Easter 7 May 16
Easter 7 May 16, 1999
Living Through Trials and Temptations
1 Peter 4:12-17; 5:6-11
Introduction: Living Through Trials and Temptations. What kind of things have you had to deal with this past week? What tested your faith? What tempted you to sin? Today we will focus on what Living Through Trials and Temptations is all about.
Consider the story of some middle school children having a lock-in at their church. The leader asked in the opening Bible study that the kids make a list of sins common to their age. Some were easy, but they could not agree on most of them. For example, is it all right to lie when it does good? Is cheating always wrong? Are there times when it is all right to steal? The one thing they all agreed on was how to use the building they were in. They agreed to stay out of certain areas of the building, and put up ribbons to mark the sections that were off-limits.
During a break the children were on their own for awhile. You can guess what happened. A couple of the kids ran through the off-limits area. When everyone was together again, the leader asked the group what they thought should be done. The unanimous agreement was to move the boundaries.
1. Be Self-Controlled and Alert. Sadly, because of our lack of self-control, we try Living Through Trials and Temptations by wanting the boundaries moved. I remember many times my own children, after doing wrong, would say something like, “But it was on accident, Dad.” Trying to get out of their problem, I’m quite sure they were hoping the boundaries we agreed on would be moved. That’s the sad picture of the unregenerate human nature. So when it comes to sin, we even try to move the boundaries God has set. What is sin? We might ask. There is a definite answer from God that comes to us through the apostle John. “All wrongdoing is sin” (1 John 5:17) and “sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4). In other words, sin is crossing over the boundaries set by God. They are absolute in his sight.
My dear fellow redeemed, who told us that it is okay to disregard God’s Word of Truth and do wrong as long as certain conditions are met? Who told us that when we sin we can just shrug our shoulders and say, “It was on accident heavenly Father.” Is that what we have learned from God? No! That is Satan’s lesson. So, Peter encourages Christians to “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (5:8).
Being self-controlled and alert against the stealth and cunning of such an enemy takes great wisdom and courage. Consider Peter’s courage when he faced his own death by crucifixion. Thinking himself unworthy to die as the Lord Jesus had, it is said that he asked to be crucified upside down. If it is true, Peter was giving living expression to the faith he himself teaches us. “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” Of course, the sufferings of Christ Peter speaks of is not the redemptive sufferings for sin that he endured. For us it is simply enduring hardship and wrong-doing because we belong to Christ.
2. Stand Firm in the Faith. While there is no specific definition for courage and standing firm in the faith given in the Bible, it could be called the “confidence that God will see you through.” Confidence. The word comes from the Latin, con fide, which means, “with faith.”
Consider the courage of Esther, a Jewess who became Queen of Persia some 450 years before Christ. Her marriage to King Xerxes could well have prevented the annihilation of the Jewish nation. Haman, the highest official in Persia, persuaded the king to destroy all of the Jews because, he claimed, they did not obey his laws. While anyone who approached the king without being summoned would be put to death, even the queen, Esther decides to come to him in order to save her people. Courageously she says, “If I perish, I perish” (Esth 4:16). With faith in God, she put her own life on the line to save others.
During the first three centuries of the Christian Church, there were some 10 eras of persecution. Living through trials is not tragedy. Nothing of chance exists in God’s world. It all serves his purposes. For the Jews persecution was nothing new. But for those new Gentile Christians persecution was “something strange.” Peter’s letter means to encourage these Christians to stand firm in the faith and resist the temptation to renounce it.
3. Resist the Devil. In the late 1700s a 14-year-old girl by the name of Marie Durant was told by the authorities to renounce her beliefs. She belonged to a Christian group called the Huguenots, a French nickname for Protestants. All she had to do was to say, (I renounce). Marie refused. As a result she was imprisoned in a single room along with 30 other women who also refused. They remained there for 38 years, occasionally being asked “Do you renounce?” They not only said no! –they carved another word in the wall: “Resist.”
In a day when religious beliefs are so easily thrown aside if they are inconvenient, such commitment is beyond comprehension. When we think about those women sitting in the same room day after day, week after week, year after year, knowing full well that nothing in the future will change—we are tempted to write them off as fanatics. But to them the hated words “I renounce” was satanic because it asked them to deny their Lord.
Let me ask this. Do you possess the stamina of a Marie Durant, or those other Huguenot women? We might not think so. But this is what the promise of baptism brings to us. You see. We are not alone. Everyone who has been baptized into Christ has put on Christ. That means we are clothed in his righteousness and perfection. It means that God is always present with us because the promise of baptism is this: “the forgiveness of sins,” and, “you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Because Satan often appears as “an angel of light,” we need the encouragement for the trials and temptations of our own day. It isn’t our own strength that allows us to stand firm and resist. It is God’s strength working in us. How do we know that? Consider Paul’s prayer for believers. “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead” (Eph 2:18-20).
Conclusion. Trials and Temptations can take on many forms and even appear to be quite innocuous to Christian faith. So, Living Through Trials and Temptations means living through hardship and suffering for nothing more than the truth of Christ. Yet, our Christian confidence is not based upon what happens to us, but upon the God who has redeemed us from death and the devil. How encouraging it is to know that we are not alone in our sufferings for Christ. All Christians are undergoing the same kind of suffering. And like all those who have gone before us, we are assured that in grace God will keep us safe in Christ, and will himself restore us and make us strong, firm and steadfast in the truth. This is why the Psalmist says, “Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord” (Ps 31:24) NKJV). Amen.