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April 13, 2003
Palm Sunday |
"1 Peter" Series
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Making Sense of Suffering"
1 Peter 3:13-4:19
I. Suffering --
In a block of about 2 hours while working to construct this message, Anna entered and reported that Baghdad had fallen. And I received a phone call, A friend in tears fearing his wife had left him.
(as it turned out she hadn't and they are on the mend)
Suffering is all around us. Jesus told us that: In this world you
will have... (tribulation)
CS Lewis said "Pain insists on being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but God shouts in our pain. It is His megaphone, to raise a deaf world."
How many encountered some level of suffering this week?
- There is suffering on the global level:
the war, earthquakes, famine, national disasters (9/11)
In the Bible the "flood" would picture such suffering
- on the community level:
I think of OKC bombing or Columbine as examples, or in the Bible the falling of the tower of Siloam.
and of course, related to those, and beyond, suffering is
- on the individual level:
beginning with persecution -- such as Peter's first readers were experiencing under Nero.
Some of you know of Kathleen Stevens' situation with a neighbor who for a couple years has been making threats to her. This past week he shot at her house blowing out
a window.
Peter wrote that when you are insulted because you belong to Jesus, rejoice. When getting your windows shot out it is hard, but Peter says the fact that others are positioned against you testifies to the fact that Jesus is shining through you. What a thought.
Kathleen has been seeking the Lord and came across great scripture this week in response. God I know is pleased with how Kathleen is choosing to respond to suffering.
(Let's pray for Kathleen)
But individual suffering also includes: bereavement, physical and mental hardships, involuntary singleness, loneliness, broken relationships, unemployment, fierce temptation, disappointment, illness, rejection, losses, unforgiveness, or parents having an ill child, the list goes on...
Peter has told his readers that he knows they are experiencing all kinds of trials-- so suffering on the individual, community and global level.
II. Suffering has been called the single biggest challenge to Christianity
Woody Allen: "How can I believe in God when just yesterday I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?" More seriously others have rejected the possibility of a loving, all powerful God because there is suffering and evil in this world.
Like the characters in the readers' theatre presentation, God is blamed for the suffering people endure. As those characters discovered God did not cause human sin, but provided a remedy for it.
Really, Suffering is an alien intrusion in God's good world. Just a glance at Gen 1-2 and Rev 21-22 shows that the world, in the beginning, did not have suffering as a part of it and that at the end, the new heaven and new earth also will be without suffering. So, it does not belong. All of creation even, Paul wrote, awaits deliverance from suffering.
When people chose rebellion over relationship to the Creator/Father God, sin entered the world and with sin death, bringing suffering -- even the ground produced thorns and thistles. Everything fell -- not just the people. We live in a fallen world.
Suffering then came about because of sin.
Why did God allow sin? Because God allowed the man and woman at the start of creation the freedom to obey or disobey. In this way they could choose to be in relationship with God, their source of life. God wanted them and us to choose to love Him. Imagine how false that love would be if not freely given.
As a dad, I want but don't demand my children's affections.
That would be a little awkward: "You will love me! Daily you will make me breakfast, and stand around me while I eat; you will
hug me and say with great enthusiasm: 'I love you so much, Daddy!'; You will applaud my thoughts, fold my laundry while singing songs, and write me a note every day."
God allowed freedom of will, so that our obedience would be truly obedience and not just robotic responses and so that our love would be sincere.
Before Adam rebelled, God had told him death would follow sin and, when he rebelled, it did. This is why on one level you can see all suffering connected to sin, either the most basic sin, the fact of the Adam's sin, and that we live in a fallen world, or the sins of others, or our own sin.
Once dead in sin, we had no way out other than God making a way for us to return to Eden, to relationship with Him. In the fullness of Jesus' life, death, resurrection, God gave people a new beginning point. In Jesus,
Peter says, God has:
1:18 "redeemed us from the empty way of life handed down to us
from our forefathers..."
2:21 "suffered for us-- without sin, threat, retaliation, deceit"
2:24 "bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might
die to sins and live for righteousness."
2:25 "healed us"
3:18 "died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous to bring us to God."
III. Once we have come to God, no experience changes our location. When the storm hit the disciples' boat, Jesus was still there with them. All the storm did was to reveal what was in their hearts. "Don't you care that we drown?" And Jesus awoke, rebuked the storm and asked, "Do you still have no faith?" The storm revealed the lack of faith in their hearts. It was simply a test. And God was there all the time.
So Peter says, even if we suffer when doing what is right, we are blessed. Blessed because God is there. Blessed for a storm does not change a thing about our position with Jesus.
Therefore: We don't need to be frightened.
The gods of the Greeks and Romans were capricious. You never know what they would do. A person trusting in them fears a storm, for the gods are displeased. We know better. If we are not sinning, a storm is just a storm.
We need not fear death, for Jesus has walked through it.
We need not fear abandonment, Jesus faced it for us.
We need not fear anything.
"In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord" Renew your commitment to Jesus.
The Lord of your heart is Jesus. He has not left you in the storm.
You are Sovereign of my boat!
With Jesus in charge, hope is present. And you have reasons for the hope you have.
Always be prepared
to answer those who ask you for those reasons.
Hope is not present in your life as wishful thinking.
Hope is a certainty.
Be ready to tell others, but don't shove hope down their throats.
Do so with gentleness and respect-- don't sin in the telling.
You are blessed, Peter says, for as you suffer unjustly, you are suffering just as Christ suffered. In this way you are participating in Christ's suffering for you.
Look at the close of chapter 4 for Peter's concluding remarks:
v12. Do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering...
Does suffering surprise you?
Peter says: It is not something strange!
Depth and intensity of suffering experiences are tough at times.
v13. Instead of surprise, rejoice: sharing in Christ's sufferings.
"Shout Victory!"
My friend Vivian Moore and her husband Jim were at the evangelical convocation last weekend. Her son has been going through an especially rough season, and as a result came to live with them and reorient his life. He lives them notes often in the morning, for he leaves the house for work long before they are up. They term these "toaster notes" for they are on sticky notes stuck to the toaster.
Often these are Scriptures that have struck him in his quiet time.
One recently, which I printed in today's bulletin, said "We can only praise God in the darkness while we are on earth, for in heaven there will be no darkness." What a privilege to say; "God yet remains God" even when all looks dismal.
v14: when you are insulted because you are a Christian you are blessed there too, for it shows God's character is shining through your life.
v16: "if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that
you bear that name."
Some people torment Christians because they are Christian.
"You are blessed"
"Rejoice"
"Praise God that you bear that name."
The reason why Peter has said all this is that "it is time," he says in verse 17 for "judgment to begin with the family of God, and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?"
God's judgment on sin starts with us. A friend who has left the ministry due to moral failure, rejoices that he was found out. He hated the duplicity of his life and felt trapped. When God switched on the light, relief and now healing flooded his life.
"You are blessed"
"Rejoice"
"Praise God that you bear that name."
It is a sacrifice of praise to say, "God I praise you," even without a feeling of joy. Just because God deserves it. "Though He slay me, yet will I praise Him," our forefather Job declared.
Peter summarizes a whole section of this book with this final statement in 4:19: "So then, those who suffer according to God's will should
- commit themselves to their faithful creator (trust God) and
- continue to do good (live for righteousness)
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