Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

There is an old parable that I have heard about a farmer who seems to not be concerned with life and its happenings.

It goes like this:

A farmer and his son had a beloved stallion who helped the family earn a living.

One day, the horse ran away and their neighbors exclaimed, “Your horse ran away, what terrible luck!”

The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not.

We’ll see.”

A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild mares back to the farm as well.

The neighbors shouted out, “Your horse has returned, and brought several horses home with him.

What great luck!”

The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not.

We’ll see.”

Later that week, the farmer’s son was trying to break one of the mares and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg.

The villagers cried, “Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!”

The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not.

We’ll see.”

A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all the able-bodied boys for the army.

They did not take the farmer’s son, still recovering from his injury.

Friends shouted, “Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!”

To which the farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not.

We’ll see.”

This man was living in a world of uncertainty.

He was unsure if what happened was good or bad.

He was always searching for the meaning even if he was saying that only time could tell if the incident was good or bad.

While there is truth to this, truth that we ma not know the good or bad of a situation in this life, but it is also a bad way to live.

One person has said that the moral of this story is to live life in moderation, keeping as even a temperament as possible, taking all things in stride, whether they originally appear to be ‘good’ or ‘bad.’

Life is much more comfortable and comforting if we merely accept what we’re given and make the best of our life circumstances.

Rather than always having to pass judgement on things and declare them as good or bad, it would be better to just sit back and say, “It will be interesting to see what happens.”

Again, this is an interesting take on this but is this the best way to view what happens in life?

I think not.

Yes, having an even temperament is a good thing to have through all things, but if you do not know there is a purpose for what is happening, how can you have this temperament?

That is what we will see in the text we will look at today.

We see in 1 Peter 4:12-19 that Peter is saying that we can have joy and this even temperament in life because we know what the events in life do and that they have purpose.

Any suffering we face here, as long as that suffering is for the Lord, is purposeful and something we should boast in and rejoice in.

Also, if we receive suffering because we did something stupid or we were acting out or poking our noses where we should not, then we received this as a judgment to turn away from that activity.

Let us look at the text 1 Pet.

4:12-19

The first thing we see in this text that shows us why things happen is:

Suffering is Normal (v.

12)

Right from the beginning Peter makes it clear that suffering is normal and not to catch us by surprise.

When the trial comes upon us we should not see it as strange.

It should not be something that drives us away from the Lord.

All believers have been warned that trials and tribulations will come to us.

Paul tells us in 2 Tim.

3:12

Christ told the disciples that the world will hate them because it hated Him first.

We are His followers and as such, we will be hated and despised by the world.

This is the sufferings that Peter was talking about.

This hatred is like that of today.

People mock and ridicule us for being Christians.

We are made fun of and called names and snubbed.

Yet, we should not be surprised or even offended that we are.

We should just look at them and say “Thank you for seeing that I am different than the rest of the world.”

What we should not be is surprised by this attack.

We should not be like the Three Amigos were when they realized their trip to Mexico was real and they were really being shot at.

They were called to go down and fix a situation.

They arrive and run off a few of El Guapos men and the town loves them.

They thought it was a skit and a performance like they had been doing in Hollywood.

They face El Guapo himself and more of his men.

They go through their skit and call them names and start running around in a circle firing their guns in the air like before.

El Guapo laughs and says he likes them and to only kill one.

Lucky Day is shot and falls off his horse.

He gets up and goes up to the man who shot him and checks his gun to discover he had real bullets.

They then realize those men planned to kill them and they start crying and approach them and are told El Guapo only kills men.

So he tells them to leave.

They run away scared and leave the town.

Of course later they come back and save them but here they run.

This is how we are not supposed to be.

We are to expect and know suffering is coming since we are Christians.

We are little Christs.

We are Christ followers.

And as such we are to rejoice in these sufferings because when we do we are

We have Intimate Fellowship with Christ (v.

13)

As partakers of suffering we are partaking of the suffering of Christ.

We are being despised and ridiculed as He was.

We are being shunned and rebuked by people.

They hate us and want us to go away and let them live how they want to live.

They are being exposed by the light and it makes them uncomfortable.

Jesus said as much in John 3:20

Paul said in Eph.

5:13

People do not like that and they will revile and attack us for doing it.

They had Christ nailed to a cross for doing it and we will receive like hatred.

That is a reason for rejoicing and joy when we are treated unfairly.

But, when we have entrusted ourselves to the will of God we can rejoice and know that no matter what comes it will all have a purpose even if it is bad.

We can know that the unfair treatment will ultimately be for the good and we do not need to be as the farmer was with the horse and not know whether good or bad will come of it, we know good will come of all that happens to us.

We know this because of what the end of the verse says.

We can rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed.

This is when we see Him in glory.

When we stand before Him and we stood firm and rejoiced when we were scorned and ridiculed.

We will not shrink in shame at Him because we have stood with Him and shared His sufferings with joy.

We had intimate fellowship with our savior.

We will have:

No Shame but Blessing(vv.

14-16)

In these verses we see that by being insulted for the name of Christ is a blessing.

It is because when faced with trials and standing strong we have the Spirit of God resting upon us.

This is powers, conditions, which come upon someone or under whose influence someone is.

We have all received the Spirit at belief if you are saved.

But the Spirit can give us more strength and power if necessary.

As Paul said in 2 Cor.

12:9

When we stand firm for the Lord and receive insults because 2 Cor.

12:10

In being insulted and us not wavering because of them we have the Spirit of power of the Lord resting on us.

We are influenced by His power and not that of the world.