Partakers of Christ’s Sufferings

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in 1 Peter chapter 4 tonight. 1 Peter chapter 4. Last Sunday night I talked to you about the church at Antioch where the believers were called Christians for the first time.

And some of the things that were going on in their congregation, in their community, in their world that led to that, that was not a name that they gave themselves, That was a name that the other people around them in the community looked at them, and not necessarily as a compliment, although I think they took it that way, looked at the church at Antioch and said, you’re just a bunch of Christ followers. And it got me curious about the few times in the Bible that it uses the word Christian. Because the whole Bible, as you’re well aware, the whole Bible is about how we’re supposed to live as a Christian.

either pointing us to salvation or pointing us to a life that pleases God after salvation. It’s all about being a Christian, but the Bible uses the word very few times. For as much as it talks about Christianity, it uses the word very few times.

There are three instances in the King James Version. And so over this week, I started looking at the other two to see what we could learn from these instances where the Bible talks about the word Christian and calls people Christians and what we could learn as we try to live as Christians and what it means to be a Christian. And as I looked in this passage in 1 Peter 4, where it uses the word again, I quickly realized that suffering is a big part of that.

And this week, as I was dealing with the stomach flu issues, Charla said, she asked me, what are you preaching on for Sunday night? I asked if I was ready with everything, ready to go. She said, what are you preaching on Sunday night?

And I said, suffering. And she said, well, I wonder where you got that from. But it was from looking at this passage on him talking about Peter writing to the early churches about what it meant to be a Christian, what it meant to be a Christ follower.

And I don’t think it’s by accident, I don’t think it’s by coincidence that the passage deals with suffering. Because Jesus promised us that in our world we would have trouble, that we would have trials. He promised us that there would be suffering, and yet that’s so opposite of what we’ve been ingrained to believe.

God, I’m one of yours. I should be walking on sunshine all the time. But we’re more inclined, I think, to have trouble as God’s people.

the devil doesn’t mess with his own children right? if you’re not doing anything for God the devil’s going to leave you alone as my mother is fond of pointing out to me when I start having the pity party moments of why this, why that well if you weren’t doing anything for God the devil would leave you alone we are guaranteed we are guaranteed to have trouble we’re guaranteed to have suffering in this life as believers but here is And here’s maybe, depending on how you look at it, an encouraging thought or sobering thought. And this thought occurred to me last night as Charlie and I were driving back from Holdenville, and we were talking, and I can’t remember what we were even talking about, but something to do with lostness.

And I remembered reading the quote, and I had to go look it up, so I made sure I would get it right. Randy Alcorn has written several Christian books. One of them is called Heaven.

And I’ve not read the book, but I’ve heard this quote several times. didn’t realize he’s the one who said it. He wrote, the best of life on earth is a glimpse of heaven.

The worst of life is a glimpse of hell. For Christians, this present life is the closest they will come to hell. For unbelievers, it is the closest they will come to heaven.

Now for us, for those of us who have trusted Christ, for those of us who have our eternal destiny secure in him. That’s a comforting thought that no matter how bad things get here, and they can be really awful sometimes, no matter how bad the world gets, this is the closest to hell we ever experience. And then the other side of that coin, that for the non-believer, this is the closest thing to heaven they ever experience.

And all sorts of thoughts went through my mind about the ugliness of this world. I like to watch documentaries. I love history and I like watching documentaries, even if they’re hard to watch, because I love learning stuff about history.

And while I was sick this week, I watched a bunch of them. I had nothing but time and Netflix. I watched a documentary on the evacuation of Saigon in 1975.

From the standpoint of the Americans, from the standpoint of the South Vietnamese, It was just awful. The pictures were unbelievable. And some of you all have seen some of the same video that they probably spliced together for this documentary.

I watched another documentary about the invasion of Phnom Penh in Cambodia by Pol Pot in 1975. And some of the things that led to the killing fields. I watched a documentary about Hiroshima and the aftermath of the atomic bomb.

And I know there’s debate in our country about whether it was right or wrong to drop the bomb. But whether you agree with it or not, some of the human casualties of the civilians, it was a hard thing to look at and hear the stories. And with all these thoughts swirling in my mind, I thought about all the suffering and all the ugliness and all the pain that we deal with in this world.

And there are so many people around the world that deal with things so much worse than we will ever face. and then the thought is there that this world with all that ugliness is the closest that many people will ever come to heaven. And Peter talks about that same concept here when he’s writing to the believers about what it means to be a Christian, what it means to suffer for Christ. We’re going to start in verse 12 of chapter 14.

He says, Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you. He was writing to people who were about to undergo severe persecution. He’s probably writing a couple of years before Nero really got going with his persecution as the Roman emperor.

And Nero was a bad man. There are stories, and I’ve said this from the pulpit before, maybe not here. I don’t know if these stories are true, but there are stories about the emperor Nero where he hated Christians so much, he would actually take Christians and impale them alive, soak them in pitch or tar, and set them on fire alive to use as torches on the way to the Colosseum.

I don’t know if those stories are true or not, but the fact that those stories were told and believed tells you something about the character of Nero, right? If I told people in town that Ken Jackson was lighting Christians on fire, nobody’s going to believe it, right? I hope not.

Now, nobody I’ve ever met would believe that Brother Ken was doing that. Because it’s so far out of character for him. But they said it about Nero and lots of people believed it.

So whether he did it or not, that tells you something about the brutality of the man’s character. And Peter’s writing to the Christians shortly before this and saying, you’re about to go through some severe persecution. When you get there, when you go through the, and he says, fiery trials.

Don’t think it’s strange. As though some strange think, why is this happening? Instead, he says in verse 13, but rejoice in as much as you are partakers in Christ’s sufferings.

He said instead, rejoice because you get to share in this suffering for the cause of Christ. Now, that’s a very easy thing to say, and it’s a very difficult thing to do. I can preach that to you tonight and say, rejoice when you suffer. Whether you’re suffering these fiery trials like these Christians under persecution in Nero’s Day, or whether you suffer lightly for your faith today.

Most of us, if we suffer for our faith in 2016 in America, will suffer very little. Thankfully, in our country, the stories of people being run out of business for their Christian beliefs, the stories of people being fired for their Christian beliefs, those are still the exception. Maybe not for long, but they’re still the exception.

But in our suffering, whether it’s great or small, the Bible teaches us to rejoice if we suffer for the cause of Christ because we’re sharing in those sufferings on his behalf. And as I say that, I want it to be very clear. I’m not saying that lightly as though, oh, it’s an easy thing to do.

I don’t want to suffer either. We don’t like suffering. If it was easy, we’d call it Disneyland instead of suffering.

I mean, it’s called suffering for a reason. But this is Peter’s advice to these believers. Rejoice.

That is a hard thing to do unless your spirit is in close fellowship with God, unless He’s working on you moment by moment and you’re responding to Him. It’s kind of like with thankfulness we’ve talked about on Wednesday nights. There are some circumstances I don’t want to give thanks for.

There are some things that I do not want to be thankful for and quite honestly probably shouldn’t be thankful for. But in every circumstance, there’s something to give thanks for. I may not give thanks to God for the circumstances I find myself in, But I can find something in those circumstances to be thankful for.

It’s the same thing here. I may not rejoice because, oh, this suffering is so much fun. Okay, we probably need to go see a doctor.

The suffering is fun. But in that suffering, we can find cause for rejoicing if we’re looking. Again, whether it’s big, whether it’s small, he tells us to count it a joy to be a partaker in Christ’s sufferings.

That when his glory shall be revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy. See, we all want to share in the glory of Christ’s coming, but we don’t want to share in the blame. Another documentary I watched while I was sick was about the trials at Nuremberg.

And one of the defendants, accepting his share of the responsibility, and the other Nazi leaders were saying, how dare he, and how dare he claim that we’re guilty? And the statement he made to the prosecutors was, oh yeah, nobody wants to accept blame for what happened in Hitler’s Germany, but if we’d won the war, everybody would be lining up for their share of the credit. And we see that in life, don’t we?

We all want a share of the glory, but we don’t want a share of the suffering. And so he says, suffer with Christ so that when his glory is revealed, you may be glad with exceeding joy. When the time comes that all things are set to right and you’ll see what it was all for, and you’ll be glad for what you walked with him through.

If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye. For the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you. On their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.

Verse 15 says, But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men’s matters. So what he’s saying here is, there may be times that we suffer, and it’s our own stinking fault. he says don’t don’t suffer as a murderer first of all don’t do those things as a thief a murderer, a busy body an evildoer, don’t do those things that are going to lead to the suffering but don’t go through and suffer those things and act like you’re doing something for the kingdom if you suffer because of your own bad choices he says there’s a difference here because there’s a suffering that we go through that is not our fault and a lot of times we see somebody that’s suffering or sometimes when it’s us suffering and we think, what did we do wrong?

What did I do wrong? Well, not always is suffering a consequence for our sin. Sometimes it’s a consequence of sin in the world.

We can suffer for the cause of Christ without having contributed anything to it. If I get punched out in town because I’m mouthy and lose some teeth, that’s on me. I don’t get any points in the kingdom for that.

but if I get punched out in town because they know I’m a Christian and they don’t like it, that’s a different story. We see the difference. We understand what the difference is here.

If any man suffer as a Christian, if any man suffers a Christian, what he’s talking about here is not, I suffer because, yes, I’m a Christian and my attitude is holier than thou. People don’t like me. I suffer.

What he’s talking about is suffering for the cause of Christ, suffering for the kingdom. If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed. If we suffer for our faith and we’re going through difficult times, there’s nothing for us to be ashamed about in that.

There’s no reason for us to feel ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf. Rather, let us glorify God because of what he’s doing in our lives. For the time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God.

This is a verse that I think of all the time and never can remember where it is. Seems like almost every story I tell out of the Old Testament, this passage comes to mind. And again, I can never remember where it is.

But the Bible says judgment must begin at the house of God. So many times we see God’s people suffering. We see it in the Old Testament.

We see, you know, in Sunday school this morning, I think the lesson left off right before the Israelites go and get defeated at Ai because of what Achan did. And yet God lets the pagan countries around them just get away with murder before he steps in. And the Israelites, one fool steps in and steals a couple things that aren’t his, and the entire Israelite army is defeated.

Now why is God so much harder on his own people? Because judgment must begin at the house of God. If God’s people don’t have a clear conscience before him, if God’s people aren’t walking with him, how can we ever confront the sin of the world?

and that goes back to that old saying about people in glass houses we’ve got to have our own house cleaned up before we deal with the houses outside let him not be ashamed let him glorify God for the time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God there’s a time there’s an element in which our suffering is God pruning us and preparing us he’s not necessarily always a punishment sometimes he’s helping focus our priorities. Sometimes he’s helping clean up things in our lives that don’t belong there so we can focus on what he really wants us to do. Judgment must first begin at the house of God, and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel?

So he’s talking about God’s people going through this time of pruning and preparation as they suffer, and to glorify God because they’re not just going through meaningless suffering, it’s for the kingdom, and God always has a purpose in it, even if we don’t see what it is. And then he turns to the world outside and says, if we who have believed, if we who have obeyed the gospel and have received Christ, if we go through these times of suffering as God molds us and prunes us and prepares us, if we go through these times of suffering, he says that how much harder is the suffering going to be for those who have not obeyed the gospel. What shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel?

He’s asking the question here for them. For these believers who were about to go through a time of persecution, what does the end of everything look like for the people who are not believers? The ones who may not go through this persecution for Christ with you, the ones who may prosper in this world, what does the end look like for them?

And the reason he’s asking this question is to get them to realize when we go through suffering, it’s not about sitting and having the pity party. It’s about using that suffering for something good. And he wants the people to understand.

He wants them to be compelled to do something about those who have not obeyed the gospel. He says, and if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear? And he’s saying, if the righteous, if those who trusted Christ just barely make it through the judgment.

And I don’t know that we do barely just make it through the judgment. I think he’s putting out a hypothetical here. And we’d say, if we just make it through by the skin of our teeth, and really it’s not the skin of our teeth.

God’s grace is abundant. But we can look back and say, I didn’t make it through anything I did. I am glad that God stepped in and did this for me.

Can you believe I made it through that? If the righteous barely make it through, if the righteous are scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear. What are things going to be like for those who don’t know God?

Wherefore, let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing as unto a faithful creator. He said, so when you suffer, when you suffer as believers, trust God. Trust that God’s got a plan in it.

Trust that God’s got a purpose for it. And that actually, you know, nobody wants to go through the suffering, but we all want to be part of the glory. we all want to be part of the joy that’s going to take place on the other side he said so just trust God even as you go through this suffering trust God to handle it trust God to get you through it trust God to have a reason for it but meanwhile don’t sit there and have a pity party when you could be thinking about the others who are not going through this suffering and what they’re going to suffer down the road and this is where that quote from the beginning comes in that for the Christian this is the closest thing to hell we will ever have to experience and as awful as this world is sometimes, it is nothing like the description that the Bible gives of hell.

Nothing like it. Where the fire is never extinguished, where the worm never dies, it’s a place of unending suffering. And so as bad as the world can be sometimes, this is the worst we ever have to face.

But he says as bad as the world is, for some people, this is the best they’ll ever know. This is the best they’ll ever know. And so that contrast is put there for these believers as they’re going through persecution.

Saying, don’t forget about the non-believers. Don’t be so beaten down in the persecution either that you forget about the non-believers. When we are suffering, again, whether we’re suffering just pain and heartache, whether we’re suffering things like believers around the world, there are still countries today where they are locking people up for being Christians.

There are still Christians in the world tonight who are being flogged, who are being burned, are being tormented. There are people seriously suffering for their faith. And so whatever it is we’re suffering, whether we’re suffering big things or little things, don’t forget the need to share the gospel with people.

Because as you’re going through that suffering, think about this suffering that this is all it is. And this suffering I’m going through will end one day. How much worse is the suffering for the non-believer?

How much worse is that suffering and that trial? And how much worse is it going to be that it never ends? It was designed to get them to not be selfish, but to think about other people in their suffering.

And I realize that is a hard thing to do. When you feel like your world is being knocked out from under you, the last thing you want to do is think about how can I help someone else? But it’s a reminder to them that we’re not as bad off as we think.

Whatever the suffering is, we’re not as bad off as we think because our suffering here will end. And then we experience eternity with Christ. And so while we mourn over our suffering and we think how awful it is, think about the suffering of those who don’t know him. And we need to give them the opportunity to hear.

Folks, as Christians, suffering is just part of the job description. I don’t like it any more than you do. Again, I know I’ve said that already.

I don’t like to suffer. I’d rather not do it. Anybody else with me in that?

I don’t want to do it, but it’s part of the job description. And even at that, I think about some of the things that other Christians go through in this world. And then I look at the things that I whine to God about.

And I know God is loving and patient, but I imagine sometimes God sits up there and says, really? I don’t know that he does, but that’s what I would do. Really?

You’re bringing that to me? I whine so much. And that’s exactly what.

. . Or I let it depress me.

And it’s people like me that Peter’s writing to. It’s people like me that Peter’s writing to and saying, whatever you’re about to go through, use it for the kingdom. Let it make you a better Christian.

Let it strengthen your faith in God. Let it strengthen your resolve to share the hope of the gospel with other people. I’ve got points we’re not going to get to tonight.

I’m going to leave you with that thought. I’m going to leave you with that thought. When we suffer, whether it’s something horrendous like the persecution of believers in other countries or whether it’s one of the relatively small but very real sufferings that we go through.

Don’t let it defeat you. Don’t let it depress you. Don’t let it make you selfish.

Use it for the kingdom. Use it to strengthen your faith in God and use it to strengthen your resolve to tell others about the hope that we have in Jesus Christ.

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