Suffering

1 Peter • Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

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Scripture Introduction:

If you do a Google search for “how to suffer well” you’ll find several articles with tips on how to get through a tough season. Many of them are great and helpful tips:

Accept it as part of life

Don’t take it as personal failure

Give yourself permission to feel

Find safe relationships to help you process

Get your emotions out

Use your suffering to help others

I read through several of these lists, again many good and helpful things, but there was something at least in all the lists I read, which never appeared. And that thing is here in our text this morning. See if you can spot it:

READ 1 PETER 5:5-11

What was that one thing? Humility. That’s the key to suffering well. And it’s also the key to suffering well together. That’s Peter’s concern. This isn’t written in a vacuum. It’s written to a group of people. The question isn’t just how do you personally get through suffering but it’s how does the church suffer well together. That is his great concern.

When difficult times come it exposes who we are. Some call this the “heat” in your life. In Jesus’ parable of the soils he references the sun coming down and scoring the plants and the sun exposes how deep the root system is. And so difficulty has a tendency to expose our hearts. The cracks in our foundation end up being exposed. And that’s going to impact each local church. How are you going to stick together and continue to represent Christ well when suffering and difficult times come upon you?

I like these words of Tom Schreiner:

Smooth relations in the church can be preserved if the entire congregation adorns itself with humility. When believers recognize that they are creatures and sinners, they are less apt to be offended by others. Humility is the oil that allows relationships in the church to run smoothly and lovingly. Pride gets upset when another does not follow our own suggestions…Believers should heed the injunction to be humble because God sets his face against the proud, but he lavishes his grace upon the humble. Those who submit to God’s sovereignty in humility will find that he will lift them up and reward them.

That’s really a fitting summary of this entire passage. Humility is absolutely vital to suffering well—and suffering well together. But what does this humility look like?

The word here in verse 5 for “clothe yourselves” is a word which actually referred to an apron that slaves would wear. It was a “badge of servitude”. So what Peter is saying is that every single member within a church wrap yourself up in the apron of servitude. That apron will cover you from pride. Humility is vital for suffering well—and pride is that which will cause you to not suffer well as an individual and within a community.

But I want us to let this sink in for just a moment what this text is saying. It’s not just saying—this is what humility looks like, isn’t it beautiful? This is also saying, “do you want to have God be actively opposed to you?” Then be prideful. Be a person of pride.

Now I don’t know about you but I can be a bit dull at times, and distracted, and even have big ol’ remnants of that pride which God opposes. And so hearing something like, “Don’t be prideful—might not catch me off guard. I’ll just heart and move on. So it’s helpful to hear it from some different angles. There is a really old sermon by Jonathan Edwards where he lists subtle forms of pride. Here are a few:

Fault-finding. Ever hear a sermon that someone else really needs to hear? Our pride is quick to not make too big of a deal out of our sins but to make a much bigger deal out of the sin in others. Edwards said:

The spiritually proud person shows it in his finding fault with other saints. . . . The eminently humble Christian has so much to do at home and sees so much evil in his own that he is not apt to be very busy with other hearts.

A harsh spirit. Are you more harsh with others than you are with yourself? Easily frustrated? Irritable? Tendency to belittle others? That’s pride.

Putting on pretense. Trying to be different for the sake of being different. Trying to stand out. A desire to be seen as unique or special.

Taking offense easily. Edwards said, “Spiritual pride takes great notice of opposition and injuries that are received and is prone to be often speaking of them and to be much in taking notice of their aggravation, either with an air of bitterness or contempt.”

Hungry for attention. A desire for others to take notice of you. Here is Edwards: The eminently humble Christian thinks he needs help from everybody, whereas he that is spiritually proud thinks everybody needs his help.

Neglecting Others. When you are so focused on yourself you aren’t going to be noticing the needs and such of others. Everything is filtered through self.

God opposes pride because it sets itself up at the center of the universe. And it ends up hurting others and ultimately cuts off from the ability to rightly relate with God.

Think about what Edwards said there and then ask how that would impact relationships within the local church. Think about what that is going to look like in the face of suffering. So, yes, God opposes the proud but he lavishes his grace upon the humble. Let’s look more at what that looks like.

We must humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand

Because God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble—we must humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. What does that mean?

That would have certainly brought their minds back to the time of Moses and the Exodus. The Lord delivered Israel out of Egyptian bondage “by a mighty hand”.

The picture here is of a very powerful and mighty God. He is in control. He is in charge. The same one that delivered them out of Egypt and parted the seas is able to deliver you. BUT there is something he is doing in this text. Notice how it says, “under the mighty hand of God”.

This humbling then, as one commentator said, means that they are to accept the suffering God ordained as his will instead of resisting and chaffing his will while suffering.” How does that relate to humility?

There is much which could be said on this particular point but what it does is recognizes God as God. He is sovereign over our suffering. And that is humbling. We aren’t in control. And if we are going to be exalted it’s going to come by his work and by his grace and not by our efforts. Again humility is giving the keys to another to write your story.

I’ve learned so much from John Newton on this point. One of the things he liked to say was that “the Lord keeps the key of comfort in his own hand.” Think about that for just a moment.

There are keys to your comfort. That’s what we want right…to feel better. To have comfort. To have security. That’s what Peter’s audience would have wanted. Let the persecution stop. Let this bad season be over. You want that with COVID? You want that with all the crazy stuff going on in our world right.

I picture myself sometimes like a drunk guy asking for the keys to drive home. He has the key to my comfort. In my stupor I demand that he follow my whims. “Give me the keys, Jesus!” That is what pride is going to do. It’s going to get angry. It’s going to try to pry them out of his powerful hand. It’s going to throw a fit, rant, rave, call him evil and wrong and mean for not giving me comfort in this moment.

But the Lord is good and he doesn’t budge. Aren’t you glad?

I’m glad because I don’t have to be like the bleeding woman—trying to find comfort in a million different places. I simply need to grab hold of the hem of His garment and follow Him; even if he is walking to a cross.

He holds the key. He is very good. He is very wise. We are going somewhere and I trust Him. Even if we pitch our tent in rubble and ashes, I trust that this will be a means to prepare me for dancing in the palace of heaven.

Sure I’ll ask him for the keys whenever I hurt. I’ll beg him to take away pain. I’ll long for the days when the clouds and darkness lift. I’ll use every means necessary to fight the things that rob godly comfort and peace. But if the clouds don’t lift and the darkness continues to break in, I’ll just wait.

No more pursuing other remedies. No more pouting. No more screaming because I don’t get the comfort that I feel I am owed. I will simply assume that if the Lord does not give me the key of comfort it is for my good. He knows better than I do. He knows when pain will strengthen and comfort will shipwreck. That’s what Newton meant by that and how he “humbled himself under God’s mighty hand”.

But I want you to notice here what he does in verse 7. Because I think we can fall off the other side of the horse and get super passive and just say, “Okay, Jesus you drive the car.”

What does that look like? How do we humble ourselves before the mighty hand of God?

Notice in verse 7 how it says, “casting all your anxieties on him”. The NIV actually says “cast all your cares upon him”. And I think that’s unfortunate that they break it up that way. The word there for casting is a participle. Let me explain what that means. The relationship between verse 6 and verse 7 is what would be called an action-manner. In other words it is saying, “Humble yourselves...and you do this by…casting all your anxieties on him” It’s not humble yourselves. And then cast all your anxieties. It’s humble yourselves, casting all your anxiety upon Him.

So how do you humble yourselves under His mighty hand? You do it by casting all your anxieties on him. Well what does that mean? If you’re wearing a coat and you cast it off onto a chair then you aren’t carrying that burden anymore. The chair is. I have cast off the burden. So how do you cast off your anxiety? You give it to God. But what does that look like?

I think you can best see this by how it is related to pride. Notice that in the context here the idea of humbling ourselves by casting our cares upon the Lord is set in opposition against being prideful. Well how do these two relate? Schreiner says it well when he says:

When believers are filled with anxiety, they are convinced that they must solve all the problems in their lives in their own strength. The only god they trust in is themselves. When believers throw their worries upon God, they express their trust in his mighty hand, acknowledging that he is Lord and Sovereign over all of life.

Simply put the opposite of pride actively believes that God is really good and that He is sovereign, and that He is in control, and that we can trust Him. Casting your anxieties on God means trusting the promise that he cares for you and has the power and the wisdom to put that care to work in the most glorious way.

But I think there might be a way that we could hear this that would actually be the opposite of how the Bible addresses suffering. Do you know what a stoic is? A stoic in this context would be one that believes that feelings of anxiety, fear, etc. are in and of themselves the problem. And what happens is that the stoic is not real with the reality of suffering. He/she just puts on a happy face and says, “Miserable Christians are a bad witness, I’ve got to get rid of this feeling” and so I’m just going to put on my happy face, live my best life now, and get rid of this crazy feeling.

I really appreciate this by Christopher Wright and sadly I think he is correct. When was the last time we sang a song of lament?

…the language of lament is seriously neglected in the church. Many Christians seem to feel that somehow it can’t be right to complain to God in the context of corporate worship when we should all feel happy. There is an implicit pressure to stifle our real feelings because we are urged, by pious merchants of emotional denial, that we ought to have “faith” (as if the moaning psalmists didn’t). So we end up giving external voice to pretended emotions we do not really feel, while hiding the real emotions we are struggling with deep inside. Going to worship can become an exercise in pretence and concealment, neither of which can possibly be conducive for a real encounter with God. So, in reaction to some appalling disaster or tragedy, rather than cry out our true feelings to God, we prefer other ways of responding to it.

But there is a problem there. It’s not casting the anxiety on the Lord because it never really addresses the anxiety or the fear or the worry. It just flat out dismisses it and tries to conquer it. That’s the same type of pride that is being spoken against in this text. No you are to “cast your anxiety upon the Lord”. That means grabbing it by the hand, staring it in the face, owning it, being real with the junk going on in your heart, being gutsy and gritty enough to be honest like the Psalmist and then taking it and actively casting it on the Lord. This is what you see all throughout the Psalms.

Why do you do this? Because he cares for you. Look at how the Psalmist would do this. Let’s consider Psalm 55 since it’s probably the one that Peter had in mind.

READ PSALM 55:1-6, 16-19, 22

Did you see it? He’s real with how he feels. He is in anguish. And he puts his soul in a position to trust the Lord. It’s almost like he is preaching to himself. Trust in God soul. You know his history. You know he is mighty. Oh, I’m in anguish. Oh I hurt. Oh I’m anxious and fearful, and I’m almost undone with worry. But you are bigger God. I’m trusting you God. I know you will save me. I know you will come through. I know I will be vindicated.

And so part of our task in suffering is to be real with what is going on. It’s okay that when you are broken to cry. Unless you are Jeremiah the prophet there is nothing unholy about crying at a funeral. There is nothing wrong with being honest with your fears and struggles and worries. You don’t have to immediately go to verse 16-19 and 22 without actually being real with the first 6 verses. Stoicism isn’t a biblical response to suffering. Follow the Psalmist and own your anxiety but be sure to cast it upon the Lord.

Conclusion:

How do we develop this type of humility that Peter is talking about here? Well, it’s a growth thing. It comes from, I believe, the furnace of affliction. The very thing which Peter’s audience is going through is the thing which will bring about their humility.

I think an old preacher named JC Philpot outlines it well:

As a general rule, we learn humility, not by hearing ministers tell us what wicked creatures we are; nor by merely looking into our bosoms and seeing a whole swarm of evils working there; but from being compelled by painful necessity to believe that we are vile, through circumstances and events time after time bringing to light those hidden evils in our heart, which we once thought ourselves pretty free from.

We learn humility, not merely by a discovery of what we are, but also by a discovery of what Jesus is. We need a glimpse of Jesus, of His love, of His grace, of His blood.

When these two feelings meet together in our bosom: our shame, and the Lord's goodness; our guilt, and His forgiveness; our wickedness, and His superabounding mercy; they break us, humble us, and lay us, dissolved in tears of godly sorrow and contrition, at the footstool of mercy!

And thus we learn humility, that sweet grace, that blessed fruit of the Spirit in real, vital, soul-experience.

"Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). "Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you" (Psalm 55:22). "Even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save" (Isaiah 46:4). "From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him (Isaiah 64:4).

Burden bearer....The greatest burden of sin.

Or what about trusting him today with your burden of suffering.

What about relationships within the body. Healing those.

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