Don't Be Surprised At Suffering

Open up your Bibles to 1st Peter chapter 4 and as we read and study through this chapter today we remember that we're in the third major section of the book, which is how to flourish through suffering and This chapter probably speaks the most about suffering of any of the chapters that we're going through so as I was looking for a title I Thought maybe verse 12 would be a good place to find a title and verse 12 in the ESV says

Actually adore how the King James says think it not strange That's so Jane Austen like think it not strange You know and I like that but we don't talk like that. So the title I'm going to use is don't be surprised at suffering That's the title of our lesson don't be surprised at suffering and That makes sense to us because if we think back in our minds of where we all came from and how this thing all happened we know that the Dominion the rule of this world that we're living in was simply handed over to Satan at the fall of man in the garden when they rebelled against God and The rule of this world was handed to our enemy he is now as the Bible calls it the ruler of this world the prince of the power of the air and So that is one Element we are in God's kingdom and so we're at war we are at war We're living in a war in a war people suffer It's not perfect things don't go along just lovely and so it makes sense that we should not be surprised think it not strange That we are going to suffer because we are at war Before we start reading these verses There I want to point out a few things I want us to look for a few things that we did not Talk about in the study guide and that is watch for all the references to time in this chapter. There's four Time oriented kind of words including the time spent in the flesh and then watch for our Thinking our attitude our sober mindedness as we read through this whole chapter, so let's read the first six verses

Father God, we really ask for your presence and ask you to open our spirits We come humbly before you knowing that as we approach scripture You are the one that enlightens us and teaches us what it means and what it means to our lives So we just invite you to do that this morning in Jesus name. I Have just a few thoughts on this section of verses that I want to point out and that is the natural Encouragement that it's always good for us to be mindful of the fact that we have a certain amount of time in the flesh That was a constant phrase that we just read We have a certain amount of time in the flesh and none of us knows how much time we have left in the flesh We might guess that we have a long amount of time yet We might guess that we have a short amount of time. It could be one day three decades depending on how old we are But it's wise for us to consider. How are we spending? The time that we have left in the flesh. What are we doing with it? And this section gives us a couple of concepts Peter says, you know the time that we spent the time that's already spent on human passions That's enough and he's going to turn our attention to exchanging time spent focusing on human passions Which he explained to now our time should be spent focusing on the will of God for us And he even says whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin And so if we could talk about sin and human passions in the same kind of category the time Whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin and that can be kind of confusing and I don't pretend to know exactly what he was getting at but to me I just kind of I could put a Cultural phrase to it and I could say to you The amount of time that I spent drinking diet Pepsi was quite enough. I am so done with diet Pepsi Right. It's like you come to the conclusion in life that it's time to turn a corner on something That maybe wasn't profitable and healthy and you make a difference and I think about the person who has Determined whether they've been saved for quite a while or just now saved they have determined to graft themselves be united to Christ identify with Christ so much to the extent that they say the amount of time that I Focused on human passions in the past maybe even while I was a Christian. That's enough Now it's different now, I'm going to focus on different things so he who has suffered in the flesh is ceased with sin Doesn't mean that we levitate we no longer sin. It means we have an attitude Enough is enough now. We're living for other things maybe that's what Peter had in mind there, but we definitely see the contrast here between human passions and The will of God and again those human passions were Explained for us here. There's other places in the New Testament But when we do that when we make when we turn that corner and say enough we are living for the will of God now We're going to ruffle feathers around us People will notice and it often won't be received very well and Peter says expect this Expected he goes Do not or they he says they will be surprised Unbelievers when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery and because you don't join them in their perceived Freedoms they will malign you okay, and that word malign is a very strong word Their reaction toward you is not going to be hey. You know you have your preferences. I have my preferences Let's all respect each other and get along That's not what malign means it's a much stronger Insulting kind of word and when Peter says they will be surprised when you don't join them It's not surprise like surprise or surprise like wow I didn't see that coming It's surprise like strange in fact. That's actually what the word means they will think it's strange They will think it's strange that you don't join them. They will think you strange. They will think you odd That you do not join them in the same perceived freedoms that they have and So they will malign you and I think in our new American experience Which really demands a lot of freedom from any? Unwanted suggestions that there may be God ordered boundaries in life Almost everything related to a moral compass is perceived as strange as odd as unwanted and so you who live through a biblical filter are Going to be seen as strange and be maligned the point of this chapter is Peter saying prepare for that Don't think it's strange when that happens That's the That's what a war is like right and One last little thing in verse 6. I think I just want to comment that we don't we want to Interpret it correctly so that we don't get the idea that there's another chance for salvation after death if you read it a certain From a certain direction you could think that that's maybe what he's saying, so let's clarify that Peter Warren Weersbe says Peter was reminding his readers of the Christians who had been martyred for their faith Those who are dead means dead at the time Peter was writing, but the gospel was preached to them when they were alive Okay, so the gospel went to them when they were alive now They are dead so when he says the living and the dead it doesn't mean that there's another chance For people to hear the gospel once they've died so we need to interpret that one right and Hebrews 9 27 is another good verse for that so What I want to really do is get to the meat of our conversation today and that's four important elements that we are given here that express to us what the will of God is as Contrasted to human passions, and they are prayer love hospitality and Serving one another and so we're really going to dissect this God desires that his people would become engaged in the will of God Engaged in good works. We're not saved by our good works We are saved on to good works, which God prepared for us to do and so If you ever think to yourself, I just don't know what God's will is for my life, well just pick up one of these. Any one of these four will be good. Just do one of those in the next hour and you know that you're going to be in the will of God. So verse 7, he says, he's reminding us of time again. Time is of the essence. And he says,

. We come to this first concept that is the will of God. And it's connected with these exhortations to be self-controlled and sober-minded. It's connected with prayer here. And so that gives us something really to think about, that our minds, our thoughts, and our attitudes are this tactical fort, if you will, from which to launch our prayer life, to launch that type of warfare. And that's the will of God for us. Now I want to leave you a lot of room to discuss prayer in your discussion groups and share with one another what works, what doesn't work, and all those kinds of things. But our attitude is important when we approach prayer. We can approach prayer with a prideful attitude, with the to-do list, and saying, I know what needs to be done, God, would you do these things? Or we can approach God with, in a sense of humility. And there was this quote I put on Facebook, and I'll read it for you now. This really resonated with me. Prayer glorifies God because it acknowledges our weakness and dependence upon him. Not to pray is, in effect, to assert our own sufficiency and arrogance in that we're acting on our own. I think the reason that resonated with me so much is I think of prayerless days in my life. Maybe you have them too. And when you don't pray, and I thought, that just really hit me. Not to pray is, in effect, to assert my sufficiency, to say, I'm good, got it covered, I have it all dialed in, all under control. That's not the attitude I want to have with God because I know better. I know that I have a great dependency on him. I know that he knows better than I do. He has the strength when I am weak. And so that really inspired me to not be the prayerless Christian. Verse 8 says,

. So our second focus is on love. And we just had Valentine's Day on Sunday. So this has been on our front burner, you know, but we ate all the chocolate. We put on all the pounds. We probably took down the paper hearts and filed them or threw them away or whatever. And what are we left with then after Valentine's Day? Which is a great holiday. I'm not dismissing it at all. But for us, I love that what we're left with here today studying 1 Peter chapter 4 is this exhortation, above all, keep loving one another earnestly. Peter can't even write a chapter without reminding us love one another, earnestly love one another. And this is like the big, like, I feel like he's saying, have I said this again? Above all, keep loving one another. So in terms of love, I was thinking, like, what can you say? Like, that's a whole retreat weekend. Like, you can go on and on. So what I decided to do is there's a book written by Paul David Tripp called, What Did You Expect? It's a book about marriage. It's very good. If you want to pick it up, we have it in our bookstore. But I copied an excerpt from that book and I put it in this little pamphlet for you. Because I was thinking about this. If he tells us, above all, keep loving one another, then that's something that we should keep thinking about. So what I decided I was going to do is look at these, you know, 26 little things. I'll read the first one. He says, love is being willing to have your life complicated by the needs and struggles of others without impatience or anger. That is a huge volume of thought for me. And so, silly me, I thought, you know, oh, 23. I'll just read one of these every day and I'll focus on it and then I'll read the next one the next day. I haven't moved past the first one. And now I'm thinking, I'll do one of these a year. You know, like, that's going to be, this is what my whole year is going to be about, is being willing to have my life complicated by others and their struggles and really loving one another. So hopefully, this will give you something you can pop in your Bible and maybe God will use it in your life. But let's go on to verse 9.

. There's a modifier there. Show hospitality without the grumbling part. And we know that hospitality, in the New Testament, hospitality is very, very often linked very closely with the word love. And so, the way I see it, like, faith brings forth works. And in the same way, love often brings forth hospitality. Ten months ago, we had our Home Builders Workshop in here and our focus last year was on hospitality. So I want to walk back in our minds and review some of those things that we talked about last March. Excuse me. First of all, let's look at the word itself because we all have different perceptions of what hospitality means. We have a hospitality industry in our country, but we're not talking Holiday Inn here. The word hospitality is a Greek word, phalanxia, and it is, it has two, it's made up of two compound words, phalao, there's the love part over there, and xenos, which means strange or strangers. So hospitality is a love of strangers or guests. Now, we are strangers. The body of Christ is our strangers in this world. So I don't think we need to throw out people that you already know, but I think it's wise for us to take into consideration both those that we do know, but the stranger, those that we don't know as we are considering hospitality. It focuses on the people, the strangers and guests, not on the place and the stuff. But we're girls and the place and the stuff to us plays a supporting role, doesn't it? It's important. So we don't have to, you know, shut out that part of our makeup. In your study guide, what we mentioned is if you take the word hospitality and you take your little finger and cover up those last three letters, what are you left with? You're left with the word hospital. And that gives us such a great way to think about hospitality because a hospital is a place where people are cared for, where they are cared for physically, emotionally, and even spiritually in a hospital. When we offer hospitality to someone, we are doing the same thing. We are caring for them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Now when I think of what goes on in a hospital and I think of all the workers that are there and all the skill that is required to do that, there are many, many gifts and skills that are put to use to achieve that result of caring for people. So that makes for us a perfect segue to get into the next verse because it says,

. So these verses really help give us a form to understand our serving, especially in the body of Christ. So what do we learn from these verses here? First of all, we learn that he says, each one has been given a gift. Because each has been given a gift and all the apostles expressed it this way. So when you ask Jesus to come into your heart, the Holy Spirit came into your heart. He is such a good guest, he came bearing gifts as he's dwelling within you. And each one in the body of Christ has a gift or more than one gift. So that's the first thing that we learn is no one is without a spiritual gift. The second thing that we learn, that I love how Peter puts this into categories for us that makes it very easy for us to see, some gifts pertain to speaking. And they will require words and thoughts based out of scripture. And they are gifts that are going to teach and exhort and words of encouragement, words of comfort, those who pray. They are gifts given that communicate. And other gifts, Peter says, pertain more to serving, and they require action. And I love how he says, he pointed out that strength from God needed for that action. But they include helping, and providing for needs, and administrating, and organizing, and picking up, and watching over. And there are so many action-type gifts that are given that are really necessary. And so can we not see, as we study this, that as we think of the church, the body of Christ, as a hospital, all these gifts that need to be employed, if you went to the hospital, there would be people there who would be skilled at the verbal, the communication, explaining to you what's wrong, what you need to do when you go home, what the procedure is going to be like, how you're going to feel. Those are very necessary. There are doctors, and nurses, and specialists that will communicate to you. And then there's a whole staff that is going to be caring for you. There's the surgeon that actually does the work, and there are the nurses that make you more comfortable, and there's the cafeteria workers that bring you food, and there's the people that clean up. So it's a very good analogy, isn't it? If you think of a hospital and all the skilled workers required to give you care, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, it's the same thing in a church. We need those who communicate. We need those who serve. So I thought to myself, what causes us to not use the gift that we have been given, or the gifts that we have been given? There's a lot of things that cause. First of all, the enemy just comes to separate people out. Comes to cause division, so that people are drawn out of the body of Christ, and whatever. Another element is that sometimes we go through trials in our life. We go through suffering in our life, and it naturally makes us feel overwhelmed. And we think, I'll serve when I feel better. I can't even get out of bed this morning. I just need to focus on my own life right now. And no one would argue with that. However, when we go through a trial, and when we're being squeezed, and when we're being pressed, I believe that is when we are the most useful to someone else. We are the most empathetic. It's like God just turns up. I heard Levi Lusko say, He turns up the volume on the microphone when we are suffering. And look at the context of this in the terms of, this is in Chapter 4, suffering, suffering, suffering. Don't be surprised when you suffer. Oh, by the way, while you're suffering, do these things that are the will of God. You will be more effective if you do them while you are suffering, while you are overwhelmed, while you feel like you have nothing to offer, because that is when the grace of God comes in. And provides and effortlessly flows through you to someone else. So I want to encourage you to process that and think about, has the Lord given me a gift that I am not employing in the body of Christ? And just sort of process that. And of course, the important part is verse 11. It's our motivation and our focus that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. Well, let's go to our next section, which we titled, Having an Expectation of Suffering. Verse 12 says,

. And so as unsympathetic as it sounds, he's saying that we are not, rather than being surprised if, we are to rejoice when. That's what we can boil that down to. And I think, again, that this is a good place for us to call out another ploy of the enemy that gets us to doubt the goodness of God. When we are going through a fiery trial of some kind, through going through something difficult, the enemy can convince us that somehow we alone are being singled out for this trouble. And other people don't suffer. Other people don't have trials. This is just something. And so if we begin, and especially us girls, that have, it's almost impossible not to be touched by the prosperity gospel in our country that tells you, you know, if you're just, that things should go well, everything should go well for you, right? And so when it doesn't go well, then we're surprised. Because we've been told, if we just, you know, say, hey, good times are right around the corner. God has something. He has a successful life for you. Your best life now. If we think that, then we're surprised when the trials come. And then what happens? The enemy tells us, oh, you did it wrong. God's displeased with you. And we shrink back. So we don't want to succumb to that. That's why our attitude is so important. We want to have an expectation. It's in agreement with Scripture. Listen to what Scripture, the unity of the voice of Scripture. Think it not strange if you suffer. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God. So this is the unity of Scripture. But Peter is telling these people, hey, rejoice when that happens. Rejoice when that happens. And I think that they were able, because they had an expectation of suffering, I think it gave them power to not only endure that fiery trial, but the first century church to explode. And so what we can look forward to when we begin to suffer trials, persecutions, I think we will begin to look more like the first century church than we ever have. That's something to rejoice in. Let's keep reading.

. I was listening to Johnny Erickson Tata one time, and I ran to my notebook to write down something she said in the middle of a delivery. And what she said was, God has delivered you from the only type of suffering that can harm you. I thought, that's something I want to hold on to, that God has already delivered me from the only type of true suffering that can harm me. I may not like the suffering that I endure in the flesh, but it won't truly harm me. You know, my life is secure, my inheritance is written. I'm in Christ, I know where I'm going, but yet we might not like it. Well, since Johnny Erickson Tata said, God has delivered you from the only type of suffering that can harm you. Since so much of this book, and I'm just going to close with this, speaks about us collectively, and even in this passage it said, the household of God. I want to draw us right back to that first phrase, arm yourselves, that we talked about, which is a military term of preparedness, putting on the armor. Arm yourselves with this attitude to really help one another through the suffering that we endure. We will endure fiery trials. We will endure suffering. So let's arm ourselves with the attitude of pulling together in this, because all of these things that we looked at that are the will of God for us, they're collective. If there's no one to love, how can I love? It requires another person, or more than showing hospitality requires more people. They are collective things. Serving requires other people. So to arm ourselves with this idea that this is how we not only endure the suffering that we go through, but we succeed in letting the spirit of God use us, is be mindful collectively of what's happening to us. So I'm going to pray, and then you get to discuss. Father, thank you for your word and your inspiration to us, Lord God. Help us to just roll this through our minds and apply it individually to our lives. Lord, whatever you have for us to really pull out of this and focus on as we walk forward into this week, I pray that you would do that. And I know that it's going to be very different as I think about all the women across this room, Lord, and the different places of our lives. But that's the beauty of the Holy Spirit in our lives, is you'll take one thing, and you'll work with us, and walk with us, and lead us. And so we ask for that work, Lord, that you would do that. We thank you for this lesson, and we thank you that we are... able to discuss together. In Jesus name, Amen.