Arm Yourself
1 Peter • Sermon • Submitted
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Example of Suffering
Example of Suffering
Laila’s husband was away, and she was left to care for their two children alone. It was a cold winter in Central Asia, and her landlords had just kicked her out. “If you don’t leave, we’ll burn the house — and burn you too, if you stay,” they had told her.
Laila and her family had been rejected for sharing Christ in the village, so they decided to shake off the dust, pack up and leave. The family had endured many difficulties and would continue to do so, but they felt it was worth it.
It all began when Laila picked up a piece of trash from the floor.
Laila sat in a hospital waiting room while her husband prepared to undergo surgery for bleeding ulcers. He was not expected to survive, and she felt absolutely hopeless. Noticing some discarded trash under a bench, she picked up the crumpled piece of paper, smoothed it out and saw that it was a Christian newsletter sharing the testimonies of other Christians. “I wanted to find other stories like this, so I asked my sister-in-law,” she said. It turned out that her sister-in- law had also become interested in Christianity and had been secretly attending a house church. She invited Laila to come with her.
“I came right in and joined in with the worship,” Laila said. “It felt good and natural. The pastor said, ‘Jesus is alive!’ I had never heard things like this. There was an invitation for people to come for prayer, and I went immediately. I was weeping as I prayed the prayer of repentance.”
The Christians took in Laila and her children, loving them and praying for Laila’s sick husband. They told her that God might heal him. When Laila next visited her husband, he was about to undergo a fourth surgery. As a nurse, Laila knew that little could be done to help her husband’s condition, so she decided to take him home from the hospital and start praying for him.
She told her husband about her experience at the church and took him to church with her. After church members shared the gospel with him, he also accepted Christ. “We and the church leaders were sure he had been healed,” Laila said. “I went back to our village, but my husband stayed to fellowship with the Christians for a week. When he came home, I could see how healthy he was! He was joyful and full of energy, playing with the children.”
The family immediately began telling their neighbors about Christ. About a month later, the local imam came to see them and told them it was wrong of them to bring their “new faith” to the other villagers. Several people in the village even wanted them to leave. Their landlord, however, told Laila that he’d been a secret believer for many years, after coming to know Christ while in a Russian prison. He allowed the family to stay where they were living, but when he died of a chronic illness, his Muslim relatives told Laila and her family they would be evicted. The new landlords said the only way Laila’s family could stay was if they went before the village leaders to renounce Christ and recommit to Islam.
“I had learned in the Bible that Christians must suffer for the faith, so I thought, ‘Well, here it is,’” she said. “And I made my witness stronger. I shared Christ with them.”
At that point, the landlords kicked them out and told them they’d burn them inside the house if they stayed. When the couple asked for help from relatives of Laila’s husband, they were told, “If you will not deny Christ, then you are not in our family.” Laila’s brother-in-law advised Laila’s husband to divorce her and return to Islam.
Finally, Laila’s husband said, “Let’s go. We have shared the gospel with everyone in this village, so we can move to a new place.” They gathered up what they could and left the rest.
Laila and her family continue to share Christ everywhere they go. They are ready to start their own church, composed of believers who converted to Christianity after hearing the gospel through Laila and her husband. VOM is supporting them in their work. “Many people have come to the Lord through our ministry and testimony,” Laila said. “My father-in-law even came to Christ, just before he died from cancer.”
It hasn’t been easy, and their family has suffered. Their oldest son was beaten at school for refusing to memorize the Quran. The teacher hit him on the head with the Introduction to Islam book when he didn’t recite the Arabic verses well. “He kept this to himself for a long time,” Laila said. “He did not even share it with us, his family, until one day the beating was very severe. At that time, he asked me if there was any place we could go to worship God without persecution.”
Other children in the village point at their sons and chant, “Christian! Christian!” Their youngest son has scars on his head from rocks thrown by taunting children. When Laila confronted the parents of the rock-throwers, they told her it was right for their children to target hers because Laila’s family believes in “another God.”
But Laila’s family remains faithful despite these hardships. “Christ is worth it!” she said. “Blessings follow the suffering. After we suffer, we receive new blessings from Christ. And also, we follow Christ’s example — He suffered, and so we will also suffer.”
1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in the flesh, equip yourselves also with the same resolve —because the one who suffered in the flesh has finished with sin —
equip: Arm oneself, prepare, get ready
resolve: thought; knowledge; insight
How did Christ suffer?
How did Christ suffer?
He was silent
7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughter and like a sheep silent before her shearers, He did not open His mouth.
Committed to the will of God
42 Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, Your will be done.”
Acted in forgiveness
Luke 23:34 (HCSB)
34 [Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.” ]
Entrusted Himself to the Father
46 And Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into Your hands I entrust My spirit.” Saying this, He breathed His last.
1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in the flesh, equip yourselves also with the same resolve —because the one who suffered in the flesh has finished with sin —
Obedience is more important than our desire to avoid pain.
2 in order to live the remaining time in the flesh, no longer for human desires, but for God’s will.
Suffering is a life ruled not by human feelings but by God’s will.
As you live the rest of your life, you now live not by human passions but by the will of God.
3 For there has already been enough time spent in doing what the pagans choose to do: carrying on in unrestrained behavior, evil desires, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and lawless idolatry.
4 So they are surprised that you don’t plunge with them into the same flood of wild living—and they slander you.
5 They will give an account to the One who stands ready to judge the living and the dead.
6 For this reason the gospel was also preached to those who are now dead, so that, although they might be judged by men in the fleshly realm, they might live by God in the spiritual realm.
v.7
7 Now the end of all things is near; therefore, be serious and disciplined for prayer.
1 Peter: An Introduction and Commentary (i) Pray More and Love Each Other More (4:7–9)
From that perspective all the previous acts in the drama of redemption have been completed—creation, fall, the calling of Abraham, the exodus from Egypt, the kingdom of Israel, the exile in Babylon and the return, the birth of Christ, his life, death and resurrection, his ascension into heaven, and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit to establish the church. The great ‘last act’, the church age, had been continuing for about thirty years by the time Peter wrote. Thus the curtain could fall at any time, ushering in the return of Christ and the end of the age. All things are ready: the end of all things (the ‘goal’ to which ‘all’ these events have been leading) is at hand.
Serious or Sane: means having a sound mind, thinking about and evaluating situations maturely and correctly
The instructions of serious and disciplined prayer is opposite of the things that are mentioned in verse 3.
Prayer does not set our minds aside but prayer involves using our minds and knowledge of the events and situations at hand to pray. Prayer involves the intellect.
Beware of sensationalism: the doctrine that all ideas are derived from and are essentially reducible to sensations.
It feels good so it must be good. It feels good to set my intellect aside to pray.
Prayer involves the intellect
(sober mind) Sober mind with electronics
v.8
8 Above all, maintain an intense love for each other, since love covers a multitude of sins.
In view of the end being near above all maintain or keep loving one another earnestly.
Where love abounds small things are overlooked and even some of the larger things are overlooked and forgotten.
When love is lacking, every word is viewed with suspicion every action is liable to misunderstanding, and conflicts abound. Satan delights in this.
12 Hatred stirs up conflicts, but love covers all offenses.
v.9
9 Be hospitable to one another without complaining.
Hospitable: disposed to treat guests and strangers cordially and with generosity
without complaining
Used to refer to repeated words of complaint, often spoken to others with the result of stirring up rebellion
This grumbling is ultimately a complaint against God and his ordering of our circumstances, and its result is to drive out faith, thanksgiving and joy.
10 Based on the gift each one has received, use it to serve others, as good managers of the varied grace of God.
11 If anyone speaks, it should be as one who speaks God’s words; if anyone serves, it should be from the strength God provides, so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in everything. To Him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.
12 Dear friends, don’t be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you to test you as if something unusual were happening to you.
13 Instead, rejoice as you share in the sufferings of the Messiah, so that you may also rejoice with great joy at the revelation of His glory.
14 If you are ridiculed for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.
15 None of you, however, should suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a meddler.
16 But if anyone suffers as a “Christian,” he should not be ashamed but should glorify God in having that name.
17 For the time has come for judgment to begin with God’s household, and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who disobey the gospel of God?
18 And if a righteous person is saved with difficulty, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?
v.19
19 So those who suffer according to God’s will should, while doing what is good, entrust themselves to a faithful Creator.
Entrust: to put into the care or protection of someone