Unforsaken in the Fire

Intro

We have finally made it past winter, and day by day we see spring come upon us!

I dunno about you, but I’m done with winter by New Year’s Day

Love the Christmas vibes, the fun family get togethers and Christmas music, but then, it’s cold, it’s grey, and even when it’s blue sky and sunny, it’s not the same

Have you ever noticed that the blue in the sky is different than the summer blue? You can even see it creep in and out of the sky as Summer approaches, and as fall ends!

There is something about that first warm day, even if it’s only mid 50’s, after months of 40 and below, not even counting that bone deadening windchill!

It’s like something in me comes alive and leaps for joy, like yes! This is what I was made for!

What allows this to happen?

It’s two things, first our earth is at a tilt as it revolves around the sun, and so when Spring comes, we are positioning our section of the earth to be pointing towards the sun

So then the second thing is that allows us to have those long summer days, and that allows warmth to be here, as the sun is more directly shining on us, and the ground, which then also makes all the air warmer, and bam, summer szn baby!

So most of my joy of the weather changing is found in the sun, and it’s warmth right!

So let’s Think about the sun for a moment.

It’s beautiful, powerful, and absolutely necessary. Without it, there’s no warmth, no growth, no life.

We depend on the sun every single day—even if we never think about it.

But no one treats the sun casually. You can’t get close to it. You can’t stare at it directly.

Its power demands respect. If you get too close or too careless, it will burn you, or if you are part leprechaun like me, you burn by simply being outside for like 20 minutes!

Not because the sun is bad—but because it’s just that powerful.

The sun, is like God’s holiness!

It gives life. It reveals truth. It is beautiful beyond measure.

But it’s not safe to approach lightly.

His holiness isn’t something we trifle with—it’s something that transforms us.

And here’s where Peter takes us today: sometimes that transformation comes through fire.

Not the fire of destruction, but the fire of refinement. He says, “Don’t be surprised at the fiery ordeal… as though something strange were happening to you.”

God uses suffering—not to burn us up, but to burn away what doesn’t belong. To make us holy as He is holy.

In other words, we are drawn toward God’s holiness not by comfort, but often by hardship.

The fire we walk through is not pointless—it’s purifying.

It’s preparing us to live in the radiant presence of the God who is like the sun—life-giving, all-powerful, and worthy of reverent awe.

So when we suffer—not for doing wrong, but for following Christ—we’re not being abandoned. We’re being refined. Transformed. Being conformed to be like the perfect light.

A few weeks ago we spoke about how we are an unforsaken people, when the insufferable comes upon us

This message does not change that reality, but it gives us another perspective of suffering, that when we suffer, it is a way for God to refine us, to make us more like Jesus

Jesus is the center of everything we do, everything we strive for, and the destination we strive to achieve on this side of heaven

Here’s the thing, we are a rather fickle people, we are a forgetful people, and we are a fallen people

Our problem is that we are so short sighted that we lose focus on who God is, how great and good he is, and how he wants what is best for us

We then say, no, I know what is best for me God, I want to run the show, I want to call the shots

It’s not even bad things that do this! It’s just a little splurge here and there when we get a raise, a new TV, more starbucks runs, newer shinier toys, etc.

None of those things are intrinsically bad, but they can be. All of sudden the ease that you can spend money, allows you to dip into this worlds comfort system of things, and inadvertantly the next step is you feel safe from your bank account

You don’t have to worry about over drafting, or grocery cost, or gas, or medical bills, you simply pay it

Story of when Tabitha and I were first married and I was subbing and she was doing TA, and how God provided for us for the car we still drive at our first tax return that year, and my job, which allowed me to buy the computer I used before the one I currently have

God being faithful, even when things are hard, but it also allowed us to trust God and his leading, and has happened again and again with generous friends, or family or church members to help cover unexpected medical bills or such

Jesus wanted us to know that being a Christian was never going to be a way to have an easy life, it was in fact signing up for the more difficult way of living

Peter understands this, and so that is why he writes these things, and the way in which he is writing is not condemning the believers, but of pastoral care

What Peter is really saying, is Christ is worth it all.

That means more than your nice things, your nice homes, your comfort, your friends, and even your kids and spouses

What if the greatest thing you could do as a Christian would be to do what you needed to become more like Jesus

There is something interesting about how God’s holiness is shown throughout Scripture as well

When we first come across this idea most clearly with Moses, God meets him, calls the ground that he inhabits as holy and to take off his shoes for the ground is holy

Then when Moses gets the law from God, the mountain is enveloped in his presence, and anyone who touches it, even if any animals touch it, they will die

We see when Uzzah tries to stop the ark from hitting the ground, he dies from God’s holiness

God’s holiness inflicts a plague on the Philistines when they capture the ark of God

So Isaiah has this incredible vision in Isaiah 6, and he sees heaven open, and hears and sees and feels the holiness of God, and he is expecting death

Yet what happens is that he is given a coal from the alter of God that was hot, and it purified him, and I’m sure it would have burned a bit as well

Then we see this idea picked up later in Ezekiel about water flowing from God’s temple, and it represents the holiness of God redeeming and renewing the world

The Jesus comes and says that his followers should have springs of water flow from them in John 7.

So we have a problem, God is holy, and we are not, so how can we become holy, it is all about how we understand suffering and grow through it!

Suffering is not a sign of God’s abandonment, but one of the clearest evidences of his ever-present, refining love

Don’t Be Shocked- We Pass Thru Fire (v.12)

Peter leads with again, reminding us that we should not be surprised when fiery ordeals of trials and suffering come among us!

Suffering is not fun, it is not enjoyable, it is painful, and it is certainly real

Yet for Christians, for those who are followers of Jesus, our suffering is anything but pointless, it has a purifying purpose and even divine protection built in to it

The reason Peter calls it a fiery trial is that it is intense, consuming, but it is not pointless

This is where we run into some of our initial struggles, we think, if I am following the God of the Universe, the great creator, why is suffering befalling me!

If God really loves me, why would I go through such painful and difficult fiery ordeals?

Perhaps one of the most important things that Peter reveals here is that Peter wants to make sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that suffering is not unique to you!

One of Satan’s greatest lies is that we are uniquely suffering, whether through loss, trial, or even perhaps the suffering of our own sinful choices

Yet, Peter wants us to know that is not the case!

If we turn over to Hebrews, we have that incredible chapter 11, the “Hall of Faith”, the greatest of the great in Scripture! Yet, here is what those great people of faith faced!

Hebrews 11:32 “32 And what more can I say? Time is too short for me to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets,”

Hebrews 11:35–38 “35 Other people were tortured, not accepting release, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36 Others experienced mockings and scourgings, as well as bonds and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they died by the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, and mistreated. 38 The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and on mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground.”

Rejoice: Fire Reveals Gods Nearness (v.13-14)

Peter knows that isolation is a powerful weapon that Satan can use against us in our most difficult times, and why he goes to the next section

Peter is asking us to have a paradigm shift in our suffering!

We are to rejoice in the sufferings of Christ, so that when Jesus returns, we will have great joy for what we persevered through

What are the sufferings of Christ?

Jesus was perfect, and he suffered only for doing what is right

He healed those who needed it, cured those who were the outcast of society, told the truth, and certainly called out the religious leaders who had the power and where getting in the way of people coming to God!

We should suffer for good, not doing what is evil!

Jesus was despised and rejected by many!

He was rejected by his hometown, by his own people and nation

Jesus reminds us that if we are hated by the world, the world hated him first!

Jesus was suffering through doing God’s will!

Just think of his prayer in the garden, he wanted to avoid the cross, but did it for his Father’s will!

When we suffer and deny ourselves for what God is calling us to, it is honoring to God!

Jesus suffered to save others!

Jesus died to save the world and reunite us to God

We cannot save the world, and we don’t need to

However, when we bear the burdens of others, enter into the pain that others are being afflicted with, or give sacrificially, we are suffering for the sake of others, and entering in Christ’s sufferings!

When we live as Christ lives, it will cause friction with the world, and might result in suffering!

This might not be quite understood super well in our pain avoidant modern life, but think about it this way

God himself clothed himself in human flesh to come among us as fully human

Then God’s creation rejected, tortured, and murdered God’s olive branch of peace

All so we might be reunited with God

So our suffering puts us on the same place as Jesus, following God’s plan, to bring redemption, and so we should count ourselves incredibly fortunate to be able to share in God’s plan that way

The thing that we might miss is that when we suffer, God doesn’t have to show up, he’s already with us, the Holy Spirit rest upon us!

This glory is a special glory called the Shekinah glory of God, and that is what was on Mt Sinai that the people of God could not approach, what overtook the tabernacle and temple of God when he first indwelt those places

That presence of God, that would not even allow the priest of God to go in a minister to God, is what dwells within us because God himself dwells within us at all times!

So when suffering comes, when the fiery ordeal comes upon us, God is already present and with us in it!

To use our idea from before, we are unforsaken!

A lot of things are a matter of our perspective, and this gives us a great understanding and perspective, we are not unique in our suffering, and we are not abandoned in it either

It is like the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the book of Daniel

They are commanded to bow before a false god of Nebuchanezzer in a golden statue

They refuse, and say, God is worth worshipping, no matter what you might do to us King Nebuchanezzer!

They say that God could save them, but even if he didn’t, it would not change the path of doing what is right before God!

Then when the trial came, there was another in the fire, a 4th man, and they were utterly untouched by the flame!

They were not singed, their clothes untouched, and they didn’t even smell like smoke!

Yet it was in the fire that the unbeliever Nebuchanezzer saw God most clearly, it was in their suffering and willingness to suffer for their convictions to God that God honored!

Much like Peter spoke of back in 3:15, how you suffer will show who you suffer for

I’ve been reading an excellent book about grief called “When Mountains Crumble”

The author’s husband was lost in a mountain climbing accident just as they were returning stateside. She was left with no church, husband, and two small girls to help raise without their dad

She spoke of one day where a series of God’s grace met her in the midst of her grief, first she got a good night sleep!

Second she looked out and was in awe of the beauty of the mountains, the very ones which took her husband

Yet then she got caught in that subtly dangerous game of comparison, as her house was the one that all the snow drifts come and build up against, and she just doesn’t have the capacity to shovel the snow

Oh, and it was her second wedding anniversary without her husband around

It started her spiraling, and comparing and it took the goodness and joy of that morning and turned it into a day of battle

Until a few hours later, she saw her neighborhood kids coming and cleaning up the snow from her house, and she felt gratitude

She then said this profound quote, “Gratitude raids the enemy’s camp and steals back my joy”

What this reminds us of is that when we suffer, when we grieve, when we go through whatever fiery ordeal, it is a process, but we have to keep our eyes on the things that bring us the hope

This is not to say we do not grieve, but we are thankful in the midst of our sufferings that we have those that grieve with us, those that pray with us, and those that show us the hands and feet of Christ in tangible ways!

It is a perspective shift, that we might be worthy for God to allow us into the holy and redemptive nature of suffering, the very same path that Jesus walked

Suffer for Christ, Not Chaos (v.15-16)

However, we’ve already pointed out that we are not perfectly holy people in submission to God’s will like Jesus was

Peter leaves us no room to play the victim!

We should not suffer for doing what is wrong, and notice that he goes from something as crazy as murder, all the way down to being a busy-body who is all about everyone else’s business

There is a massive difference of suffering for living like Jesus, and then claiming the victim because you have done something bad

I am particularly thinking of people in ministry that have done anything from stealing money to spiritual abuse, and then claim it’s the world out to get them!

In Peter’s mind, you deserve what you have coming to you for you have done wickedness, and the government God puts in power is to punish the evil, even if that is in the church

Some of the worse suffering that we can go through is our own costly sins that result in suffering because of the nature of sin, regardless of being a Christian or not!

When you break a relationship by cheating, it hurts regardless of being a Christian or not, if you betray a friend, it has consequences regardless of being a Christian

In reality, much of our suffering can come from us shooting ourselves in the foot, we play with sin and it bites back, we think we can control it, but it really controls us

This is why suffering for Christ is so different, it is clear that you have been trying your best to love Jesus with your all, yet all you find is rejection and hatred

This doesn’t have to be crazy suffering like torture, it can be simple things

I struggled making friends from 5-8th grade, mostly because almost every shirt I had was some sort of Christian T-shirt, a witnessing opportunity

I loved Jesus, but it cost me socially, and for Jr High Kyle, that was a cost I didn’t know I would bear, and it was quite awful

So we need to check our hearts, what is really driving our suffering, have we been stabbing ourselves in the foot, with sin, not even realizing it!

Get rid of sin!

Perhaps that suffering is helping us to see Jesus, to help us save ourselves from ourselves!

We’ve already died to follow Christ, what more do we have to lose?

Entrust Yourself to Jesus: The Fire Refines, It Doesn’t Destroy (v.17-19)

Finally in these final verses, Peter tells us that judgement is coming upon the church, God’s people and house, so we need to be ready!

If you were to ask me what the most basic act of following Jesus is, I would probably say letting go of myself, and letting Jesus take over

Or as John said, Christ must become greater, and I must become less

So if we are suffering for loving Jesus, then we should entrust ourselves to Christ, fully!

The word there entrust is interesting, it’s an ancient banking term

If you were going on a long journey, you would entrust your savings and important belongings to one closest to you, and when you returned, upon their honor they would return those things to you

Think about going on an extended vacation, but without a bank account, you have to give you life savings to a friend to take care of, while you are gone, who are you trusting!

God is not careless, he is worthy of all our trust and worship, he is worthy to be fully entrusted!

The problem lies in our hearts, and our fickleness, we have short term memory, and we quickly forget how good God is to us, and how grievous our own sin is to us

So God helps remind us of our need for him by allowing suffering to refine us, he is an all consuming fire that will burn away our sin and help make us like himself

God doesn’t want to destroy us, he seeks to refine us and renew us!

Isn’t it funny that we will sacrifice for the things we love or deem important

Parents, you might sacrifice your dreams for your kids’ dreams, your retirements for their schooling, your quality of life for their quality of childhood

If you like doing sports, or playing instruments, you sacrifice time to practice, money to buy equipment, and oft times with friends because you have a recital or day of matches

If you are a gym rat like me, you sacrifice time going to the gym, you sacrifice your muscles by tearing them at a micro-level so they grow back stronger

Yet, when God asks us to suffer for him, it becomes too difficult, or we think God is a big meanie, but he’s doing what is our best, making us more like him

We are not giving ourselves over to death, but to a good God who loves us more than we can fathom

Suffering is an opportunity for us, nothing in this life really comes easy

Even the thing you enjoy the most requires work to refine and get better

I love theology, but there are certainly theological quandaries I don’t know the answer to!

I really enjoy disc golf, but I’m not great, I’m putting in work to get better, refining my technique, and hoping to improve against other friends that play

Suffering is an opportunity for us to get rid of the wicked parts of ourselves, and become more like Jesus, to abandon our sins, and to cling to our savior

People notice how we suffer, it points to Jesus

I’ve had multiple people since Cam died mention they couldn’t believe how we worshipped at Cam’s service, or other preacher friend on they couldn’t believe I was returning back to preach so quickly

I think it’s just a reminder that for my family, our relationship with Jesus is so foundational, that what would we do if we didn’t do church, if I didn’t preach

Suffering tends to simply reveal what you really believe, and Jesus wants us to really value and believe him!

Suffering is not a curse that God has left you or abandoned you, but that he is with you, and actually views you as his, it is discipline to bring you to him even more!

It means that our suffering is never wasted

It means we are never alone in it, nor is it unique to us

When we trust and lean more into Jesus in the fire, we will find that we are able to draw even closer to him than before!

You and I are being refined into better versions of ourselves, not ruined into a pile of ash

So let’s cling to Jesus when the fires get hot, and allow the dross of sin to be expelled, bit by bit, so we might become more like the Holy God who saved us!

Conclusion

So what do we do with this?

Peter doesn’t say if suffering comes, but when. And he doesn’t say it means we’ve failed. He says it means we belong.

That we belong to God, that our suffering for him, is the proof that we belong to him

You might be in the fire right now—misunderstood, isolated, wrestling with grief, tempted to give up. But Peter wants to reframe your reality:

The fire isn’t just burning you down. It’s burning away what can’t last. And what remains will shine like gold.

And here’s the greater promise: Jesus is in the fire with you.

He’s not standing at the finish line telling you to hurry up.

He’s right there in the furnace, refining you, holding you, reminding you that you are His.

He knows the cost of obedience. He knows the joy on the other side of the cross,

He is not asking us to do anything he has not done, nor gone through, but he walks alongside us as he goes through it

So entrust yourself to a faithful Creator.

Keep doing good, Don’t be surprised, Don’t be ashamed, Don’t give up.

Because if you’re in the fire—and you’re with Jesus—then you’re right where you’re supposed to be. And the fire does not have the final word- Jesus does

So here is what that looks like for us

Pray honestly this week,

don’t hold back your punches when you pray, God is not afraid of your doubts, questions, and wonderings!

Show Up Anyway

When it’s hard, don’t pull away, but lean into community, of church, of god-centered friendships!

Walk with Someone Else

Maybe right now, you are in a good place, and life is good to you, praise God!

Yet, you have the ability and the call to be the hands and feet of Christ to those walking through the flames right now!

So keep walking, keep hoping, keep your eyes upon Jesus, and how he is refining you to be more like him, for your good, for other’s good, and ultimately, His Glory!