I thought tonight we might look in 1
Peter chapter 1, the next reading is verse
3 of 1 Peter chapter 1, Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who according to his abundant mercy hath
forgotten us again unto a living hope of
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that
faith is not away, reserved in heaven for
you, who are kept by the power of
God through faith unto salvation, ready to be
revealed in the last time.
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for
a season, if need be you are in
heaven through manifold trials, that the trial of
your faith, being much more precious than of
gold that perishes, though it be tried with
fire, might be found under praise and honor
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ,
whom having not seen you love, in whom
though now you see him not, yet believing
you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of
glory, receiving the end of your faith, even
the salvation of your souls.
Now, in chapter 2, verse 21, for even
here unto where you call, because Christ also
suffered for us, leaving us an example that
you should follow his step, who did no
sin, neither was guile found in his mouth,
who when he was reviled, reviled not again.
When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed
himself to him that judges righteously, who his
own self bore our sins in his own
body on the tree, that we being dead
to sin should live unto righteousness by whose
stripes you were healed.
For ye were a sheep going astray, but
are now returned unto the shepherds and bishops
of your souls.
There's a subject here that perhaps is not
one that we like to think in terms
of it applying to us, because it's an
unpleasant subject.
It concerns itself with suffering, trial and testing
in Christian life.
There's a title given to the Lord Jesus
Christ in the 50s.
He is the man of sorrow and acquainted
with grief.
I don't know how many times in the
course of your life you've used this expression,
good grief.
But what is there good about grief?
Well, perhaps it's the way that we look
at it.
If we look at it through the eyes
of God, and from God's viewpoint, much can
be accomplished through grief in our lives.
Paul, the writer of Romans, says, Tribulation worketh
faithfully.
There's so much that can be developed in
the way of Christian character and maturity in
the Christian life if we know how to
handle grief and suffering.
I suppose you've heard that it will usually
serve one of two purposes.
It will make us better, or it will
make us bitter.
And I have in the course of my
Christian life met Christians that were embittered because
of very unpleasant circumstances in their lives.
Unfortunately, they blamed God for it.
Closer examination would reveal it was their own
fault.
And Peter could tell us, if you suffer
for righteousness' sake, that's great.
That's great.
You do it patiently, you know how to
endure, you know how to handle it, you
know how to have the right attitude toward
it, and that's great.
But if you suffer when you've done wrong,
and you gripe about it, and you complain
about it, you know there's no glory for
God in that.
And there may be, but there are many
of God's dear people today that many of
the unfortunate circumstances in their lives are the
result of disobedience and a failure to obey
God's word.
Because God does chasten his own children.
The chastening of the Lord, when it comes,
is not pleasant.
But we bring it upon ourselves.
God is a just God.
He is a righteous God.
He doesn't inflict us with things that are
unpleasant just for the sake of seeing us
squirm like some worm that is in the
fire.
That's not the purpose at all.
Our God, when he permits trial and difficulty
to touch our lives, he has a purpose
for us.
What we need to do is to be
reconciled to his will be done.
In the course of what we have to
say, we will, of course, refer to several
examples, some of them human.
And there are many Christians that have borne
a good testimony in suffering.
There are others, unfortunately, that have not.
But we have one supreme example of suffering
set before us in the word of God
that, indeed, is above all others, and that
is the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Peter, I believe, wrote out of
his own experiences concerning suffering.
I thank Paul for the experiences that he
shares with us concerning suffering and trial.
It wasn't with a view that he would,
in a sense, attract attention to himself and
say, Look how much I suffered.
The sharing experience was one in which he
trusted that others would be encouraged to know
what he had written.
God doesn't allow us to be tempted or
tested beyond that which we are able to
bear, and he always provides a way of
escape.
So when we adopt the right attitude toward
difficulties that touch our lives, it can be
a blessing to us.
If we are only ready to grumble and
complain, it'll certainly not be a blessing to
us, and we won't be a blessing to
anyone else, and God will get no glory
from us.
So it's so important in the Christian life
that we know how to handle grief and
suffering.
I'm one of those people that had a
misconception of what the Christian life was like
after I was saved.
I said, Well, I'll never have any more
problems in this life.
Everything has been solved.
It's going to be beautiful.
It's just going to be a lovely primrose
path all the way to glory.
How wrong I was.
It didn't take long before things happened in
my life that I didn't understand, but they
served a purpose.
One thing for sure, Peter can remind us
that these things are seasonal.
They're just a part of this life.
None of the things that distress us now
will follow us home to Heaven, praise God
for that.
There will be no distressing things happening in
Heaven.
There'll be no tears in Heaven.
There'll be no death in Heaven.
There'll be no sorrow.
There'll be no pain and suffering.
All of these things are a part of
our humanity.
They're a part of this life.
We live in a world that is under
the curse of sin, the whole creation groaning.
I read that a lady somewhere reported to
a local newspaper that she had a tree
in her yard that was groaning.
It was groaning, and they had put a
pipe or something down in the ground next
to the roots of this tree, and sure
enough, you could put your ear there and
you could hear groans coming out of the
ground around the roots of that tree.
You're charging fifty cents to listen to those
groans.
But if the whole creation groaneth, certainly it
reminds us of the curse that is imposed
upon everything that dwells upon the face of
the earth.
And we are part of this creation.
We are the redeemed of the Lord as
Christians, men and women, but we are not
excused from being a part of a divine
plan and purpose that God has, and suffering
and sadness in this life play a very
important part.
If you find someone and they've escaped all
of the unpleasant things that beset men and
women in this life, I'd like to look
at that life.
I'd like to see it.
I've seen those that have suffered great privation
and suffering and been victorious, and that indeed
is something that rejoices a soul.
But to see someone that professes to be
a Christian and he can say honestly, I've
never had anything unpleasant touch my life, I'd
like to look at that life.
I believe there's something wrong, because I believe,
as I said before, Christian character and maturity
are best developed sometimes in the experience of
trial and testing.
And Peter could remind us that I believe
that there is a way that this is
accomplished through trial and suffering.
He takes a very simple illustration from life,
and I reminded a brother one time that
I wondered about this business of purifying gold
and bringing forth the purest gold that was
possible.
And he reminded me that there were a
lot of factors involved in accomplishing that.
He said, you know, too much heat is
bad for the gold when it's in the
smelter's pot.
Too little heat is not good either.
You must know just the right amount of
heat to apply to that gold to refine
it so that it comes out pure gold.
All of the dross, all of the slag
that's been taken away, all of the impurities
of this world are removed from that gold,
and it's made into something that is beautiful
and useful.
Well, isn't it wonderful to know that our
lives are in the hands of a God
that knows just how much fire, how much
testing and trial to apply to these lives
of ours to bring forth something that is
beautiful and for the glory of God?
Beloved, we're in safe hands.
Our God makes no mistakes.
And those things that at the time may
seem to be ever so difficult to bear,
the apostle Paul says, he gives you the
grace that's sufficient to bear it.
There was a man that, out of his
own experience, did not like suffering and trial.
And he cried out to God on at
least three occasions, take away that thorn in
my flesh.
Because he could see, it was revealed to
him that this messenger of Satan was sent
to buffet him.
And he didn't like it.
And you don't like it, and I don't
like it when we're tried and tested in
such a way that life becomes miserable and
unpleasant.
We don't like it, but we learn to
adjust our will to his will and his
way.
The Lord Jesus Christ looked forward to that
cross with full awareness that for that hour
came he into the world.
But I recall that in the Garden of
Gethsemane, when he sweat as it were great
drops of blood falling down to the ground,
he knew what was in that cup.
He knew what was in that cup and
the bitterness of all that cup represented to
him.
And he would be made sin for us,
he that knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him.
And you know, that holy, righteous soul is
shrank back.
It's shrank back from the thought of being
made sin for us.
Now, you and I, we know what sin
is.
It has touched our lives, because all have
sinned.
Many of us have felt very comfortable with
sin.
So often, even today, as believers in the
Lord Jesus, we sometimes feel very comfortable in
situations that are so unlike our God, and
certainly don't represent holiness and righteousness.
But the Lord Jesus Christ, in the holiness
of his own soul, he that knew no
sin, sin to him was something that was
repulsive.
And he knew that he was going to
be made sin for us, and he shrank
back from it.
And I'm not saying for a moment that
we cry unto God, O sin, trial and
testing into my life.
Use it as fire to purify me and
to make me into something that's beautiful, for
your glory and honor.
I'm not going to pray that prayer.
I think we all aspire to be more
and more like the Lord Jesus.
And perhaps we have to admit the two
go hand in hand, that if we're going
to be like him, we'll have to be
subjective to many of those things that are
not pleasant in this life.
The Apostle Paul would take his life, and
certainly he was a man that suffered, and
in writing to the Corinthian church, he could
say, this life afflicts us.
Mind you, he was a man that had
been subjected to all sorts of humiliation in
this life.
He was a man that had been beaten
because of his testimony for the Lord Jesus,
the stand that he took.
He had fought wild beasts, all sorts of
indignities he had suffered at the hands of
other men.
He said, you know, but this light affliction
in this life, what we're experiencing here, just
light affliction, is not worthy to be compared
to the glory that will be ours by
and by.
I often think about it, will we reflect
when we get home to glory, looking back
upon this life, and perhaps laugh about how
seriously sometimes we took some of these things,
we felt so rejected, we felt so fearful?
We'd probably be ashamed of the way we
reacted in some of those situations.
I think the secret can be found in
the words of the psalm, in Psalm 23,
Yea, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no
evil.
Why?
Because I know you're with me.
And we'll never walk along this pathway, no
matter how difficult it is, that we need
ever forget someone has already been that pathway,
and that's the Lord Jesus.
He's already been there.
He's already experienced that.
And he is a Savior that is touched
with the feeling of our infirmity.
He knows our flame.
He knows that we're made of dust.
He knows how sensitive we are sometimes to
these things that are so unpleasant.
He knows all about it.
I will never leave you, nor forsake you.
I am with you in that circumstance of
life.
Those that are bound as if I was
bound with them, says the writer to Hebrews.
Those that suffer trial and persecution, I relate
to that experience.
So he is touched with the feeling of
our infirmity.
There's another expression that goes, Life is made
up of ups and downs.
I think it's the comic strip Peanut.
Lucy says, I want all of mine to
be uppers.
I don't want any downs.
And that's the way we feel, too.
We want every day to be a day
in which we're up and on top of
the world, the situation.
We have to admit, some days we're just
down, and we seem depressed, and the circumstances
of life seem to overwhelm us.
But we're warned that we're not to live
under our circumstances.
We're to be above those circumstances, because we're
pictured in the Scriptures as being more than
comforts for him that loved us and gave
himself for us.
You would think, with the warnings that we
have in the word of God and the
Lord Jesus Christ, that I'm going to leave
you my peace.
But in this world, you're going to have
tribulation.
But you be of good cheer, I've overcome
this world.
Now, why should we expect anything less from
a world that is rejecting the Son of
God, a world that crucified the Lord of
glory?
Why should we expect anything less?
When we identify ourselves with him, a protestant
testimony for the Lord Jesus in a dark
world, it will probably bring the same reaction
from the world that it brought toward him
while he was here.
Yet we act surprised.
Peter says in the same epistle, Do you
think it so strange that these fiery, fiery
experiences in life, things that are so unpleasant,
things that burn, things that scorch, things that
steal the flight and bring pain and suffering
and anguish?
Why do you think it's such a strange
thing that this is happening to you?
Well, it shocked me.
I must have been like Peter at the
outset.
I thought that it had resolved all of
the problems that I would have in this
life.
But I soon discovered that problems, trial and
testing, have a place.
But Peter gives to us the perfect example
for suffering, and that is the person of
our Lord Jesus.
He left us an example that we should
follow in his steps.
If you want to follow someone and have
that perfect assurance you'll never be led astray,
never be deceived, you can faithfully follow the
Lord Jesus.
You can always with assurance say, I know
that if I walk in these footsteps, if
I walk by the example that he has
set, I'll have a life that is well
-pleasing to God.
We have to be careful in whose footsteps
we walk in, because sometimes there are those
that have a very bad example, and we
need to be warm.
Specifically, when I think about the cross, and
I would have us to go there and
think about the sufferings of the Lord Jesus.
This was an injustice.
He was falsely tried.
All of the accusations that were brought against
him by so many, they were false.
He was betrayed by someone very near to
him, and finally he was hung upon a
cross.
And out of all of the experience of
being treated so unjustly, he never reviled, he
never said one scathing word of rebuke that's
recorded in the Word of God against those
that were inflicting all of that hurt upon
him.
It indeed to me, is one of those
occasions when I just feel like saying, hallelujah,
what a savior.
When upon the cross, with that setting being
what it is, and all of the hatred,
all of the bitterness of those that were
inflicting hurt upon him, and they were taunting,
he saved others.
Let him save himself now.
He looks down, and he doesn't say, I'm
coming back again, and I'll get you when
I come back.
That seems so natural to me.
I'll get you for that.
I'll punish you for what you're doing to
me.
He says, Father, forgive them.
They don't know what they're doing.
Father, forgive them.
They don't know what they're doing.
Now, how often in the experience of this
life have we ever handled a situation in
which we were being persecuted?
Perhaps there were untrue charges made against us.
Someone was trying to slander us, or something
of that nature.
How did we respond?
How did we react?
I think that Peter and Paul, again, were
in perfect harmony.
Peter says in the third chapter that we're
not to render evil for evil, or railing
for railing.
You've heard people get in a shouting match,
and you could hear all of those things
going back and forth.
That wasn't true of the Lord Jesus, not
even upon the cross.
No doubt that those thieves that were hanging
upon the cross, when those fellows railed upon
them, when they abused them, I believe they
returned some very abusive language in their direction,
and told them in no uncertain terms if
I could get down from this cross.
You know, things would be different.
But Peter reminds us that we're not to
render evil for evil.
But on the contrary, blessing, knowing that your
calls are there, that you should inherit a
blessing.
Now, can a blessing come out of something
as unnatural as letting someone abuse me with
their tongue, and plan perhaps to do something
that would hurt me, and I don't return
that attack?
But you know, what Paul says when he
writes to the Romans, he says, You know,
your enemy, if he hungers feed him.
And he says, You know, all of those
nice things that you do to him, it's
like keeping coals afire from his head.
This is so unnatural for us to respond
in the way that our Lord Jesus responded
to this situation that he's found in.
We say, But that's the Son of God.
Peter says that's the example.
And the Word of God says that he
wants us to be conformed more and more
to the likeness, the image of the person
of the Lord Jesus.
We should be more Christ-like as a
result of the fire of trial, the testing,
everything that touches our lives.
When he was reviled, he reviled not again.
When he suffered, he threatened not.
He didn't say, I'll get you.
He said, Father, forgive them.
They don't know what they're doing.
But he committed himself to him that judges
righteously.
I think that's the problem.
You see, what we want to do is
take judgment into our own hands.
And judgment is with God.
God is really the only one that can
exact judgment and do it righteously.
So often men, they err in their judgment.
They make so many wrong judgments about things
in this life.
Are we able to say with confidence and
assurance, as the Lord Jesus did, I will
commit this matter into the hands of him
that judges righteously?
I'll let God be my vindicator.
And I won't assert myself, and I'll tell
you why, brother and sister in Christ, I've
seen Christians make fools out of themselves, because
they could not restrain themselves.
They didn't discipline themselves to react in a
way that would bring glory to God.
It matters sometimes that, indeed, the whole atmosphere
was filled with what they speak of as
flesh and fleshly activities, a response from the
natural man that would defend himself and his
rights, and not be able to adopt the
right attitude toward grief, trial and testing in
this life.
Now, Paul in Romans reminds us that if
we would do one thing, we wouldn't have
any problem in this area.
The Lord Jesus Christ, in his own body,
bears the penalty of our sins upon the
cross.
And in divine reckoning, when we receive the
Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, God reckons us
to have died with him.
You see, we're alive unto God, but dead
unto the world.
That's what God wants to achieve in our
lives, less and less of the response of
the natural man to situations in this life.
We are now new creatures in Christ Jesus.
Old things have passed away, behold, all things
have become new.
I tell you, a life that is lived
in complete commitment to God is like dynamite.
It is so unlike what we see in
the world today, when men are applauded for
being able to hold their own in so
many of these difficult situations in life.
Natural men in conflict with each other.
As Christians, you wonder, how can I survive
in a world that is at enmity with
God?
Well, the key to it, brother, is God's
on our side, and greater is he that
is in you than he that is in
the world.
That's the key to it.
It's not how much I can assert myself.
It's not how strong I am, how much
influence I have, or any of those things.
That's not for the glory of God.
Can I trust my God?
Do I trust my God with this real
life of mine?
And look at this example, the one that
gave us an example that is perfect, and
said, God, by the grace that you provide,
I'm going to adopt an attitude of Christ
-likeness toward suffering, trial, and testing in this
life.
Lord, I'm not saying I like it, but
give me the grace to keep from murmuring.
And when suffering comes, and it's from an
outside source, others would inflict hurt upon me.
Lord, help me to be like my Savior,
who when he's reviled, he reviled not again.
When he suffered, he threatened not.
Let me have a Christ-like attitude toward
suffering and trial in this life that others
might be able to see.
Let it be a testimony for God, the
one that truly can judge righteously.
It's still a matter of being able to
submit ourselves completely unto his care.
Can he be trusted?
Well, of course he can.
The one that saved our souls is going
to take us all the way home to
glory.
I am persuaded that he is able to
keep that which I have committed unto him
against that day.
He's not going to let me down, even
though I let him down.
And he'll never deny me, even though perhaps
in the course of our lives we deny
him many times.
He is faithful.
Let us appropriate and claim that faithfulness for
our lives as believers in the Lord Jesus,
that others may be able to take into
account we have been with the Lord Jesus
Christ.
I think of the account in the book
of Acts when Peter and John and the
others, so often when they had been in
the presence of the Lord Jesus, and all
that radiant glory and beauty that had marked
their lives because of his presence, others could
take into account they'd been with Jesus Christ.
They'd been with Jesus Christ.
Do people ever detect that about us?
Are they able to say with certainty, I
know that man, that woman, they've been with
Jesus Christ.
I've heard about Jesus Christ.
Those people live like Jesus Christ would have
them to live.
They are good examples.
They are reflecting the glory and the image
of the Son of God in their lives.
That's a good testimony.
That's a good witness.
God would have us to do that every
day of our lives.
It's not easy.
It's one of the difficult things that we're
faced with in Scripture.
It's one of those things that demands something
of us.
It involves unpleasantness.
It involves sacrifice.
Paul says, "...present your bodies as a living
sacrifice unto God."
That's just your reasonable service.
It's not a dead sacrifice, a living sacrifice.
We may be called upon to die for
our testimony as Christians, but we're prepared to
live sacrificially for God and our Savior.
It will involve putting into practice some of
the things that Peter has shared with us,
the example of our Savior, the trial, the
testing of this life like fire.
It will purify, it will refine these lives
of ours and make us more Christ-like.
But we'll have to be willing and subjective
to his will and his way.
Shall we pray?
Our Father in Heaven, we bow in thy
presence tonight and thank thee for the time
spent together today in fellowship with thy dear
people.
We thank thee for thy holy word and
for the one that he tells us of,
your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
For those moments spent around the table here
in this room, remembering him.
O our God, those moments were filled with
so much that moved our hearts and brought
forth adoration and praise for the Lord Jesus.
We thank thee for that opportunity, for this
time of sharing, for this time spent over
the word of God, for these reminders of
what we can do with these lives of
ours in a very positive way, that we
can indeed be a testimony that brings glory
and honor to the name of our Savior.
Frankly, we pray to you that we shall
be obedient to thy word and seek to
bring glory and honor to the name of
our Savior.
For this we ask in his lovely name.
Amen.