It's Not So Strange – I Pet. 4:12-19

We have been talking a lot about suffering over the last 3 weeks. Today will be more of the same. Peter spent a lot of time in this epistle discussing it. That must mean his original readers were either already suffering or expecting to in the near future. Does that seem strange? I'm sure it does to many 21st-century American Christians.

We have grown accustomed to the idea that God is for us – which isn't untrue or a bad thing. But we are so comfortable in this country that we mistakenly believe that God's will is that we not suffer. We seem to believe that he wants a trial-free life for us. After all, we are his children. In reality, suffering is not so strange within the entire history of the world. God's people, whether Jew or Gentile, have a long history of suffering. We are unusually blessed in that our suffering in the U.S. has been minimal. Things might not remain that way.