Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Bible explicitly teaches that suffering is to be expected in the Christian life. Today's text, 1 Peter 4-12, says, Pastor Rich answers this question in today's message titled, Suffering is not Strange. Listen as Rich contrasts our natural response to suffering to a response that is hinged on God's self-disclosure. Good morning, church. Here we are back now. We resume our study in 1 Peter.
I speak from personal experience. And we're picking up in chapter 4, verses 12 to 19 that Ken just read for us. The title of this series is How Free People Suffer. The title of the whole series of 1 Peter is Live as People Who Are Free. And from chapters 2 to chapter 4, we looked at 12 characteristics of people who are free. And this series is How Free People Suffer.
Let me just give you a brief, very brief overview. Suffering is not Strange is the first one. That's today. Next Sunday, suffering is shared.
Then I'll be out of the country for two weeks, and then we come back. Number three, suffering is sacred. And then lastly, suffering is sanctifying. That's how a free people suffer.
Now, I could just dismiss you now, and we're all good, right? Now, let's unpack the scriptures before us. How a free people suffer. Today's text, Suffering is not Strange. Look again, chapter 4, verse 12.
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. I grew up, now let's try this again. I did grow up, but my kids grew up with a lot of books. My wife is a teacher. We have a lot of books.
We still have them. One of them is called Where the Wild Things Are. Do you ever read that? A lot of good teaching in that book. His name is Max. Now, there's a screen adaptation of this, and Max is feeling kind of shunned by his family, and so he goes off into his fantasy world, and there he encounters monsters. And the monsters are going to harm him, but he becomes, all of a sudden, this miracle worker, right? And then they're wanting him to know if he is going to shield them from all sadness. And he says, I have this sadness shield.
We all want that sadness shield, don't we? It's inherent in us, because of our design. But sometimes we are surprised by suffering. I want to talk two reasons why we are surprised by suffering.
Number one is your design. You are surprised sometimes by suffering, you are surprised sometimes by suffering because of your design. You were designed to thrive. You were designed to prosper. Careful with that.
This is not prosperity theology. But that is your design. You are designed to live up to the full potential of your human powers. You are designed to live up to the full potential of your creativity, your industry, pleasure.
You were designed for that. But then reality strikes, and everything tends to fall apart. Everything. From the physical to the material, relationships, ideas, and causes, even our sense of well-being seems to fall apart. And so we're surprised by suffering. We have ideas about how life ought to be.
And again, that gives us a hint that there is a higher purpose and design to our existence than everything that is right now. But we are surprised by how things are. Because life is unfair. Do you agree with me? But we agree with you.
Do you agree? But we expect life to be fair. And it's not.
It's broken. This is one reason why we're surprised by suffering. Peter tells us we should not be. Here's a second reason. The first one is your design. Number two, deity. Your idea of God. You are surprised by suffering because of your idea of God. John Stott, great theologian of the 20th century, said, the fact of suffering undoubtedly constitutes the single greatest challenge to the Christian faith and has been in every generation. Its distribution and degree appear suffering.
The distribution and degree of suffering appear to be entirely random and therefore unfair. Sensitive spirits ask if it can possibly be reconciled with God's justice and love. There is a hint of this in the adversary's accusation of Job before God. We understand God to be loving. We understand God to be powerful. We understand God to be good. But does he care for us when I'm suffering? We're brought to that question.
And I said one of the reasons why we can be surprised by suffering is because, listen to this, here's some surveys that were taken very recently. Among Americans with evangelical beliefs and who attend Protestant church monthly or more, and that includes us, listen to this, 75% agree that, quote, God wants me to prosper financially. Did God promise you that? Is it written anywhere? Are you taking God's name in vain? I'm not talking about swearing.
I'm not talking about making him keep a promise that he never made. Forty-one percent, Christians, evangelicals go to Protestant church. 41% agree that their church, quote, teaches that if I give more money to my church and charities, God will bless me in return. The American church is full of pagans, because that's what that is.
They believe in a pagan God. They have no understanding of God's unconditional grace. You think, Mike, well, what about those Old Testament promises?
There are so many promises, you know, I know the plans that I have for you, right? And all of these coffee mug promises that we have from the Old Testament, right? And we need to understand that so many of these are, we need to understand them in their covenant context, that many of them are very specific and conditional. But we're in the New Testament. We live under the New Covenant.
It's a whole other series. Did you know that the problem of evil is only a problem for those who believe in God? Because if you believe there is no God, evil is not a problem.
It's just how things are. So if someone is arguing the problem of evil, they are confessing belief in God, though they may not know it, because the problem of evil and atheism are incongruous. So this is why we might be surprised by suffering, our design and our deity. Let's talk about the human condition, because Peter says here, do not think it's strange, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you. In other words, when we talk about the human condition, I'm saying this morning that this is part of what it means to be human.
If you are human, this is part of your life. Number one, the bondage of corruption. The bondage of corruption. It is a law. Where there is a law, there is what?
A lawgiver. The bondage of corruption is a law. The law of entropy, for example, that everything tends towards disorder. It is how things are currently. The grass withers, the flower fades. It's true, isn't it? There's no exceptions to that. With one maybe, you know, we had some artificial flowers and I had a boutonniere on and somebody took that and they stuck it in water and they were really surprised how long it was lasting.
It was an artificial boutonniere. Consider what Paul says in Romans chapter 8, verses 20 and 21, the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it. We're so glad you've joined us for Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. You can hear this message and others anytime by visiting our website, www.delightingrace.com. You can also check out Pastor Rich's book, Seven Words That Can Change Your Life, where he unpacks from God's Word the very purpose for which you were designed. Seven Words That Can Change Your Life is available wherever books are sold. As always, tune in to Delight in Grace, weekdays at 10 a.m.
