You take your Bibles now and turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 4. If you're using the Pew Bible, this is found on page 1016. In 1 Peter 4 verse 12, Peter begins a new and really a final section of his letter. We know this because right before it in verse 11, he has a doxology. And then at the beginning of verse 12, he uses that phrase, beloved. If you remember back in chapter two, verse 11, he also used that word beloved. It was a marker in a sense of a new section in his letter. And so we have a final section. Just to remind us what this letter has been about, Pastor Peter has been teaching us how to live as faithful Christians in exile on this earth. We're away from our heavenly home. and began in his letter to remind us of all the eternal blessings that are ours in the Lord Jesus Christ. How we have a living hope. We've been given an eternal inheritance that is imperishable, unfading, undefiled, kept in heaven for us. We're looking forward to the day in which that glory will be revealed at Christ's return. So we have reason to be encouraged even while we go through difficulties in this life now. He went on from there in chapter one, verse 13, all the way to chapter two, verse 10, to remind us then, in view of such blessings that are ours, how we ought to live. We live as those different from the world. We are to be holy as our Heavenly Father is holy. We're to be a community that is a holy community. filled with holy love for one another, different from the world around us. But then, remember in chapter 2, 11, all the way to chapter 3, verse 12, Peter explains what this different life looks like, especially as we respond and interact and engage with those who are hostile to us in this world. how we're to respond in different situations, whether that be servants or citizens or in the home. And then in chapter three, verse 13, down to chapter four, verse 11, this last section that we've seen, he teaches us especially how we're to respond as those who deal with hostility in situations where we're called to suffer for righteousness sake, suffer for doing good, And as Peter begins, then, this final section, he returns to that theme of trials and suffering. And what he does is he gathers up the things that he has said to us already in this letter, and he condenses it into these few verses so that it could make one final impact upon us. Like the writer of Ecclesiastes says, that these wise words from Christ, our chief shepherd, would be like nails firmly fixed in our hearts and minds, so that when trials come, these are the words that resonate in our hearts and minds. So follow with me. We'll start here in verse 12 and read down to verse 19. Hear now God's holy word. 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. 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. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And if the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner? Therefore, Let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good. Amen. Let's pray together again. Father in heaven, we come to you as the one who is our light and our salvation. Because that is true, we have no one to fear but you. And though we go through difficulty or trial, you have told us that we can trust you. Even as the psalmist said, I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. So Lord, we come to you trusting, waiting upon you, and asking that even this morning in these verses from your word, you would reveal yourself to us, you would reveal your goodness to us, so that our hearts may be strengthened, that we would take courage, and we would continue to wait upon you all the way to the very end when you return. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. As you may know, our Christian brothers and sisters in China have been facing increased hostility and persecution in recent months. I received a communication even this week about how more and more house churches are being raided by the government and how they're being pressured to break up and to stop meeting, to scatter, and to no longer be churches. I read about how one particular house church has 400 members and the government raided them, and so they were forced to break up. But they didn't stop meeting. Currently, they are meeting in six different home groups around the city in which they're located. It's difficult. Their leaders are being asked and questioned and brought in. There's different kinds of pressures being placed upon them. But how are these saints responding to such trials? What is it that they're doing? What is it that they're saying? The pastor of that particular house church reports this, he says, quote, the saints are rejoicing in the privilege of suffering for Christ and have not diminished in their fervor for sharing the gospel with those around them. Amazing. How could they respond in that way? The reason is because their faith is grounded and rooted in their faithful creator. Beloved, you and I, we may not face that kind of persecution in our country yet. We might in the future. But we do live in a culture, don't we, that is increasingly overtly hostile to Christians and the Christian faith. Already, dear Christian, you know, you know something at least of what it is to be alienated or minimized or marginalized because of your faith in Christ. Maybe you're someone who's been converted in your family and the rest of your family is not believing. And so even as you'll have family gatherings soon for Thanksgiving or Christmas time, you always feel that sense of being an outcast within your own family, that pinch against you. Or maybe it's in the workplace. You're a Christian and those around you are not. And you are ostracized and not brought into the different things that are done, alienated in certain ways. And as pressure increases in our own culture, and it will, how is it that you and I will be able to stand faithfully against such pressure? And this is what Peter is addressing and has been addressing. And as I said, now he gathers up his instruction and gives it to us kind of in a force of a spear, all its force coming down to bear upon us. What I want to do in our time then this morning is to consider three great principles that Pastor Peter teaches us in these verses so that we can withstand how we're to respond when that suffering or that trial, that persecution, comes into our lives. And the first principle is this, he says, don't respond with surprise to your trials, but with rejoicing. This is what we find in verses 12 through 14. Now such a response is counterintuitive, isn't it? Especially to us as Christians in the West. Respond to trials with rejoicing? Really? Why is it counterintuitive to us? And here's the reason. Because we have been lured into believing the lie, that it is something strange, it is something unusual to go through trials and suffering in this life. We've been told that it's not normal for Christians to suffer antagonism and persecution. All around us, in varying degrees, our American evangelical Christian subculture is proclaiming this message that you can live your best life now. And what is meant by that so often is this, that if you come to Jesus, if you become a Christian, he will fix all your problems. He'll remove all your difficulties. Having hardship in your marriage, he can make your marriage glorious. You having troubles, financial troubles, come to Jesus and you won't have financial troubles anymore. Difficulties in the workplace? Jesus can solve that problem. Some even go so far as to teach that if you do have troubles and trials as a Christian, it must be because you don't have enough faith. But you see, the real problem is that these false teachers are not teaching the true Christian faith at all by these statements. Now, there is certainly a sense in which When you have difficulties in your life, Jesus is the one that you go to, but that does not mean that he will remove the trial from you. What did Jesus himself say to us? Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. In this world, you will have tribulation, but take heart, Jesus said, I have overcome the world. But how did Jesus overcome the world? Did he overcome the world by avoiding trials, by avoiding suffering, by avoiding the cross? No. That was the very temptation that Satan put before Jesus, remember? There in Matthew chapter four, when he's driven out into the wilderness and those temptations come, one of the temptations, at least in the Matthew narrative, the climactic temptation is this. Satan takes Jesus up to the precipice and shows him all the kingdoms of the world and says, if you will just bow down and worship me, I'll give it to you. What's at the heart of that temptation? Jesus, you can be king, you can have a crown without going to the cross. You can have glory without suffering. And that's the temptation that was put before our Savior. And how did he respond? No. Scripture says, you shall worship God alone. He saw the temptation for what it is, a lie. He could obtain the crown with no cross. No, he didn't give in. He knew that he must go through the cross to receive the crown, through suffering for righteousness sake. So Jesus overcame through and in the midst of suffering. The Apostle Paul even teaches us, he says, indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. And on and on we could go to passages in the New Testament and illustrations from the Old Testament. that we are called as God's people in this life to suffer for Christ's sake. Yet even we who sit in reformed churches and have been taught these truths can respond with surprise when trials and suffering come into our lives, can't we? You've done it, I've done it. Why is that? One of the reasons is this, that sometimes it's because we have heard these things with our ears, but we have not taken them into our hearts. We forget that trials are not random, purposeless acts outside of the control of God, but that every trial given to us passes through the hands of our loving Heavenly Father for His loving purpose to do good to us and to bring glory to His name. See, in verse 12, Peter is reminding us again of God's purpose in trials by calling them fiery trials that come upon us to test us. harkens back to what he said at the beginning of this letter. You remember in chapter one, verse six, how he said, now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials. Why? 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. The trials are not meaningless, they are not purposeless. They have a heavenly God-ordained purpose in your life, dear Christian. That through trials, you see, God is a master craftsman. And through trials, he is testing the quality of his work. For he is the one who's given you faith. He is the one who has put that living hope within your heart. He is the one who has caused you to be born again to a living hope. And through our trials, He is showing you and showing the world that His work in you is real. It is genuine. It is not a fake. It is not a fraud. It is the real deal. You see, showing you that your faith is genuine, and because it is genuine, it means that Christ and his redemptive work is genuine. It was real, he really came, he really died, he really rose from the dead. He really conquered sin and death in the grave by the cross, and he really applies this salvation to his people so that he transforms them. Do you see now why you ought to respond to your trials with rejoicing? Not that we rejoice in the suffering itself. We're not masochists. We don't delight in pain. No, we delight in what the suffering points to, that your trials and sufferings for Christ's sake are proof that you belong to him, that you are his. Your trials not only refine your faith, but they also show you truly have been given the gift of genuine faith to begin with. In other words, to put it the way Paul would say, your trials show that you really are united to Christ. You really have a vital union with him. You really are connected to him. And his life and your life are bound together. And that's the point that Peter's making in verses 13 and 14, that these trials show our union with Christ, that our suffering for Christ's sake is a way in which we share, he says, in Christ's sufferings there in verse 13. It's not that we in any way add to Christ's sufferings as though his sufferings were in any sense deficient, but it's that in suffering for Christ's sake now, it shows that we are following in his footsteps. We are trotting the very path that He has marked out for us to go, the path that He has already walked, the path that leads us to glory with Him. And so we're on that same path, the path that goes through suffering to glory. And therefore we can rejoice now because we know that even these trials and these sufferings are just a marker saying that one day we will be in glory with him. So when the glory of Christ is revealed at the last day, we will rejoice with him then. That's reason for us to rejoice now. The proof that that will happen is in the fact that we are suffering for Christ's sake now. That's why he goes on again and it says in verse 14, if you're insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed. This harkens back to what he said in chapter three, verse 14. You remember how he said it. But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, blessed is your status. Blessed are you. And here in chapter four, verse 14, Peter gives us the reason why we're blessed when we suffer for righteousness' sake. And he says it's because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. It's a wonderful truth. The spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. You see what Peter is doing so often in this letter, he alludes to things back in the Old Testament. You remember in chapter one, he spoke about how it's the spirit of Christ that was at work within the prophets of old, revealing the Messiah to them, that he must go through suffering to glory. One of those passages is what we read earlier, Isaiah chapter 11, a passage about the Messiah. And here in chapter four, verse 14, Peter is alluding to that very passage. There it's speaking about how the Messiah, when he comes, this branch from the stump of Jesse, he will have the spirit of the Lord resting upon him. And that description of the Spirit, it's this sevenfold description, speaking about the completeness of the Spirit, Spirit of wisdom and of power, Spirit of understanding, Spirit of the fear of the Lord, saying this was the Spirit that was given to Christ, that rested upon Him. This was the Spirit that was poured out upon Him at His baptism to enable Him to be the Messiah, to walk through this life, faithful, obedient to his heavenly father all the way to the end. And this is the same spirit that was given to Christ when he rose from the dead, when he ascended into heaven, the very same spirit which he then turned around and poured upon his church to enable us to live in the same manner in which he lived when he was on the earth. You see, Peter is saying, that being insulted for the name of Christ is proof that this same spirit of glory that rested upon Christ is now resting upon you. That's what he's saying. In other words, what he's saying is those who are hostile to you, those that insult you because you're a Christian, they actually see something of Christ in you. that stirs them up against you because their own hearts are hostile to Christ and they see Christ in you and therefore they must insult you. Now that's a reason to rejoice, why? Because in virtue of our union with Christ, by the working of the Spirit, you are being conformed to the image of Christ. And it's recognizable. Even the enemies of Christ see how you are different, how you're being changed. There's a glory about you, the same glory that rested upon Christ. It's proof, brothers and sisters, that your transformation is real. It's proof, brothers and sisters, that you belong to Christ and his kingdom, and that's a reason to rejoice. As Jesus himself said in the Sermon on the Mount, 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 went before you. So don't respond with surprise to your trials, beloved, but instead rejoice, for you belong to Christ. But a second thing, a second principle that Peter gives is this. Don't suffer as evildoers, but as a Christian unashamed of Christ's name. This is what we find in verses 15 to 18. Peter once again reminds us of what he had said previously. As I said, he's gathering these things up. Back in chapter two, verse 20, he said, for what credit is it if when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if you do good and suffer for it, you endure. This is a gracious thing in the sight of God. Well, here in chapter four, verse 15, he lists some of those sins for which you might justly suffer. If you murder someone, there are consequences in this life and in the next. Now, you could murder someone and repent of your sin, and yes, be saved from eternal damnation, but there's still consequences that you'd suffer in this life. And that's right, and that's just, and that's good. If you steal something, there are consequences. You will suffer in this life, and that is not persecution for being a Christian. If you're an evildoer, you will suffer in this life, just consequences. And these first three things that he mentions, they're all things that are clearly crimes. Even in the Roman Empire, even in our own nation, there are crimes, there are consequences. But isn't it interesting as you read through and you come and you see murderer, thief, evildoer, and then it says meddler. Wait a minute, what is that doing in that list? A meddler? Really? What's that doing there? A meddler. It's a phrase that literally means this, watching over another's affairs. In other words, it's someone who pokes their nose into matters that are not their proper concern and offers unwanted opinions. It's a busybody. The point is this, sometimes, beloved, we can receive harsh treatment Not because we are being like Christ, but because we are being busybodies. We're being tactless. We're being obnoxious. In other words, we must be careful not to cry persecution every time a sharp word is spoken to us. It may be that we deserve it, and that what we need is actually a sharp rebuke for our wrong behavior or actions. One commentator said this as an example. A worker cannot claim persecution if while proselytizing a fellow laborer, he talks beyond the lunch hour and is rebuked for it. If you're doing that which is wrong, even if you're trying to do the work of Christ and you're doing that which is wrong and you're rebuked, that's not persecution. And so he says we must take care not to be the cause of our own trials. Peter has already given wise instruction, hasn't he, about how we should respond in various hostile situations where you have an ungodly ruler or ungodly master or a husband or spouse that's not a Christian and how to respond. not with reviling, not with rudeness, but with gentleness, with tact, with grace, like Jesus responded. So beloved, he's saying we must take care that we are not the cause of our own trials by our own sin, even the sin of meddling in what is not our responsibility or place. But he goes on and says, and when we do suffer, we should suffer as Christians for doing good. And when we do, we must not be ashamed. Now on Peter's day, the name Christian was a term of derision. It was coined not as a term that was supposed to be positive. But it was like an insult. You're a Christian? You believe in that crucified criminal? Christian, huh? It's similar to how the word Puritan was used back in the time of the 17th century, and even the 16th century. It was coined not as a term that was positive, but a term of derision to mock the serious English Christians who strove and a zeal for the purity of the church. Oh, you're a Puritan. Terms that were meant to ostracize, meant to bring shame, to tempt the person to be ashamed that they are a Christian. And Peter, as he brings this instruction to us, you remember, is no stranger to the pressure to feel ashamed. Peter himself knew what it was to be tempted, to be ashamed of Christ. Indeed, we can say he knew what it was to give in to that temptation. You remember there in the courtyard, a little girl comes to him and says, aren't you one of those disciples? You're a Gentile, or you're from Galilee of the Gentiles, aren't you? You're from that region. I can tell by your accent He says, I don't know the man. I don't know what you're talking about. And three times he gives in to the pressure, the temptation to deny that he belongs or has anything to do with Christ. So he deserts him in that way. He gives in because of the fear has risen in his own heart. But the Lord did not leave him there. He went out, remember, and he wept bitterly. But after Christ's resurrection, you remember the scene there on the beach, that breakfast which Christ himself serves to Peter, in which he asked him three times, Peter, do you love me? And there the Lord restored him, restored him, called him to feed his sheep, to tend his lambs. He called him, showing him the glory of the cross, gave him his spirit, and told him he no longer needed to be ashamed. He never needed to be ashamed. He could count it a joy and a privilege to suffer for Christ's name, as Christ had suffered for him. We see how after Pentecost, he responds in that very way. He's not ashamed. So that even when he does suffer, you remember how in Acts chapter five, when they appear before the Sanhedrin, Peter and the apostles, they go out after being beaten. And it says that they rejoiced. Rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name, the name of Christ. So beloved, we never need to be ashamed of the name of Christ. And in our suffering, our question must not be, why is this happening to me? Our question should be this, how can I glorify the Lord? How can I glorify his name in the midst of this trial? Peter goes on in verses 17 and 18 to give us further incentive to not be ashamed. You see, he points to how judgment begins at the household of God. What's he saying? He's pointing out to the reality of the coming judgment. Literally in the original, it says this, it is time for the judgment, a definite article, the judgment to begin with the household of God. You see, when Christ returns, All must appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Christian and non-Christian alike, and Christ in that judgment seat. And we see that scene that he speaks of. Matthew chapter 25, he will separate the sheep and the goats based on what we have done. Now hear me clearly. It does not mean that we are saved by our good works. It does not mean that we are saved by what we have done. No, we're saved by the work of Christ on our behalf. But it does mean that the good that we have done in Christ's name is proof that we belong to Him. It's proof that we have genuine faith in Him. It's evidence of our genuine faith, that we're not those who were ashamed of Him. See, that's how fiery trials work, to show the genuineness of our faith now. When we respond, you see, like Christ responded, not ashamed to suffer, it shows that we are not ashamed of Him. And therefore, we can have confidence that in that day, When that judgment finally comes, we will be among the sheep and not among the goats. But part of the reason we can have that confidence is because we go through, in a sense, the judgment now. We go through a sifting now, through the trials. It's showing whether we are really his now or not. But he goes on to say, if that's true for the Christian, if you must go through a sifting now, If we who have faith must go through trial and suffering now, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God in that day? As he quotes Proverbs 11, verse 31, if the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner, the one who scoffs and mocks Christ today? What will become of you, scoffer, when Christ returns? The answer is clear. You will be among the goats, you will be among those cast in the lake of fire for eternity. Sobering words, Jesus himself said, After he called his disciples to take up their cross and follow him, he said, for whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the son of man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels. Beloved, let us not be ashamed of Christ and suffering for his name now. So Peter has told us, don't respond with surprise to your trials, but with rejoicing. And secondly, don't suffer as an evildoer, but as a Christian unashamed of his name. But lastly, as he comes to his conclusion in verse 19, he tells us, don't doubt God's goodness or power, but entrust yourself to your faithful creator. You see, behind all of our surprise at trials, behind our shame in suffering, is a lack of trust. To the finite sinful mind, suffering in this world must mean one of two things. If God exists, and there's suffering in this world, then though he may be powerful, he must not be good. Because how could he let suffering go on? He might have power over it, but that power just brings about the suffering. It's not good. And therefore, if he's not good, I can't trust him. That's the lie that Satan wants us all to believe. That's the lie that he used with Eve at the very beginning. God doesn't have your best interest in mind, Eve. He's holding back. He's not letting you eat of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil because he's keeping things back from you. God's not really good. Satan was impugning God's character. And the finite, sinful human mind will sometimes go in that direction when faced with the reality of evil and suffering in this world. But if that's not the direction, then it goes in this other direction. The sinful mind will say, well, if God exists and there's suffering in this world, then though God may be good, he certainly cannot be all powerful. Because a good God would not let that suffering go and continue on, would he? This was the problem that Rabbi Harold Kushner had. The death of his son, he could not understand how that could be. He wrote a book. Bad things happen to good people. And his whole argument was to say, we can't say that God is not good. No, God is good. The problem is he doesn't have the power to stop the evil. Therefore, if that's the case, can you really fully entrust yourself to such a God? What can he really do for you? See, this is where the sinful mind goes. But Peter tells us otherwise, that both of those things are not true. What he says to us that, he says, you're God, the God of the universe. He is a God who is both faithful and creator. You can entrust yourself to him because our God is faithful and true. Every word of God proves true. He is a good God. Every promise that he makes, he brings to pass. All of his purposes for his people are good. You can trust him. He is trustworthy. But not only that, not only is he a faithful God, and in that sense, he's always good, but he's also our creator. And this is one of the only times in the New Testament that God is called creator explicitly. Certainly alludes to his creation and his power in creation, but here he's called a faithful creator. Why does Peter use that phrase, not faithful father? because He's wanting to emphasize for us His power as the Almighty God who can speak and the world comes to be. So powerful, in fact, is this God. So powerful is our Father that He can even sinlessly ordain the sinful acts of sinful men and overrule them in His power to bring about His good purpose. That's exactly what happened at the cross. He ordained His Son's death at the hands of sinful men. And yet by that very act and by that very suffering of His Son, that's how He redeemed. That's how He saves. And if that's true of the cross of Christ, isn't that true of the crosses we're called to bear as well? So powerful, in fact, is our God that He can use suffering in your life to refine your faith and to make you more like Christ and to bring Christ glory through your suffering. Therefore, beloved, what Peter is saying to us is that we can and we must entrust our whole self to our faithful creator and to continue doing good even in the midst of suffering. But you might respond, how is this possible? I am weak in myself. How can I entrust myself to God in the midst of trials? Sometimes the trials are so heavy. Sometimes the pressure is so great. The persecution. Maybe you're not facing persecution like our brethren in other countries, but you feel the weight of trials. How can you continue entrusting yourself to your faithful creator? Well, here's the answer. It goes back to what he said there in verse 14. Because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. You see, the spirit of Christ is a spirit that you have been given. The same spirit that upheld him when he was suffering is the spirit that upholds you. Paul describes this spirit given to us in Romans chapter eight as the spirit of adoption. He says this, for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. You remember in the context of Romans 8, he goes on to say that we will reign with him if we suffer with him. It's in that context of suffering that he speaks about the fact that we've been given this spirit of adoption that cries out, Abba, Father. And beloved, when was it that Jesus cried out, Abba Father? In the very moment when he was entrusting himself to his Heavenly Father in suffering, there in the Garden of Gethsemane, that's when he cried out there, when he was sweating those drops of blood, when he was facing the reality of the cross, it's there that he says, Abba Father, if this cup can pass, let it pass, but not my will, but yours be done. And you see what Paul is saying, that very same spirit that enabled Christ to cry out, Abba, Father, is the same spirit given to you so that when you are faced with that kind of suffering for Christ's sake, you too can cry out, Abba, Father, not my will, but your will be done. May the Lord encourage you and enable us to stand to not be ashamed, to live for Christ. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you. Thank you that you do not leave us without instruction, that we would have a reason perhaps to be surprised by trials, but you have told us clearly Over and over again in the pages of scripture, you've told us many times in this letter from Peter, but not only have you told us of the reality, but you have given us your Holy Spirit to enable us to walk through trials and suffering, trusting you. But Lord, if there are any in this room who do not yet know you in a saving way, not yet trust you, Lord, help them to see that you and you alone are the God who is faithful and powerful and true. May all hearts here entrust themselves to you. We pray in Christ's name, amen.