This coming Sunday at Christ Covenant Church (3cs-canton.org), I am teaching the end of 1 Peter 4. This section of Peter’s first epistle is about fighting for joy amidst suffering.

Here is the last verse from chapter 4: “Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good” (1 Pt 4:19).

About this theme of godly joy amidst sufering Richard Sibbes wrote the following:

It is the work of the flesh and blood to depart from God, but when a man goes to God it is a sign he has more than flesh and blood in him, for this cannot be done without a supernatural work of faith, which alone will make a sinful conscience fly to God, look to him as a father in Christ, and desire him by his almighty power, whereby he created heaven and earth, to create faith in the soul. And when you have cast your soul into the arms of the Almighty, labor to settle it there and to quiet yourself in the discharge of your duty; say thus, “Now I have done that which belongs to me; let God do that which belongs to him. I will not trouble myself about God’s work but in well-doing commit my soul to him alone with the rest.” Christians should not outrun God’s providence and say, “What shall become of me? This trouble will overwhelm me!” But serve his providence in the use of the means, and then leave all to his disposal. Especially this duty is needful in the hour of death, or when some imminent danger approaches; but then it will be a hard work, except it be practiced aforehand.

Suffering as a Christian is ordained to deepen our faith in the sufficiency of God. Pain is part of the providence of God whereby the Christian both sees his situation for what it is but simultaneously sees that it is temporal and designed to sanctify the believer, deepen his trust in the providence and sufficiency of God, refine him, purify him, shape him into a vessel fit for the potter’s hands.

Peter says we are to entrust our souls (v. 19). To whom? Does it say we’re to entrust our souls to happy-clappy psychological bromides and self-talk? No. He says we’re to entrust our souls “to a faithful Creator.” In other words, we’re to cast the nets of our trust onto the rock that is everlasting: God.

Pain and suffering as a Christian are ordained by God not that we would shake our fists at God in anger or resentment or despair, but that we would develop deeper understandings of the sufferings of Christ on our behalf, that we would grow more Christlike in faithfulness, humility, and service in the kingdom, knowing that God sees all and that the judge of all the earth does only that which is right.