What To Tell Suffering Christians (Part 1)

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Well, today we're talking about suffering Christians and advice. What kind of advice would you give a

Christian that's going through a trial? So it's a fallen world, it's a broken world and so we deal with people that have been affected by sin every day.

Now, there's a way to minister to the unbeliever and there's a way to minister to the believer, two different ways, but today we're going to talk about how to give comfort, advice and counsel to people who are undergoing hardship and it could be physical, it could be financial, could be all the way up to persecution for their

Christian faith. And let's say they're in the Middle East and they're getting tracked down for their belief in Christianity and what would you tell them?

Well, we have lots of different ways to go about this approach, but if you were probably a

Christian counselor, you would take a certain approach. If you were a Christian therapist, you'd take a similar approach.

If you were a Christian pastor, you might take a slightly different approach, but this is good for people who are not just ordained clergy, clerical, this is not just for the reverends of the world.

This is for people like you who are listening, who just deal with other folks that go through troubles.

I mean, man is born for trouble as the sparks fly upward, as the book of Job says, one after another after another.

I mean, the sin of Adam, the covenant head has so affected the world that even

Paul says in Romans 8, that creation, what? It groans, it longs for the day of redemption.

And so this could be a Christian who is just affected by sin in the world, or it could even be a

Christian who's sinned and is getting the discipline and love from a father who doesn't punish, but chastens his children.

And so the advice that I'm gonna give you today is cross the board so you can comfort. And if you're a

Christian today and you need comfort, I have some good words for you. And they're not my words, they're the spirit of God's words.

And the reason why I'm doing a whole show on this is there's been some family tragedy here at the church and lots of difficult times.

And so I thought, well, how do you address these things? I'm in between books, we preach verse by verse through different books.

And so I just finished Ruth and in the fall, I'm still casting lots for Jonah, Malachi, Hebrews, first Peter and Judges.

So we've whittled it down to those. And so I don't know if it's rock, paper, scissors, shoot,

I'm not exactly sure. But in the meantime, before I go on holiday for a little while, how do you address the church and what do you tell them?

It is counterintuitive. It is like a no -co show from the apostle Peter.

Peter knew suffering, Peter knew persecution, Peter knew difficulties, Peter knew chastening of God's hand,

Peter knew that the world and creation groans and it's been affected. Even nature has been affected by the fall.

And so what do you tell a group of Christians who are really suffering?

So if you've got your Bibles, you wanna go to 1 Peter 1 today on No Compromise Radio. You can write me at info at nocompromiseradio .com.

We have that now. It used to go straight to me. Now that goes straight to one of the guys.

And then if you wanna write to me directly, you can write me at Mike at info. Mike at info, who am

I? Mike at nocompromiseradio .com. Otherwise the info goes to Spencer and then he will give you the generic answer that you're looking for.

Or he will forward it to me if it's more of a personal nature.

What do you tell a group of Christians who are suffering? How do you encourage them? What help would you give them for a spiritual boost?

And Peter says this in 1 Peter 1. Notice how he starts off the letter and notice how much doctrine matters.

This could be the subplot to this whole radio show this week and next week, that doctrine matters.

What you believe about God matters. I don't mean just intellectually, but what you believe about God and what you trust to be true about him is really, really critical for your spiritual vitality.

Peter, 1 Peter 1 .1, an apostle of Jesus Christ. To those who are elect exiles, we get a hint of what's coming.

How do you encourage people who are suffering and hurting? Elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, or as we say here,

Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. According to the foreknowledge of God, the father in sanctification of the spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.

Here's a Trinitarian blessing and introduction.

And now he gives both the Greek and the Hebrew salutation.

May grace, demerited favor, and peace, shalom, wholeness, wellness in every aspect be multiplied to you.

And now comes the answer to the question we started off the show with. How do you encourage other

Christians? And Peter, at the very beginning, starts off with the sovereignty of God in salvation.

He starts off with a big view of God. He starts off with God is sovereignly gracious and he initiates salvation.

Go back to your salvation and see who caused your salvation. What do you mean caused? Here we go, verse three of 1

Peter 1. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again. From the get -go,

Peter is saying, I praise God that through his sovereignly initiated grace, he caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

He starts off with election, sovereign grace.

He starts off with God is in control of everything and let's start off with your salvation.

Then he goes on to say, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith, the

ESV says, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith that is the salvation of your souls.

From the start, from the get -go, after the here's who

I am and these are the people to whom I'm writing, he starts off by saying, sovereign mercy,

God's work, God's initiation, God's great mercy. According to that great mercy, he's caused you to be born again and he wants you to just sit and dwell on that for a little bit.

You're going through a trial, you've got marital problems, you've got financial problems, emotional problems, persecution problems, job problems.

I mean, the list goes on and on, doesn't it? We all have those, have had them or will have them.

Difficulties in life, this is not heaven. For me, that's always a gut check. I have experienced so many blessings from the

Lord, generously given, graciously given, freely given that I start thinking this is kind of, this is like heaven.

This earth is heaven, but no, it's not at all. And so Peter says, I'm gonna start off by calling you chosen people, elect exiles.

Even though through persecution, you've got to run and you've run all across Europe and Asia, you're running for your own lives.

You have a salvation that is accomplished by the Father, the Son, and the

Holy Spirit. As Matthew Henry says, these are to ascribe their salvation to the electing love of the

Father, the redemption of the Son, and the sanctification of the Holy Ghost. And so to give glory to one

God in three persons. How great is that? Let's start off with a little bit of doctrine.

This is not anything near self -esteem. This is not even approaching any nonsense like word faith stuff.

God's love, his foreknowledge, he knows you ahead of time. Remember the word knowledge or to know in Hebrew?

That's where we're getting this idea. This is not to know ahead of time. God knows ahead of time. What comfort is that if that's all the word foreknowledge means?

Well, God knew that was gonna happen. Well, yeah, thanks. But Peter's trying to encourage these readers and these suffering

Christians. And so Adam knew his wife. We know that from scripture. And we know that the word know is used even of Israel.

Only Israel have I known among the nations. What do you mean? He didn't know about the other ones? Of course he knew.

So what does the word know? K -N -O -W, regularly, often, and in this particular case, for certain, what does it talk about?

That God loves. He loved before. And so don't think this trial is

God's not showing his love anymore and he doesn't love you. He loves you and he has loved you in eternity past with the triune nature of God.

And he has saved you and he has delivered you and he's going to deliver you to future glory as well.

This trial's not going to stop glorification. That's good to know.

The trial is not going to stop glorification. Actually, it's going to be used by God to help purify you, to help cleanse you, to help sanctify you, to help you say no to sin and yes to righteousness in a practical way.

And Peter just blasts off with a fireworks display of praise.

Blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. When that word blessed is used, it's where we get the word eulogy, a good word to speak well about.

It's only used of God. Blessed be. We don't talk about any other person this way except the

Godhead. Salvation is guaranteed. And we are to praise

God for that because if we could lose our salvation, we would. If trials could undo

God's love, we would be pitied, pitiable.

But Paul says in Ephesians chapter one, verse four, with the exact same language as Peter does here in 1

Peter chapter one, verse three, I'm going to speak well of God. Peter knew what it was like to suffer.

This whole book is talking about God's will is for you to suffer since Jesus the

Son suffered as well. And God's character, God's nature, he is to be blessed.

He is to be praised. One commentator said of this word, perpetual and unchanging blessedness.

You are to praise God for how great he is. Like David says, bless the

Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me, Psalm 103. And it's all because of God's mercy.

It's all because of God. Look at the text. His great mercy, his infinite mercy, his magnificent mercy.

Paulus, Pauli, his great amount of infinite mercy. You got a lot of sins.

He's got even more mercy than your sins. Isn't that good to know? That is good to know.

What is mercy? Showing kindness to someone who's in need and you alleviate their misery.

That's the idea. There's a creature that's to be pitied. And I'll use this just for illustration.

Of course, the analogy isn't perfect. But if you see a dog on the side of a road by the freeway and it's limping, it's got one leg hit by a car and you wanna pull over.

What makes you wanna pull over is you have mercy. Something's in need and it can't help itself and it's gonna be just destroyed.

And so you quick get into the, at your own risk even, you pull off to the side of the road and try to get that dog away from the cars.

Waste said of this word, God's kindness and goodwill toward the miserable and afflicted joined with a desire to relieve them.

Or maybe that was Vincent. I can't tell by my notes. So you say to yourself, this is the mercy of God.

You're already beginning to think about God. See how this works when you're in a trial? If we're not careful, we begin to descend down into the crevasses of self.

And Peter says, I want you to look up. I want you to look up. Jesus, he's real.

He's coming back. The father, he is a good father. The spirit dwells within you and has sealed you to the day of redemption.

Begin to think about God because theology drives out all kinds of woe is me, self pity.

God is so kind and so merciful. Cicero talks about this word kindness and mercy.

He says, it's arising, sorrow arising from the wretchedness of another suffering wrongfully.

Now we would take out the wrongfully part because sometimes we do suffer. Well, we suffer because of Adam's sin.

We have to own that since that's been credited to our account by imputation, divine imputation. Sometimes we just sin and we get ourselves into trouble.

But even if it's just sin in general, sometimes we don't even know, do we? We just are suffering.

Maybe it's just a whole collage of reasons why I'm suffering. My own sin, other people's sin, the world, the curse.

And I'm to be thinking about who God is. He's caused me to be born again.

Peter Kreft, the Catholic theologian that Paige Patterson wrongfully is promoting.

Kreft is smart, that's for certain. But you read his book, Ecumenical Jihad, the way to God is through Mary.

Figure that out through the surf. Get hit in the surf really hard in the head by your surfboard and you come up with that kind of nonsense.

Remember once I was surfing in Santa Cruz. That was probably two years ago. Had this really big, thick board.

Long board, it was thick. You can kind of catch the two inch waves with it. And that thing was in bigger waves than two inches and it popped up in the air.

And so when I came up out of the water after I wiped out, I didn't see the board anywhere. That's the first thing

I look for after I fall is the board and the thing comes flying right down on my head.

Whack, blood. And just smashed my forehead so hard that it just split the thing open.

Anyway, thankfully I didn't begin to think about Mary's the way to salvation.

But I could see how that might happen temporarily. God's caused us to be born again. Peter Kreft said, if it is the

God father, not God the father, who makes you an offer you can't refuse.

Really? Well, what about God caused you to be born again? So your sin nature, enslaved, depravity, somebody, someone,

God has to intervene and he causes you to be born again. And of course you respond with faith.

Spurgeon, I like better than Kreft. And truly this is a blessing beyond all comparison or imagination.

That we have been begotten again unto a living hope. Our first birth brought us into sin and sorrow.

But our second birth brings us into purity and joy. We were born to die.

Now are we born never to die. One man said how full of grace every sentence is here in first Peter chapter one.

Born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thankfully, Jesus Christ was raised from the dead because if he wasn't raised from the dead, there would be no living hope.

There'd be dead hope, false hope, fake hope, plastic hope.

I live close to the town Leominster, Leo Minster. And it is the home of plastics.

You can drive up there and it'll say home of Johnny Appleseed. That's more romantic. And then you can also say that it is the home of plastics.

And plastic is from the Greek word plastoi, which means what? Fake, it's fake.

Without the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, we have a fake faith, a fake hope, a plastic hope.

But since he has been raised from the dead, we have a living hope. And it is made possible as the

ESV study Bible says, because God thought of those who believe in Christ as being united to him in his resurrection.

And God causes us to be born again. As you were born the first time, passivity of regeneration is the theological term.

So too are you born again and you are passive. It is something that is done to you.

First Peter 1 .23, later he uses it. It's the only other time it's used in the New Testament. For you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is through the living and abiding word of God.

So Christian, you're suffering. We're gonna have to pick up the next week with the same idea here for part two.

But if you're suffering, you have to be thinking about what God has done for you. Of course, if you're not a Christian, this suffering

I hope is driving you to the cross and driving you away from self -will, self -dependence, self -salvation, self -sufficiency.

And I hope you are driven to the resurrected Jesus who died for sinners like you.

I hope you believe in him. You must believe in him. But if you're a Christian and you're suffering, isn't it interesting?

There's been no, it'll be okay. Everything will work out. Everything happens for a reason.

There's none of that kind of talk. There's no talk with, well, probably the best thing you could do is have a couple shots of scotch, figure out what to do.

There's no escapism. Maybe let's just go see a movie and for two hours we won't think about it. There's none of that.

Let's go straight back to the Godhead and let's think about who God is, his foreknowledge, how he elects, how he chooses, how he has abundant mercy, sovereign mercy, how he causes people to be born again, what he's done through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

And if God has done all this for you, glory is guaranteed. He's not going to start something and not finish it.

How unlike God is to us. I have all kinds of projects. Let's just think of books.

I have books that are halfway written. I don't finish books that are halfway read. I don't finish projects around the house, quarter of the way done.

I don't finish. But when God starts, he finishes. Aren't you glad? This is the key for comfort for a

Christian who is suffering in any way, shape or form. 1 Peter 1, verses three and following.

My name's Mike Abendroth, nocompromiseradio .com. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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