Peter's Letters
8 - Suffering as a Christian
T. S. Elliot, writing about judgement day said, “Be prepared for Him who knows how to ask questions.” How we live and serve today will determine how we’re judged and rewarded on that day. Judgement is unavoidable – for the living and the dead. There is no second chance after death. Because “the end of all things is near” (verse 7) we should live in the light of eternity. Peter urges us to “be clear minded and self-controlled” (verse 7). The Authorised Version says “Watch unto prayer.” Perhaps Peter was thinking back to Gethsemane. The primacy of love is stressed because “love covers over a multitude of sins” (verse 8). In Genesis chapter 9 you remember how Noah when drunk lay naked inside his tent. Then “Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backwards and covered their father’s nakedness” (verse 23). Love doesn’t expose sin, it covers it.
Peter writes “Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling” (verse 9). In Bible days inns were filthy, expensive and immoral places, so travelling missionaries stayed in Christian homes. In fact for two hundred years there were no church buildings. Through His children, the Master still asks “Where is the guest chamber?” Hebrews 13 verse 2 says, “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.” Are you ‘given to hospitality’ – Is there real warmth in your welcome or are you thinking “Oh no, not them again: we had them last week!”?
Graces are those aspects of Christian living we are all called to display – self control, prayerfulness, love and showing hospitality. Gifts, however, are specific abilities given to individuals by the Holy Spirit to serve God and others. “Each one of us should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms” (verse 10). It’s the same Greek word we had in chapter 1 verse 6. Just as there are ‘all kinds of trials’, so there are ‘various forms’ of grace. Just as a stained glass window has but the one sun shining through it giving a multitude of different effects, so is God’s grace. Peter describes two kinds of gifts – speaking and doing. “If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the very strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ” (verse 11).
Peter now writes about the Christian response to suffering. “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial” – literally the Greek suggests an experience of ‘burning.’ Once Peter did think it strange that His Master should think of suffering. Remember Jesus had said, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first” (John 15 verse 18) and “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (John 15 verse 20). Peter says “Rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you” (verses 13 and 14). Enduring through trials is one indication of the genuineness of our faith.
I remember reading about Pastor Richard Wurmbrand who spent three years in solitary confinement in an underground prison in Rumania because of his faith. He said at times the presence of the Lord was so real that he had to literally dance for joy.
Could it be that eternal glory awaits the one who has stood up for Christ unmoved amid the mockery of schoolmates or the taunts of fellow workers? Trials are intended, in the economy of God, to reveal the secrets of our hearts, to humble us and to prove us. We must not look on trials as punishment for the past because all penalty has been borne for us by Our Redeemer.
St. Bernard said that Jesus always fled when they wanted to make Him king and presented Himself when they wanted to crucify Him. I recall the noble words of Ittai the Gittite (2 Samuel 15 verse 21) to King David, “As surely as the Lord lives, and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king may be, whether it means life or death, there will your servant be.”
Many believe that before God pours out His wrath upon this world in the Great Tribulation, a fiery trial will come to God’s church to unite and purify her that she might be a strong witness to the lost.
Spiritually, when it’s ‘summertime, and the livin’ is easy’, we tend to drift. Suffering draws us back to God very quickly.
Verse 15 is interesting. “If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler,” Interesting that ‘meddling’, being an interfering busybody is included. As we see in 1Thessalonians 4 verse 11, believers are encouraged to mind their own business!
One of the first questions to ask of any experience of suffering is this: Why am I suffering? Is it because of faithfulness to Christ or as a result of my own sin? There is no shame attached to suffering as a Christian if it is as a result of standing up for Jesus. Judgement begins with the family of God. We’re treated as legitimate children of God whom He lovingly disciplines when we need His correction. “God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in His holiness” (Hebrews 12 verse 10). “When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world” (1Corinthians 11 verse 32).
Judgement for non-Christians is very different. They will have to give an account of their lives without the ‘defence counsel’ of Jesus Christ to speak up for them! Peter quotes from Proverbs 11 verse 31 “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”
If we are suffering according to God’s will, we should, just like Jesus, commit ourselves to our faithful Creator and continue to do good. It’s the same word that Jesus used on the cross, when He cried out “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”