Happiness is the greatest pursuit of our day. You and I chase it down through the things we believe will make life richer and better. We eat well because we want to feel healthy and happy. We work hard because the paycheck promises to buy us a piece of it. We park ourselves in front of a football game on Saturday or Friday night hoping for a taste of happiness. Happiness is not the enemy. It is a gift from the Lord when it comes to us. But if happiness is the only thing we have to look forward to, we will spend the rest of our lives watching it walk away from us. Happiness is a fleeting emotion. It rises and falls with circumstance. The moment the circumstance changes, the feeling leaves with it.

Joy is a different animal altogether. Joy is not tethered to your mood on a Tuesday morning. Joy is not dependent on how the week went or how your kids behaved at dinner. Joy is a future reality and a present reality for the believer, and is one of the deepest graces God has given to those who are anchored in Jesus Christ. C.S. Lewis put it this way: “Joy is the serious business of heaven.” Not the silly business or the casual business, but the serious, weighty, settled business of heaven. If joy is the serious business of heaven, then learning to live anchored in it is the serious business of the Christian life.

Peter is writing to believers who are watching the world burn around them. He is writing to people who knew what it meant for a follower of Jesus to be wrapped in pitch and set ablaze to light the gardens of Nero. These are not folks looking for a devotional to make them feel better about Monday morning. They are looking for a reason to keep breathing. Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, hands them a word that cuts through the smoke. He tells them there is a joy that circumstance cannot steal, suffering cannot starve, and death cannot swallow. That same word is for us today.

Joy is the Greatest Surprise

1 Peter 4:12 says, “Dear friends, don’t be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you to test you, as if something unusual were happening to you.” Peter tells the readers not to be surprised by suffering. I want you to feel the shift in his language here, because there is certainly one happening. In chapter 3, Peter used the Greek verb form called the optative, which carries the sense of possibility. Suffering may happen. Harm may come your way. It is the grammar of maybe. Then you turn the page into chapter 4, and the grammar changes. The tone tightens. Peter is no longer speaking of possibility. He is speaking of expectation. The sharks are not out in the distance anymore. The sharks are circling the boat.

Let me tell you, I am not a fan of sharks. I have used my fear of them as an illustration more times than I can count, but the imagery works. A shark expert once wrote that the odds of being attacked in the open ocean are roughly one in five million. You are more likely to be killed by a flying champagne cork than a great white. But the rules change the moment a shark starts circling you or bumps into you. At that point, the attack is almost certain. That is the shift Peter is describing. Suffering is no longer a distant statistic. For Peter’s readers, suffering was pulling alongside them and showing its teeth. Peter says, do not be surprised by it, as it if is something unusual.

The reason that word matters is because many Christians still carry an unspoken theology that says suffering is a sign that something went wrong. We read a hard season as evidence of God’s anger or distance from us. Peter is yanking that lie out by the roots. Suffering is not the exception for the follower of Jesus. Suffering is the soil where faith takes its deepest root. There is a story from September 11, 2001, of a passenger on Flight 93 who called his wife from the plane. He told her the flight had been hijacked, a passenger had already been killed, and she needed to call the authorities. She later said that the whole time she was listening, a thought kept running through her head: “We have great jobs, we have great kids, things like this do not happen to people like us.” That instinct is in all of us. We build our lives on the assumption that tragedy keeps its distance from our zip code. Peter lovingly corrects us. Do not be surprised when the fire comes. Be surprised instead that joy is still yours when it does.

C.S. Lewis was once asked why the righteous suffer. His answer was short and piercing. He said, why not? They are the only ones who can take it. The reason the righteous can take it is because the righteous are anchored to the joy of almighty God. That anchor holds when everything else gives way.

Joy is Strengthened by Trials

1 Peter 4:13 says, “Instead, rejoice as you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may also rejoice with great joy when his glory is revealed.” Suffering has two possible effects on a believer. It can either weaken your joy or strengthen your joy. Nothing about suffering is neutral. Something happens inside of you when the trial comes, and what happens depends entirely on where your anchor is set.

Joy is a muscle. I am still learning this truth. Muscles do not grow in comfort. Muscles grow under tension. You do not build strength by lying still. You build strength by letting the weight press down on you and pressing back. James says the same thing in a different way in James 1:2-3: “Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance.” Notice James does not say to fake joy. He says to consider it joy. In other words, look at the trial and reckon it rightly. Do the math with eternity in view. When you see what God is producing in you through the trial, joy is not absurd. Joy is the only honest response.

I want to be very careful here, though. You and I are not facing what Peter’s first readers were facing. The inconvenience, the criticism, and the cultural hostility we meet as believers in America is not comparable to Christians being burned alive as torches in Roman gardens. It is not comparable to what our brothers and sisters are enduring right now in parts of the world where conversion costs you your family, your home, or your life. We should never forget them when we pray. But what Peter writes reaches us all the same. Your trial may be the job you just lost. It may be the diagnosis you were not expecting. It may be the empty chair at your table this year, or the marriage that is breaking, or the child who has walked away from the Lord. Whatever it is, Peter’s word lands on it. Rejoice. Not because the suffering is good, but because Jesus is better than whatever the suffering is trying to take from you. Peter is telling a church under the weight of Rome to keep going. Keep worshipping. Keep praising. Choose joy. The glory of God is being revealed to a watching world through the great joy of disciples whose joy is strengthened by trials.

Joy Surpasses the Shame

1 Peter 4:16 says, “But if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in having that name.” There is a reflex in many of us to hide our suffering from the people around us. We smile in the church lobby because we do not want anyone to know how heavy the week actually was. We pretend we are fine because somewhere along the way we absorbed the idea that a struggling Christian must be a sinning Christian. Peter wants to pull that mask off.

There is, of course, a kind of suffering that is the consequence of our own sin. Peter says as much in verse 15, which says, “Let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a meddler.” If you are reaping consequences because you sowed sin, that is not a badge to wear proudly. Repent and walk in the mercy of Jesus. But that is not the suffering Peter is addressing here. He is addressing the believer who is suffering precisely because they love Jesus and follow Him. And Peter lifts that kind of suffering out of the category of shame and places it squarely in the category of honor. Romans 8:28 says, “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” Every single thing. The good you cannot stop thanking God for, and the hard you cannot imagine thanking Him for. All of it is being woven into something that will bring Him glory and do you good.

Jesus taught His disciples the same thing. They saw a man born blind and did what most of us would do. They assumed the suffering was the result of someone’s sin, either his or his parents’. In John 9:3, Jesus answered them, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him.” Do not look at your suffering with shame. Look at it with honor, because God may be using the hardest part of your story to put the goodness of Jesus on display in a way nothing else could.

Peter says something precious at the end of verse 16. He tells them not to be ashamed of having “that name.” When you surrender your life to Jesus, you take His name. My kids know a little about this. I have four of them, and when people connect our last name, doors open. A coach will pay attention. A person at church will smile a little bigger. It is not because of them. It is because of who they belong to. When you are anchored in Christ, you bear the name of Christ. You do not walk into the battle of this life with your own name on your back. You walk in under His. Psalm 16:11 says, “You reveal the path of life to me; in your presence is abundant joy; at your right hand are eternal pleasures.” The access you have in Him is not access to a sideline. It is access to the fullness of joy. There is no shame that can steal what He has given you.

Joy Supported by Obedience 

1 Peter 4:19 says, “So then, let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust themselves to a faithful Creator while doing what is good.” Maybe you have been reading along and you are thinking that joy sounds wonderful in theory, but you cannot find it in your life right now. I want you to hear Peter’s final word in this passage. The surest way to activate the joy of the Lord in your heart is to walk in obedience to the Lord.

Joy is sustained in the believer who keeps entrusting themselves to Jesus as Lord, even when the road is steep. Peter connects three things in these closing verses. He connects suffering with judgment and judgment with entrusting yourself to the Lord. Part of what he is saying is that sometimes the Lord brings a season of suffering into your life because He loves you too much to leave you as you are. He prunes the branch because He is after the fruit. That pruning may feel unbearable in the moment, but it is never wasted. When God walks you through a valley, it is because He has abundance waiting for you on the other side.

Some people will tell you that God is making it up as He goes. Open theism and process theology teach a version of God who is reacting to the world, adjusting on the fly, unsure of tomorrow, and in that telling your suffering becomes tragic randomness. Scripture does not let us settle there. Deuteronomy 31:8 says, “The Lord is the one who will go before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or abandon you. Do not be afraid or discouraged.” God goes before you. He goes before your joy. He goes before your suffering. He goes before the phone call you are dreading and the grief you cannot see around the corner. Because He has already been there, you can entrust yourself to Him. Obedience is the hand that reaches out and grabs hold of the anchor He has already set.

Some of you reading this need this joy today. You feel the weight of a life that is running on empty. You are tired of trying to carry what was never meant to be yours to carry. If that is you, the invitation of the Lord is open. Surrender your life to Jesus. Stop trying to pull the anchor up yourself and let Him do what only He can do. Others of you are believers, but there is a clouding of your joy because there is unrepentant sin in your heart. Bring it to Him. He is not waiting to shame you. He is waiting to restore you. Still others of you have been saved for a long time, but you have been resisting an obedience He has been asking of you. Maybe it is baptism. Maybe it is a relationship you know needs to be made right. Maybe it is stepping out in faith into something that scares you. Walk in that obedience. Joy follows obedience the way light follows the sunrise.

All Guys,

This is a night you do not want to miss. Set it aside for your own spiritual growth, and I promise it will be worth it. I want to challenge you to bring someone with you. This night will stretch you, and it will also be a real opportunity for men who do not know Jesus to hear the gospel and respond.

Colt McCoy will be with us, and I’m looking forward to him sharing the inside story of his life. He knows what it means to lead under pressure, to get knocked down in front of millions, and to keep his feet planted on something that doesn’t move. Joby Martin willbe with us too, and I’m telling you, he is one of the best preachers and communicators of our day.

Bring your buddies. Bring your sons. Bring your dad. Bring the guys at work and the guys you barely know. Just grab ‘em and let’s go!

Barbecue, worship, Jesus, football, and much more!

Grab your tickets here!

Church Family,

I want to invite you to join me this Wednesday evening, from 6 to 7, as we gather to pray together. Our church needs prayer. Our families need prayer. Our city needs prayer. And honestly, we need the kind of renewal that only comes when God’s people humble themselves and seek His face together.

You don’t need to come with the right words or a polished prayer. Just come. Bring whatever you’re carrying, the burdens, the gratitude, the people on your heart, and let’s lay it all before the Lord as a body of believers.

I would love to see you there!

Cannot wait to see you this Sunday! You are loved and prayed for!

Michael Gossett