Putting Life In Perspective

Transcript

GRM 899
Putting Life in Perspective
I Pet.1:3-9
04/25/04


I was reminded by a newspaper article this weekend that sometimes things are as we want to see them. The title of the article, this was in the Omaha World Herald on Saturday, “Nation Shows Signs of a Spiritual Awakening.” Before I refer to that article let me refer to an article that appeared 10 years ago in Newsweek magazine, and it was entitled “The Search for the Sacred.” The subtitle was ‘America’s Quest for Spiritual Meaning.’ That article stated maybe it’s a critical mass of baby boomers in the contemplative afternoon of life, or anxiety over the coming millenium, or a general dissatisfaction with the materialism of the modern world. For these reasons and more millions of Americans are embarking on a search for the sacred in their lives. There 10 years ago, it came from a November 1994 Newsweek magazine, cover story. Talking about the growing interest in the sacred and the search for the sacred in their lives.

This article that appeared in yesterday’s paper, “The Nation Shows Signs of Spiritual Awakening,” they quote the president of the National Association of Evangelicals. There are more churches than every before, more Bibles being sold than ever before, and more people listening to Christian radio than ever before. And so they’re talking about the possibility that we are experiencing a religious revival. The question is in the middle of the article, is America experiencing a religious revival? Is all this ferment a result of post September 11th anxiety. What I noted is there is an interest in spiritual things, because we were created in the image of God and created ultimately for a relationship with Him. Today they can talk about perhaps there’s a spiritual awakening, perhaps it’s tied to September 11th, but 10 years ago there was the same kind of attitude in looking, and there’s a general spiritual awakening. And I think perhaps it’s on how we look at things. That there is an interest in spiritual things and at times it seems more openness to talk about it. This article reflects on the movie, The Passion of the Christ, that perhaps has brought it more to the fore, but let’s fact it, when Star Wars came out everybody talked about Star Wars. That didn’t necessarily mean anything particular, except there was a movie that gathered broad interest. And I’m not demeaning the opportunities to talk about Christ. Don and I were in the restaurant Friday and one of the employees came up and asked us about a book on evangelism that someone had given us. Did we think it was a good book. We said yes it would be wonderful to read it and consider carefully its message.

So there are opportunities around, but is there a spiritual revival? It depends on how you want to look at things and the perception you want to give. There are a lot of people talking about Christ in these days, but they give the alternative here. Or has spirituality just become another commodity in a world where consumerism has become the ultimate value. So then they give statistics, and whatever you want to do with statistics depends. If you want to make it that there is a tremendous interest in spiritual things, you can use the statistics that way. More churches than ever before, more Bibles being sold, more people listening to Christian radio. Right after September 11th, and that happened in 2001 so we’re coming up on 3 years, there was a little bit of an upswing in the number of people attending churches. Other than that, church attendance in this country has run around 40% for the last 60-70 years. There has been no major change. They quote statistics here—slightly fewer than 4 in 10 Americans said they went to church in the past week during 2003, a level that has been constant for many years. That’s consistent with the statistics I’ve read in other places that were making the point that we keep talking about how much more interest there is. Mega churches today, think of how many more people are in church because we have churches that have thousands of people in them. But when you get down to it basically the same number of people are attending church, just more of them maybe attending larger churches. Maybe more smaller churches went out of business. But percentage wise there are no more people going than were 30 years ago.

And then they give some other statistics. Despite the overwhelming majority of Americans who count themselves believers, 58% cannot name 5 of the Ten Commandments. Less than half know that Genesis is the first book of the Bible. Makes you wonder if people when they say I’m a believer really are talking any kind of meaningful language. I like this one, some of you may have read this. Ten percent thought Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. It’s a large article, 1, 2, 3, 4 columns you can see, so it’s just interesting to read.

All of that to say I don’t put much stock in that oh boy we’re on the verge of a religious revival, or we’re living in days of exceptional spirituality or exceptional non-spirituality. Quite frankly you look at what’s going on with you know the negative side of the attitude toward truth, toward spiritual things, the exclusion of it from the political realm in any way and all of this, you can say well we are in a lot worse situation. We just need to be careful on how we look at things. We say well if I take off these glasses and put on these it looks like we’re having a revival. Now I’ll put on these glasses, oh it looks like the country is going to pot. And in reality we live in a world under the control of the god of this world. There is a general interest always in spiritual things, one kind or another, and there is generally an opposition to true truth, as Francis Schaeffer would have referred to it.

I want to direct your attention to I Peter chapter 1. Paul lived in such a world, such an environment, because he lived in a world that had a world government in that Rome ruled the world. There was no power challenging Rome’s rule. Remember Rome was the beast, the empire that crushed all other empires in Daniel’s vision of coming empires. It was a kingdom that had a pantheon of gods and they came to worship all kinds of gods, including worshipping Caesar as a god. So it was a pagan environment, and yet you read the book of Acts you would think they were great spiritual opportunities and revivals taking place. Peter gets up on the Day of Pentecost and you have 3,000 converts on one day. We studied the opening chapters of the book of Acts, remarkable spiritual things happen. So we don’t want to get confused. The ministry of the church, our ministry of the truth continues and we need to pursue that and not put our hopes in external things.
And that’s what Peter is going to talk about. He’s writing to believers who are going through difficulty. They’re experiencing more intense opposition to their faith. Remember Peter has experienced what we would call the good times. You know what it’s like to get up and preach and have 3,000 Jews get saved, continue to preach and have that number grow to 5,000, be the one privileged to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. But he also knows what it is to experience intense opposition. And he’s writing to Jewish believers scattered in various places who were experiencing the pressure of opposition, persecution, trials and difficulty. So he writes to encourage them.

He starts the letter, remarkably, by referring to the doctrine of election. He’s writing to those who have been chosen, who are the elect of God, in verses 1-2. And then he launches in. Here’s Peter the fisherman, we don’t think of him as a great grammarian. But Peter’s letters are of high grammatical quality. And he could string out a sentence. You have your Bibles open to I Peter 1, you’ll note starting with verse 3 all the way down through verse 12, that is one sentence in the Greek text. Try to diagram that. It just spreads out all over the place. It’s one sentence. Now in your English Bible we have it broken down. In my edition here verse 10 is a new sentence, verse 6 is a new sentence, but as Peter wrote it, it was just one ongoing sentence. And keep in mind people who heard this letter had to read it or have it read to them. And here you get this long sentence. And you say wait a minute, where did that start? What was the subject of this sentence? What was the verb? Where are we in this sentence? You would think that God through the Holy Spirit might have directed Peter to write in short sentences, you know, like Jane hit Spot, or whatever she did. And you know these nice, simple sentences with a subject, a verb, an object and that’s it. We act to day like oh boy we’ve got to rewrite the Bible and redo it in the simplest language because people can’t understand it. Here’s a fisherman writing to the people of his day, would not have had near the education we do, and the Spirit of God directs him to write a sentence like that.

But it’s a tremendous sentence. You know what’s included in this sentence from verses 3-12? All three members of the triune God. Verses 3-5 will focus on the Father, verses 6-9 will focus on the Son and verses 10-12 will focus on the Holy Spirit. And so it’s not only one long, complicated sentence, it has great depth of theology. All three members of the triune God are brought to the fore here, the Father as the one who has originated our salvation, the Son as the one who has accomplished it, and the Spirit is the one who has revealed it. Tremendous truths being communicated by this servant of the Lord.

I just want to overview the great truths that are presented here, presented as encouragement to these people going through withering persecution and experiencing all the trials and suffering and hardships that come with that. And Peter is putting life in perspective for them and where their focus needs to be.

And he starts in verse 3 with “blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He starts off by focusing attention on God the Father and the blessing, the praise, the honor that is due Him. He is the one worthy of praise, worthy of honor. Right where we start and not the expression of sympathy and empathy for their suffering, not to commiserate with them, and I’ve suffered too and I know what it’s like to go through this and I just want you to know I feel your pain kind of approach to things. No. Let’s get right to the point. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It doesn’t matter what you’re going through, doesn’t matter the pain you’re experiencing, nor the suffering you’re enduring. Let’s get our eyes where they belong. The God who is worthy of all praise, all honor, all attention. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What has He done? He has done great things for us who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again. Let’s get our attention on Jesus Christ, and let’s get our attention on the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because all three members of the Godhead are involved in our salvation, even thought the Son is the one who carried it out by His death on the cross. The Father is the one behind it all, and it was according to His great mercy that He caused us to be born again. Born again, ye must be born again. We think of John chapter 3 and Nicodemus immediately. You must be born again. Or there it’s born from above. Same truth. It’s born a second time, the second birth is from above. You must be born again. He has caused us to be born again and this is just a compound word, to be born and again put together.

He refers to our spiritual birth. Look down in verse 23 of chapter 1, “for you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, the living and abiding word of God.” We’ve been born again and it’s the work of God to bring about that birth. It’s like when you tell a person, you speak--we had these young people up here—what did you do to cause yourself to be born? You say that’s the dumbest question you could talk about. I did nothing, I mean I wasn’t part of that process. I am a result of that. So here is God the Father is the one who has caused us to be born again. We were born, not of the will of man or the will of men as John 1 puts it, but we are born of the will of God, His action that caused our being born into His family. All those verses that would relate to the new birth in John 1:13, John chapter 3, James 1:18, I John 5:1, 4. All emphasize this, passages that don’t use the expression born again or born from above, like
II Corinthians 5, “if any man be in Christ he is a new creation.” Same thing, because we have been born again. This is a sovereign work of God. You know whatever my difficulty, whatever the trial, I get things in perspective. I give praise and honor to God because He has caused me to be born again. I now belong to Him. That’s what matters.

He did this according to His great mercy. It was not our work, but it was God’s mercy that brought about our salvation. I get no credit, I get no praise, I get no honor. “Blessed be the God and Father who has caused us to be born again according to His great mercy.” We think of Ephesians where we were told that we were born again, not by our works but by grace. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and not of works lest any man should boast.”

Back up to Titus chapter 3, Titus chapter 3, a little bit forward in your Bibles from Peter, the book of Titus chapter 3 verse 5. And remind you of the collection of words here, but look at verse 5 with me first. “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.” And here you have in these 3 verses God the Father, God the Spirit and God the Son also brought to the fore. “When the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared.” Note these words, if you don’t have them underlined or circled you should. The kindness of God, His love, the middle of verse 5 we have His mercy. And there that was applied to us through the washing of regeneration and making new by the Holy Spirit. There’s the third person of the trinity. Whom He poured out on us abundantly or richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. There is the second person of the trinity. So God the Father in verse 4, God the Holy Spirit in verse 5, God the Son in verse 6. “So that being justified by His grace.” You see when we are renewed, made new by the Holy Spirit we are justified. That’s all a part of the package of being born again, the package of our salvation.

You’ll note those words, kindness and love in verse 4, mercy in verse 5, grace in verse 7. Piling up of words, you understand this was God’s mercy, grace, kindness, love that brought about our salvation. Our work didn’t play a part. That’s why any mixture of any degree of works into salvation in bringing about the salvation of an individual is such a curse. That’s why Paul would say cursed to hell is anyone who would bring in any religious work, requiring circumcision which seems like a good religious work to Jews. Cursed to hell is anyone who would say that’s necessary to salvation, along with faith in Christ, he said in Galatians 1. “Because it’s according to His great mercy.”

So you come back to I Peter. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again.” Born again, wonderful. Now what? We are born again to a living hope. He want to carry it beyond just the fact we’ve been forgiven, we’ve now become part of God’s family. When you become part of God’s family you become an heir of the living God. So we’re born again to a living hope, that hope which is alive because it comes from the living God, it is a living hope. We will get it in the ultimate sense when we experience “the blessed hope, even the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ”, as Titus 2 puts it.

Look down in verse 13 of I Peter 1, “therefore prepare your minds for action, keep sober, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” We have been the recipients of God’s grace, we have experienced God’s grace in saving us from our sin. But we haven’t realized all there is in God’s grace for us. We have a living hope. That is something we have not yet entered into, not yet experienced the fullness of. That will come to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ, when He is unveiled and we are gathered in His presence. Then we will enter into the fullness of the salvation He has prepared for those who love Him.

Those apart from Christ are hopeless. They are described as without hope in the world. What a tragic situation. Look around and see the masses of people without hope in the world. So they create fantasies to focus on, to give their life some meaning and purpose outside of themselves, but they’re empty illusions. But in Christ we have a living hope that will be brought to fruition when Jesus Christ comes again.

And this is ours through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The resurrection is the culmination of the stamp of approval on the work of redemption accomplished on our behalf. That’s why Paul wrote to the Corinthians in I Corinthians 15 and said, “if Christ is not raised from the dead then our faith in Him is worthless, and we are of all people most to be pitied.” You know Paul didn’t know anything of this concept that well if that’s what you want to believe in and it helps you get through life, that’s fine. It’s pitiful to believe a lie, Paul said. If Jesus Christ has not been raised from the dead we are believing a lie. If we are believing in a lie, then there is no glorious future. How sad to live your life for a lie. But the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is God’s guarantee that our salvation is complete and our hope is guaranteed. There is a future. So it’s not only what we have experienced in the past and what we are experiencing in the present, but what we will realize in the future, in the salvation we have in Jesus Christ.

God the Father’s work is causing us to be born again. Verse 4 elaborates on this. Let me…….. There are 4 prepositions that came in verse 3, just so you note them. He “caused us to be born again according to His great mercy”, that’s the first, “to a living hope”, or unto a living hope, that’s the second. This was accomplished “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”, which naturally presupposes His death. But a lot of people die, but only one person was raised. So it was through Jesus Christ, that’s the third prepositional phrase. And then 4, “it was unto an inheritance.” Gives you a nice, concise package—the work of the new birth that God has brought about. According to His great mercy, unto a living hope, through the resurrection of Christ, unto an inheritance.

Now he’s going to pick up verse 4, that unto an inheritance, the fourth prepositional phrase. It’s to an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away. And to obtain an inheritance is parallel to a living hope. And you have the same preposition, unto a living hope, unto an inheritance. You have parallel ideas. The living hope is our inheritance. It is entering into the fullness of our salvation, that glorification in the presence of Christ. God has prepared for us an inheritance in the glory of His presence. And everyone who is a believer has such an inheritance.

He’s going to show first that that inheritance is safe and secure, and then he’s going to show that those who are to inherit it are safe and secure. We talk about we’re members of God’s family, that we are children of God. That means something that means we have an inheritance from Him as His children, to obtain an inheritance. He’s going to use 3 negative adjectives to describe this inheritance. It represents something that is almost beyond description. So it tells you what it is not because it is very difficult to get our arms around in any way the magnitude of this inheritance. I read an article in the paper, you may have seen it this week, it was in the local paper I believe. Someone in the medical field, I think they referred to the fact that we have something like 100 trillion cells in our body. That’s meaningless to me—100 trillion cells. I don’t know how he knows. How do you count to 100 trillion? I guess they take a little speck and then they multiply it out, I don’t know. I couldn’t even get through basic math, had to be a preacher where you just had verses. But here we have an inheritance. How do you get your arms around this? Well let me tell you what will not happen to this inheritance, some negative things. It is imperishable. Denotes something that is not subject to decay or dissolution. It’s free from death and decay. This is an inheritance different than all others, it’s imperishable. So it has a durability about it. It will not fade away. It’s undefiled, first. It’s free from anything that would defile it, any impurity. It is untainted by sin. It will not fade away. Down in verse 24 we talk about the flower of the grass and its glory fades. The grass withers, the flower falls off with the passing of time. You know it’s a beautiful time of year to see the colors and everything coming with spring and I’m amazed at the beauty of our God. I was thinking as I look out the window and look at the beauty, God what must glory be like. Just to see a touch of the beauty that you create and it’s going to be gone shortly. These things will just fade away, they’ll be done. But the inheritance God has prepared for us will not fade away. It is reserved in heaven for you. That word translated reserve is something in the perfect tense, you know that happened in the past and it continues into the present. So the perfect denotes a permanence about it. The word here is a verb that means to take care of or to guard something. And our inheritance is reserved in heaven and it is secure, it is guarded because it’s under God’s watchful care. I mean does anybody come into heaven and steal anything, defile anything, ruin anything? Absolutely not. That’s where our inheritance is. It is permanently reserved for us in heaven, the place of God’s dwelling. Remember in Matthew 6 Jesus said “don’t lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust corrupt, thieves break in and steal.” Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven that are not affected by these things, which are imperishable, undefiled, will not fade away. That’s what he’s talking about, that’s what we entered into when we entered into a relationship with the living God. This is for you, it’s reserved in heaven for you. In Revelation chapter 21 verse 7 we are told, “he who overcomes shall inherit these things and I will be his God and he will be my son.” What more could I want?

Now you see what Peter is doing? Here are people going through difficult trials, painful situations, suffering. You know what happens when my body experiences pain? I become occupied with my pain. Someone in my family goes through difficulty, I become occupied with that. The stock market goes down and what you thought you had you don’t have. You become occupied with that. Pressures and trials and difficulties and it tends to want to pull our eyes to focus on that. You’ll note what Peter is doing—lift your eyes up. You may have lost all your possessions, you may have lost you job, you may have lost your health, but you understand you haven’t lost anything of ultimate value. As a child of God your inheritance is not here, it’s there. What more could you want? People say the market is down, what did you lose? Nothing. Well I mean in the material realm, something. But nothing of real value. You’ve lost your health. You know people say if you don’t have your health, what do you have? Everything as a child of God. I’ve not lost anything of permanence. Let’s face it, I’m going to lose my health one day one way or another, because if Christ doesn’t come in a hundred years, I’m not going to be here. I will have experienced death, and my chances of living to 161 are minimal so that’s going to happen long before a hundred years if the Lord doesn’t come. So it’s just reality. So I bemoan I lost them when they were so young. If they’re a child of God, what matters?

So you see how Peter is refocusing the thinking to put life and its trials and difficulties in perspective. This is for you. Who are the you? It’s the you, now, who are protected. So we saw the inheritance is safe and secure. It’s guarded under the watchful care of my heavenly father. It will not be diminished in any way. Great. Now what about me? Well this is for you who are protected. So verse 5 elaborates the you at the end of verse 4. You are the ones who are protected. That’s a present tense. This is my ongoing situation. I am under the protection. It’s a military term, to protect, to guard, to keep. I am one who is under the constant protection and guarding power of God. You are protected by the power of God. I mean how much more do I want? I can’t comprehend the power and might of my God, but I know it is vaster than anything my finite mind can grasp. And I am protected by His power.

Now these believers that Peter is writing to might be experiencing terrible things at the hands of men. And man can bring great pain and suffering into our lives. But you know what? They cannot really harm us because we are protected by God. Jesus said don’t fear those who can kill the body, fear the One who after He has killed the body is able to destroy both body and soul in hell. Because if all you’ve lost is your body, you haven’t lost anything. Because if you belong to the living God you are secure in Him, and even your body is going to be glorified someday.

We have to go to Romans 8, we don’t want to go to too many verses because I want to overview much of this. Romans 8, Romans 8 verse 31, “what shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?” And down with those questions. Verse 35, “who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword?” All these things that come into our lives here on this earth, but they don’t affect our relationship to the living God and His Son, Jesus Christ. “So in all these things,” verse 37, “we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” How secure can I be? Why would I worry? Why would I be afraid? Why would I be dismayed? Has God’s power been broken? Do I not belong to Him anymore? I mean what is the problem? Oh you don’t know what I’m going through. No, and Peter doesn’t start off by talking about what these that he’s writing to are going through. That’s the beautiful thing. We can summarize it. You’re going through tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, but we’re conquerors in everything and anything. Because none of these things can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That’s basically what we’re saying back in I Peter chapter 1. We are protected by the power of God through faith. We are those who believe in Him. The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. This is not true for everyone. The power of the gospel does not work powerfully in the life of everyone who hears it. It works powerfully in the life of everyone who believes it, and thus are brought under the protection of the power of God Himself. Now we are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. That salvation ready to be revealed is the same thing as the inheritance at the beginning of verse 4, which is the same thing as the living hope in verse 3. You say well I thought I was already saved and already had my salvation. I do, but it’s not yet done. There’s more. You know it’s like you’re given something and you open it up and say oh this is wonderful, it’s overwhelming. They say well keep going, there’s more, keep going, there’s more.

You know God didn’t save us so we could be happier in this life. You get the idea that that’s what it’s all about by some preaching today. Well God saved us so we could enjoy life, so we could have the fullness of enjoyment here because He wants us to enjoy it. And that’s fine, He brings joy into our lives. But you understand, that’s not the purpose of our salvation—to enjoy life. We are strangers and pilgrims here, our citizenship is not here, we were not saved to enjoy life more, because for some salvation brings a great change. For Paul it went from a life of honor, I take it comfort, means to a life of suffering, imprisonment, beatings, difficulty and ultimate martyrdom. Wouldn’t be true that salvation came to Paul so he could enjoy life more. We might say in his heart there was joy and peace, to be sure, but life got a lot more difficult once he came to know the living God. So salvation wasn’t so you can enjoy life. We get the idea we’ve been deprived. No, here is the joy—our future inheritance. It is for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. When will it ultimately come? In the last time, in the last time. We talked about that. That ultimately carries us to the end of the last time when Christ comes, the culmination of all that we’ve been talking about.

Look at verse 6, “in this you greatly rejoice even though now for a little while, if necessary, you’ve been distressed by various trials.” Now we get to the point. Here is the cause of your joy. In this greatly rejoice, in what God has done for us in Christ and all that He has provided for us in Christ. All of a sudden it’s occupied with thinking you know it’s cost me everything to become a follower of Christ--I lost my position, I lost my family, I lost my possessions, my wealth. My health has been broken. It’s cost me everything. What did Paul say? No, in this we greatly rejoice. The future hope that we have talked about, that which was promised to us, you greatly rejoice. This is an intense word, it denotes an intense joy; it denotes a stronger joy than just the normal word for joy. One wrote this kind of joy could be called the joy of salvation for it is always a spiritually prompted joy. It’s in the present tense. You have this ongoing intense joy. You say well I don’t know that that’s true of me. I mean isn’t there something wrong with these long-faced Christians? Oh yes, how are you doing? Oh, these are difficult times. Yes, I’m trying my best but oh it’s been… and then they want to tell you a litany of their difficulties and trials. And there are times when we may share with someone. But where is our focus? Sometime you want to say, have you thought anything about anything other than your problems in the last 24 hours? Have you given any thought to anything but your difficulties? When I stop and think about it are my difficulties and my trials anything in comparison with the glory He has prepared for those who love Him. Do you think in a hundred million years I’m going to be sitting with my feet crossed on the streets of gold in glory … oh, I had it rough, I really went through difficulty, it was so bad. You know I don’t even think I’m going to be able to remember the trivial things of this life. Will they amount to anything? I’ll look back and say you know I didn’t realize how nothing that was. Oh tell me about how much difficulty you had. After a hundred million years of glory you know that’s not even a point of a pin. I mean, what does it amount to? Sometimes we as Christians act like it’s everything, my world is falling apart. Oh really? I mean does God no longer reign? His power is no longer protecting you? The inheritance He prepared is no longer there? Oh yes, but I mean in the real world where I have to live. Well the spirit of God says this is reality, folks. You know that inheritance for me in heaven is just as real as looking at these wooden benches or standing here looking at these physical things. That’s reality. The Word of God stands behind it. Heaven and earth will pass away, my Word will not pass away. It is sure and settled.

In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while you have been distressed by various trials. Now he uses a collection here, and I think they’re put in balance. You’ve been distressed. The word distressed refers to the emotion of grief, that inward feeling of grief and sorrow that’s brought about by outward circumstances. Now here you see a great grief has been brought to your life. You who greatly rejoice. You have various trials and there have been multifaceted trials. That word various, many-colored, many kinds, diversified. It’s used of God’s grace in chapter 4 verse 10 of this letter--God’s multifaceted grace. Here we have multifaceted trials and some of his readers, they’re scattered through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, according to verse 1. They were people in different places and probably experiencing different trials. So you have multifaceted trials and to some of you it seems the trials are piling up. You know just the time you lose your job, you get a bad health report and you say oh Lord. Then you find out one of your children has a problem and you say Lord these are piling up, they are overwhelming me. You’re saying what? We have multifaceted trials, we have all kinds of trouble coming into our lives. It creates grief and sorrow, it has in these believers. He reminds them now for a little while. Combination words here—now, this present time, the now time you have this trial. And you understand that even now it’s short. Peter wrote this. Peter experienced suffering, he’s ultimately going to experience death. Tradition says he was crucified, not pleasant, tradition says upside down—even more unpleasant. He knew it was coming, the Spirit of God told him he would soon be executed. You don’t get the idea in Peter’s letter he is in a deep depression and just is no good to anyone. He’s writing letters, telling people to get focused where they are, where their hope is, where their life really is, not where they are in trouble. So it’s now for a little while. I’ll guarantee you if you’re a child of God and you’re going through the worst of trial right now, cheer up. In a hundred years it will be over. Be of good cheer. Absolute guarantee from this preacher. I’m looking around, there’s no one young enough to outlive this prophecy. In a hundred years your worst trials will be gone, your smallest trials will be gone, because either the Lord will come or you will pass through death. They are now for a little while, but they are passing.

For now for a little while if necessary you have been distressed by trials, if necessary. That brings to our attention here, if necessary, if there are trials in your life it is part of a divine plan, a divine purpose. It may be necessary, it may be God’s divine plan for you to go through this. It’s a great comfort for me to know as a believer I never suffer needlessly. Part of God’s plan for me. All things work together for good. That doesn’t mean it’s not tremendously painful, doesn’t mean it doesn’t bring grief and sorrow to my life, does mean that with that He brings the joy that only He can bring. And I know it’s His plan, doing what is right.

We don’t have time to chase down that joy in suffering. You’ve been distressed by various trials so that the proof of your faith. Here’s what’s going on with trials and difficulties that come into your life—your faith is being refined, put to the test, proven. The proof of your faith being more precious than gold which is perishable. Gold would be put through the refining process to prove its purity, to make it more what it needs to be. That’s the process we’re going through. This is more precious than gold. God is refining us and reproving us for the glory of His presence. These trials serve a divine purpose. The refining of my faith, the proving of my faith is more precious than gold and so my faith is being proven and strengthened so that it will be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. When all is said and done and we stand in the presence of the Lord all the trials, all the difficulties as well as all the other events of my life will be revealed to do what? To have served the purpose of God in preparing me for the glory of His presence and the reception of the inheritance He has prepared.

The praise, the glory and the honor. The praise, I take it, will be the public commendation that comes to us in the presence of the Lord. Well done good and faithful servant. We do it for the praise that will come from the only one that matters. Glory. I mean what can you say? He’s prepared us for glory. “The whole creation groans” Romans 8, “in anticipation of the unveiling of the sons of God, the display of our glory as those redeemed by God’s grace and honor.” We will be God’s exalted servants. Really these praise, glory and honor, they are redundant in some ways, just giving emphasis like we would use it. You receive praise and glory and honor, emphasizing with 3 terms that are basically synonymous in their emphasis. At the revelation of Jesus Christ. Puts it in perspective. You know I can’t measure what God has for me now, I don’t have it; I have the promises of it. I won’t receive it until glory. If I get too focused on this life, on the things of this world, on what is taking place in my life as far as the circumstances of my life, I lose my perspective. You know for a period of time I was going through some dizzy spells, now what some people thought were dizzy spells. These were dizzy spells and some of you have gone through them. And something that helped me, he said focus on something, on a spot there. And you know I found that when the dizziness would come and I’d focus on that spot and focus my eyes there, things would begin to settle down and stabilize again. You know if I kept swinging my head around, looking around, things got worse and worse because it seems they were out of control.

You know that’s basically what Peter is doing here, telling God’s people to focus, the God of glory, here’s what He has done. He has caused you to be born again and thus given you a living hope and that hope is secure in heaven and you’re secure in Him. Now your trials are part of the refining, proving, testing process to prepare you for that. Well now things get put into perspective. I am so absorbed with my trouble, with my problems, my trials, I lose my balance. And so let’s get refocused. What is life about? Well you don’t know the trouble. What good is my life in this condition? Well does God know what is best? Does He have a perspective that we don’t? We do that with our children. This is what you must do. They find it unpleasant. Sometimes they don’t understand the purpose, why they have to go through that difficulty. But it’s to prepare them, what? For what is ahead. It’s a process and so he focuses their glory.

“Though you have not seen Him,” verse 8, “you love Him. 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.” You don’t see Him but you love Him. You don’t see Him now but you believe in Him, verse 8. And you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory. He has no doubt as these believers adjust their focus the joy that he’s talking about will be theirs. That’s true for all of us as believers. We don’t have time to go into the work of the Spirit in this in verses 10-12, but the Spirit’s work has been the revealer of this, as we talked about in our study earlier today. And He is the one who has revealed these truths. He did it through the Old Testament prophets. This is settled in the Word of God, this is secure.

Good for us as believers to get our focus in a proper perspective. We have to go through the trials, He hasn’t called us to avoid this. But what really matters? What God has done for us, what He has prepared for us and where we are going by His grace for ultimate glory.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for great riches stored up for us in the glory of your presence, riches so wonderful, overwhelming. Lord it is not possible for us to have any kind of grasp of what it will entail. We know they are permanent, we know they are sure, we know they are prepared by you for us. Lord, by your marvelous grace we are secure in your care and everything that comes into our lives, the trials and the difficulties that you have determined are necessary for our refining and purifying and preparation for the glory of your presence, Lord, we receive. Not with grumbling, not with despair or discouragement or disappointment, but Lord with joy and gladness to know that you are working your purposes with the ultimate end of it for each one of us will be glory. I pray that our attention might be focused on the goal that you have set before us and the hope that is ours in Christ. May we find that our strength and our joy in these days. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.