1Pe 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again
to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
1Pe 1:4 to an inheritance that is imperishable,
undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,
1Pe 1:5 who by God's power are being guarded through
faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
1Pe 1:6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little
while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,
1Pe 1:7 so that the tested genuineness of your
faith--more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire--may
be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus
Christ.
1Pe 1:8 Though you have not seen him, you love him.
Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is
inexpressible and filled with glory,
1Pe 1:9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the
salvation of your souls.
As you may recall I spoke last time
about first that Peter has challenged us to bless God even in the midst of our
trials. Then I spoke about the Lord’s worthiness to be praised in spite of our
condition, God is still God and worthy to be praised. He has given us a hope
beyond this World of a salvation that has yet to be revealed to us. But when it
is revealed…we will like it!
Here, we see Peter continuing on in
much the same manner starting in verse 6 but with more detail than the previous
verses. Peter reminds us again that we have a reason to rejoice. Our hope is in
the promise, guarded by God Himself, of a full and final salvation.
Peter then immediately lets them know
that he knows that they are suffering trials. He is taking any excuses away
from us to not praise God. He recognizes, God recognizes your
difficulties, your trials and your challenges. But you are still called to
bless and praise God anyway. Yes, this is difficult. No, I have not achieved
this yet. I still tend to get all depressed and wallow in self-pity every time
things are hard or challenging or I am suffering. I am not saying that when
things are particularly challenging that we have to be all happy, clappy. But
we should continue to be a witness for God in our attitude and actions and be
able to still proclaim His mercy and love in the middle of those times.
If we look at Paul’s writing in
Romans, we can see that he is greatly distraught.
Rom 9:1 I am speaking the truth in Christ--I am not
lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit--
Rom 9:2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing
anguish in my heart.
Rom 9:3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed
and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to
the flesh.
Paul speaks of great sorrow and anguish. He is crying out for
the salvation of loved ones. Can anyone here relate to that? Are there loved
ones that you cry out to the Lord for? I have several that I don’t know if they
are saved, they are not living like it. I can quickly become depressed and
anxious about this and take my focus off God and put it on myself and what can
I do to fix them. That is not my place, nor is it yours. God calls who He
wills. There is nobody that is going to go to Hell because you or I did
something wrong or didn’t do anything or did too much.
Eph 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places,
Eph 1:4 even as he chose us in him before the
foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In
love
Eph 1:5 he predestined us for adoption as sons
through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
Eph 1:6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with
which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
As
you can see, God has predestined us for adoption. If we look at the book of
John it confirms this. One of my memory verses.
Joh 1:12 But
to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to
become children of God,
Joh 1:13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will
of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
God
can and does use His people to lead others to Christ, but if it is not you it
will be someone else. God’s ultimate goal will be accomplished regardless of
your obedience or disobedience. He is God after all and He does the calling. We
are just to be faithful and obedient to Him and do what we are called to do.
First, praise God in all that we do. Many times you don’t realize that people
are watching how you react to circumstances. They are checking to see if what
you have is real. If you are a fake a non-Christian will be the first to
notice. Second we are to share the gospel, not shove it down their throat.
Share… Share with them the love of Christ. If God is calling them they will
respond. If God is not calling them at that time they will not respond. That
doesn’t mean give up, it means trying to force someone or scare someone is not
effective. When the fear subsides or the pressure is gone they will have, what
I call, buyers remorse. They will regret their decision.
We were talking about Paul being sorrowful and anguishing.
This
is the same Paul who talks about in many places about joy. He writes in Romans 14
that the kingdom of God is about righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy
Spirit. In 2 Corinthians 7 he writes
that he is overflowing with joy. One of the fruits of the Spirit that Paul
lists in Galatians is joy.
So why or how can Paul
be sorrowful and anguishing while at the same time have the joy that we are
supposed to have? How are we, as Peter suggests, to rejoice in times of trials
and difficulties?
Let’s look at verses 7 through 9 and see if we can find any
answers.
1Pe 1:7 so that the tested genuineness of your
faith--more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire--may
be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus
Christ.
1Pe 1:8 Though you have not seen him, you love him.
Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is
inexpressible and filled with glory,
1Pe 1:9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the
salvation of your souls.
The
trials that we face as Christians are meant to try our faith. In some cases
trials are put purposely in your life for that single reason. Not always, it
could be for someone else’s benefit or even just so that God’s ultimate plan
will be full-filled. But it is never there for your destruction. We are
persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down but not destroyed; Paul writes in 2
Corinthians. Actually to the contrary it is for our advantage.
Afflictions
come for a test of our faith, to prove the value and strength of it. If you
consider that our Christianity depends on faith, should we not embrace that
which will strengthen it. If our faith is weak, our whole spiritual walk will
be found wanting. Without faith, we have nothing. Let me just interject that
faith is not something that you yourself create. You have faith because God
gave you the gift of faith. Not because you gave all your money to a TV
evangelist and then said I am going to have faith in God to pay my past due
bills. Faith does not work like that. Your faith is given to you by God and he
is refining it in you day by day.
We
see that Peter uses gold as an example of faith. Gold was the most valuable,
pure, useful and durable of all the metals. So is faith to the Christian, and
it will last until it brings you to heaven, that full and final salvation. But
faith is even more precious than gold. To increase the value of both it
requires purification, which is done by separation. It is the process of
heating and melting so that the dross can be separated from the pure, making
the pure more valuable and usable. But here is the big difference between gold
and faith…As you remove the dross from the gold, the pure gold becomes less and
less. But as faith is improved it becomes more and more! Gold does not increase
in the fire but faith does. Eventually that gold will perish, faith never will
because it is guarded and protected and given by God, the very sustainer of the
universe.
The
writer of Hebrews says that we are running a race and that we should do it with
endurance. As I chewed on these scriptures I was picturing a race, perhaps a
marathon. I haven’t done much running in my life. I have done a lot of walking
and hiking, but not much running, but I do know that to run you must be
constantly conditioning your body. That is what trials do for our faith. It is
conditioning us so that we can continue running the race. It encourages us
every time we pass a mile marker. As we run that race there, of course, are
people around us cheering us on and throwing water on us. Those are the fellow
Christians that we should be surrounding ourselves with. And as we continue to
run the race, as in all races, there is a finish line. You see the runner
holding his arms out and reveling in the fact that he has completed the race.
Even those that are not in first place are excited and joyous at the fact that
they had the endurance and the conditioning to finish. The pain of exercise and
the dedication to training were all worth it as they passed the finish line.
Our finish line is our full and final salvation, the outcome of our faith.
2
Timothy says…
2Ti 4:7 I have
fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
We are just called to have
perseverance. Keep our focus of Christ no matter what is what that means. The
trophy for our perseverance is our full and final salvation.
Jas 1:2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet
trials of various kinds,
Jas 1:3 for you know that the testing of your faith
produces steadfastness.
Jas 1:4 And let steadfastness have its full effect,
that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
No comments:
Post a Comment