Suffering for the Right Reasons

Passage: 1 Peter 4:14-19

When we encounter hardship or suffering, we tend to seek some explanation. As it turns out the explanations we come up with intuitively are often misguided. We conclude that we’re suffering at the hands of unjust people or an unjust cosmos; we conclude that we’re suffering at the hands of angry God. Either way we decide that we’re being treated unfairly and that if God loved us he’d make it stop.

In his first letter to the church, Peter tells us that suffering is inevitable. And he goes on to caution Christians not to suffer for the wrong reasons. The wrong reason, says Peter, is suffering the consequences of contravening God’s Law. If you’re living your life in ignorance, or willful disobedience, of God’s Law, you’ll suffer. Not because God is singling you out and punishing you. But because God created the world to work a certain way, and your resistance to it is creating disorder around you. You violate God’s Law, and things will fall apart. You’ll suffer. Peter says, “Make sure this isn’t why you’re having a hard time.”

That being said, Peter doesn’t claim that if you’re doing everything right you’re not going to suffer. On the contrary, he agrees with his fellow apostles that if you’re living the Christian life, suffering is part of the package. Why? Because you’re aligning yourself with Christ, who suffered profoundly. Ours is a world flawed by sin and embroiled in rebellion against God. Those who by their words and actions live as God’s allies will face inevitable resistance. A world that is comfortable in its opposition to God will want to silence and shun any of God’s human representatives.
Peter tells his church to take stock. To assess how they’re suffering and why. And to make sure they’re suffering not because of their resistance to God but because of their kinship with Christ.