Biblical Counseling - Trials & Suffering Part III
Vern Peterman · Jun 29, 2008
Biblical Counseling, No. 13
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261510446

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We've got Part 3 of Trials and Suffering, and that's the last part for this. I think at least one of those is available. It looks like we've run out of one of them, but last week's is still available if somebody needs to pick up on that. Last week we talked about James Chapter 1, verses 2-12. This week we're going into 1 Peter 3. The truth is 1 Peter talks a whole lot more about trials and sufferings, so we're kind of taking a sampling. And I'd also remind you what we pointed out last week, and that is that we had a whole six-month-long teaching on trials and suffering, and so that's helpful here. 1 Peter 3, 14-16.

Let me go ahead and read it here. But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence. And keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.

Let's take a look there. What did James say about these trials? What should be our perspective on them? Consider it all joy, alright? And now what does Peter do here about them? You are blessed. Blessed, oh! This is crazy. All joy, blessed. Now, 1 Peter is talking about a particular kind of trial, not just general, various trials. What's the particular kind of trial that he's talking about here? There it is. Okay. It's a persecution. That's what he's calling for here. And the other thing.

The phrase that he uses there, suffering for the sake of righteousness. Suffering for the sake of righteousness is the particular instance that he's talking about. Whereas James is really talking about a variety of different circumstantial trials, this is rather specific. Something interesting is it says, but even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed.

That word that's translated, but, there, is the word that means sharp contrast. You will suffer for the sake of righteousness, and that by itself, you say, well that's not so good. But he puts a contrast in there, a sharp contrast. You are in sharp contrast, blessed. In sharp contrast, blessed.

And suffering for the sake of righteousness, this is a particular kind of thing where it's not just a general trial, it's particularly a trial of persecution. There are those who oppose you. Now, what kind of, what forms can that take? What kind of forms can the suffering for the sake of righteousness take, basically from other people? Can you think of some examples, ideas? Bad press. Bad press.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Any other ideas? Okay. Emotional stress. And how would that come about? Yeah. Yeah. And this can be kind of difficult emotionally. Where can some of the opposition come from? You mentioned bad press. Your own family. It could happen even in your own family. You've seen that? It could happen even with family members. It usually does. It usually does, yeah. It could be with family members where that stands.

How else? How else might it take place? Within the church. It could take place even within the church. Yeah, sadly enough. Yeah. How else? At work. At work, a work situation. Yeah, I've seen that, you know, several times. Certainly in other countries there's some laws against what we believe in. Yeah.

So there's some real persecution there even to the point of death. Yeah, it can be downright serious. It can be downright serious. I had a philosophy professor that, you know, within a short period of time of the class beginning, realized I was a Christian and he actually had me stand up and struck me in the face right in the middle of the class. Pardon? Actually struck you? Yes, yeah. He said, you're a Christian, aren't you? You know, across the face. It kind of surprised everybody. Was this supposed to be a teaching forgiveness?

Well, I guess he was testing the quality of my faith, right? But it can, depending on where people are at, it can be a variety and sometimes very serious consequences, right? Okay. We might even suffer, in matter of fact, what we'll see here, for doing the right thing. for doing the right thing. Now, this is kind of wild. You think, well, yeah, but somebody does something wrong, of course they get the consequences. And we say, well, that just goes with the territory, you know. But you might even suffer for doing right. And that's what this passage here lays out. Suffering for righteousness in this passage is not incidental. It's not an incidental thing, it's central to the passage. Not a sidelight.

It looks like it's a really bad thing. Like here's the instructor who whacks me in the face. Oh, that's bad, right? And as a matter of fact, there are several students that said afterwards, you could have had his job. You could have had that guy nailed. I said, yeah.

But the point there was, you know, everybody in the whole class knew I was a Christian because that's what he announced. And then he whacked me in the face. And if I came back with some kind of retribution to the guy, that's going to undermine the Christian message.

The Greek conveys this idea. Even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, blessed. It's sort of truncated there in the middle of it. Even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, blessed. It comes with that kind of a message here. One of the things that's kind of astounding, you start looking at this, what is the next thing that's portrayed there? in verse 14, the do nots, if you will. What are the next things that are portrayed there? The do nots in verse 14. Two of them.

Intimidation and being troubled. What about the intimidation? Do not fear it. Don't fear it and don't be intimidated. How about that? Don't fear it and don't be intimidated. Why would he say that? Well, it's either already happening or it's going to be happening, but you have something that means you don't have to worry about it. Okay, alright. Notice what's the response. He didn't say, if your professor whacks you across the face, make sure you hit him back twice as hard, right?

And I probably could have. But, in the midst of that situation, notice that the first area of response is external or internal? Is internal, right? The first area of response is internal. In other words, he doesn't first go, oh, do this and this and this and this on the outside. The first area of response is what's happening here. Yes. You couldn't have had a better campaign manager than your professor. That's right. That's right. There's a whole story that goes along with the bigger picture. We don't have time for it, but you're correct. You're correct.

And by the way, it wasn't too much later that his son was playing with the musical group up front at the church that we were at. Anyway, as we go through this here, don't fear their intimidation and do not be troubled. Have you ever heard of any other verses that talk about don't be troubled? Yeah? Jesus, right. Yeah. Let not your hearts be troubled. Right? Here in John 14, 28, Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.

All he did was take the same things and just reverse the order and spell it out in terms of the answer. It's the remedy. It's the alternative. Because if troubled heart and intimidation within, fear, is the response, that's heading in the wrong direction. What's wrong with those things? What's the problem?

Your instincts tell you to strike back. Okay, yeah, but one is the instinct is going to tell you to strike back. That's going to be point one. What are some other instincts that might be a result from that? Pardon? Yeah, keep real quiet about this. Yeah, yeah. Keep real quiet about it and don't say anything and just kind of keep it muffled. I'm going to actually change my mind. Art made the comment, this guy is a campaign manager.

What was happening is this was in the spring of 71, and Nancy and I were part of a fellowship of Christian students there at the college. And we were getting together and praying that belief in the Lord Jesus Christ would be a prominent issue on the campus. and that it would be done not because we were irritating and belligerent or forcing it down people's throats, but we were praying so that it would be there out in front of people that they would see it. And it was interesting that as we began praying that this is one of the events that took place, that the professor decided it's a good time to whack me. But there were also other things. I can remember shortly thereafter, about the same time, a letter to the editor of the newspaper. Man, what's going on? Everywhere I turn, Jesus!

And it wasn't a matter of people, again, being irritating or belligerent or obnoxious, but it was a matter of placing the Lord out there as an issue. And there were people reacting, some coming to the Lord. but also some reacting in negative ways, like this professor here. Let's take a look at the second page here. His next line there is, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.

Now what does sanctify mean? That's not one we use real commonly. To set apart. Set apart in what way? Pardon? To honor the Lord. Right. It's to honor the Lord. Set apart Him as holy. This is a part of a set of words that are translated holy, saint, sanctify, sanctification, all those words. Set apart as holy.

And again, where does the response take place? Is it outside here? Isn't it interesting? Don't do this, and don't do this, internal, but positively, if the opposition comes, where do you turn? To Christ. Well, what a surprise. Amazing, you find that in the Bible, right? When the opposition comes, it is turning to Christ that's the answer. It's how do you look at Christ? What's your perception of Him? That's the answer here.

And then one of the verses that we have that kind of brings us to the forefront is Acts chapter 7. Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the quick and they began gnashing their teeth at him. But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." Here's Stephen. And these guys are starting to throw rocks at him because all he did was tell him the truth. And they're starting to throw rocks at him, and I'm sure he could have thought, oh man, that hurts.

Oh, that's the third time you've done that. What's the matter with you? He could have said, boy, this is a good time to sprint. But what does he do? He's in the middle of this situation. The persecution is bad. And what does he say? I see Jesus. Okay? I see Jesus. In the middle of the circumstance.

And as we encounter different things, it's amazing. All the responses so far are what happened inside. That's the first place. It would be easy for someone to say, okay, here's your five things to do outside, with your body on the outside. All this is all internal. And it has you looking to the Lord. It has you drawing other people's attention to the Lord. Isn't that neat? This is great stuff. Okay. Now, here's one that's a biggie. Always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.

It's interesting, I took two philosophy courses when I was in college and it's funny, I had this strange motivation. I signed up for opposition. Not so that I could be obnoxious and difficult, but just I figured that that's probably one of the better ways to grow. to be used to the Lord.

And the two philosophy classes I had was one on Eastern religions and that's where this professor whacked me. And then another one that I had is I had this other philosophy class and they had an oral final. And in the oral final, that's where the professor I said, OK, Mr. Peterman, it's clear from your papers that you're a Christian.

You have five minutes to tell us what difference that makes in your life. In front of everybody, right? So immediately after the class, a fellow that I had not met or had any conversations with before comes up afterwards and says, Vern, I'm an atheist. I said, that's great. Let's talk about it. Come over for dinner, OK? The Lord can make these places that are varying degrees of opportunity.

I am mixed with some opposition. This guy didn't come up to me and say, hey, I'm a Christian, but hey, I'm an atheist. I believe exactly the opposite of what you do. And so then what's real interesting here is it's not, okay, here's your 20 arguments, you know, make sure you're in good shape, you can punch them out or something.

The response is initially all internal and it's not this, not this, but this. By the way, what would be the response if we just said, Don't be intimidated. Don't fear them. Don't be troubled. And then stop right there. What's the problem? It's the self doing the work. And what else? It doesn't give the full answer. What else is wrong? It doesn't direct you away from the persecution.

Ah, yes. The positive statement of look to the Lord, sanctify Christ in your hearts. That's missing. And one of the patterns you'll find in Scripture is very often where there's a not, don't do this, there's a but this. And you go through like the end of Ephesians, there's a pattern of don't do this, but this. Don't do this, but do this. So the positive statement is there. Yeah, Donna? I was just thinking the source of your strength, if you stop where you are, you don't give up. Yeah, yeah. You know, there are all kinds of Christians throughout the world getting in varying degrees.

So far in our country, most of the opposition has been more subtle. But I think it's increasing. And I think it's likely to increase even more. Basically, this, while it may in some sense feel like it's kind of hypothetical, I think it's going to be less and less hypothetical as time goes on.

Yeah, Norm? Now it's a bit more philosophical than anything else, but it's going to become, I think, very radical and very dangerous. Yeah, yeah. You know, Donna brought up the point, a lot of emotional stress, and notice that's where he goes first, right? the troubled heart, the fear and intimidation. And that's there. It is quite likely that that's going to be cranked up as time goes on. And there are likely to be far more difficult things that we're going to have to deal with. Another point here though, always ready to make a defense to everyone.

So that means if I'm a Christian, I've got to be real defensive, right? Is that what it means? Not so much, right? What is he talking about? Always ready to make a defense. That means, boy, I've got my arguments, you know, all stuck in my back pocket. I'm the debater of the year. Is that what he means? Or what does he mean here? What does he have in mind? What does this look like? You try to take that thing defense and just leave it by itself, Give an account for what?

The hope that is in you. There is a hope within you. Let's talk about that. As a Christian, what kind of hope have you got? Eternal life. It's a certain hope. It's a hope that is eternal. It's not just, man, I hope there's a $20 bill laying out in the lobby when I walk through. It's a hope that is eternal. It is a hope that is sure.

What else is it? It's a glorious hope. And what else? It's a relationship. It's a personal hope. It's not just, I hope this certain event. I hope this acquisition. It's not just something that is a circumstantial thing and an event, and something of that sort, but it is a hope that is personal. What did He just tell them? Here, sanctify Christ in your hearts. Personal. It's a personal hope. It's an eternal, certain, personal hope. That's the kind of hope.

So how is that different from being defensive? Sooner or later, when you're defensive, you're probably going to reach for something to hit somebody. Yeah, defensive, you're looking at trying to get somebody to back off, right? You're trying to defend yourself. Are we really defending ourselves?

No. No. This is all the Lord's doing. That's why when I sat down with that atheist, that I didn't, you know, I said, hey, come over for dinner. Let's sit down and talk about it. We talked for two or three hours, you know. But none of it was a, you know, hey, I'm going to eat your lunch or your dinner or whatever. But it was instead a time where I could just talk.

It's the hope that's in you. It's a matter of sharing. Yeah, it was a matter of, boy, here, like Wayne pointed out, here's an eternal hope. Boy, as an atheist, he didn't have that. It's a certain hope. As an atheist, he didn't have that either. Personal, he certainly didn't have that.

So, wonderful, contrasting hope to offer. It's also a hope based upon fact. Ah, a hope based upon fact. It's reality, it's not just, here's an atheist, I know absolutely, for absolute certain that there's nothing. Oh, that's good. Okay. Yes, Jeremy? Yeah, there is that confidence.

Sometimes when you hear atheists or other people arguing, it seems they're trying to convince themselves as much as they're trying to convince other people. We don't have to convince ourselves. We know it's true. We're not going to be swayed because we have the facts in front of us. Yes. And speaking of convinced, that was the guy's name, Vince. But yeah, you're right. And so we go through here.

And yet, what's the characteristic of the, in other words, we know that it's not a matter of, boy, I'm going to come to you with 20 arguments and I'm going to come up to you with, you know, about 10 decibels higher than speaking level and really force this down your throat. Is that what he's calling for? No. Matter of fact, the defensiveness, the aggression, there's no place for it. What does he call for here?

Gentleness and reverence. Gentleness and reverence. Now, let me ask you, why gentleness and reverence? Why did he bring up those two things? Why do those matter? Right then and there. One reason is the person you're talking to, don't treat him like he's an idiot. He has gone through some situations Okay, all right. Good, what else?

They had seen, by the advance of the Roman Empire and various ones, aggression. And people came in as a takeover. This was not a takeover. And in a sense, and I don't mean to mysticize this at all, it's a little bit prophetic in that when the Muslims came along, several centuries later, they were also very aggressive. There's no gentleness in the way Muslims approach evangelizing, if you will.

Right, yeah. It's interesting, Christianity spread like wildfire in the first hundred years after Christ ascended, but not by any sort. I know of no account where a sword was raised in the name of Christianity. But within a hundred years of Muhammad's death, the sword had gone into three different continents. It was right outside Paris, France, in Tours, France, where the Muslim invasion of Europe was turned around.

It's because it was definitely not gentleness. And notice, it's not a matter of what do I do on the outside like the Muslim did, but it's a matter of all this is about what do I do on the inside. What's happening on the inside? Yes? What makes that doable is the very life of Christ. Working promptly through it. It's not something we're trying to do. It's something that we just let Him do. Yeah. It's the Lord's work in the heart. in Christianity, whereas in Islam it was splitting people's heads. Here we have this urging gentleness and reverence. Why reverence? And who are we being reverent of? Why does reverence get included here? Let's turn around.

How would you defend the faith irreverently? You could jump on that first and say, because of the way you are right now, Jesus is going to send you straight to hell. Yeah. If I look at it, yeah, it's going around threatening, going about insulting. There's no place for it. You don't need to. It's inconsistent with making Christ sanctified, set apart, as holy in your hearts. It's inconsistent with the character of the hope that's in you. A soft answer.

So when I sat down with Vince and he was eating my food, which amazingly lives with my cooking, So when he came over, we sat down and there was no big argument. He went away that night and there wasn't any big ultimatum. But I saw him in church a year later. Vince, what are you doing here?

Oh, well, I'm a former atheist. Alright, now, as we go down here, Peter conditions the readiness here upon two things. The hope that's in you. It's not shoved down their throats upon unwilling believers. So it's reasons. Reasons. Explanations. Things that will appeal to the mind and the heart and the will of that person. shoving it down their throat.

Yeah. But I think too that we need to clear a defense to everyone who asks you. Ah! You see that? Everyone who asks. This isn't a matter of, let me tell you the gospel, and I don't care what you say, I'm going to tell you. Right? But it's instead, everyone who asks, then you have this response. The response is an explanation of the hope that is in you as the character of gentleness and reverence.

One final note, Peter wrote so as to connect being ready grammatically was set apart. The significance of this is that being ready is not necessarily founded in studying and education and preparation of intellectual arguments, but rather beginning with beholding Christ as Lord. Isn't that interesting? That being ready with a defense isn't necessarily, you know, boy, that guy's got a PhD in apologetics or something, right? But that being ready comes from the heart. And that readiness comes from beholding Christ. That's the readiness. Yes, Jeremy.

It's so important to stress the relationship. Paul says that things have gone hopeless in the world. So he can't hope to... We're not going to win over by God's word. That's right. It's not the intellectual argument. It is not being forceful. It's not shoving it down their throats.

It is the person beholding the Lord is the one who is ready to make a defense. That's readiness. That's readiness. It's the relationship that the believer has with the Lord makes that believer ready to talk about the hope that is within them because it's centered upon Jesus Christ. That's readiness. Readiness is relationship. Readiness is relationship.

That's key. That's key. This is not being brainiac. It's not having all the arguments lined up. It's personal. It's Jesus Christ. Let's take a look at the last page And keep a good conscience. This is a present active participle. It's actually not a command. It's keeping a good conscience. You're continually keeping a good conscience. Why is that valuable and important? Why does it make a difference?

Why does he bring that up here? Yeah, good conscience stems from right relationship with the Lord, that comes from beholding Him in the first place, right? It goes along with it, which is why He doesn't make it a command. The English kind of implies that it does, but no, in keeping a good conscience, it goes along with your setting Christ apart as holy in your hearts. So, but why is that going to be valuable? Why is that going to matter when you're talking to somebody? Well, you don't want them to be able to say, yeah, but you...

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Donna? Well, if the Spirit's working, then you see the Lord in you, right? So you've got a relationship that's there anyway. Yes. Yeah. If the Spirit's working, they're going to see the Lord, and the relationship is going to be evident. And the life of Christ will be evident. That goes along with having a conscience that's not stained by this and that and the other thing.

What's going to happen to the believer if somebody looks at you and says, yeah, but wait a minute. You've got this or that thing going on. What happens? What does that do? The unbeliever's focus is off Christ possibly working in him and just on you. Yeah, the focus becomes me and that's good and what else?

Yeah? It kind of seems to give people an excuse. Yeah, that's right. Here's my out. You say you have this hope within you You say that you have set apart Christ as holy in your hearts. That doesn't look like that. That doesn't look like that. Yeah, Jeremy? It is easy to become a distraction. It doesn't change the truth, but it is easy to be a living distraction.

We have in the middle of that paragraph, but a summary of the New Testament teaching on the conscience would be, the conscience of an unbeliever can understandably be severely damaged, but most references to a conscience in the New Testament epistles are regarding believers, and the urging of those epistles is the keeping of a good and clear conscience.

Having a good and clear conscience is far more than just doing everything right and not doing that which is wrong. The author of Hebrews clarifies the matter for us, Hebrews 9, 11-14, but when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation. and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood he entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctified for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? This is another aspect He says, keeping a good conscience. Certainly the believer who is beholding the Lord will be living out the life of Christ and then these conscience issues will not come up.

But what happens when a believer blows it? Is that just, well, you didn't do it and I guess you're done? Or what's the answer here? Pardon? Yeah. When a believer does blow it, there is the ability not to sit there and deny it or try to, you know, don't look at the man behind the curtain, right? But instead, to say, yeah, I did blow it and thank the Lord for his forgiveness. Yeah.

How about, like, doesn't it seem like in our society today There are a lot of people that seem to have a clear conscience because the love bar has been the lowest bar. Good point. Yeah, I have a clear conscience because nothing is defined as wrong, right? Yeah, you can't have a messed up conscience if there's so little that you could possibly do wrong.

Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Hence the double standard. But it's a key thing just to recognize that for themselves, I mean, the world's going to have all sorts of double standards, including, you know, I'm going to hold you to some high standard, but hold myself to some lower standard, right? Yeah. I think there's something key in that, too.

We cannot expect the world to live like Christians. We can't hold them to the same standard that we have in Christ because we are in Christ and what he will live through us. We are increasingly seeing a divergence between the world and Christianity. People are putting it aside. and actually putting not only practices but laws in place that diverge more and more from Christianity. And I think you can expect that to increase, but we cannot expect the world to hold to those standards. They really have no reason to.

But guess what? They still will expect us. They're going to be looking and saying, is that guy really acting like a Christian? Yeah. Shouldn't they expect us to live to a higher standard? Let's ask that question. Shouldn't they expect us to live to a higher standard? No. And that's what he's bringing up here, right? Yes, they should. It's something they're going to be looking at.

Basically, it avoids a distraction for the unbeliever if the believer is walking and he starts at the right place here. He doesn't say, do everything good, don't do anything bad. He starts at the right place. Set Christ apart in your hearts. Sanctify Him in your hearts. Well, that's why.

So, I mean, every author of the New Testament emphasizes beholding Christ, because it has to be about Christ. Like we said earlier, we're trying to make it about ourselves. That's why the world... In a sense, what they're saying must not be true, they mess up.

We need to be honest with them and say, look, the only difference between you and me is that I put my faith in Christ, and I've been identified with Him. Other than that, we're exactly the same, because we both have that sin nature. And the emphasis needs to be on Christ, and that it's Christ that's making me holy. I'm not, you know, more, I don't have more willpower than you, it's Christ.

Isn't the unbeliever, maybe they haven't got this clearly in their minds, but are not they really asking, do I see Christ walking in that person? Isn't that really ultimately what they're asking? Even if they don't know to ask the question specifically. They're saying, do I see Christ? That's really what they're looking at. And guess what?

The only way that's going to happen is if we're seeing Christ. If we see Christ, they're going to see Christ. That's what it amounts to. And it's not because we have, you know, what would Jesus do? It's not because, you know, we have our list of do's and don'ts and here's a set of rules. No, it's because they're going to see Christ because we see Christ. It's that simple. Yeah, Wayne? And I think we're doing it. It's always a look at me, how good I am, rather than the humbleness of just knowing Christ.

And that's what the world is looking for, is something that has some stability to it. And churches today don't have stability. They're all over the place. In the end too, what do they see? Do they see relationship or do they see religion? If somebody can walk in and explain the behavior of everybody in the church based on what they took in their sociology 101, that's not good. What they need instead is to look at believers and say, you know, what's going on with these people is inexplicable. I can't explain it based on worldly phenomenon. That's what they need to see.

And it's because it's about relationship, not because we have a really good religion. Yeah, Donna? I think along with that same thing, even when we fail, the way that you handle that failure is a totally different viewpoint than the world would handle it. Because our focus is on the Lord. Yeah. Did you hear what she said?

When we do fail... I don't think you said if, but when, right? When we do fail, then it becomes a question of how do we frame that in front of people? How do we lay it out in front of people? What's going on? It still comes back to relationship. Donna?

Well, the other thing that just came to mind is that it seems that Christians are sometimes more open about failure too. The world does not have us ever fail. Right. It's real interesting, as a believer, it's not that the Lord says, I want you to fail, but as believers, failure has a whole different perspective than the rest of the world. Do you notice that? Failure has a whole different perspective than the rest of the world because we say, well, failure, that's exactly what the sin nature does, right?

And can see the distinction. And I remember Nancy, I'll talk about this because she's told other people publicly, but she asked our kids one time, can you tell the difference between when I'm walking with the Lord and when I'm not? Yeah, they can tell. They can see. And isn't that far better? Isn't that far better? And they see the distinction?

Let's look at the 1 Peter 3.17 passage at the bottom of page 38.

For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong. What are some of the things you notice about that? What's God have to do with this in this verse? If God had His druthers, this is the way it would be. But you already know that we are not instantly perfect when we become Christians. It's going to be an ongoing thing, but as long as the Lord has sanctified, growth will take place. But notice here, if God should will it so that you suffer for doing what is right, does God will that we suffer?

We talked about God's will, right? Not too many weeks ago. Look at this. If God should will it so. Yeah. Is the willing that we should do what is right, not that we should suffer? It's not a question if God wills that we should do what's right, right? What he says here is if God should will it so That is exactly right.

Paul had just become a believer, and the Lord's statement is, he's going to learn how much I will have him suffer. The suffering, we look at it and say, why me, God? Or, God, I'm mad because you let this and that happen. And what does it say here is that that suffering is according to God's will.

Is the if here conditional or is it sense? Let's see, that's a good question. Talking about the particular class of the if. And offhand I don't know the answer to that. I'd have to look that up. which I'll do. But I think the answer we have from the other passage in James, it's not an if but a when.

It's going to happen. But isn't it really to enter into the fellowship of his suffering? And when we do, it's, boy, he really suffered. He really suffered. We come to know degrees of that. We have a suffering, this is one that often puzzles people, that we fill up the full measure of his sufferings. And we're puzzled. Well, wait a minute. What do we have to do with this? When the body of Christ suffers, is Christ just kind of standing up there saying, well, that's too bad. Eventually it will be over. My brother used to joke, it will feel better when it stops hurting. The Lord does not stand up there and do that. Instead, remember what did Christ say to Saul, who later became Paul. What did Christ say to him in the book of Acts on the road to Damascus, Saul, why do you persecute them?

Me. He takes our suffering personally. Not, why do you persecute them? Why do you persecute me? Our suffering is not looked upon as something that we do independently of the Lord. But especially in this category of persecution, it is something that is actually the Lord's receiving of the suffering through us, to the point that Jesus didn't say, why are you persecuting them? But every bit of persecution that Saul had been doing, why do you persecute me? We can easily look at suffering as something, well, I've just kind of got to go through this and God's somewhere. I don't know where He is. And I'm kind of mad about it. And I don't understand why I'm doing this. And why me?

Whereas what we find in Scripture is that that idea of our suffering independently is not God's picture at all. Instead, it is Christ is the one who is taking that upon himself personally. We're just the outside appearing instruments. We're just the outside instruments. I think we're out of time. Let's pray.

Lord, as we look at this passage, what wondrous things are there, and yet also how consistent it is with the rest of Scripture. calling the trials a joy and a blessing, calling us to behold you, calling us to explain this hope that is personal, that is eternal, that is certain. And Lord, as we look at this last part here, just recognizing that the suffering is not an accident. It's something that you intend very purposefully in our lives. And Lord, that's a wonderful thing. And we thank you just for the lessons that you have here and the things you have for us. In Jesus' name, amen.