The Testing of Our Faith

Sometimes, disappointment and suffering come slowly into our lives. At other times, they come like bolts from the blue, unexpected, unpredicted, unwelcomed.

And irrespective of how they come, we know that from time to time, all of us, all of us find ourselves in the middle of struggles, fears, anxieties, injustice, pressures, heartaches, confusion, loss and suffering. The question is, how do we respond? How do you respond when you're told you have a serious illness? How do you respond when you unfairly lose your job? How do you respond when a friend betrays you, when your dreams come crashing down?

How do you respond when a loved one passes and dies? When you're criticized and ostracized perhaps because of your commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ? How do you respond as a follower of Jesus Christ when your faith is tested? Peter, in a passage we're going to read, is saying that suffering and trials test the genuineness of our faith. So let's open our Bibles to 1 Peter chapter one, and we're going to read from verses six through nine.

Daniel, who was baptized, chose this. So we've already heard it, but we're going to read it again. And if you have your Bible, I'd like you to open it, to follow it, to make sure that what I'm saying is the Word of God. If you don't have a Bible, there's one in the pew in front of you. We're going through 1 Peter, and today we come to 1 Peter chapter one verse six. Peter writes, "'In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold it perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.'" The testing of your faith. Exiled, persecuted people, rejoicing with joy. Is that really what Peter is saying?

That's astonishing, isn't it? But we're going to learn that there is a joy, there is a joy which transcends suffering. There is a joy which transcends distress and trials. The testing of our faith. I want us, first of all, to understand, and this is implied in this passage, that followers of Christ are not immune from suffering and trials. Perhaps you are a new follower of Jesus Christ, and I have to tell you, the reality is this, that we who follow Jesus Christ are not immune from suffering and trials. Have you noticed that increasingly our society seeks to eliminate pain and suffering? We've become a generation of wimps, haven't we? The slightest pain, the most minor of inconveniences, the mere suggestion of a difficulty, the most trivial of misunderstandings, the smallest of disappointments, and we start to complain and feel sorry for ourselves.

Isn't that right? We are, as a people, very emotionally fragile. We get so upset so easily, we are offended so easily, and not only do we look for the relief of pain and suffering and inconvenience, we almost demand it, and we have a kind of ejector seat mentality. Bail me out of this situation as quickly as possible. I don't deserve this.

There must be some cure, some answer immediately to my pain and suffering. I read this week, it was reported in the Wall Street Journal, that some college students now require a concierge service. Didn't have that when I was at university. Apparently, some of our very fragile college students, I'm sure none here, they have difficulty getting up in the morning. So, these rich parents pay someone at the college to give a wake-up call to their student.

Have you heard of it? And apparently, according to some of the professors, some of the students write to them when it's raining and saying, do we really have classes when it's raining? I mean, it's incredible.

Other professors say that they get emails from students saying, can you suggest a quiet spot for study? Incredible, isn't it? That we as a nation are so easily upset, so easily inconvenienced, so easily feel that we cannot cope with life. And sadly, in some circles, that mentality impacts the church, impacts the Christian life. Where in the church, in the Christian life, everything has to be positive, successful, amazing. If I hear that word again, I'm going to scream. Everything's got to be amazing. Everything's got to be high energy. It's got to be upbeat. It's got to be fun.

It's got to be exciting. Have you noticed this in some churches? Christian life presented like that? Let me tell you the reality.

Are you listening? Authentic followers of Jesus Christ experience suffering. Genuine followers of Jesus Christ experience suffering. Authentic New Testament Christianity is a faith of realism.

One of the reasons why I've decided to study 1 Peter. Authentic New Testament Christianity is a faith of realism, not of false hype, not focused on selfish and false promises of prosperity and success. The Gospel is not, if you follow Jesus life is going to be wonderful and you're never going to have any problems on earth again. That's not the Gospel. Jesus said, you want to follow me?

That's the first thing He said. Deny self. Take up your cross and follow me. And if you are suffering, as some of you are today, please do not interpret that as evidence of a lack of faith.

Notice what Peter says here in our text. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials. This word grieved may be translated heaviness or distress. It's dealing with mental anguish of being distressed. Many have experienced, haven't we, heaviness of heart, emotional turmoil, distress, pain and grief.

These trials, Peter says, come in various ways, various trials. And we who follow Jesus Christ are experiencing more and more what others of our brothers and sisters have known throughout the world, that our world will tolerate just about anything. You can have the most bizarre belief in the United States. You can have the most astonishing lifestyle. And you can come up with the most stupid statements and people will say, oh yeah, OK. That's OK, man.

Just go ahead. But when you say you're a follower of Jesus Christ, and when you bow to the lordship of Jesus Christ, and particularly when you say that this book, the Bible, is our authority and that God speaks to us in His Word, there is rejection. We're accused of being bigots.

We're accused of being judgmental. And so increasingly, we who stand for Jesus Christ will find ourselves as these first century Christians felt, socially ostracized. Social pressure from their family, from their friends, losing their jobs, scattered. So Peter refers to them in verse one as we saw three or four weeks ago as ex, as elect exiles. Peter is writing yes to persecuted Christians. Verse one, they are elect exiles.

They're exiles from their homes. Here in verse six, he says you've been grieved by various trials. Chapter two, verse 21, he talks about suffering and he says to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you. The Christian life is a life of suffering. Chapter four, verse 12, beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. Don't be surprised when that persecution comes, when that suffering comes. Chapter five, verse nine, regarding our enemy, resist him firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who's called you to His eternal glory in Christ will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To Him be the dominion forever and ever.

Amen. What's Peter saying? Don't be surprised when grief, pain, tears, isolation, disappointment, discouragement, suffering, and distress come. We who follow Jesus Christ are not immune from such trials and sufferings.

The question which Peter is presenting is, how are we to respond? Well, first of all, he explains in verse six that we are to understand that our sufferings and our trials are only temporary. Well, this is what he says in verse six, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials.

For a little while. The same expression is used in chapter five, verse ten, as I read, a little while. While we are in the middle of the trial, when we're in the middle of the distress and the emotional turmoil, it seems that the situation will never end. It seems that we will never, ever get through it. The pain, the distress are so intense, but isn't it encouraging to know that when you're following Jesus Christ, and we sang about it in that wonderful Psalm from Psalm 23, isn't it encouraging to know that the severest of sufferings, the blackest of nights, the fieriest of fires, the deepest of valleys, the most frightening of storms last only for a little while. And that great truth that our sufferings and our trials are only for a little while, that sustains us and gives us a spiritual perspective.

These trials are only for a little while. The Psalmist says, there is weeping in the night, but joy comes in the morning. In your pain, in your suffering, in your disappointments, in your trials and your testings, dear child of God, do not despair.

The heartache, the tears, the sorrow, the loneliness, and the distress will soon be gone. We are, Peter is reminding us right in verse one, we are exiles. We are pilgrims. We are sojourners. We're away from home, but we're going home. We're living in an alien world. We are not of this world, although we are temporarily in it.

Therefore, don't expect this world, which is opposed to Christ, where we have this enemy who goes around like a roaring lion. Don't expect this world to treat you well, but soon we'll see the King. Soon we'll be at home. Soon, to use the words of John Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress, soon we will be in celestial city. Soon our sufferings and our trials will be over.

They are only for a little while. I realize they're very intense, but Peter is saying look to the future, and when you do that you can rejoice. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while if necessary you've been grieved by various trials. So first of all, sufferings and trials are only temporary. Secondly, sufferings and trials are for a perfect purpose. They're not random.

It's not a matter of the luck of the draw. They are for a purpose and a perfect purpose. Look at verse seven. So that, follow the argument, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by far, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The tested genuineness of your faith. Yes, there is that faith which is purely hypocritical.

There is that faith which is not authentic but is false. But the sufferings and the trials are for a perfect purpose. See, when we reflect on our sufferings and our trials, there's much that we don't understand. As William Cowper writes, God works in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.

You've found that, haven't you? God's ways are inscrutable. And there is much that happens in our life that we simply do not understand, but we do know this, that God's purposes are perfect. And we do know from His Word that we are to trust Him even when we don't understand His purposes. That's faith, isn't it? We sang it, and I will trust in Him alone. Yes, when I go through the dark valley, when the enemy is against me, I will put my trust in Him.

I don't understand it. I wish life was different, but meantime, I'm going to put my faith in Jesus Christ. I'm not going to walk away as our students sang. I'm not ashamed of the Gospel. I'm going to stand firm with Your grace even though I don't understand the circumstances that I'm in.

Here's a wonderful thing to understand, that when you're going through these trials and their tests, God tests us not to disprove us, but to approve us. Have you ever entered into a test where somebody wanted a failure? I remember a teacher at school, I was 14, 15. I was a student at Gibraltar Grammar School. It was taught by a Roman Catholic order called Christian Brothers.

Very good educators, very strict, very good academically. But there was one, and we had to call them brother. They were a little dog collar. There was one called Brother Murphy. Yes, he was Irish. And for some inexplicable reason, he didn't like myself and the other Scottish boy whose name was Malcolm Ruff who was very tough Ruff.

And Malcolm and I, for some unknown reason, incurred the wrath of Brother Murphy. And from time to time, he would invite all us out, all boys, about 25 to 30 of us, out of the front. And we had to ask a question in French. He would say, ask me a question. And sometimes he would answer it, or sometimes he'd get another boy to answer it. And invariably, he left Malcolm Ruff and I last.

All easy questions were gone. Then he would say to us, Monroe, and almost always, and you would struggle with French irregular verbs, my pronunciation was wrong, didn't get it right, and Malcolm Ruff was the same. Everyone else sat down, and he had a cane, and he liked to use that cane on our hands. And Malcolm Ruff said to us, John, we're not going to allow him to show that we don't like this.

I thought, you kidding me? And so the cane came down. And it became very obvious that he was bringing us up front to fail us, to humiliate us, to try and crack us, to bend us to his sadistic will, but we were not going to be broken. It's a bad experience, isn't it?

If you've got a teacher like that or a coach like that, somebody who wants to fail you, someone who wants to point out your flaws. Isn't that wonderful that we have a Heavenly Father who's not like that? Our God is not a cosmic sadist.

He is a loving Father. And this saw that at the beginning of verse seven, gives the purpose of the various trials. Peter writes in this wonderful way of our trials and our sufferings in terms of the refiner's fire, even precious gold has impurities and dross. And in subjecting the gold to the intense heat of the fire, the refiner's purpose is not obviously to destroy the gold.

No, it's to remove the dross which rises to the surface. And in this way, the gold is made more precious. The Lord says in Isaiah 48 verse 10, I've tried you in the furnace of affliction. The furnace of affliction is a very difficult place to be, and yet in it, God is not disproving us, He's approving us. And says Peter in verse seven here, your faith is more precious to God than gold that perishes. Your sufferings and your trials are like a refiner's fire which remove the impurities in your life. And if you're finding yourself in suffering, in this distress, in this difficulty, don't blame God. Don't fight God. God's at work in your life.

And He's at work in your life for your good. And each day, He gives us the promise of His grace, of His wisdom, of His strength. Charles Spurgeon says, suffering is meant not only to burn out the dross, but to burn in the promises. We're going through suffering. The dross, the impurities in our life are being burned out, but burning into our very soul are the promises of God.

You see, without the refiner's fire, without the Father's pruning, remember Jesus in John 15 talks about the pruning. Without us going into the refiner's fire, without the Father's pruning us, you know what we tend to be? We tend to be rather proud. We tend to be rather self-reliant.

We tend to be unsympathetic and self-centered and hard. Many of you can testify that when we experience sufferings and trials, our pride, our selfishness, our superficiality, our hypocrisy, our shallowness are exposed, aren't they? See, the fire doesn't destroy the genuine article. The fire is designed to bring out the best, that God doesn't punish His children.

But from time to time, He does purify us. So, He says here, the genuineness of your faith. We have, as our theme at Calvary, being and making authentic followers of Jesus Christ.

Being and making genuine followers of Christ. Not perfect, but the genuineness, the authenticity of our faith is tested through these trials. Paul says the same thing in Romans chapter five.

Listen to what he says here, Romans five. He says, not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings. Who wants to rejoice in your sufferings? You rejoice in the great thrills and blessings of life, but to rejoice in our sufferings. Yes, Paul says, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

See, the development of character in your life, the development of endurance, the development of that living hope in your life is much more important than getting immediate relief from your suffering. If you've ever played a sport, you know that. Who wants to keep practicing over and over again? If you've ever played an instrument, perhaps the coach or the teacher is saying to you, no that's not quite right.

Do that again. And so, in the sport or in the music or at work, if you've got a good coach, a good boss, a good teacher, they're getting you to do that over and over and over again. And it's hard.

It's difficult. You want to go home. You want to stop it. But what does it do? It produces endurance. It produces character. It gives you hope that John you can do better than this, that I'm working in your life to make you more and more like my son, the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, suffering takes away the self-made props of our life and brings us face to face with God. Have you found that you're drawn closer to God more in times of adversity than in times of prosperity? See, we rejoice then in these trials not because we enjoy the pain and the suffering, far from it, but because of the purifying result. Notice what he says at the end of verse 7. Here's the result of the test. You're going to get through it.

Know what the result's going to be? Praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. What's Peter saying in these verses? He's saying rejoice in your great salvation and rejoice in your magnificent Savior.

Verse 6, in this you rejoice. Verse 8, though you have not seen Him, none of us have seen Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him.

Isn't that true? I've never seen Jesus Christ, but I love Him. I've never seen Him, but I believe in Him. My trust is in Him. You believe in Him and rejoice with joy.

Incredible, isn't it? The first century exiled believers who are scattered throughout the Roman provinces. You rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. We are to be a people of joy. We are to rejoice. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 7, verse 4, in all of our affliction, I am overflowing with joy. James says, James 1, verses 2 and 3, count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.

Paul, James, Peter are all saying the same things. To rejoice in your suffering. You see, not only are we people of hope, we thought of that last week. We've been singing about that. We're people of hope. We're also people of joy. Our God is a God of great joy. The Gospel came to us with great joy.

Remember the angel said, good news. The Gospel is good news of great joy. And we had great joy, didn't we, this morning and still have, when we hear the testimonies of our brothers and sisters being baptized to understand that God is living and God is still at work in the lives of young people saving them and heaven rejoices when one sinner repents.

And so do we. That God is a God of joy. And in the midst of the most incredibly difficult circumstances, God's people here in the first century rejoice with joy. Notice he says in verse 6, in this you rejoice, what else you're referring to?

Well, clearly the living hope. Clearly the future inheritance of the preceding verses that we thought of last week. This eternal inheritance is guaranteed by God Himself.

It's got our name on it. It is reserved in heaven for me. It's kept by the power of God. That there is nothing in the whole universe that can take away that eternal inheritance which has been promised to me through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And all of that, Peter says, is in accordance with God's great mercy.

Yes, it's supernaturally experienced by us at our new birth when we understand that this Christ who came into the world, died for my sins, was buried and rose again. And as I hear Him say, John, come to me and I'll give you rest. And I came and you came and we found rest.

And also what? Great joy. Great joy. And even in the midst then as we live our Christian life with God's help and in authentic ways, we live our Christian life, we experience suffering and difficulties. But we still rejoice with joy. We have the assurance of our salvation of our souls. Verse 9, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. And that eternal reality in the future shapes how I respond to difficulties and frustrations and disappointments in the present. Because for the Christian, the focus of our hope and the reason for our joy is our Lord Jesus Christ.

You understand, I trust that joy is not event oriented. Think of all of the ideas, think of all of the strategies people have to devise to be happy. You ask people their goal in life is to be happy. What do you want for your children?

I want them to be happy. The things of this world and the pleasures of life may bring great exhilaration. They may bring great thrills. They may bring this feeling of happiness. Yes, they can be a blast, but they don't last. And many times, as we look around us, but they don't even last in this life.

And certainly they're not going to last for eternity. So I ask you, what's the basis of your joy? What's the basis of your joy? I read this week that a journalist had filmed on his iPhone somebody called Taylor Swift, not somebody I follow. And she was at an NFL game, some of you know this and follow this kind of absurd stuff.

I just say, well so do you. I happen to see it. But anyhow, some journalists filmed Taylor Swift, apparently some kind of celebrity, leaving an NFL game with Travis Kelsey of the Kansas City Chiefs. And the amazing thing when I saw this, he'd only got a four-second clip of this young woman, Taylor Swift. I've never heard her, apparently she's a singer.

I've never heard her sing. She seemed a very ordinary-looking woman to me. But really, didn't she? I mean, if she was here, would you look at her twice? Not really.

Not when we have such beautiful wives, Tim, right? But with this athlete, this guy called Travis Kelsey. And the guy got four seconds of this clip. He put it on social media, and as of Tuesday — I'm reading about joy, and I'm also seeing this kind of trashy stuff — and it said, as of Tuesday, it was viewed more than 15 million times on the journalist's social media. And the journalist said, her being there, her being Taylor Swift, felt just like a Super Bowl.

That's the energy that was in the building, thinking, really? A woman watching a game? She was the talk of the game. And I thought, you know, this sums up our superficial society, doesn't it?

With no disrespect to Taylor Swift or Travis Kelsey, who I don't know. I mean, they don't know who I am. And no disrespect to them. But great excitement, thrills, that here is a young woman and an athlete walking out of a game. And I thought, is that the basis of people's joy?

Does that really get them pumped up? I mean, their joy is based on seeing a celebrity, the fleeting happiness of some event. I thought, how different for the Christian.

How different for the Christian. What's joy for us? Joy is the overflow of Christ's love in us, regardless of our external circumstances. And I want us to understand something which is very difficult for us, that tears and suffering and distress and persecution do not prevent joy. The Christian's joy is not pushed out, is not flattened when difficult circumstances come into our life. Because we are following one, our Lord Jesus, who in His earthly ministry is described as the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And isn't it wonderful to follow this Lord Jesus Christ who knows about suffering? Peter is going to say that in chapter two, that Christ suffered for us, that no one ever suffered like our Lord Jesus Christ. He despised the shame for the joy that was set before Him, and that He understands our suffering. And as I follow Him, and the closer I follow Him, and the more I look to Him, and the more I listen to His voice, the greater my joy. No, when you turn from Christ, and we heard some of the young people testifying about this, when you turn from Christ, and you look to the world, and you look to yourself, you know what happens?

There is discouragement and a lack of joy. Here is Peter, he's walking on water, looking at the Lord. In the middle of the storm, he's walking on water, but then he looks down and his eyes come off Christ, and he begins to sink.

Isn't that it? And these first century Christians loved Christ so much that they rejoiced with joy, inexpressible and filled with glory. When viewed in the context of their suffering, their joy is inexplicable.

It is inexpressible. It defies understanding, but it flows from a deep, growing relationship with Jesus Christ whom they love. It's also, says Peter, filled with glory in that it glorifies God and it anticipates that marvelous, eternal, never-ending glory of their final salvation. To be Christ-centered in life is to have a life of joy. Psalm 16 verse 11 says, in your presence there is fullness of joy. And you and I who are following Jesus Christ have the incredible situation in life that whatever's going around us, on around us and in us, we are following Jesus Christ. And the closer I am to Christ, and the more my affections on Him, and the more I listen to His voice, the deeper and the stronger the joy. When I get away from Jesus, when I look at myself, when I feel sorry for myself, when I think why did this happen to me, when I look at other people and I look at the circumstances and I listen to my enemy, when I listen to my sinful desires, then that joy gets less and less. Anyone suffering today?

Anyone emotionally distressed? If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, God is not punishing you. He's purifying you.

He's not working against you. He is working out His loving and sovereign purposes in your life. What's going to sustain us when the trials and the suffering come? A relationship with Jesus Christ who is the source of our joy, who is the sustainer of our joy, who's the very center of our joy. George Swinik says, a holy person is like a silver bell.

The harder he is smitten, the better he sounds. You've met some Christians like that, haven't you? They shine with the beauty of Christ. They know suffering, they know pain, they know misunderstanding.

Life has been difficult for them, but they shine with the beauty of Christ and the harder they are smitten, as it were, the better they sound. What am I asking you to do? You're a follower of Jesus Christ, I want you to trust Him.

We're going to sing about it. I want you to trust the Lord who in incredible ways turns emptiness into fullness. Sadness to joy, the bitter to the sweet, the barn to the fruitfulness, death to life.

Habakkuk, the Old Testament, prophet got it right at the end of his prophecy in Habakkuk chapter 3. He says, though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no fruit. The flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls. What's he saying to an agricultural people? All of your crops have failed.

Your animals are not producing. Your livelihood is devastated. Yet, he says, yet, what are you going to do, Habakkuk? Yet, I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

That's the testing of our faith. When life seems to fall apart, when life is not going the way that you want, when your circumstances around you are devastating, will you say, yet, I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

Why? Because I know Christ, and it is well with my soul. Will you bow in prayer? Father, this is difficult for us because none of us like suffering. And when we go times like this, we sometimes blame You. We're sometimes self-pitying.

We sometimes look at others whose lives seem to be so much easier than ours. Help us not to do that, but to do as Peter has instructed us, to look up to the one whom having not seen we love, the one whom we have not yet seen but we believe in with joy inexpressible and filled with glory. Thank You that through Your grace, through Your mercy, that it is well with our souls and we look forward to that great final salvation when we will see our Lord as He is. Meantime, Father, encourage us. Some of us here are broken, some of us are hurting, some of us have been devastated with the situations this week that we find ourselves in. Some people here live in almost constant pain, have mercy upon us. I pray our Father, strengthen our faith and help us to keep looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. We ask it in His name, amen.