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Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And

“If the righteous is scarcely saved,
               what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”

Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.—1 Peter 4:12–19

Introduction

There can be little doubt that our society is changing, and doing so at a breakneck speed that staggers all of us. The moral climate we live in today, the court decisions we see today, the way that religious freedom and our consciences are being restricted and bound would’ve been inconceivable to most of us even just 20 years ago. Until the last 50 years or so, all of Western Culture operated under a shared assumption of the general truth and goodness of historical Judeo/Christian moral values. But, in these last few years, those values have been relentlessly and vigorously challenged, and overthrown, at almost every point. And the few vestiges of remaining Christian mores are falling like dominoes. Even more challenging for us is that our culture seems bent on framing these discussions in such a way that if you disagree with this revolution and seek to uphold biblical moral truth, you are not merely seen as naïve and backward, but as dangerous and harmful to society. Thus, for reasons we would’ve never suspected just a few years ago, genuine followers of Jesus are finding ourselves living in an environment that’s increasingly hostile to our faith. While we certainly are not experiencing persecution at the level of what some in the Middle East or North Korea are experiencing, the fact is that there is a growing tide of mainstream thinking that sees Biblical Christianity, with our exclusive gospel and belief in the Bible as revelation from God, as particularly dangerous, and threatening to this new, radical pluralism. 

In many ways, our cultural climate is one very similar to that of the recipients of Peter’s first epistle. He’s writing to believers in Asia Minor who found themselves encountering some resistance to their message and way of life. The letter gives much evidence that these Christians, while not yet experiencing “official” persecution from the Roman government, were enduring a growing pressure from the surrounding pagan society that was making it increasingly costly to be a Christian. There was need to encourage and exhort them (and us) that this is not strange or something that should cause us to doubt whether our sovereign God is still on the throne, but quite the opposite: that such treatment by an unbelieving culture is quite normal, expected and even promised by Jesus both in his teaching and in the example of his suffering. 

With that brief bit of background, what I hope to do in this message is to, first, draw out some very brief observations about the “trials” Peter is talking about here. Then I’d like to look at what Peter says our response should be to those trials.  I’ll zero in on one response in particular that is radically outrageous on the face of it, which will seek to answer this crucial question: How, as Christian hedonists, do we pursue joy when following Jesus produces trials? We’ll look practically at how we can begin developing a God glorifying response, and then I’m going to end by circling back to 1 Peter 3:14–15 to tie it in with how Christian hedonism under pressure can result in motivations for outreach (that’s how I’ll get to Chuck’s request for us to have an outreach emphasis for these campus-specific messages).  

Let’s look at this passage and note some observations about the trials that Peter talks about.

First, they are described as “fiery.” Now, none of these believers that we know of were being beaten or killed for their faith, at least not yet ... In fact, in the immediate context of our passage, down in v. 14, the specific example of suffering Peter gives is “insults.” So, in Peter’s thinking, even insults are described as “fiery.” You don’t have to be imprisoned or have your head cut off for the trial to be fiery.

Second, trials are certain to come. “Don’t be surprised by the fiery trial when it comes upon you.” Not if, but when. We ought to expect them. If you think about it, when we live in a fallen world that’s in rebellion against its creator, and we side with the creator, we probably should expect to encounter resistance.

Third, the purpose of the trials is to test us. “… When it comes upon you to test you.” Peter has already mentioned this back in 1:6–7. God is not punishing us in this testing, he’s proving that our faith is genuine. It’s a testing meant to reveal that, when all else is stripped away, Jesus is still enough for us. And when we realize that Jesus really is enough, we find greater joy and freedom than anything this world can provide. 

Fourth, we cannot count as trials any suffering we experience because of our own sin (v. 15). Peter says, when we suffer because we’re a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or a “meddler” it’s not persecution, ok? So, don’t be a gossip (that’s one type of meddling) and think that, if others insult you or revile you for it you’re being persecuted. 

Fifth, trials are the beginning of the judgment of God (v. 17). It is time for judgment to begin with the household of God. God starts with his own. I can’t help but wonder if one of the purposes of trials that Peter might have in mind is here is a kind of separating of sheep from goats. Suffering tests the genuineness of our faith, and thus, those who don’t really love the Lord tend to fall away when the going gets hard. This beginning of judgment may have the effect of sorting the elect from the phonies. 

The final observation about these trials is that they are God’s will for us. Verse 19 says exactly this! “… Let those who suffer according to God’s will …” It’s a shocking statement, really, and in an environment of ease and comfort like ours, the idea that any kind of suffering might actually be God’s will is seen as heresy. Peter destroys any false notion we might have that loving and serving God is a “safe” place to be!

The Christian’s Response

Now, let’s turn our gaze at this passage from the trials themselves to how we as believers ought to respond to such trials. Peter gets very practical here. In fact, I could say that the rest of this message is all about practical application. This is the great burden of my heart. As I watch what’s happening around us, and how Christianity is being increasingly excluded from the public square, I see believers responding in all kinds of ways, and many of them aren’t good. I see anger. I see vengeance. I hear some who talk as if the solution lies in voting in the right people or appointing the right people to our Supreme Court. We want to stand up for our rights. These are understandable reactions, they are even my own reactions many times, but I don’t think it’s how Peter (or Jesus for that matter) has taught us to respond. So, in light of all we’ve just looked at regarding these trials and their purposes, let’s look at a different kind of response.

I see at least 4 responses to suffering for Jesus in this passage: 1) we should expects trials, 2) we should meet trails with joy and happiness, 3) we trust the Lord in the midst of trials, and 4) we keep on doing good in the midst of trials and bear witness in them to the joy of Christ. We’re going look briefly at three of them, but spend most of our time on number 2, joy and happiness. This is because it’s probably the most counter-intuitive and radically inconceivable response there is. And because it’s the only reasonable response a Christian hedonist can have! 

The first response is that we should expect trials and persecution. “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you …” Really, it's been the experience of most believers throughout church history to be suffering at some level. Persecution has varied in type and intensity throughout church history, but our experience in this culture is unique in the last 240 years. It has not been the norm. So, Peter comes along and says, don’t be surprised, it’s not as if something strange were happening to you … Believe it or not, rejection, despising, hatred and tribulation are all promised to us, and our call is to take up the cross and identify with Jesus anyway.

The second response is: We need to figure out how to meet trials with joy and happiness. Rather than surprise, we are to respond with rejoicing! This is incredible to me. I’ll freely admit here that I’m not going to be preaching from experience. There are probably no preachers in this culture who can honestly say they know much about suffering for Jesus. I’ve spent much time lately meditating on exactly how I can develop such a rejoicing heart. It doesn’t come naturally. So, let’s dig into this a little and see if we can discover any clues from this text and from the rest of the Bible as to how we can cultivate this kind of heart. It’s so radically different from how we want to respond in the flesh that it seems wholly unrealistic.

First, though, let’s make sure we really understand what Peter is exhorting us to:  look at the words Peter piles on to describe this response: “Rejoice” (v. 13), “rejoice and be glad” (v. 13), and “blessed” (v. 14). This last word, blessed is makarios in the Greek. It means “happy.” Now, many teachers (and I’ve been guilty of this as well) like to draw distinctions between deep, biblical joy and “unbiblical” happiness. Happiness is seen as shallow, emotional and fleeting, while joy is seen as deep, not dependent on circumstances and godly. But, actually, in both English and Greek, these are simply synonymous terms. There’s no real difference between joy and happiness other than the artificial definitions we tend to place on them. So, we translate makarios with more religious sounding words like “blessed.” But, when you get right down to it, Peter is saying, “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are HAPPY…”! How do we even do this? It’s not even possible is it? I mean surely Peter isn’t advocating that we seek out suffering. No, he’s not suggesting that we are to somehow twist our thinking so that we find joy in suffering for suffering’s sake. He’s really specific: it is suffering for the name of Christ that we are to rejoice in. It’s suffering that comes because we are identified with the Lord Jesus. Let me trace this out through several other passages so you can see this theme is all through the New Testament!

Let’s take a look over in Matthew 5:10–12 and see that Peter is just echoing Jesus here. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

There’s a looking in two directions here that produces joy. A look ahead to future glory and the reward that will be ours, and a looking back to the example of the prophets who were similarly persecuted. Keep that forward and backward view in mind …

Peter does a similar thing in v. 13 of our text: Only he points us back to the example of Christ himself (rejoice insofar as you share in the sufferings of Christ) and then forward to future glory (that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed). And then look what else Peter gives as a reason to be happy about this in v. 14: The Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. I take this to mean that the Holy Spirit comes upon us in special and glorious ways to enable us to endure the suffering, and that such an experience of the Spirit is a joyful thing! The example that comes to mind is Stephen being filled with the Holy Spirit as they were stoning him to death in Acts 7. 

So, three things should be the meditation of our minds as we see measures of opposition increase: 1) Look back at the example of Christ suffering for us and that God’s call upon us to suffer for him in a similar way is a glorious calling! 2) Look forward to the even greater glory and rejoicing that will be ours in the kingdom. And 3) Remember that suffering for Christ’s sake is a way to experience the Holy Spirit in more glorious ways than can be experienced otherwise! 

For all these reasons, the early Christians were armed with the mindset that suffering for Jesus was a high honor. It’s hard for us to imagine, but these believers saw their suffering for Jesus as a means of participation in Christ’s suffering. Sadly, we don’t count it an honor to be treated like him. We are often ashamed to suffer for him. We, and I include myself in this, seek to avoid such treatment at almost all costs. But, let’s just look at a sampling of Scripture passages where the early Christians had just the opposite reaction.

In Acts 5:41, Peter and John are beaten by the Jewish leaders for preaching the name of Jesus and then they release them. Maybe they thought the beating would teach them a lesson and shut them up. Didn’t work. Verse 41 says that Peter and John “… left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.” They rejoiced to suffer for the sake of their Savior! They counted it an honor to suffer for him! 

In Romans 8:17, Paul is talking of the wonderful fact that we’re children of God and fellow heirs with Christ, adding this important caveat: “… provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” Do you see the bidirectional look here? Backwards to the sufferings of Christ and our participation with him, and then forward to future glory? 

Then, Paul again in Philippians 3:10–11 says, “... That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” Did you hear that? Paul not only wants to know the power of the resurrection (that’s the forward look), but also know the sharing of his sufferings (that’s the backward look). The NASB says the “fellowship of his sufferings.” How many of us want to fellowship with Jesus like that? I fear there’s something deeply wrong with our thinking. These early believers rejoiced at being like Christ in this way! We are ashamed and afraid to be like Christ in this way.

We see a similar view in Romans 8:18 and 2 Corinthians 4:17–18. (Look them up later …). 

All this seems to pile up an indictment against our general attitudes of fear, shame and anger at even the slightest infringing of our “rights” or of any mockery or reviling of our beliefs. Peter says here (v. 16) that if you suffer as a Christian, don’t be ashamed, but glorify God in that name. Trials and suffering for the sake of Christ are an opportunity to glorify God by responding, not the way the world expects us to respond, but by responding with joy and gladness. The world just doesn’t know what to do with that.

And how do we do this? Peter tells us it has a lot to do with our thinking; our mindset. In 1:13 he tells us to “prepare our minds for action and be sober-minded.” And in 4:1 he tells us to “arm ourselves with the same way of thinking (namely Christ’s way of thinking). 

And to get our thinking changed, we need to adjust gaze of our eyes of faith. We need to look backward, forward and upward. Backward to the example of Christ’s sufferings, forward to the glory and joy yet to be revealed to us, and upward for the Spirit of glory to come upon us. It’s almost as if we “borrow” or pull joy from the past to the present as we rejoice that Christ’s sufferings took away all our sin, and now, we get to share in that by suffering for his sake. He suffered for our sake and now we get to suffer for his sake. And then we borrow or draw more joy from the future as we look ahead to the glory that’s coming and the pleasures forever at his right hand. We then bring that joy into the midst of present suffering, so that the suffering begins to pale in comparison to the future and it gets put in perspective by all the Jesus has suffered for us. Then, we look upward and the Spirit of glory and of God comes in and produces happiness in circumstances that would seem to produce just the opposite. And this, in turn, becomes a powerful witness.

The last two responses flow out from this one I think, and we’ll only have time to touch very briefly on them:

Third, trust. Peter exhorts us that while we’re enduring suffering joyfully, we are to entrust our souls to a faithful Creator. One of the very reasons we can rejoice in trials is because we are trusting in the future promises of our Creator. Honestly, it’s disturbing to wake up nearly every morning to more headlines of violence in our streets, immorality condoned by our courts, the nearly complete disintegration of the family in our culture and a hundred other fearful things that are upon us. But, we can still have joy because we don’t set our hearts upon this world. We are trusting God for the promise of a new world. 

Fourth, do good. We entrust ourselves to him while doing good. God is glorified when we go on doing good for a world that rejects us. When we show love to each other and to a fallen world even when we’re enduring insults, reviling, slander and lies directed toward us. 

Outreach

And one of the greatest goods that we can do is to share the gospel. This is where I'm going to move outside this immediate text and direct us back to 3:14–15. Because there, Peter ties our suffering unjustly for Christ’s sake directly to outreach. Notice that in v. 14 he says that if you’re suffering for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed! There it is again, you are happy! Then he says “have no fear of them nor be troubled” These seem to me to be the dominant responses by Christians to what’s happening around us. We are fearful and troubled, or agitated. But, Peter teaches that we should be happy. We need a different mindset …

And then he says one of the most famous statements on evangelism in all the Bible: “... but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.” The sovereign Lordship of Christ means that whatever trials we’re finding ourselves in are part of his will and his design for us. And he’s put us in such a situation in order to bear witness for him. So, embrace the possibility of rejection and mocking and slander and so forth as part of the call to be a witness, and prepare to rejoice in it! (Look at 3:16)

So, let me sum up by briefly answering the question I raised at the beginning: How do we, as Christian hedonists, pursue joy under the pressure of trials? Peter answers by instructing us to be preparing ourselves by a sober-minded, Christ-centered alteration of our thinking:  fixing the eyes of our faith in three directions to draw joy from: the past, most specifically the sufferings of Christ and all he’s done for us, and the future, to the eternal joys that will be ours in the kingdom. And then looking upward to remember that those who endure trials for the sake of the name also experience the Spirit in powerful ways. And out of that flows joy and an ever-deepening trust in God and an engaging in good works, and I’m arguing specifically, the good work of sharing the gospel with a rapidly decaying world. 

When the world puts a Christian hedonist under pressure, what should come out is a joyful, happy satisfaction in Jesus Christ, and a ready willingness to point others to that joy!