Purpose of Trials (1 Pet. 1:6-7)

This sermon was preached on 6/3/2011

Peter is very aware that some of his readers have been going through the fires of persecution. Yet that difficult experience is only one of several kinds of trial they had or were enduring. Right away, we can see a very common feature of trials – they seldom come alone. Persecution is a difficult occurrence to cope with, but there are other intense trials that believers can go through. What other trials could they have experienced?

One set of trials would have come under the everyday problems that many people faced at that time such as illness or lack of food. Christian parents would have worries about providing for the needs of their families. Death from disease was common.

In addition, they had trials connected to their Christian faith. In times of persecution, some believers would lack courage and deny their relationship with Jesus. The temptation to imagine that Jesus did not care about them as they suffered for his sake was one that the enemy of the souls would have used to harass them. During such times, the difficulty of gathering to worship Jesus and witness for him in an alien community was a hard trial to persevere through.

Sensing the Father’s purpose

At one level, the presence of trials seems incongruous with the status that believers in Jesus have as the sons of God. After all, their heavenly Father is the all-wise God, the all-powerful God, and the all-loving God. An earthly father normally would use his knowledge, abilities and affections to prevent his children from going through unnecessary pain. Yet the earthly parent knows that his children, if they are going to be mature adults, will have to undergo difficulties.

We can imagine a father who realises that his son has the potential to be a great athlete and win prizes. That potential is developed through years of rigorous training. We could ask the son during those years if he fully realised the consequences of what he was going through. He may reply, ‘I don’t really know, but my father assures me that I will win many medals if I keep on persevering.’

In a far higher sense, this is what Peter is saying to his readers. He wants them to keep on serving Jesus through all their trials because unimagined glory awaits them if they do. We will return to aspects of this illustration as we make our way through these verses.

So what is a Christian to do when facing trials and how should he respond to them?

First, a Christian should react emotionally

Peter mentions two emotions that should accompany trials and they are rejoicing and grieving. Of course, this seems like a contradiction because rejoicing and grieving are often opposites. Yet the two often come together in the Christian life. When a believer dies, his friends grieve that he is no longer with them and they rejoice that he is in heaven. When a believer sins, he grieves that he has done so and rejoices that he can be forgiven. In a service in which the gospel has been blessed to some, he rejoices at that outcome but grieves that others were not similarly affected. Paul describes the Christian life as ‘sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.’

Peter here mentions a difference between the response of Christian exiles and the reaction of other kinds of refugees. Grief is a sad response, but it is a response connected to love. We grieve over persons we love when we are bereaved. Grief is more than being sorry. So Peter highlights this aspect of love as an appropriate response to trials.

Take the experience of persecution. What features of it should make them grieve? Obviously the loss of any who were martyred or imprisoned or who suffered in other ways. Again there would be grief because the families of such were sorely afflicted. Further, there would be grieving for those who caused the persecutions – believers are to love their enemies while deploring their actions, and the response to cruelty should be great sadness over those, although made in the image of God, were persecuting his people.

It is important to note that Peter does not say that trials are necessary, although it would be true to say so. Instead he says that the grieving for the trials is necessary, which indicates that one of the reasons God allowed the trials was to produce the response of grieving. Therefore we can say that grieving is a sign of a mature Christian.

Grieving is as much a sign of longing for heaven as rejoicing is. When a Christian grieves over sin in others, it is evidence that he is looking for a world where sin is not. And when he grieves over his own sin, it is evidence that he recognises he is not in a fit condition to live in heaven. Life in exile produces responses that are not known in the homeland. In the homeland, only joy is experienced whereas in exile both rejoicing and grieving are known.

Grieving over the wrong things of life, such as persecution, deprivation of legitimate things, and living amongst sinful people, is a clear sign of Christlikeness. After all, when he was living away from the homeland, he was the Man of Sorrows because there were many things around him that caused him sadness.

Further, grieving over life’s trials is a clear way of realising empathy with our fellow-Christians. Of course, such grieving is an expression of love, but sometimes love is unaware of the depth of pain that its objects are going through. Often, what we do is sympathise, but once we have experienced the same problem as another person we can also empathise.

Second, a Christian should react submissively

This aspect is stressed by Peter in his phrase ‘if necessary’. Who decides if the problems are necessary? The answer to this question is that it is God who has made the decision. Sometimes we can find this hard to understand. Yet there are helps that we can discover from realising that it comes from God’s sovereignty.

For example, thinking about God’s sovereignty leads us to realise that our sufferings are part of his long-term plan, a purpose that was devised before the world was created. An example of this is Joseph who was badly treated by his brothers and unfairly punished by his Egyptian master. How did Joseph regard these events as he recalled them when he later met his brothers? He said to them, ‘As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today’ (Gen. 50:20). Yet Joseph had to wait for years to experience what God had purposed through suffering.

The realisation of this is a reminder that we inevitably have a very limited awareness of all that is taking place at any given moment. I suppose the best example from the Bible is Job. He had no explanation of why he was suffering and he had no idea how long his suffering would last. If one of his three friends had said to him, ‘Job, you know that your story is going to help countless believers down the many centuries to come,’ he might have regarded such a comment as worse than the ones they actually said. Yet even in his darkness, Job’s faith was becoming stronger and he stated that even if God slew him, he would trust him, and the patriarch also realised that when God had tried him, he would come forth as gold. His limited awareness did not prevent spiritual growth.

I am not a very good gardener, nevertheless each year I have to prune the various trees and bushes that are in our garden. Strangely, even although I don’t have much of a clue, the pruning does not seem to harm them and they reappear the following year in all their strength. If the tree could speak, it might scream in fear as I approached. But if a qualified gardener came to it instead, there might be an awareness that the gardener was determined to help it. It all depends on who we think is holding the pruning tools. If we think it is the devil that holds them, then we should be afraid. If we think that human frailty holds them, then we might give way to hopelessness eventually. Instead we should remember that both the devil and our frailty are tools in God’s hands, as are all things that happen to us in our exile, and he knows what he is doing.

Third, a Christian should react intelligently

One of the biggest problems in a crisis situation is when people lose control of themselves and start acting irrationally. In what ways should a Christian react intelligently? To begin answering this question, we have to stress that he can only respond intelligently as long as he remembers that he is an exile. The moment he forgets that perspective, he will think and act in ways that are not spiritually intelligent.

An intelligent Christian will realise that sufferings are inevitable. He will know this is the case for more than one reason. The older he gets, the more he realises his physical and mental weaknesses. Of course, he shares that realisation with all humans, whether they are Christians or not. But he also knows that suffering for Christ is an inevitable consequence of living a holy life. Paul reminds us that all who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution (2 Tim. 3:12). He taught the Christians in Lystra that it is through much tribulation that they would enter the kingdom (Acts 14:22).

An intelligent Christian living in exile from the homeland will realise that sufferings are one of the proofs that he is a genuine believer. One of the problems faced by a government is that often it does not know whether a person claiming asylum is a genuine refugee. A true refugee would be willing for the government to make all the necessary tests about his claim. Peter declares that suffering and opposition test the genuineness of our faith and at the same time reveal its authenticity. It does so by getting rid of the traits we should not have (as fire removes dross from gold) and refines our characters. As the psalmist put it in Psalm 119:71: ‘It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.’

Spurgeon, in a sermon on these verses, says that trials test the strength of our faith as well as its sincerity. He comments: faith ‘must also be tested to prove its strength. We sometimes fancy that we have strong faith when, indeed, our faith is very weak; and how are we to know whether it be weak or strong till it be tried? A man that should lie in bed week after week, and perhaps get the idle whim into his head that he was very strong, would be pretty certain to be mistaken. It is only when he sets about work requiring muscular strength that he will discover how strong or how weak he is. God would not have us form a wrong estimate of ourselves. He loves not that we should say that we are rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing, when we are the reverse; and therefore he sends to us the trial of our faith that we may understand how strong or how weak it is.’

We can also surmise that an intelligent Christian living in exile will deduce that the time of his suffering will be short, or as Peter says, ‘for a little while.’ No doubt, a period of suffering and persecution can seem very long, but believers will compare it with the length of eternity. Paul also highlights this aspect of trouble when he writes these words in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18: ‘So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.’

The author of Hebrews also stresses that sufferings are of short duration. He tells his readers in 10:32-36: ‘But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.’ Then he writes in verses 37-38: ‘For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.’

An intelligent exile will say to himself, ‘My sufferings are inevitable, they test whether or not my faith is genuine, and they are short in comparison to the ages of eternity.’ But he will also respond in at least one other way.

Fourth, a Christian should react hopefully

Peter tells his readers that their sufferings will result in praise, glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ. What does he mean by praise? Perhaps his mind was going back to the occasion when he heard Jesus tell the parable of the servants whose master said to them, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your lord’ (Matt. 25). It will be marvellous for an exile to receive that welcome into the homeland.

Paul was encouraged by the prospect of receiving God’s commendation: ‘This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God’ (1 Cor. 4:1-5).

The second aspect of hopefulness is glory. I suspect that this is a reference to the type of environment the exiles will enjoy in the homeland. We are familiar with how refugees or exiles abroad think often of the countryside from which they came. Although far away from it, they recall the sweetness of the atmosphere of their homeland. The atmosphere of heaven is glory. Paul writes elsewhere that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us, and we can also say that the splendours of this fallen world are not worth comparing to the glory of the new heavens and new earth.

And the third aspect of hopefulness is honour. This is a reference to the position Jesus will give to each of his exiled people. He will honour them as those who identified themselves with him. Their identification here was short in comparison to the long honour he will bestow upon them. The exiles will be exalted and become kings and priests with Christ.