though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.
 These have come so that your faith?of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire?
may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him
and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,  for you are receiving   1Peter 1:7-9

When I was doing the background reading on 1 Peter, I was reminded of the terrible sufferings which the early church endured.
The exact dating of Peter's letters is not clear. It could have been during the time of Nero, or a later time. But it is clear that it was during a time of persecution and suffering.

You remember the Emperor Nero. The legend is he fiddled while Rome burned.
Rome had large slum areas that Nero wanted to rebuild. The rumors were that Nero had ordered the burning of Rome, but the new Christian sect was a convenient target for Nero who charged they were responsible.

People misunderstood the Lord's supper and assumed they consumed real flesh and blood and imagined all sorts of debaucheries connected with it. So they were receptive to believe this horrible little group might set their city on fire.
Christians had legal protection as long as they were assumed to be a Jewish sect, but as the separation with Judaism became clearer, they lost their legal status and were fair game, not just in Rome but around the empire once word was out about what Nero had done to the Christians.

What he did was, among other things, to have them sewn into animal skins and then set upon by wild dogs who would tear them limb from limb. And to illuminate his gardens in the evening he took many, had them rolled in pitch then set on fire as human torches. Nero was one of the most sadistic of the emperors, but the emperor Domitian persecuted believers in Jesus with as much passion. Under his rule, Christians were fed to the lions in the Roman Coliseum and in the provinces as well.

I was thinking about their terrible sufferings and was reminded that believers have suffered much over the centuries. They have been imprisoned, had their property confiscated, forced out of their jobs, their communities and their families as well as being put to death. When Peter writes to them of an inheritance that cannot perish, you know he is not using a figure of speech, but was speaking of the literal threat to their lives.

We have inherited the great gift of faith which enriches our lives and gives us the confidence of a clear conscience and our hope for eternity. And we are so fortunate.
We do not have to pay the price which they paid. Our government even gives us a tax deduction for the gifts we offer week by week.

The one thought that came to mind was to admire their bravery and their dedication.
They lived truly heroic lives.
At the end of the service, I am going to invite you to offer a few moments of silence in their honor.

I wondered about what motivates people to put everything at risk for their belief. Then I read what he says to them:

Helen Roseveare is a British medical doctor who worked for many years as a missionary in Zaire. During the revolution of the 1960s, she often faced brutal beatings and other forms of physical torture. On one occasion, when she was about to be executed, she feared God had forsaken her.

In that moment, she sensed the Holy Spirit saying to her: Twenty years ago you asked me for the privilege of being identified with me. This is it. Don?t you want it? This is what it means. These are not your sufferings; they are my sufferings. All I ask of you is the loan of your body.

The privilege of serving Christ through her sufferings overwhelmed Dr. Roseveare. After she was delivered, she wrote about her experience with God: ?He didn't stop the sufferings. He didn't stop the wickedness, the cruelties, the humiliation or anything. It was all there. The pain was just as bad. The fear was just as bad. But it was altogether different. It was in Jesus, for him, with him.?¹