Sunday Sermon: Committing to the Hard Way

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1 Peter 4:12-19
“Committing to the Hard Way”
Post-Easter Series: “Feed My Sheep” May 24, 2020  

Back when it became apparent that the coronavirus had made its way across the Pacific (or the Atlantic, or wherever it came from), I really did think that we’d be in a state of disruption for a month, maybe two, and then everything would get back to normal. That’s one of the reasons I had thought we’d keep the church open, keep our heads and hearts down, and just bulldoze our way through this thing until we made it through to the other side.  

But that obviously didn’t happen, just as the poet Robert Burns told us it wouldn’t when he wrote about how “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” In other words, the one thing that you can plan on in life is that things won’t ever work out like you plan for them to work out, which sounds contradictory at first, but as we have all discovered in recent days is absolutely not.  

Now they’re telling us that we can expect to have to put up with this viral threat until someone comes out with a vaccine, which doesn’t give us any comfort. And that is why all around us people are scrambling. Schools are trying to figure out what they’re going to do come August. Businesses are trying to stay afloat. And all of us want to know, will there be college football in the fall? And all the while there are people falling through the cracks – falling through the cracks emotionally and financially and relationally and spiritually.  

Speaking of things spiritual, there are many who have always thought that faith in Jesus was itself a sort of spiritual vaccine against hard times, such as the time we’re going through today. There are many who have thought that when a person makes a commitment to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, then all the hard times are made easier and all the challenges are taken away.  

But nowhere in Scripture are we promised such a serum. Nowhere in the Bible are we told that people of faith have immunity against trials and tribulations. No, if anything, the Bible tells us that we can expect to plan on more! So, why would anyone then choose to walk in the way of the Master and why would anyone decide that following Jesus is a good idea? Because when we go through those hard times, we are not alone. Jesus is right beside us to give us the grace that we need to keep going and the wisdom that is necessary to become an even stronger disciple in the process.  

Such was Simon Peter’s counsel to these new Christians who were finding their way in life harder than they ever would have imagined. More than likely, there were many of Peter’s readers who, having been on the bottom rung of first century society, probably saw faith in Christ as a way to do a bit of ladder climbing, at least to the point where their life would be easier and more comfortable than it had been before.  

That’s why Peter begins by saying, “Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the painful trial (the fiery ordeal) you are suffering. Don’t be surprised, as though something strange were happening to you.”   

It appears that it has always been the case that we humans have always harbored this assumption that we have this inalienable right to avoid having to go through hard times, that somehow when God gave us life that God owed us this unassailable entitlement to a problem-free existence. We forget, do we not? That’s actually how life actually began in the Garden of Eden, until Adam and Eve decided to take over God’s authority so that sin entered the picture and the whole world became infected, which is why we have to contend with viral outbreaks and natural disasters, senseless tragedies and inexplicable violence. All because “the best laid plans of Adam and Eve went awry” and you and I are still suffering the consequences.  

“Ok, Peter,” those new Christians probably said. “We get that trials and tribulations are to be expected. So, what do we do now? How do we cope? What response do we make?”

And this is where Peter, I think, puts on his greatest display of inspiration. He tells them, “You rejoice that (your hard times enable) you (to) participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” 

That word for participate is the word “koinonia,” which means communion. We normally think of communion as something we do around the Lord’s Table, which quite frankly is an aspect of worship that we won’t be able to do for the foreseeable future, given how sharing and passing things in worship isn’t a safe practice at the present time. But the communion we can celebrate (for that’s the image that Peter evokes) is the fellowship we have with Jesus when in some way we experience the power of his presence in the midst of our hard times so that we gain some deeper understanding of what he suffered for us on the cross and we come to a place, even in our hard times, where we praise God that in the very midst of them we bear the name of Jesus.

There’s a story in the book of Acts, just after Pentecost, where the church, having just seen three thousand souls come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, begins to show up on the radar screen of the Jewish religious leaders. These leaders had thought that they had rubbed out everything related to Jesus when they colluded with the Romans to nail him to the cross. But now, his disciples have begun showing up in the temple proclaiming the Risen Jesus as the Promised Messiah and doing all manner of remarkable miracles in his name. So, they had rounded up the disciples and put them all in prison when in the middle of the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out, instructing them to keep preaching “the full message of this new life” (Acts 5:17-20), which is exactly what they did.

When the religious leaders got wind of it and brought the disciples before the full council to be called on the carpet for their actions, the high priest himself told them that they had been forbidden “to teach in this name” (Acts 5:28), which caused Peter to launch into yet another sermon on the death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus. A great dispute took place among the Sanhedrin and finally they decided to flog the disciples and let them go with a warning never again “to speak in the name of Jesus.” But as the book of Acts tells us, they “left the Sanhedrin rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name” (Acts 5:41).

I think the genius of Peter’s teaching, a teaching that didn’t just come from his head but came from his heart, was that, if we let him, Jesus can use the hard times of our lives not to wound us or discourage us but to form us for a much larger understanding of what it means to call ourselves Christian because of how in those hard times we are more able to identify with all Jesus went through for us. 

Can you do that this morning? Can you slow down in this season where you don’t have that many places to go anyway and consider how you might in whatever difficulties have come your way allow them to help you ponder how “for the joy that was set before him Jesus endured the cross, despising its shame” (Heb. 12:2)? Because hard times don’t lend themselves to haste; they instead call us to contemplation, reflection, understanding, and mature joy, and if we use them in that fashion then when these hard times will have disappeared into the rear view mirror we’ll be able to move ahead as stronger and more committed Christians.

One of everybody’s favorite passages of Scripture is the 23rd Psalm. You know the one I’m talking about. It begins, “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.” I learned that psalm as a child and my guess is that you probably did too. But there was a verse in that psalm that I wrestled with in my early years. It’s the verse that goes: “And yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” As a young person, I had no interest whatsoever walking through anything called “the Valley of the Shadow of Death,” and if anybody was going to try to make me do so, I decided that I’d be running through it, not walking through it.

But now that I’m older, I’m starting to understand the wisdom of the walk. It’s so that we can take the time to take note of God’s reassuring presence and to experience His power that is able to see us through to the other side.

So, don’t be surprised when hard times come your way, as though something strange were happening to you. After all, until you come to the limits of your own resources, you’ll never have a reason to switch to something inexhaustible. In fact, you’ll never even know there is something inexhaustible until your own resources have failed you.

Just keep walking and keep trusting. Commit yourself to your faithful Creator and keep doing good. For the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you, and even if that Spirit leads you through the very Valley of the Shadow of Death, keep walking. Your life is in God’s hands. And just as He did for Jesus in his season of suffering, God will see you through.