Basics to Remember in a Bad Season | Tough Times | Twin Rivers Church

Tough Times. And it is a book study, meaning that we're going to take a single book out of the scriptures and stay in it for several weeks. We're going to go verse through verse for others, helping you understand the context and the central message that is within the New Testament book of 1 Peter. And it came out of this experience I had. Some years ago, I had a friend who had a home on the lake. And every time he talked about this house, I mean, he just talked about how much he loved it. He would say, it's so beautiful, and it's just calm, and it's refreshing. And he just went on and on about it, just like he's got the best life because he lives on this lake. So he said it enough that I thought, you know what, OK, great. I'll bite. We took him up on an invitation. We went up to spend some time. And it is beautiful, and it was calm, and it was refreshing. Except for when we got out on the lake, we got out there, and he put a tube out. And he said, hey, well, let's have some fun. And he said, Joe, you get on the tube first. And so I swam out of the tube, I got up on the tube. And as I got up onto the tube, I thought, I have been duped. The handles were frayed from people holding on so tightly. And there were nail marks in the canvas where people would try to hang on.

Well, about that time, he hit the engine, the rope tightened. And I went for the ride of my life. For two minutes, I cried out to Jesus in every known tongue and unknown tongue. And about the time that I'm skipping across the water after being thrown off, I thought to myself, this is not beautiful, this is not calm, this is not refreshing. In any way, shape or form. Here's why I tell that story. Because I think there is a conundrum in Christianity where in an effort to describe Jesus as a better way, many people only use words like it's beautiful, it's calm, and it's refreshing. Or maybe it's blessing, it's joy, it's peace. And we didn't mean to do it, but out of a kind of an unintentional way, what we've done is the people listening have heard, oh, if I follow Jesus, life just gets easy. And there's this belief that when we start following him, there aren't tough times. And so what I want to do in this series, and what Peter's doing as he writes this letter, is he's reminding believers that the followership of Jesus includes hardship. Let me say it this way, it takes a mature faith to realize life can be bad and God remain good. And that's what we're going to dive into over these next few weeks. And here's what I want to start with today, it was kind of a foundational understanding, which is just answering this question, who's responsible for the hardship, the difficulty,

the tragedies in my life? Before we even get to the text, we have to wrestle with this, who's the author of the affliction? And the reason that you have to wrestle with that is really for this, because we all know many people who believe God is the author of the worst seasons of their life. And you hear it in things like this, like, well, if God was good, he wouldn't allow, and they fill in the blank. And so one of the things that we have to dive into is recognize that hardship comes by different means. And our spiritual enemy wants to take advantage of our lack of understanding, and he loves nothing more than to claim God is the author of things he's done to attack us. That's the reason he likes to take your tragedies and call them, they're just God's test. That's the reason he wants to take a diagnosis that came from the doctor and say, well, that's just God's development. He wants to assign blame to God for what he is causing in our lives. And so one of the things that you have to do to protect your faith is you have to learn to discern who's responsible for this hardship in my life. Now, let me say this, they're really in a simplistic way. There's only three ways tragedy, difficulty, consequence comes into our lives. The first one is my hand. Sometimes I just make decisions that bring bad things into my life.

Let me just say it this way. If I eat pizza super late and it takes away my night sleep, that's not the devil, that's me, OK? So sometimes it's just my own decisions have brought hardship. The second one would be sometimes the enemy does attack us. If you see in the first few pages of scripture, he's in the garden. And his attack on Adam and Eve helped break God's perfect world. Well, the same thing that's happening in the garden is happening in your life. The enemy does attack you. He does try to deceive you. He does work in a strategy to bring hardship into your life. But the last one is this is sometimes God brings difficulty into our lives. that comes in those times. And as we're going to see in this passage of the scripture, and oftentimes it's only in difficulty that our character is crafted. But here's the question, how do you discern if it's the enemy's hand or God's hand? Well the key verse to discerning that is one of Jesus's most clear statements on his motive for your life versus the enemy's motive for your life, John 10-10 says, "The thief," speaking of your spiritual enemy, "he comes to steal, to kill, and destroy." I, speaking of himself, have come that you may have life and have it to the full. So Jesus says there's not a murkiness to our motive. He says that the enemy comes to take, God comes to give. That the enemy comes to empty, God comes to fill. So the enemy comes to destroy, but I come and bring development so that your life can have more of what I desire for it. And I think this is important because it's very clear from this verse, God is not the

author of addiction, he's not the author of abuse, he's not the author of diagnosis, God didn't cause cancer, he's not responsible for depression, he's not responsible for deaths or divorces. But notice, God does not, he's not responsible for your tragedies, but he does take responsibility to bring good out of those tragedies. God's not responsible for everything that happens in your life, but he has decided I'll take responsibility and I will work this to bring about some good from this. And the reason you have to know who's responsible for what you're facing is because it tells you how to respond. For example, if your heavenly father is putting you in a development season, then you want to partner with him, not resist him. But if you're under a spiritual attack, you need to know that God has given us a gift called grace and it's in those seasons we lean into his grace. And one of the most clear ways to see this is in the life of the Apostle Paul, who was a contemporary to Peter, Paul writes clearly in moments of his life that I'm going to show him to you, that he knows exactly who the author of the hardship is and therefore his response to the hardship is aligned with who the author is. Let me show it to you. For example, Paul in Philippians chapter 1, he says, "I am in a season right now of difficulty, but I recognize the author of this is God and it's for my development." Look at this, Philippians 1, 13, "The Roman guards and all others know that I am here in jail." So he's in prison. This is not a comfortable situation. And he says, "But I have discerned, this is because I serve Christ." He recognizes, "I'm in a hardship because I have yielded my life to God." And he said, "I can send Paul to this place, though it not be comfortable, I can send him here because these guards, these people in this place need to know Christ." So in this moment, Paul, you don't see any resistance. You don't see Paul begging to get out.

He's receiving a season of development because he knows the author is his heavenly father. Now, on the other hand, in 2 Corinthians 12, 7, Paul clearly sees that he's under an enemy's attack. Let me show it to you. Paul says, "I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me." Now, we don't know exactly what he's referring to. Some scholars say that he had dealt with depression. Some scholars say that his eyes were dimming and they were going blind. Some say that he even had scoliosis. We don't know what it is. We know it's something in his flesh. But he knows the author of this is from Satan. He knows there's no good. This was meant to steal, kill, and destroy is what Paul knows. And out of that, his response is, "I pleaded three times with the Lord to take it away from me, but he said to me, 'Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. My power is being made perfect in your weakness.'" Notice, Paul said, "I took this to the Lord, and here's what God told me is when I'm under attack, he's given me an extra measure of grace to endure this." Hey, here's what he's saying, "Paul, I didn't cause this, I'm not responsible for this, but I'm going to take responsibility to bring something good of this." And Paul said, "And in response, therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about this weakness, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weakness, in insult, in hardships, in persecutions, and in difficulties." He says, "I've recognized for when I'm in this weak state, I'm experiencing a strength that is not my own." Paul's ultimately saying this, "I know who the author of this is, but I also recognize God is giving me a measure of grace." And here's what ultimately I think we could derive from this.

If you introduce me to someone who's been under a-- as someone who's experienced God, that when you go into difficulty, what you find is God turns the grace up as hardship has turned up in our lives. And people who've been through things, here's what they'll tell you, I met with God. I saw His faithfulness. I experienced that He gives a supernatural strength. When I came to the end of myself, I found the beginning of God's strength. I wouldn't be here if it had not been for this strength that is not of me, but was given to me. Here's what they're ultimately saying. Great hardship allows you to gain an understanding that there's greater grace for your life. And this message of Paul, it dovetails straight into the message of Peter. Peter writes this letter, what we call first Peter, he writes it to a group of people who are in modern day Turkey. They're Christians and they are experiencing extraordinary hardship. And so Peter writes to them about this hardship, how to follow Christ in tough times. But he brings it just like Paul back to the idea that it is grace that sustains us. So today what I wanna do is I just wanna take you through the first about seven verses and show you what he starts off this message with. First Peter, chapter one, verse one.

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. To God's elect exiles, maybe you'd wanna learn a line of that, scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus and Galatia and Cappadocia and Asia and Bethania who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through the sanctifying work of the Spirit. To be obedient to Jesus Christ, sprinkled with his blood. And Paul says out of all this, exiles and sanctifying and difficulty, he says, grace and peace be yours in abundance. Now Paul is writing a group of people who since following the Lord Jesus have really experienced all kinds of difficulty. As a matter of fact, as we go through this letter of book, here's what you're gonna find, he really gets into specific types of difficulty. He gets into a marriage difficulty. He gets into ungodly authority in the difficulty that brings into your life. He gets into persecution that you actually face as the follower of Jesus from our culture. And he also gets into spiritual attacks that come from the enemy and how to respond to them. But here's what I wanna open with in these first seven verses is Peter doesn't really go into all the nuance of all those difficulties, that's to come. He starts this book off with what I would call the basics that you must remember in a bad season. Let me explain it to you what he's doing. I wrote a lot of this message on an airplane. I was on an airplane several times this week

and I've flown hundreds of times. And here's what I've noticed, no matter the airline, no matter the destination, no matter the class of seat, every airplane ride starts the same way. Someone stands up, they hold up this little sheet and they take you through a safety briefing. They say if something happens, this is gonna come down, put it on your face, make sure you're buckled up. Here's what to do if we speak. This is same briefing from different airlines. It's the same briefing from different destinations. Ultimately they're saying, here's what you have to know if something goes wrong. Well, before we get into the nuance of all the different kinds of difficulty we face, Peter's saying, hey, in these first few verses, let me tell you, I'm gonna give you the basics, the things you have to know before something goes wrong. And he's ultimately saying the difficulty's gonna come and it's gonna be labeled a lot of different ways, but I wanna give you three things that you have to remember if you want to endure in a bad season. So I'm just gonna give them to you exactly the way Peter gave them to us in this passage. Here's the very first one. Peter says, the first basic you have to remember in a bad season is that you have a living hope. Look at it in verse three. Praise be to the God and our Father, Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a,

every campus right now, let's say it together, a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now Peter begins by reminding everyone that will hear this or see this, he reminds them this. We are not a part of a dead religion. We are not a part of a kind of philosophical cult. We are not a part of a collective of moral teachings. We are in relationship with a resurrected Jesus Christ. And he pulls on this from his own experience because you have to remember Peter was one of Jesus's disciples but he had a crisis of faith. When Jesus was arrested, Peter saw him arrested, followed him, saw him scorched and beaten and ultimately recognized he was being crucified. And at this moment, Peter saw his teacher's life end and he assumed that's the end of this gospel faith. So the Bible says in John 21 that Peter actually left the faith of following Jesus. And then John 21 says that late one night, Peter looks on the shore and he sees Jesus. Now listen, he didn't have a vision of Jesus. It's not a memory of Jesus. He says the resurrected Jesus is standing on that shore. And if you read it, here's what you'll find, the resurrected Jesus, not even the teachings of Jesus, not the memories of Jesus, the resurrected Jesus resurrected Peter's faith. And so ultimately here's what Peter's trying to convey by pointing to the resurrection as he's saying this, no matter the difficulty you are in, even death could not overcome Christ

and you have this living hope. He's saying hey, Jesus is alive and then he points to this and he's living in you, meaning this. Everything Jesus is, you have access to. You have the mind of Christ in this difficulty. You have the ability to forgive like Christ in this difficulty. You have the compassion of Christ in this difficulty. You have the perseverance of Christ in this difficulty. You can endure like Christ in this difficulty. You are not in your strength. You don't have to survive on your own effort. You have the living hope of glory inside of you and what is in you is greater than what you are going through. Peter says, this is the resurrection and the hope that we have. Now, here's the thing. If you've been around church for any amount of time, you've heard that. It's not uncommon for most, it's familiar to the point that it is no longer helpful in difficulty. You know, the reality is we can be around the things of God so long and become so familiar with them that they stop having effect on our lives. So Peter says in verse 12, he says, for those of you who have kind of grown cold to this reality, he said, I want to remind you that this gospel you have is literally mind-blowing to the angels. Let me show it to you, verse 12. This good news has been announced to you by those who preached in the power of the Holy Spirit

and were sent from heaven. Now notice this, he says, it is all, he's referring to the gospel, so wonderful that even the angels are eagerly watching these things happen. Now, let me say this, or let me ask it this way. What do you think it takes to impress an angel? I mean, they saw all of creation unfold. They've seen every miracle take place from fire from heaven and sea splits. I mean, they've seen a lot. And yet what Peter just wrote is he says, but when they look at a holy God's love for a rebellious people, they are astounded. I mean, consider this that angels have seen every event of history and they've seen all that heaven holds, yet they are amazed at the gospel. So let me ask you this. Does your salvation still amaze you? And I know you, oh yeah, yeah, that does. Okay, well, let's put it against the gauge. Here's the gauge. We can tell how much your salvation amazes you gauged on your personal worship. Let me explain it this way. Imagine that you come home one day and you find your friend sitting on the front steps of your home and they were waiting for you. You say, oh, great, it's so good to see you. And they let you know that while they were waiting for you,

someone you had a debt to showed up and they, out of friendship, paid for that debt. How would you respond? Well, I guess the response would be in proportion to what, the debt. Right, I mean, if they said, hey, the mailman stopped by and you put a letter in the mail and you forgot a stamp. So I put a 73 cent stamp on there. You'd go, oh, that was kind, thank you. Or if they said, oh, no, the landscaper came by and he had mowed your grass and you forgot to pay him and it was $50 and I paid that $50 for you. Oh, that's so kind, give me a fist bump, right? Or if he said, while I was sitting here, the cartel came by and your gambling debts have caught up with you and they said, you owe them $5 million and they were either gonna take the money or they were gonna kill you, but I paid for that. Well, your response would be tears and you'd embrace them and you tell everybody, you know, what kind of friends you have because the debt what is the appropriate response for the sacrifice of Jesus? Complete surrender, unending praise, and ultimately what we have to get to is say, oh God, don't ever let us become numb to this gospel we have received. Oh God, don't ever let me yawn at the fact that you love me.

Oh God, don't ever let me lose the amazement that you have continued to extend abundant in eternal life to me. Rekindle in me, God, an amazement for this living hope I've received. Peter says we have a living hope. Here's the second thing he says. We have been given an eternal inheritance. One of my default jobs at our home was to clean out the fridge. Taylor did not meet with me about this job and there was no job description, but it's default because if I don't do it, our refrigerator just stays filled with things that eventually could kill somebody. Right, I mean, you know what happens? It's like the milk goes in and then enough time passes, it's now buttermilk, right? You go to make a sandwich, and the ham that was put in there several months ago is a biohazard, and it just expires. And so the other day I'm going through and I'm pulling out all the things that are expired and I'm throwing them away, and the more I do it, I'm getting kind of frustrated. Because not only is it my job to throw them away, but I'm the one that paid for all this stuff. So now, but it's not because I'm throwing away money, I mean, that's frustrating, but money's not just money, money is represented in time and effort.

So I'm watching all my time and all my effort go into the trash. Okay, Peter says when you're going through difficulty, I want you to know all your time and effort in following Jesus, it never expires. It never expires. It's kept in eternity. And here's verse four, it's just the next verse, he says, and into an inheritance that can never perish, never spoil, never fade, this inheritance. So the record of all the time and effort you've put into following Jesus is kept for you in heaven. So here's what he holds me, when you're in the middle of difficulty, it can just feel like, man, is it even worth continuing to follow Christ? And he's saying, hey, when you're in difficulty, know this, heaven's recording, it's recording you. And it's not only recording you, it's going to reward you for what's been recorded. Like when you're in a job where you consistently are treated poorly by the boss, but you consistently show up with integrity and excellence, heaven records it. When you keep tithing despite the fact that your personal finances and the season have gotten tight, heaven records it. When you're kind to someone who's not kind to you, heaven records it. When you keep forgiving your siblings,

despite the fact they've hurt you so many times, heaven records it. Again and again, heaven records what we do in difficulty, and then it doesn't just record it, it's transferred into a reward, you will receive an eternity, and it's kept forever. See, Peter is coming back and you're going to see it again and again almost in every week of this series, that he keeps coming back to this, we must keep eternity in mind. And he uses this phrase again and again, and I even told you earlier, I gave you kind of a nod to, he calls us exiles or foreigners. And that would, you have to remember, that would have struck them a little odd 'cause they're reading this letter in their own home where they live. It would be like you getting a letter and them saying, you know, dear, whatever your name is, you're a foreigner. And you know, not a foreigner, I'm standing here in the United States of America, my own home. No, no, no, he's saying you are. 'Cause this is not your home. He's reminding them simultaneously, life here is hard because this is broken. But this is not all life is.

You're heading in a journey like a nomad, like an exile, a foreigner, you're heading home. And out of that comes an encouragement. It reminds me of a story I heard, a missionary couple who had spent decades on the field and due to their failing health and age, their board called them back from assignment and said that it's now time for you to come back home. So they boarded a ship and this turn of the 19th century, they boarded a ship across the Atlantic on this big steam ship. And when they pulled into the harbor at New York, there was a massive crowd. Streamers and bands and people, full of excitement. They couldn't believe the welcome and they couldn't figure out why it was such a group of people they're massed. Well, as they're getting ready to be bored, was on board, and he had returned from a hunting trip. And people had gathered, the press had gathered, people were celebrating his return just from killing an animal. The husband's face became downcast, and his wife noticed, and she said, "Honey, what's wrong?" And he said, "It's just not right." He said, "We have spent decades giving our life "to the cause of Christ, we've sacrificed, "and we've done things that matter. "And there's no one here to welcome us, "there's no one even here with a bouquet for you.

"I just can't believe this is how we're welcomed home." And his wife took his hand and said, "Honey, remember, we're not home yet." And all I'm saying, Peter, in this moment, he's trying to take your hand. And he said, "I know it's difficult, "and I know you're in pain, I know you're struggling. "Just remember, you're not home yet. "Like, this is not gonna be the best it can ever be. "This is not gonna be perfect. "When your body's hurting and your mind's tormented "and your relationship, just remember, "you're not home yet. "A key to enduring hardship is to remember eternity is coming. "And that's the heart of a follower of Jesus "is we're not looking for this world to deliver "what only the world to come can deliver." Now here's the last thing he says. He says, "The last thing, just this is his outline." He says, "You also in hardship gain a purer faith." You know, I grew up in church, and so we would sing these worship courses, and we'd just sing them the end of the melodies was sticking your mind, and you know, we'd sing them. But I look back now and I'm thinking, "Man, I really didn't know what I was singing." You know, 'cause every song we sing and every prayer we pray, it's, God takes it oftentimes more serious than we do. Like, I remember, we used to sing this song called Refiners Fire.

It was a, you know, Refiners Fire, my heart's one desire. I used to be holy and set apart for you. And you know, I just would sing it like it was so beautiful. I wish somebody would have told me what I was inviting into my life. Oh God, come into my life and burn up all the things that are not pleasing to you. Right, I mean, refining's not fun, but it is necessary. Refining's not comfortable, but it is rewarded. And that's kind of how Peter finishes the beginning of this letter. He says in verse six, "So be truly glad. "There's wonderful joy ahead, "even though you must endure many trials for a little while. "These trials will show you that your faith is genuine." He said, "It's being tested as fire tests "and purifies gold. "And though your faith is far more precious than mere gold, "so when your faith remains strong through many trials, "it will bring you much praise and glory and honor "on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world." So I wanna help you understand what Peter's pointing to. This is my wedding ring and you may have a ring that's similar. If you've ever heard someone say, "Oh, this ring is 14 karat gold," well, 24 karat gold is pure gold. So 14 karat gold means that 14 parts of the 24 are gold and the other 10 parts are probably zinc or copper

or some other type of metal. Okay, here's the thing though, to your and mine naked eye, we cannot tell the difference in 24 karat gold and 14 karat gold. We just can't see it, it looks good to me. And you can only see the difference if they would take a 14 karat gold and a 24 karat gold and they would put them into a smelting pot and heat it to about 1974 degrees Fahrenheit, all of a sudden the gold and the impurities would separate. And you could clearly see then what you couldn't see before. So let me just say it this way. There are just some things in your life that you just don't see till the heat's turned up. Like you think you're doing good 'cause you're always comparing yourself to other people. But God doesn't compare you to other people, he compares you to the character of Christ. And you're thinking, "Man, I'm doing good. "I mean, I'm kind and generous and patient." And then all of a sudden God says, "Well, let's turn up the heat and see what's really in there." And then all of a sudden you're very kind until you get into the heat of traffic. And you're so generous until you get into the heat of a tighter budget. And then you're so trustworthy till you get into the heat of being around some other gossipers. with people till you get into the heat of it, not going the way you want it.

And then maybe you've had this happen, like then you react according to the impurities that were there, and you go, "Where did that come from?" Here's what the answer to that question. You are in that moment seeing what God always saw. It was always there, you just couldn't see it. But when the heat gets turned up, all of a sudden we see it. Okay, and here's the good news. God doesn't just turn up the heat to just show you what's lacking. He turns up the heat so that, like a metalworker, he can pull it out of your life. See, pure gold has a couple of traits about it that are very specific to the character God's trying to craft in you. The first one is this, pure gold is flexible. It's even soft. It's the impurities that make us hardened. That it has to be in my way. It has to go in my timing. But when God's put you through kind of a refining, you can go with God's flow. You know, it doesn't have to always go my way. It doesn't always have to work out the way I want. Have you ever known that people got flexible faith? Like, you're messed up 'cause God didn't do it in the 24 hours you gave him to do it. And other people are like, "It's okay God's got this." They've been through a refining. There's a flexibility to them.

Pure gold also is, it's incorruptible. You see, what that means is metals are corrupted by the atmosphere they're in. Keep it in something comfortable and safe and it doesn't look corrupted. Put it outside and all of a sudden corrosion comes on it. Pure gold's not like that. You can put pure gold in a bad environment and it remains pure. So here's what God's trying to do with your character. He's trying to get it to a place where he can put you in most ungodly places, but you remain godly. He can put you in impure places and you remain pure. That he can put you in any environment, any office, any relationship, but what he's crafted in you is stronger than the type of atmosphere you're in. And then the last one is, pure gold's very reflective. And ultimately what would happen is, is that they would heat up the gold, they would pull off the impurities, then they would form it into whatever it was gonna be formed into, and the way the metal worker knew that it had reached kind of an optimal purity is he could see his reflection in it. You know what God's trying to do with your life? He wants to see him when he looks at you. - Yeah. - Yeah. - That's what he's doing.

So your pain is not without a purpose. It's revealing the personhood of Jesus Christ. Let me give you a real life example. At our West County campus, several, several weeks ago, someone came to me and they said, they called and said that they woke up with double vision, impaired vision, and then it was causing headaches, and it was, they couldn't drive, they couldn't do it, and they got into an optometrist, and the optometrist didn't have any answers. The optometrist said, I think you need to have a CT scan. So they went to the CT scan, obviously, that caused great duress, and they went and had the CT scan, and the technician came in and said, well, we don't see anything conclusive, but we also don't have any solutions for you. And so for the next few weeks, they just have these conditions, double vision, can't drive, can't do the things they want to do. I mean, and you know, your mind starts going like, is this what the rest of my life's gonna look like? Like all of a sudden, life just changes like that. And I just, and so a couple weeks go by, still dealing with all the symptoms, they come to the first week of now playing, the series we just completed. They're standing in worship, and all of a sudden, as they're worshiping,

they just sense the presence of God. And all of a sudden, it opens his eyes, and he can see clearly. No double vision, no headaches, no issues whatsoever. The Holy Spirit just touched him in that moment. He tells his wife, she's celebrating. After the service, I was in the lobby, they came up and told me, we prayed, claiming this healing, I talked to him a couple weeks later, said still no issues, completely healed, thank God for it. But then he said this, he said, I just can't tell you how grateful I am. And how many things, and what he was kind of saying is, how much I had taken for granted. And then said this, said, and just the, like my heart's just for people, like I didn't think about people who struggled in this way anymore. And he said, he finished and said, I am ready to do as much as I can to help other people. Okay, now listen to me, this was my thought. God, why would we going through all this? Like in your sovereignty, you knew you were going to heal him. So why would you even, like, what's the point? Like in the more important things for you to do God, then let people experience this, then come back and do what you're, why didn't you just keep him from having it to begin with? 'Cause he came out with a pure faith. But listen, more gratitude, more empathy,

ready, more focused on things that matter and things that don't, and more like Jesus, that was the point. I know it's tough. And I know you wish you were not going through it, but let me tell you this, according to scripture, God's working in it, and you're gonna come out better. - Amen. - And I know it's not fun, but you're gonna come out better. And I know it's painful, but you're gonna come out better. And I know that you, you don't, right today, if you could resign it, you would, but listen, you're gonna come out better. That God is working, and he's pulling out things. You don't realize they're there, and he is working work. And you're not just gonna come out better. You're gonna come out looking more like the Lord Jesus. Now, listen, listen, tough times are part of the Christian faith. - Yeah, for the lips. - But here's what Peter says. But the fact you've got Jesus in you, and heaven ahead of you, and the spirit refining you, no difficulty you encounter will be greater than the reward you receive on the other side of it. So we stand, we endure, we partner with God, because there's a living hope in me. There's a heaven ahead of me, and there's a refining going through me right now. And on the other side of this, I'm gonna be better, and I'm gonna bring him more glory.

That's what Peter's saying today.