Living in Hopeful Holiness: The Message of 1 Peter--1 Peter Series

            During our recent trip to Israel, one of the most fascinating sites that Carmen and I got to see was the Bell Caves in the ancient town of Maresha. The soft, chalky rock of the area was able to be carved and dug out by hand, and the ancient inhabitants of the town took full advantage of that fact by carving caves for a variety of uses. Some of them housed olive oil presses, others were made as homes and breeding areas for pigeons, and some were hewn as cisterns to collect and hold water.

            This site was a fascinating place to visit, but it also became very sobering when our tour guide told us about some events that had transpired there. During the turbulent time when Christian settlement and influence over the land of Israel was coming to an end, and Islamic settlement and control were taking over, Christians used those caves as a place to hide and worship in order to avoid persecution. But ultimately, a group of nearly 700 Christians were cornered in these caves and executed because of their faith in Christ. That was a very sobering reminder of the persecution that Christians have frequently faced since the very days when Jesus walked the earth.

            Today, we’re going to begin a series of sermons that will take us through the book of 1 Peter. This letter from the apostle Peter is all about how to remain faithful to Christ during times of persecution and opposition because of our faith. I think this focus is fully appropriate for us right now, given the current state and the likely future of our nation.

            I don’t want to sound like an alarmist today. It is certainly true that you and I may never face the tip of a sword or the barrel of a gun because of our faith in Christ. I pray that we never will! But it seems almost certain that our country will, at the very least, continue to go down the path of places like Western Europe, where Christian influence in society is minimal at best and Christians have very little assurance that they will be free to live by the convictions of their consciences.

            I probably don’t have to remind you about Aaron and Melissa Klein, the owners of a bakery in Oregon who recently paid a $144,000 fine simply because they did not want to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. But you may not have heard about Robert and Cynthia Gifford, who were fined $13,000 by the state of New York because they did not want to host a same-sex wedding at the wedding chapel on their farm. And I’m almost certain that you’ve never heard of Paul Church, a doctor who was fired from his job at a Boston-area hospital because he did not want to participate in activities like the hospital’s endorsement of the Boston Gay Pride Parade. All of this despite the fact that he had never had a complaint filed against him by a patient in 30 years of medical practice!

            Whether it be formal or informal, it seems certain that we will only continue to face opposition from our society because of our Christian convictions. How desperately, then, do we need a message of hope and instruction and encouragement from the word of God! And hope is precisely what we find in the words of the apostle Peter, who penned this letter to Christians who were facing insults and mockery and many other forms of opposition because of their faith.

            I think what we will learn above all else in this series is that times of opposition are not times for despair or cowardice, but times in which we should continue to do good in light of the future glory of Christ’s return. Such days are difficult, but they are not days of defeat. Rather, they are days in which we can still celebrate and savor the glorious joy that is ours through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Theme Verse

            If I were to select one verse from this book that I think captures most of what Peter was trying to say, I think it would be 1 Peter 4:19 – “Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.” I would encourage you to memorize this verse as we go through this series, because it really does capture the theme of the letter quite well.

            Now, it may seem that there is one phrase in this verse that’s a bit of a party crasher – it snuck in uninvited and threatens to ruin the whole thing! That phrase would be the statement about suffering “according to God’s will.” This idea is, without a doubt, the most perplexing claim that the Bible makes about persecution. How could it ever be God’s will – or in other words, God’s choice or decision – for his children to suffer from persecution? Why would He allow something like this? Let me offer a couple of thoughts that I believe will give us some helpful perspective.

Why does God allow His children to suffer persecution?

1. Remember what evil is and what it would take to get rid of it

            We often ask ourselves the question, “Why doesn’t God just put an end to evil right now? Why doesn’t he just take it all out of the world right now so that we don’t have to deal with it anymore?” Well, we first have to remember what evil actually is.

            It’s easy for us to think of evil as being something like air pollution. Air pollution exists in the atmosphere around us, and if we could somehow get rid of all of it instantly, that move would have nothing but benefits for everyone.

            But evil is not something that just floats around in the atmosphere around us. Evil is something that is inside of us; it is bound up in the hearts of every man, woman, and child on the planet – including you and me! The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 15:19, “out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”

            What we must remember, then, is that we are not only victims of evil at times, but we are producers of evil. When British author and Christian G.K. Chesterton was asked to write an essay about what’s wrong with the world today, his entire essay was only two words – “I am.” He said, “I am what’s wrong with the world today,” because he remembered this somber truth – that evil comes from the hearts of all mankind.

            So if we are the source of evil in this world, then for God to remove evil from this world, he would simply have to remove all of us from the world! He would have to wrap up human history in this world and put an end to it. Now, at first, we might feel like saying, “That sounds great! I would love to just be done with this world, because I know I’m going to heaven!” So we might want to say, “Go for it, God!” But as the saying goes, we should be careful what we wish for.

            According to the Bible, we are living through a stretch of history right now that we could simply call, “the patience of God.” According to 2 Peter 3:9, God is patiently waiting to close the final chapter of this stage of history in order to give all people plenty of time to repent and come to Christ. This patience is an expression of God’s love for all mankind—even the members of Boko Haram in Nigeria, and the members of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. It is certainly appropriate for us to long for the day when God will put the finishing touches on this stage of history, but if we callously call for God to knock it off already and wrap it all up, we demonstrate that we still have a long way to go to understand the depth and breadth of God’s love. His thoughts are indeed higher than our thoughts, and his ways higher than our ways!

2. Remember God’s plan for Jesus

            There’s an old saying that says, “what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.” In other words, if something is appropriate for one person, then it’s also appropriate for similar people. That’s an idea that we should keep in mind for this discussion.

            When we reflect on the plan that God the Father had for his natural son, the Lord Jesus Christ, we see very clearly that it involved persecution and opposition. Now, if that was the plan that God chose for his natural son, why would we think that he would not consider a similar plan for his adopted sons and daughters? If there was good to come out of such a plan for Jesus, could there not also be good to come out of such a plan for us? I think the answer is most certainly yes!

            Now we should keep in mind that God’s plan for Jesus did not involve only persecution and rejection – not by any means! The Lord Jesus has now been highly exalted, and one day his exultation will be on full display in this world. The apostle Peter captured this thought well in 1 Peter 1:11 when he wrote that the Old Testament prophets “[inquired] what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.” Yes, there was suffering, but it was followed by glory.

            And so it is for us! I can promise you, my friends, that there will not be one moment of persecution that you will endure that will not be amply repaid to you in the next life. Jesus himself said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you (Matthew 5:11-12).”

And so, it may be in God’s plan for us to face persecution – and perhaps increasingly so in the days ahead in our country. If we should find ourselves in that position, what should be our response? The message of Peter is quite clear – we should do good in light of the glory that is to come. Let me quickly trace the theme of those two concepts.

The Theme of Goodness

Our Lord is good (2:3), and He's given us Good News through the Gospel (1:12, 1:25)…

            These are important truths for us to remember, because during times of persecution, the goodness of God is one of the very things that we may be tempted to question. And so for these persecuted believers, Peter called them right back to these truths, encouraging them to lift their eyes beyond the horizon of their present circumstances to remember the goodness of God in the past and to look again at the goodness that God has promised for the future.

…so we should do good (2:12, 2:15, 2:20, 3:6, 3:11, 3:13, 4:10, 4:19) even to those who do not do good to us (2:18, 3:17).

            During a time of persecution, I would imagine that it would be tempting for all of our thoughts to turn inward: How am I going to look out for myself? How am I going to protect myself? But Peter encourages us to continue to do good for others in the name of Christ. That call to action extends even to those who do not do good to us. This response is one of the weapons that we have in our arsenal to push back against persecution. By continuing to do good, we can show everyone who may be watching us that we are not a threat or a danger to others, but a source of help for others. Thus, we can extinguish some of the fires of hatred that may flare-up against us.

This will give us a good conscience (3:16, 3:21) and put us in the best position to enjoy good days (3:10, 3:13).

            If we continue to do good despite persecution, we can live before God with a clear conscience. We will also put ourselves in the best position to avoid persecution, since we will not be giving other people any legitimate reason to oppose us.

The Theme of Glory

Though Jesus is not here on Earth today, through our faith in Him we can have a glorious joy (1:8) because His glory will be on full display at His return (4:13).

            Glorious, radiant joy is one of the ways in which the future seeps back into today. We do not enjoy the company of Jesus today as the disciples did when he walked this earth, but we know that one day we will! We receive a foretaste of that even now through the Holy Spirit, and one day, our lives will erupt in unbridled joy as we celebrate Christ in all his glory. And so, our foretaste of glory can sweeten and enrich our lives even today.

He has called us to share in that glory (5:10), which we will do to an even greater degree if we live for His glory today (4:11, 5:1, 5:4) and allow our faith to be strengthened through testing (1:7).

            In my opinion, this teaching of Scripture is one that is so fantastic and incredible that it borders on being scandalous! Nevertheless, it is true – we will reign over all things with Christ upon his return, and thus we will share in his glory and exaltation! Our exact position of service will be a reward for our faithful obedience today, and so we should not turn against the Lord during seasons in which he is seeking to strengthen our faith through testing. Rather, we should persevere in light of this glorious truth of sharing in the glory of Christ.

Therefore, we don't need to mourn if we lose out on the fading glory of this world (1:24) for the sake of Christ, because if we do lose any such glory through persecution, we know that the Spirit of glory rests upon us (4:14).

            Glory and honor in this life are such fleeting and fickle things. I get a chuckle sometimes when I read about historical figures who had titles like “the Great” attached to their names. You can pull out a history book and read about so and so the great, or so and so the magnificent, or so and so the lion-hearted or the gallant or the illustrious. But for virtually all of these people, you have to read about them just to know who they are, because they have long since been forgotten. There really is a reason why we talk about someone’s “15 minutes” of fame!

            If you miss out on praise and honor from this world because of your faith in Christ, you really haven’t lost much. In fact, that experience should remind us of all that we have. Suffering for Christ is a clear reminder that we are his. If the world hates us, it’s only because they hated him first. If the world lumps us together with him, what better company could we have? And so if those times of persecution come our way, let us continue to do good in light of glory.