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Chapter one. And then bow with me for a moment
of prayer before we read it. Father, thank you for this last
few minutes. May it remind us of the joy of
the corporate gathering of your church. We're thankful for the
work that you've been doing in our hearts and minds already.
and continue to do that work, Holy Spirit, as we come now to
the Word of God. May the words of my mouth and
the meditations of my heart and our hearts be acceptable in Thy
sight, O Lord, our Rock and Redeemer. In His name we pray, Amen. Many passages of Scripture, I'm
sure, are worthy of memorization. Think of Romans 8. Think of Ephesians
2. Think of Psalm 23. I suppose
we could go on forever, but please put 1 Peter 1 verses 3-12 right
up on the top of the list. For in this passage, we get really
a full-orbed view of our great salvation. In fact, the word
salvation is found in v. 5, v. 9, and v. 10 and really
ties together the thought from v. 3-12. Remember, Peter is all about encouraging suffering
believers, encouraging and strengthening these chosen exiles who are scattered
north in Asia Minor at the edges of the Roman Empire. are really
people and Christians that are suffering and Christians that
are discouraged. And he encourages them, not by starting with suffering
in verse 1. In fact, we haven't even got
to suffering yet. We will today, but he hasn't
got there yet. He starts by focusing on salvation and our great God. Salvation from sin and exalting
God. Remember, He gives reasons for
praise for our future reward. In verses 3-5, the living hope
of inheritance that is stored up and reserved in heaven for
us. He talks about, in verses 10 through 12, he's going to
talk about more encouragement for joy and praise as we consider
our great salvation's past glories, so our future hope, and then
next time, next week, we'll go into the past glories of our
great salvation, and we'll simply rejoice and be astounded at our
privileged position on this side of the cross by which we take
great encouragement in our suffering. But in the middle between the
future and the past is where the rubber meets the road and
it's the present. It's today. It's right now. It's
this morning when we got up. It's Monday morning when we get
up for work. The problem is for some of us,
for many of us, it's one thing to to look at our future hope
and to glory in the past glories of the cross and the Old Testament
and realize that we're so privileged, but we're not able to make that
connection to the present, we could still wonder, are we really
gonna make it home to heaven safely? We could feel like the
trials and sufferings of this life will simply overwhelm us
and cause us to be undone. And so Peter begins to address
our present situation and the present situation of his readers
in suffering, taking that up really in verse 5. Our real life,
our grinding situation as we travel along the difficult road
to heaven. So look at your text in verse
5, where he makes this shift to the present. So he's describing
elect exiles in verse 5, who are protected. You'll make it
home. He says, you are protected by
the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed
in the last time. And we can say amen to that,
and we spent a whole sermon on that. We'll be safe because God
is protecting us right now by His omnipotent power. but we
are protected through faith. God protects his children on
the dangerous road home to heaven by sustaining their faith. He protects us on this dangerous
road to heaven by sustaining our faith. And so our faith has
been mentioned in verse 5, and now our present journey of faith
becomes Peter's theme. And faith comes front and center.
I want you to look for the word faith as I read our passage.
Follow along looking at verse 6. In this you greatly rejoice,
even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have
been distressed by various trials, so 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. And though you
have not seen Him, you love Him. And though you do not see Him
now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible
and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith
the salvation of your souls. Faith is mentioned explicitly
four times here, and as I've reflected on it, at least implicitly
four other times. It is the theme of this passage,
the now walk of faith. But what Peter is doing here
is he's helping us to go beyond, okay, thank you for telling me
that I'm protected through faith. That was helpful, but he builds
on this. And he says now, okay, what does
it look like right now when God is protecting you by His power
by sustaining your faith? What are the characteristics
of a faith that God is sustaining until the end? We say it another
way, when God is sustaining your faith, During your hard road to heaven,
your faith will be marked by four elements. This is what it
will look like. Sustained faith. Looks like certain
things. Number one, faith endures trials. Faith, sustained faith, endures
trials. Look at verse 5. Again, who are
protected by the power of God through faith, for a salvation
ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice. Notice that joy is in verse 6
and in verse 9. In this you greatly rejoice,
even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have
been distressed by various trials. And so believers are protected
by the power of God through faith. Yes. God protects us from the
mortal enemy called unbelief. by sustaining our faith. But
now Peter goes on to tell us that God is sustaining faith,
which is a great word it turns out. He's sustaining our faith
through the crucible of trials. And so saving faith endures trials
because our omnipotent God sustains this faith through trials. So Peter now finally, perhaps
for some of the readers, finally begins to address their state
of suffering. And he talks about these trials.
And Peter opens their eyes and our eyes to, I think they're
encouraging. to five encouraging realities
about these trials. Sustaining faith endures these
trials, but he's going to teach us five things about these trials
that are encouraging, I think. First, notice their variety. Various trials, the text says.
Trials and hardships, brothers and sisters, come in various
shapes and sizes and various forms. And so whatever trial
you are facing today, either from within or from without,
is covered by this passage. That's encouraging. That's very
encouraging. Peter's going to get more specific
about trials as the book goes on, but rest assured that your
trial that you are facing today, I look around, I know many of
your trials that you're going through. Everyone in here fits
this bill. Everyone. And rest assured that your trial
is under this passage. Tons of variety in the trials
in the book of 1 Peter. Some were lacking provision and
protection. Some were feeling like outcasts.
Some were recipients of verbal and physical persecution because
of the Word. Some were suffering because their
loved ones were hurting and in pain. Some were assaulted by
the prowling attacks of Satan and very dark times in their
life and their thought about giving up. All were suffering
from the struggle with indwelling sin that haunted them night and
day and with the temptations of going back to the former way
of life. Brothers and sisters, I want
you to take a moment, just take five seconds right now, and make
this real to you. Think of the trial that is most
on your mind this past week. Do you have it? Okay, you got
it? This passage is for you. Various
trials. Hold that thought, hold that
trial, and apply this all the way through. The second encouraging
facet about trials, notice their difficulty. You say encouraging.
Their difficulty. You have been distressed. I'm
so thankful for that word distressed. You have been distressed by various
trials. Brothers and sisters, your trial
that you just thought of is not easy. The text tells me that. They are painful. You are distressed. The word for distress here is
deep grief and pain. It's the kind of mourning over
the death of a loved one. It's mental anguish. It's used to describe, yes, the
death of loved ones in the New Testament. It is the word used. As our Lord sweat great drops
of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. Don't be thinking that your trials
are no big deal. The text says you're distressed.
There will be tears. There will be pain. Mark it well. It is not a sin to be grieving
under the trial that you're under. It's not a sin to be sad. It's
not a sin to shed tears. It's not a sin to lie flat on
the floor, speechless and undone before God and your spouse or
your kids. Yes, there's joy. I know. Verse
9, verse 6. There's joy in this passage,
but there is grieving too. The Christian life is that. It's mournful joy. Paul felt
the same way. Remember 2 Corinthians 6.10,
he says, he lives as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Now, this
is a really important point because in our culture in Minnesota,
we think being stoic and putting up a brave front is somehow godly. Not in certain contexts, perhaps
it is, but I'm telling you that it misses the point that the
Bible says that our trials are grievous and distressing and
they ought to cause us to weep. And to plaster some sort of fake
smile in front of our fellow brothers and sisters in the corporate
gathering of the fellowship and during grace groups or wherever
it is, is just plain silly. It's not biblical. In fact, to do that is to deny
the wonder of the Christian life, the grieving and hope. It's to deny the glory of the
Psalms. Men who were in pain but refused
to abandon the hope of the Gospel in the midst of their tears and
their mournful prayers, their real prayers. Think of your life
like a little tree whipped around by a tornado. The roots will
hold. God will keep you to the end.
Let's not deny that that tornado does some pretty good damage.
My good friend, Pastor Fred Zaspel, he's an associate pastor in Pennsylvania
currently. His daughter, Gina, suffered
with the neurological ravages of Lyme's disease for over a
dozen years. Years of sleeplessness. Constant
nausea. Passing out with the resulting
concussions that come with that. Severe and unrelenting headache
pain. Haunting hallucinations and confusion
and blood clots and infections. It was awful. And Pastor Fred
writes this, quotes, And as we watched her suffer, how we prayed,
often in despair, that God would deliver her from it all." And then three years ago, God
did. Miraculously, it would seem, God delivered her. And I mean,
it was laughter and rejoicing and normalcy for Fred and his
family and for Gina. It was incredible. And as quickly
as it went away, it came back. It came back with a sort of vengeance
that you cannot put in words. Suffering became unspeakable,
overwhelming for Gina, and it was over. And Gina was gone at
age 29. Grieved. by various trials. Gut-wrenching
pain. That's what the Bible says about
your trial. Third, their brevity. In this
you greatly rejoice even though now for a little while. Now,
praise the Lord that by God's design these distressing trials
are brief. Problem? Brief is relative. when it comes to New Testament
writers. Am I right? Let me tell you what
I mean by that. One pastor says, if you say,
wow, he can hold his breath a long time, you mean two or three minutes. If someone says, that's pretty
long for breath holding, but if you say he's been a pastor
of the church for a long time, perhaps you mean 15 or 20 years. So it is with our trials. Sometimes they last two or three
days. Sometimes you're like Joni Eareckson Tada and they start
when you're a teenager and they don't let up until the day you
see the Lord. But what Peter is saying that's
encouraging here is that compared to eternity,
compared to the eternal, imperishable, undefiled, unfading crown of
glory. Compared to the eternal weight
of glory, our trials are for a little time. James says our
lives are a vapor and then vanish away. And I will just tell you
this great encouragement. I don't know what you're going
through, but I can promise you Your trial will end if you are
a believer in Jesus Christ. It will end. It will be over.
I wasn't going to use this illustration, but I'm going to. I'll make it
quick. A young pastor, very, very discouraged
in ministry, named Pastor Cable, George Cable, was Pastor Don's
and Naomi's pastor probably for decades, but we can talk about
that later. He, in the beginning of his ministry, went to old-season
pastor. Just ready to give up in ministry.
Ready to call it in. Can't do it anymore. You know
what he said? He's looking for some great wisdom, maybe some
verses to memorize. He said, don't worry, George. You'll soon be dead. Now, listen for a little while. By the way, that was very encouraging
to Pastor George. I can make it. I'm protected
by the power of God through faith until that last day when I see
Him. It's for a little while, but
a little while is relative. Their brevity. Fourth, their
necessity. God's plan for our trials. This
is great because Our trials are necessary. The text says, even
now, for a little while, if necessary. Don't you love that? You can
rest assured that there's no trial or suffering that has come
into your path as a believer that is not necessary. That is somehow random. That
is somehow not part of God's plan. It's a wonderful little
word. In fact, necessary there is the
word in Greek that means of divine necessity. Make it even stronger.
He's saying that, look, none of these hard things are going
to come to you unless it's of divine necessity. Part of God's design. That's
why 1 Peter 4.19 says, 1 Peter 4.19, therefore, those also who
suffer according to the will of God. Therefore, those also
who suffer, watch this, according to the will of God. And so, our
trials, our sufferings are part of God's will. They're a divine
necessity. Don't get me wrong, evil men,
Satan, And the ravages of sin on our bodies inflict the pain
in our lives. God does not delight in pain.
He does not approve of sinning or the devil's attacks. He doesn't. But, as one has said, He does
will that these things be in the sense that He could prevent
any of those things, but sometimes does not, but rather guides them
because of higher designs than the destructiveness of sin, or
the deceitfulness of Satan, or the painfulness of suffering.
Designs for our good. You say, what possibly could
come from my trial and suffering that I just listed off? Well,
that leads us to the next truth, the fifth truth, their design.
Their design. What is God's good design? What's
the purpose of trials? Well, I'm sure if we did a study
of God's Word, we could find a number of purposes for trials,
but our text gives us one, a powerful one. Let's look at it in verse
6. Let's read the text, and I think we can rejoice in God's design
in our distress. Look at verse 6. And this you
greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary,
you have been distressed by various trials, so 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. Verse 7, notice
the so that, or in order that. The design of our trials is this,
Peter says, our distresses refine our faith the way fire refines
gold. so that when Christ comes back
to earth, proven, tested, genuine faith will be found, resulting
in praise, glory, and honor. Remember, God is protecting us
by His power by sustaining our faith. The trials are the crucible
in which the kind of faith that lasts is revealed. Let's think a little more about
the design here, this last heading. I didn't give you enough room
to write this heading, so find a place. I'm going to make three
observations about the design of trials here in connection
to faith. First, trials are an opportunity
to produce faith. Trials are an opportunity to
produce faith. Faith is trusting in the person
of Christ, it's resting in His promises, it's depending on Jesus. And trials are an opportunity
to believe in Jesus again. That He is enough, that His promises
are sure, that they're valid, that you can rest your life upon
them. Trials are some of the only things
in this life that will drive us to faith, that will produce
in us a clinging to Jesus Christ. Look, I know about self-sufficiency. When we're self-sufficient, when
we think we've got it all figured out, when we've got our budget
set and our life planned, when we see everything laid out before
us, when we have manipulated the details of our life to reduce
as much suffering and lack of comfort as possible, when we've
done all that, we have no need to rest in Jesus Christ or His
promises. None. We have no need for faith. Trials remove self-sufficiency
and cast us as helpless individuals, helpless saints, into the lap
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Trials are an opportunity for
faith, to produce faith. Another observation, trials are
an opportunity to prove faith. not only to produce it, but to
prove it. Verse 7, so that the proof of your faith, being more
precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may
be found. So Peter uses an illustration
here of goldsmithing, purifying gold through goldsmithing. And
the idea here is gold is a very precious metal, probably the
most precious metal. And gold can be refined by very
hot fire. And so what you do is you take
a chunk of metal, presumed to be gold. Now listen, that's important.
Take a chunk of metal presumed to be solid gold. Presumed. Heat it up. Heat it up. Heat it up. There's three things
that will happen. One, it's burned to oblivion.
It was fool's gold. Shrunk down to size as the dross comes off with the
heat and then is removed. But whatever remains, It's pure. It's solid. It's real. It's precious. Now, this is important because
the text is definitive in the original language. It's not so
much faith without that adjective in front of it that's precious
here. It's the tested genuineness of faith that is more precious
than gold. Let me say that again. It's not
faith. It's, I have faith. It's tested genuineness. It's
the proof of your faith or the tested genuineness of your faith
that's more precious than gold in this text. Why? Because gold
is perishable. It's more precious than gold
because gold is precious only for this life. But genuine faith,
tested faith, if it's found when Christ returns, this results. and praise and honor and glory. Upon finding faith, listen to
this, God gives praise and honor and glory to His people on the
last day. You say, praise and honor to
people? I'm sure that it's more. than
what I'm about to say, but that phrase resulting, that what will
be found will result in praise and honor and glory at the revelation
of Jesus is no less than hearing God say, well done, good and
faithful servant. You were faithful with a few
things. I will put you in charge of many things." Oh, many things
in glory. I can't wait to see that kind
of glorious responsibility. I'll put you in charge of many
things. Enter into the joy of your Master. Matthew 25, verse
21. One Puritan has said, that faith
which is here in the furnace shall be then made up into a
crown of pure gold. It shall be found unto praise
and honor and glory, that it be both to their praise, that
is to God's people, to their praise and to the praise of Christ. For certainly all their praise
and glory shall terminate in the glory of their head, Christ,
who is God, blessed forever. They have each their crown. But their honor is to cast them
all down before His throne. Casting crowns. Oh, believer,
you will not be lost on that day. On that day when He comes
back. The text says you're protected
by the power of God through faith. We can say more amen than ever
to that when we start to consider that great day when He comes
riding the great white horse with a sword. Right? You will not be lost on that
day. Faith will be found. God will sustain your faith by
His omnipotent power through trials. An opportunity to produce faith.
Trials, an opportunity to prove faith. And third, an opportunity
to purify faith. So trials prove that your faith
is real, but never forget that your faith, while real, believer,
Can I get an amen from this next thing? Your faith is imperfect. We always say with the centurion
of old, we believe, help our unbelief. Because we know there
is mixed with real faith the dross. of unbelief. We have faith in Christ. We trust
the person and work of Christ. But we are so weak. We are so
imperfect. We have so far to go. There is
slag elements. I love that word. There's slag
elements. There are the dross of murmuring and complaining
and self-sufficiency. There's the dross of greed and
the fear of man and trusting money and trusting people. And trials by God's good design
purify faith so that this dross comes to the surface. And what? And can be removed. Can be removed. Purifying your faith. So faith is sustained through
trials, which are opportunities to produce faith, prove faith,
and purify faith. Fred Zaspel's father, Dr. James
Zaspel, a minister for over 50 years. He recently died, but
he had all kinds of sayings. One of my favorites by Dr. James Zaspel, one of the most
memorable for me was this. He would always say, faith that
has not been tested cannot be trusted. It puts a little different perspective
on trials, doesn't it? Faith endures trials. We're going to pick up the speed.
The last three points will go quickly. Faith, second element
of a sustained faith, is found in verse 8. Faith rejects sight. Faith rejects sight. Verse 8. Read verse 8 in the context of
trials. And though you have not seen
Him, Peter says, you love Him. And though you do not see Him
now, but believe in Him. Peter says to his readers, you've
never seen Jesus Christ walking in the flesh like I have. You've
never seen it. Yet he commends them, yet you
love Him. You don't see Him right now,
but you're believing in Him. Brothers and sisters, Seeing
is not believing. Sustained faith rejects sight. Seeing is not believing. Faith
is conviction of things not seen. Not seen, the author of Hebrews
says in Hebrews 11, verse 1. If we are bound by what we see,
living by sight, we are not believing at that moment. You may call
it faith, Your daddy may call it faith. Your pastor may have
called it faith all your life. But when the fire of trials and
persecution and the pleasures of this world come, that faith
may be toast. Will it burn up in the crucible
of your trials? And Peter is saying, not so with
you, Not so with you. He says, let me tell you, though
you do not see Him, but I'll tell you what you do see. You
see people accusing you of cannibalism. You're losing your jobs and your
homes. Your parents are rejecting you. You're getting beat by your
masters. You're getting rejected by your
unsafe spouse and persecuted by them. You're struggling with the flesh,
and you long to go back, but you know it's not right, but
you're tempted. He's saying, that's what you see. You don't
see Him, but you see that, and yet, you love Him. And same with us. What do we
see with our eyes? I mean, if we look around, even
in this congregation, at what we can see with our eyes, it
will produce fear and discouragement, and I'd even say panic. renal
cell carcinoma, pancreatic cancer. This is what we see. Cervical
cancer. Loss of five-year-old fathers. We see heads removed from the
body of kids by ISIS. We see financial stress. We see
our oldest child walking out of the faith. We see a desire
to have companionship unanswered for decades. You know what we
see with our eyes? And yet, Peter says, I know you
don't see Jesus. I know what you actually see.
But let me tell you, sustained faith survives trials because
faith is not dependent on what we see. Faith is dependent on
something else than sight. And that leads us to the third
element of sustained faith. Sustained faith flows from love. sustained faith flows from love. Brothers and sisters, faith in
the work of Jesus Christ, a confidence that He will do what He said
He will do, the efficacy of the cross and the resurrection and
the promises of the Scripture, faith in Christ flows out of
a love for the Person of Christ. You know, my sister said, what
do you tell this lady who is struggling to love her man? And
she said something just was profound. She said, fall in love with another
man. And she was talking about Jesus Christ. Love for Christ. And you guys
know what love is. And Peter says, and you love
Him. You know what love is. Loving
is longing to draw near to Christ, to get to know Him, to meet with
Him, to sit in His lap, to spend time with Him, to have a relationship
with Him. And Peter says the crucible of
trials, in the crucible of trials, this love relationship for Jesus
is cultivated. And I'm not going to go so far
as to say it can't happen outside of trials. I'm not going to do
that. That would be out of balance. But almost. Almost. It's trials that drive us into
the lap of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the believer, the worst of
times can be and should be the best of times. In the sense that
we are forced to cling to Christ, we long for Him to speak comfort
to our souls in the world, we find ourselves repeating Scripture,
we're weeping over the Psalms, because we've come to the place
of absolute, absolute brokenness. before God. And that is the place
of brokenness. That place of brokenness is the
time when the promises of God in Christ can come alive. This is the rub of the Christian
life, right here. Are we going to run from our
trials? Are we going to draw near to
Christ? This is the opportunity to cultivate your love relationship
with Jesus Christ. One pastor said, suffering unbolts
the door of our heart so that the word has easier entrance. There was a missionary named
John Patton. He was born in 1824 in Scotland. A young man, 34
years old, went to the New Hebrides Island chain in the South Seas.
He arrived there, and four months after he arrives there, he loses
his wife. A week later, he loses his boy, his son. And alone,
he buries them both. He stayed on that rotten little
island of Tanna for four years, filled with trials and dangers
and troubles. And finally, there was an uprising
against him after four years that was so fierce, he decided,
all right, I have to escape with my life. So his only trusted friend on
the island, Norwar was his name, gave him very strange advice
to escape. He said, Pastor John, don't return
to the village. You must hide in this tree until
the moon rises in the night sky. Here are John's words recorded
hiding alone in that tree. He says this. Being entirely
at the mercy of such doubtful and vacillating friends, I, though
perplexed, felt it best to obey. I climbed into the tree and was
left there alone in the bush. The hours I spent there live
all before me as if it were but of yesterday. I heard the frequent
discharging of muskets, the yells of savages, yet I sat there among
the branches as safe in the arms of Jesus. Never in all my sorrows
did the Lord draw nearer to me and speak more soothingly in
my soul than when the moonlight flickered among these chestnut
leaves and the night air played on my throbbing brow as I told
all my heart to Jesus. alone, yet not alone. He goes on to say, if it be to
glorify my God, I will not grudge to spend many nights alone in
such a tree, to feel again my Savior's spiritual presence,
to enjoy His consoling fellowship. And then he challenges us, if
thus thrown back upon your own soul, alone, all alone in the
midnight, in the bush, in the very embrace of death itself,
have you a friend that will not fail you then? Faith flows out of love for Christ. And this produces joy. Faith, finally, sustained faith
produces joy. Verse 8, and though you have
not seen Him, you love Him. And though you do not see Him
now, but believe in Him. And these words, come on Peter,
don't be so callous. Don't tell me to rejoice with
what I'm going through. but believe in Him, you greatly
rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining
as the outcome your faith the salvation of your souls." Now
listen, joy includes real emotions, just like grief does. We've gotten
out of balance on that. Joy includes real emotions. What is joy if not emotional?
Now, I know that it's not happiness. I've read that. Joy is not some brief, shallow
emotion built on sight and circumstances, but something that only flows
from God-sustained, Spirit-induced fellowship with Christ that leads
to faith. But joy follows. Listen. Trials. force us to crawl up in the lap
of Jesus in love, which is when the Word of God
comes alive entrusting His promises, and then we rejoice. So often we're in the midst and
we're told to rejoice and we don't have step one through three.
We're thinking, draw near to Christ, trust His promises, then
joy flows. Not before. You know, I was talking
to someone this week, even, going through a trial. I'm trusting
the Lord and praying and she drives to the place and sees
that her husband's even doing worse than before and tears flow
down her face and she says, I don't know what happened to my faith.
The tears came and I'm saying, I told her, tears and faith,
tears and trust can go together. Joy and distress go together
in this Christian walk. Your tears are not inconsistent
with trust. So what is that trial today that
you're going through? In our worship service, we drew
near to the Lord. There is such joy here in this
passage. We rejoice because we have been
born again out of sheer mercy, hopeless and helpless. We rejoice
because we have an inheritance secure in heaven. We rejoice
because we are protected by the power of God. We rejoice that
the pain that we feel right now is short-lived. We rejoice because
the sufferings that we come cannot be random. They have to be purposeful
from the hand of God. We rejoice because we look back
at the monuments of faith in our life and the previous events
of our life. We look back to these things
and we remember we still love Him. We still believe in Him.
We have real faith. And we rejoice in that. We rejoice
that we come through some fires, trusting Him. And we rejoice
even when we remember those sweet times of fellowship that we've
had with the Lord in the past. And we rejoice the fact that
we had it this morning, even if it was for a glimpse. And
when the culminating weight of the glory of these facts of our
great salvation makes a little more sense for Peter to say,
joy inexpressible. That is, it doesn't have words. If it's flown from a relationship,
it's flown from real faith in the crucible of trials, If you've
been to the lowest and you've come through it, you know what
joy inexpressible is and how it is full of glory. It's heaven
now, in a sense. It's a foretaste of heaven is
what that word means. That is what the Christian life
is like in obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of
your souls. This was the kind of faith this
sustained my friend, Pastor Fred Zaspel, who wrote after the death
of his 29-year-old daughter. I'm going to read this as we
close. Pastor Fred Zaspel's daughter,
age 29, Gina, after she had died, four days later, he wrote this. Surely a day will never pass
in this life without sensing the deep, gaping hole in our
hearts. We just cannot imagine life without
Gina. Oh, how we loved her. I have often suspected over the
years that Christians who romanticize death have likely never experienced
the loss of a close loved one. Death remains a dreaded and devastating
enemy, and there is just no way to make it pretty. It still stings
deeply so, and when it comes close like this, it leaves us
feeling all but completely undone. Yet for the Christian, there
truly is a difference. And during this past week since
Gina passed, agonizing as it has been, We have learned first-hand
that we really do not sorrow as those who have no hope. Now
stop there. This is what I'm trying to say
by first-hand. It's one thing to have a knowledge
of Christ here. But what trials do is they give
you a first-hand experience. Experiential knowledge. And that's precious. He goes on to talk about Gina.
United to Christ by faith, Gina belonged. How's that for preaching
the gospel to yourself? And belongs to God. And through the years of her
suffering, we reminded ourselves often that the God who in grace
had rescued her in Christ from sin loves her even more than
we do. He is too wise ever to make a
mistake and too good ever to do us wrong. And we acknowledge
that just as He was free and sovereign in giving Gina to us
29 years ago, so now He is free and sovereign and good and just
in taking her. He has not wronged us. Indeed, not only do we affirm
this great truth, we rest in it. We rest in it. This God is Himself our Father,
a Father who knows what is best for His children and faithfully
directs our lives accordingly. Moreover, He is the Father who
in love one day gave up His own Son to bear our curse in order
to redeem us to Himself. Yes, of course, there are many
why questions that we cannot answer. but we lack no proof
of God's love or His goodness. We bless Him today with deeper
passion than ever. We are so very grateful, not
only that God gave us our daughter for 29 years, but also that in
grace, He saved her and made her His own. This is really everything,
He says. Everything. And we recognize
that we are blessed to know that Gina is rejoicing today in the
presence of our great Redeemer. Oh, how she loved Him. We are hurting for our loss.
The pain is massive, and on one level, I'm sure it will never
be absent in this life. But deep as the hurt is, we are
not left adrift. Scripture assures us that one
day God will wipe all tears from our eyes. And I doubt that this
language was intended to make us envision a gigantic handkerchief
or some kind of cosmic hug. I suspect rather that this comfort
will come by means of further revelation. That God will enable
us to see things from His perspective. to see His wise purpose as He
worked it out in history unerringly for the good of His people, for
His own glory. There at last, with fuller understanding,
all mourning will be turned to joyful praise. And so even in
our loss, we do not doubt that for all eternity, at least one
note of our song, looking back, will be, our God has done all
things well. Amen. Paul, if you could come up. Father,
thank You for Your Word. I pray that this would bring
comfort to Your suffering saints, that, Lord, we would not waste
our pain, but we would draw near to You, nearer to You, You would
open up the door of our hearts to receive from Your Word truth that while we yet continue to
weep, we could also rejoice. And Lord, I do pray for those
who are here who have not experienced the joy of this living faith.
Would You grant them hearts to believe this morning? In Christ's
name, Amen. Senate Bill 275.
The Elements of Sustained Faith
Series Exposition of 1 Peter
| Sermon ID | 11115104417 |
| Duration | 52:44 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | 1 Peter 1:6-9 |
| Language | English |
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