Suffering For Jesus

Suffering for Jesus

1 Peter 4:1-6

Introduction-

Turn to 1 Peter 4:1-6

Good morning-

Last week I asked you if you realized that your attitude plays a big factor in what you receive during the service.

I hope you thought about that a minute and determined that as you came into church this week that you would bring an attitude of expectation.

What does it mean to suffer for Jesus?

We hear the term but do we know what it means? What does that looks like?

Most times we think of a missionary overseas in a dangerous troubled area where they could lose their life for spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That is definitely true but there are other ways people of faith are suffering for Jesus.

How should we as believers respond to suffering?

The word suffering and its derivatives are used twenty-one times in this epistle.

Peter has a lot to say about suffering.

Nero was having Christians covered with tar and burned at the stake to light up his garden.

These Christians needed to hear that suffering was part of the will of God and that they should not be shocked by it.

They also needed to understand how to respond it.

How should we respond to being mocked by friends for our belief system? How should we respond when sometimes even our families don’t understand us?

Peter talks about this in this passage.

1 Peter Chapter 5 Peter gives us some warnings

“That we need to humble ourselves before the Lord, that we get not puffed up in ourselves.

To be alert and live self-controlled because our enemy (devil) prowls around like a roaring lion to devour us. Recognizing that we have an enemy of our soul-

That we must resist the devil, stand firm and he will flew from you

Stand firm in your faith because you realize that you have brothers and sisters throughout the world who are undergoing the same suffering.

He warns us…God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.

He brings down the proud and lifts up the humble.

Pretty sure that if He gives us warnings and instructions on how to live that he would give us a working definition of suffering.

Illustration-

On September 11th, 2001- I was an associate pastor and working full time (bi-vocational) for a local propane company. I was in the home of a customer when the first tower was hit at 8:46am and the whole day each place I went added to the moment because everyone had something to say about it. It was not till I got back to the shop at the end of the day and began my paperwork and talked with my boss that 911 became realized. He began telling me that his daughter was working for Chase and was in tower one working that fear struck me to the heart. For two days he did not know if his own daughter was okay. By God’s wonderful hand of mercy, at about 8:00 that morning she had left the tower and went with a friend to get a cup of coffee and dealt with the chaos outside but was not trapped in the building.

Nothing gives you a reality check like going through crisis moments or near crisis moments that change your life.

They both teach valuable lessons and are part of who we are.

One person tells the story of how God miraculously spared a life and the next is describing the event and how life was tragically lost.

Prayer-

This morning Lord, we come in the powerful name of Jesus to ask you Lord to use the things that go on in our lives to transform us more into the image of Christ and not ourselves. As we look at your suffering and realize that we must also suffer for the name of Christ, may we do it with a humble heart and a desire to live for you. Living for you is not easy… that is why so many are not doing it. May you help us and lead us to be all that you desire and would you transform our thinking, our actions to reflect Christ and not this world. In Jesus Name! Amen!

Please turn to 1 Peter 4:1-6 Read from Bible

Remember I told you that when a verse starts therefore... that you must go back a few verses to find out what it is therefore.

We see that in the previous verses that we will suffer even if we are doing good.

We see that Christ Himself suffered for the righteous and the unrighteous and that He did not deserve to die it but was willing to suffer for each one of us.

“Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin.”