01-24-10 The Fiery Ordeal Pt. 2

Our study of 1^st Peter has brought us to the closing verses of the 4^th chapter,

a section in which Peter returns us to the major theme of this short letter -

that of preparing us for the added turmoil that will enter our lives

as a direct result of our submission to our Lord Jesus Christ.

And if anything I have ever said

emphasizes how wrong our world is,

how absolutely corrupt it is

it’s that statement I just made.

We currently live in a world system

in which our submission to the God who created us,

the God who created all things

makes it harder for us to live in this world.

Our union with Him

creates a tension between us and the society around us,

a tension that causes them at times to resent us,

and to resist our Lord’s work through us at all costs.

Of course it doesn’t help this tension

when we see what Satan has done through religion

to corrupt and confuse the true message of the grace of God.

Do you remember what you thought about God before you met Him?

Do you remember what you thought He wanted from you

and what He wanted to say to you?

Do you remember what you thought He wanted to do in your life?

With most of us

the answers to those questions

were heavily influenced by whatever religious voices we’d been exposed to,

and the answers all had to do

with our belief that most of all God wanted to shape us up,

to improve our moral performance,

and to motivate us to do more “good deeds”, whatever they were.

Most of us assumed

that His goal was to hand us a list of moral requirements,

to get us to feel guilty about the ones we were messing up,

and then to motivate us to try harder to keep the list He’d written for us.

If God expressed His goal for our life in just four words

those words would be, “BE GOOD! DO GOOD!”

And it will come as no surprise

that nothing has really changed in the non-Christians around us.

They are still

where we once were,

and Satan does everything he can through the man-made religious systems around us

to continue to reinforce those lies

because it keeps those around us from listening to what their God is really saying,

and it intensifies their hostility toward us as Christians.

And the truth is so very different,

so absolutely different from anything we have been led to believe.

I can give it to you easily in a single sentence.

Or rather, John can.

JOH 3:17 "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

God did not send His Son into your life to judge you,

or to condemn you,

or to attempt to prod you into improved performance.

God sent His Son into your life

to save you,

to pour out on you His grace, and His mercy, and His compassion, and His kindness,

and His friendship forever.

This is what our Lord offers us,

and this is what we offer the world around us on His behalf.

And yet...

and yet the warfare around us is such that

the very ones on this earth

who bring to our world the good news of release for the captives

and redemption for those weighed down with guilt, and fear, and shame

are the same ones

who are viewed as the enemies of progress,

and whose voices are silenced whenever possible.

We have been called to warfare, my friends,

and if we choose to care,

and choose to love,

and choose to allow others into our lives,

then we will enter into a daily warfare both for them and for the truth in our own lives,

a warfare that comes with our aligning ourselves with the King.

I came across a statement in the 149^th Psalm

that fascinates me because of the visual image it gives

of this life we are called to through Christ.

It’s found in verses 4-6 and it says, “For the Lord takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation. Let the godly ones exult in glory; Let them sing for joy on their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, And a two-edged sword in their hand...”.

Of course I love the way that first sentence begins,

telling us what we long to hear but rarely dare give ourselves permission to believe,

that the Lord takes pleasure in His people...

He doesn’t just tolerate us,

He doesn’t just deal with us,

he doesn’t just work with us,

He takes pleasure in us.

How could that be, huh?

And yet there it is.

Have you ever pictured God taking pleasure in anything?

That’s an emotional response, you know.

It isn’t just a logical, rational, reasoned response.

It’s an emotional response,

something that God feels because of us.

Now doesn’t that cause you to rethink your concept of your Creator?

Could it be that our God

feels the same kind of delight in us

that we feel in our own children a times,

a delight not in what they do,

but in the amazing, remarkable, unique individual creations they are?

For the Lord takes pleasure in His people!!!

I have been in His family for more than 40 years

and yet it is this truth that still causes me the greatest wonder,

this truth that makes me realize again

how little I know Him,

how much I misunderstand Him,

how different He is from who I sometimes think He is.

For the Lord takes pleasure in His people...

I saw a book title recently that says it perfectly.

If God Has A Refrigerator Your Picture Is On It

Isn’t that great!!

That is exactly what the Psalmist is saying when he tells us that the Lord takes pleasure in His people.

And then the Psalmist goes on to tell us that God ...will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation.

And there again what he says and the way he says it is so powerful,

and all the more so for its simplicity.

He talks about the afflicted ones.

You know who that is, don’t you -

it’s us.

And that phrase captures with such power the heart of our life without our God.

We truly are the afflicted ones without Him.

We are afflicted most of all

by the deep loneliness within our spirits

because of our unmet longing for the love of our Creator.

It is an affliction we seek to hide from ourselves any way we can

because we do not believe there is any way we can ever find healing.

But still it’s always there,

driving us to work harder,

or run faster,

or laugh louder so that we cannot hear the pain.

But the affliction within us doesn’t stop there.

We are all afflicted in countless other ways,

afflicted by wounds from our childhood,

afflicted by broken and irreparable relationships from our past,

afflicted both by things we’ve done to others

and by things others have done to us.

We are the afflicted ones.

But then the Psalmist tells us

that God ...will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation.

He steps into our lives

and brings us salvation...deliverance...healing

from those very things that afflicted us.

He quiets the agony of our loneliness

with the presence of His Spirit within us,

and He then carries us through the rebuilding process

of the broken relationships in our lives,

teaching us how to love,

how to forgive,

how to let go when we need to,

how to remain faithful when we simply want to run away and hide.

But the thing that fascinates me the most

about that affirmation that God will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation,

is that word “beautify”.

Because that one word captures so powerfully

what the Spirit of God does within those who come to Him.

His salvation in all its forms

truly does beautify His people

as nothing else in human experience could ever do.

It is a beauty that comes from deep within,

a beauty we rarely see in ourselves,

but a beauty that is evident to those around us.

I love the way Paul described it in 2^nd Corinthians.

2CO 2:14-15 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing...

Isn’t that great imagery?

We carry with us the fragrance of Christ,

because that’s what He does in the lives of those who come to Him.

And even at those times when we feel like our lives are in turmoil,

when we have no “answers”,

when faith is a constant moment-by-moment warfare within us,

even then we carry with us

the scent of our God.

In fact, I have had to make a grudging peace with the fact

that it appears as though my Lord is more evident through me

when my life is falling apart and I’m frantically clinging to Him for survival

than during those times when I feel like I’ve got it all together

and I’m confidently spouting answers to the world around me.

We are jars of clay,

earthen vessels with the life of Christ within us,

and wouldn’t you know it - it’s only through the cracks,

and the flaws,

and the holes,

and the broken places that the light can be seen.

And what is seen

is truly beautiful.

He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation.

And then the Psalmist goes on to describe our response

when our spirits get even a tiny glimpse of what He’s done.

Let the godly ones exult in glory; Let them sing for joy on their beds.

And let me tell you what I think he’s talking about

when he describes us singing for joy on our beds.

I think he’s talking about where our minds go

when there are no external life demands being made on us.

Just the process of living takes a tremendous amount of conscious mental energy and focus.

We spend most of our conscious hours

simply coping with what’s taking place around us.

But there are brief times in each of our lives each day

when our minds are free to go wherever we choose to let them go.

And I think the Psalmist is telling us

that when our spirits begin to get a glimpse

of what’s really happening between us and our God,

when we begin to discover that He truly does take pleasure in us,

and when we begin to experience His salvation from those things that afflict us,

we’ll know it because there will be times

when our spirits suddenly simply overflow with gratitude for what He’s done.

But it’s the last phrase in this passage

that brought it to mind with our study of 1^st Peter

because in that last phrase the Psalmist says,

Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, And a two-edged sword in their hand...

Now isn’t that great!

That right there

is the true image of the child of God.

Our mouths and hearts are filled with the high praises of our God,

but they are praises that we proclaim

with a two-edged sword in our hand,

knowing that we are called to warfare.

Of course Peter says what I’ve just said far more simply and far more powerfully.

1PE 4:12-13 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation.

Don’t be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you...

I was in a conversation with a fellow Christian some time ago

and as we talked

he shared with me the tremendous turmoil that was going on in his life.

Then he told me that sometimes he sits here on Sunday mornings

and looks around him

and sees what appears to be so many of his fellow Christians

who just seem to be cruising through life pain-free and care-free.

I didn’t say anything to him at the time,

but as I thought about his comment afterward

I realized how deceptive our external facades are.

Every fellow Christian I’ve ever known

who has invited me into his or her life beyond the facade

has faced times of tremendous turmoil and tremendous pain - warfare.

And frequently that turmoil and that pain

are a direct result of their faithfulness to their Lord and to His values and leadership in their life.

And Peter says in effect, “Why are you surprised? We live in the world that crucified the King of Glory,

the only One who has ever loved perfectly

every person He ever met.”

And nothing has really changed in the past 2000 years.

JOH 3:19 "...the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil.

At first that light came through Christ Himself,

and now MAT 5:14 "You are the light of the world...

and because you are

your presence and your life will at times affect those around you

in the same way as His light affected those around Him.

It is a light they will resist at all costs

because it is a light that forces them to see things they very much want to keep hidden in darkness.

But that isn’t where Peter stops.

In fact, he goes on to say,

1PE 4:13 but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation.

OK, the first thing he tells us in this verse

is that not only should we not wonder what’s wrong if we encounter sufferings,

but we should actually rejoice

because those sufferings confirm to us

that we’re doing something right.

And I’ll tell you honestly

that I can see what Peter is saying,

and I can even see the logic in it,

but most of the time I still fail miserably at the application.

I will say that I have been with my Lord long enough

to have developed a deep gratitude for the results of suffering in my life.

I have seen the way in which it drives me to a desperate dependance upon my Lord,

and the way it strips me of any confidence in my own ability

to do the things that need to be done

either in myself or in those I love.

And I’ve seen, too, the way it serves as a doorway

into a deeper discovery of His love for me,

as I find Him carrying me through the pain.

But I still don’t like it, folks,

and I am a very, very long way from rejoicing in it when I see it coming.

But there is a second phrase in this verse

that I can help us with more.

It’s that phrase ...at the revelation of His glory...

Peter says that, “...at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation.

And that part of it I do understand at least a little.

You see, we have not simply been called to a belief system,

or to a set of doctrines,

or to the faithful perpetuation of some religious system.

We have been called to a living God

who has entered into a very real, personal, living relationship with us,

a God who has not simply given us His ideas,

or His requirements,

or His expectations,

but a God who has given us Himself.

He is now our great Defender,

our great Protector,

our great Advocate.

And with every call to faith He will ever give us

there will also come the revelation of His glory.

There will come a time

when He intervenes and does what needs to be done.

There will come a time

when He will heal, when He will redeem, when He will restore.

There will come a time

when we will see what He has done

and our spirits will cry out in praise to Him.

Rarely is it in our time-frame.

But His faithfulness is absolute

and His commitment to us is everlasting.

Well, Peter has some further instructions to us

about how we are to conduct ourselves

during those times when we wait for the revelation of His glory,

but we’ll save that for next week.