Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 4:12-16
Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter
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Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles
Message: Suffering As a Christian and For Being One
Airdate: 10/29 -10/30/26
Programs: 2389 and 2390
We're talking about suffering today. Suffering is not a topic that we like to think about. That is until life hurts, and then it's all we think about. And we search for answers, and we try to put all of it together and to understand why and how these things are happening in our life. You may not be there right now, and maybe this message, isn't connecting with you right now.
Just wait. K? Just wait. I wonder how many people here right now are thinking this is not a relevant message, but next Sunday, you'll look back on it and say, that's exactly what I needed to hear. I had somebody come up to me after first service and essentially say that very thing to me.
And, so this is, this is relevant to everybody either right now or soon. And I shared with you last weekend my own, Jennifer and I, our own experience with some, trial, some hardship that we went through with an emergency situation with our two month old daughter, Madeleine. And, you know, it caught us by surprise. We were on a day trip up to Grand Rapids. I saw my alma mater.
We, saw some friends. We were having dinner in a very hospitable home when, all of a sudden, everything changed. And the medical doctor wife, in that home took a look at our daughter and said, you need to get her to urgent care right now. And in Grand Rapids, they have a a very famous children's hospital, and, we wondered if we should go there. She said, you don't have time to get her there.
You gotta get her to urgent care. You ever have a moment like that in your life when all of a sudden that sort of normal nice day that you were experiencing is suddenly turned upside down, and God has on your doorstep a trial. Pain has entered into your experience. That was what it was for us. And, it seems like they always come during happy times, don't they?
Like, for me, if it's raining, it might as well pour. Right? So I'd rather have that on a day when it's already kind of, you know, not so good. But it's that vacation day. It's the sunny day.
It's the beautiful day when all of a sudden, wham, here it comes. And, honestly, I was a little leery even going into that week because I knew the next text in first Peter that we were gonna be talking about is on suffering. And I kinda had in my heart sort of I was a little uneasy because over the years, I've noticed it's uncanny how my life parallels whatever the text is that we're studying. So I was like, oh, no. What's gonna happen?
And then it happens. So I've decided from now on, I'm only preaching on happy verses. K? It's all we're gonna study here because enough with the pain. And let's be honest.
All too often, life does hurt, doesn't it? In fact, right now, if we could just allow this room to talk, if the hearts in this room could talk, what we would hear that's going on right here in this room right now. As Wiersbe said, if you treat one hundred percent of the people, as if they're going through a major trial in their life, you'll be right eighty percent of the time. And, how true that is. Life is filled with pain and hurting and trials.
And the apostle Peter is writing to a group of Christians who are suffering. They're going through all the normal aches and pains of suffering in a normal sort of broken world experience. And then on top of that, they were going through suffering that came to them because they were Christians. They were suffering persecution. And so the title of this message and the text is really about suffering that comes to us as Christians and suffering that comes to us because we're Christians.
And we're gonna look at both of those today. You know, Peter, this is one of the main reasons he writes this letter. He knows what's going on with these people. He wants to encourage them. In fact, we saw in chapter one, he just, like, begins the letter with these words.
“In this, you rejoice, know now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Hear the theme there. Trials, fire, testing, praise, and glory. Peter picks that up again now in chapter four and he's he's a good pastor. You know, pastors realize that the way that the sheep get something is through repetition.
You say it over and over and over again. And he begins now to say kind of the same thing over again, but in a different way. And he wants us to realize that suffering is a part of what it means to be a Christian in a broken world. And suffering is at times something that it means to be a Christian because we're Christians as the world around us persecutes us. So let's get into the text.
We're studying verses 12 and following today. And, first of all, he talks about just plain old suffering as a Christian. 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 Christ's sufferings that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”
Okay, Peter. So how are we supposed to look at these trials and these pains in life? The first thing he says is don't be surprised. Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you. And Peter here talks about really our first reflex response when something happens in our life is what?
Shock. What? I didn't see this coming. This wasn't part of my plan. I didn't look ahead in the week and think this is what the week was going to entail.
We are surprised when suffering shows up on our doorstep. In fact, the Greek word here for surprise is in the Greek used for the response you have when an unexpected guest shows up. How do you respond when that sort of, like, friend from out of town suddenly is on your doorstep? You open the door, and what do we say in a moment like that? We say, what are you doing here?
Right? What are you doing here? Surprised that this person is here. What do we say when the trial shows up in our life often? What are you doing here?
You've made some mistake, pain. You want you meant to go to my neighbor's house next door. They don't go to church. They deserve it. Go over there.
Right? Pain next door, trial next door. You certainly be couldn't be coming to my house. Why are you here? We're surprised when suffering shows up.
We plan for success. We plan for pleasure. We plan for happiness. If you look at your calendars upcoming the next couple weeks, you've got you know, we're gonna go to the, County Line Orchard, and then we're going to Albany's, and then we're gonna know, we sort of plan for these sort of, like, fun excursions, and nobody plans for pain. Nobody puts that on the calendar.
We don't want it on our calendars. Now we should ask the question, why are we so surprised when trials come into our life? And I would submit to you, the reason is is that we pretend to think that we're still living in the Garden of Eden, or we somehow imagine that we've already arrived in heaven. Or to show it graphically here, it's very simple, but this is, I think, the way that many of us live. The Garden of Eden, there was a time when there was no suffering and no pain.
We're not there anymore, are we? There's coming a time when there will not be any pain and suffering. It's called heaven and the new Earth. We're not there yet, are we? Where do we live?
We live in this sort of land of in between and in this world that we are in, the Bible says that there is always going to be pain and suffering because of sin. Why do we suffer? We suffer because of sin, not necessarily because of our sin directly, although sometimes that is the case. We suffer in this world because sin through Adam and Eve entered into this place, and it is broken. Romans eight, it is groaning.
We live in a time in a in a in an era where this is what's normal. You know, you you if you if you live in the Midwest, it's gonna snow. You live in Chicago, it's gonna be windy. You live in a broken world with 7,000,000,000 other sinners, guess what's gonna happen? There is going to be suffering, And we need to expect it.
We ought not to be surprised when it shows up on our doorstep. This is what it means to live in a world where the wages of sin is death. We live in a world where everything is broken, and we're part of that brokenness. And the result of living around other sinful, selfish people is that pain and brokenness and betrayal and all these other things are a part of what it means to live in this world. And we just ought to, in a certain dis respect, expect it.
Do not be surprised when this happens, he says, first of all. Secondly, notice that there's a purpose in this pain. “Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, to test you.” Right there, we see that this pain is not random and chaotic. It's we don't live in a world where this is just all sort of happening.
There is a God who is sovereign over the pain and the suffering and is using that. It says here, the fiery trial to test us. Fire is often used in Scripture as a metaphor for the kinds of testings that God brings into our life. In fact, the word there here in Peter, same Greek word is used in, Luke for for Jesus himself in his fiery trials in the wilderness. You remember he went out, didn't eat for forty days, forty nights.
Satan came to him, and he entered into a time of testing. He was he was tempted to not trust God to meet his needs and to turn that stone into bread. He was tempted to dethrone God and bow to Satan, and he was tempted to test God by throwing himself down from the temple mound. And in each one of those testings, what happened? The real character of the Son of God came through, didn't it?
We found we find in Jesus that in his times of testing, that purity of heart, that willingness to obey the will of the Father, that absolute commitment to walking that Calvary Road, that path that God had put before him, remained there, and he remained steadfast in it. In other words, the trial revealed the incredible character of the Son of God and our testings reveal what is in our hearts. Unlike Jesus, we're not all perfect, are we? In fact, none of us are perfect And those trials bubble to the surface impurities like metal metallurgy. Is that how you say that?
The impurities of our hearts and our motives and the idols of our hearts, these all come to the surface. They test us. You know, if you could have seen into my heart, I think, when we were in the midst of some of our scary moments with Madeleine, you know what you would have found? I think you would have found faith, truly, but you would have found confusion and worry and anxiety. Where did those come from?
Did the trial produce those things? No, they revealed those things being in my heart. In ways that when everything's awesome, it doesn't happen, does it? Like, it's not hard to live by faith when everything is awesome. Maybe you're in a moment right now where genuinely everything in your life is awesome.
Congratulations. We're we're happy for you. Not really. K? I don't need faith when everything is awesome.
I need faith when everything is not awesome. And in those moments when I am having to lean on my heavenly Father, I am learning a lot about where my faith actually is. Is it in my, you know, these identities of my life, my money, my family, my you know, success or whatever it might be or do I have a faith that genuinely can lean on the Lord in my trials? In fact, they help me learn to do that. I remember during a few of our scary moments, I, you know, I I would I would run out and get carryout for for meals because if you don't die in the hospital, the hospital food will kill you.
Okay? So they delivered meals to us every day as part of, like, our insurance plan. And you look at it and you're like, that can't be good for me. Right? So I was running out and getting, meals.
And I remember I I I went to a restaurant to get a carryout, and and I looked in the restaurant. And here's all these people, and they're carefree, and they're relaxed. And and I remember thinking to myself, don't you people realize what's going on with my daughter? That was not a joke. K?
That wasn't a joke. I seriously looked at them and thought, how can you be this way when my daughter is suffering like she is? And I actually felt resentment in my heart at their sort of carefreeness when I'm going through what I'm going through. K. You ever have that kind of feeling, resenting the happiness of other people?
Where did that come from? Did the trial put that in me? No. It came from me. It's like the old ketchup bottle analogy.
What do you get when you squeeze ketchup? A ketchup bottle. You get you get ketchup. Right? You discover what's inside.
And the testings that God brings into our life reveal sometimes to the encouragement, but often to the, like, wow. I didn't know that was in me. I remember one comment I made in our time and out of frustration, I made this comment. I really wish I wouldn't have made the comment. Where did that come from?
My sick heart. And the trial showed it. “Beloved, do not be surprised when the fiery trial comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you.” Rather, he says, verse 13, “rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” Now, that could be a discouraging word if you're going through a trial.
The Bible says rejoice in it and honestly, this is one of these things that as Christians, we scratch our heads. You read James one. Right? Count it all joy when you fall into various trials and temptations. How many of us that is just the way that we respond, right?
Pain shows up on our doorstep. We're like, finally, you're here. Break out the band and let's rejoice. Pain has come to our house. We don't do that.
We don't do that. It's especially hard, I think, when we're suffering evil or we're suffering at the hands of evil people that are doing us wrong. Like, how how can I be glad about that, Peter and James? And he here makes an extraordinary statement that I think helps, and I want you to see what he says. Why should we rejoice as you share Christ's sufferings?
Now that doesn't mean that when we are suffering, somehow our sufferings are contributing to the redemptive sufferings of Jesus. It doesn't mean that we're like hanging on the cross with Jesus when we are suffering. But this is what it means. When we, by faith, endure trials, and we do so submitting to the will of our heavenly Father and do it by faith. That experience is the same experience that Jesus himself went through.
As he submitted himself to the will of the Father, as he endured injustice, as he endured all the things that he went through and did so trusting in his heavenly Father. My experience of doing that is like his experience of doing that. Now his is far greater. K? Ours is this.
His is this. But our this is the same as his this. And in that, then I am sharing in the very experience of the Son of God living in this broken world. And to that extent, I can rejoice in it. I can rejoice in it.
When I am in my Gethsemane and I can pray honestly in my heart, not my will, but your will be done, I'm understanding in a new way what Jesus went through in his Gethsemane. And it helps us to realize that I can relate to Jesus a little bit in that. The better news is that he can relate to us. He can relate to us. I remember, I was running to the van.
This is when we're in the house. I'm running to the van or going out again for to get food or whatever. And it was in one of those those heartache moments for us. K? And by I'm just sharing some stories out of my own experience in this, and there are people in this church who've gone through far worse things.
So I'm not exaggerating. I'm just sharing my personal experience. We were at Saint Anthony's Hospital, Catholic Hospital here in Crown Point, And I'm cruising through the lobby, and there they have this big crucifix. K? So cross, Jesus hanging on it.
I'm personally not a fan of Jesus hanging on cross crucifixes for reasons that I won't get into. But I was surprised as I was walking through there, and I looked at that crucifix. And I thought to myself, he knows what we're going through. And it was honestly an encouragement to me. He knows what he what we're going through.
The cross is God stepping into it's not God avoiding our pain. It's God stepping into our pain and experiencing our pain and dying for the cause of the pain and giving hope for the removal of the pain. And when we are in our painful moments, we look to Jesus, and we realize our savior understands what we're going through. The one that we pray to and the one who's in whose name we pray sympathizes with our weakness and our pain and can relate to us in it. And somehow, weirdly, I was blessed by the truth that I thought of as I saw that crucifix.
My suffering in a small way helps me relate to him, and his suffering in a big way helps me him relate to me. That's a comforting word for those of you that are going through a trial today. But we still haven't answered the whole rejoicing thing. K? It's one thing to go, okay.
I'm kinda neutral. You've you've moved me to neutral on my trial. Peter's urging us to rejoice. In fact, he doubles down here. He says, not only rejoice, but also be glad.
And the Greek word there is like mega glad. It's not like, okay. I'm okay with it. It's like, yes. How do we go yes over our trials?
This is hard, isn't it? But what Peter is talking about here, Scripture also talks about in other places. Here's Hebrews twelve two describing Jesus and the cross, “who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising its shame.” Here's Romans eight eighteen. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is yet to be revealed in us.”
Peter is saying the same thing here. These hurts and these trials that we are going through, yes, they are painful. They are sometimes devastating to us. But what do they do in us? I may not rejoice in the pain.
I may not rejoice in the evil, but I can rejoice in what that is doing in me. Namely, it causes me to look forward in a fresh way to the glory that will be revealed when Jesus returns. We are not in the Garden of Eden. We're not in the new Earth yet. We're in this land of in between.
We're in this suffering time. Yet all of the pains that I experience in this time cause me to look forward to the time when this isn't gonna be a part of my experience anymore. I look forward now in a fresh way to the time when the pain that I'm going through is not going to hurt anymore. That time when there is no more pain and no more suffering and no more tears and Jesus has wiped them all from our face. To look forward to that and that the pain right now actually causes me to look forward to that in a way that if my life is awesome right now, I never will.
Like, if God gave us awesome lives, totally everything we want all the time right now, and then says, hey. Isn't it gonna be great when Jesus comes? We'd be like, I don't think so. Like, if the church was awesome, everything awesome, and Jesus returns, we might be like, you know, could you come back in a little while? I'm not married yet.
I haven't had my child yet. Haven't walked my daughter down the aisle yet, etcetera, etcetera. And we look to these things, and we're like, hey. I need this before that. But when life hurts, when life hurts, it causes me to look forward to what is to come and to look forward to my time with Jesus in a way that I can actually rejoice in.
Or to say it this way, that today's pains remind me of tomorrow's gain. And from that perspective to say, Jesus, it makes me want you even more. Jesus, it wants me it makes me long for you even more. It makes me realize what you did and entering in my pain even more. It gives me cause in a fresh way in the midst of my pain to give you praise that you have not left me alone in my pain, but that you came and you died for it.
And someday it won't be here anymore. K? And to celebrate from that perspective. That doesn't mean I celebrate the evil man that's doing it or the evil thing that caused it or the evil world that I live in. I'm not celebrating that.
But I can celebrate the fact that there is hope in this pain, and someday it won't be here anymore. And I can rejoice. So that's suffering as a Christian. Plain old broken world, sinners all around me, and I'm one of them. Pain.
But Peter has in mind with this group a particular kind of pain. They are living in a culture much like ours and ours increasingly where to be a Christian was not viewed as a positive thing, and they were suffering persecution. And so he has a special word for them and for us. Look at verse 14. “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.” So Peter is making a distinction here. I hope you see it between the suffering that comes to us as a natural part of living in a sinful world and the suffering I'm sorry. Let me say this back.
The suffering that comes to us because we are Christians and the suffering that comes to us as the natural consequence of our sinful behavior. And he rolls out here four examples of immoral behavior that has its own natural consequence. And we shouldn't view the consequences being punished or a a trial. It's rather punishment. So if you murder somebody and you're sitting in your jail cell and you're saying to yourself, I'm suffering unjustly.
No, you're not. You're getting what you deserve. If you're a thief and you suffer consequence, lose your job, lot, whatever it could be, don't say to yourself, I'm suffering unjustly. No. You're getting what your thievery deserves or evil doing is the third one.
Now, the fourth one is an interesting one. I wanna sit on it just for a little bit. Here you have murder, stealing, evil doing, and he rolls out the fourth one. The ESV translates it meddling. Meddling.
Now that's an that's an odd one to include. I mean, the other three were all like, oh, yeah. Those are really, really bad. But meddling doesn't seem maybe as why would we roll that into those other ones? The translation struggled to, to get this word because it's only used twice in any Greek manuscript of antiquity, not just the Bible, any Greek manuscript.
So they struggle to translate because they it's hardly ever used, and it's a compound word. Here's what it means literally. One who looks carefully on others' affairs. One who looks carefully on others' affairs. The NIV translates it troublesome meddler.
Oh, now this is getting interesting, isn't it? The troublesome meddler. I think another translation says mischief maker. A mischief maker. Why would Peter include that with these other three really, really bad things?
And I think the reason is is that for whatever reason, wherever the gospel goes and in churches, somehow, for some reason, this kind of meddling and sticking our noses into other people's affairs seems to follow along with it. So, for example, let me give you an easy example of this. I think a good translation of this is Westboro Baptist Church. Are you familiar with Westboro Baptist Church? This is the church.
They're in Kansas. When a soldier dies or a policeman dies or any other place where cameras are like that, they show up and they protest homosexuality or some other thing like that. They're probably, you know, as far as, like, notorious churches in America, they're probably the most notorious and maybe the most despised church in, in America and justifiably so, in my opinion. I mean, what they do to me is a disaster. There's no tact.
There's no love. All they're about is their little cause that they're they feel justified in doing, sticking their nose into tender moments in people's lives. It really is a disgrace. So what are we talking about here? We're talking about Westboro type obnoxiousness.
People who discredit Christian love and testimony by constantly button into things beyond any reasonable requirement of love. Should the Westboro at Westboro Baptist Church today, they're probably having a service, and they're probably talking about all this persecution that they're facing because of their faith. When in reality, they're being persecuted because they're obnoxious. Right? It has nothing to do with their faith.
It is their attitude. It is their actions, their behavior, their hateful behavior. K. So I I put that out to you as a a good example of what Peter is talking about. Now let me ask a more tender question.
Because every church, every local church deals with a few members who apparently were discipled at Westboro Baptist Church. They meddle here. They mischief make there. They feel like because we're, you know, brothers and sisters, they can stick their nose into things well beyond any reasonable call of accountability or love. They go to war for their little pet issue, and I wonder if you might not have a little Westboro in you.
And I would say to you, the cold shoulder that you feel from other members of our church is not you suffering righteously. It is you being obnoxious. And we all would do better to try not to mischief make and to stick our nose where it doesn't deserve. And I would just say to you that Jesus was never petty, he was never obnoxious, and he was always right. So verse 14 and now verse 16, legitimate Christian persecution.
These are parallel verses. Notice what they say. If you are insulted for the name of Christ k. You're not being obnoxious. You're not being a meddler.
It is simply because of the name of Christ. He says, “you are blessed because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” Again, verse 16, almost the same. “If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.” And both of these verses are emphasizing the same point, that insults that we experience or loss suffering that we experience because we identify with Jesus, these also are opportunities to rejoice.
As he says here, to glorify God, to realize that you are blessed. How so? Notice in verse 14, he says, “because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” I read this initially, and I thought, okay. What two spirits is he talking about?
It's really one spirit, the Holy Spirit. When I go through a trial of some kind, when I stand when I stand for my faith, and this can be in any big and small way. This is the the, you know, this is the kid at Crown Point High School in biology class somehow making it clear that he didn't think that we descended from, protoplasm and a lightning strike. Or it could be you in the workplace where there is an expectation of certain less than integrity business practice, or it could be your family where they look down on you because of your faith or being different than theirs or something. I mean, there's big and small ways.
This is this is the the village in in, Syria as ISIS approaches. I mean, it's you got all kinds of persecution levels, don't you? But in all of them, what happens as God's people stand and identify themselves as being Christians in spite of what the consequences are? The Holy Spirit rests upon us and does a blessing in us through that experience. Namely, he assures us that we're actually saved.
How can I know that what I say I believe, I actually believe? When what I believe is going to cost me and I stand for it anyway, I can be pretty sure that my faith is serious. Right? And I see in myself you know what? I see in myself, I see faith.
I see genuineness, and the Spirit blesses us doing his work of reassurance. Christ is made more real to us in those trials, and our faith is more precious to us. He says, don't be ashamed. What's our natural reflux? Right?
What's the natural response? We feel like, oh, yes. I'm a Christian. Please don't hurt me. Oh, yes.
I'm a Christian, but, you know, I'm okay. We we cower. We we sort of shade it. We we we don't want to be looked down upon by people. And he says here, hey.
Don't be ashamed. Don't be ashamed of identifying with that name. In fact, notice that. Glorify God in that name. Now verse 16, what name is he talking about here?
If we're supposed to glorify God in some name, what name is it? Notice, yet if anyone suffers as a what? Christian, glorify God in that name, Christian. Christian is only mentioned three times in Scripture, which is ironic because it's like the most common sort of identity name for somebody that's a follower of Jesus. Three times.
It's in Acts. In Antioch, the church in Antioch, first place that they were called Christians. Acts 26, king Agrippa says to Paul, “do you think you can convince me so easily to become a Christian?” The third place in the all the Bible last place is this verse right here in front of us. And he says here, glorify God in that name.
What does it mean to be a Christian? It probably was a term of derision in the first century. Oh, you're one of those Christians, follower of Christ. Now they could have called them Jesusians, but that's harder to say. Right?
That would that derision would never work because nobody could say it. Christian kind of rolls off the tongue easier, doesn't it? Oh, you're one of those Christians. You're a Christ follower. To be a Christian is to identify with Jesus, to identify with the claims of Christianity regarding who he is in his personhood, Son of God, son of man, fully God, fully man, came into this world, born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, died on the cross bearing our guilt and our shame, resurrected on the third day, ascended to heaven at the right hand of God, coming again someday to consummate history.
Lord of Lords, King of Kings, Most High God. To be a Christian is to affirm that truth and reality about Jesus. Say, I am a follower of him. Is that you today, by the way? You could clap or something.
Yes. We're Christians here. Right? You're like, I think we're supposed to clap, but it's a it's a message on suffering. I'm sure if we should do that.
We're Christians here. Right? We glory we glory in that name. We're not afraid to identify ourselves. Of course, it's easy to say here, isn't it?
Here we are in church, for goodness sakes. Yes. I'm a Christian. The test is not in church. The test is Tuesday at work or student, tomorrow at school.
Do I cower? Am I ashamed, or do I freely identify myself as a Christian and allow whatever persecution comes from that to be an opportunity for me to rejoice and to praise God that I can glory in identifying myself as a follower of Jesus. This is not easy, is it? But this is what Peter is saying. Jesus says the same thing.
Matthew five, “blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you”. How many of us look at that and go, yeah. It's easy to do that when you see it in the but when you're getting somebody saying something or treating you or whatever cost is costing you, now that's a harder thing, isn't it? “And utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven.”
“For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Here's Acts five. Here's the apostles after they were beaten because they were Christians. “Then they left the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.” How do we do that?
Again, we do not rejoice in evil. We do not rejoice in the evil that evil men do. Maybe not even in the pain itself, but we can rejoice in what the pain is leading us to. We can rejoice in the trial and what the trial is producing in us as a byproduct. And for the suffering Christian to realize this is the worst that it will ever be forever.
This is as bad as it gets for us is life in this world that we're living in right now. For the unbeliever, this is as good as it is. Them watching the game this afternoon with friends, drinking whatever alcoholic beverages, adult beverages they're drinking, sitting back, chilling out is as good as they will ever experience in this life. Why? What's ahead for us?
Glory. A life free of pain. No more trials. No more suffering. Joy beyond anything we've ever experienced in this life.
What's ahead for the unbeliever? Everlasting pain and suffering. And so the Christian has a very different perspective on the temporary, these light and momentary trials that are achieving for us a glory that far outweighs them all, as Paul says. We see them as momentary. We see them as temporary.
Ahead lies glory and physical presence with Jesus. And if I can look at these trials from that perspective, the sweeter the future day that is to come becomes to me. As an example of this in fact, right now, if you would just do this, help me out a second. Okay? I want you to think about that big thing in your life in terms of trial or suffering.
Could be persecution. Could be just normal kind of human life suffering. Could you think about what is that big thing that you've experienced in your life? K. Just put it I'm not asking you to say what it is.
Just you got it in your mind? K. I wanna tell you about a guy named George Matheson. George Matheson was a, Englishman, hundred and fifty years ago roughly. And he, was born with weak eyes, but he was brilliant.
So he went to school, decided to go into ministry, which is where all brilliant people go. And, he so he decides to go into ministry. As he's completing his education, his eyes are getting weaker and weaker. And by the time he's in his, like, early twenties, he's completely blind. And so I mean, talk about a trial.
Like, if you ever had the conversation, if if you know, what would be the last sense of the five senses that you would want to lose? For me, sight would be the one. That was his experience. And this produced trauma in his life. There's a story of he had a fiance that, before the wedding, decided she didn't wanna be married to a blind man, broke it off, and, you know, things like this where I imagine and and he was pastor for many years as a blind pastor.
I imagine when he talked about suffering in his congregation, listen to him, don't you think? George Matheson wrote the hymn, oh, love that will not let me go. You mean, it's probably his most famous thing. But he also writes about that thing, that trial. And he says that that thing will be the thing in heaven that we most rejoice in.
Here's how he says it. It's a long quote, but it's worth hearing. Listen. There is a time coming in which your glory shall consist in the very thing which now constitutes your pain. Ask the great ones of the past what what has been the spot of their prosperity, and they will say, it was the cold ground on which I was lying.
Ask Abraham. He will point you to the sacrifice on Mount Moriah. Ask Joseph. He will direct you to his dungeon. Ask Moses.
He will date his fortune from his danger in the Nile. Ask Ruth. He will bid you build, her monument in the field of her toil. Ask David. He will tell you that his songs came from the night.
Ask Job. He will remind you that God answered him out of the whirlwind. Ask Peter. He will extol his submersion in the sea. Ask John.
He will give you the path to Patmos. Ask Paul, he will attribute his inspiration to the light which struck him blind. Ask one more, the son of God. Ask him whence has come his rule over the world. He will answer, from the cold ground on which I was lying, the Gethsemane ground, I received my scepter there.
Thou too my soul shall be garlanded by Gethsemane. The cup thou wish would pass from thee will be thy cornet in the sweet by and by. The hour of thy loneliness will crown thee. The day of thy depression will regale thee. It is thy desert that will break forth in the singing.
It is the trees of thy silent forest that will clap their hands. The last things will be the first in the sweet by and by. The thorns will be the roses. The veils will be the hills. The crooks will be straight lines.
The ruts level. The shadows will be the shining. The losses will be promotions. The tears will be tracks of gold. The voice of God to thine evening will be this.
Thy treasure is hid in the ground where thou wert lying. Trust the Lord for your day today. My dear friend, that pain that you are in right now or that big one from the past will be forever the source of your greatest praise to God. Not the evil of it but what God did through it. Do Jennifer and I know a little bit more today than we did two weeks ago about God's grace being sufficient?
Do we know a little bit more today than we did two weeks ago that God is a help in time of need? Do we have occasion now to give thanksgiving in a way that we did not two weeks ago? What do we have now that we did not have then? It was the trial that has given it to us. And this is where we are, friends.
We live in a broken world. And I don't know who here is thinking to themselves, this isn't relevant to me. But next Sunday is gonna come up to me and say, wow. I had no idea what was coming. This is life.
This is what it means to live in this world. And for us to anticipate a day when there won't be any things like this, there's no ambulances. There's no babies getting sick. There's no sudden death like I heard after first service, a family going through in our church. There's no crime.
There's no injustice. There's no cancer. There's none of the things that are very much a part of this world and to give thanks to God for it. Won't we glorify God in that, even rejoice in it someday? I think that we will.
He is a God that produces beauty from ashes. He turns our mourning into dancing. More on suffering next week.
* This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.
