Skip to main content

Ask Rewind

Sign in to ask Rewind about this sermon — answers are grounded in the actual transcripts.

The study, discipleship, and teaching platform built on your church's own preaching.

Product

How it works
Pricing
What's new
Churches on Rewind

Solutions

For churches
For teaching teams
For groups
For seminaries
Agency partners

Company

About
Contact

Legal

Trust & your data
Terms
Privacy
How we use AI
Accessibility

© 2026 Rewind

Refiner's Fire | Week 7 | Bill Bush · Rewind

Rock Point Church

70 min

Pastor Bill Bush · Jul 19, 2021 · 4 min read · 70 min listen

The big idea

Suffering for doing good is an opportunity to experience God's power and peace and to point people to Jesus, not oppression to be avoided.

In this message

The big idea
Point 1 of 7There are three kinds of suffering, and only one is what this series addresses
Point 2 of 7Suffering for good is an opportunity, not oppression

Point 3 of 7The first opportunity: suffering for Christ lets us experience His power and peace
Point 4 of 7The second opportunity: suffering for Christ lets us share hope with gentleness instead of fighting
Point 5 of 7History and personal experience show gentleness under attack wins more than fighting does
Point 6 of 7We must fight from victory, not for victory
Point 7 of 7Noah's story shows suffering that looks like failure is actually victory
Take it into your week
Transcript

Ask Rewind about this message

Sign in to ask Rewind about this message

Scripture in this message

1 Peter 3
1 Peter 3:13-14
1 Peter 3:17
1 Peter 3:18
1 Peter 3:19-22
Luke 9

Rewind AI drafted the Big Idea and some point headings shown here from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Pastor Bill Bush · Jul 19, 2021 · 70 min watch · 2 min read

Refiner's Fire | Week 7 | Bill Bush

In this message

Big Idea
Key points
Application

Scripture in this message

1 Peter 3
1 Peter 3:13-14
1 Peter 3:17
1 Peter 3:18
1 Peter 3:19-22
Luke 9

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

Suffering for doing good is an opportunity to experience God's power and peace and to point people to Jesus, not oppression to be avoided.

When we suffer for following Christ rather than for our own foolishness, God offers real hope: a peace that transcends understanding and a chance to point people to Jesus. Christ already won the war, so we can face hostility with gentleness, walking from victory rather than fighting for it.

Key points

1
1There are three kinds of suffering, and only one is what this series addresses
Pastor Bill distinguishes common suffering (just being human in a broken world), carnal suffering (consequences of our own foolish choices, illustrated by his story of impulsively buying an unusable stair stepper on credit), and Christian suffering (opposition that comes specifically from doing good and following Christ). The message focuses only on the third kind.
2
2Suffering for good is an opportunity, not oppression
Pastor Bill states the message's core claim and quotes a pastor's line that Christianity's symbol is a cross, not a recliner, meaning following Jesus was never promised to be free of cost.
3
3The first opportunity: suffering for Christ lets us experience His power and peace
Working through 1 Peter 3:13-14, Pastor Bill explains that being attacked for doing right is really a spiritual force at work behind human opposition, and that God rewards long-term faithfulness even when it costs short-term comfort. True blessing is being made more like Christ, not gaining material ease.
4
4The second opportunity: suffering for Christ lets us share hope with gentleness instead of fighting
Pastor Bill unpacks 1 Peter 3:15, noting Peter wrote this as real persecution under Nero was beginning, and stresses that Christians must worship Christ as Lord, be ready to explain their hope, and do it gently rather than defensively. He illustrates with his toddler grandson learning to be gentle, and warns against pointing Jesus at people like a weapon instead of pointing people to Jesus.
5
5History and personal experience show gentleness under attack wins more than fighting does
He recounts how Roman Christians facing execution by lions still worshiped and prayed, eventually softening crowds and even reaching Rome's Praetorian Guard, which led to Emperor Constantine's conversion. He parallels this with his own story of staying gentle during a hostile church meeting, which led to an apology and a couple coming to Christ instead of an escalated fight.
6
6We must fight from victory, not for victory
Pastor Bill teaches from 1 Peter 3:17-18 that Christ already suffered and won, so believers don't need to battle to secure a victory that's already theirs in Him. He contrasts fighting 'for' victory (fear-driven, defensive) with walking 'from' victory (secure, gentle, confident).
7
7Noah's story shows suffering that looks like failure is actually victory
He walks through 1 Peter 3:19-22, explaining that Jesus' declaration to imprisoned spirits and Noah's hundred years of preaching with only eight saved both looked like defeat but were part of God's larger victory. He ties this to Jesus resolutely setting His face toward Jerusalem and the cross in Luke 9:51, showing that anything of eternal value lies on the other side of hard obedience.

A story from life

Pastor Bill recounts buying an expensive stair stepper on credit without his wife's knowledge, only to lose a critical part on the drive home — used to illustrate carnal, self-inflicted suffering.

Application

Pastor Bill's charge is to stop defending Jesus like a weapon and start pointing people to Him by staying gentle when following Him costs you something.

Stop pointing Jesus at people
Quit weaponizing your faith in arguments about politics or culture; instead point people to Jesus rather than throwing Him at them as a defense of your own position.
Be ready to explain your hope
Prepare your own reasons for your hope in Christ rather than waiting until you feel like an expert theologian or debater; your own story is enough.
Respond with gentleness, not a fight
When attacked for your faith, follow Peter's instruction to answer gently and keep a clear conscience rather than escalating into an argument to defend yourself.
Fight from victory, not for it
Remember Christ already won on the cross; walk through opposition and hardship resting in that finished victory instead of striving anxiously to secure one.
Set your feet resolutely toward your Jerusalem
Identify where God is asking you to trust Him even though it's costly, and, like Jesus heading to Jerusalem, choose that hard path deliberately this week.

Take it into your week

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Sign in to ask Rewind about this sermon

Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“And that's really what he's talking about here in chapter three of first Peter. Last few weeks, guys have preached this like it's almost like Peter took a break in the middle”
From the transcript
“But here's what he says, the first two verses, verse thirteen and fourteen. He says, now who will wanna harm you if you're eager to do good”
From the transcript
“There's a he says remember in verse 17. Look what he says next. He says, remember. So now he's saying, this is something you gotta embrace”
From the transcript
“He goes, remember, it is better to suffer for doing good if that is what God wants than to suffer for doing wrong. Verse 18, Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God”
From the transcript
“And that's why I think 19 through 22, this last little section, is an illustration, and I call it the yeah, but”
From the transcript
“if you look into Luke one last verse I wanna read. Shut this down. Luke nine. In the gospels, you see how Jesus started teaching”
From the transcript
“And it says right in Luke nine fifty one, I wanna read this to you. Says in Luke nine fifty, as the time drew near from him to ascend to heaven”

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

Sign in to track your progress through this devotional.

Day 1

Most of us have a built-in instinct to avoid pain. We reroute around difficult conversations, uncomfortable situations, and anything that might cost us socially or professionally. That instinct isn't evil — it's human. But Pastor Bill opened this passage by making a distinction that changes the way we read suffering altogether. Not all suffering is the same. There is common suffering, the kind every person on earth experiences simply by being alive. There is carnal suffering, the kind we bring on ourselves through poor choices. And then there is Christian suffering — the kind that comes specifically because you are doing what is right and following Jesus faithfully. First Peter 3 is written for that third category. Peter's question in verse 13 is almost rhetorical: who is really going to harm you if you are eager to do good? And yet, verse 14 acknowledges the hard truth — sometimes they do. Sometimes doing the right thing costs you. But Peter's word for that moment is not 'brace yourself' or 'prepare to fight.' It's 'blessed.' That reframing matters enormously. If you have been treating suffering as a sign that something has gone wrong, this passage invites you to look again. It may be a sign that something is going very right.

For reflection

Looking at your life honestly, which of the three kinds of suffering do you most often experience — and what does that reveal about where you are right now?

Pray

Pray for honest self-awareness about the suffering in your life and whether it is drawing you closer to or further from faithful obedience.

Day 2

There is a kind of peace that shows up precisely when circumstances give you every reason to be afraid — and it doesn't make logical sense. Peter points to it in verse 14 when he tells believers not to be afraid or unsettled when they suffer for doing good. He's not dismissing real fear. He's pointing to something stronger than it. Pastor Bill described this peace as one of the actual gifts of Christian suffering: when you choose faithfulness over self-protection and the pressure comes anyway, you often find that God meets you in that moment with a steadiness that has nothing to do with your own resolve. That steadiness is not the absence of hardship — it's the presence of God inside the hardship. The peace Paul writes about in Philippians 4:7, a peace that 'exceeds anything we can understand,' is not a reward for having it all together. It is a grace that arrives when you have run out of your own resources and are standing on nothing but trust. If you have ever been in a hard season of faithfulness and felt inexplicably okay in the middle of it, you already know what this looks like. If you haven't yet, this passage is a promise worth holding onto.

For reflection

Can you recall a time when you experienced an unexpected peace in the middle of difficulty? What were the conditions that allowed you to receive it?

Pray

Pray for the kind of trust in God that creates space for His peace to arrive — especially in the areas of life where fear feels loudest right now.

Day 3

Verse 15 is one of the most quietly radical instructions in all of the New Testament. When someone asks you about the hope you carry, be ready to give an answer — but do it with gentleness and respect. That pairing seems almost counterintuitive in a moment of pressure or opposition. When someone challenges your faith, the instinct is either to defend yourself aggressively or to back down entirely. Peter calls you to a third way: to worship Christ as Lord above everything else in your heart, and from that settled place, to speak. What comes out of a person who is truly at peace — who isn't fighting to protect their reputation or win an argument — looks very different from what comes out of someone who is threatened. It looks like hope. It looks like warmth. It sounds like an invitation. Pastor Bill made the point that gentleness in persecution is not weakness; historically, it is one of the primary reasons Christianity spread so rapidly in its earliest centuries. The early church didn't out-argue Rome. They out-loved it. That same pattern is available to you today — in your family, in your workplace, online, anywhere opposition shows up. The goal isn't to win the exchange. It's to point toward Jesus.

For reflection

When your faith is challenged or criticized, what is your default response — and how does it compare to the gentleness and respect Peter describes?

Pray

Pray for a heart that is settled enough in Christ's lordship to respond to opposition with hope rather than defensiveness.

Day 4

Peter adds a detail to his instruction about gentleness that is easy to skip over: keep your conscience clear. That phrase carries more weight than it might first appear. A clear conscience means that when opposition comes, you have nothing to hide — your life matches your words, and your words carry the credibility that only integrity can provide. Pastor Bill pressed on something here that is worth sitting with: there is a real difference between pointing people to Jesus and weaponizing Jesus to defend cultural or political territory. The first invites. The second repels. When faith gets tangled up with self-interest — with protecting a position, a reputation, or a way of life — the message that comes through is no longer the gospel. It's something smaller. And people can feel the difference. A clear conscience, cultivated through honest living and genuine love, is actually one of your most powerful apologetics. It gives your hope credibility. It makes people curious. When your life is visibly shaped by what you say you believe, the question 'why do you live like that?' becomes a door — and your answer, offered gently, can walk someone toward Jesus. That is the kind of witness this passage is building toward.

For reflection

Is there any gap between what you say you believe and how you actually live that might be undermining the credibility of your witness right now?

Pray

Pray for integrity — that your life and your words would align, and that a clear conscience would make your hope visible and credible to the people around you.

Day 5

Verse 17 holds a simple but striking logic: it is better to suffer for doing good than for doing wrong. That sounds straightforward until you realize Peter is not just making a moral argument. He grounds it in what Christ actually did. Verse 18 is one of the most compact and powerful statements of the gospel in all of Scripture. Christ suffered for sins He did not commit — the righteous for the unrighteous — so that He could bring us home to God. That word 'home' matters. The goal of Christ's suffering was not just forgiveness as a legal transaction. It was reconciliation. Relationship. Being brought back to the Father. When Pastor Bill pointed to this verse, he was doing more than reminding us that Jesus suffered too. He was showing us the shape of redemptive suffering — that when a person suffers faithfully for what is right, they are moving along the same grain as Christ's own life. That doesn't make the suffering less real. But it means it is not meaningless. Suffering for doing good, in Christ's pattern, has always been the thing that opens doors, changes hearts, and advances the kingdom — not because pain is good in itself, but because God is at work in it.

For reflection

How does knowing that Christ suffered unjustly — specifically to bring you home to God — change the way you interpret your own experience of suffering for doing right?

Pray

Pray for a deeper understanding of what Christ's suffering accomplished, and for the courage to suffer faithfully in the same direction.

Day 6

Pastor Bill drew one of the sermon's most freeing distinctions from this verse: there is a world of difference between fighting for a victory and fighting from one. Christ's death and resurrection mean the outcome is not in question. The victory has already been won. That changes everything about how you engage the hard things in your life. If you are striving anxiously to earn something, prove something, or secure something that Christ has already secured for you, you are living as though the tomb is still occupied. The invitation here is not to passivity — it's to a completely different posture. You can walk into difficult conversations, hard obediences, and costly faithfulness not as someone who needs to win, but as someone who already stands in the winner. That kind of confidence is not arrogance; it is simply believing what is actually true. The resurrection is not just a historical event or a future hope. It is the ground you stand on today. When fear creeps in — when the cost of faithfulness seems too high — the question this verse pushes back with is: do you actually believe He is risen? Because if He is, the battle's shape is already decided, and you can move forward from that.

For reflection

In what area of your life are you currently fighting for a victory rather than living from the one Christ has already won — and what would it look like to shift your posture there?

Pray

Pray for a genuine, daily confidence in the resurrection — that it would shape how you approach the hard obediences God is calling you toward this week.

Day 7

Luke records a moment that is easy to pass over but stunning when you slow down: Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. He knew what was waiting there — betrayal, suffering, death. He went anyway, not reluctantly, but with His face set. Pastor Bill called this your invitation to find your own Jerusalem — the hard obedience, the costly next step, the place or conversation or commitment you have been circling but not entering. Every believer has one. It might be a relationship that needs repair, a conversation about faith you've been avoiding, a sacrifice that feels too costly, or a direction God has been nudging you toward for months. The whole week has been building toward this: Christian suffering is not an obstacle to the life God has for you. It is the terrain of it. The peace, the Christlikeness, the open doors for hope — they are all on the other side of the step you haven't taken yet. You don't take that step to earn God's favor. You take it because you already have it, because Christ has already walked the hardest road on your behalf, and because anything of eternal value has always lived on the far side of hard. Set your face. Plant your feet. Walk forward — not anxiously, but from victory.

For reflection

What is your Jerusalem right now — the hard obedience God is calling you toward — and what is one concrete step you can take this week to set your face in that direction?

Pray

Pray for the courage and settled trust to identify your Jerusalem and take the next step toward it, knowing you walk from Christ's victory and not toward an uncertain one.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

This message takes a hard look at something most of us instinctively avoid — suffering — and argues that for followers of Jesus, it might actually be the most important terrain we ever walk.

Discussion questions

1
In 1 Peter 3:13-14, Peter distinguishes between different kinds of suffering. Pastor Bill identified three types — common, carnal, and Christian — and said only one of them is what Peter is actually addressing. How would you describe the difference between those three in your own words, and why do you think that distinction matters for how we read the rest of the passage?
2
Peter writes in 1 Peter 3:15-16 that believers should be ready to share their hope with gentleness and respect — and that a clear conscience matters in how that happens. What do you think it looks like, practically, for a community of people to respond to opposition that way rather than with defensiveness?
3
Pastor Bill made a distinction between 'pointing people to Jesus' and 'weaponizing Jesus to defend our political or cultural territory.' What's the difference he seemed to be drawing there, and how might that shape the way we talk about our faith in tense or contested conversations?
4
In 1 Peter 3:17-18, Peter grounds his call to suffer for doing good in what Christ Himself did — suffering for sins He did not commit in order to bring us to God. What does it change about how we think about Christian suffering when it's framed that way, as participation in something Jesus already walked through?
5
Pastor Bill drew on Luke 9:51, where Jesus 'resolutely set His face toward Jerusalem,' knowing what was ahead. He called this the posture of someone walking toward hard obedience because eternal value lies on the other side. What does that kind of resoluteness look like in an ordinary life — not dramatic martyrdom, but everyday faithfulness in a hard direction?
6
Pastor Bill described the fight of faith as something we fight 'from victory, not for victory,' because Jesus has already won. How does that framing change what faithfulness under pressure actually feels like — or how a community like ours might encourage one another through it?

Pray together

Courage to walk toward the hard thing God is calling us to, trusting that Jesus has already gone ahead

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Sign in to save this message.

Go deeper

Continue the series

Refiner's Fire

Week 7 · 9 messages

Where these passages are preached

1 Peter 3 Luke 9

Explore related topics

Christlikeness Gentleness in Opposition Persecution and Faith Suffering for Christ Victory in Christ

Related sermons

Basics | Week 1 | Message
Pastor Hunter Jones · Sep 14, 2025
Shares scripture
GREATEST OF ALL TIME | Week 3 | Sermon
Pastor Daniel Goulding · May 13, 2024
Shares scripture
The Devil's Playbook | Week 2 | Bill Bush
Pastor Bill Bush · Aug 22, 2021
Shares scripture
Refiner's Fire | Week 6 | Pat McCalla
Pastor Pat McCalla · Jul 11, 2021
Shares scripture
Refiner's Fire | Week 5 | Daniel Goulding
Pastor Daniel Goulding · Jul 4, 2021
Shares scripture
Iconic Jesus | Week 3
Pastor Scott Rodgers · Feb 10, 2019
Shares scripture

Powered by Rewind · make your church's Rewind →