A PILGRIM'S PREPARATION

Alan Pihringer

Progressing as Pilgrims • Sermon • Submitted a year ago

1 Peter 1:6–12

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Introduction

-{1 Peter 1}

-When you have an end goal in mind or you want to improve yourself, you do what you must to prepare and train yourself to reach the goal and to get better along the way. Athletes prepare and train their body for their sport. Musicians prepare and train their voice or their fluency on an instrument. You do those things to grow and get better and improve.

~I do what I can to improve as a preacher? Yes, I need to become more fluent in Scripture and theology. But I have to train some of my tools, and that includes my mind. If I want to continue doing what I’m doing, I really need to prepare and train and improve my mind (or at least what I have left of it). So, I got this app on my phone called ELEVATE which is supposed to be like a workout for your mind. You do these activities (you can call them games, I suppose) that are supposed to help you maintain and improve your mind especially in 5 areas: writing, speaking, reading, math, and memory. My writing, speaking, reading, and math are up here, but then my memory is way down here. I don’t remember why my memory is so bad, but if I want it to get better in that area, I train, I prepare.

-Honestly, that’s how we grow as Christians too. We prepare and train. Yes, there are the important spiritual disciplines. But there is another way that God prepares us and trains us, and we may not like it. Maybe we can call it God’s app for training, except it isn’t filled with games or activities; but it’s God just using life. Our life is the training ground, the place of preparation—just things happening in our life and learning to deal with them biblically. And, unfortunately, that includes trials. Trials are part of the app, part of the preparation for what God has in store for us in the future and at the end of the journey.

-We’ve been studying in 1 Peter as he writes to Christians, reminding them that this world is not their home, but they are wandering pilgrims. And Peter wants to help them along the journey talking about who are you as a pilgrim and how can you live as a pilgrim. And part of what Peter tells us is that God uses trials to prove us and refine us so that we are matured and perfected in the day of our glorification. So, what we want to take from today is that because we are pilgrims who are not yet at our destination, God uses our trials to prepare us before we get there.

-We will focus in on vv. 6-12, but I want to begin reading in v. 3 in order to give us some context.

1 Peter 1:3–12 ESV

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, 11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. 12 It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

-{pray}

-Peter has said in his letter that we Christians are elect exiles, dispersed throughout the world. And we have been given a wonderful gift of new life in Christ which gives us a living hope and a spiritual inheritance and future glory. We rejoice in those things, but the inheritance and glory are not something we haven’t received in their fullness quite yet. Until we get to the end of the journey where these blessings are fully realized, Peter understands that we are grieved by various trials. Some of the trials might be (what we consider) minor annoyances or inconveniences, while others are pretty life changing. Whatever they might be, though, Peter tells us how God uses them to prepare us and train us and mature us. First, he mentions that...

1) Trials prove us and perfect us (v. 7)

-The central focus of v. 7 is our faith—meaning our profession of trust in Christ and then the resulting lifestyle that comes from it. This is the most important thing about us. Peter says that our faith is more precious than gold—meaning there is nothing on this earth more valuable than our faith in Jesus Christ. And he says in v. 7 that the various trials test the genuineness of our faith, and that it is a test by fire (or, we might say, a refinement).

-So, he first mentions that trials test the genuineness of our faith—it checks to see if it is the real deal without any sort of mixture with error or heresy or apostasy. The idea is that those who have been given this new life in Christ, when they go through a trial, it will show if they have truly believed in Christ. But if they get to the end of the trial and they come out of it losing their faith or turning to some false teaching, then what the trial did was demonstrate that the faith wasn’t real to begin with. Regardless of what they claimed, they didn’t really believe in Jesus Christ—they never really had the new life.

-We have seen so much of this lately in what is known as the deconstruction movement. So many “famous” Christians began to question their faith after something happened to them or to others, and they decide that they no longer believe. Well, all that trial did was show that they never had faith to begin with. They had a profession of faith without a possession of faith. And that’s what trials do—they test / prove to see if it is the real deal, or if you’re all talk.

-Years and years ago I used to dabble as an amateur in coin collecting. And you would hear about these people who put some supposed rare coin on the market for astronomical prices. But then they would have the coin tested by experts, only to find out that it wasn’t the rare coin that they thought it was. But other times it would be what they thought it was, and these rare coins would be priced at thousands or millions. The tests proved it one way or the other.

-Trials do that to people. They test the genuineness of faith. But then part of the test is a test by fire, and the test by fire not only proved the genuineness, but it also was part of the process of purifying what was there. When you refine metals, you put the metals under intense heat, and the metal melts, and the then the compounds and impurities start to separate from the metal and float to the top so they can scoop it out; and what remains is purely the metal they originally wanted, without all the garbage and junk and impurities that were in it.

-Let’s face it, our lives are filled with a lot of garbage and junk and impurities. And God uses the trials of life to purify us—it perfects us, making us more like what we are supposed to be.

-There was a woman who called a silversmith because she was curious about the process of refining silver, so she made an appointment to come to his shop and watch him work. She saw him hold a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, you need to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest. That's where you burn away all the impurities.

~The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot. She asked the silversmith if he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time. The man answered "Yes." He not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver. If the silver was left too long in the flames, it would be destroyed. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?" He smiled and answered, "Oh, that's easy--I know it is fully refined when I see my image in it."

-God uses a lot of ways to refine us and perfect us so He sees His image in us, and trials are one of those ways. But it is to our advantage, because Peter goes on to say that we are proven and perfected like this so that our faith will result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus returns. Yes, we do it for the praise, glory, and honor of Jesus. But this is referring to our praise and glory and honor. So, at the end of days, we can stand tall and say we had a robust faith to the glory of Christ. So, trials prove us and perfect us, but then we also see that...

2) Trials focus us and fill us (v. 8)

-v. 8 reminds us that Jesus Christ is the central focus of everything we do. Jesus Christ is the love of our life. And even though we have never physically seen Him with our eyes, yet we love Him and we believe Him because He is our everything. And Jesus Himself calls us blessed. After Jesus revealed Himself to Thomas after His resurrection, He said to Thomas: YOU BELIEVE BECAUSE YOU’VE SEEN. BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN AND YET HAVE BELIEVED.

-And yet, when we get so wrapped up in our own little lives, Jesus loses that centrality. Sure, we still go to church and go through religious motions. But most of our life is lived for ourselves. And sometimes God uses trials to get us back on track to focus on what’s most important in our lives. And it’s not us. It’s Christ.

-It makes me think of professional athletes who begin to believe their own hype and think that the team and everything about the sport revolves around them. So, their focus becomes breaking records and running up their stats, but it’s to the detriment of everyone else around them. And sometimes they need a little reminder that they are part of something bigger. They need to refocus on being a team player so they can win as a team.

-Jesus put it this way when He wrote to the church of Ephesus in the Book of Revelation: He warned them that they left their first love. They left the love of Christ that focused them on Christ who is the center. If we say we love Christ, then that’s where the focus is. And sometimes we lose that focus and need to be refocused, so God uses the trial to get us back on track.

-The apostle Paul in his writings often uses the imagery of running a race, but to run it we have to have our eyes on the prize, and that prize is Jesus. If we take our eyes off the prize, we are going to wander off the track. No runner is going to win the race when they leave the track. The only way to get back on the track is to get your eyes back on the prize. And God uses the various trials to get our eyes focused back where they need to be.

-But there’s an outcome that we might not expect. Because if the trials strengthen our love and faith in Jesus Christ, we then also receive joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. That almost seems like an oxymoron—the joy that comes from trials. But the joy isn’t in the trial, the joy comes from where the trial points you. If the trial brings a greater love and belief in Jesus, that’s where the joy comes. We so often think that the trial in our life is what robs us of our joy. And you hear preachers talk about this or that robbing your joy. You complain that you have no joy. But in reality, you are the only one that can rob yourself of your own joy, and most likely it’s because you had your joy in the wrong place to begin with.

-You see, it’s when you love Jesus and believe in Jesus that you are able to rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. When the focus is off of Jesus, the joy goes with it. When your focus is on Jesus, that’s where you find a filling of joy.

-If my truck needed fuel to keep going I wouldn’t go to McDonald’s and start stuffing french fries down into the tank; and then I wonder why the truck stops working. If my truck needs fuel, I go to the place that can provide the fuel my truck was made to run on. I’d go to a gas station to get gas.

-I am made for Christ. I have been born again in Christ. Guess where my joy comes from? Christ. And we forget that. And so, God uses the various trials to remind us where our love and belief belong (to focus us back on Jesus), and then we are filled with that joy. And it was the trial that God used to focus us and fill us. But then we also see...

3) Trials route us and remind us (vv. 9-12)

-v. 9 says that what we are working toward is the obtaining of the outcome of our faith, which is the salvation of our souls. It’s not just talking about when we were converted and born again. It’s looking toward the ultimate outcome, which is having our souls delivered from sin and from the evil world and being in Jesus’ presence and being glorified. That is where we are headed. And God uses trials to route us in that direction and thinking about life in light of those truths.

-God wants to use trials to get us off of thinking short term. He wants us thinking long-term, what we’re working toward. We love Jesus and believe in Jesus in the here and now, and it’s moving us toward that outcome of final salvation, and that’s the sort of mindset we have to consider in this life. Or, as Paul put it, SET YOUR MIND ON THINGS ABOVE, NOT ON THINGS OF THE EARTH. Route your mind and thought process to put everything through the filter of the outcome of our love and faith in Jesus—the salvation of our souls. And then live life from that perspective.

-Too often we just live in our own little bubble. It’s all about us. It’s all about our plans and dreams. And our thinking goes that direction, which then directs all our choices. And sometimes our thinking needs a reboot. If my computer or phone or iPad or whatever gets stuck in a loop of some sort, what do you do to stop it? You reboot it. Sometimes we need that reboot to route our minds in the right way. And God will use trials for a reboot. You need to get out of your own little bubble, and start thinking from this perspective.

-And this includes reminding us of how privileged we are to be living for Him in the day that we are. What do I mean by that? He goes on to say that the salvation that we have received from Jesus Christ was something that the prophets were waiting on and the angles look into. When God would inspire prophets and give them visions, He gave them bits and pieces of His future plan, but none of them had the whole picture. God prophesied these things through them, but they didn’t get it’s full meaning, and so they wondered when it would happen and what all the details were, even though all the pieces were scattered all around the Old Testament. But now, here we are, after the cross, having experienced and benefited from the very person and event that these prophets had foretold. They didn’t get to experience it but we do.

-And the angels look at us and are in wonder about this salvation thing because they can’t experience it. All the angels that followed Satan in his rebellion are forever lost. And the good angels understand that their brethren will never be redeemed. And then they look at Christ, stepping out of heaven, becoming a human, dying, and rising, and they are in awe of it because they can never fully understand it or experience it. But we can both understand it and experience it.

-The problem is that we take our salvation for granted. We take it for granted that we have the whole counsel of God and we have the benefits of Christ. We have experienced the most amazing thing to happen to anyone, and we barely think about it anymore. And sometimes God sends trials to remind us exactly how privileged we are. To remind us how blessed we are. To remind us how much grace we received. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, wrote about it but never got to taste its fruits. (Not that they’re not in heaven, but they never got to live in this world as saved, redeemed, Holy Spirit, blood-bought believers.) But we do. We just need a reminder of that.

Conclusion

-We’ve been watching that show SPECIAL FORCES: WORLD’S TOUGHEST TEST where a bunch of celebrities are going though the challenges of the Special Forces selection process. If someone wants to be in the Special Forces, these are the tests they’d have to pass. And it is brutal. I have to admit that I gain a little too much pleasure in the pain and misery of a bunch of snobby, elite celebrities that look down their noses at people. But if someone had the goal of being in the Special Forces, they’d have to be prepared for the test. And I have no clue how you’d prepare for something like that.

-We’re working toward the goal of our final salvation, and God is preparing us for it so that we’re more mature then than we are now. And sometimes He uses trials to do it. And so, we just have to look at our lives as the training ground.

-Christian, are you learning the lessons God has for you? If not, you’re not paying attention. Maybe you need to come to the altar and ask God to get it through your thick skull. Ask God how He’s preparing you and what He’s preparing you for?

-But maybe there are some here who haven’t even begun the journey. You’re not being prepared for anything because you don’t even belong to God. Or maybe a trial has revealed you are not in the faith. Then come and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ...