The Purpose of Hardship
Series: Holy Living in a Hostile World
April 21, 2024
Frank Foreman
James 4:14b, What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. At the beginning of 1 Peter, the author, one of Jesus’ disciples, reaches out to a community of believers spread throughout the known world. It’s likely these believers were Gentiles and citizens of the Roman Empire, but Peter calls them “God’s elect exiles.” They are God’s chosen foreigners who have been scattered and dispersed throughout the Empire and, their other shared experience was that they had been enduring all kinds of hardship. Every believer in Jesus is an exile. No Christian has citizenship in this world because God has chosen to give us a Kingdom in Him. Peter adds we’ve been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for both obedience and sprinkling with blood (1 Peter 1:2). Each of those phrases is another way to tie Gentiles into the story of God’s chosen people. Because of these things, it is inevitable that we will face different kinds of hardship, but those hardships themselves can serve a purpose in our pursuit of holiness. The sobering truth is that if we never deal with hardship, we may not be pursuing a life of holiness strenuously enough.
Episode Notes
1st Peter 1:1-2, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with His blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
Big Idea: Through holiness we endure hardship.
Through hardship we are made holy.
1. Find blessings in your hardship.
1st Peter 1:3-5, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in Heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Romans 5:3-5, Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
2. God’s blessings outweigh the world’s hardship.
1st Peter 1:6-7, In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
1st Peter 1:8-9, Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Matthew 5:10-12, Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in Heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
3. Your blessings outlast your hardship.
1st Peter 1:10-12, Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, 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, things into which angels long to look.
James 4:14b, What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
Next Step: What inheritance will you leave behind?
Choose a legacy of grace and peace.
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