Day 2404 – Our Fiery Ordeal – A Firm Foundation Through Fiery Trials – 1 PETER 4:12-19

Welcome to Day 2404 of Wisdom-Trek. Thank you for joining me. This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom Day 2404 – A Firm Foundation Through Fiery Trials – Daily Wisdom Putnam Church Message – 06/16/2024 Our Fiery Ordeal – A Firm Foundation through Fiery Trials. 1 Peter 4:12-19 Last week, Peter gave us Marching Orders for Soldiers of the Cross through four commands on how we should live in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. Today’s passage is 1 Peter 4:12-19, on page 1891 of your Pew Bibles. I will read it from NLT today to give us a better perspective of this passage.  12 Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. 13 Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world. 14 If you are insulted because you bear the name of Christ, you will be blessed, for the glorious Spirit of God[e] rests upon you.[f] 15 If you suffer, however, it must not be for murder, stealing, making trouble, or prying into other people’s affairs. 16 But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. Praise God for the privilege of being called by his name! 17 For the time has come for judgment, and it must begin with God’s household. And if judgment begins with us, what terrible fate awaits those who have never obeyed God’s Good News? 18 And also, “If the righteous are barely saved, what will happen to godless sinners?”[g] 19 So if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God, keep on doing what is right, and trust your lives to the God who created you, for he will never fail you. It is time for us to move on to the third and final movement of the letter 1st Peter. Here, Peter revisits the motifs of hope and struggle—two competing themes working together toward an awe-inspiring climax. In this section, Peter will comfort his readers amid their fiery ordeal (4:12-5:14). He will remind them not to be surprised at their difficult circumstances (4:12). Rather than being surprised, they should keep rejoicing (4:13), entrust their lives to God (4:19), and cast their worries on Him (5:7). Peter will also encourage all of us, his readers, to focus on God’s grace and to rejoice, turning our attention toward a firm hope through faith (4:19). So, in this grand finale of Peter's great symphony of hope, we see Christ Himself as the Composer and Conductor of our lives—our...