Scott Wiens: I'm Pastor Scott, one of the pastors here and blessed to be a part of Trinity Community Church.
Scott Wiens: Now we're at the clock's now 50 years and counting.
Scott Wiens: We're going forward.
Scott Wiens: It's an exciting time, okay.
Scott Wiens: So for those that are joining us or maybe haven't been here for our series, we've been in the middle of a series on the book of 1 Peter, the epistle of 1 Peter, that we've titled Grace Under Fire.
Scott Wiens: You guys been blessed by this series.
Scott Wiens: I think it's been really timely it really has been.
Scott Wiens: And today we're on sermon number 8.
Scott Wiens: Next week Tyler's going to wrap it up with a final sermon.
Scott Wiens: But we're on sermon number 8, which I have titled A Time for Judgment, and it's in 1 Peter 4, verses 12 through 19.
Scott Wiens: So let's read those passages, beginning in verse 12.
Scott Wiens: 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.
Scott Wiens: If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
Scott Wiens: Let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler.
Scott Wiens: 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.
Scott Wiens: And if it begins with us, what will the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?
Scott Wiens: And if the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?
Scott Wiens: Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good.
Scott Wiens: Father, we are so grateful for your word.
Scott Wiens: I love, father, that your word was lifted up.
Scott Wiens: I love that your word was quoted during the words that were given.
Scott Wiens: I love the fact that your spirit was moving in this place, that people were speaking prophetic words and words of knowledge.
Scott Wiens: Father, we're now opening your word and we're trusting that you're going to show us truth from this.
Scott Wiens: And my prayer, father, is that I don't get in the way of what you're doing, and my other prayer is that everyone that's going to hear your word be impacted and changed for your glory.
Scott Wiens: And I pray this and we pray this in the name of Jesus.
Scott Wiens: And the congregation said Amen.
Scott Wiens: Well, this passage of Scripture really has two primary themes to it the suffering through trials and the judgment on Christians and on unbelievers.
Scott Wiens: And this theme of suffering really runs through all of 1 Peter, and we've had sermons on this already, we've talked about it because he talks about the issue of suffering.
Scott Wiens: However, peter now introduces the concept of judgment, and it's specifically on judgment on believers in the context of suffering, and the concept of this judgment that's talked about in verse 17 is often taken out of context.
Scott Wiens: So really, this morning, my purpose is I want to do two things.
Scott Wiens: I want to examine these verses to gain a better understanding of two things Number one, the purpose of trials, and secondly, what exactly is the judgment that Peter is telling Christians that you're all going to experience in this life, and then, hopefully, from this we will be inspired and we'll be informed to walk forward in this truth.
Scott Wiens: So let's first, let's just jump right in.
Scott Wiens: Let's first talk about the verses on suffering.
Scott Wiens: Verse 12, 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.
Scott Wiens: Don't be surprised.
Scott Wiens: One of my favorite videos to watch are surprise videos.
Scott Wiens: My wife loves surprise videos and, by the way, they surprise people in my family too.
Scott Wiens: They're jumping out of bathrooms and everything.
Scott Wiens: They don't surprise me, though, because I said if you do, you're going to get hurt, so don't surprise me.
Scott Wiens: But I think it was funny that he says don't be surprised when you go through suffering and trials, didn't?
Scott Wiens: Jesus himself tells us, in this life you will have what Trouble You'll have trouble.
Scott Wiens: He told us that we'll have a cross to bear.
Scott Wiens: You know, being a Christian is not signing up for a 14-day Mediterranean cruise.
Scott Wiens: It's not.
Scott Wiens: And if your life has been that way so far, don't tell anybody else.
Scott Wiens: We know, as believers, we're going to go through trials and tests.
Scott Wiens: We know that.
Scott Wiens: We understand that.
Scott Wiens: I mean it could be health issues, it could be financial challenges, it could be challenges at work.
Scott Wiens: I mean there's all kinds of things that we go through Struggles, trials.
Scott Wiens: It's what we're promised, it's what we sign up for.
Scott Wiens: So he's saying listen, don't be surprised that you're going to get hit with these things.
Scott Wiens: And, by the way, sometimes these trials can be literally persecution for our belief.
Scott Wiens: You know, we live in a country, and we live in the buckle of the Bible belt, right here in Knoxville, where you can pretty much still proclaim that you're a believer and you can talk about God in public and not be like strung up, right.
Scott Wiens: But that's even changing here in Knoxville.
Scott Wiens: You know it won't be long when the persecution is going to increase and we've talked about that before.
Scott Wiens: The other thing that's interesting is I don't know if you guys have seen this, but there's many Christians that we're seeing well-known Christians, teachers, people in the music, the Christian music industry that have renounced their faith and they've walked away from it and it's called a deconstruction.
Scott Wiens: That's the term that's been given for this deconstruction of their faith.
Scott Wiens: In fact, there's a really good book that Neil put me on that I'm reading.
Scott Wiens: That's the term that's been given for this deconstruction of their faith.
Scott Wiens: In fact, there's a really good book that Neil put me on that I'm reading.
Scott Wiens: It's called the Deconstruction of Christianity and what's so good about this book is it's really important that all of us get aware of what Satan is doing and how he's influencing people that have influence over other Christians.
Scott Wiens: I mean, some of these are people, especially with our youth people from these musical groups.
Scott Wiens: You know the lead singer for Hawk Nelson.
Scott Wiens: He has deconstructed his faith.
Scott Wiens: I remember listening to Hawk Nelson with my kids when they were teens.
Scott Wiens: Great songs, some really powerful lyrics in there, and he's turned his back on his faith.
Scott Wiens: And one of the reasons I think this is happening is because the pressures from our culture are getting stronger and stronger and stronger.
Scott Wiens: And those accusations like you're judging that's all you do is judging.
Scott Wiens: I should be able to love whoever I want to love.
Scott Wiens: Your absolute truth is in my face.
Scott Wiens: Absolute truth is going to become very unpopular.
Scott Wiens: It already is, but it's going to get more and more unpopular as we walk down this path.
Scott Wiens: The point Peter is simply making is you're going to experience trials and persecution.
Scott Wiens: Don't get surprised by it.
Scott Wiens: It's going to happen.
Scott Wiens: By the way, as a humorous side note, I get a kick out of this.
Scott Wiens: The Princess Bride, right.
Scott Wiens: I love the Princess Bride movie.
Scott Wiens: If you haven't watched the Princess Bride movie, leave the church now and go watch it Now, wait for the sermon to finish.
Scott Wiens: In there there's this scene where the dread pirate Robert who's really Wesley right.
Scott Wiens: He's on this hillside with Princess Buttercup Love that name and she says you mock my pain.
Scott Wiens: And he looks at her and he says life is pain.
Scott Wiens: Your highness, anyone who says differently is selling something you know, unfortunately from pulpits in this country.
Scott Wiens: They're selling a different gospel and it's not about the reality of being a Christian and persecution and trials and suffering.
Scott Wiens: It's a different gospel and it's a false gospel.
Scott Wiens: But it goes down as smooth as butter.
Scott Wiens: Life is pain Verse 13,.
Scott Wiens: But rejoice, insofar as you share Christ's suffering, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.
Scott Wiens: The reward for our faithful suffering will be well, there's rewards right now, but it will be when Christ comes back.
Scott Wiens: Don't you ever think about that?
Scott Wiens: Sometimes about what will it be like when you are no longer the minority?
Scott Wiens: Won't that be amazing?
Scott Wiens: I really appreciated Rodney's word this morning.
Scott Wiens: You know the word that came to me when he said that.
Scott Wiens: When he said, what do you think of if the Holy Spirit was pulled away from you?
Scott Wiens: The word that hit me was alone.
Scott Wiens: I don't want to wake up without him in me and knowing that my life is guided by God himself through the Holy Spirit.
Scott Wiens: How alone that would be.
Scott Wiens: It would be like a void.
Scott Wiens: It would be like space.
Scott Wiens: Be like space.
Scott Wiens: When Christ returns, all of that suffering will be worth it.
Scott Wiens: Neil quotes some.
Scott Wiens: I can't remember who you're quoting, but he says when we are face to face with Jesus for three seconds.
Scott Wiens: It'll be worth all the suffering that we've ever gone through Verse 15 and 16, but let no one of you suffer as a murderer or a thief, or as an evildoer or as a meddler.
Scott Wiens: This is interesting.
Scott Wiens: Why does he say that?
Scott Wiens: Well, I think it's interesting.
Scott Wiens: I think what he's basically saying is listen, we can suffer for a lot of reasons.
Scott Wiens: You can suffer because you believe in Christ.
Scott Wiens: You can suffer because of doing right and people you know basically saying, hey, you're doing what's right, but that's not what we want to do.
Scott Wiens: You know culture, all that stuff.
Scott Wiens: But he's saying listen, if you suffer for doing evil, things that even the world thinks are evil, that's not really suffering for Christ.
Scott Wiens: Right, if you drive your car 100 miles an hour down the road and you run into somebody and you kill them, you might be a Christian, but that suffering is not that you're about to go through, which would be jail time, manslaughter, all that stuff.
Scott Wiens: The suffering you're about to go through you brought on yourself.
Scott Wiens: I just find it interesting that he goes from.
Scott Wiens: He goes, let's see.
Scott Wiens: He talks about murderers and then he talks about meddlers.
Scott Wiens: Yeah, if you suffer for being a meddler.
Scott Wiens: That's a problem too.
Scott Wiens: You're bringing that on yourself.
Scott Wiens: But verse 60, he says yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.
Scott Wiens: In the name of God, be glorified and truly, when we suffer for him, we can glorify his name and thank him for it.
Scott Wiens: Many martyrs have praised God's name as they went to their death.
Scott Wiens: Now we get to the scriptures on judgment.
Scott Wiens: Okay, let's talk about that.
Scott Wiens: Let's go to verse 17.
Scott Wiens: For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God.
Scott Wiens: And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?
Scott Wiens: Now, the word judgment can trigger a lot of things in our minds, especially when we think about the judgment of God.
Scott Wiens: When we read about judgment, we can automatically have triggers in our mind, and most of us we think about.
Scott Wiens: When we think God judgment, we think great white throne judgment, we think about people that didn't follow, cast into the lake of fire.
Scott Wiens: We think of that judgment.
Scott Wiens: But is that really what he's referring to here?
Scott Wiens: Is he referring to a judgment unto salvation, or is he referring to something else?
Scott Wiens: Well, let me tell you what he's not referring to.
Scott Wiens: You know how you've heard that says scripture informs scripture, right.
Scott Wiens: We interpret scripture through other scripture, right, and that's the problem.
Scott Wiens: By the way, a lot of false teachers will take a scripture like this, they'll cut it out, they'll paste it up there and then they'll preach on it and it won't be informed by anything else.
Scott Wiens: So we're going to look at this as informed by other scriptures.
Scott Wiens: So I'll tell you what he's not referring to.
Scott Wiens: He cannot be referring to the fact that our salvation is being judged by God.
Scott Wiens: When I say salvation, your salvation, my salvation is assured in Christ Jesus, right?
Scott Wiens: Well, let's look at that.
Scott Wiens: There's three scriptures I decided to pull up, but you can find lots of them on this one.
Scott Wiens: I decided to pull up, but you can find lots of them on this one 2 Corinthians 5.21,.
Scott Wiens: For our sake, he, god, made him Jesus to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the hold on the righteousness of God.
Scott Wiens: Can sin stand before God?
Scott Wiens: Can unrighteous stand before God?
Scott Wiens: No, we become.
Scott Wiens: We become the righteousness of God, the righteousness that was Jesus.
Scott Wiens: Living a perfect life, going to the cross is a perfect, sinless sacrifice.
Scott Wiens: That righteousness is actually placed on us.
Scott Wiens: That's powerful.
Scott Wiens: Romans 5, verse 1 says therefore, since we have been justified by faith has already happened.
Scott Wiens: We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Scott Wiens: In that same chapter he talks about Christ died for us even when we were still his enemies.
Scott Wiens: I don't care when you came to Christ, there was a time in your life where you were the enemy of Christ, you were his enemies, and yet he loved you so much that he died for you.
Scott Wiens: And when you look at that, it says we have been justified, brethren.
Scott Wiens: The word justified is no small word, it's a powerful word and that justification we live under every day.
Scott Wiens: Every day I wake up, I thank God for what he's done for me.
Scott Wiens: It's hope, man.
Scott Wiens: It was great.
Scott Wiens: I was just listening to these words and I was just like, oh, this is so good Hope.
Scott Wiens: Hope Brooke was talking about, I think, was hope.
Scott Wiens: We have this great power, wonderful hope because of what Christ did for us.
Scott Wiens: It's amazing, it's powerful.
Scott Wiens: Romans 8, verse 1, the last verse I'll use for this part, but again, there's many more.
Scott Wiens: And this is a really important one, because when you think of judgment of those unbelievers, you think of the condemnation, right, but what does it say in Romans 8 1?
Scott Wiens: .
Scott Wiens: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Scott Wiens: Everybody say.
Scott Wiens: Everybody say no condemnation, no condemnation, for the law of the spirit of life has set you free, in Christ Jesus, from the law of sin and death.
Scott Wiens: You and I no longer are under that dark cloud of condemnation.
Scott Wiens: We were at some time, some of you more recently than others, it doesn't matter.
Scott Wiens: We were all under that cloud of condemnation.
Scott Wiens: We are no longer.
Scott Wiens: That's powerful.
Scott Wiens: So if we've established that the type of judgment that Peter remember who's Peter talking to?
Scott Wiens: He's talking to the church, right?
Scott Wiens: If we've established that the condemnation that Peter's talking about cannot be the condemnation of our salvation, then what is this judgment that he's talking about?
Scott Wiens: What is it?
Scott Wiens: Context, context, context.
Scott Wiens: We all know we have to look at the context.
Scott Wiens: So let's get some context about what Peter's talking about, because it really sounds like he switched gears in the middle of this passage, but he really didn't.
Scott Wiens: He's expounding on what he's already talked about.
Scott Wiens: Now.
Scott Wiens: There are some themes in the book of 1 Peter.
Scott Wiens: We need to look at it.
Scott Wiens: Just give us some insight into what Peter's talking about.
Scott Wiens: And the first theme I want to point out is the believer's struggle against sin.
Scott Wiens: Has anybody struggled against sin in the last hour?
Scott Wiens: Put your hands up.
Scott Wiens: Come on, just help me out.
Scott Wiens: Put your hands up.
Scott Wiens: Everybody.
Scott Wiens: Look.
Scott Wiens: Whoever didn't have their hands up.
Scott Wiens: Make sure they buy you a donut.
Scott Wiens: By the way, we had squash donuts today.
Scott Wiens: Did you see that I like them?
Scott Wiens: I've never had squash donuts, but they were good.
Scott Wiens: We all struggle against sin.
Scott Wiens: We all struggle against sin and we are new creations.
Scott Wiens: We know that.
Scott Wiens: We know that we're new creations.
Scott Wiens: We know that we've been reborn.
Scott Wiens: We understand that.
Scott Wiens: But we still struggle against sin.
Scott Wiens: And if we go back in 1 Peter and go to chapter 2, this is what we read in verse 1.
Scott Wiens: He's telling them so put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
Scott Wiens: Oh, you're talking to Christians.
Scott Wiens: Why are you talking about this stuff?
Scott Wiens: Because they struggled with it.
Scott Wiens: Anybody here felt any malice, maybe some deceit in your heart this week.
Scott Wiens: Verse 11 of chapter two says Beloved, I urge you, as sojourners and exiles, to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul.
Scott Wiens: They wage war against your soul.
Scott Wiens: He's constantly encouraging them to put away sin from their lives, all through the epistle of first Peter.
Scott Wiens: Okay, so that's a theme, that's one theme.
Scott Wiens: Keep that in mind.
Scott Wiens: The second thing we've already begun to talk about is this theme of understanding the judgment and the reality that Christians are going to suffer trials, and we've already talked about some of that already, but it continues to go forward.
Scott Wiens: Because if you read in verse 12, there's something that's really really important that we understand and I read through it kind of quick before because I didn't want to show it to you too quick but there's a key phrase in verse 12 that we sometimes forget.
Scott Wiens: Verse 12 says Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you.
Scott Wiens: So let me get this right Trials and persecutions have a purpose.
Scott Wiens: Yeah, they do, and he says that purpose is to test us.
Scott Wiens: To test us, and that means for believers, the trials and persecutions that we go through have a purpose.
Scott Wiens: Praise God.
Scott Wiens: You realize your neighbor down the street from you that doesn't know Jesus, that gets cancer.
Scott Wiens: He's going through the same trial that somebody in the church that you know is a sold out believer that gets cancer.
Scott Wiens: Same trial.
Scott Wiens: One has no purpose.
Scott Wiens: One has every bit of purpose.
Scott Wiens: So we know from what he said that there's a purpose for these trials.
Scott Wiens: I think everybody would agree to that, and Peter's talked about this concept of testing already in 1 Peter.
Scott Wiens: In fact, if you go back to chapter 1, verses 6 through 7, he says this In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials.
Scott Wiens: Okay, there's the theme of trials again, right.
Scott Wiens: Then he says verse 7, key interpretation here 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.
Scott Wiens: Praise God.
Scott Wiens: The reality is, god allows trials and persecution to come to us in our lives to test us for the purpose of refining and building our faith and character.
Scott Wiens: God allows these things to happen for the purpose of refining us.
Scott Wiens: I love how he says.
Scott Wiens: If you read that he says more precious than gold that perishes though it's tested by fire, our faith is more precious than gold.
Scott Wiens: We're being refined every day.
Scott Wiens: And this process?
Scott Wiens: Anybody venture to think what this process is called?
Scott Wiens: We call it all the time Sanctification, sanctification.
Scott Wiens: Wayne Grudem says this about sanctification.
Scott Wiens: He says sanctification is a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives.
Scott Wiens: Good definition, because there's a partnership that's going on here between God and man and it's that progressive work of God.
Scott Wiens: So we've established that we struggle against sin.
Scott Wiens: We established that there's a purpose for testing or, excuse me, there's a purpose for trials and suffering.
Scott Wiens: It's to test us and it's to test us so that we might be more like Christ.
Scott Wiens: So with that context, I want to read verse 17 of chapter 4 again, for it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God.
Scott Wiens: And if it appears, if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the commandments of God?
Scott Wiens: So we know, first, that God's the one that does the judging.
Scott Wiens: Secondly, we know this judgment cannot be a judgment about salvation.
Scott Wiens: Therefore, it stands to reason that this judgment has to do with temporal judgment by God on his people, here and now, for the purposes of sanctification.
Scott Wiens: You see the relationship between what he just talked about, judgment, and the trials that we're going through.
Scott Wiens: That's the testing, this judgment of God.
Scott Wiens: He's working with us every day and you know you might say are you saying God judges me every day, yeah, yeah, not in the way again that you might say, well, are you saying God judges me every day?
Scott Wiens: Yeah, not in the way again that you might think about judgment.
Scott Wiens: But he's working with us, he's shaping us, he's guiding us.
Scott Wiens: Have you ever been on a sports team and maybe you're in volleyball and you're serving and you have a coach.
Scott Wiens: What's the coach doing?
Scott Wiens: As they're watching you serve?
Scott Wiens: Are you serving the right way?
Scott Wiens: Do you have the right form?
Scott Wiens: Are you following through All that stuff?
Scott Wiens: They're judging you as you walk through.
Scott Wiens: We have a God that walks through life with us.
Scott Wiens: He's with us, he's informing us, he's helping us and there are times, in his sovereign will, that he will discipline us.
Scott Wiens: Even I said the word, I said discipline, but that's what he does In his perfect and sovereign will.
Scott Wiens: God allows trials to come on us.
Scott Wiens: He judges our actions and lives and sometimes he disciplines us for the purposes of refining us into the image of Jesus Christ.
Scott Wiens: You know trials and persecutions.
Scott Wiens: We experience their tests for us, and sometimes they're just the discipline of the Lord as part of the sanctification process.
Scott Wiens: Note that I said sometimes I have been of a different camp, and that camp was anything bad that happened to me was God spanking my butt.
Scott Wiens: Anything bad was like oh, this is oh, god's correcting me, he's correcting me and you know, what happens after a while is my view of God is just a big, mean corrective God.
Scott Wiens: There are other people, by the way, that are more on the other side, where they think everything they go through is an attack of the enemy.
Scott Wiens: Is that true?
Scott Wiens: No, it's not.
Scott Wiens: It's not.
Scott Wiens: Everything we go through is an attack of the enemy Because of God's discipline in me.
Scott Wiens: There's a purpose for that.
Scott Wiens: The Apostle Paul talks about this process in the context of being judged by the Lord in 1 Corinthians 11.
Scott Wiens: And this is really a powerful, powerful verse.
Scott Wiens: In the context of 1 Corinthians 11, he's talking about the abuse of the Passover.
Scott Wiens: We talk about this a lot.
Scott Wiens: We use this scripture to talk about how to correctly take, you know, the Passover service together.
Scott Wiens: But right in the middle of this correction where he says you come and you know you eat and all this stuff, he says this in verse 32,.
Scott Wiens: But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
Scott Wiens: We are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
Scott Wiens: He used the phrase judged by the Lord, and he equates it and joins it with discipline Okay, discipline.
Scott Wiens: He draws a firm line, though, between that judgment and the judgment that will come on.
Scott Wiens: Unbelievers that of course is the condemnation of eternal punishment.
Scott Wiens: So God disciplines us.
Scott Wiens: Well, the Bible talks about what that process looks like.
Scott Wiens: Let's look at Hebrews, chapter 12.
Scott Wiens: This is a long section, but I want to read the whole thing.
Scott Wiens: Trying to cut this down didn't make sense.
Scott Wiens: We're going to just read about eight, nine verses.
Scott Wiens: In verse three of Hebrews 12, it says this considered him, excuse me, consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against him, so that you may not grow weary and faint hearted.
Scott Wiens: Listen, if Christ went through it, he's going to give us the strength to go through it.
Scott Wiens: Right, this is perspective.
Scott Wiens: That's a very perspective gaining verse.
Scott Wiens: In verse four in your struggle against sin, have you not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood?
Scott Wiens: Excuse me, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
Scott Wiens: And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
Scott Wiens: And then he quotes from Proverbs 13, which back then wasn't Proverbs 13, but it was one of the scroll it.
Scott Wiens: My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the one who, he what, yeah, and then he expounds, and it's beautiful.
Scott Wiens: It is for discipline that you have to endure.
Scott Wiens: God is treating you as sons, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
Scott Wiens: If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not his sons.
Scott Wiens: Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them.
Scott Wiens: Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live For?
Scott Wiens: They disciplined us for a short time, as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us now.
Scott Wiens: Listen to this for our good, that we may share in his powerful word.
Scott Wiens: Folks, holiness, the only way I know to become more holy is to become more like Jesus Christ.
Scott Wiens: For the moment, all discipline me seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Scott Wiens: The judgment of God on the household of faith is his loving discipline, that that, combined with the trials we endure and our struggle against flesh yields this peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Scott Wiens: Now, I'm not going to put a show of hands up here.
Scott Wiens: How many of you, though, have been disciplined by your parents in probably the wrong way?
Scott Wiens: Yeah, we've all been through that, right, because we have imperfect parents.
Scott Wiens: Right, I remember when I was like five, I was disciplined by my dad, and it was bad, and it wasn't even something I knew I did.
Scott Wiens: I was five and I still remember it today.
Scott Wiens: Right, but I have, and you have, a perfect God, and if he didn't love me, he wouldn't discipline me.
Scott Wiens: I want the discipline of God.
Scott Wiens: I'm not saying I enjoy it when I'm getting it, but if I have my eternal purpose in mind and what God's eternal purposes is in my life, then I will rejoice in it, because that's what we were told to do.
Scott Wiens: We're to rejoice in it.
Scott Wiens: The late Jerry Bridges from the Navigators said this about God's discipline of his children.
Scott Wiens: He said discipline may be either corrective or remedial.
Scott Wiens: It may be sent for the purpose of correcting some sinful attitude or action or to remedy some lack in our character.
Scott Wiens: In either case, it is administered by our Heavenly Father in love, not in wrath.
Scott Wiens: Jesus has already borne the wrath of God in our place, so we're not under the wrath of God.
Scott Wiens: So if your mind, if you hear the word discipline and you think anger and wrath, you got to break that off.
Scott Wiens: When you're looking at Jesus and looking at God, you need to break that off because that doesn't apply to you.
Scott Wiens: When he disciplines you, he disciplines you with love that you can't even comprehend, that I can't even comprehend.
Scott Wiens: He goes on.
Scott Wiens: Jesus has already borne the wrath of God in our place.
Scott Wiens: So all adversities that come to us come to us because he loves us and designs to conform us to the likeness of his son.
Scott Wiens: Brethren, have you ever been under the discipline of God?
Scott Wiens: Maybe you didn't know you were, but you were.
Scott Wiens: I remember this a long time ago.
Scott Wiens: So I'm a man of words, I'm a talker and I had an uncanny ability to spin truth.
Scott Wiens: I could spin truth and I would spin truth in the way that was going to make sure, because, even if it was bad news, I was going to spin it in such a way it was going to ease the person I was telling it was going to make them think better of me and they wouldn't be as mad at me.
Scott Wiens: Does that make sense.
Scott Wiens: I could spin it.
Scott Wiens: You know, I used to work at a performing arts auditorium when I was in college and the guy who was head of our ushers, he said tact and diplomacy.
Scott Wiens: He said you need to be able to tell somebody to go to hell and make them look forward to getting there.
Scott Wiens: I remember that.
Scott Wiens: But I learned to spin truth.
Scott Wiens: And when you're spinning truth and I had a situation where I had spun that truth to somebody and the Holy Spirit got on top of me and brethren, I was miserable, I mean sick to my stomach, and I had to call this person two or three times because I would give them more truth than say no more truth.
Scott Wiens: And I was literally sick to my stomach until I finally confessed everything to this person about what I had done.
Scott Wiens: That involved them.
Scott Wiens: It was the discipline of the Lord.
Scott Wiens: And you know what?
Scott Wiens: I don't spin truth anymore.
Scott Wiens: I'm tempted, but I go back to that moment and I remember how miserable I was and I was convicted You're lying, Scott.
Scott Wiens: You gave a little bit of the truth but you need to give it all.
Scott Wiens: He was disciplining me and I'm so grateful he did.
Scott Wiens: Was I happy during this time?
Scott Wiens: I've never been so miserable in my life, but the freedom I felt afterwards was absolutely amazing to me.
Scott Wiens: I just I will never forget the change.
Scott Wiens: I want to be clear about something Not all trials are God's discipline on us, okay.
Scott Wiens: At the same time, though, not all trials are the attacks of the enemy For every Christian.
Scott Wiens: For a Christian, every trial we go through has a purpose, and we should get in the habit of asking God what is he trying to teach us that?
Scott Wiens: Why, word, just throw it away.
Scott Wiens: You're not going to understand why.
Scott Wiens: Maybe you will, maybe you won't, but what is he teaching you?
Scott Wiens: And it could be that you're going through just a persecution or a trial.
Scott Wiens: It might not be God's discipline, but you need to talk to God about that.
Scott Wiens: You need the Holy Spirit to reveal that to you, because, really, in the end, the purpose is the same, and the purpose is to become more like Christ.
Scott Wiens: Right, whether it's God's discipline, whether it's just a persecution you're going through, whether it's just a trial that God's not disciplining you, regardless of all that, he's still teaching you something through it.
Scott Wiens: I'm going to go back to 1 Peter 4, in the last part of verse 17.
Scott Wiens: But if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?
Scott Wiens: And if the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?
Scott Wiens: And it's a terrible thing to fall under the wrath of God.
Scott Wiens: You know this phrase that he quotes here and it's in quotes.
Scott Wiens: It's from Proverbs 11, 31.
Scott Wiens: If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?
Scott Wiens: I just want to make it clear something.
Scott Wiens: You know.
Scott Wiens: If your kid comes home from school and says I took that test and I barely passed, okay, so you're thinking, okay, you got a whatever passing grade was a 70.
Scott Wiens: You got a 70.
Scott Wiens: We think of this in gradients.
Scott Wiens: But that's not what he's talking about here, because you're saved and you're saved.
Scott Wiens: But he's talking about, when it comes to being scarcely saved, I believe, is this reality of the fact that you were dead in your sins.
Scott Wiens: You were dead in your sins, I was dead in my sins.
Scott Wiens: Being scarcely saved means that God, in his love, reached down and he woke me up.
Scott Wiens: He didn't wake me up, he resurrected me from the dead.
Scott Wiens: So don't think this is some kind of grade that you have to get.
Scott Wiens: No, god's the one that brings us back.
Scott Wiens: He's the one that resurrects us so we can have truth and we can have that salvation that is so freely offered to us, to all those that are, you know, born again believers.
Scott Wiens: We just have to realize that our salvation was not on us, it was on Him, and praise God it was.
Scott Wiens: I have, no, we have nothing to boast about.
Scott Wiens: Paul talks about that in Ephesians 2.
Scott Wiens: So I want to summarize real quick.
Scott Wiens: God is refining us through the process of sanctification, which includes persecution, testing through again, trials and, at times, his judgment and discipline, and this process can be painful.
Scott Wiens: I've identified a part of my life that was painful.
Scott Wiens: I'm sure many of you could stand up and give you testimonies where you went through a trial and you later identified it was the discipline of God, but on the other side of it you're like I wouldn't have changed a thing, because you became more like Christ through it.
Scott Wiens: If God didn't discipline you, as we read earlier, then we really are illegitimate sons and daughters of God.
Scott Wiens: We don't do this very often at the church, but I'm going to show a video.
Scott Wiens: A lot of you are familiar with a group two guys called the Skit Guys.
Scott Wiens: Skit Guys are great.
Scott Wiens: How many have heard of the Skit Guys before?
Scott Wiens: Okay, that's good, the Skit Guys.
Scott Wiens: They're Christians and they do skits related to Christian themes, right, and they did one called God's Chisel.
Scott Wiens: And as I was preparing this, thinking about God's work within us and how he sometimes disciplines us in the painful process, this video came to my mind.
Scott Wiens: So it's a short, five-minute video.
Scott Wiens: I want us to watch it, and then I'm going to come back and I'll finish up with some thoughts.
Speaker 2: Ephesians 2.10 says we are God's masterpiece.
Speaker 2: I don't know about you, but when I look in the mirror I don't see a masterpiece.
Speaker 2: But I want to.
Speaker 2: So I go to God and I pray.
Speaker 2: Dear heavenly father, would you do whatever it takes to mold me into the image of your son?
Speaker 2: Make me your masterpiece.
Speaker 2: In Jesus' name, I pray, Amen.
Speaker 2: Hi oh who are you?
Speaker 3: I'm God.
Speaker 3: You said the prayer, so here I am.
Speaker 3: That's how it works.
Speaker 2: You're not God, no.
Speaker 3: I am.
Speaker 2: Okay, if you're God, what does Lamentations 15.9 say?
Speaker 3: Lamentations is a very short book.
Speaker 3: It only has five chapters.
Speaker 3: Why?
Speaker 2: is it so short?
Speaker 3: I was tired of lamenting.
Speaker 3: You are God.
Speaker 2: What's that about?
Speaker 3: These are the tools I'm going to use to make you into my original masterpiece.
Speaker 3: This is the process.
Speaker 3: I thought you were a carpenter.
Speaker 3: That's my son.
Speaker 3: Let's get busy.
Speaker 3: I'm going to bring up things in your life that don't belong in your life, and start right here.
Speaker 3: Your anger Ow.
Speaker 3: I created the emotion, but you use it in the wrongest of ways.
Speaker 3: You compare yourself to others instead of me and you lie.
Speaker 3: You tell little white lies.
Speaker 3: You're so afraid of confrontation.
Speaker 3: You're becoming a people pleaser.
Speaker 2: Okay, time out.
Speaker 2: I think you've done some really good work and I'm looking pretty good right now, when you look in the mirror.
Speaker 3: Who do you see?
Speaker 3: I see me.
Speaker 3: Okay, then I need to keep chiseling away because ultimately, you and other people need to see my son.
Speaker 2: Okay but when I look like Jesus, people get uncomfortable and I don't think I'm supposed to do that.
Speaker 3: So what you're saying is you'd rather play God in certain areas of your life than for me to be God over your whole life.
Speaker 2: No, what I'm saying is you've grown me to here.
Speaker 3: Maybe we take a break from me.
Speaker 3: You're either moving toward me or away from me, but you never just plateau.
Speaker 3: What you're doing is called control.
Speaker 3: Do you want to control things in your life, or can I chisel, control, chisel, control, chisel.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, chisel.
Speaker 3: All right, here we go.
Speaker 3: Can we chisel where I want?
Speaker 3: That's called control.
Speaker 3: Okay, sorry, this right here.
Speaker 3: That secret sin, that thing that you run to whenever you're hurting, you're angry, you're lonely, you're tired.
Speaker 3: Do you want to keep rearranging this in your life or do you want me to chisel it out?
Speaker 3: It's not a sprint, it's a marathon, it's your whole life.
Speaker 2: This hurts?
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't think you understand this pain.
Speaker 3: Don't talk to me about pain.
Speaker 3: I know all about pain.
Speaker 3: I sent my son to die on the cross for pain, for sin, but I also did it for another reason to give you freedom.
Speaker 3: Do you know what insanity is?
Speaker 3: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again, expecting different results, and there are things that you are doing in your life that are insane.
Speaker 2: Allow me to chisel them out of your life.
Speaker 2: I know, but I've let you down so many times.
Speaker 2: God.
Speaker 3: No, you were never holding me up.
Speaker 2: Okay, then chisel away, but just be prepared for what you're going to find in there, because I know who's inside there.
Speaker 2: God, I get up every morning and I hate what I see in the mirror because inside is this scared stupid.
Speaker 2: Get up every morning and I hate what I see in the mirror because inside is a scared stupid kid.
Speaker 2: And I try, I try, but I can't.
Speaker 2: I can't be who everybody else expects me to be, god.
Speaker 2: I can't even be who I want to be, much less who you created me to be.
Speaker 2: So chisel away and just know what you're going to find in there.
Speaker 3: You have listened to so many voices, so many critics for far too long that are not for me, and you've bought into the lie.
Speaker 3: You think you're junk, don't you?
Speaker 3: When you lay your head down at night, at the end of the day, you think you're junk.
Speaker 3: I don't take time to make junk.
Speaker 3: I want to show you something about my love reaching your back pocket.
Speaker 2: This is a.
Speaker 2: It's a page from a notebook when I was in college.
Speaker 3: How'd you get this, Hello?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Go ahead read it.
Speaker 2: Dear God, did I hear you right?
Speaker 2: You said you would use me, but I feel really useless.
Speaker 2: But if you can take this life, this mess of a life, I have and do with it what you want.
Speaker 2: I love you God.
Speaker 3: I love you too, and I love you too much just to leave you where you're at.
Speaker 3: It's going to be tough, yes, but you bought into the lie, thinking everything was going to be easy, when you said yes to me.
Speaker 3: There will be trouble in this world, but be of good cheer, I've overcome the world.
Speaker 3: I want you to do something, I want you to look out there and I want you to say Tommy is God's original masterpiece.
Speaker 3: Tommy is God's no not the way you see yourself or you try so desperately for others to see you.
Speaker 2: But maybe for the first time in your life, the way I made you, the way I created you, tommy is God's original masterpiece.
Speaker 3: Yes, you are.
Speaker 2: And so are you.
Speaker 2: You are an original masterpiece.
Scott Wiens: Powerful, isn't it?
Scott Wiens: That's the kind of loving God we have.
Scott Wiens: There's nobody else that I'd rather have the hammer and the chisel in their hands than God.
Scott Wiens: You know, I will tell you that there's a lot of people in this room that have gone through some really difficult times.
Scott Wiens: Some of you are in the middle of it right now.
Scott Wiens: Some of you are going through trials and you're wondering where's my hope.
Scott Wiens: Some of you might be feeling the chisel and the hammer of God.
Scott Wiens: I just want to encourage you today that, in God's sovereignty, he's doing a great work in you.
Scott Wiens: He's doing a great work in me.
Scott Wiens: I want to finish with Romans, chapter 5, the first few verses of Romans 5, because it so beautifully talks about what we just saw up here and what we've been talking about this whole time.
Scott Wiens: Paul says in verse 1, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Scott Wiens: We read that earlier, right, but look what he says now.
Scott Wiens: Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into his grace, in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Scott Wiens: Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
Scott Wiens: And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Scott Wiens: If you're currently walking through a trial, have hope, because God is changing you and putting you and making you into the image of Christ himself.
Scott Wiens: That's why we go through it, so we need to be thankful for the chisel God's chisel that's making it into his image.
Scott Wiens: I want to tell you at the very end that we have people that will be up front.
Scott Wiens: Please don't walk out of here until you get prayer.
Scott Wiens: If you need encouragement, if you need someone just to pray over you and just encourage you, please don't do that.
Scott Wiens: Don't walk out without getting that, because that's what we're here.
Scott Wiens: We're a body, we're one.
Scott Wiens: That's what this church is all about.
Scott Wiens: Please stand with me and let's pray Amen.
Scott Wiens: Heavenly Father, you are a good, good Father, you are the perfect Father and Father.
Scott Wiens: We know that as we go through the discipline that sometimes comes upon us, where we realize that you're disciplining us and you're doing it, father, to make us into the image of your Son and Father, my prayer for all of us is that we listen to your Spirit.
Scott Wiens: We hear from Him, we identify when you're doing this and then we receive it.
Scott Wiens: Lord, that you give us a humble spirit doing this and then we receive it.
Scott Wiens: Lord, that you give us a humble spirit that we would receive those chisel blows, knowing that you're doing this great work.
Scott Wiens: Father, I pray for all those in here that have yet to give their hearts and minds and their whole being to Jesus Christ, those that have yet to put themselves in the hands that really salvation is, the only hands that salvation comes in.
Scott Wiens: Father, I pray that they would do that, realizing they can wake up every morning with your Holy Spirit, with you inside and with a loving Father that works with us in such perfect ways.
Scott Wiens: We thank you for your truth.
Scott Wiens: We thank you for your loving discipline.
Scott Wiens: We thank you, lord, that you did not leave us as orphans, and we pray this in the powerful name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Scott Wiens: Thank you, brother.