(Faith Community Chapel) the Fiery Trial Producing Genuine Faith — Jim Bontrager

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Suffering as a Christian Calling

Last time I preached on prayer, you know, and it's a lot easier to keep, I feel like I have your faces and something like that, but the time before I preached on suffering, and you were with me pretty much, but I'm going to do kind of a second sermon on suffering, and it's not going to be easy for me to give and it's not going to be easy for you to listen to, and so I beg of you to don't turn the knob, whichever direction is off, and pray for me because I can't do justice to this subject, so I'm going to do the best I can.

Lord God, I pray that you would preach this sermon, and I pray that you would give me, I don't even know how to pray it, I pray that you would preach me a sermon this morning, and that you would preach all of us a sermon, and that you would talk to all of us from your very own heart in how much you care about us, and that you are not a God who makes us suffer because you like to see us suffer, but that you would help us to see how you think, I pray that you would help us to believe that at the same time that the things that you think have never entered into the heart of man, at the same time they have been given to us because we have the mind of Christ, and I pray that you would speak your mind into my mind and into our mind this morning and teach us truth, and teach us to look at our circumstances the way you see them, I just pray that you would make yourself glorified and as big as you are, or at least bigger than what I think of you as being this morning, and be with those who aren't here, and bless them and keep them safe, in Jesus name, Amen.

I read chapter four last time, last two times, because about six weeks ago, or I don't know how long it was ago, hey I'm going to get to preach three Sundays out of the next four, I'm kind of excited about that because I actually will be able to put a couple sermons together, you may remember what it was before that.

Christ's Suffering and the Meaning of Hard Times

Two sermons ago, I talked about arming ourselves with the mind of Jesus, if you want to turn to first Peter chapter four, that verse one says, therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, and I just spent the whole sermon trying to give you a good, good solid foundation only from scripture and from examples in scripture that every Christian will suffer, you will, and to see that that's how it is, but not so much looking at the other side of the suffering.

What is supposed to happen when you get through it, and it's hard for us to think of suffering in any way other than physical, Jeremy's mom, you know, those kind of physical, but I want to look at it this morning and instead of separating it out, remember, last time I talked about some of the different kinds of suffering in that even in the Bible, temptation is called suffering in some places.

Affliction is often used interchangeably, same Greek number, but affliction one time, suffering another time, and so, and Peter talks about suffering, if you follow it through his book, he talks about suffering that you can get from somebody's words at work in church.

If you suffer reproach, what is reproach? Reproach is usually words, but you also can go to China, and you can suffer physical unbelievable stories of people being persecuted there physically. I want to take all of suffering and instead of calling it suffering, I want to call it whatever hard time in your life that you have been through or are in or think that you see coming, okay, and just think of it as tough times.

So that can be anything from your child giving you a little bit of a different spirit, and you haven't had to spank for quite a while, and they're showing their teeth in a little bit of a different way, and you end up needing to spank them.

Is that easy? No. It is a little bit of a hard time. Then there's, of course, hard, hard times. There is real physical sickness, and there's things at your job. So first of all, I want to spend some time on that.

That's going to be my second part here. The first part, I want to try to, and see, just pray for me because I have a hard time understanding this. God's thoughts are just so far from my thoughts, and it's so hard for me to see this the way that I believe that he sees it and the way that I think that the Bible teaches it.

I never heard sermons on this when I was young, so I'm preaching something that I didn't read anywhere, and so, except in the Bible. So bear with me and talk to me if you think you're getting a wrong doctrine.

But I want to try to put suffering or a hard time in your life and connect it with the cross of Jesus Christ, and that all hard times or suffering are to bring about a death in you which brings life in that area.

So that anything you look at, anything right down to a spanking for your child, what does it do? If you really spank your child right, your child gets rid of the sin that you saw in there, so you put a death to that, say it's lying.

You can often cure a six-year-old, five-year-old, whenever they start lying for the first time, you can cure them with one spanking. Not always, but often you completely cure them. They won't ever lie again.

Sometimes it doesn't work that way, but sometimes it does. Either way, you move the sin out with suffering, and you suffer more than the child does. So you also grow. You choose whatever God's trying to slay in your life.

So both of you suffer, but you are putting a suffering on the child which moves the sin out and replaces it with, I don't know what virtue it is, you can pick a different virtue, but almost always joy.

If you spank a child right, they're always happy, I think 100 of the time. The rest of the day they follow you around, and so you see in a small way the principle of the cross right there in the spanking.

You take the child, and it's suffering for both of you, and both of you benefit. Both of you, God can even slay a self-sin in me in the spanking. I'm sure that he's done that in you. I'm sure that he's done it in me.

I come out of there more changed than he does. That's the idea. So that we can put it in a sequence, so that when you get squeezed at work, and I can't do this either when I'm in the situation, but at least maybe when you're out of it, you look back and you see, here was the hard time.

Here was the sin that God was really trying to deal with in me, and here's what I learned. So that without exception, every hard time can be followed with a victory. That's why they're there. That I can prove from scripture.

But I don't have a scripture except for the whole book of Peter to prove that every suffering is always going to work through with a death and a victory. But from the book of Peter, that's what's supposed to happen.

That's what I get from it. I want to make one thing very, very clear, and that is, I have observed by my mom for one, but also by Jeremy's mom and other people that I have seen physically suffer, and other situations too where people suffered.

My sisters at home, and times when people went through years of a hard time, don't start to think if you get a sickness in your family, or you suffer in a way that you look around at others and you think, I'm suffering more than they are, that God is dealing with a sin in you that is worse than the ones around you.

I have often, often, often seen that when someone really consecrates themselves to God, they'll deal with more suffering. And my mom was certainly, all I'll say is, a very holy pastor's wife, Christian woman.

Now when I look at Jeremy's mom, I see her as the same way. She's quiet, walking in victory, and God strikes the whole family down. Now she's in remission now, but I think that I could bring Virgil's whole family up here, and I could ask every one of them, what did you learn?

I guarantee Liz had a victory, even if she didn't have a sin that she was feeling like she was in. You know, Job was the only person alive at that time that God said he was perfect. But he learned something.

He said that when God has tested me, I will come forth as gold. He learned something. He was golder. You know, I look at somebody like my mom and some other people that have been sick, and I think they're gold already, but they are more gold.

They're more purified, and they can tell you how they were changed. I guarantee if I'd asked Virgil, he changed. Jeremy changed. I didn't even ask him, but I know he did. And his two sisters changed. Everyone that is around that situation comes out different.

There's a death that happens in all of them, even when she gets well again. So I want to make it, I kind of got off what I started saying there, but what I wanted to make sure is, don't you look at a family with sickness in them, in their family, and say, God's dealing with a sin that I don't have.

Yeah, they're going to come out more gold. He will deal with, and by sin, I mean something that's not sin at the time, but afterwards, you're two years down the road, you look back and you see, I never do that anymore.

That would be sin to go back to. Attitudes. Not being the first one to give up in your marriage. If you're the most spiritual, you should always give up first. That's all there is to it. The most spiritual one in any relationship will give up first.

You know, you can get in the ditch with that. I'm not saying that the man's supposed to be the submissive one, but anytime that there's an argument, anytime there's a time to say, I'm sorry, the most spiritual one will say it first.

Well, if you learn that through a hard time, you know, that's not nearly all of us say that we're sorry as quick as we should. That's what I'm talking about. Those kind of things. You learn that through a hard time and you learn from now on, I will be the first one to make things right.

I'll be the first one. Those kind of things. You go back, yeah, it's sin. But before you're there, before you learn that, it's not. So I'm not talking lying or anything like that that God's dealing with.

I'm talking growing issues. Things that become sin as you go along and you look back. Okay, so when I say that God is always dealing with something when we suffer, you have to look at it the way I mean it.

And not that as soon as suffering comes to a person, God's dealing with a sin. But in the process, he will deal with and it will come out more pure. I want to illustrate in two different ways, if I can, the principle that I see.

Death, Resurrection, and the Cross of Christ

The principle that I see in suffering, keep your Bibles at first Peter four, and at some point we're going to read that chapter. But I worked hours and days and days on this and it never came together in something that I could walk through systematically here and preach this to you.

So I don't know what I'm going to read the chapter. And I don't even know what God's really going to say this morning. If I can just get us to all understand. Because, well, I'll get into that in a little bit.

Two examples. One is me. I cannot get to heaven except one way. I don't mean salvation. I'm talking I'm born again, walking in victory. But the born again Christian can only get into heaven one way. By dying.

It's a very simple illustration. You only can release your spirit into the next world by a death to this body. And see, this is where you'll shut me off. Don't shut me off. This is not sad. Everyone in this room is going to die.

My mom has already died. If she can die, I can die. If she can go to heaven victorious, then I can too. And you can too. And it is not the end of the world. And I don't mean that tongue in cheek. It is not the end of the world.

It's the beginning of your world. And it is very sad. And I'm not trying to make any kind of an argument today that you don't weep your heart out when someone in your family gets sick, much less dying.

It is sad. It does take weeks and months and years to work through. But at the same time, it's going to happen. And all I want to prove to you is no one ever yet got to heaven without dying except Enoch, Elijah or Elijah.

But all the rest of us, we only can get there through one thing. Usually there's some suffering. Not always. Sometimes you're just taken like that. But usually there's some suffering. The suffering moves on towards the death.

And the death brings about a glorious life. All of a sudden you are walking with Jesus the rest of your life. It's awesome. Well, that same thing can happen every time you have a hard time. And I want to use Jesus' death.

See, you wrote down here, my death, my own death is going to be life. And without death, I am doomed to walking this cursed planet in my cursed body forever. I don't want to be here forever. If Linda would stay alive forever, I wouldn't want to be here forever.

I would die first 150 years from now and ask her to please die too. You know, somehow we have to get there. I don't want to be here forever. But if I don't die, I will be here forever. I'll be here. Bodies always dying.

Back hurts. Weeds in the garden. Everything's cursed here. The only way you can get to a perfect life is through death. Okay. Jesus, the very son of God. And I may have to read some of this. But Jesus' death was salvation for my soul.

And this is the part that I almost feel guilty reading to you because I cannot express to you what I'm saying when I tell you that the death of Jesus Christ meant salvation for you. And it was the only way salvation could come to you.

A glorious life could only come to me and you through the death of the son of God. He had to die before life could come to me and you. And it's the principle I'm trying to teach you in every area of your life.

Without the death of the only begotten son of God, Jim Bontrager is doomed to hell forever. And his death began with the suffering of all of his closest friends forsaking him. Two of them betraying and denying him.

That was, you know, all through his life. He never owned anything. He didn't even have a pillow to put his head on. So his life was never an easy life. And the last week just before he died, he spent the week fending off those nasty Pharisees who kept coming to him with questions that they thought he couldn't answer.

And that was how his week was. And come Thursday, Friday, all of his disciples turn away from him and his two friends go to him. And the one for money and the other one because he just thought maybe they'd kill him too.

And denies him in front of everybody. Just before those two friends actually did what Jesus knew they were going to do, he goes to the garden and he sweats drops of blood. And that's what I'm talking about.

He wasn't actually getting cut up. He didn't have cancer. He didn't have a sickness, but he was suffering probably more than he did the rest of the next 36 hours or 24 hours. Sweating drops of blood by himself, he comes back and his three people that were supposed to be praying for him and for themselves are sleeping.

And then he starts to suffer physically and he gets no sleep. They have the Passover at say from 3 to 6 o 'clock. And at 7 o 'clock he starts speaking out John 14 and 15 that you love and I love to read and 16.

And somewhere in there he prays chapter 17. And it's getting towards 7, 8 o 'clock and they walk out through there and he's looking at the vines while he's talking about John 15. I don't know how all that happened.

He gets out there about 9 o 'clock and he starts to pray. He prayed about three hours. And often the Bible doesn't tell nearly everything, so who knows how much he prayed. But at least three hours because it says three hours.

And so it's about midnight. Then they come and take him and take him back to Caiaphas' house. And now he starts to suffer physically, real physically, not just emotionally. And the servants start to hit him with the palms of their hands and he is moving through the suffering towards what he knows is going to end up in death.

And that's why the Bible says that he did it because of the joy that was set before him, which wasn't any joy of his. It was joy for me. It was because of what, you know, if I can get that into my head and in your head when you get into a hard time, look at what you're supposed to be learning on the other side.

He did it for me. He didn't even do it for himself. But it's a principle that's true every time you have a hard time. I just can't believe what he did. God incarnate comes down here and he allows me to hang him on a cross, a piece of wood that he knows is going to kill him and it won't stop until it kills him.

The cross even kills God. This principle is the slaying area in your life. There's only one reason for it. So Jesus allows man to take him and nail him to a cross for six hours for one reason, death. And the cross won't stop until Jesus is dead.

Don't turn me off. It won't stop until Jesus, the very son of God, God himself, who could take himself off the cross anytime he wants to and who could decide not to die anytime he wants to, stays there.

And most of the time you and my hard time works the same way. You don't have to stay in it. Sometimes it's a physical sickness you have to stay into. Other times you can just switch jobs. Other times you can just get out of your marriage.

We don't in this church, but that's what people do. You can just leave your church, brotherhood. You don't like it. You're gone. Jesus could have done that too. But you stop the death short and you will never grow to the place where God wanted to take you that particular time if you get off the cross because that you can.

The cross is to do one thing and that's to slay something. Something. Maybe you're far ahead of anybody else. It's still to slay something. It is still to take you to a higher level. So Jesus, six hours later, has all the life squeezed out of his precious body and he's hanging up there dead.

And the moment he dies, the curtain is ripped from the top to the bottom in the temple and I can pray and I can walk into heaven a saved man. Three inches thick, Gerard de Toy says that it would have taken six oxen on each side pulling with all their might and they couldn't have ripped that curtain.

And the minute that Jesus dies, the curtain just rips from top to bottom. He walked to the cross, let them nail him there, seeing the curtain ripping in six hours. See, if I can just get that, you know, look at your hard time.

The curtain will rip in six hours. Don't run away from it. Don't run away from it. Jesus said that the servant is not above his Lord, so I'm here to plead with you that if Jesus said that I'm not above him because I'm his servant, and if he learned obedience through the things that he suffered, that's what Hebrews says, and if he was willing to go to the cross to bring life to me, then let's try to see our circumstance the way God sees it and not fight it and go on through it.

Identifying the Hard Times God Uses

Okay, now I want to take just a little bit of time for you, be honest with yourself and look at where you are today, wherever you are, wherever you find yourself. I think, you know, it takes a little bit.

I could ask any of you how you're doing this morning and you would tell me right away, good. You're not really good. No, no, my job's good. Family's good. But if I would press hard enough and if I would press deep enough and if I would ask all the right questions, you all would say the same thing I do.

Somewhere, somewhere in your life you're being squeezed and you're being pushed out of your comfort zone, I guarantee it, or you're not human. Everyone. So I just want you to not think if you're in a hard time.

I want you to think about the hard time and think, identify it. And I'm just going to name a bunch of stuff that I thought of, that I have been through, that people go through, and you may not admit it to anybody, but if you can see it as a six-hour period that will bring about a new life in an area and try to see what it is, what is it that God, what is the self-sin?

Think of the sins in me that God usually deals with as just plumb self-sins. From overeating to not getting up early every morning and those kind of things. What is your place today? Are you in a place where if you make a decision, regardless how you make it, one of two groups of people will turn against you?

You know, you're in those situations often, especially with family. Someone is going to be mad at you regardless how you make your decision. That's a perfect hard time. That is an exact place that God makes for you.

It is such a great time to, and I'm not, you know, I don't cruise through those times. I cry too. I get mad too. I question God too sometimes. It's not easy. But if there's a reason, at least it's a little bit easier.

Are you suffering physically? You know, is your back almost keeping you from working or do you have another physical illness that follows you around that maybe you'll have until you die? You know, sometimes it's a long time.

Sometimes it's not a six-hour cross. But if you look at it, in a thousand years with God is as one day with me. And one day with God is as a thousand years with me. And I started doing some figuring until my mind quit.

But how much actually is your, even if your trial is from now until you're 70 years old, 80 years old, how long is it really? Is it 40 years? Is it 50 years long? Or is it actually about 40 minutes? I don't remember how I came up with this, but one time I figured out that my wife, my life is about an hour and 45 minutes if I live 80 years.

You know, which is it? If I look at it through the way that God sees it, how long is it actually? And once I'm on the other side, like Jesus was when he died and he looked back at the cross and he saw Jim Bontrager could be saved now and he was just jubilant.

I can't imagine how he felt after he got through those 33 years and he stood there and he realized, it really is finished. I'm standing with my father again. Everybody at Faith Community Chapel is welcome into heaven because of what he just went through.

You know, if I can, if I can just see through it and see the other side. I don't even remember what I was saying. Perfect. There's plenty of scriptures. Well, I think I'm going to go on before I get to that.

Is your family aggrieved to you because you come to this church? Is your family aggrieved to you because you have certain convictions? You can't do what they do. You don't go where they go. People that you work with.

Are you going through a difficult time in your marriage? Are you going through a difficult time with anybody that God has placed around you? And I think, probably, if you'd be honest, I would guess 7 of 10 of you are having a difficult time with somebody that God has placed beside you in some situation.

It may not be your marriage. It may not be church. It may not be, you know, somewhere. Somewhere there's somebody that you avoid. You're human. I think you are. You have me fooled. God places all these people around us.

What self-sin is God trying to separate me from? What is the virtue that God's trying to bring in and replace it with? The reason I think that if you take the book of Peter, you can take every area in your life is because in chapter 2 he talks about the workplace and in chapter 3 he talks about the church and in chapter 4 he deals pretty much all through the chapter with professing Christians giving you grief.

So Peter, I think, was taking all of it and putting it all together. Let's go to 1 Peter 4 and I would like to read the chapter. And I don't know, I'm probably going to do some moving around in the book of Peter.

The Fiery Trial and the Genuine Faith

Okay, Peter just got done, you know, at the end of chapter 3 verse 18, Christ also suffered once for sins. But at the end of chapter 2 he talked about it just a little bit more, looking at how Jesus suffered.

But then in chapter 4 he wants us to look back at the way that Jesus suffered and he says, Therefore since Christ Jesus suffered for me and for you in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he should no longer live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men but for the will of God.

Because that we spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lewdness and lusts, drunkenness, revelries, banqueting and abominable idolatries, in regard to these they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation.

Speaking evil of you, they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. If I look at 2 Peter 2, I think all the sins in verse 3 is what professing Christians do. It is true that a non-Christian can also do them.

But these are sins that professing Christians do that turn to you and say, It's strange that you do not run with us in the same flood of dissipation. In fact you think you're holier than me. You're some pious little Christian.

It can also be for non-Christians, but it is mostly for the backslider or the Christian that is born again but doesn't have the power like he talked to Timothy about. They will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

For this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead that they might be judged according to men in the flesh and live according to God in the spirit. But the end of all things is at hand.

Therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers and above all things have fervent love for each other. For love will cover a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. As everyone has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability that God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever.

Amen. Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you. In Psalm 23, remember David said, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

In the New King James, I think it would say, yes, and when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'm going to just look it up so that I know for sure how the King James, I quote it, but I don't know if I quote it, which version that I quoted in, but it's the same.

What I see is the same concept that he says in Peter. I'm sorry, I'm going kind of long here and I didn't realize it was as late as it was or I would have hurried a little bit more. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

It's also yea in the New King James. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Okay. Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you.

He does not make it sound like it's something that you one time pass through. And if you really look at the valley of the shadow of death verse, I always thought it's when I die. You know, I don't, I think it is.

But kind of like this other scripture is talking to backsliding Christians, Psalm 23 is talking about several different things. I think first, while I am alive, it's talking about yes, and every time that I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, if you think about it, that how many times did David go through a time when he had something slain in his life?

Aye, aye, aye. Year after year after year with the king of the whole land and his army chasing him around after he had been anointed by God to be king. How can this be happening to me? I think he knew what he was saying when he was saying yes, and even when I walk through that valley of the shadow of death that I have been through 30 times.

Where something was slain in his life again. And it was a shadow of what was going to happen when he dies and goes to heaven. The real valley of death. But the valley of the shadow of death could be where you're at right now.

And if it's not, you probably will be there sometime. The valley of the shadow of death, yes, and when I am going through the valley of the shadow of death, every time I go through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

And that's what Peter is saying. Beloved, don't think it's strange concerning the fiery trial which is about to try you. As though some strange thing happened to you. But rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings.

And when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. Let's go to 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter chapter 1, remember there was a verse there. I spent a little bit of time on it a year ago, but not very much.

Verse 6 says,. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by manifold temptations or various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, or the trial of your faith, means the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise and honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

All over in this book, it's like you could start off of chapter 4 and you've got a spoke going out all kinds of directions where he supports what he's saying in chapter 4 when he says, Don't think it's strange concerning the fiery trial which is about to try you because it is for one reason, the genuineness of your faith.

And follow the word faith through Peter. He is trying to give you and me a faith that will not fall short at heaven's door. A faith that will get us in. A faith that's going to get us in. There's so many people whose faith is going to get them to the door, but it's not going to get them in.

They're going to knock just like those virgins did. They're going to get to the door, but they won't get in. I want a faith that gets me in, and if it means some trials, I don't think there's any way around it.

Which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you. But rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings. I'm not sure what happens every time that you and I go through a hard time.

But when his glory is revealed, you and I will be glad with exceeding joy. Something happens in heaven every time you go through a hard time. And a death happens in your life. And by a death, I just simply mean you see a sin.

You know, I hear you, Holy Spirit, I'm going to put this away. And you replace it with a virtue every time something happens to the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven. There is a glory in suffering that there isn't in any other thing that you will ever face.

And that's why when there is a martyr, that man can be almost boastful in his attitude. There are martyrs who have stood out there and sang. There are martyrs who rebuked the executioner while he was doing it.

Even look at the spirit that came out of Stephen. Stephen is preaching along there, and he sees they're getting mad. He's preaching right to them. They were mad to start with. You know, he only started preaching because they were trying to tell him that he was a false prophet and that he was lying.

So he started preaching to them. At the end of his sermon, it's like he just rises up and he says to them, You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always do resist the Holy Spirit. As you fathers were, that's exactly how you are.