RTS Papers / Communication 1 / Summer 2016
A sermon on 1 Peter 4:12-19
(ii.) Because the Christian is given a gospel suffering, we should rejoice in it — vv. 13 - 14
In many ways this will be the hardest response that we are called to — Rejoice? Before I argue for it, let me just remind you that it is a biblical fact. Start with the story of Peter and John following their trial and beating from the Sanhedrin.
and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name (Acts 5:40-41).
And then there is the promise of Jesus: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you 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” (Mat 5:11-12). Jesus appeals to our sense of needing to know if we are on the right track. That is why He mentions how the prophets were persecuted, and not just the heavenly reward. In effect, this is what happens to God’s faithful messengers. He is giving us not just a motive, but a marker. And in so doing Jesus is giving us feul to fight for joy. It will be a fight! This is not some unrealistic, trivializing of the trial: some happy-clappy, plastic “Cheer up!” from someone who doesn’t know the fires. It is as Paul said, “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor 6:10).
That is exactly what Peter is doing here. Why rejoice in the fires of persecution? How can that be? Two reasons from Peter — one future glory and another a present foretaste — First, there is a future reward: when his glory is revealed (v. 13). Second, there is a foretaste of this glory because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you (v. 14). How are these motives? Something of the surpassing worth of how God is going to be revealed in my suffering causes me to bear up with the suffering in a way that I couldn’t without that glory. That’s what Paul means by reminding us that this God of glory is in your right now—shining right now. And the whole point here is that revealing glory is the same thing as gospel suffering. What is being revealed, or shown, or proclaimed, through this suffering for Christ is the suffering of Christ.
Notice Peter’s words directly around these motives for rejoicing: you share Christ’s sufferings (v. 13) and you are insulted for the name of Christ (v. 14). Suffering for Christ means suffering like Christ — not in every way, but in a glorious way! When others see me suffering in Christ they see the sufferings of Christ. I share in them, and therefore I share them. That is the logic of gospel suffering — it tells the good news. In the same way that Job was a type of Christ, Peter is calling us to be a type of Christ.
I am sure you have heard of those dreams about Jesus experienced by Muslims around the world. But in countries where Islam dominates, the truth is that Muslims already have the gospel vividly portrayed before their eyes every time that Christians are put to the sword. There have even been crucifixions. That means that countless Muslims are leaving home, risking all, enduring isolation, facing death, and in the words of Jim Eliot, they are giving what they cannot keep to gain what they cannot lose, so that the Jihad pressing in on them makes the gospel to radiate out of them. They are shining gospel suffering. So what the persecutor means for evil, God means for good. That is the sort of thing that Peter has in mind here.
The rejoicing only makes sense if it’s a gospel suffering. So Peter qualifies this rejoicing. He is never flippant. He says to rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s suffering. I don’t think we apply this to our own lives by going out looking for a beating with great giddiness. First of all, if you are professing Christ before men you simply will attract hostility in some form. It doesn’t have to be manufactured. That’s why Peter includes something that even we in the comfortable Western world can suffer, namely insults — If you are insulted (he does not say “If you are beheaded,” which would be true to the max … but he only has to say “If you are insulted”) … for the name of Christ, you are blessed (v. 14). So do not say to this: Well if this is about persecution, we Americans don’t know anything about that. This passage is not for me. Not so! Have you ever been insulted — ever been made fun of — for following Jesus? Peter says that counts. So we should not be surprised by gospel suffering and we should rejoice in the midst of gospel suffering.
(iii.) Because the Christian is given a gospel suffering, we should never earn it — vv. 15 - 16
Now we are brought to the contrast where the rubber meets the road in gospel suffering. There is a glorious Christ-like suffering, but there is also a shame-filled, well-earned suffering. Sometimes Christians earn their stripes, and sometimes we even wear them like merit badges. Sometimes we fit the caricature of a laughing stock. Sometimes we equate being principled with what is really just being obnoxious. But there is no virtue in being ridiculed for behavior that is not Christ-like. Peter contrasts the two here: 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 (15-16). You see that Peter understands to suffer as these shameful things to be not at all the same thing as to “suffer as a Christian.” Once again we see the parallel with Chapter 2, that Jesus walks this same line between the two.
For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God … He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. (2:19-20, 22).
So the question we want to ask is this: Why is this a gospel suffering we have been called to in the footsteps of Jesus? Peter’s foundation for this in Chapter 2 is that Jesus did not suffer because of any sin on his part. He suffered unjustly it says. So to be like Jesus in this very thing is to suffer unjustly. Don’t respond, “But the mistreatment I am recieving is unjust.” Yes. That is why it is called mis-treatment. But what is that to the gospel? Gospel suffering means being treated unjustly—being insulted or purposefully harmed for following Christ, for doing his will, for spreading his fame.
So let’s get the contrast by way of application: Don’t suffer for being like the devil — Do suffer for being like Jesus.
We might think of the martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer, that English archbishop, who was rounded up with the rest of the Protestant leaders when Bloody Mary came to power in the sixteenth century. In a momentary loss of courage, Cranmer recanted his support of the Reformation. And for his troubles, he was sentenced to die anyway. As the flames drew near, he made sure everyone knew that his right hand (the hand that had signed his loyalty to the Pope and treason to Christ) — this traitor-hand would be burnt first. He would have been punished in shame, but in a glorious instant, Cranmer switched from suffering like a rebel to suffering like an angel. And in his fiery message Jesus was on display.
Now that is an extremely fiery trial that not many of us experience. But let’s remember what we just heard from verse 14 — if you are insulted — and put it together with this point, and ask yourself this: Have I been insulted unjustly because of my allegiance to Jesus Christ? Have I been marginalized, shunned, laughed at, thought poorly of, cast out, forgotten, all because I have followed in the steps of Jesus? That’s good news.
What have we seen so far? That because we are given a gospel suffering, we should not be surprised by it; we should rejoice in it; and we should never earn it. Now what comes last for Peter?
(#suffering #persecution #trials #gospel #Christian)
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