Sufferings for glories 1 Peter 1:10-12
Sufferings and Glories
1 Peter 1:10 – 12
Connection/Tension
Have you ever considered that for most of the sin we ever commit, we first struggle with something called “distress intolerance”? Most of our rebellious decision follow pain or deprivation that we feel, and our attempt to cope or heal that pain in a way that acts without God’s help or guidance. It’s self-dependent ways of attempting to restore our life and inner being.
Jesus had to pass through distress and pain to fulfill Gods plan by dying for sins on the cross. Can you imagine the physical pain? The emotional pain of loneliness and shame? When the devil tempted him in the wilderness, he tried to persuade Jesus to alleviate his distress and need through ways of self- reliance apart from the plan of his Father. All the way up through the cross, that test did not stop, and Jesus’s success depended on maintaining obedience through pain.
Did you know that a necessary part of the Christian life is maintaining obedience and faith through pain? In other words, pain is not an excuse to neglect God, it’s a test of how closely connected to him we are. Do you worry about your ability to remain faithful to God through pain? Do you struggle to remain steadfast in different trials in your life? Let’s talk about these questions and more
Context
In the sermon last week that pastor Sam preached, we saw a pattern unfold for Christians: Christians will suffer and then will experience “praise, and glory, and honor.” A word that Peter uses that summarizes this journey is “salvation” (v. 9)
And in this passage, Peter is going to further unpack this idea of “salvation” and where this pattern of glory after suffering comes from for a Christian.
Revelation
10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully,
Peter further explains the idea he introduced of “salvation.” One way to think about this word is in the backdrop of “chosen exiles.”
To be a chosen exile is to be not at home yet destined by God to be there one day.
“Salvation” is a word that appears in the Exodus story (Ex 14:13; 15:2). It refers to the point of rescue when God opens the sea for his people and they pass through on dry land and the sea then swallows the Egyptian army. The crossing of the red sea is the inflection point where they leave captivity and begin their journey home. The salvation at the Red Sea is the beginning of the end of their exile.
You could think of the salvation that Peter is referring to here similarly as a rescue- as a release from captivity and the opening of a pathway to journey home. Yet, for God’s people, it’s happening at a cosmic level, it’s our journey away from the captivity of sin and death and our journey towards the new creation where we will be with our creator and Lord (vv. 3 – 5).
So, when Peter writes “concerning this salvation,” he’s writing about your life- your release; your journey; your hope; your destiny. As Israel experienced wonders to make it out of Egypt and arrive in Canaan, so our lives are a sequence of wonders where Jesus takes us out of our own Egypt of unbelief and addiction and brings us to himself.
Now, what else is this verse saying?
The trajectory of your life and what Jesus is doing for you is not happenstance, spontaneous, or unplanned. Rather, prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel wrote about it. A prophet is a person who speaks and writes on behalf of God who has God-given insight into God and his plan.
Many prophets in the Old Testament wrote about God and his plan, dedicated themselves to discerning how God would act in the lives of people like you and me. The reason why I mention “you and me” is because they prophesied about the “grace that was to be yours.”
If you struggle with a sense of meaninglessness or insignificance about your life, this is a word for you. What we are about to see is that our lives have an unbelievable significance that does not come from earthly accomplishments, but through being participants in God’s ancient plan for his people. The glorious, miraculous things that happen to you and through you as a child of God are a fulfillment of what God promised he would do.
Now, the next verse will complete the thought this verse started of what the prophets are searching and inquiring carefully about,
10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully,
11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.
To prophesy about the grace that was to be ours as Christians, the prophets inquired about Jesus. Why? Because as Christians, our identity and destiny are bound up with Jesus’s. He’s the key to everything.
So, the prophets were intent on figuring out who the Messiah would be and when he would come. “Christ” means “Messiah,” which means someone anointed to rescue or save. The last verse was about our salvation; this verse focuses on the savior, the one who accomplishes the rescue. If the last verse reminded us that God has a plan to get us out of Egypt, this verse is about the man God sent to get us out.
The prophets were able to write about Jesus ahead of time because Jesus’s Spirit was guiding their understanding of the future and of reality. The “Spirit of Christ” is another way of talking about the Holy Spirit, the third person of the trinity in verse two (feel free to look up there if you like).
Now, with the help and aid of the “Spirit of Christ” the prophets were “inquiring.” Inquiring into what? Searching what? This is a little bit of a complex answer, so buckle up:
One option could be their own prophecies or of other prophets,[1] although that’s kind of confusing to think about since they wrote those prophecies.
Another option is that they were searching the Books of Scripture that predated the prophets- that is, the books of Moses, the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. With the help of the Holy Spirit, they poured over the pages of what was Scripture at that point, Genesis through Deuteronomy, and tried to learn as much as they could about Jesus.
And why wouldn’t they?! After all, one of the most important verses in all of Moses’s writings is a prophecy that comes right after rebellion and death enter the world, Gen 3:15,
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
Here is a promise and a prophecy of a male descendent from the woman who would rescue and save from the snake. These words from God create the expectation of a human who would defeat the snake and undo his works, including death.
Look at these verses, do you see a sequence or pattern that sounds like our verse? Peter writes about “sufferings” and “glories” that this rescuer would experience. Is it not striking that we see this same pattern in this first verse about the Christ? The offspring “bruises” the head of the snake, that is, a mortal head strike. Yet, he experiences a wound in the process to his own heal. He achieves victory and glory yet only through the lethal pain of snake bite. He must pass through suffering to achieve glory.
It should also not surprise us, then, that a pattern emerges in the major characters in Moses’s writings and beyond- there are successive generations where deliverers or rescuers must suffer to achieve victory and glory- even think of Joseph from later in the book of Genesis- great trials leading to great triumph.
As they read these stories with similar shapes, it seems like the Spirit of Christ confirmed to these prophets- these stories are about Jesus- they are “picture prophecies” showing us what he will do (“Picture prophecies” is a term from Andy Naselli). They read Moses’s writings and conclude- there is an ultimate rescuer coming, and the way he will rescue is that, like those who went before him, he will experience sufferings and subsequent glories. Which, according to prophets like Isaiah (chs. 53 – 54), the messiah had to suffer to achieve that plan God had for him.
I appreciate that Peter uses plurals for the words “sufferings” and “glories.” Because just as with us, the sufferings of Christ are not few, but many. And just like us who follow Jesus, the victories we experience will not be few, but many, and even more than our sufferings.
When something painful or hard happens, the first questions we ask are often: What did I do to deserve this? Or What could I have done differently to prevent this? Notice that both of those questions are about discomfort avoidance.
Some better question for us to answer is, “Whom do I follow?” Jesus. “Did he get to experience glory by any other path than suffering? No. “How in the world do I think I will get to glory by any other path if I follow Jesus?”
When you start to understand your own life experiences in terms of the story of Jesus rather than the story the world tells you or you’ve told yourself, it changes your relationship to distress and suffering from something to avoid at all costs to something that’s necessary to pass through (this is why Peter calls our trials “necessary,” v. 6).
When you take this path, of not avoiding suffering but passing through, you have started to live with courage and resilience- your soul is becoming strong. When we experience discomfort, from sharing Jesus or any other thing, we will feel temptation to reach for comfort and control. That’s the response of avoidance and weakness that Satan wants you to choose to lead you away from God forever. Instead of reaching for comfort and control, we reach for obedience and intimacy to respond how Jesus would if he were us in the midst of pain- to respond how Jesus responded at the most important moment of his life- his death for sin.
It looked like the moment of greatest weakness, yet it was the moment of greatest strength. Jesus passed through it; he didn’t escape it. His strength rescued the world. God is wanting to shape in you a strong soul like his so that you become great and do great things in the kingdom of God.
Next, we see one other remarkable discovery these prophets made as they prophesied and inquired. Just a heads up, this verse is a little tough to follow grammatically, but I will do my best to explain it.
12 It was revealed to them [the prophets] that they were serving not themselves but you [Christians], in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven,
Another remarkable discovery these prophets made: their prophecies are even more beneficial for us after Jesus than they were to their audience before Jesus.
What could this mean? One example: prophet Peter cites later is Isaiah 53 (2:24 – 25) which talks about Jesus as the substitute for our sin, “he was pierced for our transgressions…”
Tom Schreiner is quite helpful here:
Old Testament prophets predicted the future coming of Christ, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
New Testament evangelists and pastors preached the accomplished work of Jesus also by the power of the Spirit.
The first one, predicting, looks forward to Jesus’s anticipated work with longing, yet remains unclear about who Jesus is and when he will come in history.
The second one, preaching, announces clearly the finished work of Jesus- of his life, death, and resurrection- with authority! It announces the outpouring of his Holy Spirit with power. We do not live In a time of pointing forward to Jesus and waiting for him, but one where we have him! Heaven has already given its great gift. Christ has come; he has died and risen. And Jesus has given the great gift that was his to give, his Spirit. So, we have the power and presence of Jesus with us. We live with the power and presence of Jesus- we are the most fortunate human beings to ever live.
The Old Testament people of God had to wait and wished they lived in a time when Jesus had come and fulfilled God’s promises and brought his Holy Spirit to his people so that they could live like he intended them to. In short, the people in the Old Testament wished that they had what you have now- Jesus’s presence is closer and his power more accessible than ever before in history. Moses, David, Ezra, these men wished they had what you have- astonishing.
Do you feel like Jesus is just out of reach? Do you feel like you just can’t quite obey? Are you despairing? I want to remind you what time it is in redemptive history- Jesus has risen from his dead and he has poured out his Spirit. The Holy Spirit that helped these prophets predict Jesus now helps you connect with and live like Jesus. Every Christian has this privilege of the same Holy Spirit.[2]
Have you fasted and prayed for God to give you fresh power to defeat whatever lingering sin, whatever crippling fear or shame, whatever vicious addiction clings to you? The Spirit of God is not a magic formula that makes hard things go away, he’s a person that helps you walk through it and emerge victorious on the other side, both in this life and the next.
The one who gets you through the pain that tempts you to forsake Jesus is not you- it’s Jesus and his Holy Spirit. We get help from heaven to endure the pain of earth.
Application
I want to mention one other reason why these prophets were “serving not themselves but [us].”
Our mission is to follow Jesus in everyday life while helping all kinds of people do the same.
Our mission is not just following Jesus’s demeanor (although we do that) but also following the patterns that shaped his life. One pattern we see here that we’ve already mentioned in this text is that suffering comes before glory.
The story of the world we were on before we followed Jesus: we get blessing by avoiding suffering at all costs or escape from it by any means possible.
The story we receive from Jesus: we must pass through suffering to obtain the glory on the other side of it.
If there is a shape that depicts this pattern in Jesus’s life, it’s the letter “J” (I get this from Paul Miller). In other words, Jesus steadfastly keeps to God’s plan for his life, even if it leads him into distress or pain because he knows God will elevate him on the other side.
I want to call everyone to embrace the life shape of “J.” The “J” shape implies that the path to glory (the upswing of the “J”) follows the journey through pain (the downward swoosh).
This means two things:
1. You expect to suffer (the letter moves down before it moves up)
2. You expect God to deliver you by accomplishing something of greater value than when you suffered (the part that moves up higher than the other part of the letter moved down). This is the way.
This is an pattern the prophets wrote about (“sufferings and glories”); it’s one that Jesus fulfilled and invites us to follow him into. For example, your kids/wife/friend or someone you are sharing with Jesus about says something wounding to you. Rather than retaliating, you explain, “I felt hurt when you said…”
Your admission that you were hurt reveals your vulnerability (you moved down). Yet, God uses your admission of vulnerability to help the other person see they did not speak rightly, move toward reconciliation, and create more trust between you moving forward (you both move up). Sometimes it works out this cleanly, a lot of times it is far more mysterious. Yet, the essence of it is that we trust God’s plan to elevate his people who suffer and trust.
Josh’s Story
This pattern of suffering before glory brings to mind a story of something that recently happened to a family member of mine and Charlotte’s. His name is Josh. He was recently working on the house for his family when he slipped off the roof, broke his back, and severed some of his spinal nerves. He has a family with four children. This is devastating for them. He’s working on getting full functioning of his right leg back.
Recently, Josh wrote an update on his caring bridge that rocked my family and me. I want to share a few parts of it. After he shared the story of his horrifying fall, and the song God brought to mind while he was waiting for emergency surgery on his back which was All Glory Be to Christ. Here is what he wrote:
“God is gracious, good, and kind. He knew long ago that I would slip from that roof. He knew that I would hear that song when we visited my brother for Christmas. He knew that his Spirit would speak that song to me and pierce the pain and confusion of my brain. He knew that it would bring complete peace. He knew that the warm weather would turn the rock hard ground into something forgiving. He knew that I would slip exactly where I did, so that I landed between two steel stakes sticking from the ground. He knew that in my pain the only prayer I could pray was HELP ME. This is a story of how God took that simple broad stroke prayer, and chose to fill it in completely.”
Here’s more, after he recounts how a family friend came and offered to finish building his house for him after hearing about that fall:
“[God] knew that my wife was 36 weeks pregnant and hurting to see her husband suffer. He gave her joy and peace, he made her a rock that I could lean on and a tower of strength for my soul. Each time I looked at her I saw God sustaining her and overflowing peace out of her onto me and onto my family. He knew that I was someone who is prone to despair, prone to ask why, prone to doubt his goodness… So he shone the blinding light of his grace into every square inch of my life, so that even if I tried, there wasn’t a dark place to be found. Only God can do that. Only God can take what should have been the worst time in my life and make it one of the sweetest. Only God can have me fall off a roof and get my house built faster. Only God can see me not able to work and give me more money. Only God can pierce the darkness of a trauma stricken brain and bring music. Only God can give me a certainty that if I could go back and cause this to not happen, I would not.”
As I read these words, can you sense the glories coming out of his soul through his words and the glories and victories he is experiencing through others? The image of his house being built by sheer grace is an image for how God is using this tragedy to elevate him, his character, his perspective, his intimacy with Christ, the certainty of his final home with Jesus forever, all of these growing. Instead of turning against God, he’s decided to follow Jesus through the pain and back to the Father; is it not a glorious journey?
If only I had the strength and faith to respond to ten thousand annoyances and pain points in my own life- how holy of man I would be!
The main point I want to share with you this morning is: Suffering with and like Jesus is the path to experiencing glory with Jesus. The pattern of sufferings that lead to glory was what the prophets of old saw when they were looking for Jesus.
If you follow Jesus, there isn’t another way. This is the road he walked. It’s the one he invites us to follow. This is the way home for exiles. Rescue happens in the midst of pain, it often doesn’t keep us from it. What are you wanting more this morning, not to suffer or Jesus?
This is the glorious path the ancient prophets predicted that Jesus would walk and that we would walk with him. These wonders are the things, as Peter says,
into which angels long to look.
The prophets and the angels find the stuff happening in your life that you surrender to Jesus to seek closeness with him to be the most interesting thing in the world.
Question for you, If you don’t know the Jesus Josh talked about, do you want to?
And if you do, do you want more of him enough to suffer with him instead of running away?
[1] Wayne A. Grudem, 1 Peter: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 17, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 73.
[2] And those who preached did so ‘in (the power and character of)’ or ‘by means of (both senses are possible) the Holy Spirit sent from heaven
