Refined Faith: Embracing Trials for God's Glory

Devotional

Sermon Summary

Bible Study Guide

Sermon Clips


Gold is the most precious thing he could think of, probably, and even gold, being fragile and consumable and losable, is put through fire so that it gets more goldy, goldish, and the dross is burned out of it so that's even more valuable when it goes through a fire. [00:00:54]

Your faith, the genuineness of your faith, is more valuable, may I paraphrase, than the greatest values on the earth. I think that's fair. I think that's what gold stands for here. It's not just gold like, oh, what about Platinum? No, no, no, that's not, that's not, doesn't matter what Delta Airlines does. [00:01:22]

The reason we get angry about suffering is because we don't share God's priorities. We want our comfort for us, for our children, for the people in the Paul, and we don't like God's judgments. But if we submit ourselves, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, then we would see more of what God is doing. [00:02:55]

Your faith is off the charts precious and valuable to God. Why would that be? Because faith reflects his trustworthiness. Faith respects his power, his strength. I mean, shows his power. If you trust someone, you make them look good. They're going to keep their word. They're strong enough to come through. [00:03:57]

God loves to be made to look good. That's why he created the world, to display his glory and his power and his trustworthiness in the world. And faith does that. So your faith is so valuable, he's willing to put it through fire to burn out all the dross so that when Christ comes back, you will receive praise and glory and honor. [00:04:30]

When Christ comes back, you will be in a position to give him praise and glory and honor. We were talking downstairs, Norm and I, about why is it that godly people indwelt by the same Spirit, looking at the same Bible, come to different conclusions frequently. This would be one of those cases. [00:05:02]

Though you have not seen him, that was a concern in the early generations. They're just one generation late. They knew people like Peter who had seen the Lord, and they just thought, God, we could just have seen him. And Peter wants to say, you didn't, and guess what? You can love him. [00:12:33]

Though you do not now see him, 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. Though you do not now see him, you believe. Though you haven't seen him, you love and you rejoice. [00:13:06]

What does it mean to love Jesus? Jonathan Edwards wrote an entire book on verse eight called the Religious Affections, arguing that loving Christ and joy in Christ are at the heart of Christianity. Affections really matter. So my reason for asking the question is to protect you from a common use of say John 14:15. [00:13:42]

If you love me, you will keep my Commandments. And I have heard numerous people say to love is to obey. It's not a feeling; it's a resolve and an action. If you love me, you will keep my Commandments, to which I respond, that's not what those words say. They say the opposite of that. [00:14:20]

The way you know that the gospel is true and that the Bible is true is by seeing him, not to contradict Peter physically. You don't see him. You weren't there, and he's not here physically. But when you read your Bible, God intends for the, to use the words of Ephesians 1:17, the eyes of your heart to be enlightened. [00:19:31]

I think we need to be very careful that we don't write off all seeing when we hear Peter say you don't now see him. And when he calls this joy here, this joy inexpressible and filled with glory or glorified, I think the idea is this: the joy is in the inheritance in the salvation ready to be revealed at the last time. [00:20:06]

Ask a question about this sermon