Be Perfect In Suffering

[00:00:00] And that is upon the commands of Christ. And that's been a long series, probably the longest that I've ever preached. But we've gotten into one of the commands that now this is the fifth message, just on this one command. Amen. And I think that's the first time that's happened too in these different commands that we've been talking about. But it seemed like I got into this command. The command is, Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect. [00:00:35] And as I started out on that, and it was being, that context there was being perfect in love And how that if we have a perfect love, we become perfect But I also noticed in the scriptures that it talked about other things that were involved that bring perfection to us I think one was our words that we say, another was being perfect in patience and then there was the being perfect through the word of God itself [00:01:08] and now this morning we want to look at how that suffering brings perfection to us. Now this kind of goes along, I didn't intend for it to go along with the Sunday school lesson but there were some things that related to it, at least in our class But how that suffering brings a perfection to our life I don't believe we're going to experience real growth and perfection without it [00:01:42] It seems like that this is going to be something that is very necessary for us We're going to be looking mainly in the book of 1 Peter today And I found here that I realized that in reading 1 Peter that the theme really here is suffering. And Peter seems to be one that had experience with that. But he's writing here to believers in different places. [00:02:13] In verse 1 he talks about Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. and but including all of us he's writing here how to deal with suffering and in verses 6 and 7 there of chapter 1 he says wherein ye greatly rejoice though now for a season if need be ye are in heaviness through manifold or many different kinds of temptations That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. [00:02:56] And that's kind of the theme of the book as we go through. Now let's go over to chapter 5. And I'm going to read the first 11 verses of chapter 5. The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. Feed the flock of God. Now he's talking to the elders, he's talking to the leaders here, but I think as we go through we'll see that he's really talking again to all of us. [00:03:29] Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind, neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another. [00:04:00] He's kind of getting back here now to everyone, isn't he? Likewise, I see, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time Casting all your care upon him for he careth for you Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour [00:04:37] Whom resists steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, and now this is kind of the main verse that we want to be looking at. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect. Establish, strengthen, settle you. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. [00:05:12] Those last two verses are sort of a benediction here to the book. Now, he talks here, in that verse here, that after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect. And that's the goal here that I think the Lord has for us. What constitutes suffering? If you remember here, a few weeks ago, when Brother Walter was talking, maybe not all of you are here, but on the DVD, [00:05:49] when he was talking about the persecution and the suffering that the Anabaptists experienced back in the 1500s, during the first part of the Anabaptist movement. And Brother Walter said, and I have to agree with him, I have the same experience, I have not experienced that kind of suffering where people were taken and put in prison and beaten and even put to the stake and burned alive or beheaded and any number of things that happened to them, put on the rack and that type of thing. [00:06:28] I have not experienced that. So does that mean that we have not experienced this kind of suffering that he's talking about here? So what really constitutes the suffering that is being mentioned? In the context here, he talks about Satan. And if we back up there in verse 8, he talks about Satan as being a roaring lion and so on, and we'll see that in just a little bit. [00:06:58] But we know that Satan has a goal. And one of the things that Satan wants to do is he wants to bring torment to us. And he wants to try to destroy us. And he will do that through various ways that Satan will try to do that. His goal is to destroy our faith and to turn us away from the Lord. [00:07:33] And so he uses suffering to do that. Now I'd like to contrast this morning how that both Satan and the Lord use suffering. I guess I never really stopped to think about that before. Both Satan and the Lord use suffering in our lives. Both of them use that as a tool. But they have entirely different purposes in it. [00:08:07] We need to remember that. They have an entirely different purpose in their use of suffering. First of all, let's look at Satan's goal. Satan's goal is destruction and as I said he wants us to, he wants to use suffering in our lives in order to turn us away from God. In order to cause us to reject Christ or to even cause us to never accept him in the first place. [00:08:39] And that's the goal of Satan in that. And really, his ultimate goal there in that is against God himself. He has such a hatred for God that any time he can get people to reject the Lord, then he feels like he's doing that against God himself. Now, a couple of good examples of this in the scriptures, and the first one, of course, you think of is Job himself. Job, the Bible talks about the sufferings of Job. [00:09:14] Now, as I thought about this, and as I studied Job, I thought, you know, Job did not experience those kind of sufferings that we talked about earlier, about what the Anabaptists and other faithful martyrs have suffered. Job's sufferings were not being in prison, was not being beaten, was not hung on the rack, wasn't that type of suffering, was it? [00:09:48] Job's suffering was the fact that Satan caused him to lose his children and all his possessions in one day. Now that's suffering. I don't care what anyone says. That it would be suffering. And probably none of us know how we would react to something like that. And I hope by the grace of God we could react like Job did. But that has to be suffering. And I believe that Satan continues to use that very thing. [00:10:24] Difficulties, perhaps sickness. Or, you know, and Job, Job did use that, or Satan used that on Job later on too. And so I think that, that Satan continues to use those types of things in our lives. But his goal again is to take and to cause us to turn our backs upon the Lord. Now, we know that how that, in the case of Job, God turned around and used that as a great blessing. [00:11:02] Just think how often and how much that Job, the story of Job, has meant down through the centuries to the people of God. In trying to understand suffering and going through suffering and how that Job responded. and what a blessing that's been. Satan thought he was going to use it to destroy Job and to cause him to curse God. But God turned around and took that whole story and that whole account [00:11:35] and made a real blessing out of it for all of us. So, there again, Satan tried to destroy and the Lord did just the opposite. We also have the example of Jesus himself. And I believe we all would realize that when it came to the suffering and the crucifixion of Jesus, that Satan was behind that. Satan, I'm just going to ask an usher, there's somebody walking around outside, just, you can check it out. [00:12:09] How that Satan wanted to defeat Jesus and how that Satan had that goal of taking and I think here again he was wanting to get back to God through Jesus. And if he could destroy Jesus, that he would be able to get back at God for it. [00:12:44] And so we know that over in 1 Corinthians 2.8, let's just go over to that. 1 Corinthians 2.8 Talking there about what happened there, it says, Which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. [00:13:16] And we see where Satan used the princes of this world to try to get and to destroy the Lord, to destroy Jesus. And there again, though Satan tried to do that, God took that and turned it around and used it for the greatest blessing that mankind has ever experienced. And that's our own salvation. And I just am so thankful for what God has done. [00:13:53] And how that even though Satan seems to so often want to destroy, that God is able to turn that around and use it for good. Now going back over here to 1 Peter chapter 5, he gives a description of Satan. I think it's good for us to stop sometimes and just stop and think about how Satan works and what he tries to do in our life. We have here that he says, be sober and be vigilant because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. [00:14:37] The picture here is of a lion. Now, several years ago, over here in the little town of Findlay, there were some people there that had a lion. Remember? Some of you remember that? And out on the south end of town there, they had this fence up, and they had this lion laying there. Of course, that word got around pretty quick, and we drove by. and to me that fence didn't look real substantial but people were concerned about it [00:15:11] and finally the township or the authorities or somebody made them get rid of it but you know and how concerned people were because of that lion but Satan is the very same way he's loose to a degree We know that the Lord is greater than what he is. But it seems like people get careless about Satan. And they, oh well, you know, we don't worry about him too much. [00:15:44] But it says he is a roaring lion. And the idea there is that roar that a lion gives before they spring is to put fear into that animal that they want to catch. In the same way that the devil wants to immobilize us with fear, sometimes he can bring a roar into our life. And it just seems like something just overwhelms us in a hurry. But he's trying to do that to instill fear into us. [00:16:20] Because he knows that when we are fearful, it stops us. And it stops us from moving forward. And it stops us from really putting our confidence and trust in the Lord. What do we fear? You ever stop and ask, what do we fear? We fear failure, don't we? We don't like to have something fail that we're doing. Perhaps we fear sickness. Perhaps we fear death, either for ourselves or for a loved one. [00:16:53] And so there's all kinds of fears that develop in our lives. And you know I found that fear causes us to make bad decisions. Fear causes us to make bad decisions. And Satan loves to roar into our lives and so that bad decisions are made and he even gets to where we can reject the Lord. Satan is also called the accuser of the brethren That's over in the book of Revelation [00:17:24] But over in Luke 22, Jesus says to Peter He said, Peter, Satan wanted to have you I think Satan was accusing about Peter to Jesus And he says, Satan wanted to have you, he wanted to sift you like wheat But he said, I stopped him And I prayed for you and so on And so Satan is one that accuses us and we can expect that to continue to happen in our lives. [00:17:57] And so we need to realize the goal of Satan is to destroy us and he uses suffering to do that. But now let's look at God's goal through suffering. What does the Lord want to accomplish in our life? He has a goal for us. And I believe that he wants to accomplish things in our life that will never be done in any other way. And his goal is to bring perfection, as it says here in verse 10. [00:18:30] Going back here in 1 Peter, go to chapter 4. It says, for as much, verse 1, chapter 4, verse 1, For as much then as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, Christ suffered for us. Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind. We're going to have to have the proper mind when it comes to this thing of suffering. For he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. [00:19:01] Now I've often thought about that verse and I don't, is that saying that if a person has suffered, they never sin again? Well, I believe that, I do believe, read the next verse, that he should no longer live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lust of men, but to the will of God. I believe when we let God work through the suffering that takes place in our lives, I believe we're going to accomplish a discipline and a victory over sin that we would not accomplish otherwise. [00:19:43] I believe that it's just not going to happen the same way. And he's saying here, if we have suffered in the flesh, and we've done it in the right way, and we've let God work through us and use us in it, then he is going to accomplish something that we would never have been accomplished any other way. So I believe that's a real blessing that he brings to us. Now, I believe that suffering is also used to help us to get rid of some of our independence [00:20:19] and learn to trust and depend upon others. Over here in verse 9 of this chapter 5 now in 1 Peter, he says that whom resists steadfast in the faith, Knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world And that world there means across the world Our brothers and sisters that are all over the world It helps us when we suffer knowing that they also suffer [00:20:52] And that we can identify with them in that So he's writing here to the church And as I've often said, we need to make sure that when we read these things, we don't only take them individually, but we also know that we suffer collectively. It's for all of us, together, and we'll see that a little bit more. Now, let's go to verse 10. And here we get then to the, kind of the core of what we want to think about here for a few minutes yet. [00:21:29] He begins here with verse 10 where he says, But the God of all grace, that is a beautiful phrase. But the God of all grace, that's the God we serve. Now this grace that he's talking about here, now some people only look at the grace of God as God overlooking sin. And that's not what he's talking about here. He's talking here about the grace of God that enables us to overcome sin. [00:22:07] And it enables us to overcome suffering and all of those things that happen to us in life. That's the God of all grace that comes underneath us and lifts us up and gives us the power and the strength that we need. That is the God of all grace that he's talking here Who has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus He's called us [00:22:37] And we have an eternal glory that starts here But we also have it that is going to be for all of eternity And we have to look forward to that Now, then he uses that phrase After that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect. Now, is that for all believers? Yes, I believe it is. I think that's his goal for all of us. [00:23:12] And you stop and think about this now. He's saying here, he is going to make us perfect. How? Through his grace. Now, we're going to have to cooperate with that. We can't resist that and say I don't want any part of that and he's still going to do it. No, we have to cooperate with that. But I like the idea there, you know, the command that Jesus gave was be ye perfect, be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. And as I said on another message, you know, when we hear that, our first reaction is, I can't do that. [00:23:51] Nobody's perfect. But he says here that the Lord is going to make us perfect. He's the one that is going to do it. We need to have a willingness to do it. We need to be willing to let him bring us through that suffering and experience it and let him teach us what he wants. But it's really going to be the grace of God that brings that perfection into our lives. That's what it's going to take. He's going to do it for us. [00:24:26] But we're going to have to let him do it. Now, the next three words here in this verse, I believe, really describe, or help describe this perfection. I wish I could tell you this morning what all that perfection means. Usually when something's perfect, it's perfect. And we know we don't live in a perfect world. We know we aren't always perfect. But I believe here we get a glimpse of this perfection here in these next three words. [00:25:02] Establish, strengthen, and settle you. Now those words are builder's terms. They are terms that a builder would use. You take those terms. Establish. Get something in place. Strengthen. Reinforce it. Settle. Get it on. Get it so it's all in place and it stays there. They are builder's terms. [00:25:36] And I think it keeps on with the theme of this book because you go back into chapter 2 of 1 Peter. And he talks here in chapter 2, verse 5, where he talked about the living stone and so on. Verse 4, To whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious. In verse 5 he says, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood, [00:26:12] To offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ And so he's saying the Lord is building a house And I believe that's his church He's building a house He's building the church of Jesus Christ Jesus said I will build my church And that's what Peter is talking about here By the way, who did he say that to? He said it to Peter, didn't he? It's no wonder Peter refers to it here, because Jesus was speaking specifically, and the others I'm sure were there too, but remember when Peter talked to him, and Jesus said, upon this rock I will build my church? [00:26:55] Some people think that's Peter, but I don't think it is. But he's building his church, and this is what he wants to accomplish in his church, you and I, the body of believers. And that is, he wants us to be strengthened, he wants us to be established, he wants us to be settled. Now that to me is real growth in the Christian life. And that to me is what he wants to help to make us perfect. [00:27:33] Why does he want us to be perfect? Do you remember what he wants for us as a church, as a bride? Go over to Ephesians chapter 5. Here again, this is a familiar passage and you'll probably recognize it right away. But Ephesians chapter 5 verse 26. He says here, he uses, he's talking about husbands and wives and so on and Christ and the church. But in verse 26, that he might sanctify and cleanse it, he's talking about the church, [00:28:05] with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. That's what the Lord wants to accomplish in his church. He wants to accomplish that in each of us individually. He also wants to accomplish that collectively in the church. Where we are, where we become perfect. [00:28:38] Where we are established, where we are strengthened, and where we are settled. And you know that's only going to happen if we build upon that foundation of our Lord Jesus Christ. You're never going to be settled if you try to build on some other foundation. Jesus gave that very good illustration of what we build on. He said there's some that build on sand, and there's others that build on a rock. And when we build on that rock, we're going to be established and settled, and we're going to be able to become perfect in Him. [00:29:12] One thing I've noticed here, I mentioned that this verses 10 and 11 were a benediction to this book. And as I thought about that, I thought, you know, it sounds familiar to some other benedictions that are in the Bible. And I thought of two others that are there. In closing, I'd like to just look at those two more benedictions. One is found over in Hebrews 13, Hebrews chapter 13, and here at the end of the book he gives, or almost at the end of the book he gives a benediction, and notice the theme in this one, Hebrews 13 verse 20, [00:30:02] He says, Amen. [00:30:34] That's the Lord's goal for us, is to bring perfection to us. And then another one over in the book of Jude. Jude is only one chapter. But verses 24 and 25, the last two, is another benediction. It says, Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you, what? Faultless, perfect, before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen. [00:31:21] You know, as I read that, verse 24, I had to think. Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, that's now, isn't it? He's talking about now. And to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Is that still now? Or is that only in the future? Somehow, I've always taken that verse as always, you know, when we stand before God, God, he wants to present us faultless. But think about it. Is that the way he wants to present us now? I believe it is. I believe it is. I'm always thrilled when I see something new in the scriptures. And it seems like no matter how long we study, we always see new things. [00:32:10] But I believe that's the way the Lord wants to, Jesus wants to present us to God now, is to be perfect, faultless before him. And here again, that's only going to be through our Lord Jesus Christ and his shed blood. But I believe he wants to work in us, and often times that working is done through suffering. The thing that we don't like And the thing that is so hard and difficult in our lives But the Lord wants to use that [00:32:43] Are we willing to go through those things? Are we willing to endure them? And say, Lord, I know you're going to use this for good I'm just going to have confidence and trust in you Lord bless you Let's stand for closing prayer Our loving Father, this morning we come to you realizing that, Lord, how much we really need you, that we need that grace that you've promised to us. [00:33:27] And Lord, I just ask that you would continue to work in our lives. And Lord, whatever way you choose to work, that we can accept that. And Lord, that we can have our confidence and trust in you through it. Father, this thing of suffering is something that we try to avoid. We try to do everything we can to prevent it. [00:34:01] And Lord, I just pray that if you are using suffering right now in our life in some way, that Lord, help us. Help us by your grace. That you can take what Satan is trying to do and try to destroy us. And you can take it and turn it into good. Lord, just help us to trust you for that. Thank you for working, Father. [00:34:34] And Lord, we just ask that you would dismiss us with your blessing. Help us to be able to meditate on what we have heard here today. And that we can apply it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.