1 Peter 1:6-9 | No Trial Left Behind

Sunday Morning | August 18, 2024 | John C. Majors | Louisville, KY

The First Peter series continues with "No Trial Left Behind."

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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. Well, good morning, Valley View. It's great to be with you today as we continue in our study of the Book of First Peter. So if you have a Bible, go ahead, turn there. We're going to be reading in verses six through nine in the first chapter. And if you have a church Bible, those pages should be up on the screen telling you what page to find that on. If you don't have a Bible, you can grab one anytime out in the connection corner. And those are free for you, free for you to keep. But we want you turning in God's Word. That'll be on page 953 in the Church Bible. We want you to turn in there as we read along together. One thing I remember as I thought about this week's passage, was a story I heard from my brother, one of my brothers. His wife had been out at Whole Foods with a few of their kids. I think she had all the kids with her and, you know, Whole Foods. There was a few things there they needed to get that they couldn't get at their local grocery store. And it was, you know, probably 30 minutes away from them 30 minute drive, but they're there in the store. And as this happens with young kids in the store, the one of their daughters sees something she has to have. There's a stuffed animal there. I think it was a raccoon. I don't remember exactly what it was, but she had to have it. Her life would not be complete until she got it. So mom, will you give me that stuffed animal? And it was one of those gigantic ones and probably the size of her at the time. She's probably seven years old. And of course, you know how that goes. Any parent has had that happen, or especially you have multiple kids. If you give one kids something, you're not leaving there for under a couple thousand dollars. After you've doled out stuff to everyone. You can't just. Yeah, sure. No problem. Even if you wanted to give it to them. And so she says, no, sorry, I can't. Well, sometimes in that situation, what will a kid do? Would you say, pray? Yeah, maybe your kids, other kids might throw a fit at other churches. Not our church, but they might throw a fit to try to get their way. Don't give in. Parents stand firm even if you want to. Maybe later not. Then she didn't do any of that. She kind of just took it into herself because she knew, she just decided in that moment I will have that raccoon. Nothing will stop me. I will not be complete until I get it. And she just started to plot. How am I going to get that? So they get home and she packs a little backpack with some snacks, bottle of water, and she waits for the right moment and she just slips out the back door. While she's going out, she grabs her younger sister. Hey, do you want to go for a walk with me? Sure. No problem. You know, she's 4 or 5 and they go outside, put on their shoes, they're walking down the block. She is going to walk the Whole Foods and get that animal. and it's probably, you know, who knows how many hours. It's probably ten miles away, but she's going and bringing along her little sister with her and they get a, you know, block down the road and her sister's like, does mom know about this? No worries. It's okay. All right. They get a little further and her sister is like, I don't know, I'm not comfortable with this. I'm kind of scared. I think I want to go back. She's like, fine, you can go back, but you're going by yourself. And so she's like, well, I guess I'm in. So they keep walking. And of course, you know, they're only a couple of blocks away from the house. But mom finally realizes, where are these two girls? She's got other kids to deal with, finally realizes what has happened. She's freaking out, gets friends to help. They find them. It's no problem. Of course she didn't make it the Whole foods and get the animal, but I heard that story. I love her resolve and her determination in that story, and I think how interesting it is at times, the lengths we're willing to go to, the hardships we're willing to endure, the challenges we're willing to embrace, the difficulties will even drag other people into it to accomplish our own purposes. But what about when God brings hardship, challenges, trials, difficulties? He brings them not not the ones we chose. He brings them for his purposes. What do we do with that? It's okay when I've chosen it for my purposes. What about when he does that for his purposes? On first Peter chapter one, we're going to look at that today. In fact, we're going to see a number of different purposes that he has with some of the trials, challenges, hardships. He brings our way. In fact, we're going to see three different purposes for trials here in this passage. And let's start by looking at verse six. We'll read that one together. First Peter one, verse six. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary. You have been grieved by various trials. So that first phrase there in this you rejoice that this points back to verses three through five that we looked at last week. All the realities of our salvation in Christ. He talked about how we were born again into a new hope, that we have an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading. And when we meditate on those realities of our salvation, we rejoice. That should bring tremendous joy. The Christian life has this overwhelming element of joy to it. And if you think back to before you knew Christ, yes, there were moments of joy and happiness and delight, but that was always overshadowed by this this foreboding sense of angst and worry and anxiousness and purposelessness and wondering where is my life headed and what's going to happen, and how's it all going to shake out? That was that was always in the background, overshadowing any joy. But when you come to know Christ, it flips upside down. There is this abiding joy. And yes, hard times come. Yes, without a doubt. But there's that joy in Christ that is ever present in the background. Shining light on top of it all. So he starts by saying, in this you rejoice in the relationship you have in Christ, and knowing him that brings joy. But look at the next word, very next word that follows on that. In this you rejoice, though now. A bit of and yet, although just a little bit of pumping of the brakes here. Yes, there is joy, without a doubt. There is joy. Overwhelming joy. And yet there are various trials. There are challenges. One of the things I love about Scripture is it it doesn't shy away from hard realities of life. The Bible doesn't pretend that hard things don't happen, that there aren't challenges and trials that come at you in life. Bible never shies away from that. In fact, Paul Tripp says it this way in his book on suffering, which I mentioned last week. Week before that I've been reading over that book randomly, not even in intentional preparation for this series for the months leading up to us going through First Peter. But here's what he has to say about trials. In his book, he says the Bible never treats suffering as anything other than real, significant, and often life changing human experience. The Bible is not afraid to acknowledge the reality that we face trials. God doesn't hope that you just ignore that part of the Bible. In fact, if anyone is teaching a version of Christianity that says you should not have any trials, that you should not have any suffering, that you should never have any challenges, I'm not going to try to understand their motives for that or what their intentions are, but that's a misunderstanding. That's a gross misunderstanding of Scripture. You have to cast aside huge portions of Scripture to come up with that. You got to get rid of the book of job entirely. You got to throw out at least a third of the Psalms, you know, at least over a third of the Psalms. They're titled the Lament Psalms, meaning they're there for Lamentations. They're there because they express the grief and sorrow of the author. God wasn't afraid for that to show up in Scripture. I'll just point out one of them turned to Psalm 13. Psalms is kind of in the middle of your Bible, and if you have a church Bible, page number should be up on the screen. Psalm 13 page 423. This is just one example. There's something, I think 67 different Psalms. I think it is 66, 67 that are called them in Psalms, where the author is very real about what they're feeling and experiencing. Psalm 13. Look at verse one, how long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? Who hasn't felt that way? Where? Where are you, Lord? How long are you going to go on ignoring my pain, my challenge, my suffering? Have you forgotten me completely? The Bible doesn't shy away from that reality. Look at how it continues. How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Trials. Challenges, difficulties. They're real. Consider and answer me, O Lord. Light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemies say, I have prevailed over him, lest my foe rejoice, because I am shaken. This person is in a deep, difficult moment of despair. And so often in the lament Psalms. I love how this one ends, and so often you see this. Let me get this out there. Let me share what I'm feeling. Let me be real about where I am. Verse five. But I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. Lord, this is how I'm feeling. I don't know how it's going to turn out, but I'm trusting you. I'm going to depend on you through this. What all of this is pointing to here, in this first purpose of trials, is just the reality of trials. And this is our first point. There's three main purposes of trials I'm going to draw out here in this chapter in this section of reading. But this would be the reality of trials. The reality of trials is, is that they are real, that they do come, that we will experience challenges in this life. And Scripture doesn't shy away from that reality. Yes, there's rejoicing, but Christianity is not only joy, there are still hard times. And if you've been a Christian, any amount of time, you know this. So there are the reality trials, challenges, hardships. But there's more. Look at the next verse. Turn back to first Peter. First Peter six. Let's look at verse seven. In this you rejoice now for a little while you've been grieved by various trials. That's the reality of trials. Look at verse seven, 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, glory, honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So first we talked about the reality of trials. But now this section is going to get into. The result of trials. What are the result of trials? In fact, this phrase that starts the verse so that that really is a purpose clause pointing to the purpose of the previous verse, pointing to the purpose of trials and the fact that trials have a purpose. That kind of has a maybe a contradictory or a dual sense to it, where you feel two different things at the same time. You're meaning to tell me that God has a purpose to those trials. When I hear that, sometimes I feel like that's confusing. He's got he's going to you. He brought this in. He allowed this into my life. He knows it's here. And he lets this continue. Couldn't he stop it? Why does he allow this horrible thing into my life? Or even maybe it's not horrible even. It's just an annoyance that's confusing. And yet it's also at the same time can be very comforting to know he knows he is still in control. It's not like this thing entered my life apart from him. And it's comforting to know he's still in control. He's still sovereign over the entire universe. This doesn't unravel his whole plan. He has a purpose. Now, how does he accomplish that purpose? It says here in verse seven. So that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, though it perishes, is tested by fire. One of the things he's going to highlight here, and he's going to compare and contrast our faith to gold in two interesting ways. The first way here is it talks about the way our faith is similar to gold. One of the ways our faith is similar to gold is that it is refined by fire, and gold is made more valuable by fire, by the refining, by burning off the things you don't want or need. You get rid of those things and it makes it more valuable, more precious. Our faith is that way. It's through the trials, through the challenges. God uses those things to burn off, to purify, to refine our faith. I've mentioned the book a couple times now already by Paul Trip on suffering. Why did he write a book about suffering? You know, a guy I used to work with in ministry wrote a book on marriage. He's like, don't write a book on marriage. Like, don't act like you have it all figured out, because then you'll realize big time that you don't. But why would you write a book on suffering? Well, one day he was traveling and teacher. He's written a bunch of different books, and he and the bulk of his ministry is traveling, going around teaching about the book's various topics. People invite him doing seminars, and he was set to travel, but he wasn't feeling good. He hadn't been feeling good for many days and so finally decided to go to the doctor. The doctor sends him to the hospital and immediately shows up at the hospital. They do some tests and they said, if you would have come here one day later, you would have lost both your kidneys. You're you are on the edge of complete kidney failure. And he thought, what I feel okay, I mean, I felt a little down, but he's in the best shape of his life, the best health. He had lost weight. He exercise regularly, he's being careful with his food and managing is stress. And that led to a season of just chronic illness. Surgery after surgery after surgery, months after months, after months of just depleted. And he thought, what I learned in this season, I need to share with others to help them in the midst of suffering. Let me just read you one of the quotes from his book. It's a great book. This is a compilation of a number of different phrases in the book, but this should be on screen here. Suffering. And you can read long as I follow along. As I read. Suffering has the power to expose what you have been trusting in all along. It was humbling to confess that what I thought was faith was actually self-reliance. Weakness is not what you and I should be afraid of. What we should fear is our delusion of strength. Hardship has the power to burst the bubble of self sovereignty. That's a. There's a lot in that. There's a ton there. And what he's pointing out that happened for him. I thought I was trusting God for so many things in my life. But when the suffering came, I realized I was just doing a really good job of trusting me and my strength and my abilities. And it was the suffering that burned all that away could no longer trust in himself. I'm not saying that's what we're doing when we're not suffering is that we're all trusting on ourselves. But for him, that was the reality. That's one of the roles that suffering challenges, trials brings. In fact, one thing he said in another part of his book is that it exposes our idols very, very quickly. God uses that for his purposes to refine us, to make our faith better, to make it more valuable in ways that honestly, I wouldn't personally choose. That's for sure. In fact, one of the songs we sing up here sometimes it's called the title is refiner. Some of the words in it I want to be tried by fire. Lord, heal my life. I want to be used by you. Refine me. And as I'm as I'm singing the song, I'm going. Actually, Lord, no, I don't really want that. I don't want to be tried by fire. But, Lord, I'm going to sing this by faith. And my prayer is that when trials do come. Because they will. They definitely will. Lord would you give me the strength to stand firm in the midst of those two, to lean more on you, to watch you grow me through that? I would never choose that wrath. I don't invite that. But he uses that for his purposes, for his glory to refine us, to grow us. Now, the result of that here, look at what he says. When you have been refined, the tested genuineness of your faith may be found a result. Three things praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ praise, glory and honor. My hope is that I turn to praise when I have gone through trials. You know, it's interesting, one of the phrases he says earlier, though now for a little while back in verse six, you rejoice, though now for a little while you endure trials. One of the maddening dynamics of trials is that in the midst of them, it feels like it will never end. It feels like this will never end. And yet later, sometimes we can look back and see that phrase for a little while at play, and the hope is the result is praise, and we would be able to praise him. I don't want to go back there, but I praise you for that. Thank you for what you've done in my life. I don't want to ever do that again. Thank you for what you did in my life. There's praise. There's honor. I'm about you. But the people I honor are those I've watched you go through hardship and do it well. Those are the people I say I want to be like, how did they do that? How strong their faith was. Must be. Tell me what you leaned on in the midst of that trial. There's praise. There's honor and there's glory. And, you know, we watched for the last two weeks at the Olympics people who intentionally choose hardship, challenges, restrictions, sacrifice. Nice. They say no to the rest of regular life in order to see the glory of gold, to pursue the glory of gold. But our hope here is a different glory. And not that that's wrong, but our ultimate hope is a different glory. When the Bible speaks of the glory of God, it's the glory of his presence. It's the overwhelming nature of his radiance and his presence shining down on everything. It's like when Moses was in his presence, just being near God. His own face gave off light. I want to have that kind of glory. I want to shine that kind of light on other people. I want to have known his glory on me. His radiance. That's one of the results. Praise, honor, glory. Some of the results of the things none of us want, but that God uses to refine us. But now there's a third purpose here in this passage. Look at verse eight, tested genuineness in verse seven, praise, glory, honor. Verse eight, 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, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. We saw in the book of John chapter 20. Thomas, when he's told that Jesus is alive, says, until I see the holes in his hands, until I can put my fingers in his side, I'll never believe. And Jesus shows up and says, here you go. And Thomas worships, falls on his face. My Lord, my God. But Jesus says something interesting to him after that. He doesn't praise Thomas's faith. What he says is, you see and you believe. Good for you. I don't think that's the original language. Good for you. That's great. What about those? Blessed are those who do not see, and yet they believe the reward of having been tested and refined here we see love for him. For those who have never seen him, none of us have ever seen him in the flesh. None of us have had the opportunities to do what Thomas said he wanted to do. And yet you love him. You. You love him for what he has done in your life, even in the midst of the challenges. You love him. You also. It says you believe in him. Belief means not just mental assent. I know some stuff about him, but I trust him. I trust him for everything. I trust him completely. And then it says, you rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith. That word outcome is interesting. It's often translated as the end of something, often referring to something out in the distance. And what's even more odd is that same word is translated as taxes, taxes or death. Or they kind of go together, I guess, the two inevitable things. But the outcome, the end goal, the thing off in the distance that I know that I'm assured will happen here. It's the salvation of your souls. And when we think back to verse seven, I said, there's a way our faith is compared to gold. It's like gold in the reality that it is improved. It is made more valuable through refining. But there's a there's a way it's drastically different. Because what it said in verse seven is that gold is perishable. Gold will pass away. And you know what? It's shocking to me how in our world how much value for all of humanity, as long as it has been discovered, how much incredible value we put on small pieces of shiny metal. I mean, people will will steal for it. People will murder for it. If you go back to World War Two and Nazi Germany, they would dig it out of the teeth of the people they were preparing to murder. All of that for shiny pieces of metal. We put so much value on something that will pass away. It doesn't matter how much gold you have stacked up it, it will be of no value to you in the next world. Zero. Even if you could take it with you. By the way, even if there was some way to bring it all with you, you know how much value gold has in heaven. They pave the streets with it. They're. It has no value. Something we put so much value on here. But here's what will be of great value. The work that Christ has done in your life to make you new. The salvation of your souls comes from one thing only from knowing him, from depending on him, from trusting him. In fact, I think this morning one of the things I think would be valuable for us to do, and Andrew's going to come up and lead us in singing. Is for us to sing that song by faith that is so hard for me to sing, and I'm guessing that some others may feel the same way. I want to be tried by fire. Do I really know? I don't? Lord, here's my life. Take whatever you desire. Refine me. Purify my faith. I don't know what he has planned in your life. I don't even know what he has planned in my life. But my prayer is that we could sing that by faith. We could lean on him. Because at the end of the day, the salvation of your souls comes through faith, not through the accumulation of gold, not through having accomplished something in ministry or having led a certain number of people to Christ, or given a certain amount to the church. Comes from one simple thing just trusting him, loving him, believing in him. Let's all stand and Andrew is going to lead us and just sing in a portion of that song together. I want to be tried by purified. Take whatever you decide, Lord, here's my life who want to be tried by. If I purify you, take whatever you desire. Lord, here's my life. Give me my hands. Purify my heart I want to work for you and me for you see, my life as a sacrifice. I want a girl for you and me for you. Who? My yours. Purify, purify my heart. I want to burn for you and hold me. Take my life and save my life. That's a sacrifice I want to give you. And all me for you to. Put. If I knew, how would I be consumed. You are the fire. The refiner knew. How would I be consumed? How would I be tried by fire? Purify. Take whatever you desire, Lord. He is my light. Lord, we thank you that in the midst of the trials, as Scripture says for a little while, you have a purpose. What seems to have no purpose? You have a purpose. And I'm guessing a number of us today are wondering, Lord, what is your purpose? What in the world is your purpose? There's this thing I'm enduring and I have no idea what you're doing. How would you bring clarity today? Would you at least bring peace and hope in the midst of that? Would you give us the strength to endure? And like the psalmist said in Psalm 13, how long? But I'm trusting in your steadfast love. Help us to depend on you, to lean on you more and more as we watch the reward of that testing become love, belief, rejoicing. Love you Jesus. Amen. Before