Well, dear congregation, let's continue to worship our God this morning by considering his word. We are continuing in our exposition of the book of 1 Peter, so I'd ask you to turn to 1 Peter 4, and this morning we'll be considering, and I will be reading in your hearing, verses 12 through 19. So 1 Peter 4, verses 12 through 19, if you are following along in a pew Bible, you can find that on page 1016. 1016 so let's give our attention therefore to the reading of God's Word 1st Peter chapter 12 or chapter 4 verses 12 through 19 The Apostle Peter says 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. I 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 as 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? 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. As far as the reading of God's word, the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our Lord stands forever. And we are thankful for it, are we not, congregation? Let us ask the Lord for help as we consider his word. Let's pray. Father God, we know that you refine us. You've given us so many analogies, so many metaphors, so many examples in scripture that convey this to us, that we are, in so many ways, like raw materials put into the fire to be refined so that dross may be burned out, impurities may be expelled, and that we might come forth as pure gold, pure silver. Father, we confess to You that though we have this promise, and though, yes, we cling to it, and yes, it brings us through many a valley of the shadow of death, it is still difficult, Father, and we cry out to You as Your children this morning, praying that though this promise be true, that You would help our unbelief in clinging to it. That, Father, as we suffer for the name, the precious name of Jesus Christ, that our suffering would be, in our eyes and in our hearts, worth it. that Father we would see the glory that is to come as Jesus Christ will break through the clouds as putting an end to our suffering. The mouths of those who speak vile things will be shut and every mouth as their knee is bended, will confess that Jesus is Lord. Father, we pray that this day would come soon, and in the meantime, Father, pull us out of the heat when your sovereign will declares it to be so. Do not leave us in any longer, Father, so that we are not overwhelmed with temptations that we cannot bear. For you have given us another promise that you will not tempt us beyond what we are able to endure. So Father, this morning we pray that you would speak to us through this very passage. We pray that you would give to your servant clarity in expositing the word, putting your son on display in such a way that all of our knees bow and we revel in worshiping him together with the Father and the Spirit. We ask all of these things in your son's name, amen. Well, my wife tells me that I have selective vision. That's the nice way of putting it. When we're not in good company, she says that I'm blind. And the reason why is because, for example, she'll tell me, go get the milk so I could fill up Caleb's bottle. And so I, of course, proceed to the refrigerator, and I open up the door, and I look where the milk should be. And it's not there, and so I proceed back to my queen and I tell her, the milk is not there. And she doesn't answer with a word, she simply answers with a look, you know that look. And she proceeds to the refrigerator and opens it up and looks, might I add, where the milk shouldn't be and finds it. And the problem is, is that indeed I have selective vision, I'm looking for milk in all the wrong places. And I think as Christians we tend to do the same thing, especially as our context lays out this morning in the case of finding God's love and presence and assurance and comfort in the midst of suffering for the name of Christ. Where do we tend to look in the wrong places? We, for example, tend to find that safety valve, that relief valve of pressure in the end of the trial, do we not? Oh, Father, would you please bring this thing to a speedy end so that I can get out of the valley of the shadow of death and get back onto that peak? Because there I will see your love, there I will see your assurance, there I will see your faithfulness. Or perhaps we're looking in another wrong place. We are looking for the softening of our trial, are we not? Lord, if you're not gonna bring the end, then at least release a little pressure, make it a little bit easier, and then, oh, there and there I will see your faithfulness and your assurance and your love. But what if God's presence and love and assurance could be found just as clearly in the most intense heat of the trial? It was actually in the midst of the fire. In the midst that those three Hebrew youths, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were accompanied by one who kept them from being consumed. And that's exactly what Peter is getting at this morning. Peter was addressing, as you know, doubting Christians in Asia Minor. And if you could just turn back, keep your thumb in 1 Peter 4, and just turn back very briefly one page to 1 Peter 1, verse 8, we can see a little bit of the dilemma that the Christians were in. Here was the dilemma that they were in. On the one hand, they had never seen Jesus. Remember, these are Christians in Asia Minor. These are not Christians that were in Palestine or Jerusalem or Israel. They did not have the benefit, as Peter did, of physically walking with Jesus, at times touching Jesus, hearing the words of our Lord. They did not have that benefit. Furthermore, now that Jesus was ascended to the right hand of the Father and was ruling in his mediatorial kingdom, they did not have his physical presence. And this is why we read in verse eight of chapter one, Peter says, though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. What would be the benefit of having Jesus physically here? I think the answer is very simple. Can you imagine going through a trial of suffering as a result of being a Christian and yet having Jesus here to come and share your burdens with? Wouldn't that be amazing? And even if we didn't have that, if that was the first best, if we were to have the second best, There was a time for three years when you walked with Jesus, and He gave you all this input, and He gave you all this wisdom, and He gave you all this assurance. That would be good as well, but these Asia Minor Christians had none of that. So they didn't have the presence of Jesus physically, but then now on the other hand, there was something else that exacerbated their doubt, and it was this. They were suffering. Now just to make it very clear here, and we've seen this throughout the book of 1 Peter, this was not any kind of normal suffering. This wasn't the kind of suffering that every person experiences as a result of being human like natural disasters or cancer striking your body or the loss of a loved one. Non-believers and believers experience that in the same way. Nor, as he says, coming back now to 1 Peter 4, verse 15, was it the kind of suffering that sometimes we experience for our foolishness or our stupidity. He says in verse 15, let none of you suffer as a murderer or as a thief or an evildoer or a meddler. No, the kind of suffering that they were experiencing was suffering because they were a Christian. It was suffering because they deigned to open their mouth with bold audacity to speak to their lesbian neighbors, to speak to their pagan coworkers, to speak to their agnostic or atheist family members and say, Jesus is there, and he is coming one day, and he will judge the living and the dead, and oh friend, oh coworker, oh family member, would you please not die? They had the audacity to do those things, and as a result, as we've seen throughout this epistle, what they experienced was slander, verbal abuse, accusations, wrongdoing, possibly, we see this in 3.15, being brought before a local magistrate because of their Christian witness. In fact, With this dilemma, not physically having Jesus, and on the other hand, experiencing suffering for the name of Jesus, they perhaps were led to ask the question that was the title of a 1951 movie here in America, Quo Vadis. Where are you going, Lord? Where are you? Are you leaving us? Why is it that we are experiencing such suffering as a result of being faithful to you? I mean, logically speaking, it would seem that we should not suffer because we are standing up for you. What is Peter's response to this doubting assumption of the Asia Minor Christians? As always, his response is explicitly theological. You know what he does? He reminds them of their identity. And if at this point you're saying, oh, here we go again, Pastor Josh, one note, Charlie, identity, identity. Thank you. I take that as a compliment. Because the Bible through and through, especially in the New Testament, when it wants to give you comfort and consolation against your doubting, against your fears, against your unauthorized prognostications of the future, what does it do time and time and time again? It reminds you of who you are in Jesus Christ. And it does that in a panoply of different ways. And Peter's going to pick one in particular this morning. He's going to remind them of their identity through rich Old Testament motifs or themes that is going to give them a picture of themselves as the living temple of God. And it is that temple of God upon which the Spirit of God rests and demonstrates to them His presence with them. So that's how Peter's going to answer the question of Quo Vadis. Lord, where are you going? Lord, are you here? Lord, we're suffering for your name's sake. Are you with us? Have you abandoned us? And Peter's going to say, no, he is here. in a way that perhaps you haven't realized before, and it is going to give you immense encouragement in the process. So let me just sum up everything that we're going to say this morning in a quick main idea. This is what Peter's messages to his hearers and to us. It is in the intensity of the refining fires of suffering that we see our identity, God's presence, and our ground for rejoicing. Let me say that one more time. It is in the intensity of the refining fires of suffering that we see our identity, God's presence, and our ground for rejoicing. Now, As we come to this text, what you need to understand is that Peter is going to use Old Testament motifs to position his explanation of who we are in Jesus Christ. Now, what is a motif? A motif is a recurring theme or subject in a story or a movie that you can lift, if you will, and put on any other story. And let me give you an example. If you, many of you have seen the Disney movie Cinderella. And what is the motif of Cinderella? The motif of Cinderella is that this young lady moves from what? From rags to what? So this motif of a subject or a character that moves from rags to riches, we can lift that motif and now put it on all five Rockies, or six, I can't remember what the last one was. But a young, obscure seemingly, obscure boxer moves from rags to riches, Sylvester Stallone. So in the same way, the Old Testament has a number of motifs, and Peter is going to lift two motifs or recurring themes from Old Testament Israel and place them upon the life of the church, the life of the Christian, and show the rich symbolism and significance in, number one, the motif of temple, and number two, the motif of the Spirit of God that rests on the temple and sometimes rests upon the temple as a what? A fire. A fire that is in God's house. So let's look first then at Peter's use of this Old Testament motif to answer the question of abandonment. What I want you to do is I want you to keep a thumb in 1 Peter, and I want you to turn all the way back to Malachi 3. Now we read this in our responsive reading this morning, so it should be fresh in your mind, but I want to read a portion from Malachi 3. And if you're following along in a pew Bible, you could find that on page 802, 802. So you got a psalm in 1 Peter 4, and you've got another digit in Malachi 3. Now, as you're in Malachi 3, let me remind you of what Peter's saying. He says in chapter 4, 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. Now I think that a better translation, I won't go into the reasons why, but it's not a fiery ordeal, but a firing. In fact, the Greek word that's used in that, in chapter four, verse 12, is not two words, which you might think it's two words, because in the English it says fiery ordeal. Now the translators are interpreting at that point, and that's something that translators do. You can't get away from it. But there's only one word in the Greek, and it's a word from which we actually get the word pyro in English. somebody who plays with fire, obsessed with fire. But what Peter is doing, I think, is drawing upon a theme or a motif in Malachi chapter three, where the messenger of the covenant comes as a refiner. He comes to bring fire in God's house. And so I want you to look at now Malachi chapter three, verses one through three. This is what he says. Behold, I send my messenger. And he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. And the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming and who can stand when he appears for he is like a refiners fire like fuller soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. I want you to notice a few things before we move on here. Number one. The messenger of the covenant comes to the temple in the form of fire. And he comes to the temple to reside over the temple, and it is those within the temple, notice, the sons of Levi, the priests, whom he is going to refine metaphorically through this idea of throwing them into the smelting pot to refine and expel the impurities and the dross, so that what, purpose clause, they can offer righteous sacrifices. Now, I want you to notice, this messenger of the covenant comes first to the temple, so judgment begins at the temple of God. And now I want you to look at chapter four, verse one, Malachi chapter four, verse one, and I want you to notice where this judgment moves out to. For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. What is Malachi saying here? The consuming fire of God's judgment will come to the temple of the Lord, and judgment will begin from the temple of the Lord, and then it will move out, outside the bounds of God's covenant people to essentially pagans, non-believers, and he will judge them. Want you to come back to first Peter chapter 4 and look at how Peter has lifted this motif and placed it upon not Israel But the new Israel of God the church coming back to first Peter chapter 4. I want you to look at verse 17 Peter's gonna harness the same motif to comfort New Testament Christians. He says For it is time for judgment to begin, literally in the Greek, from the house of God. And if it begins with us, what will become, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel? Do you see the same movement here? Judgment comes first to the house of God, which by the way, it shouldn't be translated household, I won't go into the reasons why, but that collocation or phrase, oikos de theos, which is house of God, when it is used in the Septuagint in the Old Testament, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, always refers to the temple, not the people in the temple, but the temple itself. And so judgment comes to the house of God, and then what does it do? Through a rhetorical question, Peter asks, what will be the outcome of those who are not part of this people of God? And the intended implication is judgment. So the judgment first comes to the people of God and then moves out to unbelievers. Now, the question you may be asking at this point is what kind of judgment is this? Is the judgment that comes to the house of God the same as the judgment that then moves out of the covenant boundaries of the people of God and judges non-believers? And the answer is no. In fact, in the Greek, there is a word, katakrino, which refers to judgment which leads to condemnation. And that is the word that is used so often with unbelievers, but the word used here for judgment in the house of God is crinol, which basically has a different end. And if I can explain it, it would be like this. I want you to imagine a judge who judges as his vocation. So maybe he sits on the Supreme Court or the local courts. Throughout the day, he's making judgments. Criminals are coming, or offenders, or whatever are coming before him making their case. He's making judgment based on strict law. There is no appeal by the criminals, and if there is, it falls on deaf ears, to his loving filial fatherhood to them, because he's not a father to them. There is no familial connection of the judge to the offender, but he judges by strict judgment. But then that judge, it's five o'clock, he comes home, He walks into his room, he takes off his tie and his shirt, perhaps he slips into his bathrobe, puts on his slippers, and he's sitting down to read the evening paper or blog, whatever, and he hears this commotion in the room, and it's the room of his children. It's his daughter and his son. It's like two cats just like going at it. And so he comes in and he breaks them up. He says, now wait a minute, what's going on here? And she says, he did this. No, she did that. And he said, now wait a minute. We just got to get the facts here. So he takes his daughter in his right hand and his son and his. Left hand and he says now son I'm gonna ask your sister what she did and you're gonna keep your mouth closed and then she starts to tell no no no I said you're going to be quiet and I'm gonna listen to what your sister says and she's gonna give her account so she gives her account and then the boy gives his account and Then after taking all that into consideration. What does the father do he makes a judgment? he makes a judgment and perhaps he decides to or give corporal discipline to the daughter or to the son or maybe take something away from them as a judgment. But that judgment is not for the purpose, listen, of condemnation. That judgment is a filial judgment that comes not from a judge as strict judge, but a judge who is also a what? A father. A father who seeks to promote the well-being of his children. A father who, as the authored Hebrew says, disciplines them because he what? Because he loves them. And this is the judgment that is coming to the household of God. It is not a judgment for the end of condemnation. And why is that? Because the household of God or the house of God has one who is already undertaking the judgment and condemnation for their sins. And that is Jesus Christ. And therefore they will not be judged. through condemnation, but they will be judged through discipline. Now, I want you to take this idea of God coming to his temple as a refining fire, fire in God's house, to prove his people so that they might offer righteous sacrifices. And now I want you to connect it to another idea, and I want you to listen to me very carefully, okay? I want you to connect it to another motif that Peter has in mind from the Old Testament. In the old covenant, there was a glory cloud of God that would rest upon the tabernacle of God. And how did God manifest his resting upon the tabernacle of God? As I said, it was this pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. And this pillar was present, if you look at the children of Israel coming out of Egypt through the Red Sea, It was the pillar of fire that presided over them and clogged the wheels of the Egyptians so that they got stuck and the waters of judgment consumed them. And not only that, but as they came into the wilderness, what did that pillar of fire do? That pillar of fire led them wherever they were to go. And whenever they came to set up camp for the night, where would that pillar rest? Not in some parking lot, okay, you know, Bambi D. He would rest over the temple of God He would rest over in that time the tent of testimony and when that pillar of fire would move out It was time for the children of God to pull up stakes and move on many theologians have rightly in my estimation pointed out that that this glory cloud is one of the images of the Holy Spirit in the Old Covenant. And I think that they're right. I think that they're right. Notice that the glory cloud, this is so significant and so rich, the glory cloud would preside over the temple, or the tabernacle, and what was in the tabernacle? The Ark of the Covenant. And what was in the Ark of the Covenant? The covenant oath of God on tablets. And so this pillar was standing over that ark of covenant words as if to say, God will keep his promises. God will stand faithful to you and you Israel, you must be holy to him. And so he was a witness to both God on behalf of God and to man that God would keep his promises, God will love, God will be faithful, but God is also concerned about what? Holiness. God is concerned about holiness. God is concerned that you be faithful to your suzerain, to your covenant Lord, to the one who brought you out of the house of slavery. And what's interesting, what's interesting is that when Solomon prayed in the dedication of the temple, what happened? That glory cloud came and filled the temple. And then what happened? The children of Israel had been rebellious, and so God took them into captivity by the Babylonians. And what did Ezekiel see? He saw, as he was looking at the temple, the glory cloud departing from Israel, because Israel had broken their covenant with God. And as the glory cloud departed, there was no more glory. And then, 70 years later, watch this, 70 years later, the children of Israel come back into the land, and under Ezra and Nehemiah, they rebuild a new temple, right? And you remember, as they rebuilt that new temple, that the young people were rejoicing, but what were the old people doing? They were mourning because the glory of the new temple was minimal compared to the glory of the former temple. But Haggai comes along, the post-exilic prophet in Haggai chapter two, verse nine, and he says, the Lord declares that the glory of this latter temple will be greater than the glory of the former temple. And so the people of God are excited, but guess what? For 400 years, the people of Israel never saw that glory cloud come back. Has God been unfaithful to his promise? Haggai says in chapter two, verse seven, that there will come a time where I will shake the nations, and all the nations will bring their treasures into this temple, and then I will bring peace to this temple. Isn't that interesting? It's when we open up the pages of the New Testament that foreign men from foreign nations bring gifts to baby Jesus in the Nativity. It's when we open the pages of the New Testament that John chapter one, verse one says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and then verse 14 says what? And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. You know what that says in the Greek? Literally, he tabernacled among us. Jesus Christ is presented by the New Testament authors as the true temple. And then as we see Jesus baptized, He comes up from the waters of baptism and something descends upon Him, doesn't it? The Holy Spirit descends upon this new temple of God. And what is true of the Son of God is true of His people, because by faith we are in Him. And this is why it doesn't surprise me at all that on the day of Pentecost, when the new temple of God, the new Israel, the new people of God are gathered together, what comes down? but tongues of fire. The Holy Spirit is returning to his temple in fulfillment of Haggai 2, 7, and 9. I want you to take these realities and see how they come together in verse 14. 1 Peter 4, verse 14. This is very important, and if you've been following the two motifs that Peter has drawn out, and then how he has lifted those two motifs from old covenant history to new covenant realities and placed them on the church of God, then you're going to see how it all comes together in verse 14. In verse 14, Peter says, and I'm gonna give you my own translation, which I think is more felicitous, It's not if, it's not a conditional. A in the Greek can be understood as inasmuch. Inasmuch as you are insulted as a Christian, rejoice because the spirit of God and of glory, what? Rests upon you. The Spirit of God, who is so often visibly manifested as a fiery glory cloud resting upon the temple of God in the Old Covenant, is now presented as fire resting upon the new temple of God in the New Testament. What is this fire? It is the spirit-wrought suffering of the people of God through persecution today. The Spirit comes not with the end of condemnation, but the Spirit comes for the purpose of judgment, for refining the sons of Levi, which, by the way, that's what you are. You are the sons and daughters of Levi. We believe in the priesthood of all believers, and in the new covenant, you are priests to God because you do not need to go to a merely human priest as a mediator to get to God, but in Jesus Christ, you can go directly to the Father. And as the sons of Levi, the Lord comes sometimes, does he not, to refine us. He brings fire to the temple of God. Not a building, but to the people of God. But here's what's interesting. You must see the connection in verse 14. What Peter is saying is, the insults that you endure are evidence that the spirit of glory rests upon you. If you are insulted, this answers the question of abandonment. God, have you abandoned me? No, if you're insulted, the spirit of God rests upon you. You are the temple of God. Now we begin to see Peter's answer to the question. Has God abandoned us? Where is God in my suffering? He's right where he said he would be. He comes to us in the fires of suffering. So in this suffering, we see a token of God's presence and abiding. My suffering for the name of Christ shows that I am one of his. and I belong to him, that I am in him, and that he is in me. So now secondly, I want us to consider what is our response then? Now that we've called out this theological answer of Peter's, we've lifted the motifs from the Old Testament, we've put them on the New Testament people of God, we've seen that we are the temple, we've seen that the spirit of God rests upon us, how shall we respond? Let me suggest at least two ways in which we can respond. When you come back to 1 Peter 4, this is why he says in verse 12, do not think that a strange thing is happening to you. You see, suffering for the name of Christ is evidence that you belong to Christ, that you are the temple and that the spirit of God rests upon you. So what are we to do instead of being surprised? Number one, first thing we are to do, rejoice. We are to rejoice because we are partakers in Christ's suffering and in the glory that is to be revealed. Look at verse 13. Rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings. Do you know that you are part of the fellowship of the suffering of Jesus Christ now? Do you know, you know this, Jesus said, if they persecuted me, they will what, they will persecute you? And so do you know that this shows the very suffering that you endure, that you are in union with Jesus? And union, listen to me, is not simply God justifying you. Union is not simply God one day glorifying you, giving you a resurrected body, but union also entails being thrown into the crucible in this thing called sanctification. God throws you into the smelting pot. God throws you into the crucible And this shows that we have a vivid and living connection with Jesus Christ. And this is why he says in verse 18, chapter four, verse 18, if the righteous are scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner? A better translation would be if the righteous is saved with difficulty. Your road to glory is laced with difficulty. As Paul said, through many tribulations we must enter what? The kingdom of God. So suffering for the sake of believing in these promises is not strange because Jesus suffered for these same promises. And oftentimes, you know why God sends persecution our way? You wanna know why? I'm gonna tell you why. Because our grasp on these promises starts to become lax, and our holy commitment to the Lord becomes less important to us. And so you know what the Lord does? It's what he does with me, it's what he does with you. He sends persecution to see what you really think is important. He sends refining to drive out the impure contaminants, the world, the flesh, and the devil, that would threaten your eternal treasure. Do you see how he loved? Do you see how there's fatherly love behind the sending of suffering for the Christian? He is not a cosmic killjoy. He is not trying to kill your joy and your pleasure. What he's trying to do is keep your feet and your knees bowed close to Calvary. Qohelet says this in chapter eight, verse 11, because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. What does that mean? You start to wave into some sin. Maybe for some of you men, it's pornography. Maybe for some of you women, it's discontentment or maybe even unfaithfulness in your thoughts and in your desires. Maybe for some of you children, it's being disobedient to your children or your parents, not listening to them, thinking that they're foolish and they don't know, they don't understand. And if nothing happens as a result of your straying away, what is your heart encouraged to do? Nothing happened, I'm just gonna keep going. So what does the Lord do? He sends suffering. And that suffering will purge out the impure contaminants. So we look at what the world offers and we start cherishing it more than Christ and God says, all right, I'm gonna send suffering your way so that way I can put your true desires to the test. But notice also in verse 13, he says, rejoice and be glad it is coming. Just as Jesus resurrected, so you will be resurrected at His coming. And what does this tell us? Oh, this tells us something beautiful, saints. This tells us that in the midst of your suffering as a Christian, there is an end. It will not be indefinite. The Lord is not gonna keep you there indefinitely and say, eh, when I want to, maybe I will, maybe I won't, no, no. When Christ breaks through the clouds, He is going to put an end to all of your suffering. And the reality of His coming tells us that suffering in this life is worth it. In fact, we take up the words of Paul in Romans 8.18, For I consider that the suffering of this present time, the sufferings of this present time, are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. So do you see how even in the midst of suffering, listen to me, saints, please, I'm trying to be practical here. You have something with handles that you can grab onto to bring you through the valley of the shadow of death. It is the glory that is to be revealed in the future and the present fellowship of suffering that you have with Jesus now, present and future. Isn't our God gracious? Isn't our God gracious to give his poor, lisping, doubting, fearing saints something on to which they can grab? Are you grabbing on to that today? Are you grabbing on to this present reality of union with Jesus Christ? Are you grabbing on to the future reality that the revelation of Jesus Christ will bring with it an end to your suffering and eternal glory with him? But now, secondly, I want you to consider our second response is not surprise. But he says in verse 19, 1 Peter 4, verse 19, therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good. The culmination of his exhortation is to entrust yourself to a faithful creator, listen, while doing good. So notice we're not waiting like, I'm just gonna white knuckle this until God comes back and I'm not gonna do anything. I'm not gonna go out where there's harmful UV rays of the sun and give my kids bad food. I'm not gonna take any risks. No, I'm just gonna hold on. No, while doing good, we will entrust ourselves to a faithful creator. You continue to name the name of Christ and endure the sufferings that they bring, knowing all the while that God is faithful to his word. And as I think about how this applies to us, You know, I think that the greatest kind of suffering we see is not having our property confiscated, is not going to the sword, is not being hung. But I think the kind of suffering that we experience, which is what Peter's hearers were experiencing, is that from our own neighbors and coworkers and friends and especially family, what do they do? They insult us. They look upon us in a condescending way. They look at us as if we're from the Stone Age. They look at us as if we believe in myths and fairy tales. It's always interesting to me, I'll just give an anecdotal story how we got together with our family this Christmas, and as I've told you, there's an atheist brother-in-law that I have. And I know that they don't think highly of us for our views, but at the same time, they asked that our children, not share a particular view about St. Nick that they have that was given to them by their parents. I'm trying to be very careful here. I don't know what you tell your kids, but they didn't want our kids to share with their kids that St. Nick did or did not exist. So they wanted to preserve a what? A myth, which I find so interesting. They think that we believe in myths, but they wanted to preserve a myth amongst their family. But what do they do? They slander us. They ridicule us. And I don't know about you, but the opposition is not pleasant. And if you're like me, sometimes it tempts me to question whether it's all worth it. I'm just being honest with you. It often tempts me to wonder if I'm making all this stuff up or believing a lie. Wouldn't it just be easier to be like everyone else? But you know what? Jesus experienced the same thing. Do you know that Jesus' family early on, they thought he was nuts. They thought he had gone cuckoo. And they were trying to save face as a family by pulling him out of the public square and saying, hey Jesus, maybe you just don't talk as much. His own family thought he was crazy. His own family was embarrassed by him. Jesus experienced mocking, ridicule, insults, and embarrassment all because he believed what so many could not see, that God is true and every man is a liar. You see, God's promises are as certain as his very being. So dear Christian, are you entrusting yourself to your faithful creator while doing good? Don't simply trust Him and look to Him for Him to bring you out of the trial. And don't simply look to Him and trust in Him to soften your trial, but look at Him, to Him, and from Him, gain and garner strength in the most intense heat of the fire, because it's there that as the temple of God, the Spirit rests upon you. But now finally, let me give a word to unbelievers in our congregation, and yes, we do have some. And I just want to say before I say this that we are exceedingly grateful that you are here. We think that this is the best place for you to be, eternally speaking, on Sunday. But I want you to notice that just as Malachi moved out from the household of God with the refining fire and then out to non-believers, so Peter does the same thing in verses 17 and 18. He says, if judgment begins with us, verse 17, 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? I have a question for you unbelievers this morning. Just a very fair, simple question. If God does not spare his own people from the discomfort in this life, but instead judges them, yes, as a father, but nonetheless judges them and in some sense brings affliction to their life, do you think that he's going to spare you? The answer, my friend, is no. I grew up on an almond farm. My grandfather was an almond farmer, a walnut farmer. And I would watch as my grandfather who loved his trees. He would go out at different seasons and he would say, all right, Josh, come on, we gotta prune these trees. And he would take those branches and treat them violently and he would cut them off. And it was my job to go throw them in a brush pile that would be later taken to the fire. And not only that, but he would see branches that were drooping and he would take these posts and he would put these posts under the branches to gently keep them growing in a way that would produce almonds. He would cut the tops of the trees to make sure that they would grow in the right direction. He would flood the ground with water to make sure that they weren't thirsty. And after he turned from manipulating the branches and the trees and everything about them and making, in some sense, the tree's life difficult, and then he looks down at the root of that tree, at the trunk of that tree, and he sees a weed. What is he gonna do with that weed? he's gonna rip that weed up, or he's gonna pull out some Roundup and he's gonna drown it with poison, and he's gonna do whatever it takes to get it away from that tree. Why? Some of those weeds, you know what they were called? They were called suckers. I don't know if you've ever experienced that. But all we ever heard over the summer is, Josh, go over there and cut those suckers. And what those suckers were is they were sucking the nutrients and the life out of the tree. And it was the love that drove the farmer to cut those suckers off so that the valuable nutrients would be salvaged for the tree to grow in the way that it should grow. Isn't that a picture of what our God does with us? And he will come and cut off the unbelievers and throw them into the fire. Dear unbeliever, that's where you are this morning. If you are not in Jesus Christ by turning from your sins and trusting in Him, you are a sucker to be cut off and burned. You are a weed to be drowned and round up at the final day of judgment. I do not say these things to pontificate. I say these things because I, together with the rest of the people in this place, care about your eternal soul. Would you turn from your sins, dear unbeliever? You do not know that you will have another day. You do not know what is going to happen when you go out from this place. But one thing is certain, and it is this. If you will turn from your sins and believe and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, the scripture declares to you this day that you shall be saved. Cry out to him this morning and God will make you part of the tree. Will judgment come? Yes, but it will not be to condemnation. Jesus has taken that for us. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you, Father, that you are a tender and caring Father who does, yes, discipline us, who does, yes, judge us, but not for the end of condemnation. And Father, we thank you that the reason you do not judge us under condemnation is because you poured out your unmitigated wrath upon your Son. He drank the cup of Your wrath so that we would never have to drink it, Father. And we thank You that we have been placed into the Beloved by Your sovereign election through faith now. We rest in the Beloved. And Father, I pray that in resting in that Beloved, as we go out from this place, that we would open our mouths, that we would make your name known, that we would not, as we are pushed back by unbelievers, and say, well, it's not so much what you said, it's how you said it. I'm offended that, Father, those are smoke screens, and that we would not be put aside by these smoke screens, but instead, Father, we would relentlessly bring the gospel to our friends, our neighbors, our families, our loved ones, yes, winsomely, yes, lovingly, but that they might be saved and that on the day of judgment, we can look to the right and to the left and see them entering into the kingdom of heaven with us. Father, do this for your honor and your glory, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.