Where in your life are you experiencing the kind of "fiery trial" Peter describes? What would change if you stopped being surprised by it and started looking for what God might be doing in it?

Peter writes to Christians scattered across the Roman Empire — believers being insulted, beaten, and in some places killed for their faith. His first word to them is not a strategy. It is a posture. Don't be surprised. Many of us were sold a quieter version of the Christian life — one where, once you walk through the door of faith, the trouble stays outside. That is not the Christian life Peter is describing, and it is not the Christian life Jesus described. He told His disciples plainly, *"In the world you will have tribulation."* The road of faith is not a road around suffering. It is a road that passes through it. The Bible is a book written by suffering people to suffering people. Joseph in Pharaoh's dungeon, falsely accused. Daniel in the lions' den. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego

What hard thing in your life have you been asking "why me?" about? What would change if you re-asked it today as "why me, Lord — what is Your purpose in this?"

When suffering arrives — the bad report from your doctor, the call about your son or daughter, the empty side of the bed — almost everyone reaches for the same first question. *Why me?* It is the most natural question in the world. And it is, with respect, the wrong one. Consider Job. For most of the book that bears his name, Job presses God with that question. *Why me, God? Why are You doing this?* And chapter after chapter, God does not answer. When God finally speaks — the longest unbroken speech by God the Father anywhere in Scripture — He never tells Job *why.* He simply tells Job *who.* I am God. You are not. And Job, who has lost everything, who is sitting in ashes scraping his sores with broken pottery, replies, *"Though he slay me, I will hope in him."* Job did not get the answe

What in your life feels random, senseless, or wasted? How does it reframe that thing to remember there are no maverick molecules in God's universe?

Ben Sasse — former US senator, now president of the University of Florida — was diagnosed last year with stage four pancreatic cancer. The kind that, statistically, ends a person within a year or two. In an interview with CBS, he was asked whether his faith in God had been shaken. He said no. And then he said this: *"There are no maverick molecules in the universe."* Not one. Not the cell that turned cancerous. Not the drunk driver who ran the red light. Not the news report that gutted you on Tuesday afternoon. Whatever it is, it did not catch God by surprise. He either allowed it or sent it. That is not a sentimental verse you stitch on a pillow. That is the towering claim of biblical Christianity. Paul says it with even more weight in Romans 8:28: *for those who love God all things wo

Of the four anchors — appointment, keeping, training, timing — which one do you most need to hear from God today, and why?

When you cannot see what God is doing, hold on to what He has said. Andrew Murray, the great South African pastor of a century ago, gave the church a four-line catechism for the seasons when you do not know what to do next. It is short enough to memorize, and deep enough to live in. *First: God brought me here.* It is by His will that I am in this difficult place — and in that fact I will rest. *Second: He will keep me here in His love.* He will give me grace to behave as His child while I am here. *Third: He will make the trial a blessing.* He will teach me the lessons He intends for me to learn. *Fourth: In His good time He can bring me out again.* How and when, He knows. Or, as Murray summed it up himself: *I am here by God's appointment, in His keeping, under His training, for Hi

Where in your week ahead do you most need to remember that the pattern is suffering, judgment, and glory — that glory is the last word, not the trial?

There is a pattern in Scripture, and it runs through every story God tells. Suffering. Judgment. Glory. Jesus suffered — so your suffering is not meaningless. Jesus submitted to the judgment of men — so you might stand un-condemned before the judgment of God. Jesus endured death — so you might have life. Jesus conquered hell — so you might enter heaven. That is the cross-shaped pattern of the Christian life, and it is not optional. It is the road. C.S. Lewis put it like this in *The Problem of Pain:* *"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."* Sometimes God has to hurt us in order for us to pay attention. Not because He is cruel — but because we are stubborn. The pain is the megaphone. It is mean

Peter says the fiery trial is not strange — it is the lot of God's people. What story did you grow up with about whether Christians should expect to suffer? Where did that story come from, and how is it holding up?

Don't be surprised by suffering — the Bible was written by suffering people to suffering people, and the pattern is always suffering, judgment, glory.

Kent reframed the question from 'why me?' to 'why me, Lord — what is Your purpose in this?' What's a hard thing in your life right now you've been asking 'why me?' about? What changes if you ask it the second way?

Don't be surprised by suffering — the Bible was written by suffering people to suffering people, and the pattern is always suffering, judgment, glory.

Ben Sasse, facing stage-four cancer, said there are no maverick molecules in the universe — nothing is outside God's care. What in your life feels random, senseless, or wasted? How does it reframe that thing to remember that?

Don't be surprised by suffering — the Bible was written by suffering people to suffering people, and the pattern is always suffering, judgment, glory.

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What About? (Week 7)

But What About Suffering?

1 Peter 4:12-19

Kent Keller Sunday, May 24, 2026

Watch & Listen

Scripture

1 Peter 4:12-19 (ESV)

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And "If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?" Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.

Romans 8:28 (ESV)

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Isaiah 41:10 (ESV)

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.