03-01-09 The Proof Of Your Faith

I know what your life looks like right now.

At least, I think I know

because I think it probably looks a lot like mine.

Not in the details, of course.

We all have our own unique set of details -

our own happy places,

our own struggles,

our own sorrows,

our own hopes for the future.

They are a big part of the things that make us us.

But even though we all differ dramatically in the details,

there are some things that unite us -

some things we all share in common,

some things that come with being human.

And at the top of the list

are those things that make it so hard for us

to correctly hear and believe what our God says to us.

During the next few minutes

we are going to look closely

at some things our God has said to us

about both present and future events in our lives.

What we will hear Him say

will be absolute, exact, and perfect truth.

And yet, every one of us will have to fight our way

through all the other things going on in our lives right now

in order to find even one tiny piece of truth

that we can hold onto and take away with us.

Some of you have already settled into your mental Sermon Survival Mode -

you’ve already given yourself permission

to be physically here

but mentally somewhere very different.

You may come back to me occasionally

to see if anything of interest is happening,

but you’ve been through so many sermons

for so many years

and seen so little change take place because of them

that you really bring very low expectations to what we do this morning.

You have no great anxiety about what will happen

because you know I’m not going to verbally beat you up,

but neither do you bring any great sense of expectancy.

And please, don’t think I’m being critical.

I told you - I really do understand

because I’ve been there myself.

There are others of you here this morning

who do have a genuine sense of expectancy

as you approach the next few minutes.

Probably it’s there

because you know enough about your God

to know how desperately you need Him,

and you’ve tasted enough of His reality

to hunger for more.

But you, too, will struggle with what’s to come

because you, too, will have to overcome all of the “proofs”

that Satan has offered you this past week,

proofs that God isn’t there,

or that He doesn’t care about what you need

or about what’s going on in your life right now.

And that right there

is the first thing on that list of things

that unites all members of the human race.

We all have our “proofs”

of how and where and when our God has failed us,

“proofs” that form the backdrop

for everything we hear Him saying,

a backdrop that is so vivid

it often makes it very hard for us to see and hear and trust what our God is saying to us.

Do you want me to describe that backdrop in a little more detail

so that can better understand what I’m talking about?

Some of you struggled this past week with intense loneliness.

You felt utterly alone,

with no one who knew or cared what was happening in your life.

Some of you ran out of money

and because your God didn’t supply any more

you resorted to the one resource that never fails - your VISA card.

Some of you faced medical struggles this past week,

struggles for which you can find no answers.

Some of you lost someone you love

and their absence has left a cavern in your soul that God either doesn’t seem to know about

or doesn’t know how to fill.

And with the rest of us

there has been an endless stream of little voices,

not screaming, just whispering the same message - no God...or at least not One that cares.

I started the week with a tooth that was hurting.

Pain has always been a strong motivator for me

so Tuesday morning I called my dentist

and made an emergency appointment for that day.

I went in,

he took an x-ray,

poked and prodded,

and then told me he could find nothing wrong with it and sent me home.

He thought perhaps the pain was psychological in origin

so I tried very hard to believe this

and convince myself my jaw wasn’t hurting.

And I did OK with it until Wednesday afternoon

when the tooth next to the one I thought was the problem

exploded in pain like I’d never felt before in a tooth.

After another 24 hours of that pain

my dentist and I finally reconnected

and made some progress in resolving the agony.

Now, the fact that it took three days of rather intense pain

before I could find some resolution was no big deal, really.

But still, the enemy of my soul is right there,

with his tiny voice - interpreting events

in a way that attacks the love and integrity of my God.

Tiny voices - God doesn’t care...God doesn’t care...God doesn’t care...

And all those voices

dull our ability to hear and respond to the truth,

and they make what we do here on Sunday mornings

all the more difficult to grasp and yet all the more important that we do.

So, before we return to our study of 1^st Peter,

I think it would be of value

for us to first do what we can to quiet the lies.

And nothing defeats the lies

like seeing the truth.

So let me start with some helpful comments from the Apostle Paul.

Near the end of his letter to the Ephesians he wrote,

EPH 6:10-12 Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

And I read that passage for us

because we absolutely need to know

that we are under attack

and the focus of that attack

is specific and relentless.

Do you think it’s just and interesting coincidence

that every one of us

have had things happen in our lives this past week

that have caused us to question the love or the kindness or the compassion of our God?

This warfare thing is all so very different than we have been led to believe it is.

We hear about people

who engage in fierce, overt battles with evil,

or watch some mindless horror film in which Satan takes on all sorts of hideous forms

and we think that’s what spiritual warfare is

and at the same time see it as nothing that would ever touch our life personally.

But that’s not what’s going on, folks.

The battle is real,

it’s intense,

and it’s actively raging in the life of every true believer.

And the thing that makes it so powerful

is that we don’t even know we’re being attacked.

But the very fact that everyone of us in this room this morning

have come in here with our own personal catalogue of things

both from our current lives and from our distant past

that cause us to question and doubt the love of our God

shows how skillful Satan’s attacks are.

Paul outlined our battle strategy in his second letter to the Corinthians.

2CO 10:3-5 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ...

It is a warfare that rages within our minds,

and the weapons used against us

are all those things in our lives

that attack the truth about our God.

And for what its worth,

let me offer this one thought that may help.

Whenever we find ourselves

questioning or doubting God’s love for us

or His care for us

we know we’ve been attacked.

We may not know where the attack came from,

or even how to quickly or effectively reverse its effects in our life,

but we will never make progress in finding the answers

until we face the fundamentals of life with the King -

we are at war, and we are under attack.

The presence of evil

both in the world around us

and within our own deeply corrupted flesh

is a ‘given’ of life on this earth.

The promise of our God to us

is that that evil can never separate us from His love

and we both can and will find Him adequate for whatever form of evil we face.

Which brings us back to our study of 1^st Peter

and the verses that come next in this 1^st chapter we’re studying.

If you’ve been with us the past few weeks

you’ve seen Peter offer us an amazing picture of our God

in the first 5 verses of his letter.

It is a picture designed to encourage us

by giving us a clear, powerful statement

both of our God’s relationship with us now

and of what He has planned for us in the future.

He told us about the way in which our God choose us for Himself

because of the great value we have to Him,

and how Jesus Christ provided His death, His blood for our redemption,

and how the Holy Spirit willingly took on the moment-by-moment calling

of rebuilding our lives.

Then Peter talked with us

about the inheritance our God has already given us,

the inheritance of Himself and all the wealth that comes with Him,

an inheritance that is even now reserved in the unseen world just for us.

Basically what Peter wanted us to know in those opening verses

is that our Creator has already done great things in us and for us in the past,

and He has also planned great things for us in the future.

He wanted us to have that knowledge,

that certainty

before he does what he does next

because in verse 6

he turns his attention to the present,

to what’s going on in our lives right now,

and what we see happening right now

is nowhere near as easy for us to handle

as are the things he just told us about our past and our future.

In fact, beginning in verse 6,

Peter turns his attention to some of those attacks

that Satan so often uses to challenge our trust in our King.

But Peter does something remarkable in these verses,

revealing to us how these attacks can actually be turned into something

that is even more valuable than pure gold.

And this is the type of thing

that is so characteristic of our God, you know -

taking something evil and turning it into something good.

In fact, it’s one of His trademarks,

one of the things He delights in doing,

one of the things that powerfully displays the redemptive aspect of His nature.

Turning evil into good in the lives of His people

is one of His most favorite things to do.

But let me share with you what Peter says about this.

After telling us about all of this remarkably great stuff

that our God both has done and will do,

the next thing Peter says is this:

1PE 1:6 In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials...

And with that statement

Peter brings us right back to where we live each day of our lives.

Isn’t it interesting how different this is from what we so often market in the Christian world.

“Come to Jesus and He’ll make you healthy, wealthy, and wise!”

If you ever hear anyone trying to offer you a pain-free walk with the King,

one thing you know for certain - he or she is trying to sell you something.

Of course this isn’t where Peter stops,

but before we look at where he goes next

let me quickly point out two important phrases in that sentence.

The first is where he says for a little while, if necessary...

And all I want to say about this

is that even before Peter faces us with the hard stuff going on right now

he frames it in hope.

He wants us to know that the pain never lasts forever - it is for a little while.

In fact, Peter comes right back to this in the 5^th chapter of this same letter

and at the same time offers us

a powerful affirmation of hope and deliverance.

He says,

1PE 5:8-10 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.

...and after you have suffered for a little while...GOD!

Do you think He doesn’t know what’s going on?

Do you think He doesn’t care?

There simply is no way to be His child in this world

without at times going through pain...suffering.

But God Himself establishes the limits,

and God Himself goes through the pain with us,

and God Himself intervenes and delivers.

And Peter also wants us to know

that it is never ever without purpose.

That doesn’t mean God causes the pain.

The truth is that, in one way or another,

all of it can be traced back not to God

but to the flood of evil we brought into history

through our own wilful rebellion against God.

But it does mean He only allows it

if it can be reshaped into good in the lives of those involved.

Sometimes it’s necessary

because of a work God cannot accomplish in our own lives any other way.

Sometimes it’s necessary

because of a work God wants to accomplish in another person.

Sometimes it’s necessary

simply because we live in a profoundly corrupt world

and that evil and corruption will touch us all.

But even in those situations we have the assurance of our God that after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.

And the other phrase I want to point out

is those two words various trials.

And all I’ll say here

is that the words used by Peter

are words that indicate the whole spectrum of things that cause us pain or suffering or turmoil.

It includes those moral battles we face - clear temptations to step outside of God’s moral framework

in an effort to meet our needs.

But it also includes

all those things that are not rooted in moral struggles.

In fact more often

what we face is not a moral battle,

but just simply hard times -

events, or circumstances, or losses, or suffering

that is not directly tied to some moral choice,

but rather that has just happened because we live in a fallen world,

a world in which profound evil exists,

and where sickness exists,

and where hatred and fear and anger and selfishness and bigotry are everywhere.

We are flawed people living in a broken world

and sometimes our minds just don’t work right,

or our emotions lie to us,

or our bodies fail us miserably,

and sometimes those in authority over us abuse us

or refuse to reward us or honor us as we deserve.

And we live in a world in which sometimes

our doing what is right,

and our openly identifying ourselves with our King, Jesus Christ,

makes those around us attack us,

or belittle us,

or ridicule us.

He wants us to know

that he’s talking about the whole spectrum of trials that come into our lives,

everything from moral battles,

to physical problems,

to open persecution,

to emotional turmoil,

to loneliness,

to the loss of someone we love.

Well, Peter says that ... now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials...

and then he goes on to say... that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ...

You see,

Peter is telling us that,

just as precious metal is purified through being subjected to intense heat,

so our faith, our real, practical trust in our God,

is purified through pain,

through our going through trials.

And maybe I can explain this best by making it personal.

Whenever pain enters my life

I first respond like I think most of us do -

I frantically try to figure out

what I can do to make the pain stop.

What can I fix,

what can I change,

what can I do to make it go away.

But there are times in all of our lives

when, no matter what we do,

or what we change,

or what we try to fix,

the pain simply will not go away.

It’s just there - always there

as the constant backdrop to our lives.

It’s there when we first open our eyes in the morning,

and when we crawl out of bed we once again immerse ourselves in it.

And it enshrouds us throughout the day,

always there, waiting for us when our mind isn’t consciously focused on something else.

And when we crawl into bed at night

we know it will wait there, next to us through the night,

and be the first one to greet us when we once again open our eyes.

Ever been there?

Maybe you’re there now.

And what Peter most wants us to know

is that there is something remarkable

and something incredibly powerful

that takes place within the Christian spirit at those times.

For it is at those times

that we are driven to a kind of purity of faith in our God

that simply cannot come into our lives any other way.

And let me see if I can explain why that is.

Faith - true faith, the real thing

is simply our choosing to believe

that our God is really there,

and that He loves us absolutely,

and that He will do only good in our lives.

Most of the time

we have to fight our way through to those choices,

fighting our way through all the lies,

and the emotions,

and the religious sewage that blinds us to the truth.

And of course, because those choices are so unnatural for us,

if there is any other resource we can find,

any other “answer” that we think we can substitute for our God,

we’ll go there first.

If there is something else

or someone else

that can make the pain go away,

or something that promises to meet our needs

we’ll tend to go there first,

and give it a try.

But during those times when the trials are most intense,

those times when we find ourselves

facing things for which we simply have no answers,

when we find ourselves in a situation

in which either God is there,

and God is good,

and God is adequate or there is no hope,

faith becomes not simply one of several options

but rather it becomes the one thing we cling to,

the one thing that gives us hope.

Two huge things happen in the Christian during the hard times -

first, all our favorite God-alternatives are seen for what they are - simply meaningless fluff,

and second, we discover the truth about our God - that we need Him desperately and He is more then adequate for whatever we face in this life.

There is literally no end and no limit to the evil in this world.

But that isn’t the whole story

and it’s certainly not the way it ends

because there is also so much our God is doing in our lives

and in the lives of others,

things that right now we know nothing about.

But when the King returns

all will become visible,

all will be known,

and what we will see

is that with every form of evil

there will be those who were touched by that evil and will proclaim,

“My God was adequate, my God brought me through. All praise to the King!”

1PE 1:7 ...that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ...”.