known all about this last while and had written specially as per God’s direction to address our lives.

Now, the early Christians were experiencing persecution. It’s generally held that this letter was written sometime between AD 62 and 64. That’s quite a wee while ago. If that is the case, it would predate the Great Fire of Rome, which all of us remember from our history books: that “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” And Nero, himself responsible, history tells us, for lighting the fire—which answers the question that Billy Joel has recently posed: “[Now], we didn’t start the fire.”[3] Who did? The answer is Nero. But actually, that’s another message altogether. I apologize for those of you who haven’t a clue what I’m talking about.

But anyway, Nero fiddled while Rome burned in the first century. And then he needed some people to blame, and so he blamed the Christians. And Tacitus, the Roman historian, records it in this way: Nero “falsely diverted the charge on to a set of people to whom [he] gave the name of Chrestians, and who were detested for the abominations [which] they perpetrated”—namely, they shared in the Lord’s Supper; namely, they gathered and cared for those who were careless and without friends. And “the founder of [this group], one Christus by name, had been executed by Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius.”[4] And as Peter now writes this letter, guided by the Spirit of God, when he says in verse [12], “Do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering,” he recognizes that to one degree, this will be a recurring phenomenon in the church of Jesus Christ—not that the whole church for the whole time and in every age will experience this same intensity, but that it will be, in recurring cycles, the experience of the people of God. And the perspective which God’s people adopt and the attitude which God’s people display will be a further sign to the watching world of the difference which knowing Jesus makes.

Days of suffering will inevitably come. Jesus said that it would be so.

In other words, everyone who lives life experiences suffering and difficulties. The question is, when you and I face it as a believer, is there that about our lives which causes our neighbors—our friends in the office or in the factory or in the schoolroom—to ask us this question: “How is it that you are able to respond to this experience in the way that you do? What is the basis of your perspective? How do you come to display such an attitude?” And again, we should remind ourselves that the one who writes—that is, Peter—was personally aware of the heat of the furnace of suffering, which he endured and was to endure by his very death after this letter had been penned.

Now, with all of that by way of introduction, I’d like to give you five headings this morning which are main headings. Don’t be daunted by that. I’m going to move through them quickly. There are a number of subheadings, for those of you who are taking notes, and I’ll try and keep you with me.

Painful Trials Are Not Abnormal

The first thing that we want to say that emerges clearly from this passage is this: painful trials are not abnormal. Painful trials are not abnormal.

Now, the specific nature of what trial these individuals were facing in verse 12 is not answered for us. Indeed, the pattern which he had referred to in his opening chapter was a pattern of “all kinds of trials.” First Peter 1:6, he says, “[You’re rejoicing in your salvation], though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.” And this morning, as we seek to live for Jesus Christ, there won’t be that essential identification in our experience with one another in the essence of trials that we may face. There are “all kinds of trials.” And that’s why God’s grace is variegated, that it may match those different trials. What they were facing we’re not told; why they were facing it we’re told plainly. And you find this in two phrases: first, in verse 14, they were suffering trials “because of the name of Christ”’; and in verse 16, they were suffering “as a Christian.” So the specific instance to which he refers here is that painful ordeal which breaks into the life of an individual directly because we name the name of Jesus Christ—essentially, because we belong to him.

Now, the pain will often be intense. That’s why he uses the word purōsis, which is translated here “painful trial,” or, in the King James Version, “fiery trial.” But the perspective in the pain is going to be gained by realizing that God has a purpose in this suffering which is not abnormal. So in other words, let’s get this clear: suffering in and of itself is not something that we glory in. When James says, “We count it all joy when we face trials of various kinds,” he doesn’t put a full stop there and then go on to another subject. What does he say? He says, “We count it all joy”—James 1—“when we face trials of various kinds, because of what those trials do,”[5] so that the pain of suffering for Jesus is given perspective in light of the purpose of God in the experience of his children.

Andraé Crouch some years ago… I recall because I remember we had the LP. Remember those days, where they had the big black things you used to put on things, and they had a needle, and it went round? Do you remember that? How time flies! He had a song, and it went like this. (I wrote it from memory, so perhaps it didn’t go like this.)

I thank [him] for the mountains,
And I thank him for the valleys,
[And] I thank him for the [pain] he[’s] brought me through.
For if I’d never had a problem,
I[’d never] know [that] God could solve them;
I’d never know what faith in God could do.

Through it all,
Through it all,
I’ve learned to trust in Jesus;
I’ve learned to trust in God.

Through it all,
Through it all,
I’ve learned to depend upon his Word.[6]

And this, you see, is the perspective which the child of God is able to bring to a very painful world and to the painful experiences which will inevitably cross our paths—and supremely, in this context, the pain of standing true for Jesus Christ. Oh, not just saying that there was a historical Jesus—the world doesn’t care about that—but saying that Jesus is the Savior. Not just acknowledging that we go to church—they don’t care—but saying that we go to worship Christ, who is the head of the church. Not simply saying that he lived in history but saying that he’s coming again in glory. And there is a pain attaches to that.

“Surely,” our friends will say, amongst those of us who are relatively intelligent… I mean high school students and beyond, you know? Those of us who think we are, anyway. We carry those big books around, coming tomorrow and the rest of this week. Our friends are going to say to us at school, “Oh, surely you don’t believe all that poppycock about Jesus of Nazareth, do you? You must be some kind of nerd. You must be some crazy geek. We don’t want to have anything to do with you at all! Not until you stop that nonsense.” Listen, loved ones; listen, young Christian friend; listen, teenager, student: as you go back to school tomorrow, do not be surprised at the painful trials because you name the name of Jesus and because you are a Christian.

Now let me ask you a question: Does it surprise you that he says, “Do not be surprised”? The Jewish people knew what it was to be persecuted. You just go back into the Old Testament, and you remind yourself of that. Way back in the time of Moses and so on—you remind yourself of those things all the way through. But what about the gentile believers? What about those who had come to faith in Christ? These gentiles, they weren’t ready for this stuff. They’d, many of them, come to Christ thinking all would be well. And now, here they’re looking at one another and, in the words of Laurel and Hardy, are saying to one another, “Ha! It’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into! I didn’t plan on this! You didn’t tell me I had to carry a grand piano up five flights of stairs! And you didn’t tell me you wouldn’t hold the rope at the top! I didn’t bargain for this!”

But is that not true of many of us in the way we’ve come to Christ? We come to Christ with the notion that all will be well. Some of us are even so proud as to believe that we did Jesus an amazing favor by accepting him. We found him sort of wandering in the streets of Cleveland and felt sorry for him and said, “Oh, come on and live in my heart—provided, of course, all will be well.” And then we discovered that all hell let loose against us! Then pain broke upon us. Then friends we once enjoyed seemingly treated us with disdain. The groups we ran in think we’ve gone kind of crazy. It’s painful to name the name of Jesus Christ. It’s painful to stand true for Jesus.

Some of us this morning, I believe, have bought into such an approach to Christianity that really emerges from wishful thinking and from bad teaching and has nothing at all to do with the example and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. Following after Christ and service for Christ is no insurance against the experience of pain and persecution. And here’s the thing: Why would we ever think that it is? That’s what gets me. I don’t understand, as long as we have a Bible, why we would ever think, having a Bible to read, that somehow, to commit our lives to Jesus Christ would mean no more suffering and no more trial.

I mean, turn with me, just for a moment, to Hebrews chapter 11. You know Hebrews 11—a great chronicle of the folks of faith in the past. And as the writer goes on, and he’s naming Joseph, he’s naming Moses and Abraham and so on, all the way through, then he gets generic on the subject. He starts to sort of embrace it in totality and to speak in general terms about others.

Pick it up with me at verse 36. This is describing those who named the name of God and Christ then. Hebrews 11:36: “Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two.” Sawn in two! I mean, think about that for a minute! I mean, this isn’t David Copperfield, for goodness’ sake. This isn’t that guy that puts the big thing down when they pull the curtain. This was sawn in two! And if your dad came to pick you up after this, he had to put half of you under one arm and half of you under the other arm. For the name of Jesus Christ! “They were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and [ill-]treated—the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and [in] holes in the ground.”

Following after Christ and service for Christ is no insurance against the experience of pain and persecution.

In comparison, loved ones, in the words of another contemporary song, “Hey, think twice; for you and me it’s just another day in paradise,”[7] in comparison to this. But we are in the continuum of the fellowship of faith, of the family of God. And when Peter writes, he writes concerning history past, he writes concerning the unfolding of the pattern in the day of those who were the immediate recipients of his letter, and he writes of that which will yet come.

Loved ones, we don’t know what might yet happen in this nation. We do not know what may happen in this Western world of ours. Indeed, every day brings fresh changes and chances that roam the globe and strike fear into the hearts of men. And as believers, we do not know. But we’d better make sure of this—that we write it down in our notes and ask God to write it in our hearts: number one, painful trials are not abnormal.

How We Should React

Number two question is this: How are we to react to these trials? If they’re not abnormal and they’re going to come, how should we react to them?

Well, first of all, we’re not to react in surprise—verse 12—“as though something strange were happening to you.” Well, what are we to do? Well, let me tell you six things of our reaction to painful trial.

Number one: we are to “rejoice” that we “participate in the sufferings of” Jesus. That’s verse 13a. In other words, our attitude in the experience of these things is going to be radically different from our non-Christian friends. The verb which is used here for “rejoice” is in the present tense, reminding us of the fact that this is not some isolated, single response, but it is a continuous attitude and activity—a continually rejoicing spirit.

How attractive that is, is it not—when we think of some that we’ve met in the past in our lives whose circumstances have been so difficult, whose lives have been so marred and stained and tarnished as a result of the inroads of that which has been their experience? And yet, when you meet them, their life and their face is a joy and is a testimony. And you say, “How could it possibly be?” It is that the Spirit of God has enabled them to be obedient to the Word. They know that painful trial is not abnormal, and their response to it is, first of all, to be explaining themselves by a continual approach of rejoicing.

Secondly, we are not to be ashamed in the experience of trials. Verse 16: “If you suffer as a Christian”—and he’s presupposing that they will—he says, “do[n’t] be ashamed.” Now, think of what it cost Peter to write the phrase, “Do not be ashamed.” ’Cause who’s the master of shame? Peter. Who was ashamed when it came to the crunch? Who was ashamed when he was called to suffer? Peter! He’s the guy that blew it. And now he recognizes, just as Jesus promised him, “You’re going to strengthen the brethren.”[8] He’s honest about his own life, and he testifies to others. He says, “You and me together, we’re not going to be ashamed anymore in the experience of suffering which comes.”

You see, think about it: if you live on a street in Rome, and you’re going about your business, and you’re going for the newspaper, and your next-door neighbor says hello to you and everything, and you—just a fine, upstanding member of the community—and you wave as you walk your dog, and all that kind of stuff… And then all of a sudden, your neighbor is out for their morning walk, and they see and they hear all this hullabaloo going on at your front door. And so they start to walk slowly, and as the front door comes into gaze, they see you being dragged away in chains. And they scratch their heads and say, “But isn’t that Mr. X, the fine upstanding man that walks his dog and gets the Roman Gazette with me, usually at the weekends?”

And the Christians, you see, were in their house, and Caesar was saying, “I want you to worship me,” and Nero was saying, “I want you to worship me,” and the father would have family devotions with his wife and with his children, and he would say to them, “We’re not going to worship Nero.”

“But, Daddy, what if they come and drag us away in chains? What will we do then?”

“Well, we won’t be ashamed.”

You see, the reason some of us are so lacking in the experience of cutting ice for Jesus Christ is because we’re so afraid of being ashamed. We’re so trapped by being acceptable and accepted. We’ll never know it. “Do[n’t] be ashamed.”

Thirdly, we’re to “praise God” that we “bear [his] name.” That’s also in verse 16. Instead of being ashamed, “praise God that you bear [his] name.” If you want a cross-reference with this, go to Acts chapter 5. It’s a great story. Read it for yourselves. You know how the apostles have been doing their thing, and they start to get persecuted. Indeed, in Acts 5:17—you should turn to this and just look at it. Acts 5:17: “The Sadducees” were “filled with jealousy.” And so in verse 18, “they arrested the apostles,” and they “put them in the public jail.” God says, “That’s not my plan.” So in verse 19, he takes them out of the public jail by means of an angel. And having got them out, he doesn’t want them just to stand around, so he says in verse 20, “Go, stand in the temple courts, … and tell the people the full message of this new life.”

Incidentally, if you want a model for your group or for your ministry or for a church, here’s a tremendous one: “Tell the people the full message of this new life.” What is the church supposed to do? It’s supposed to do Acts 5:20. That’s our mandate. And so they begin to do that. And, of course, what we expect is that they get hauled in again as the word reaches the leaders that they are up to their tricks. And they grab ahold of them—verse 28—and they say, “Hey, listen, guys, we told you not to teach in the name of Jesus anymore.”[9] “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”[10] Answer, verse 29: “We must obey God rather than men!” Verse 33: they’re furious, they want to put them to death, Pharisee by the name of Gamaliel intercedes on their behalf, and so they end up and they just get a flogging. Verse 40: so they flog them, and “they [order] them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.” And verse 41: “[And] the apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for [his] Name.”

God is in control. He’s a faithful Creator.

So how do we react to the painful trial? We react to it by rejoicing that we may participate in his sufferings; secondly, by not giving way to shame; thirdly, by praising God; fourthly, by committing ourselves to our faithful Creator. That’s verse 19: “Those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator.” Bob mentioned this in his opening prayer this morning, and it is such a tremendous two-word phrase, is it not? “Faithful Creator.” It would be one thing to have a Creator who created the world and then let it go, but to have a Creator who is faithful to his creation, who continues to follow you up…

You know, if you have a car, and you have the privilege of getting a new car, they might put you in one of those clubs. And as long as you’re in their club, whether it’s for twenty-four months or thirty-six months or whatever it is, they’re real nice to you. They send you little cards. (The computer prints them out, but it’s still nice to get mail every so often.) They service your car, and they put a little sticker on the windshield, and you know when you’re coming back. But let me tell you one thing: when it reaches month twenty-four and your little club membership blows out the door, you may just as well blow out the door. You’re history books.

And some people think God operates like that, but he doesn’t. Springtime and harvest, they’ll never fail. God’ll never again flood the world.[11] The world today is held in his hand. Why is it not obliterated? Because God has not decided that that would be so. Why does the continental divide continue to work in the continental United States so that the rivers go east when they should and west when they should? ’Cause God keeps his hand on it. Why are we not burned up by the sun? Because God put us exactly where he wanted us. Why haven’t we turned into a Venus as a result of some great warming of the earth? Because God said it won’t happen. Why are we not in another ice age according to some scientific jargon on the TV? Because God is in control. He’s a faithful Creator.

And guess what? He even knows when sparrows fall on the ground. “And,” says Jesus in Matthew [10], “if he knows when the sparrows hit the deck, do you not think he understands about you?”[12] See, the temptation is that as soon as we start to hit the big waves, we believe that God went to sleep on the deck[13]—that somehow, he took his hands off the controls. “No, no,” says Peter. “In the experience of it, make sure that you recognize and commit yourself to a faithful creator God.”

And fifthly, we should continue to do good. That’s at verse 19 also. You see, when trials come, they may bring with them a sense of paralysis, perhaps born of a resentment against God or a resentment against someone who has harmed us. And when that resentment takes root in a person’s heart, it very often paralyzes us from doing anything worthwhile at all. And Peter says, “When the trials hit you, make sure that you continue to commit yourself to your faithful Creator and that you continue to do good.”

Those are five things, not six things as I initially mentioned. I can’t count. When I go from A to E, I don’t know how many that is. I thought it was six, but I guess it’s only five. All right? So, that was the second main heading. What are we supposed to do when these trials come? How do we react to them?

What Trials Bring with Them

Thirdly, what should we expect our experience of trials to bring? When trials come into our lives, what should we expect along with them?

Well, first of all, verse 14: we should expect present blessing. “If you are insulted because of the name of the name of Christ, you are blessed.” Peter is continually driving home this thought: that to suffer reproach for Jesus’ sake is not a misfortune to be resented in self-pity, but rather, it is a privilege for which to thank God and in which God will manifest his blessing. Indeed, the way he describes it is he says that “the Spirit of glory and [the Spirit] of God rests on you.” We don’t have time this morning to go back into the Old Testament, but if you take the book of Exodus, for example, you will find that again and again you see this manifestation of God’s glory coming down upon the presence of his people—first of all in the tabernacle in the wilderness, and then as we go on into the temple, and God meets with his people there. He meets with Moses on the mountain, and his shekinah glory is manifested. That’s why Moses came down from the mountain, and it says that “his face shone” and he “wist not.”[14] He didn’t know that he had such a shiny face. He had been in the presence of God, and his glory had been revealed to him.

“Now,” says Peter, “when you suffer for the sake of Jesus Christ, the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.” Now, just think about this for a moment. Why do you think it was that at the end of Acts 6, as Luke records it, he says that when the people were stoning Stephen and driving him out of this life, they looked at his face, and they were infuriated because “they saw that his face was like the face of an angel”?[15] How can you have a face like an angel as people drive great rocks into your body and drive you into oblivion? Unless this is true: that in that experience, the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. Surely that is the only explanation of Paul himself—2 Corinthians [6] and elsewhere, where he talks about all of his experiences of pain.[16] And yet, through it all, there’s a dimension to his life that cannot be explained in purely natural terms. Nor should we ever seek to explain it in natural terms. It’s the Spirit of glory and of God!

How do you read of the persecution in the past? How do you read of the Reformation, both in Britain and elsewhere, and all the heinous things that took place? Tell me how you read the story of Corrie ten Boom and read about those people in those horrible circumstances and listen to the testimony of faith of Corrie ten Boom? What is the answer to it? It’s right here in this little phrase: “If you are insulted because of the name of [Jesus] Christ, you are blessed,” and the source of blessing is this: that “the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.”

One day, the whole universe will see and acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord. And we will be a part of that celebration.

I don’t know about you, but when I look at somebody who is in the midst of a severe trial, and I walk away from it, I say to myself, “I know I could never be like that man,” “I know I’ll never be able to be like this lady,” “I know I do not have it in myself to face that circumstance with such an amazing display of character and of faith.” And the answer to that is: “Alistair, you’re probably absolutely right. And it is only going to be that in that experience, the Spirit of glory and of God may come to rest upon you, and that’s where you get the strength.”

So we experience present blessing, and we will experience future glory. You still with me? These trials are not abnormal. Well, how should we react? In the way we’ve just said. If we experience them, what goes along with it? One, present blessing; two, future glory. Verse 13: “Rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ,” present tense, “so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” Consider 1:7: “These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, [and] glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

In other words, get the big picture. You know when you’re travelling and you get that map by McNally, or Rand, or whoever that man’s name is, and you get these states—I mean, these states are as big as countries where I come from, for a start! And if you don’t pay careful attention to the scale, you can think you’re just burning up the universe as you drive along, until you open up to the front of the complete atlas and you see the small in relation to the whole. And you say, “Hey, we got a lot further to go than ever we realized.”

And what Peter is saying is this: “Loved ones, in the immediacy of trial, try, as God enables you, to get the big picture. And realize this: one day, the whole universe will see and acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord. And we will be a part of that celebration.” It’s very hard to get our heads around, is it not? I mean, one day God will pull back the curtains—like this, only, you know, really huge. I mean, they’ll never be able to cover it on CNN. Dan Rather won’t be able to go anywhere to cover it. He’ll be… I don’t care if he’s in Paris on his holidays or wherever he is, he’ll not be able to scarper anywhere fast enough. And he won’t need to, because somehow God will work it out, and he’ll pull the curtains back, and he will manifest before the whole world that Jesus Christ is Lord, and the believers who were experiencing the trials here in AD 60 and on will be found to be part of that phenomenal celebration.

And when our hearts grip us with fear, when we look at the eventualities of life, when our friends go down on us, when we feel ourselves to be all alone, we don’t look around and say, “There are people worse off than us.” I’ve never thought that to be a great help, have you? You know, you stub your toe, and somebody says, “Well, don’t worry about it. George broke his toe.” Well, so what possible help is that to George or to me? That’s not Christian thinking, and yet you hear it all the time. Go in the hospital wards: “Well, gee, you should have been with me up on the fifth floor, man. You see the guys up there, that’ll put a smile on your face.” Why? That might make the guy feel worse to know there’s people worse off two floors up! The only thing that will put a smile on our face is to have God show us the big picture. Huge picture! Crowns and streets of gold and glory! No more tears, no more pain, no more aggravation, no more lonely nights—no more nights![17]

A Suffering We Should Seek to Avoid

Well, we’d better wrap this up real fast. The fourth heading was “There Is a Suffering We Should Seek to Avoid.” Just in case we get the impression that we can go out and just stir up a good pot of suffering this week—“Let’s go out and suffer a bit, fellas!”—he says, “Okay, just before you start that nonsense, get verse 15 clear.” If you’re going to suffer, here’s why you’re not going to suffer: you’re not going to suffer “as a murderer or [as a] thief.”

Does that surprise you, incidentally? It should! Imagine he wrote the letter right to the Chapel—which he really has, in one sense. What he’s saying is this: “When you go out and suffer this week, don’t suffer because you’re stealing things.” Who, us? “Don’t suffer because you’re murdering people.” I mean, this was a class group of people that Peter was writing to. When he writes, “Don’t suffer as a murderer or as a thief or as a criminal of some other kind,” he’s writing to the guys who knew what he was talking about. He’s writing to jailbirds. He’s writing to people who weren’t living at a level whereby it was just an acceptable thing to live for Jesus Christ. He says, “Don’t get trapped.”

“Or,” he says, “as a meddler.” It’s an interesting word. It’s interesting he should even put it out. It’s the only time it’s used in the whole New Testament. Some people think that he even made it up. And what it means is this: don’t be involved in suffering which comes as a result of unwise and improper interference in other people’s lives. Don’t go sticking your nose into things and making people punch you on the nose. “You don’t have a mandate,” he says, “to do anything other than to proclaim the good news of life.” You don’t have a mandate to do anything other than to be salt and to be light, to do nothing other than to live for Jesus Christ. You don’t have a mandate to go up and down the street knocking on our people’s doors next door and checking on which cable channel they’re watching on their TV. Did you know that? We can’t expect them to understand the radical change that Jesus brings! So if we spend all our time going up and down the street telling them about their cable TV channels or who they’re going to vote for, they might assume that that’s what Christianity is all about. And then we’ll miss the opportunity to tell them what it is all about—namely, about the life-transforming power of Jesus Christ, who forgives of sins, who fills our lives by the Holy Spirit, who walks with us all our days, who gives to us peace in the midst of pain, and who prepares a home for us so that we can go and live with him forever. “We’ve a story to tell to the nations that [will] turn their hearts to the right.”[18]

What the Outcome Will Be

And is all this crucial? Yeah, it certainly is—because our fifth main heading involves verses 17 and 18, and we’ll need to return to it. But here in verses 17 and 18, twice he gives us a question to fuel our prayers and to channel our vision. And the question is this: If God begins to judge—which he says he’s going to do, and he promised that in Ezekiel 9:6, and he said he’d start at his church; he said he’d start at the sanctuary. You can look it up. So if God starts with those who love him, what in the world is going to happen to those who don’t? And if, he says, it is hard for a righteous person to be saved—namely, that, redeemed by Christ, we come through pain, and we come through trial, and we come through all of these experiences of life—here’s the question. In fact, here’s the million-dollar question: “What will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”

Now, loved ones, the answers that are given to that question today are manifold. Many people, even amongst Christian folks, are saying nothing’ll happen to them at all. When they die, it will be oblivion. When you’re dead, you’re dead. There’s nothing to be worried about. But the answer which the Bible gives is this—and I’ll read it, and we’ll close in prayer. And may these words solemnize our minds as we think about it. This is 2 Thessalonians 1:

God is just …. The Lord Jesus [will be] revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with [a] destruction [which never ends,] and [they will be] shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed.[19]

And Joshua said, “Choose you…” “Choose you this day whom [you] will serve.” You going to say with Joshua, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”?[20] Salvation now, even though it brings pain and fiery trial and persecution? Or do you want to go for ease now and dreadful judgment later?

Let us bow in a moment of prayer:

O God, we pray again, as we prayed at the beginning, that it may be the Spirit that teaches our hearts. Constrain us in these final moments in worship as we just bow in reflection, that we might lay hold upon you, that those of us who do not know you may reach out to you, moving from unbelief to faith, from fear to the reality of your presence. Bless those who are going through it today, Lord Jesus. What an example they are to us. Strengthen them, we pray. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

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[1] See John 16:13.

[2] See Matthew 10:16–25; John 15:19–20.

[3] Billy Joel, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (1989).

[4] Tacitus, Annals 15.44, quoted in William Barclay, The Letters of James and Peter, rev. ed., The Daily Study Bible (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976), 147.

[5] James 1:2–4 (paraphrased).

[6] Andraé Crouch, “Through It All” (1971).

[7] Phil Collins, “Another Day in Paradise” (1989). Lyrics lightly altered.

[8] Luke 22:32 (paraphrased).

[9] Acts 5:28 (paraphrased).

[10] Acts 5:28 (NIV 1984).

[11] See Genesis 8:22.

[12] Matthew 10:29–31 (paraphrased).

[13] See Matthew 8:23–27; Mark 4:35–41; Luke 8:22–25.

[14] Exodus 34:29 (KJV).

[15] Acts 6:15 (NIV 1984).

[16] See 1 Corinthians 6:3–10.

[17] See Revelation 2:10; 21:4, 21, 25.

[18] H. Ernest Nichol, “We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations” (1896).

[19] 1 Thessalonians 1:6–10 (NIV 1984).

[20] Joshua 24:15 (KJV).