Sermon Brief
Date Written: June 01, 2007
Date Preached: June 03, 2007
Where Preached: OZHBC (PM)
Sermon Details:
Sermon Series: A Study in 1 Peter
Sermon Title: Salvation and Suffering
Sermon Text: 1 Peter 1:3-9
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
4 to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,
5 who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials,
7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ,
8 whom having not seen[a] you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,
9 receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.
Introduction:
First Peter is a letter written to many different people who were suffering some form of persecution. They were facing dark and difficult days in fact, trials and temptations were the daily diet of their lives. So Peter wrote to encourage these scattered and confused Christians with the assurance of their salvation and suffering.
Have you ever thought long and hard about suffering? I want to take this time to talk about suffering for Christ. It’s something that a pastor thinks about and deals with on a daily basis, but rarely ever talks about. And whether you want to admit it or not it is something we all deal with, but for whatever reason, we may not talk about it either.
Now many of us will complain and murmur about our sufferings that we have to endure, but although complain, we never stop to really talk about it and look at the root causes and reasons we may be experiencing the particular difficulty at the present time.
For us to intentionally talk about our suffering tonight I want to share with you what I want to call “The Assurance of Our Salvation and Suffering.” So let’s begin by talking about:
I. The Assurance of Salvation verses 3-6
The first thing we need to be able to do in our suffering is to honor and praise God in our suffering because it’s in His mercy that He’s given us the privilege of being saved, of being born again.
God initially has held back the punishment of death we rightly deserve and He has provided us new life for our suffering souls! So with that in mind, whatever you may be going through as a child of God… you must remember that you have the assurance of salvation and nothing can change that! This is because of His power and His promise! Read v. 5 with me again…
In the assurance of salvation, God has given us new birth into:
A. A Living Hope verse 3b
In spite of the frequent suffering and persecution Peter refers to in his letter he assures us that we have been born again into a hope that is alive, sure, certain, and firm.
It’s a hope that’s grounded in God himself and in His promises. In fact, this letter could be called a letter of hope in the midst of suffering; a hope which is able to survive the various trials which you and I suffer.
Yes, suffering is sure to come, but don’t lose sight of the living hope we have been born into. And we must always keep our expectations and desires for better days ahead! Why?
Because, “thru the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” we have been resurrected with Him. That’s why it’s a living hope. We have hope that things will be better and that even if we die we will live on, we don’t really die in Jesus because we’ve already been resurrected with Him. Not only is there a living hope, but we can also see that the Assurance of Salvation is seen also in:
B. An Enduring Inheritance verse 4
Our inheritance is in Christ and in Him we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. But don’t think that the term inheritance applies only to heaven in the future.
No sir, not only the future but it applies to our inheritance in Christ right now! Now you must understand that this inheritance is not a material inheritance as we may think about inheritances...
To emphasize this point, Peter uses 3 adjectives… and they are that our inheritance can never perish, spoil, or fade. That is, our inheritance is imperishable, it cannot be defiled or stained by filth, and it is unfading. Our inheritance is like a perennial flower.
The background for our enduring inheritance is found in the OT Hebrews possessing the land of Canaan all because God promised it to them. The focus for them however came to be on God’s faithfulness to His promise together with the rich blessings that He gave as their inheritance, not the physical land. It became a spiritual thing for them.
Likewise, our living hope in Christ causes us to look forward to an enduring inheritance that has been promised to us. Because we have a new life, we have inherited a whole new identity and a host of other spiritual blessings – every spiritual blessing! It is a living hope and an enduring inheritance, but we can also see that it is…
C. A Coming Salvation verse 5
I am saved pastor, what are you talking about? Let me explain… for the believer, our salvation has come, is coming, and will come. Salvation is a continuous process.
First, we are saved from the penalty of sin, which is death. We are delivered from death to life and spiritually we will never die no matter how much we may suffer – because of our salvation we will never be separated from God!
At the same time, we are being saved in the present from the power of sin that still resides in our body, that sin principle. So we still need to be delivered from the temptations that come as a result of the principle of indwelling sin. This part of the process we call sanctification which means we are becoming what we already are in Christ.
Finally, we will be saved from the very presence of sin. We’ll be saved from the principle of indwelling sin with the new body we will receive when our salvation is revealed in the last times. So I encourage you to hold onto that assurance of your salvation today and don’t lose faith.
This is something that God has done for YOU and YOU can have the assurance of HIS salvation! However, there is something that God is continuing to do in our lives and that is it is God’s desire to conform us to the image of His dear Son and develop our character to be more Christlike and it is to that end I need to share with you:
II. The Assurance of Suffering verses 6-9
We need to keep the horse ahead of the cart as we live out our lives in Christ. We need to keep the focus on the fact that as Peter says in verse 6 “In this,” new life, this living hope, enduring inheritance, this coming salvation – we rejoice.
We need to keep our joy even though for a little while and from time to time we may have to suffer trials of various kinds. “All kinds of trials” means the many different ways in which you are caused to suffer.
It may be a broken heart, a depressed soul, a downcast spirit, a dreaded disease, a terminal illness, emotional rejection, hurt from a withholding of meaningful love and acceptance. It could be one of many things that brings suffering our way.
But I don’t want to mislead you because you can be assured that in this life you are going to suffer! And the reasons you can be assured of suffering are:
A. The Fallen World We Live In
We live in a world that is sin-cursed. God created man for a perfect relationship, but Eve was deceived, and Adam chose Eve over God and was deliberately disobedient.
The result of Adam’s choice was that sin entered into the human race through Adam according to Romans 5:12. And because sin entered into the world, as a result suffering was born!
This world we live in is the universal condition of all mankind. The varying degrees of suffering are in the Sovereign hand of God. Job said it this way in 5:7, “Yet a man is born to trouble as surely as the sparks fly upward.” Just ask Job, he’ll give you the assurance of suffering.
The sin-cursed world has a powerful effect on us today; with internet, media, TV – what-ever evil happens we’re aware of it instantly. Likewise, Satan is also a part of our living in a sin-cursed world and through temptation he brings much suffering into our lives. But it is not only this fallen world, but it is also that…
B. Our Faith Will Be Tested verse 7a
Peter reminds us that the purpose of our trials and suffering is to prove that your faith is genuine, that your trust in Christ is real or that you really trust Christ not yourself, that you truly depend on God. Believers are not exempt from the painful events of life.
1 Peter 4:12 indicates this clearly. And in the middle of the last night Jesus spent with his disciples recorded in John 13-17 he said to them at 16:33, “In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer I have over-come the world.”
The balance of suffering is in the truth that Jesus will enable us to overcome. And in so doing our faith will be proven genuine, real, strong and unwavering. The assurance of our suffering is seen in the testing of our faith, there is an important point I want to make here about what I would call…
C. The False Sense of Security We Give
To deal fully with the end of the assurance of our suffering I must deal with the false sense of security we often give people. There’s a prop we need to pull out from under people that we may learn to fully surrender our lives to him.
We get it from 1 Corinthians 10:13 and our slant on this Scripture is this, “God won’t put more on you than you can bear.” Have you ever heard that? Now while that is a well-meaning truism, we need to understand tha the context of that text is in temptation… NOT SUFFERING! There is a difference!
The truth is that Paul’s suffering and problems were excessive and beyond his ability to endure them. Do you remember Paul praying in 2 Cor about this thorn in his side… a thorn he simply could not bear!
God was allowing more than he could bear in 2 Corinthians 1:8-9. God allowed this so that he would trust in God who raises the dead and not in himself.
Trials, troubles, problems and suffering in our lives don’t just happen. A Sovereign God allows them into our lives for the purpose of bringing us to the end of ourselves and to total dependence on Him. Ultimately as verse 7b says, “and may result in praise, glory, and honor.
Most of us don’t need any assurance of suffering… do we? The question is, “How are you going to respond to the suffering you endure?” Jesus totally surrendered His life to God and died on the hill of Golgotha for your sins and mine.
Have you put your trust in what He did on that hill 2,000 years ago? Why not now? Of course, God raised Jesus from the dead, He brought Him through His suffering to a glorified end.
Tonight I call on all those here who know Christ as Savior… to submit to His Lordship and lean on Him in your suffering! Sell out today… totally and completely!
If you have NOT surrendered to Christ today, I call on you to allow Him to overwhelm your life with His Spirit and take your sins to Him and ask His forgiveness… He is faithful and just to forgive you and wash away all the sin and guilt and the consequences of that sin! And He will save you for all eternity and your hope will be secure in His promise to hold onto you! Come to Him tonight!
