1 Peter 4:12

Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you, but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's suffering, that when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy... Therefore, let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to him in doing good as to a faithful creator. — 1 Peter 4:12-19

Why do bad things happen? Peter answers not by removing the trial, but by transforming how we see it.

Why Do Bad Things Happen?

Why do bad things happen? That is one of the difficult questions all men struggle with. Sometimes we add, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" We won't even go there. But if you asked twenty people on the street why bad things happen, you'd get more than twenty answers — a myriad of personal, philosophical views.

Someone from a Buddhist or Hindu background might tell you bad things happen because of karma — your future and destiny are determined by your past, not only in this life but in others. That seems pretty fatalistic and deterministic. A Taoist might say it's an issue of yin and yang — nothing is truly good or bad, only the appearance of it, and in every good there is bad and in every bad there is good.

A naturalist or atheist might say there are no good or bad things at all, just random things in a random universe; if something increases your well-being you call it good, and if it decreases your well-being you call it bad. A Muslim might tell you that life is a huge pass-fail test, with Allah as the cosmic proctor putting you through these things to see if you are worthy of his heaven.

Even within Christian theology there are many views. This whole discussion falls into a category called theodicy, a word coined by an 18th-century German theologian. Ask a dozen theologians why bad things happen and you'll get as many differing views as you would among people of no faith.

Trials Are Normal

Peter has an interesting perspective in 1 Peter 4:12: "Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial." But here's the problem — especially in 21st-century American culture, we do think it's strange when bad things happen. Merely asking "Why am I suffering?" tips the hat to the assumption that trials shouldn't come into our lives.

Because every one of us has an inordinate affection for ourselves, when we suffer we grieve over it. We may even move through the stages of grief: shock ("This can't be happening"), denial ("This is not happening"), anger ("Why is this happening to me and not him?"), bargaining ("Maybe if I do this, I won't go through this"), depression ("Of course this is happening to me, it always does"), and finally acceptance.

Let me give a caveat: what Peter says here might offend your sensibilities. I've spent hours this week having my sensibilities offended by this text, and I'm only going to subject you to thirty-one minutes — so you're getting off easy.

Here is point number one: trials are normal. Peter essentially says, don't think it's strange when you suffer; think it's strange when you don't suffer. That small movement of the word "don't" presents a very complex architecture for suffering. So to the question, "Why am I suffering?" Peter might answer, "Why not?" — even, "Why are you not suffering?"

Normal and Abnormal Suffering

I want to set a framework. There are two forms of suffering. Normal suffering is what all human beings experience because we live in a fallen, broken world cursed through sin — cancer, disease, natural disaster, accidents. Some of it seems random; some of it results from our own decisions or indecision, when someone told us, "I wouldn't do that if I were you," and we said, "No, I've got this."

All seven billion of us, when we become self-aware, recognize that the world is not as it should be. There is a desire in us, a recognition that things are broken. But only the Christian faith explains why things are not as they ought to be. Read Genesis 1, 2, and 3. God created everything good; He intended a world without suffering, death, or sin. Through the fall in Genesis 3, sin and brokenness and a curse entered the world.

Abnormal suffering is suffering we experience by or because of supernatural means. The naturalist discounts this entirely, but the person of faith acknowledges there is more to this world than meets the eye. Depending on your view of God's sovereignty, you may classify it as God-ordained, God-allowed, or as suffering because you follow God in a world under the sway of the one who opposes God's glory.

Chapter 5 will introduce us to that adversary, the devil, who "goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." There is a supernatural entity who opposes all that pertains to the glory of God, and this world is under his sway. So if you live to promote God's glory, anticipate that you will come into contact with the one who opposes it. Paul calls it spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6:12 — "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this age." This abnormal suffering is what only the Christian experiences, and it is primarily what Peter speaks of here.

Beloved — Loved of God

Notice that Peter begins verse 12 with "beloved." This is uber-important. We've all prayed with Christians going through the fiery trial who are tempted to conclude, "God's against me. He hates me. He's doing this because He's angry at me." Maybe we've fallen into that trap ourselves.

Peter reminds us with this simple word that you, as a follower of God, are beloved of God. He's not doing this because He's mad at you. If God so loved the world that He gave His only Son while we were yet enemies, then He loves you even more now that you are His child. God is no more doing this to you than a loving father or mother would harm a suffering child.

Yet, as Scripture shows, God does allow us to go through things. If you're a parent, you know there are times you do not intervene because there is something you want to result from the experience. So Peter says: remember you are loved, and don't think it strange when the fiery trial comes, "as though some strange thing were happening to you." This is the normal Christian life.

The Bible never teaches that following God shelters you from trials. Jesus didn't teach it, Peter didn't, Paul didn't. We live in a culture that says, "You're a Christian — no trials," but the Bible doesn't teach that. And the question should be asked: if we never suffer any trial for the name of Christ, have we become too much of the world and not of the kingdom of God?

The Refiner's Fire

The phrase "fiery trial" is one Greek word, pyrosis — yes, pyro. It literally pictures the refiner's fire. You take metal out of the ground, full of impurities, and heat it to its boiling point so the impurities rise to the surface and are burned off, purifying it. The trial you face as a follower of God is a refining work He is doing in your life.

None of us like the refiner's fire. We used to sing that song, "Refiner's fire, my heart's one desire." That is not our desire. I hated that song. Every time I sang it I thought, This is not true — I don't want that. Anybody else feel weird singing it?

This word "to try you" is used by Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:13: "No trial has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the trial will also make a way of escape, that you may be able to bear it." It is a test — and sometimes we need to be reminded in the midst of it, this is a test; it's only a test.

A Pass-Test, Not a Pass-Fail Test

Does this mean the God of the Bible is just like the Allah of the Quran, bringing trials as a pass-fail test? No. Whereas Allah brings trials to see if the Muslim is worthy of his glory, God brings trials into our lives as a pass-test in which He reveals His faithfulness and refines ours. The test is not designed to make us fail; it is designed to bring us to see His faithfulness and to strengthen ours.

Look again at 1 Corinthians 10:13. In the midst of the trial we are discovering the faithfulness of God — "but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able." He is not doing this to make you fail. In His faithfulness He will make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it. Point number two: trials prove God's faithfulness and refine ours.

Don't Be Shocked — Do Rejoice

Peter says in verse 13: do not think it strange, but instead rejoice, "because in it you are a partaker of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy." Don't be shocked; do rejoice. I'm still working on rejoicing in trials — almost there.

We've seen this before in 1 Peter 1:6-7: "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold... may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ." We rejoice not because the trial is enjoyable, but because of its outcome — we learn His faithfulness and are refined in ours.

Point number three: trials forge our partnership with Christ in His suffering and His glory. The New Living Translation renders verse 13: "Be very glad for these trials, because they make you partners with Christ in His suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing His glory when it is revealed to the world."

Paul says the same in Romans 8:15-17: "You did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom you cry, Abba, Father... and if children, then heirs — heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together." If you suffer because you're a Christian, you are suffering with Christ and will receive also His glory.

On the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew 17, the glory of Christ was so awesome the disciples could not fully behold it — and that was just a sneak peek. Paul says eye has not seen, nor ear heard, the things God has prepared for those who love Him, and "the sufferings of this present world are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us."

Be Happy When Insulted for Christ

Verse 14: "If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you." The New Living Translation says, "Be happy when you are insulted for being a Christian, for then the glorious Spirit of God rests upon you." We're not happy because of the suffering or sadistically enjoying the trial, but because this is merely a blip on the radar of eternity.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:11, "Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven." There are ethicists who write that you should never serve God for the reward you'll get from Him — yet the Bible constantly says to serve God for the reward He gives. I'm going to believe the Bible.

Point number four: trials can produce joy in this life and will be rewarded in the next. I purposely said can, because the same trial can equally produce bitterness in the one who professes to know God. Think of the parable of the sower — the seed on shallow ground sprang up quickly, but when the sun came, it burned out. Some receive the gospel with joy, but when trials come, they become bitter instead of better.

What's the only difference between better and bitter? The letter "I." When I get inordinately focused on me — and by nature I am — I fail to see God and the work He wants to do. Who's the first person you look at in a family picture? You. The picture is good or bad based on how you look. This carnal nature that abhors any discomfort is the very thing God needs to purge, because it is not going on into eternity. This corruption will put on incorruption; in the twinkling of an eye we shall be changed and made like Him.

Suffer Only as a Christian

If trials produce reward, should we induce them and try to make ourselves suffer? No. Verse 15: "Let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people's matters. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter."

Let no one suffer in things that even non-Christians see as evil — murder, theft, evil works — because these dishonor and shame the name of God. But what is a "busybody in other people's matters"? Thayer's Greek lexicon defines this single Greek word as those who "with holy zeal meddle in other unbelievers' lives and affairs in order to make them conform to the standard of Christ."

In other words, if you suffer because you're trying to force your Christian standards and values on a Christ-rejecting culture, and they reject and persecute you for it, Peter says: don't suffer for that. Sadly, there are blights on the history of the church where, through political or military means, it tried to force people into a converted life. That is not the gospel as God intends it. The gospel calls fallen sinners to turn from sin to Christ for grace and forgiveness — not to be coerced by power or politics.

But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. The New Living Translation says, "Praise God for the privilege of being called by His name." Point number five: trials are the unashamed privilege of the Christian. Though a hostile world may shame and ridicule us, don't be ashamed — it's a privilege to suffer shame for the name of Christ. We do not glory for suffering, but we glory in it, glorifying Him for what He will accomplish in and through us.

Judgment Begins at the House of God

Verse 17: "For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God, and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel? Now if the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?"

Peter makes a complex shift, but it must be understood in the context of abnormal suffering. He indicates that the suffering you experience for God's glory is like a form of judgment. Here's the sobering thought: if God will allow His beloved people, who live for His glory, to experience these trials and not take them out of it — just as Jesus prayed in John 17, "I do not pray that You take them out of the world" — then consider what will happen when He judges unbelievers.

When Peter says "the righteous one is scarcely saved," he doesn't mean salvation is hard to earn — notice the person is already righteous before saved. Ultimate salvation, the salvation of our souls, doesn't happen until God redeems us out of this world. Peter said in 1 Peter 1:5 that we are "kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time," and in verse 9, "receiving the end of your faith — the salvation of your souls."

So if the one already made righteous by grace is saved through much hardship in this world, what will become of those who refuse to obey the gospel? It's a sobering thought. Point number six: the suffering of trials is as bad as it will ever be for the Christian. As one preacher put it, this is as close to hell as the Christian will ever get — but the hardness of this life is as close to heaven as the unbeliever will ever get.

Commit Your Soul to a Faithful Creator

Peter applies it in verse 19: "Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator." God is allowing it, even ordaining it — so continue to do good, entrusting yourself to a faithful Creator.

Trials are normal. They are the refining tool of God used in our lives as we are partnered with Him for His glory. Yes, we may be partnered with Him in suffering, but He will one day reward us as we faithfully endure by faith. So do not be ashamed of the trial you go through, and do not think it strange as though some strange thing were happening to you. Rejoice, knowing that this suffering is the worst it will ever be, and that God has a great reward for us in eternity.

Closing Prayer

Father God, help us to comprehend these things that are difficult, that our fallen nature struggles with. We don't like to suffer; we don't like discomfort. But I pray, God, that You would help us recognize that these things we endure in this life are a momentary light affliction working for us a far greater and eternal weight of glory. God, transform our understanding and help us to rejoice in whatever things we face in this life, knowing that this life is not all there is. Help us to have a proper view — to see You seated, high and lifted up — understanding that this is only a shadow of what is to come. Work in us this week, I pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.