At the church where I serve, we have been looking at a
section of a letter that is recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible
called the book of 1 Peter. And as we have looked at this letter, we have been
asking the questions “How should followers of Jesus live out our identity as
followers of Jesus who are part of God’s kingdom community in the midst of a
rapidly changing culture? How should followers of Jesus live out our identity
as followers of Jesus who are part of God’s kingdom community when
our faith is minimized and marginalized? How should followers of Jesus live out our identity as followers of Jesus
who are part of God’s kingdom community when our faith is
ridiculed, criticized, and slandered?”
This week, I would like for us to spend our time together
picking up where we left off last week. And as we jump into the next section of
this letter, we will discover another timeless truth about how we are to live
as part of God’s kingdom community in the midst of a rapidly changing culture
as followers of Jesus. So let’s discover that timeless truth together,
beginning in 1 Peter 4:12-13:
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes
upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; 13
but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing,
so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation.
Peter begins
this section of his letter by commanding the readers of his letter to not be
surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing.
With this command, Peter is basically saying “in light of what I have just
written to you; in light of the reality that living as part of God’s kingdom
community should lead to a lifestyle that sees suffering through an eternal
perspective, then do not be surprised when you experience the pain that comes
from the fire of suffering in your life.”
When Peter
uses the phrase fiery ordeal, he is reminding the readers of his letter of a
word picture that he used earlier in this letter. In that word picture, which
was of the refining of gold by a smelter, a smelter would use an extremely hot
fire in order to refine metal. As the metal was heated, the dross and
impurities rise to the top and are removed, thus leaving pure gold.
After bringing
this word picture back to the forefront of the readers minds, Peter reinforces
that word picture with the phrase which comes upon you for your testing. When
Peter uses the word testing here, this word refers to an attempt to learn the nature
and character of something. Peter here is referring to something that comes
upon us that reveals that nature and character of what is within us. You see,
character is like toothpaste; you never really know what is inside until it is
squeezed.
Peter here is
reminding the readers of his letter that they were not to be surprised by their
circumstances of sadness and suffering that they may experience as a result of
their identity as followers of Jesus who are part of God’s kingdom community,
because it was the fires of the trials and circumstances that they were facing,
and their response to the fires of the trials and circumstances that they were
facing, that would reveal the genuineness of their faith that was being proved
through the fires of the trials and circumstances that they were experiencing.
Instead of
being surprised at the fires of the trials and circumstances that they were
experiencing, Peter called the readers of his letter to the degree that you
share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing. In other words, to the
extent that their sadness and suffering matched the sadness and suffering that
Jesus endured during His rejection, arrest, trial, and crucifixion, they were
to rejoice to that same extent.
You see, so
often when we see the phrase sufferings of Christ, we immediately think of the
suffering He experienced during His beating and crucifixion. However, for Peter
and other early followers of Jesus, this phrase involved much more than the
physical suffering that He endured. For Peter and other early followers of
Jesus, to share in the sufferings of Jesus involved a sharing in the rejection
that Jesus experienced by others.
For example,
Jesus was mocked and ridiculed by others, including His own family for the
claims that He made about Himself. Jesus was slandered by others who claimed
that He was a bastard child who did not know who His Father was. On several
occasions, people picked up stones and tried to kill Him. On one occasion, the
people who He grew up with tried to throw Him off a cliff. Upon His arrest, all
of His closest followers bailed on Him. Jesus experienced the fires of the
trial of suffering of being mocked, ridiculed, criticized, and slandered before
His arrest. Jesus was then abandoned at His arrest and endured His trial,
beating, and crucifixion without the support of His closest followers.
Jesus was
squeezed by the fires of the trials of sadness and suffering in a way that
revealed His true character as God in a bod by His response to the fires of the
trials of sadness and suffering He experienced.
And for the readers of this letter, they were being squeezed as a result
of the fires of the trials of sadness and suffering that they were experiencing
as a result of being strangers in a strange land as a result being scattered from
their homeland.
These early
followers of Jesus were being squeezed as a result of the fires of the trials
of sadness and suffering that they were experiencing from being
marginalized and minimized by those around them. These early followers of Jesus were being squeezed as a
result of the fires of the trials of sadness and suffering that they were
experiencing as they found themselves the object of
mocking, ridicule and slander for clinging to a religious belief system that
was viewed as being both strange and outrageous as compared with the religious
systems that were prevalent in the culture around them.
And because of that reality, Peter
commanded the readers of his letter to not be surprised as though it would be
unheard of that a person who lived as part of God’s kingdom community would
experience the fires of the trials of sadness and suffering. After all, as the
leader of God’s kingdom community, Jesus experienced the fires of the trials of
sadness and suffering. Instead, Peter commanded the readers of his letter to
respond to the fires of the trials of sadness and suffering that they were
experiencing by rejoicing in the opportunity that they had to share in the
fires of the trials of sadness and suffering that Jesus experienced.
To which we go
“huh”? I mean why would we rejoice? Why should we rejoice? Peter provides the
answer to that question in the second half of verse 13 when he states “so that
also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation.” When
Peter refers to the revelation of His glory, he is referring to the end of
God’s story here on earth, where Jesus will return to earth to defeat
selfishness, sin, and death and to usher in the kingdom of Heaven in its
fullest sense. And upon Jesus return, all the creation will see the unfiltered
splendor and radiance of Jesus.
Peter’s point
here is that to the extent that their sadness and suffering matched the sadness
and suffering that Jesus endured here on earth, the readers of his letter were
to rejoice to that same extent, because when Jesus returned to earth to
demonstrate the fullness of His splendor and glory after overcoming the fires
of the trials of sadness and suffering He experienced, they would be
exceedingly joyful as a result of Jesus return that would reveal their true
character upon His return.
Tomorrow we
will see Peter reinforce this reality and discover another timeless truth when
it comes to how we are to live as part of God’s kingdom community in the midst
of a rapidly changing culture as followers of Jesus…
No comments:
Post a Comment