Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. It is wonderful
that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, either
by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray
for us that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself?
The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, we really,
I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the Bible,
they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will
do what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a
non-Christian checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't
hesitate to send us questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the
types of things that you're really struggling with. So God bless.
For a moment, let's bow our heads in prayer. Father,
Father, you know how there are times when we have a sense that we could maybe say something about
Christianity or the gospel or our hope, but we know that if we say something, or we have a sense
if we say something, it'll hurt our reputation or people might laugh at us or make jokes about us.
And so, Father, you know those times when we have those opportunities and we turn away from doing
it because we don't want to be mocked. We don't want to be thought of as fools. We don't want to
be thought of as bad people. And Father, we're so thankful that you know our heart. You know the
problems that we have and the things that we're tempted to do and the things that we're tempted to
avoid that we should do. So, Father, we praise you. We're grateful for your profound knowledge of
each of us. And we give you thanks and praise that your word speaks to the real us in our real world
and our real situation. And we ask, Father, that you tune our hearts this morning to hear your word
and to receive the healthy music, the healthy food that you desire to give us this morning,
that we might be free, that we might do good, that we might bring you glory. And we ask these things
in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen. Please be seated.
So, a couple of weeks ago in one of the coffee shops which I frequent where I'm a regular,
within a day of each other, I had two very interesting conversations. The first one was
with this fellow. I'll call him Andy. I have to watch. I don't say his name out loud in public
by accident, but we'll call him Andy. There happened to be a bigger lineup to order a coffee. And so,
I was in front of him and we got chatting and I just said, oh, by the way, are you an Ottawa boy?
I was just making conversation. And he said, yeah. And I said, oh, where'd you go to high school?
And he told me where he went to high school and he asked me where I went to high school because I did
grade 10 and up. Here in Ottawa, I did earlier grades in Montreal, actually in Laval, a Jewish
suburb, actually, of Montreal. And then he just asked me a little bit about high school and I asked him
about it. And then he really, his whole face and demeanor changed. He said to me, he didn't like
high school. And then he said, I was terribly bullied. I was terribly bullied all the way through
high school. And it's really, you could, I mean, this is 40 years ago, probably, guessing his age,
but 40 some odd years ago. And when he said it, you could still really see that it had impacted him
and affected him. And all I could say was, that must be so hard. Like, I didn't know what else to say.
And then it was my time to order the coffee and he, and I'll talk to him again because I see him all
the time. Then about a day or two later, I talked to another fellow who was a regular and he just
making some chit chat. And he asked me if I grew up in Ottawa. And I asked him about where he went to
high school, where I went to high school. Turns out we probably overlapped by a couple of years.
And he was in sort of the rival school closest to the high school that I went to. And for some reason,
he wouldn't have known that I just had this conversation a day or two earlier with this
fellow. He wasn't even in the coffee shop at that time. And he doesn't know that fellow, in fact,
to my knowledge. And all of a sudden, he just said, you know what, you know, one of the things about
high school that I look back on now as I'm older, because he's probably about my age.
And he said, I realized there was a lot of bullying that went on in my high school. Now,
the two guys didn't go to the same high school, just in case you're wondering. But he said there
was a lot of bullying in the high school that I grew up in. And, you know, at the time, I thought,
oh, well, the bullying's not that bad. It's just words. Not much physical, just words. But now that
I'm older, I realized that that was actually probably way worse for people. Like, it's just like a really
random thing for him to say, that it was probably way worse, the words, the insults that we give to
people. And I didn't ask him, but the way he said it made me wonder if he'd been one of the bullies
that, in fact, had been doing those things. I mention all of this because the Bible's going
to talk about the problem of insults this morning. And it's going to talk about the problem of suffering,
suffering, but suffering in particular in the context of insults. And this is actually like a,
this is, I mean, all the texts in the Bible are very important, but this is very important because
so many of us struggle with insults. I would, I wonder sometimes if one of the reasons that people
walk away from the Christian faith is because they'd rather avoid insults. And I wonder sometimes
if one of the reasons why people don't want to actually take the step of becoming a Christian is
because they're worried about how their friends and family and coworkers will see them if they
become a Christian. That there's, because in Canada, we really value trying to figure out a way of life
where you never suffer. Like, in fact, if you were to ask Christian, many Canadians, is one of your goals
in life to never suffer? I think most people would say, yeah, that's, that'd be one of my goals. One of my
goals in life is to never suffer. So let's look. We're going to look and see what the Bible says.
The Bible walks right towards this issue, and I think it has great wisdom. It's, it's, it's, it's
1 Peter chapter 4, verses 12 to 19. 1 Peter 4, 12 to 19. And actually, one of the things, I'm going
to begin with the end. So sorry about that, Claire. I'm going to go to verse 19 first, and then go to
12 to 12 and then, and then come down. This isn't the summary of all of what Peter's talked about.
He's talked about suffering a fair bit. There's going to be an important bit to the last little
bit of a first Peter. But this is a really important summary statement. And I, I actually, I want to
share it with you first, then we'll go back and we'll look at insults and all the things to do with
suffering. But I just think it's such a, such a beautiful verse. If you would put it up on the
screen, it's verse 19. Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls
to a faithful creator while doing good. And I'll, I'll hopefully mention it again. The word which is
translated there is entrust. Some of your Bibles will use the word commit. But if you look and you,
you try to figure out the last words that Jesus said on the cross, of course, the second to last
word is it is finished. And then the very last thing is he says into your hands, Father, I commend
my spirit. I commit my spirit. And that word commend or commit is the same word as entrust.
So you have to wonder, that would have been something because there were women, and then a lot of other
people who observed the crucifixion would have later become Christians. And you have to wonder if,
if even as Peter was writing this, if there's a bit of a catch in his mouth, a little bit of a catch
in his heart, to see, to recommend this, that this is what Jesus did as he's dying on the cross.
But what's so beautiful? I don't, I don't know how people can go through hard times in life if there
isn't a God that they can pour out their hearts to. I mean, if you get nothing else from my sermon,
I mean, that's just it. Are there challenges to being a Christian? Are there, is there a cost to
being a Christian? Yes, yes, yes. But I don't know how you can go through life without having
a God who really is there, not just imaginary, but really is there, that you can be reconciled to,
and you can pour out your heart to, and that you know that he loves you, that he doesn't crush you.
I, this week, did I write down her name? I hope I wrote down her name, because I can never pronounce
it, and I apologize if I mispronounce it, but there's this organization in England called Unherd,
U-N-H-E-R-D, and it's, it's, it publishes articles for those who don't want to think like the herd.
So it's trying to unherd you, so you don't think like the herd. Anyway, they published,
they put out a debate or a conversation this, a week or two ago in New York City between Christopher
Dawkins, who's a legendary atheist, and, and here's, where's her name? Iann Hersey Ali.
And some of you might have heard of, of her. You might have heard, you know, some of you might
remember about 15 years ago, there was a Dutch filmmaker stabbed to death, I think in the streets
of Amsterdam, and he was stabbed to death because he was making a, a video that was critical of, of,
of Islam, and the, the person who starred in the video was, was Iann Hersey Ali, and she had to,
to, to be in hiding for quite a while because of multiple death threats to her.
But she grew up a fundamentalist Muslim. She became, renounced all of that, became an
outspoken atheist, a social commentator, a best-selling author, public intellectual,
close friend of all of the, the leading atheist writers, including Christopher Dawkins.
And about a year ago, she shocked everybody in Unheard of saying she'd become a Christian.
And there's been a lot of talk about whether it was a real conversion or whatever. Anyway,
there was this conversation that she had in New York City just a week or two ago, you can see it
on the YouTube of Christopher Dawkins and her having a conversation. And one of the things that he says
to her is that Christianity is obsessed with sin. And without missing a beat, she said,
that's not how I read the Bible. When I read the Bible, it's obsessed with love.
It's obsessed with love. And they go on and have a bit of a conversation about that. And it's a very
perceptive thing, I think, to, to see. So anyway, we have this, I don't know how you,
how you can endure suffering if there isn't a God who really is there. And it's the God that is revealed
in the person of Jesus. And it's a God who is obsessed with love. So that you can pour out your
heart when you're having really hard times, knowing that he'll hear you and not crush you.
He'll hear you and not diminish you. He'll hear you and not hate you. I don't know how you can live
without that. But let's get to this verse. If you go back to me with verse 12, it begins with something
which is very off-putting to Canadians. Look at verse 12 of chapter 4. 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. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you all, that you may also rejoice
and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you were insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed
because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. Now just pause here. Lots of interesting things
here, but here's the part that would be very off-putting to a lot of Canadians. It says this,
Beloved, 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. Now that's the part which is off-putting.
What he's saying is, if you are a Christian and if you have committed your life to Christ and you are
trying to follow him, there will inevitably be times when people insult you, when people think less of
you. It might mean you don't get the promotion, you don't get invited to the parties or the dinner
parties. It will cost you. And that's not strange. It's not a bug that has to be fixed.
And this is going to explain in a moment. It's in a sense a design feature of the whole Christian,
what it means to, why Christ came and why he died and why he rose again and what he calls us to.
Now, for a lot of Canadians to hear this, you'd say,
Okay, George, you just gave me one more reason not to be a Christian. Like, George, don't you think
the goal of life should be to suffer as little as possible? And you're saying that if you become
a follower of Jesus, there are going to be times when people insult you and belittle you and scorn you?
Like, George, really? That's what you want to tell me? Like, why would anybody become a Christian?
Like, surely, George, you agree that the goal of life should be to avoid suffering.
And in fact, in this way, Buddhism and much of its Eastern religions and secular thought all agree.
They have different types of techniques, although Canadian secular thought is quite happy to borrow
different techniques from Buddhism and Hinduism and turn them into a type of a therapy
and a self-help type of thing, all of them to avoid suffering because most Canadians agree that
the goal of life is to have as little suffering as possible because suffering is inherently meaningless.
Suffering is inherently meaningless and bad.
Now, there's a problem with this which is not reflected upon very much by the average Canadian
or people throughout the world. Some of you have heard me share how a few years ago there was a
well-known actress who, she was asked if there was one thing she had, like, a godlike power to change
one thing in the world, what would it be? And what she said is if she had godlike power to change one
thing in the world, she would get rid of guilt. Nobody would feel guilt. And as I've shared before,
maybe you're hearing it for the first time, I don't expect you to remember everything I say. I couldn't
tell you how long ago I said it or anything. But the person doing the interview obviously thought this
was a piece of wisdom that would be, oh, okay, she said that, let's write that down. That's a keeper.
That's something I want to remember. But the unintended consequence of her advice is she just wished
that all human beings become sociopaths and psychopaths. Because what characterizes sociopaths
and psychopaths, the definition of the two of them is a bit fluid, might be one or the other,
depends how you work it, is a person who feels no guilt. Now, in fact, when I immediately read it,
when I read it, I immediately thought of that. She just wishes that she was a sociopath or a psychopath.
Like, does she realize? Does the newspaper writer thinking this is a real wise thing I want to
write down just realize that if he wishes that he never experiences guilt again, that he's actually
wishing that he becomes a sociopath or a psychopath? We could add that now to a raging narcissist who
don't seem to feel any guilt no matter how bad they treat others. Really? That's your goal in life?
So how does this fit with suffering? Well, there's a very, very simple analogy there,
which is exactly the same, which is that if that is actually the goal of you as a Canadian,
or somebody else, to live a guilt-free life, you've just become the people in the stories that
everybody hates, that nobody wants to be. Now, it depends on whether the types of novels or movies
that you like to watch. I often like police novels or private detective things, you know,
where there's a death or a robbery or some great tragedy and people are trying to be rescued,
et cetera, et cetera. But one of the enduring themes in books and movies like that, you read the John
Sanford Prey novels, you read the Michael Connolly Prey, Michael Connolly Bosch novels, I could go on
and on and on. You read the Joe Pickett novels, great novel series of a game warden in Wyoming,
if you've not read them by C.J. Box. But in all of these things, what characterizes the hero
is that he is obsessed, maybe that's too strong a word, but he is deeply committed to doing what is
right, to making sure there's justice. And not only does he, of course, have to deal with,
and I could also do the Sue Grafton, Kinsey Mulholland novels, to have a woman author in there,
a woman hero. So it's not just that they're all men heroes, it's the same thing with her novels.
And in all of these cases, not only do they have to deal with the people who've done wrong
and try to capture them and try to figure out, like, who the guilty person is and bring them
to justice, but they also have to deal with the time servers, bean counters, who don't give a hoot
about this. They have to fight the bureaucrats and the people who only want the thing to go away
and don't really care if it ends up being, if the right person is captured or the wrong person is
captured. They want to be able to do their day, they want to be able to go home, they want to have no
suffering, they want to have no bother, they don't want the paperwork, they don't want any of that type
of things. And so these heroes are trying to not only pursue that which is right and good and just,
but they're also having to deal with this bureaucracy and often captains and others and politicians
who just want to have a problem-free, suffering-free life. And let me tell you, I can't imagine that
anybody reads those novels and say, dang, I'd like to be that boss. I'd like to be the person who has no
concern for justice. I'd like to be that person. I'd like to be that person who's just, you know, whatever,
don't do it, too much bother, who cares, I just want to go home and, and I don't know, watch Netflix.
Like, nobody wants to be that person who reads those novels or watches those movies.
But if your philosophy and theology of life is one, that it's going to be a life which has as little
suffering as possible, you've just wished that you've become the one in the books that nobody wants
to be. You see, this is what, this is why, like, if you remember verse 19, that, you know, at the end
of the day, we need to entrust or commit ourselves, our very selves, at a very deep level into the hands
of a faithful creator and continue to do good, is that as we've seen over previous weeks, what the
Bible is saying this is, if you desire to live a life which is committed to doing good, is committed
to doing justice, is committed to mercy, is committed to compassion, is committed to generosity, is committed
to forgiveness. If you are committed to do those things, you will be insulted.
And people will not, will look down their nose at you, and you will run into trouble. It is inevitable.
And so the Bible is casting before us, at the end of the day, a far more beautiful vision,
and in our, and if, if the average person is honest, on one hand, they, they wish there was a way of pursuing
that vision, where they're never going to be insulted, they're never going to be looked down upon, or anything
like that, but at the end of the day, that's really, most people would say, do you, do you want to just be a,
is your goal in life to be a Netflix-watching, couch-sitting,
bean counter, or is your goal in life
to be committed to doing that which is good, and true and just.
And at least at a surface level,
we'd know that's what we want to be. That's the second one's
what we want to be.
And that's really what the Bible is just saying.
When it says in verse 12,
do not be surprised at the firing trial
that comes upon you to test you as though
something strange were happening to you.
It's just saying, listen, if you're committed
to doing that which is good,
and in particular here as Christians, because it's
not just that you're doing good, but that part of
doing good for us as Christians is to tell
the world,
death doesn't win.
There is a God,
and that God
is a God of love.
From all eternity, the Father has loved
the Son, and the Son has loved the Father,
and the Holy Spirit has loved the Father,
and the Son, and from all eternity,
there is a God of love who loves you and loves you
so much that in real
life, not just a
once upon a time story, not a
Santa Claus story, not
a work of fiction, not a work of
mythology, but in real life, this
God who really does exist,
who really is a God of love,
seeing our desperate
need and our inability to fix
ourselves or save ourselves,
sent his Son to live amongst
us, to ultimately die
on the cross for us, to be the
one who can reconcile us to him,
and this is news for
you.
It's news for you.
And our hope and prayer is that you will say
yes.
That's
sounds too good to be true. Well, it's not too
good to be true. It's actually true.
Not too good to be true. It's actually true,
and it can be true for you, and that's,
and if that means that we get insulted, we get
insulted.
Now, one of
the problems that
lurks in our culture
is the problem of meaninglessness,
and most of
Canadian culture deals with
meaninglessness by
distraction.
You don't have to think about
the problems of death and suffering
and meaninglessness if you can just get
lost in TikTok, or just get lost
in Netflix, or get lost in books, or
get lost in alcohol, or drugs, or some
other type of thing.
Other types of more sophisticated
ways to practice
distraction.
But, you know,
when it says here, verse 13,
but rejoice insofar as you share
Christ's sufferings, that you may also
rejoice and be glad when his glory is
revealed. What this is telling us
is this, that,
I mean, in fact, as I've
shared before many, many times,
the Christian life begins when you
either make a conscious decision
around this, or you realize that you
have made a decision around this
at some point in time in your life,
that you, in a sense,
give your life to Christ,
and you want to, you say, Jesus,
I believe that you're my Savior,
I want you to be my Savior,
I come to you, please come to me,
please come into me and be my Savior
and my Lord. And when we have
that, maybe not with those
words, but we realize at some
point in time, either we use those
words or something like it, or we
came to realize that at some
point in time in our journey of
life, that that's happened in us.
And the wonderful thing is that
Christ actually does come in.
And the Bible describes this
wonderful thing that on one hand
you can describe becoming a
Christian as Christ, and in fact,
God the Father and the Holy Spirit
entering into you. And in another
way you can understand it as
entering into Christ. And so that
in some ways then, Christ's story
becomes yours. Not that you died to
save anybody, but that you've
entered him, and so the saving
thing that he did on his life,
sinless life and death upon the
cross, and tasting all there is to
taste of death, and his
resurrection, when you put your
faith and trust in the risen Christ,
that whole history of Christ and what
he did on earth, and in some ways
becomes yours. You identify with him,
and because he rose, it's because
you are in him that he rose, you will
rise, and death is not the final word
about you, and that's the wonder of
the gospel. And what Peter is saying
here is that it's not just this
mystical union that you have with
Christ, which is unbelievably precious,
but the story itself is precious.
Because, you see, if you understand that
the story is your story now, and you
remember and understand the ending of
that story, and then you understand as
that story becomes more real to you, and
the ending of the story becomes more
real to you, it changes the story of the
life that you've lived up until now, and
the life you're living right now. Because
the end of the story changes everything
in the story. Like a very, very simple
example would be if you, sorry for those
of you who've never read or watched the
Lord of the Rings, but if you've read or
watched the Lord of the Rings, it's all
about this quest to defeat this profoundly
evil power that's going to overwhelm the
entire world, and there's a connection
that if you were able to destroy this
ring that's sort of like the repository or
the link to his power, if you can destroy
in a particular mountain, it will bring an
end to this unbelievably evil creature and
all the evil and destruction that he's
brought into the world. And the Lord of
the Rings is a story of this quest by
this little hobbit to be the one who's
going to actually have to put the ring in
this particular fire, and he suffers, and
there's death, and he has trial and trial
and trial. But if at the very, very end he
comes to the edge and he isn't able to
throw it in, well in fact there's nobody
would have ever read that story. Like maybe
it would have been read by five university
professors and one PhD student looking for
a dissertation. The whole story, when he
throws the ring into the fire at the end,
spoiler alert, and evil is destroyed, all of
the suffering of his life takes on a very
different meaning. It was still suffering.
He still was parched. He still was beaten.
He still, all those things still happened
to him, but everything in the story is
completely and utterly transformed. So when
Peter is saying here, you think about the
gospel, the thing which is so wonderful
about the gospel is that on one hand the
gospel is true. Jesus really did die on
the cross. It's true because Jesus really
did taste all there is to taste of death. It's
true because he really did rise from the
death. All of these things are completely
and utterly true, but it's also a story
that doesn't crush you, that ennobles you.
For much of the world and for much of time,
there's some variation of the karma story
that you live in. And the thing about
karma is that if you are suffering, you
deserve it. In a sense, if I see you
suffering, all I can say to you is, sucks to
be you. I'm not suffering. My karma is
pretty good. It creates pride and it creates
despair. And it's very interesting that
even the goal of life of most Eastern
religions and secular Canadians is all
death. But if the end of all of our story
is death, how can your life have any type
of meaning? That's what's so wonderful and
beautiful about the gospel. That God, the
Son of God, actually dies and death is not
the final word. There is a real resurrection
that happens. A resurrection that you and I
can share in when we put our faith and
trust in him. And the end of the human
story is not death. It's not nothingness. It
is, in fact, that there will be a new heaven
and the new earth. And that's why in verse
19, Peter can say, you need to just
remember that you can entrust your hands to
a faithful creator and commit yourself to
doing good. And it's so wonderful. You can't
commit yourself to nothingness and therefore
do good. You can't commit yourself to
meaningless death and therefore do good. Those
things don't follow. There's nowhere to go and
the story doesn't ennoble you. It doesn't
empower you. And Peter is just saying, be
gripped by this story. And we spent a long
time on the first bit. We'll start to wrap
it up. On the way to the end, Peter has a
very, very interesting aside which we need
to pay attention to. Let's look at his verse
15. But let none of you suffer as a murderer
or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Now,
those are four very odd different types of
problems, aren't they? Like, okay, yeah, yeah.
Obviously, if you're suffering in jail because
you murdered somebody, like, of course, like,
why shouldn't you do that, right? And, okay,
like you were a thief, like you stole things
and now you're sort of suffering. People don't
like you. They want to give you a job. You spent
some time in jail. We can sort of say, understand
that. An evildoer? Well, evildoer sounds
pretty strong and we could see that. And if
somebody said, I'm a Christian, I'm suffering
for being a Christian and, oh, by the way, I
murdered somebody, you say, well, maybe you're
suffering in jail because you murdered somebody.
And then if somebody said, well, I'm Christian
and I'm suffering and the reason I'm suffering,
you know, is because I'm a Christian, but they
said, no, no, actually, aren't you in jail
because you robbed a bank? Like, that's not
because you're a Christian. And then if even
somebody said, oh, no, I'm suffering for a
Christian, but they said, no, don't you go
around doing, like, these really, really terrible
evil things? Maybe you're suffering because you do
terrible, really evil things. It's not because
you're a Christian. But then he adds meddler.
Years ago, I was on a national leadership team
and it was while I was still part of the
Anglican Church of Canada. And we brought a
person onto our team who would have told
everybody, had a reputation that he was
suffering for being a Christian in a very
liberal diocese. And what we discovered was
this about him. This is how one person put it.
He was a knit picker who left no knit unpicked.
So we'd have a meeting and the minutes would
come out. And I literally don't know what he
did with his time. Because within that first
week, we would get three emails a day about
the minutes. And then over the next week, it
would maybe go from down to two a day to down
to one a day. And good grief, over two weeks,
we probably had at least 25 or 30 emails.
Every email was two to three thousand words
long. And then he'd get bothered when we
didn't respond to them, which would create
more emails. And so we got him off our
leadership team. Not because he's a Christian.
I expect to see him in heaven. But because he
was a knit picker who left no knit unpicked, he
was a busybody and a meddler. And it's actually
really good warning to us. You know, listen,
listen. You know, it's like at the last synod
that was in Ottawa. Somebody was just telling
me this. You know, one of the coffee shops that I
go to regularly is right near St. Peter's and St. Paul's.
And somebody was telling me that one of the clergy
went in there with his collar and all dressed up
like a priest. And then he gave the barista a hard
time for having a name tag that said they on it and
them. Okay, listen, you're not suffering for being a
Christian. You're suffering for being a jerk. Okay? Like
you're suffering for being a meddler in this
particular case. Like don't say you're doing anything
heroic. You're just being a busybody. Like just call
them by their name. You know, if their name's Sue, call
them Sue. You don't have to call them they. And you
don't have to make a big show about it and look. You
get the point. So just a good thing for us to take a
step back about in terms of there's going to be enough
things that you, if you actually walk towards
opportunities to share the gospel, or if because of your
love of Jesus and your allegiance to the gospel, you're
going to do that which is right. Even if it means your
whole team is mad at you, you want to do that which is
just, even though your whole team is mad at you. There's
enough things like that that will lead you to being
insulted and put down. You don't need to add being a
meddler. But now let's close. Let's look at the last few
verses, 16 and following. Yet if anyone suffers as a
Christian, let him not be ashamed. Let him glorify God in
that name. Just a little pause. We're just very used to the word
Christian nowadays. But the word Christian was actually coined by
non-Christians to put down Christians. In a sense, when our
LGBTQ plus friends, they a few years ago decided that rather than having
queer as an insult, they'd proudly say they were queer. They're actually just
learning something from the early Christians. You see, we don't think about
it very much, but when Jesus died on the cross, he died a slave's death. He died a
death that was designed to humiliate him and shame him to the maximum degree.
They strip him naked on a public place. They give him a very, very painful death,
which is usually quite slow. And it's a great, like nobody would want to put down,
by the way, I have a really fantastic family tree. My dad, my grandfather, my
great-grandfather were all crucified. No, that wouldn't happen. If you, in fact,
had been a Roman citizen, that was your case. You'd pretend you'd been adopted or
something like that, that you didn't know who your parents or your grandparents
were. And so it's non-Christians who call Christians Christians as a bit of
abuse. And this is the first time in the Bible that a Christian says to other
Christians, embrace the shame.
Embrace it. Look what it says. If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed,
but let him glorify God in that name.
In fact, here's another thing which is really important for us.
You know, the difference between guilt and shame, it's a very important difference.
And most insults try to, and especially if there's a gang of insulters, what they want
to do is try to create shame within you, not just guilt. When I feel guilty, it's because
I know I've done something wrong. When I feel shame, it's because I start to believe that
I'm wrong, that there's something actually deeply wrong about me, something not right about me.
And that's partially why I do the things I do. And what Peter's saying here is very important
advice to us. The big advice is, listen, just fill your mind with who Jesus is and what his life was
really like and what his death was really like and the truth of his resurrection and the truth of his
coming again. Fill your mind with that. Have that story become so much part of how you think that it
becomes how you see yourself and you see the world. And one of the best ways to combat shame
or the growth of shame in your life is not just thinking about that story, but to spend time glorifying
God. You know, like in a sense what we just did. I need you. Lord, I need you. Every hour I need you.
And that's just so true. I need Jesus every hour. So do you. Anyway, verse 17, for it is time for
judgment to begin at the household of God. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for
those who do not obey the gospel of God? That's just really, I'm not going to spend time on it. It's
really just saying, oh, verse 18, and if the righteous is scarcely safe, what will become of
the ungodly and the sinner? It's just also another thing which we could do if we had more time is that
it's one of the ways for us to understand what insults and other things, it's a way that God is
purifying Christians and purifying the church. But we're going through a process of purification
because the justice, the judgment that we deserve, it's not because we don't deserve God's judgment,
but the judgment that we deserve fell on Christ. But those who've rejected Christ, that judgment
they deserve will one day come upon them. But for us, we're to see things as a type of purifying
that's going on. And then this wonderful verse in closing, once again, therefore, a good verse to
memorize, therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will. What is it according to God's will?
Remember, as I said, that God's will is that if you want to share the gospel, if you want to do good,
if there's an opportunity for you to be generous, if there's an opportunity for you to be merciful or
forgiving or show compassion or to be just. And obviously not every time that you do this will
people think badly of you, but there will be times when you do these things and people will think
you're sort of nuts. They'll look askance at you. They'll think that you're a bit unhinged.
Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator
while continuing to do good. People mock you for being a Christian, be a Christian anyway.
People mock you for being generous, be generous anyway. People mock you for turning the other cheek,
turn the other cheek anyway. People mock you for being concerned for the poor, be concerned for the
poor anyway. People mock you for chastity, be chased anyway. People mock you for not watching porn,
Don't watch porn anyway.
Trust yourself to Creator.
Be committed to doing good.
That is the way of wisdom.
I invite you to stand.
Let's bow our heads in prayer.
Father, we thank you for the sound of children outside
and in the lobby.
Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit
move deeply within each of these children.
Help them, Father, not to be consumed
by the idols and fears and mockery
and foolishness of our culture,
but to be grounded and rooted in Christ
and the wisdom that comes from knowing him
and being immersed in your word, his word.
And we ask, Father, the same thing for ourselves.
It is easy, Father, for the foolishness
and the idolatry and the mockery
and the idolatry and the foolishness
and the mockery of this world
to fill our souls so that we don't want to stand for you.
And we ask, Father, that you would just bring
the truth of your word home to us,
that you would make the gospel more and more real
to our hearts, both in terms of our final destiny,
but as the story that just governs
how we should see who we are
and what the world is really like.
And Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit
would do this gentle but deep and powerful work
in us to make the gospel more real,
that we might be wise, that we might be free,
that we might pursue that which is good
and just and merciful and generous
and compassionate.
Father, we ask that you would do this wonderful work
not only in each of our lives,
but in us as a church as a whole
and in all of the gospel-shaped churches
of this community.
And we ask these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.