Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: Let us pray.
Speaker 1: Thank you, linda.
Speaker 1: God, we give you thanks this morning for your presence here and for your love for us.
Speaker 1: We ask God that you give us a deeper sense of your presence here with us in this time and place.
Speaker 1: And, god, even in our suffering, may we see your redemptive work and your hand, and may we also see a future hope of glory and of vindication of redemption.
Speaker 1: And we pray that in the meantime, god, you would help us to have a sense of community with each other in this place and love for each other.
Speaker 1: You give us love for neighbors and love for you.
Speaker 1: Bless us this morning in Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: I mean you can be seated.
Speaker 1: Well, good morning everyone.
Speaker 1: My name is Ryan.
Speaker 1: I'm the pastor here.
Speaker 1: If I haven't said that already, it's great to be with you.
Speaker 1: I just want to ask for your prayers.
Speaker 1: So Sonia Knutson, who, in case you don't know, she's sort of like she's our pastoral associate here at Central.
Speaker 1: She's a wonderful gift and she was supposed to be here this morning, but she is an oatana.
Speaker 1: Her dad is in the last really moments of his life and she called me yesterday and just said that I mean, he's been on hospice for a little while.
Speaker 1: But she called me last night and said, hey, I just can't.
Speaker 1: She was, you know, crying and just said, like he spoke, the nurses had told her he's supposed to be probably dying any moment now between now and Monday.
Speaker 1: And so I said, by all means, stay down there and be with your dad and don't stress out about it.
Speaker 1: And I said we'd love to pray for you.
Speaker 1: So I said I asked her permission to share with all of you.
Speaker 1: She said of course I could, and so be praying for Sonia and her dad.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's been a real gift for her to be down there.
Speaker 1: And she knows that it's imminent and they're ready, he's ready, it's just a matter of time now.
Speaker 1: And death is a sacred thing and it's, it can be a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: And so we wanted her to be down there.
Speaker 1: I said, by all means, we can figure out worship with that, there's no problem.
Speaker 1: So please be praying for her.
Speaker 1: I mean she's an absolute gift.
Speaker 1: I messed her, but I didn't mean Please be praying for her.
Speaker 1: She'll be back soon.
Speaker 1: That being said, welcome to Central.
Speaker 1: And we are in the middle of our sermon series on 1 Peter.
Speaker 1: 1 Peter was this beautiful book, a letter written to what he calls eggsiles and it's in the area of Asia Minor or like modern day Turkey.
Speaker 1: And Peter, who's this old, wise and soul.
Speaker 1: Now he's not young and brash Peter, he's like getting old wise man Now.
Speaker 1: I imagine him.
Speaker 1: He's had all this experience, he's sort of calmed down quite a bit in his in his older age and it's got a little bit of gray in the beer maybe and in that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So he writes this letter to these eggsiles and they're in Asia Minor, like sort of brand new Christians.
Speaker 1: He wants to give them hope and give them encouragement because they're suffering under immense persecution.
Speaker 1: They're living as Christians, as people of the cross, in a land that is sort of contrary, or unfriendly, to say the least, to Christians and to the way of the cross.
Speaker 1: And so the letter sort of is an encouragement to them and he tells them remember, in a land, in a culture, in a society that is going the opposite direction than the way of the cross, remember who you are, Don't forget who you are, and who you are is.
Speaker 1: You are people that have been chosen by God.
Speaker 1: You've been born again into a living hope.
Speaker 1: You have a different way of seeing the world.
Speaker 1: So don't forget that and your sons and daughters of God, live like that.
Speaker 1: Let your life so shine, or let your yeah, let your life shine before others.
Speaker 1: They may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven.
Speaker 1: It's the words we just used for little Rebecca.
Speaker 1: So live like Jesus, love like Jesus, and your life, your place, your being in the world will be a signpost that there is indeed a different way of being in the world.
Speaker 1: Are you with me?
Speaker 1: Now, here's the deal.
Speaker 1: I'm afraid that many times we Christians sort of engage in the culture wars and we end up looking just like the people we're trying to sort of win over to our side.
Speaker 1: And we sort of engage in these wars and you become just as mean and as nasty and as mud-slinging as you know the people on the other side, but we just slap the name Jesus on it and we feel better about it.
Speaker 1: That's not what Peter's talking about.
Speaker 1: He's not saying, hey, be as mean and nasty in order to win this culture war.
Speaker 1: He's not.
Speaker 1: He's saying the opposite of that.
Speaker 1: Don't just do that, because when you do that, you look just like everybody else and you're not winning anybody over to anything.
Speaker 1: In fact, you're a signpost.
Speaker 1: Oh, those Christians are just the same as everybody else in here.
Speaker 1: People need a different way, an alternative path.
Speaker 1: So be different, be a signpost for a different world.
Speaker 1: And so Peter writes this Dear friends, step or two, dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires and which wage war against your soul.
Speaker 1: I love that, by the way.
Speaker 1: But when God says, hey, don't sin, or stop sinning, it's not because he wants you to not have any fun.
Speaker 1: That's kind of what it sounds like.
Speaker 1: But what happens is sometimes these sinful desires can wage war against our souls.
Speaker 1: And if you've ever gone down a pathway that was dark and you knew it, you might have felt like there was some waging war against your soul.
Speaker 1: Talk to an addict.
Speaker 1: It's what it's like.
Speaker 1: It's like it's wage war against him.
Speaker 1: So Jesus is always calling us to a deeper life, more meaningful, robust and vibrant life, not like, don't have any fun.
Speaker 1: No, it's like, hey, there's a deeper, more beautiful way to live life.
Speaker 1: Come be a part of that, because these things can often wage war against your soul.
Speaker 1: Then he says this hey, live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God.
Speaker 1: Even the pagans can glorify God.
Speaker 1: I love this.
Speaker 1: However, you engage in today's modern culture wars, and I'm sure that you are in some ways maybe.
Speaker 1: I've seen some of your Facebook posts, so I know that some of you are.
Speaker 1: Don't be as mean and nasty as everybody else and just put Jesus' name on it or slap a Bible verse on it.
Speaker 1: That doesn't work.
Speaker 1: That's not what Jesus said to do at all, nor what Peter says to do.
Speaker 1: Jesus faces the most brutal injustice that we've ever seen, and he doesn't combat evil with more evil.
Speaker 1: He absorbs it and makes a way for it, for a new way of being in the world.
Speaker 1: We need a better way of being.
Speaker 1: We need another world, and you are to be signposts, indicators.
Speaker 1: There's a signpost for you that there is indeed a better world.
Speaker 1: The world doesn't just need more rhetoric.
Speaker 1: The world doesn't just need another, cooler and hipper church.
Speaker 1: We don't need better coffee.
Speaker 1: We don't need a better sermon or better music or even a new organ.
Speaker 1: I mean, those are all fine and I no-transcript, no-transcript, no-transcript, no-transcript, no-transcript.
Speaker 1: What is your life pointing to?
Speaker 1: Well, I get it.
Speaker 1: No one's perfect.
Speaker 1: I get it, but if you're a follower of Jesus, your life should look a little bit like Jesus.
Speaker 1: I Don't I'm shooting all over you, I get it, I know.
Speaker 1: Forgive me, but your life should have some semblance of the fruit of the spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self Dagum, control.
Speaker 1: What if you'll see?
Speaker 1: When they look at you?
Speaker 1: Do they see signposts while they do?
Speaker 1: What are your signposts pointing to?
Speaker 1: We need a better world.
Speaker 1: What do folks see when times are good in your life?
Speaker 1: And, more importantly, what do folks see when times are bad in your life and times of suffering and difficulty?
Speaker 1: Remember, the recipients of this letter were living as exiles.
Speaker 1: They were far from home, not literally, metaphorically.
Speaker 1: They're living in a culture going the opposite direction.
Speaker 1: They're going upstream and they were suffering because of it, because their faith is sort of contrary to the major narrative.
Speaker 1: And I get it.
Speaker 1: And so Peter wants to encourage them and he offers them a framework for their suffering.
Speaker 1: So I encourage you, read all of first Peter's only five chapters long.
Speaker 1: It's very, very short.
Speaker 1: Don't read it now, but read it later.
Speaker 1: And when you do notice the amount of times that Peter talks about suffering, I like that notice.
Speaker 1: It's many, many times, and so today we went jump all around, because I'm not gonna go through one chapter at a time, I'm most like thinking at a time, and so suffering is one of the predominant themes, and he lets the people know.
Speaker 1: Here's how you should handle suffering in a way that bears witness to Christ Suffering.
Speaker 1: How to navigate it is the predominant theme in this book, not so much the way of answering why suffering.
Speaker 1: We call this theodicy.
Speaker 1: Why does what do bad things happen to?
Speaker 1: And you know, if God is all-loving and all-powerful, why do bad things happen?
Speaker 1: That's called theodicy, which is a great question to ask, and it's a fair one to ask.
Speaker 1: Why would bad things happen?
Speaker 1: Or why is there evil and suffering at all?
Speaker 1: But Peter isn't asking that.
Speaker 1: So you can, we can talk about that later.
Speaker 1: What he's doing instead is he's assuming you're gonna suffer.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna suffer, because, after all, we're following Jesus, whose life ended in a suffering and dark moment of death.
Speaker 1: Of course it ends, ends, ends, ends with redemption, but I'll get there in a minute.
Speaker 1: But he's asking how do we view suffering and make it in framing a way that's actually helpful for us in the in the meantime, and is this life worth living while there is suffering, evil going on.
Speaker 1: So a nice light talk this morning if you're ready for that.
Speaker 1: That's why I brought the chair out so I can sit down and have a more of a serious conversation.
Speaker 1: But yesterday I was at the Shiburn County Fair Parade and we go to the parade yesterday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the Novotny's there.
Speaker 1: Yeah so the Novotny float.
Speaker 1: Let's go.
Speaker 1: I saw the collar any Collins's.
Speaker 1: I saw the Collins brothers Toe trucks.
Speaker 1: They had like 80 of them.
Speaker 1: They got like so many tow trucks was guys, good for them.
Speaker 1: But the thing, did I miss anybody?
Speaker 1: Anybody else get a float in the parade?
Speaker 1: Okay, but the best part of the parade I'm not gonna lie to you the best part, undoubtedly and all the reviews are in the best part was watching my daughter scarlet dance down Main Street.
Speaker 1: Yeah, 12 years old is she here?
Speaker 1: Oh, no, she's not.
Speaker 1: With showcase dance now I'd have driver of the Dairy Queen at 915.
Speaker 1: The parade started at 10 o'clock, so it's some time to kill and the time to kill I.
Speaker 1: I made my way to the front of the parade where it would start.
Speaker 1: I'm like I'm gonna get here because Katie was at a softball game.
Speaker 1: I was like you need to videotape her, ryan, I know I will.
Speaker 1: You know I've no doubt I got you and so I.
Speaker 1: Nothing stopped me from videotape.
Speaker 1: In scarlet, I'm not was jumping over old ladies, kicking over little kids, you know, knocking dogs into the street, slipping on candy there's candy everywhere.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like better than Halloween in this parade.
Speaker 1: I'm running the trees and I'm like just getting video.
Speaker 1: I had a drone, had three drones coming in a Hotter balloon I'm kidding, but I'm being a TV.
Speaker 1: And then, but you know, we were at the beginning of the parade, so as soon as she went by me, that was it.
Speaker 1: I was done and they had to walk another mile and a half to the end, which is down at the Sherman County fairgrounds.
Speaker 1: So I got in my car and I drove down there and waited for her.
Speaker 1: But down there at the end I had this moment of panic because I got there and there's people everywhere, there's cars, were this traffic and like all the the parade, that sort of arrived and all the floats are being dismantled.
Speaker 1: I'm like man.
Speaker 1: I hope she remembered I told her I'd be here.
Speaker 1: I said, hey, I'll meet you at the end of the parade, I, and I hope that she remembered that I would, that I would meet her there.
Speaker 1: And as a dad I started with a panic.
Speaker 1: She's, she's gonna forget that.
Speaker 1: I said that and like wonder, like who's picking me up?
Speaker 1: But where are they and what's gonna?
Speaker 1: And I thought for a moment she's gonna have this moment of panic and like un unease.
Speaker 1: Well then I saw her and she waved and came and gave me a big old hug and we got in the car, left and I Like, oh, she wasn't afraid at all Because she knew I'd be there.
Speaker 1: She remembered.
Speaker 1: I told her I'll be at the end of the parade.
Speaker 1: Just look for me, you know.
Speaker 1: And and in fact I stood in the very front where all the people were, just so she would see me.
Speaker 1: I'm a kind of I'm a large person anyway, so I Don't blend in super well.
Speaker 1: Oh she, she knew I'd be there and she knew I'd pick her up and so that that that hope at the end I would be there, it would make everything sort of in the middle, maybe a bit more interval.
Speaker 1: You ever notice how sometimes in life, if we know that things will turn out okay in the end, it helps us to endure some of the things that are not so fun in the middle If at the end I know there will be someone to pick me up and everything will be okay, even though it's way out there somewhere far out in the future, I can endure many times the stuff in the middle.
Speaker 1: As a pastor, I get invited to all kinds of interesting situations.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes it's the most intimate places of people's lives.
Speaker 1: I'm invited to baptisms and house blessings and weddings and also on people's deathbeds and funerals and I get sort of shown behind this curtain.
Speaker 1: And just over a year ago some friends now friends of mine, chris and Mike lost their daughter the night before and in her mid-20s.
Speaker 1: It was totally unexpected and I knew Maddie pretty well.
Speaker 1: I didn't know them super well though, to be honest, we had met a few times, but I knew her and I was invited over to come sit with them.
Speaker 1: I think it was on a Sunday, and so I went over there, because that's what pastors do, and I was welcomed into this room with lots of their friends and family and neighbors.
Speaker 1: I didn't know anybody and it was this beautiful, sacred moment.
Speaker 1: Of course it's not lost to me that they had just lost their beloved daughter unexpectedly and unjustly, and there we sat and I just watched them.
Speaker 1: People just told stories around the circle and I kind of chimed in with a few stories.
Speaker 1: I just sat there, mostly otherwise, and was privileged to just be there and there they were.
Speaker 1: And now here's the thing Mike and Chris, I've gotten to know them a lot better of this last year and a half.
Speaker 1: We've talked about a lot of things, including the death of Matty and how they've managed it and how they face each day, and there are many Sundays where I've met them afterwards and they've had tears in their eyes and we've talked about things that I've said from up front.
Speaker 1: And how do you do it?
Speaker 1: How do you go forward?
Speaker 1: How do you know how to face the next day?
Speaker 1: And I heard a pastor one time remark that he had noticed that people who've been through suffering later on down the road they would speak about how the suffering took them down pathways they never would have guessed or planned for.
Speaker 1: And somehow suffering enables people to share in the suffering of others.
Speaker 1: Have you noticed this?
Speaker 1: One of the things that Mike and Chris told me is that there are these support groups that are a part of it and they've been able to share their story with other folks who've also lost loved ones, and it somehow helps as weird as it sounds that somehow sharing our wounds and our suffering with others helps us to move forward, like, oh, I've been through something like what you've been through and let me share my story, I want to hear your story.
Speaker 1: And the wound becomes a healing agent for others.
Speaker 1: That's a way of managing suffering and facing the next day.
Speaker 1: It's never easy, but Peter suggests that life is suffering.
Speaker 1: He never assumes that Christians won't suffer.
Speaker 1: He's like no, no, he assumes that you will suffer, you're not paying in misery and sadness and loss.
Speaker 1: That's just the way that life is, for some strange reason.
Speaker 1: I wish I could snap my fingers and make it not so.
Speaker 1: That's the way that it is.
Speaker 1: So if suffering's a foregone conclusion, how do you get through it?
Speaker 1: Well, he would say, there's no way to get through life except to get through suffering, because it's a part of life.
Speaker 1: And there's no way to get through suffering unless you have and maintain a living hope, what he calls it A way forward, a purpose for continuing on Some light at the end.
Speaker 1: I mean, we all want to know that suffering.
Speaker 1: I think all of us have suffered.
Speaker 1: We all want to know that suffering indeed does have a way forward.
Speaker 1: That somehow I'll be okay, even if I don't quite understand it now, even if I'm not okay now, but that somehow, some way, even if they're in the very end, my suffering will have meaning and it won't be pointless.
Speaker 1: That it might offer me something along the way in my journey now, or to a friend or loved one, and that there's light at the end of the tunnel, that there's someone waiting for me at the end of the parade that will pick me up and drive me home.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to endure all the stuff in between.
Speaker 1: A light, maybe it's vindication, maybe it's resurrection, a better way forward.
Speaker 1: Eugene Peterson says this masterfully A Christian is a person who decides to face and live through suffering.
Speaker 1: That's the job of the Christian.
Speaker 1: And if we do not make that decision, he writes, we're endangered on every side.
Speaker 1: A man or woman of faith who fails to acknowledge and deal with suffering becomes at last either a cynic, a melancholic or a suicide.
Speaker 1: In other words, how you frame suffering can either lead to redemption or some other dark path.
Speaker 1: And Peter calls these Christians, these exiles, to find meaning and redemption in their suffering by framing it in a certain way.
Speaker 1: And so he says dear friends, don't be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.
Speaker 1: You should expect it how it goes, but rejoice in as much as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed At the end.
Speaker 1: There's something there waiting for you.
Speaker 1: If you're insulted because of the name of Christ, you're blessed, for the spirit and the glory of God rest on you.
Speaker 1: When you suffer, especially unjustly.
Speaker 1: And he says if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name, then he says so.
Speaker 1: Then those who suffer accordingly should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 1: So here's how Peter frames it.
Speaker 1: I want to tell you a quick story about Victor Frankel and I'm going to give you the four ways that Peter helps us to engage with suffering.
Speaker 1: So here's the framework.
Speaker 1: The framework that Peter offers for Christians and for you and for me to frame our suffering, to understand our suffering, is Jesus' own suffering on the cross.
Speaker 1: It's interesting you ever notice how, for us anyway, everything goes back to the cross.
Speaker 1: This is a story about a divine God who, unlike any other story of the gods, comes down in humility, becomes just like us, mortal, woundable, who gets tired, who sleeps, who gets sick, this kind of God, and then suffers an unjust way and dies.
Speaker 1: This is the story of Jesus, and Jesus' own suffering on the cross helps us to view our suffering in a larger and more grand story, because Jesus is vindicated at the end and his own suffering on death conquers death itself.
Speaker 1: Or, as Luther would say, sin, death and the devil.
Speaker 1: They're destroyed through his work on the cross.
Speaker 1: And then Peter invites you and I to sort of plant our suffering in the suffering of Jesus.
Speaker 1: Now, I don't believe that all suffering comes from God as some grand plan and that God causes all things that are horrible to happen at all.
Speaker 1: But I think the invitation is hey, take your suffering and plant it in the story of Jesus, because then our story becomes his story.
Speaker 1: And if Christ is in you and you are in Christ, then that becomes your story.
Speaker 1: And there's vindication, new life and hope for future glory.
Speaker 1: There's someone waiting for us, indeed, at the end of the parade a light vindication, hope, a better way.
Speaker 1: But this is difficult, right?
Speaker 1: This is not easy, because suffering is suffering and it's easier said than done.
Speaker 1: And suffering raises all kinds of questions.
Speaker 1: One of them is, I think, if you're honest, is life actually worth living?
Speaker 1: So the famous, famous writer, albert Camus, says to decide whether life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question of the philosophy.
Speaker 1: And he says look, all other questions are child's play.
Speaker 1: This must first be answered.
Speaker 1: Is life indeed worth living, even though there's suffering and pain and even death?
Speaker 1: And Victor Franco, if you know who that is, he was a survivor of the Holocaust, wonderful psychologist, wrote many books and lived for 11 months in Auschwitz and Dachau.
Speaker 1: And the mere 11, or actually he lived there for a longer time than that, but a mere 11 months after surviving he takes up this question Is life worth living?
Speaker 1: Look, this guy just survived the Holocaust and lost many loved ones and watch will die right in front of him.
Speaker 1: This guy, among the other survivors of the Holocaust, had every reason to say no, life is not worth living.
Speaker 1: The suffering is too ungodly and horrific and evil.
Speaker 1: Forget it all.
Speaker 1: But he gives some lectures and he sort of prints them and edits them and puts them together in a book called Say yes to Life.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful short book by Franco and he addresses the question of finding a sense of meaning when the world gives us ample reasons to not view any meaning to life.
Speaker 1: And he takes up the question of continuing to live despite persistent world weariness.
Speaker 1: He calls it.
Speaker 1: That's what he says.
Speaker 1: He warns like pleasure and many of us are taught and told the purpose of life and the way to find meaning is to be have, find pleasure, to seek pleasure.
Speaker 1: Many philosophers would argue this.
Speaker 1: Freud was this way find pleasure and you'll be just fine.
Speaker 1: Or today's modern zeitgeist is just find happiness, be happy.
Speaker 1: Or in the western culture and our sort of American way, it's make more money so you can buy a bigger house and afford a nicer car, and then you'll find meaning.
Speaker 1: Fine.
Speaker 1: But what Franco would argue is that all of those things can be taken from you in an instant.
Speaker 1: And in the Holocaust they were.
Speaker 1: They were gone and, by the way, they'll be gone from you to at some point.
Speaker 1: Like I said last week, I've never seen a hearse or the U-Haul attached to it.
Speaker 1: These things that we spend our lives investing in will let us down at some point.
Speaker 1: They don't last forever, and even happiness doesn't last forever.
Speaker 1: Just ask someone who's lost the child or who's been diagnosed with cancer.
Speaker 1: Those things come and go.
Speaker 1: So, he warns.
Speaker 1: Pleasure in itself cannot give our existence meaning.
Speaker 1: Then he says oh, but also then lack of pleasure cannot take away meaning from life.
Speaker 1: Suffering, he says look, that can't rob you of your meaning, which now seems obvious to us.
Speaker 1: So in the middle of Auschwitz, he's like how do we make sense of life?
Speaker 1: He says the one thing that cannot be stripped of us is how we respond.
Speaker 1: And I will choose to respond in hope and I will treat others with goodness and kindness.
Speaker 1: And he even say, like there are people watching us, love those who've gone before us.
Speaker 1: They're watching us.
Speaker 1: It's almost echoes Hebrews, where they have this great cloud of witnesses, and I don't know what that means or looks like.
Speaker 1: But there are folks, maybe in this metaphorical or literal, I don't know, but watching you and sort of cheering you on.
Speaker 1: That gave people hope to face tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And many people in the Holocaust or in the camps lost hope.
Speaker 1: So he says, in short, our lives take on meaning through our actions, through loving and even through suffering.
Speaker 1: He says this.
Speaker 1: A thought transfixed me.
Speaker 1: For the first time in my life, I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers the truth that love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man or woman can aspire, that I grasp the meaning and the greatest secret of human, that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart, that salvation of man or woman is through love and in love.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 1: Of course, the cross is the greatest love story ever told.
Speaker 1: See, the reason why suffering is so painful is because it makes us acutely aware of how sacred and precious life is.
Speaker 1: Suffering does the same thing.
Speaker 1: It reminds how short and brief and precious all this is.
Speaker 1: I told you a couple of years ago, or a year and a half ago, life is vapor.
Speaker 1: Remember that.
Speaker 1: Here's a picture of it for you, in case you forgot.
Speaker 1: It's here and then gone.
Speaker 1: The writer to Clusias D says and suffering and death and these things remind us that life is an absolute gift.
Speaker 1: This moment is a gift.
Speaker 1: The breath in your lungs a gift.
Speaker 1: The job that you hate is actually a gift.
Speaker 1: Your kids who bug you a gift.
Speaker 1: That spouse that won't do what you want them to do is a gift and it can all be gone tomorrow, and these things remind us of that.
Speaker 1: And the answer to it all is love, love.
Speaker 1: So here's how we approach suffering.
Speaker 1: Then, according to Peter then I'll get out of here he says, look, here's the fourfold ways that Peter says remember that Christ suffered and you're in good company.
Speaker 1: And he says, hey, allow your suffering to refine you like gold.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna unpack these two, but and then, hey, do good and remember that God will indeed vindicate you so quickly.
Speaker 1: Then, number one Christ suffered and you're in good company.
Speaker 1: Look, we wanna be followers of Jesus, and I think too many times in our Western culture that loves winners, we forget that Jesus died on a cross.
Speaker 1: We wanna be like Jesus.
Speaker 1: Give me the glory.
Speaker 1: I want the resurrection, I want goodness and blessing.
Speaker 1: In fact, the prosperity gospel is that if you follow Jesus, you'll be healthy, wealthy and wise.
Speaker 1: Well, jesus suffered and died An unjust death, and just as Christ has suffered, so you should expect the same, according to Luther.
Speaker 1: We should expect suffering.
Speaker 1: It might even be afflicted by those in authority over us.
Speaker 1: It may include betrayal of our closest friends.
Speaker 1: It may include the loss of a loved one or being misunderstood or swimming upstream, and this puts us, though, in a place where Jesus was.
Speaker 1: This is the exact thing that happened to Christ.
Speaker 1: So if you are suffering because of those things Peter says good for you, you are more like Messiah than you know Now.
Speaker 1: Look, I don't wish suffering on anybody, but suffering has a way of sort of opening up windows that were once closed and clearing things up Because Christ suffered.
Speaker 1: We join in His sufferings, and our sufferings point to what Jesus did and His salvation on the cross, when he unmasked and disarmed the powers and overcomes death and the grave and sin, which is easier said than done to remember this, but, again, it at least helps us to approach our suffering in a way that allows us to move forward.
Speaker 1: See, our tendency, in the midst of suffering, is to turn on God, and I get it.
Speaker 1: I've been there To get angry and bitter, to shake our fists in the sky and say God, you don't get it, you don't know where I've been, you don't know what it's like, you don't understand, but the cross is God's way of absorbing our accusations and our fears, and our excuses and our arguments and saying I do understand.
Speaker 1: We don't serve a God who's immune to suffering.
Speaker 1: That's the beauty of the cross.
Speaker 1: It's the beauty, horrific nature of the cross.
Speaker 1: He understands, he gets it.
Speaker 1: And so, after thousands of years, christians have found meaning in the cross and it's central to our life.
Speaker 1: It speaks to God's own suffering.
Speaker 1: God's pain is broken heart and it's God making the first move towards us in our suffering.
Speaker 1: So when you suffer, remember that you're in good company.
Speaker 1: Christ suffered.
Speaker 1: Number two Peter likened suffering to a refining fire.
Speaker 1: Bassist is like hey, suffering will refine you.
Speaker 1: Now, this is painful, but it does.
Speaker 1: In the refining process, metal ore is heated to the point where impurities can be separated and taken out and the metal, the pure metals, retrieved.
Speaker 1: The great Thomas Merton once said I don't know much about heaven, but I know that not much of me will be there.
Speaker 1: Suffering refines us.
Speaker 1: It filters out all the unnecessary and even burdensome elements in our lives.
Speaker 1: If you were here last week, it's all the junk we're trying to drag through the eye of the needle.
Speaker 1: It's the hearse with the U-Haul at the back of it.
Speaker 1: You know you don't need that.
Speaker 1: Let that junk be refined out of you.
Speaker 1: Folks who have suffered have a clarity of vision.
Speaker 1: Many times they realize their priorities.
Speaker 1: They stop messing around, they ask better questions, they stop playing games and they're not duped any longer Like oh, oh, I see what life's really all about.
Speaker 1: Suffering in that way is really a gift.
Speaker 1: Ask anyone who's really suffered.
Speaker 1: They cut all the junk out.
Speaker 1: You don't need it.
Speaker 1: Suffering refines you, so Paul writes.
Speaker 1: Let us, then, also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character.
Speaker 1: Hope, and hope does not put us to shame.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 1: Number three, then do good to others.
Speaker 1: I know I'm shooting on you again, but do it.
Speaker 1: Be good and trust your life to God by doing good.
Speaker 1: There's still good to do in the world, and in spite of suffering, there's meaning to be had, and it's in loving others.
Speaker 1: If you're suffering and don't know what to do, go love somebody.
Speaker 1: Go serve in a soup kitchen.
Speaker 1: Go minister to a young kid who can't read.
Speaker 1: Go serve and love somebody.
Speaker 1: Do good and bear witness to Jesus.
Speaker 1: And there's another way forward.
Speaker 1: You might even trick yourself, and in reminding yourself, hey, there is hope, I can live for that person, even just for the time being, You're not actually tricking yourself.
Speaker 1: You're revealing the truth of the way the nature's designed.
Speaker 1: So it means bringing.
Speaker 1: By the way.
Speaker 1: Doing good doesn't just mean like, hey, keep your nose clean and don't get into trouble and follow the rules and stop drinking beer.
Speaker 1: Not of that.
Speaker 1: It actually means bringing freshness and goodness, more positive, bringing love and kindness and wisdom to your community, into the family.
Speaker 1: So, to the people we know the street, saying hi to people If you're suffering, say hi to a stranger and just watch what happens With the life you've been given.
Speaker 1: Do something good even though you're suffering.
Speaker 1: You just might find hope, a living hope.
Speaker 1: This is the way of the cross.
Speaker 1: Peter tells them that their suffering is a way of bearing witness to Christ.
Speaker 1: Lastly, then, I'll say this there's vindication of a future hope.
Speaker 1: Peter reminds them of the end, the final judgment, that one day, we believe, all things will be put to right.
Speaker 1: Jesus vindicated the powers, unmasked and robbed of their power, and us vindicated In new life, resurrection.
Speaker 1: If we have been buried with Christ and the death, like he has, we've raised with Christ in their resurrection, like he has.
Speaker 1: Paul writes this is the Christian hope, and there's vindication and someone waiting for us at the end of the parade and we can look, for there's someone there, christ.
Speaker 1: So keep your head up.
Speaker 1: Your conscience is clean and clear and trust that the victory of God would played out in the world in which you're bearing witness to, and then closing them to invitation to imagine a better way.
Speaker 1: You see, suffering demands profound imagination.
Speaker 1: A new future has to be conjured up in the midst of the old one, because the old one isn't there anymore.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you're suffering because something's been robbed from you and you can't go forward with that thing.
Speaker 1: You have to imagine a new way forward.
Speaker 1: Okay, so turn your imaginations on and find a new way forward, because it's there.
Speaker 1: In closing, I want to read you a letter, actually an email, that Chris, the mother of the young girl who died at a young age, wrote to me.
Speaker 1: I talked to them a couple of weeks ago and, with their permission, I said hey, how do you face every day?
Speaker 1: And, like I said, we meet frequently after services in different places and the pain and the suffering is still there.
Speaker 1: So how do you face it, knowing that you won't see her again?
Speaker 1: On this side of things, how do you face the day?
Speaker 1: What is your hope?
Speaker 1: And so Chris graciously wrote me this and I want to share it with you.
Speaker 1: She said after an unexpected and out of order loss.
Speaker 1: When your heart has been shattered and dreams have been lost, our lives changed forever, you search for hope.
Speaker 1: Just as there is nothing more beautiful than bringing a child into the world, we don't believe there's anything more difficult or tragic than losing one.
Speaker 1: If you haven't experienced this type of loss, we don't expect you to understand, while there is the hope that you will reunite with your loved one someday, when time here is finished.
Speaker 1: For a brief parent that feels like an eternity.
Speaker 1: But even on the hard days, there is hope", she writes.
Speaker 1: We had to look for hope in the here and now in order to survive not only this devastating loss, but our relationship and our relationships with other people.
Speaker 1: Our loss had tested our faith, and it's taken us a lot of work to get to where we are today.
Speaker 1: The last 17 months have been full of ups and downs, and we were told that year two would be even worse, after the numbness had worn off and all the first had passed.
Speaker 1: While this may be true for many, this statement shadowed our hope.
Speaker 1: Sometimes hope comes from the things many take for granted.
Speaker 1: If you open your heart and your eyes, hope is indeed all around you.
Speaker 1: Hope comes from the love and connection you still have for the loved ones or for the loved one that you lost.
Speaker 1: You're alone, that while they are gone from sight, they're not gone from your heart.
Speaker 1: Hope comes from wanting to help others walk this lonely journey so that they may not feel alone or misunderstood.
Speaker 1: I can hear Peter saying Do good and love.
Speaker 1: Do good and love.
Speaker 1: It just might save you.
Speaker 1: Some of the kindness and most humble souls you will meet in your life have endured something that has shaped who they are today.
Speaker 1: Because everybody has suffered.
Speaker 1: In some way we can minister to each other.
Speaker 1: Hope comes from the connection with yourself and with others, feeling heard, seen and acknowledged.
Speaker 1: It means everything.
Speaker 1: Hope comes from wishing that tomorrow might be a little bit better than today, and hope comes from loved ones, the family and friends that you continue to share this life with.
Speaker 1: Hope is knowing that there will be more days filled with joy, even though there are times where it feels hard and not of your reach.
Speaker 1: Hope comes from the days you got out of bed and you shower and make yourself a cup of coffee, even though it was exhausting.
Speaker 1: Hope comes from a beautiful sunrise or sunset, a sunflower that pops up out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: Can you hear her grasp of the beauty of life in the midst of suffering, the hardship cloud that grabs your eye that I would say you might have ignored otherwise, or the butterfly that lands on you and stays a while.
Speaker 1: Hope comes from the gratitude that even in loss, they were yours and you were theirs, and nothing can take that away from you.
Speaker 1: So may you know that you have been born again into a living hope, and in the midst of suffering you can have life and you're in good company In the resurrection.
Speaker 1: We have hope for resurrection in life, whether now, in the days ahead or at the end of time.
Speaker 1: That's ours, amen.