Sermon Tone Analysis

What is the nature of suffering for believers?

Are we free from it?

Is it bad?

Why do we suffer?

Can suffering lead us close to God?

A brief survey of the church, and you will find suffering to be something that no believer escapes, and the responses to it will be multi various.

A brief survey of the world, and you will find that suffering to the secular man is a proof for the lack of a loving God.

What did Peter have to say about suffering?

1 Peter 3:13

1 Peter 4:

Explain imperatives as outline for sermon.

1 Peter 4:12

Don’t Be Surprised

Charles Spurgeon once asked the question, why must the children of God so often be led through the valley of shadow?

This is an important question to wrestle with as a Christian.

Does Jesus death and resurrection mean that I will be free from suffering?

We oftentimes see people turning to God in times of intense suffering, no doubt hoping to have their temporal circumstances relieved immediately.

Suffering is part and parcel of the Christian experience.

Since Christ suffered in the flesh.... Arm yourselves with the same thinking.

We must be careful here to read into the text and say that we are to seek out suffering.

We must be careful here to read into the text and say that we are to seek out suffering.

What Peter is saying is that we should expect it.

Because if we are to be Christlike, then we must be prepared to follow in His footsteps.

Even unto death.

We have become so desensitized to the act of crucifixion because it is so familiar even to the secular culture.

And for believers the cross is the thesis statement of the Gospel.

But imagine if Jesus was here today, and he looked you in the eyes and said, paraphrasing ,

“If you want to be my follower, take up your electric chair and follow me”

How radical.

Rejoice

Read vs 13

Galatians

What does cruciform living mean?

1 Peter 4:12-14

Acts Chapter 5 gives us the story of Peter and the other apostles being arrested for preaching the gospel and healing in the name of Jesus.

Tell story ending with Gamaliel

Acts 5:

When Peter wrote his letter to the scattered Christians in the world, he wasn’t asking them to do something that he had not done himself.

Christianity often gets painted as a group that was started by some fanatical disciples of a man who died.

They’re not wrong in a way.

But this Christianity stuff wasn’t written by men in an ivory tower.

This was the opposite of ivory tower religion.

The structure of leadership in the church in the first century and today is a Shepherd, with under-shepherds beneath him.

The Shepherd was killed, and rose again.

If this was ivory tower religion than we would have seen,

A. Jesus certainly never interacting with the people of Israel

B. His disciples, the under-shepherds would not have risked their lives for the sake of the Gospel!

In fact they didn’t just risk their lives they gave them up.

The apostles

Why?

Because they had been grafted into the true vine.

And people noticed, and hated it.

Being grafted into Christ was what gave them the ability to do the things that they did.

Peter was commanding the men and women he was writing to to do some radical things.

Don’t be surprised

Rejoice and be glad

Don’t suffer as a sinner

If you suffer as a Christian, glorify God!

Suffer for Christ, Not Self

The doctrine of suffering was a continuation of the stumbling block for Jews.

Not only did Jesus not come as the triumphant King over their enemies as they wanted Him to, but now the lot of his followers by design was to suffer.

Foolishness.

Christians were having to embrace cruciform living.

Cruciform Living

What does cruciform living mean?

“Bonhoeffer was born in Breslau, Germany, in 1906.

His family were not religious but had a strong musical and artistic heritage.

From an early age, Bonhoeffer displayed great musical talent, and the pursuit of music was important throughout his life.

His family were quite taken aback when, at the age of 14, he announced he wanted to train and become a priest.

While the election of Hitler was widely welcomed by the German population, including significant parts of the Church, Bonhoeffer was a firm opponent of Hitler’s philosophy.

Two days after Hitler’s election as Chancellor in Jan 1933, Bonhoeffer made a radio broadcast criticising Hitler, and in particular the danger of an idolatrous cult of the Fuhrer.

His radio broadcast was cut off mid-air.

In April 1933, Bonhoeffer raised opposition to the persecution of Jews and argued that the Church had a responsibility to act against this kind of policy.

Bonhoeffer sought to organise the Protestant Church to reject Nazi ideology from infiltrating the church.

This led to a breakaway church – The Confessing Church which Bonhoeffer helped form with Martin Niemoller.

The Confessing Church sought to stand in contrast to the Nazi-supported, German Christian movement.

(Traveled to London)

Shortly after his return, one leader of the Confessing Church was arrested and another fled to Switzerland; Bonhoeffer had his authorization to teach revoked in 1936, after being denounced as a pacifist and enemy of the state.

As the Nazi control of the country intensified, in 1937, the Confessing Church seminary was closed down by Himmler.

Over the next two years, Bonhoeffer travelled throughout Eastern Germany, conducting seminaries in private to sympathetic students.

During this period, Bonhoeffer wrote extensively on subjects of theological interest.

This included ‘The Cost of Discipleship‘ a study on the Sermon on the Mount and argued for greater spiritual discipline and practise to achieve ‘the costly grace’.

Worried by a fear of being asked to take an oath to Hitler or be arrested, Bonhoeffer left Germany for the United States in June 1939.

After less than two years, he returned to Germany because he felt guilty for seeking sanctuary and not having the courage to practice what he preached.

On his return to Germany, Bonhoeffer was denied the right to speak in public or publish any article.

However, he managed to join the Abwehr, the German military intelligence agency.

Before his visit to the US, Bonhoeffer had already made contacts with some military officers who were opposed to Hitler.

It was within the Abwehr that the strongest opposition to Hitler occurred.

Bonhoeffer was aware of various assassination plots to kill Hitler.

It was during the darkest hours of the Second World War that he began to question his pacifism, as he saw the need for violent opposition to a regime such as Hitler.

Bonhoeffer struggled with how to respond to the evil nature of the Nazi regime.

It was Bonhoeffer’s involvement in this activity that led to his arrest in April 1943.

As the Gestapo sought to take over the responsibilities of the Abwehr, they uncovered Bonhoeffer’s involvement in escape plans.

For a year and a half, Bonhoeffer was imprisoned at Tegel Military prison.

Here he continued his writings such as ‘Ethics‘.

Helped by sympathetic guards, his writings were smuggled out.

After the failed bomb plot of July 20th, 1944, Bonhoeffer was moved to the Gestapo’s high-security prison, before being transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp and finally Flossenburg concentration camp.

Even during the privations of the concentration camp, Bonhoeffer retained a deep spirituality which was evident to other prisoners.

Bonhoeffer continued to minister his fellow prisoners.

Payne Best, a fellow inmate and officer of the British Army, wrote this observation of Bonhoeffer.