Suffering for being a Christian

1 Peter 3:13-22 (Pt 1)

(Notes for a sermon, abbreviated for the web - especially the first part - so not the actual text of what I preached).

We start with a question, 'Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?'

Imagine reading these words if you were a church minister facing execution, accused of leaving Islam & becoming a Christian.

'Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?' - who will harm you if you give your life to pastoring God's church?

'The government will.' You might say.

And Peter himself knows how Christians have always suffered for doing good. In his own day the Romans beat and crucified Christians in their thousands. Peter saw Jesus himself beaten, lashed, nailed to a cross and murdered.

These are not the trite words of a comfortable, western 21^st C church pastor paid a handsome salary. These are the words of someone who has seen and experienced suffering suffering for himself. The words of someone who will himself be killed for doing good, as Jesus had said he would.

But put yourself in the shoes of the pastor threatened with execution. Or his wife's shoes, or his children's. And look at verse 14, 'But even if you should suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed.' Blessed?! Imagine reading that the day before you're due to be executed. How can a pastor's execution possibly mean blessing for his family?

And yet, I know of Christian women here in TW who have lost their husbands in road accidents or through cancer, have been left to bring up children by themselves and yet can speak of God's faithfulness to them and to their children. Women who can praise and worship and thank God for his blessings despite, and in the midst of, unimaginable pain.

This can only be possible because, as Peter has been showing us, in Christ, we have become new & different people.

In his translation of ch 1, J B Phillips captures this superbly,

Thank God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that in his great mercy we men have been born again into a life full of hope, through Christ's rising again from the dead! You can now hope for a perfect inheritance beyond the reach of change and decay, "reserved" in Heaven for you. And in the meantime you are guarded by the power of God operating through your faith, till you enter fully into the salvation which is all ready for the [final outcome] of the last day. This means tremendous joy to you, I know, even though at present you are temporarily harassed by all kinds of trials and temptations. This is no accident – it happens to prove your faith, which is infinitely more valuable than gold.

“This is no accident”. Suffering is no accident.

The atheist says, 'How can you believe in a good and powerful God in the face of such suffering'. And we answer, 'How can you live without plunging into utter despair if all such suffering is just an accident?'

Knowing that life is not just an accident is itself a blessing . In the midst of suffering, we it is no accident. We know that God has a much, much bigger and far more glorious goal for us than this life in which suffering of one sort or another comes to us all.

One of the reasons suffering is such a massive question for us all is that we fear what might happen. Of course we do. We're human. We feel pain, both emotional and physical. And the thought of suffering fills us with dread. And yet, says Peter, quoting Isaiah, 'Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.'

And it's worth going back to Isaiah and looking at what was happening when Isaiah first wrote these words. Then we'll discover what was in Peter's mind as he quotes them. Isaiah 8:11-14.

There were two types of people within God's people Israel – those who feared God and those who feared the king of Assyria. The threat from Assyria seemed more imminent, more real, more frightening. But God's word to his people is, 'I am the one you must consider as holy. I'm the one you need to fear, not Assyria. Fear me, and you will find I am your sanctuary. I am your security. I am your hope.'

And so, back in 1 Peter, to those who are threatened by non-Xn government, employers and even husbands, Peter says, 'Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened. But in your hearts honour Christ as holy'.

It may be that people in authority over you have considerable power to make our lives a misery:

• the government can oppress us and try to stop us speaking the truth.
• You employer may have the power to fire you, to bully you, to belittle you.

But we must recognise that their authority and power is limited and temporary. God's power is unlimited and eternal. Therefore, 'Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened. But in your hearts honour Christ as holy'.  Let Christ your Lord be Christ your Lord.

And when Christ is your Lord and you don't fear other people, then you will appear very different from your friends and colleagues. As oppression, bullying & threats increase, the more you will stand out as someone who doesn't fear what they fear because you honour Jesus Christ as Lord. 

As the economic situation deteriorates, the more we Christians should stand out. Our friends and colleagues will become increasingly fearful for the future. But we remain confident and full of hope – not that the EU or the IMF or the Bank of England will sort out the mess, but that ultimately there is something more important than prosperity and growth.

And so, if Jesus Christ really is our Lord, people will begin to see that we're different. Our hope is not in economic recovery, but in our Lord Jesus. Perhaps Europe won't recover. Perhaps the EU will fall apart. There may even be civil war if not international conflict. But we will not fear. And non-Christians will question us. 'Why are you so different? How can you remain full of hope when everything looks so black?'

And, with gentleness and respect, we will give an answer for the hope that is in us – we will explain that we have a hope that transcends anything this world has to offer. 

But will it take an economic crash and a depression for us to demonstrate the hope that we have? Sometimes I think it might. And yet there are opportunities every day when we can demonstrate that we honour Jesus as our Lord:

I'm sure that in your office, no-one ever moans(!), but if that should ever happen, it's a great opportunity not to join in! To show that there are more important things in life – because let's face it, in the eternal scheme of things, the usual office complaints aren't terribly significant.

Or what if you work in the public sector: you're going to hear lots of complaints about the changes in pension arrangements. You might be balloted about strike action.

What should you do? How will you respond? Think about it from perspective of eternity – what difference will that make? What is it that your colleagues are afraid of? Should you fear what they fear?

And at school – there are great opportunities to demonstrate that JC is your Lord. Do you join in the criticisms of you teachers? Do you fear exams like they fear exams? What are exams in the light of eternity?

And all of this is not just to gloat over our calmness and joy in the face of difficult circumstances, but, v6, when people criticise us or oppose us, they might realise their stupidity, and be ashamed of their slander. Such shame might, in God's kindness, bring them to repentance and faith in Jesus.

Perhaps it will save them from the fear of man and help them to fear the One who is holy, and who alone has eternity in the palms of his hands.

PS John Piper's book, Don't Waste Your Life is well worth a read if you want to explore what it really means to live free of the fear of the world and in the fear and honour of God.

Forget the past, press on to better things

One of the saddest parts of Christian ministry is meeting people who cannot or will not move on from the past. Whether it be a refusal to forgive, the constant complaint that, 'it's not like it used to be', or the refusal to let go of old beliefs in the light of new truth.
And in the gospels we are confronted with those who could not let go of their legalistic interpretation of the Old Testament and accept that it was, all along, a signpost to the coming suffering servant Messiah. These people ended up crucifying their own Lord - the very one they claimed to serve. And yet, of course, the irony was that by rejecting Jesus, they made him their own saviour (and the saviour of the world).
In Philippians 3, Paul reflects on his own past. In one sense it was a glorious past - he was the most zealous and faithful Jew you could imagine. And yet, when confronted by the Lord Jesus he was prepared to leave behind so much that he had held dear, considering it 'rubbish' (a very polite translation!) compared with the glory of knowing Jesus Christ as Lord.
Christians have to be those who are prepared for change and prepared to change - or rather, be changed. For when we die and when Jesus returns, we shall be changed. Initially, we shall be with him, though we know little about what that will be like. But then, when he returns, this frail and mortal body changed into the likeness of his glorious resurrection body (Phil 3:20). This tent will become a permanent building (2 Cor 5:1).
But a refusal to change now, a stubborn heart set on earthly satisfaction, will result in destruction rather than future transformation (Phil 3:19). So being prepared to leave behind the old ungodly ways, and to press on to a deeper faith in Christ, new and true thinking, new and righteous behaviour is essential. This is what being a Christian is all about. This is why Christ 'took hold of us' - for constant change in this life and final, glorious transformation in the future.
So meeting people who won't move on is crushingly awful because it would seem to indicate that they are heading for destruction rather than transformation.

The church and the Christian

'I don't have to go to church to be a Christian.' I can't tell you how often I've heard people say that, and the fact that 69% of the UK say they're Christian but only 3% go to church on any given Sunday shows that this is what most people think.
Why do people think like that?
First, they don't understand what a Christian is: they think it's about being nice, and you don't have to go to church to be nice!
Second, they don't understand what the church is: they assume that the church is something you do if you want to add religion to your niceness.
Third, there is a consumerist attitude to church: if there's something I'd prefer to do - something that is more immediately enjoyable - I'll do that instead of church.
Fourth, there is no doubt that many people are put off church by previous bad experiences. Sad, but true.
Fifth, someone who thinks being a Christian is just about being nice, will not want to give their all to praising the Lord Jesus Christ. They won't want to meet with Spirit-filled believers for prayer, they won't want to hear God's word explained and applied to their lives.
There are, I'm sure, many other reasons. But now let's look at how we might answer the person who says, 'I'm a Christian, but I don't need to go to church.'
First of all, it's not usually helpful to be confrontational. This person is sympathetic towards the faith, so we need to get alongside them and walk with them into church, not be a barrier to them.We want to win them, not repulse them.
Second, we must remember that we're not united to Christ by attending church, rather we are the church because we're united to Christ by faith.

So we could talk about how to be a Christian is to be a member of the body of Christ (1 Cor 13:12ff) and that we're missing an important part of the body if they're not with us. Yes, this makes the assumption that they are a Christian, but that's their claim and we're running with it for now in the hope that it will become so.
Or we could talk about how Christians are united to one another and to God (John 17) in a deep and profound way, and so they will surely want to be together so that they can obey Jesus' command to love fellow believers in a special way. The problem with this argument is that they think they already do love their fellow Christians because, after all, each of the nice people they love and care for is a Christian (according to their way of thinking).
In 1 Peter 2, we read that Christians are a 'chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God'. We could therefore talk about our responsibilities as God's special people, and the privileges that we enjoy.

However, these are all but parts of a bigger picture. In his excellent book, 'Remaking a Broken World' Christopher Ash shows how God's big plan from the fall to the new heavens and new earth is to unite the world under Christ.
The reason people don't want to meet together is that sin breaks relationships and forces us into smaller and smaller ghettos. The Bible word for this is 'scattering' - God's judgment on sin is to scatter and disperse people (e.g. Gen 11:1ff; Gen 49:7; Lev 26:27-33; Psalm 44 etc etc). But salvation is 'gathering'. When God saves his people he brings them together - in the OT around the mountain, tabernacle or temple and, in the NT, around Jesus. And always his people gather to hear God's word and to worship him together. (e.g. Psalm 102; Isa 11:12; 40:11). All of this is summed up in Nehemiah 1:8-9

Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’

In the NT, Jesus says that he will gather his people together:

His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.      Matt 3:12

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.  Matt 12:30.

And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.  Matt 24:31

 And then, in Revelation, all the nations gather round the throne of Jesus the Lamb to worship him:  

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”    Rev 5:13

All of this is summed up in Ephesians 1:7-10 &22

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

 And so we return to the church. Christ is given to the church as its head and as the ruler of all things. In him alone do we discover the fullness of God and the fullness of the purpose of our creation.
Christians will be with each other and with the Lord Jesus forever. More than that, we will be united in love for one another and love for Jesus forever. So we might as well start loving and enjoying each other now. Eternity is a mighty long time!
And th sting in the tail is that if we don't enjoy Jesus and his people now, we won't enjoy him and them in eternity.

For whose benefit?

Few people in the Bible receive such high praise as Timothy, 'I have no one like him,' says Paul, 'who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.' (Philippians 2:20).
Paul contrasts Timothy with so many of the other believers he has encountered, 'They all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.' (21)
As disciples and servants of the Lord Jesus, we ought to be interested only in his interests because of who he is an who we are. But it's not only a matter of obligation, surely as those who have been rescued from slavery to sin and from the wrath of God, and as children of God, we delight in serving our Saviour.
And yet serving our own interests seems so much more attractive and pleasing, partly because we're so easily beguiled by immediate, short term pleasures and partly because we're blind to the source and goal of our true best interests. Surely the truth is that if we serve the interests of Christ, we will, in fact, be serving our own best interest? If he is honoured, we his family are honoured. When we walk his way, we find our true humanity. In serving him is the fulness of joy. But we have to keep reminding ourselves of this.

It would be easy to pass over verse 22 too quickly, '...you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel.' Here is Timothy serving as an apprentice to Paul. Not just any apprentice but as a son growing up in the family business, serving his Master, Jesus Christ, and learning his trade from his father, Paul. Timothy is loyal and hard-working, always putting the interests of others (2:4) and Jesus Christ before his own. Foregoing what he wants for the sake of what Paul or Jesus need or ask.

We each need to make searching applications into our own lives. Am I one of 'the others' or am I a 'Timothy'?

The glory of submission

Another subject that has forced itself into the forefront of my mind in recent weeks is submission.
In teaching John's gospel, I have to recognise that Jesus repeatedly says that he obeyed the Father's command; that he does only what the Father does; that he says only what the Father tells him to say; that he goes to the cross because the Father sends him there.
Then preaching through 1 Peter, I've had to consider what it means for citizens, employees, wives and young men to be called to submit and walk in the steps of Jesus.
And today, reading Philippians 2, this despised idea crops up again: Jesus 'humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.' And again, we're called to follow in his steps,

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Phil 2:12f).

And Paul spells out what this imitation of Christ will look like in practice:

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. ... Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life. (Phil 2:3-4 & 14-16).

If this concept of submission and obedience came naturally to us, we would not have needed Christ to come and demonstrate true obedience. We would not have needed him to be obedient to death and so bear 'our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.' (1 Peter 2:24).

But he did that to show us a new and better way - the way of the Son of God himself. 'By his wounds you have been healed' - healed from your willful disobedience and refusal to submit. 'For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls' (1 Peter 2:25). So now we willingly submit to our great Bishop (= Overseer) who is Jesus, and follow in his steps.

Genuine discipleship

I have long had a nagging suspicion that Jesus calls us to be far more radical in our discipleship than we actually are. And in recent weeks this suspicion has been confirmed.

For example, in 1 Peter, we read that we're called to radical submission - even when we're treated unfairly - 'For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.'

And in my quiet time this morning, I read Philippians 1:12-30 where Paul speaks of his imprisonment and how this has resulted in the advance of the gospel, so he rejoices.  

Paul rejoices in house arrest. I moan that I don't have Sky Sports!

Paul's concern is that Christ is honoured whether by life or death. I moan that we didn't have any hot water this morning.

Paul longs to leave this life of struggle and be with the Lord, but he is happy to struggle on for the sake of the Philippians' faith. 

Then, to cap it all, he says to the Philippians, 'It has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.' (1:29f). 

It is a pirivilege to suffer for Christ - it's what he called us to do.  And yet we're so unwilling to suffer for him. Unwilling to stand up for the gospel. Unwilling to give time when we'd rather be plonked in front of some ungodly trash on tv. Unwilling to give financially because we'd rather spend it on our comfort and on instant gratification. Unwilling to work hard for the gosple because we're... let's face it... lazy and ungrateful.

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.

He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By his wounds you have been healed. 

Prayer for St Peter's

Paul's prayer for the Philippians is my prayer for St Peter's:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, ... in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. ... And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.