Today I want to talk a little bit about the subject of suffering. Now, it's no secret that in the last few years there has been some difficult times in our church. Many of us have had some health issues. Some of us have had difficult relationship issues. And we even had three brothers and sisters that we lost in the last year. It's no secret then that many of us in the congregation are even today struggling under the weight of heavy issues. And you know, when Christians go through tough times, a number of extremely difficult issues always get raised. And some of these issues are, where is God at this time? Where is God in my suffering? If God loves me, why would he allow me to go through this fire? And in fact, has God forgotten about me entirely? These questions come up And indeed, many people, when confronted with suffering, view it as evidence that God must then not exist. Or if God exists, then God must be a cold-hearted God who does not love them, does not care for them, and has abandoned them. After all, how can a loving God allow so much suffering? I even am personally familiar with people who have begun to, in the time of suffering, bitterly blame God for their troubles, and as a result, walk away from the faith. I know people personally for whom that has happened. Well, today I want to look with you at the subject of suffering, and I want you to see that these These thoughts, these reactions stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of suffering in a Christian's life. So in light of coming off a difficult season in our church and maybe even in anticipation seeing some storm clouds in the horizon, I'd like to refresh with you our understanding of suffering so we can be armed for the times perhaps to come. Question that comes up is, is suffering meaningless? Is there any meaning to the suffering? Is there a purpose? So we'll be drawing the answers to these questions and more, primarily out of the book of 1 Peter, which Brian has helpfully read to us this morning, at least chapter one. So please turn with me to 1 Peter, chapter one. The Pew Bible, it's on page 1211. Last week when Khalif asked for the Pew Bible number, I gave the wrong one. And some people were confused. So 1, 2, 1, 1. Sorry, Khalif. 1, 2, 1, 1. All right. And I would like you to, if you can, please turn there. I'll try to have some of the verses up as well on the screen, maybe a little later. But I think it's helpful to have the verses in front of you. And you can look down. You can look at the context and make sure that I'm not saying anything that's not in the text. All right, now it could be said that out of all of the books in the New Testament, possibly the Bible, 1 Peter is the one that deals the most with suffering. And it's because of 1 Peter's profound treatment of the subject of suffering that it's possibly one of the most useful books in Christian counseling. Whenever people are going through a difficult time or a difficult marriage situation, a traumatic event, 1 Peter is often the first book that I'll reach for because of its rich treatment of suffering. So remember that. Whenever, you know, I mean, even if you don't get anything else out of this sermon, whenever you have a trial in your life or you're going through a difficult time, I encourage you to open the book of 1 Peter and read through it. It's a short book. It's probably only 15 minutes to read it from beginning to end. But the book is uniquely written for us to deal with times of suffering. Now, just a little bit about the context of the book. Peter is writing to a group of very persecuted Christians in Asia Minor, which is in the modern day country of Turkey. where being a Christian at that time was an offense punishable by death. And around the time of the letter, emperor worship was the law. So you had to worship Caesar. And not participating in the worship of the emperor was then interpreted as an act of treason. Of course, for the pagans, That didn't bother them much because they just added the emperor simply to their pantheon of gods they were already worshiping was one more. But for the Christian, Christians couldn't do that. And so as a consequence, there are stories of Christians being torn apart by wild animals or even burned alive for the refusal to bow down. But if you read carefully through the book, you see that in addition to overt religious persecution, these Christians were also dealing with what we would call normal everyday struggles. They had bad bosses, unreasonable bosses. Some of them had difficult marriages. Maybe some of them were married to unbelievers. And some of them even, it looks like, dealt with anxiety. and depression. So when Peter writes the book of 1 Peter, in a sense he's not addressing only religious persecution, but he's encompassing in his treatment all of these trials that are besetting the churches in Asia Minor. And of course they would be asking the same questions that we do. Doesn't God care for you? And if so, why would he allow this? Why would a loving God seemingly abandon you in your moment of great need? So our text today will be from 1 Peter 1, chapter one, verses three to nine. And as we go through it, I'd like to consider this passage in roughly three parts. So I'll just give you the outline to begin with. First, Peter will want us to remember God's promise to the suffering Christian. Second, that's in verses three to five. Second, Peter will tell us God's purpose. for the suffering in verses six to seven. And finally, we'll see the picture of the faithful sufferer in verses eight to nine. So our outline will be the promise, and then the purpose, and then a picture. And I was really proud of myself for coming up with three Ps. I wanted to just kind of point that out. That we got that. All right, so that's a auspicious sign. Promise to the suffering Christian from verses three to five. So you can put that slide up now, Juliana. Now Peter is seeking to encourage these suffering Christians, obviously, and what Peter decides to do first is he decides to remind you of who you really are. who you really are. See, if you are a Christian, you're not like everyone else. If you're a Christian, you're not like everyone else wandering around in the world. You are not. You are something special. There's something special about you. There is something fundamentally different about you versus everyone else around you because God has chosen you and made you special. God has chosen you out of all the people in history, he's chosen you. In fact, that's what it said in verse one, if you look at your Bibles. He's chosen you and made you special. But we forget that. We forget that in our moments of We forget that in the moments of suffering, and we tend to forget what God has done for us because we grow maybe too used to hearing it. Maybe we grow too numb to the realities of our new lives in Christ. So in times of distress, we tend to lose perspective. I've been there. I've experienced that. We lose perspective and we over fixate on our present circumstances to the exclusion of the heavenly truths that the Bible tells us about ourselves. So to refocus us, this is what Peter tells us in verse three. You can look down at your text or you can look at the screen here, which is a little small, but might be able to read it. It says, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Stop right there. So, Peter is reminding us that we are people not like everybody else. We have a living hope. We have been born again to a living hope. So what does it mean to be born again? Let's break that down a little bit. You know, as Pastor Dave has been telling us as we go through the book of John, every Christian is born twice, right? Born two times. Every Christian has a physical birth, which is what everybody else also has, and we have a spiritual birth. And the Bible tells us that every person in the world was born physically, but then starts out spiritually, what? Dead, spiritually dead. And why are we dead? We are dead because of sin. Everybody is dead because of sin, the whole world. And since God is holy, since God's law is perfect, then God's law, held up to your sin, however slight it may be in your eyes, sentences you to spiritual death. Spiritual death, which judgment is punishment in eternal hell, eternal punishment in hell. So that is a death sentence on everybody in this world. And what else does it mean to be spiritually dead? Well, it means that you have no relationship to God except as your judge. You know, you can, in the popular culture, people will pray to God, but in actuality, God will not hear their prayer. He is not their friend. He's not their friend. He is your enemy. No amount of your good works, despite what other religions may tell you, no amount of your good works can wipe even one sin away from your account. And that means everybody who was born into this world in a physical birth and is spiritually dead is condemned, condemned to hell. But if you're a believer, God did not leave you there with no hope. Verse 3 tells us, in 1 Peter here, in verse 3, tells us that God caused you And those words are critical. He caused you to be born again. From spiritual death to spiritual life. And he made that which was dead into that which is alive again because of Christ. And that's what is meant by the second birth. That's what it means by being born again. He made you alive, right? Not you made yourself alive or you worked your way into life. God himself made you alive. He caused you to be born again. You did nothing and he did all the work. And that second birth comes through your faith in Jesus Christ. It comes through your faith in Jesus Christ. When Jesus died on the cross, he suffered the punishment that sinners deserve because of their sin, although he himself knew no sin. And then Jesus turns to you after that sacrifice is complete and he makes this offer to all sinners. The offer is this, if you will believe in him, that's another word for faith. If you believe in him, Jesus offers you a trade. And he says, I will trade my righteousness for your sin. He'll trade that for you so that he will give you his righteousness and when you go to heaven and you stand in the courtroom of God, God will see on your record the righteousness of Jesus. And you'll get the rewards that Jesus deserves. And in return, he takes your sin and he suffers the penalty of that sin on that cross. That's the trade that's offered to every person if you believe. And if you believe, not only do you have your sins forgiven, but you now have righteous, not only do you have righteous standing before God, but he also changes your entire being. It's not just a swap in status, but it's also a resurrection. He resurrects you spiritually so that you have new life. And now you have a relationship with God. You did not have a relationship with God before, remember. He was not your friend. But now you have a relationship with God. And now you want to live to please God. And he will bless you. So that's a pretty good trade that's being offered, and that's what it means to be born again. And so what Peter wants you to do as a suffering Christian, going through a hard time, is to lift up your eyes from your present circumstance, and to remember, to really remember that whatever your current problem is, it does not compare to what your greatest problem was. which was sin and death and the eternal punishment to come. Because that problem has been taken care of fully and completely. And so that is cause for joy, isn't it? And celebration. Every day it's cause for joy and celebration. And suffering Christians easily forget that. but we must be diligent to consciously have it in our minds. That is really the work that you must do as a suffering Christian. You must consciously remember this truth every day and don't grow numb to it. When Ian and I had our first child, I remember he would have night terrors. He would wake up in the middle of the night and he would scream for about 15 minutes, sometimes five minutes, sometimes 10 minutes, He would scream and really he would wake up the whole house with his screaming. And there would be no reason for the screaming that we could tell. We would go through the checklist. Maybe he's hungry. Maybe he needs a diaper change or maybe he needs to be burped. Everything will seem fine. And he just won't come to calm down no matter what we did. And now I don't know about you, but in the middle of the night, for me, anything that happens is extremely stressful. It doesn't really matter what you're waking up by, but when it's a screaming baby, it's also pretty stressful, because you have no idea what's really happening, especially when it's your first child. And one piece of advice that somebody told me was just tell yourself, when you're in that stressful time, just tell yourself to wait five minutes. Just wait five minutes and things will likely change. And I would say to myself during that time where I'm holding the baby and screaming in my ear, nothing else, nothing I can really do, I would say to myself, you can hold out for five minutes. You can do this for five minutes. And it becomes easier to bear because you know that this will end. You know that this is not forever. And to this day, in fact, this advice really helps me. No matter what struggle I'm dealing with or what trial, I tell myself, I can make it five minutes. Maybe I can make it five more days. maybe five more weeks. And it helped me to get through that time. And I realized some situations may not be that easy. It could be five years or 50 years. But the idea here is the same. Someday soon, Peter is telling you to look forward to the time where things will get better. We will live one day in God's forever perfect kingdom. And we will keep looking for that, and we will keep hoping for that. And because we know that that's our reality, we can hold out for a little longer, can't we? And that is what is referred to what he's talking about when he talks about a living hope. We're born again to a living hope. That's the hope we have, and it's so interesting how he phrases that, because I thought about this for a long time while I was preparing for this sermon. That's such a weird construction. What does that mean? What does it mean to have a living hope? You know, a while ago, Ian was out shopping with the kids. I was away. And she got back in the car, she pushed the ignition, and she heard click, click, click, click. So everybody, what does that mean? It means your battery's dead, right? That's like my worst nightmare. Especially in the middle of the night or when I'm not around. That means you have a dead battery. And dead hope is like that dead battery, right? It's supposed to start your car, that's what the roll is supposed to do, but it has no power and it sits there and does nothing for you. And why is that? Because apart from Christ's resurrection, no other hope in this world, no other hope can solve for us the problem of death. That is the shadow, in fact, that continually hangs over us, isn't it? And if you really think about it, death is the root of all of our problems in this world. It is death. It's either our own impending deaths, or death if we don't keep our job, or the threat of that, of starving to death. It's the threat of health problems leading to death. Or it's the threat of the death of loved ones. These are really the roots of all our problems, has to do one way or the other with death. At best, all of the hope that we have in this world can only delay your death a bit, can only delay death. The best medical treatments can only prolong your life by maybe a few years. It cannot ultimately save it. It can buy you health insurance. It can buy you a healthier lifestyle, maybe. But even money has no power to solve the problem of death. Otherwise, billionaires would never die, right? Yet, what other things do we do? Because there's no ultimate solution to death, people then distract themselves. Entertainment. Alcohol. drugs, sex, all these things that people gravitate to, become addicted to, are ultimately to distract us from the reality of death so that we don't have to think about it for a little while. That's all we can really do. I heard this interview from a former drug addict who said the reason that they were seeking out these drugs was because they just wanted to not feel anything for a while. And that's what the drug did to them. It just eliminated feeling. That was the lure of drugs. to get your mind away from the reality of death. None of these things can ultimately solve the problem of death. And deep down, we all know that, don't we? That knowledge is in all of us, that we are on the treadmill of death. So these dead hopes are just really empty lies. One person I was, one of my friends in church, I was recently talked to, painted this vivid picture for me that I'll share with you. Imagine rats being tied to a treadmill. I don't know why they're thinking about this, but rats are tied to a treadmill, and at the end of that treadmill is a guillotine. And all the rats are being carried down this treadmill at a slow rate, but that treadmill is on and it's going, and the rats are being carried closer and closer to their turn on the chopping block. and they're tied down, there's no hope for escape. As a rat, you can struggle, you can shrink back a little bit from the guillotine as you struggle against your ropes, but there's no chance you can get away. And maybe you can binge Netflix on your way down the treadmill, or you can go on Facebook and distract yourself with memes and pictures of cats, But ultimately, that treadmill is going to win. And one day you'll find yourself in front of that treadmill, in front of that guillotine, and that will come down on your head. And that is the reality of life without Christ. Isn't it? That's it. That's the reality of life without Christ. And indeed, even secular experts have noticed in the last 10, 20 years, that there is an epidemic of hopelessness. That's what they call it, in fact. They call it an epidemic of hopelessness. This is not Christians talking. This is secular psychologists. Despite all of the progress that we've made technologically, despite the ridiculous wealth that we have in this country, here's the statistic that shocks me. Do you know that from the year 2000 to today, the suicide rate has increased by 50%? 50% increase in the suicide rate. That's enormous and, you know, psychologists are at a loss to explain why that's the case. But it's because people have no hope. There is no hope apart from Christ. All of these hopes are dead hopes. But as Christians, we have a living hope. See, Christ was raised from the dead. He is living. And then because of that, we know we will be risen from the dead as well. That is a certainty. And Christ being raised is a proof of that. So because of this, we know that death has been conquered. Your living hope as a Christian is unique from all the other dead hopes in the world because it does solve the problem of death. You have the only hope that actually solves the problem of death. Do you realize that? And so this hope is alive. In fact, in the Greek, I'm told that this word actually means lively. It's a lively hope. It's active. It's not something that just sits there. And so just like a live car battery that can provide you power to start your car, your living hope gives you the horsepower to plow through any and all obstacles you can encounter in this life. It gives you the strength to power through because you know that this is not all there is. You know that this is not the end. You know that whatever trial you are in right now is temporary. It's temporary. In verse four, Peter describes for us an even more amazing truth because this living hope is not just a hope of the lack of death. It's not just, I'm not going to die and that's it. Look at verse four, it says, to obtain an inheritance, which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you. Wow. Think with me about this. How many of you would like, before you were born, if God would take you to the side and say, hey, you know, I would like to extend you the opportunity to choose the parents you're going to be born into? How would you like that? Who would you choose? Obviously, you're going to have to say your real parents, but if it were not for that, who would you choose? You see, out of all the things in this world, I think being born, whatever family you're born into, that has the most profound difference in your life, doesn't it? I mean, it determines how you look, determines your race, it determines your gender, oh, I guess it doesn't matter your gender, but. Maybe not in this country. It determines your socioeconomic class, right? It determines what country you get to live in. It's a profound, profound effect on your life. And if you're born into a good family, you're basically set for life. If you're lucky enough to be born into a wealthy family like King Charles, you may even inherit a fortune. King Charles inherited 50, no, sorry, 500 million when he was crowned the King of England. People, you know, you might say that's a lot. Actually, that's not really a lot compared to what some people inherit, right? That's a fortune. But I want you to realize this. You're not born only once, right? As a Christian, you were born twice. And who are your parents in that second birth? It's the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And in a real sense, as children of the King of King, you are royalty. You are royalty. Far beyond the King of England, you are royalty of the King of Kings. And as such, you have an inheritance to look forward to. Much more than just earthly money. Much more than just 500 measly million dollars. Because what? We already saw, money is dead hope. Money is dead hope. It can be lost, it can be stolen, it can be wasted. Sometimes by your children. And it has no power ultimately over death. But see, what this is telling us, what Peter is telling us is that your inheritance by virtue of your second birth is worth far more. It's worth far more. It's imperishable. Inflation will not degrade its value. See, eternal life is just the start of what God has given you. This inheritance that Peter is describing, is even more above and beyond eternal life. It's for you to enjoy forever, to enjoy forever. And lest you worry that somebody will take it from you or steal it away or defraud you of it, Peter tells us in the same verse that God is, in fact, guarding it for you himself. He's standing guard over it for you. I was at Starbucks preparing a sermon, and the girl next to me, she needed to go to the bathroom, and she had her laptop out, and she said, hey, can you kind of watch my stuff for me as I go to the bathroom? And she was gone for like half an hour. And I was thinking to myself, I could just like take her laptop and walk out. Why would she trust me for that, right? I'm just like some random guy. But God himself is watching your stuff. You can trust God. He's watching your stuff. It's as sure a thing as a thing can be. You will come into this inheritance. And you might say, maybe, if you're really thinking about this deeply enough, you might say this. So if it's secure on that side, maybe something will happen to me. Maybe it's not, God is guarding the inheritance, but maybe something will happen to me. Maybe I'll disqualify myself. Or maybe something will take me out and I'll never be able to enjoy this inheritance. And verse five, Peter writes that to you. He says, you who are protected, you who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. See what Peter is saying is not only is your treasure protected, but God is also right there protecting you. So he's actively protecting both sides. He's protecting you for the treasure, and he's protecting the treasure for you. And if that's the case, there is really no possibility left at all that you will not come into this inheritance. There's none. It's a sure thing More sure than the sun rising in the east tomorrow morning, right? And I want you to also notice what this verse means. It means, it implies that God has not, in fact, abandoned you. God, in fact, has not left you alone in your circumstance, as some might accuse Him of doing. But God is actively protecting you in your life through the trial. Well, Pastor Dave referred a lot to Psalm 23 during his pastoral prayer this morning. And as we all know, in Psalm 23, it says, even though I, what? Walk through the shadow of the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no what? I feel no evil for you are with me. Now think about those verses. Think about that, that line. Is the promise then that we will never walk through the valley of the shadow of death? Yes or no? No. In fact, it's kind of the opposite, right? Because it says, as I walk through this valley of the shadow of death. It's almost assumed that you will be walking through this valley of the shadow of death. And the promise is not that I will never walk through. The promise is that we will have nothing to fear because he is with us. He is with us. You may be, Christian, in the valley of the shadow of death as we speak. It may be that you are in the valley. But what Peter is trying to tell you here is that better times are surely coming. You will not be in the valley forever. You're passing through the valley, as Pastor Dave was saying. And you are not alone through the suffering. God himself is there with you. In fact, he is the one who led you into the valley. And he is there shepherding you and protecting you all the way to your inheritance. In fact, that's why you're in the valley. You're on your way to your inheritance. So having been reminded now of the benefits of our new birth and of our coming inheritance and of God's protection, Peter can tell us in verse six that you greatly rejoice. You greatly rejoice. See, the effects of these truths, if we were listening to Peter and we allow these truths to seep into our hearts, the result will be what? Joy, great rejoicing. And I hope you understand that. I hope you're understanding what the Bible is saying here. It's that your joy should come from these truths. That this is where joy comes from. If you lack joy, if you find yourself lacking joy, then take the time to regularly contemplate these truths. That's the source of true joy. So there, having described for us God's promise, Peter is now ready to turn to the purpose of suffering. You can flip the side there. The purpose of the suffering. And finally, we will now answer the question, why does God allow us to suffer? Why is it that we're suffering as Christians? And is there a point to it? Or is it meaningless suffering? The answer is here in verse six. In this you greatly rejoice, Even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials. Okay, stop there for a second. It's very interesting that the phrasing here is very purposeful. And we want to just make sure we tease out what Peter is saying here. First of all, he says for a little while, right? Even though now for a little while. Of course, some suffering we know is lifelong. But what Peter is saying here is, look, you are an eternal creature. Okay, we just talked about this inheritance that's eternal. You are an eternal creature. Have you thought about that? Your lifespan is not whatever it is, 50, 60, 70, 80 years. Your lifespan is eternal. That's what you are. And what's 90 years in the face of that eternity? It's a little while, just a little while. And the next words are also, the construction here is also interesting. And he says, if, what? Necessary, if necessary. So you know what this means then? This means that if you are going through a trial as a Christian, if you have found yourself in the valley, the shadow of death, God himself has deemed this trial necessary. God has deemed this trial necessary. In fact, he ordains every trial. And it was not an accident. It was not mere misfortune. It was not an act of random chance that you have found yourself in the valley of the shadow of death. You are there because your shepherd has led you there, because it is necessary. And further notice in the verse, it is not just a single trial. It is not just a few trials. But the word here that he uses is various trials, various. And the Greek word here means multicolored, all different colors, multifaceted or myriad, all different types of trials. Many, many, many different trials. Later on in the book, he uses the same word to describe the spiritual gifts in the church, the wide variety of spiritual gifts in the church that God has gave us. It's the same word. There's a wide variety of trials that God has given you and has deemed necessary. Some of these trials are predictable. Some are unpredictable. Some are accidents. Some are diseases. Some come through old age. Some come through persecution. Some come through broken relationships. Some even come through being a victim of a crime or an injustice. Even betrayal by your closest friend as what happened to our Lord Jesus Christ. These trials that you are suffering have been deemed necessary by God, and in fact, personalized. They're not only necessary, but they're personalized for you. So why? Why are these trials necessary? Why? Well, the answer is in the next verse, and it's a profound answer, and I want us to wrestle with this answer. Here's the answer in verse seven. So that, the proof of your faith being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. You see, what Peter is telling us is that there is a purpose to this trial. There is a purpose to the valley. And the purpose is to prove, to prove your faith. The purpose is to prove your faith. Who is it proving to? Who are you proving your faith to? I don't think it's God. God doesn't need any proof. He already has full knowledge of what your faith is. He knows whether your faith is real or whether it's inauthentic. The problem is you don't know. You don't know necessarily. And your friends don't know. And your family might not know. And the unbelievers in your life may not know. And the rest of the onlooking creation, yes, even perhaps the angels, which he refers to later on in Brian's reading if you were paying attention, they may not know. And you know, reflecting on this, you think the problem for many of us Christians here in the United States is that we often live lives that are fairly indistinguishable for non-believers, right? I think if we're honest, we can admit that. We get up, go to work, come home. Next day we get up, go to work, Come home. And at the end of the day, is there really anything different about you than your Catholic neighbor or your Muslim neighbor? They do the same things. You may not be cheating on your wife. Neither are they. You might have a strong sense of morality, like Khalif was saying yesterday or from last week. Well, so do they. How can you be different? Well, here it is. How you react to the trials that God has given you. How your faith has held up to the fire. That's what it says in this verse. Why is that the case? Well, we talked about dead hopes and we talked about living hope. And what does the fire do? The fire burns up all of the dead hopes. All of the dead hopes in your life that you were hoping in, God burns them up. Maybe you were hoping in your health. Maybe you were hoping in your relationship. And he burns up all the little false dead hopes in your life until the only thing left standing is your living hope. if it's there. This is the only hope that will be left standing. And then, you can see, does this person still have the joy that should come from a living hope? See, Peter makes an analogy here for us in this verse. He talks about gold, which is perishable. He talks about gold being tested through fire. The melting temperature of gold is 1,064 degrees Celsius. That's fairly hot. Fool's gold, Eric Fru knows what this is, is something that looks very much like gold, but is just iron, right? And the melting temperature of fool's gold is what? What do you think, Eric? Do you know what it is? It's about 500 degrees. It actually decomposes at 500 degrees. So you heat it up. And far before the gold itself starts to melt, if it spools gold, you will see it vanish. And that's what's happening with your faith. If your faith is the genuine article, it will survive the heat. But you will know another thing that the fire does is that it can burn out impurities. Because of gold's exceedingly high melting temperature, most impurities will melt out before gold starts to melt. So what people will do is they will heat it up and the impurities will melt out. And you can separate what is true gold from the impurities. So you see not only is God burning out and testing the authenticity of your faith, but your true faith, if it's there, will also be refined. So then, you will come out of this fire more pure, more valuable, and more beautiful than ever before. Does that sound like a thing you want to undergo? Do you want to become more pure, more beautiful, more authentic than ever before? If you're a Christian, your deepest desire should be to be purified, right? But this process is never painless. But what will be the result? The verse tells us that the results of your purification will be praise and honor and glory. And to help us understand why this will be the case, I think another way to look at this is to see God as a master sculptor. He's an artist, he's making a sculpture. And what a sculptor does is he takes a block of stone, right, just a bare block of stone, and he starts to chisel away at it bit by bit until it is a masterpiece. Now, if you ever see some of the famous sculptures in the world, Michelangelo's David and all of these sculptures, there's a sculpture garden down in Princeton. You wonder how long it took to make these, right? Like, just chipping at it bit by bit, and you make one mistake, and there's no nose or something. I don't know how this works, but man, God is making a sculpture. What is he making a sculpture of? What is the subject of his sculpture? It's Jesus Christ. God is making sculptures of Jesus Christ. And Jesus is God and he's infinite in his glory, he's infinite in his majesty and beauty. So every sculpture is unique that God makes. And in order to sculpt, God starts out with a block of stone and he needs to remove material just right, just so, carefully enough, not to remove too much. Every hit of the chisel has a specific purpose. Now, you might not know what that purpose is until the sculpture is complete, right? That's often the case where you watch the best artists work. When I was a kid, I grew up watching Bob Ross on PBS paint these landscapes. Sometimes he would paint these lines, and I'd be like, why would he paint that line in the middle of the sky? You know, you wait for like, I mean, that's why you watch, really. That's why you watch this show, is because you want to see what's going to happen. Like, did he mess up, you know? Like, it's kind of exciting. It's like, oh, did he finally mess up? But at the end, you understand, oh, yeah, that's supposed to be a cloud. And sometimes you don't see until the end. And so it is with our master sculptor. For some of us, let's face it, a lot of material has to be removed. And that hurts. Removing stuff hurts. But one day, this sculptor, God himself, is going to open up his art exhibit. It's going to be open to the public. And that day is the day of Jesus Christ, the revelation of Jesus Christ. And his art exhibit will be open to the universe. And each sculptor on display will be a unique masterpiece. And on that day, the result will be praise and glory and honor, first to the artist, first to God himself. But of course, by extension, you will get your praise and glory and honor as well from God. But see, here's the amazing implication. Who is the masterpiece? You are. God is making a masterpiece out of you. And if your faith is genuine, then through the fire, you are being created into something unique. Nothing else like you in the world. Into something spectacular, something amazing. And trust me, when that day comes, when Jesus Christ is revealed, you will be desperate to reflect as much glory from Jesus Christ as you can. That will be your deepest desire. It will all come together on that day and you will see, yes, that hit of the chisel really hurt. But that's what made me more like Christ in this way. And this is what made me more like Christ in that way. And you will understand on that day and you will be grateful for the attention of God. I don't want you to get the idea that this is a new idea from me. I want you to flip over briefly, keep your hand on 1 Peter, but flip over with me to 2 Corinthians 4.17, just briefly. Just flip over to 2 Corinthians 4.17. Khalif, what page is that on? Here's your chance. Okay, thank you. 2 Corinthians 4.17. It says this, for momentary light affliction, is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. Now, the most surprising word in this verse, I think, is the word producing. It's a surprising word for me. I looked at that and I stopped. It's like producing. What does this mean? It means that none of your suffering is meaningless. None of it is meaningless. It is all towards a greater purpose. It is all producing. That's what suffering means. That's what suffering does. That's what momentary light affliction does. It produces an eternal weight of glory. What this suffering does is increasing the amount of glory you reflect from God. And so all of it has meaning. All of your suffering has meaning. Many of you know Elizabeth Elliott. Maybe some of you have even gone to her conferences. She passed away in 2015. She was a famous Christian missionary, an author, and a speaker. And her first husband, Jim Elliott, was killed by the Waiorani tribe in Ecuador on a missionary journey. But instead of becoming bitter, instead of being consumed by despair, she continued there in her mission for nine more years, ministering to that very tribe that killed her husband. You might think that's suffering enough, but years later, she got remarried, and after only a few short years of marriage, Her second husband died with a long battle with cancer. So she now was twice widowed. And so if anybody knows suffering, I think it would be Elizabeth Elliott. But reflecting later in her life on these tragedies, she says this, she says, the deepest things that I have learned in my own life have come from the deepest suffering. And out of the deepest waters and the hottest fires have come the deepest things I know about God. And she understood that affliction molded her into a better image of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this produces a weight of glory. Far beyond all compare. Well, back to our passage. God is testing us, and tragically, not everybody passes the test. Whereas real faith, the property of a real faith, just like the property of gold, will purify and strengthen under fire, becoming afterwards even more valuable and refined. Counterfeit faith, placed in the wrong things will burn up and will melt away until there is nothing left but utter hopelessness. And so what I want you to remember, brothers and sisters, through your trial, is you need to watch carefully how your faith holds up to the fire. God is telling you something through that trial. He is telling you, he is speaking to you about the quality of your faith. And you know, that is the most important question in our life, isn't it? That's the most important question. Do we have true faith? So what can we look for for some signs of true faith? Well, this is a hard question to answer because faith cannot be perceived by human eyes. But I think what Peter is telling us here, and in this book, is that faith can be tested for. Just like, you know, remember those few years ago, we were all taking COVID tests, and we were all so eager to do this, because you would have to take a swab, and you have to stick it all the way up your nose until you're scraping the bottom of your brain. And that's unpleasant, right? You have to do it with the kids, too, and you gotta go up there. You know, that was not fun. But the test of true faith is similarly unpleasant because it always involves God sending a trial in our life. But you take the SCOBY test and you can read out the test. And you can then compare the results of your test with the line on the test kit. And you can say, hey, you know, what does this look like? How does this look like relative to this line? And I think this brings us to the last part of our outline today, which is the picture of the faithful sufferer. This is the third point, and this will be brief. The picture of the faithful sufferer. In the next verse, as well as for the rest of 1 Peter, the apostle is painting for us a picture of someone who tests positive for true faith. We're gonna scratch the surface only in this time we have left, but I want you to compare yourself to this picture. Verse eight says this, and though you have not seen him, you love him. And though you do not see him now, but believe in him. Stop right there for a second. So the first thing we see in this picture is that this man of true faith, this person of true faith, has maintained their love for Christ, even in the midst of suffering. This person has continued to believe, just like Job did back in the Old Testament book of Job, who remained faithful even when being tested by God, even when God took all his property, even when God took his whole family, even took his health, and even when his wife turned to him and bitterly told him to curse God and die. Likewise, the man or woman of true faith does not let bitterness towards God take root in their heart. He knows that no matter how hard circumstances are, what he deserves is far worse than that, right? And instead of falling away, this man of true faith is driven closer to God by his trial, to an even more fervent love for Jesus, because he has the understanding of the kind of suffering that Jesus suffered for him. You know, you got to think about this. There is no suffering that we undergo in this life that Jesus has not suffered 10, 100, 1,000 fold for you. And nothing you suffer, no trial is worse than that. Jesus has already endured it. So the gospel becomes more real to him and not less. And then in verse eight, Peter goes on to say this. You greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls. You see, true faith under pressure will yield this deeply unintuitive response of joy. A joy so great it tells us in the text that you cannot fully express it in its fullness in your human body. It's too limited for you to express that joy. We already saw this is a wellspring of joy that comes from understanding your living hope because you know that the outcome will be salvation of your souls. This is joy even in the midst of sorrow that makes no human sense. It makes no sense. Your neighbors will think you're weird. They'll think there's something wrong with you because of your joy. This is the joy that the Apostle Paul and Silas had in Acts 16.22, when they were beaten, stripped naked, beaten with rods, thrown in jail, and put in stocks, which is, it's not the stocks that go up, it's the torture devices that make your legs and arm immobile, in a sort of a bent over position, so that you will cramp up, and so that you have no possibility of stretching it out or relief. And in this circumstance, we find them in Acts 16.25, praying and singing hymns of praise to God. That's what they were doing in the midst of being tortured. And when they were doing that, it says that the prisoners were also listening to them. See, Paul and Silas were overflowing with joy in the midst of adversity. Well, later in the book of 1 Peter, I think this is just really the thesis statement of the book of 1 Peter. Obviously, we can't go through the whole book today, but I think that the rest of 1 Peter is Peter flushing out what it means to be a man of true faith. What does that look like? And I'll just give you a quick helicopter tour. We're not gonna do anything exhaustive here, but you can go read it yourself later. In chapter one, verse 13, which Brian read to us, we say that this man is a man that prepared his mind for action. He continually puts himself under the teaching of the word of God. That's what a man of true faith looks like. He's saturating it with heavenly concerns, and thereby his faith is strengthened. And then, in that same verse, we find that this man is sober in spirit. which means he actively avoids distractions or intoxications that takes his focus away from his living hope. In verse 14, we find that this man lives a life of holiness, and he avoids worldly lusts. Later on in the book, he tells us why. He says, worldly lusts wage war against your soul. And when we're at war in our own souls, it's difficult to focus on our living hope. And that weakens our faith. In chapter two, verse 12, we see that this man, even through his trials, is still concerned about evangelism. Evangelism is, in fact, the one thing that you guys, you guys can do this to give you instant joy. I mean, that's how it is to be a Christian, I think. Anybody who has shared the gospel can attest to that. It is joyful for you to share the gospel. And in chapter 2 verse 13, we find that this man is meek, which means he does not retaliate when wronged. He submits to authority. He submits to unreasonable masters. He endures suffering like Christ did. And in chapter 4, verse 8, we see that this man is a praying man. He prays for God's strength and strengthening of his faith. And in chapter 4, verse 10, we see that even in the midst of suffering, this man is still serving the church of God. He loves the church of God. And even when he himself is suffering, he still finds the time to love and serve in the church. And he does this fervently from the heart. And he finds that using his spiritual gift for the good of the church also, in turn, strengthens his own faith. This is what a man of God looks like, and there's more we could obviously say. Pastor Bobby preached through the whole book of 1 Peter five years ago. You can look that up if you would like. But today I just wanted to leave you with this. How does your faith match up with this picture of the faithful sufferer? Is this your reaction in times of trial and distress? Great and small. This is not just talking about the big things in life, but often it's the small struggles in life in which our true character is revealed. And here's the thing. We're all gonna find out, aren't we? Because the thing about suffering is that it comes for all of us. Sooner or later, it comes for all of us. And that's why Peter says in verse 12 of chapter four, he says, beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing has happened to you. Don't be surprised, this is just a normal experience of being a Christian. You should be expecting this. And on the day of that trial, you should rejoice. You should arm yourself with the hope of your new birth. And you should remember your impending, imperishable inheritance. You should remember that God is actively protecting you, and he is with you, and he is making you into a masterpiece, unique in all of creation. And there will come a day when God will come up to you and show you off to the rest of the universe. And he will say this, he will say, behold, this man's faith. Look at this woman's faith. Look at this man's character. See how he persevered through trial. Isn't it beautiful? Isn't this sculpture of mine beautiful? And after remembering all of that, you can confidently tell yourself, you can endure a little bit longer. You can endure a little bit longer, because the best is yet to come. Amen? Let's pray. Father, we are so grateful that you've given us this book of 1 Peter, which has been a help, not only to myself, but to many in the church, and pray that these words would seep into our hearts, that we would hear them, that we would understand them, and that they would make a difference in our lives, that we would have a living hope, and that your testing would come upon us, and that it would show us who we really are, and that for those of us who have the true faith, that it would strengthen us and purify us for the glory of your name. In Christ's name, amen.