Faith: God's Gold

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"These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed" 1 Peter 1:7

Main Readings: Daniel 3 & 1 Peter 1

Supporting Readings: Psalm 66 & Romans 8

As we come to these verses - for the first time in his letter, Peter introduces faith.

So far, we’ve been seeing our new identity unfold. And we’ve been seeing our inheritance established.

But neither identity, nor inheritance, mean anything to us without faith.

Because you can’t see them. You can’t see your new identity. You can’t see the loving Father. You can’t see the effective Holy Spirit. You can’t see the blood of the Son.

Nor can you see, mercy, and new birth, or living hope, or the inheritance kept for you in heaven.

You can’t see these things. They are locked up to faith.

You take a hold of them. But you do that by believing in the God behind them. And by believing he has chosen you to receive them.

So, Peter wants to address this issue of faith.

And he kicks off his thoughts by saying, ‘in all of this [he means this favour from God in verses 1-5], you greatly rejoice’.

Now I assume, he’s talking to mature believers here. Or baby ones – he could be talking to younger believers. But I don’t think so, the letter reads like they’re mature.

I assume that, because there’s a type of Christian, I’ve known who doesn’t ‘greatly rejoice’ in the length and breadth of what God has done for them. And they tend to be neither mature believers nor baby believers.

It’s like they’ve become so familiar with the idea - that the experience has passed them by.

And now, there are other things that give them ‘great joy’. But not so much these amazing truths and realities which, at the very beginning – when they first believed – were the only things that filled their horizons. They were smitten with God, and all he had done for them.

In other words, they believed in God, and they believed in his love for them, and they lived that faith. And in living that faith, it created in their hearts, great joy.

And, apart from newly born Christians, the place I’ve seen great joy in believers most often, is in mature believers.

People who have gone deeper and deeper with God. Who, have, as Peter says in his second letter, ‘grown in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ’.

These Christians though, who Peter is writing to, wherever they wereon the Christian journey, were ‘greatly rejoicing’ – in all that God is, and all he was for them personally.

Remember Peter is writing to churches here. So, imagine he wrote a letter to us, would he say, ‘in all this truth about who God is and what he is for you, I can see in your speech, in your love, in your behaviour, in your commitment, great joy?’

I think he would! And we can certainly pray that it would be more and more the case as we grow up in our faith.

When we think of faith, we tend to think in terms of ‘faith in Jesus’ for the forgiveness of sins. And that’s right!

Peter was once called to a Centurion’s house to testify to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And this is the way he said it in Acts 10:43, ‘All the prophets testify about Jesus that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name’.

So, there’s no doubt in Peter’s mind that faith is integral to salvation. If you do not believe in Jesus, you cannot have your sins forgiven, he says.

That’s a lasting truth and plain reality in the bible.

But, Peter hasn’t got his sights set on the faith that kick started the Christian life, here.

Rather, he’s got his laser fixed on the faith that sustains the Christian life.

And that’s so important!

We’ve got to know that faith starts, sustains and completes the Christian journey.

Not just starts it!

If faith flounders, then we’re more susceptible to wandering away from God.

Like Dan pointed out on Tuesday evening, Peter himself, took his eyes off Jesus, saw the waves surging beneath him; he became afraid, and then began to sink.

And if faith falls altogether, we’re lost. The writer to Hebrews exhorts, ‘see to it that no one has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns awayfrom the living God’.

Unbelief is the opposite of faith, and it leads to a turning away from the living God.

So, faith is hugely important. Peter can’t stress faith too much. And neither can we.

We must attend to faith our whole lives. Not only at the beginning of our Christian journey.

Now look, if you will, at verse 7 and see that faith is right at the centre of that verse. Peter uses this phrase, ‘proven genuineness of your faith’.

He thinks that their faith has been put to the test and has provedgenuine. Not counterfeit!

Which, if what we just said about floundering and falling is true, then this is good news for these people.

There are lots of people who have claimed faith in Jesus and when trials and tribulations have come, on account of Jesus, have denied him.

Jesus said it in his parable of the Sower. ‘Those on rocky ground are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing fall away’.

How many young people have professed Jesus? But when the cost of owning his name; the cost of being ridiculed for him; the cost of being different have begun to take hold, they have rejected him?

JC Ryle, the 19^th century preacher from Liverpool, had young men on his mind, who he describes exactly this way.

It’s a not a new phenomenon you see. People have been shunning the cost of Jesus for thousands of years now and then walking clean away from him!

We don’t want to be like that!

God doesn’t want that!

I pray God, keep all your faiths intact when the cost for owning Jesus comes.

It’s a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God - having known Jesus and then walked away from him! Hebrews says that!

But, in the case of these people, Peter sees genuine faith. Not counterfeit faith.

It sounds like from chapter 2, verse 2, they were being falsely accused of doing wrong in the name of Christ. And that people were insulting them - chapter 3, verse 9.

It sounds like from chapter 4, verse 4, that people were surprised that these Christians didn’t join them in their reckless wild living and so they heaped abuse on them.

And that all this was being done to them because of their connection with Jesus - chapter 4, verse 14.

In other words, they were suffering as Christians - chapter 4, verse 16 says.

So how is it, then, that Peter sees that their faith is genuine? He can discern this from afar, how?

Well, it’s because of verse 6. What Peter has observed in these people, is that they are suffering and have suffered – and I think he expects them to go on suffering – through trials of many kinds.

He’s seen them suffering these trials. And he’s seen the grief that has come through the trials. And he’s seen the suffering they’ve endured in those trials.

He mentions all three things. Griefs, suffering and variety - in and through these trials.

But crucially what he’s seen hasn’t happened, by these trials, is a dampening of their joy. Can you see that?

They ‘greatly rejoice’ while they suffer. They greatly rejoice whilethey grieve. They greatly rejoice while they experience assorted trials, piling up on top of each other.

What Peter observes in them, is what he calls for later in the letter when he says, ‘rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you also may be glad and rejoice when he is revealed’.

He sees, they’re already doing that! Already rejoicing in sharing in Christ’s sufferings.

It might perplex us that joy can reside in grief, or in suffering, or in trials. But Peter expects it to.

And, what’s more, when he sees joy in trials he takes it as proof – proof of genuine faith.

Now why does he do that? Why switch categories – from joy in verse 6 to faith in verse 7?

It’s because joy is created in the Christian heart by faith.

Faith in the unchangeable, unsurpassable, undefeatable truth of God and God’s provision for us – not just his provision for us now, but his provision that goes beyond even the grave - creates joy.

So, no matter what the trial is, if we take hold of the truth: that God is eternal, unchangeable and infinitely powerful.

If we take hold of the truth that he has set his love on me and made me his very own.

If we take hold of the truth that he is going to keep us for an inheritance that he is keeping for us in heaven and which transcends this life.

Then great joy will spring up in our hearts.

That’s the promise.

The grief will be real. The suffering will be real. But the joy will be real too.

Christianity is not stoical you see. But it’s also not despairing. It doesn’t say, ‘stop grieving’. But it also doesn’t say, ‘wallow in grief’.

It says, ‘there’s real, rooted, steadfast joy to be found in the middle of the trials - which are definitely coming to us as Christians’.

All of that would be remarkable enough, but in fact, it’s even moreremarkable than that!

Because, what we discover, is that there’s a feedback loop going on here in what Peter is saying.

Let me explain what that is, and then show it to you.

Here’s an example of a feedback loop in the body. If you have a muscle strain or a tear, the body mends it. And it mends it stronger than it was before. So that the result is a muscle that is more resistant to strain than it was before. That’s feedback.

Or think of learning a musical instrument. The difficulty experienced in the initial phase of learning - through practice, and improvement - results in greater readiness for the next piece which is of greater difficulty. That’s feedback.

And that’s what Peter is telling us here too. The very trial that provestheir faith, is the trial that strengths that very faith.

Look at what he says at the beginning of verse 7, ‘these [he means the trials] have come so that…your faith…may have results when Jesus Christ is revealed’.

So, the trials serve to strengthen faith, all the way through life. So that genuine faith – shown to be so because of this joy in tribulation – will last to the very end and result in something when Jesus is revealed.

Faith is not a one-time thing. Faith is serving joy in all the trials of life.

And those trials are strengthening faith unto a goal that God has in mind for us at the end of the age. That’s amazing!

God has so tightly wrapped up the whole of your salvation (not just the first part) with faith that he’s not going to let it flounder by allowing your life to run smoothly.

It’s a boulderless stream that leads to a fast-flowing career over the waterfall of life.

We need boulders in our stream folks!

And every time we hit a boulder, though it hurt, we’re going to get new purchase in the stream, to swim against the tide of unbelief.

And that’s why Peter makes sure that we know that the trials had to be suffered.

That’s what he says, ‘You may have had to suffer’. Why did they haveto suffer them?

Well, because God is too valiant for your faith to let you go without suffering in your lives.

Peter says it much more clearly in chapter 4, verse 19, ‘So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful creator and continue to do good’.

The trials we suffer are ‘God’s will’ Peter says. Because by them God strengthens our faith which absolutely must last the courses of our lives.

It's God’s love for us that raises trials in our lives, not his neglect of us. God doesn’t neglect the people he has made his own – the people he is planning to give an inheritance to, when Jesus returns!

The rest of verse 7 gives us a very graphic illustration of the worth of faith.

So that we don’t have a ‘take it or leave it’ kind of attitude to the necessity of ongoing and strengthened faith for our Chistian lives.

Peter compares faith with gold.

And Deb was right on Tuesday, when she pointed out that Peter is contrasting faith with gold.

He is. He’s saying faith is more precious than gold because faith has value that stretches beyond this life – even unto the end of the age.

Gold won’t last beyond this world. Gold will be consumed, just likeeverything else.

But faith will bring us to our inheritance which is not in this world but in heaven.

That’s the contrast.

And Peter says that’s true - even though gold and faith have thisthing in common – they are both refined (both made purer) by fire.

Now in the case of gold that is obviously physical fire. But in the case of faith, it’s the fire of trial.

That’s what Peter’s referring to.

So, we’re meant to take away, the fantastic value of faith, so that when the trial comes to refine that faith, we won’t say, ‘no way!’ ‘I’m done with Christianity if this is what it entails’.

We won’t say that.

Why?

Because we know that the faith the trial is producing is more valuable than gold.

More valuable because it will sustain through all of life, and finally to the very return of Jesus with our inheritance!

Now I’m going to stick my neck out here and suggest that the measureof the value of this faith that Peter is driving at here is shown, when we understand that the ‘praise, glory and honour’ ready to be revealed at the appearing of Jesus is not God’s, but ours.

I know that it’s quite radical to say that. But Peter is driving atsomething radical. He’s driving at the radical nature and work of faithin us.

And it’s not like the idea: that when Jesus returns, we will receive praise, glory and honour, is somehow alien to the New Testament.

Paul says in Romans 8, ‘If we are children, then heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory’.

So that’s very similar context and there’s no ambiguity, the glory is ours - as it comes from God.

Peter himself adds in chapter 5, ‘you will receive the crown of glorythat will never fade away’.

So, this really does serve to enhance, even further, the value of faith.

If our faith endures it will result in God honouring us, and sharing his glory with us! Is that not amazing?!

That doesn’t mean he won’t be praised, honoured and glorified also – he absolutely will!

But Peter is convincing us here of the value of our faith. It’s so valuable, it even results in a personal share of God’s glory!

Jesus is going to return – revealed in the last time – and, with him, our salvation, Peter said in verse 5.

And with him, our glorification, Peter now says in verse 7. How good is that?

It’s off the scale good!

Again and again, so far, in 1 Peter we see God’s provision for us.

With all the talk about the end of the journey and return of Jesus, it might be tempting to think that Peter’s lost touch with the reality of the here and now.

Especially, given that Peter had seen Jesus first hand and they hadn’t!

‘I mean, Peter, how can you tell us about faith when you were with Jesus, face to face, for so long?’

But Peter hasn’t lost touch. And he wants to make that clear.

At the beginning of verse 8, he acknowledges that they haven’t seen Jesus – just like us - we haven’t either. But, he says, you do love him.

That’s faith, isn’t it? Faith is the substance of things hoped for, not yet seen. They hadn’t seen him, but they loved him. So that’s faith.

So, do we love Jesus?

I mean do we tell him that we love him.

‘I love you Jesus. My heart is so convinced of you, and you’re so compelling to me, that I love you, Lord Jesus’.

Can we pray prayers like that?

And then Peter says, ‘even though you don’t see him now, you believein him’!

And so, what we find is that the very thing we saw back in verse 6, is playing out again.

‘It’s true’, Peter is saying.

‘It’s true that when you reflect on Jesus in all his majestic qualities, your heart is inflamed with love for him because faith is taking hold of those truths and resting in them – even in the face of trials’.

And low and behold that faith is producing joy!

Peter calls it ‘inexpressible and glorious joy’.

Now, why does he paint Christian joy, and specifically the joy resulting from faith in Jesus and love for Jesus, as inexpressible and glorious?

Well, he tells us, right after - in verse 9. ‘For’ he says – he means, ‘this is why’. ‘For you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls’.

So, notice, that now he’s not talking future anymore.

Before - he said our faith would result in praise, honour and glory in the future - when Christ is revealed.

But now he’s saying, your faith also produces inexpressible – no words can convey it – and glorious joy, now!

There was a joy resulting from faith back in verse 6 that had the pastas the object and focus of that faith. Past love, past calling, past sprinkling, past new birth.

But now this joy in verse 8 – that’s resulting from faith, has its object and focus as Jesus Christ - who is alive, and is sat at the right hand of God now.

And whereas he was speaking in verse 7 of faith resulting in futurebenefits, here in verse 9 faith results in a present benefit.

So, what is that present benefit?

It is the salvation of our souls. Do you see that?

Peter uses the word ‘salvation’ in verse 5 and places it in the future. But here he places it in the present.

And in verse 18, he will mean the same thing by the word ‘redeemed’ and place it in the past – which is where we usually think of it.

For Peter, then, salvation is a multi-stage reality.

And here, in focus, is the present-tense operation of salvation. We arereceiving the end result of our faith, the salvation of our souls - now.

So, we need to think like this: every day that we wake up a Christian – by which I mean, every day we wake up relying on Jesus by faith.

So, you wake up tomorrow and there’s still school to go to. Still an exam to sit. Still a pile of laundry to do. A broken gutter to fix. A bill to pay. A presentation at work to do. A painful ankle to contend with. An awkward conversation to have. Cancer to live with. A YP group to run. A funeral to go to. An angry client to give account to. Whatever the variety of trial.

Whatever it is. You trust in Jesus with all your might for whatever the outcome of those things will be.

That’s what I mean by ‘relying on Jesus by faith’.

You don’t say, ‘if he gives me the outcome I want, I’ll trust him next time’. That’s not faith!

No, you go into the breach - as Shakespear put it in Henry the fifth – you go into the breach trusting that whatever Jesus has perfectly planned the outcome to be, it will strengthen your faith. Believe that!

And because that strengthened faith is guaranteed – from one strength to another - to bring you to glory at the last day, then you know in your heart, that right now your soul is being saved from death by this amazing God-designed process.

And when you know that – then you are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy! How could you not be? ‘He’s saving me!

Every day he’s saving me!’

It’s a joy that will doubtless, overflow in praise and thanksgiving to God: ‘I am going to make it Lord. I am going to make it! Because I can see that you are strengthening my faith through these trials. And not leaving me. O God, help me to see that more!’

This is where Peter wants to take us.

He wants to strengthen our proven, genuine faith by helping us to know that trials strengthen faith.

That faith saves now - unto the very end.

And that there is deep and lasting joy to be had now in the knowledge of that present and future salvation.

Even, joy in the midst of all life’s trials.

For what it’s worth, when Peter says in verse 6, ‘though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials’, I don’t think he means a day, or a week, or a month - or even a year by the words, ‘a little while’.

I think he means your whole Christian life.

Because, next to eternity, our whole lives are just ‘a little while’.

So don’t expect the trials to disappear.

God is designing them, working them, using them to create soul-saving faith in you.

Faith that will not fail in the end.

And thanks be to God for that!