"Passing the Test: Faith's Proof"

March 30/03 1Pet.1:3-12

Through the Wringer

[The following story is for illustration purposes only. It's entirely undocumented and probably never happened. DO NOT try this at home!]

A little boy went to the grocery store and asked the clerk for a box of detergent. The clerk asked the boy why he needed detergent. The lad replied, "I want to wash my dog." "Well, son, this detergent is pretty strong for washing a little dog." The boy replied, "That's what I want. He's mighty dirty." He took the box of detergent home, and about a week later he returned. The store clerk recognized him and asked him about his dog. "Oh, he's dead." The clerk replied, "Oh, I'm sorry.I guess the detergent was too strong." "I don't think the detergent hurt him," said the boy. "I think it was the rinse cycle that got him."

[like I said, illustration purposes only!]

        Sometimes in life it feels like we're being put "through the wringer" like that [hopefully fictional] little dog, caught going round and round in a destructive cycle of events we can't escape. The Bible tells us the world was created "very good", but since the Fall - the rebellion and sin of our first ancestors - pain and suffering have afflicted humankind. Sometimes it seems we barely get through one crisis when another follows close on its heels. And some are as life-threatening as that dangerous little boy with the detergent.

        The first letter written by the apostle Peter was directed to believers who were well acquainted with suffering and threats. As we'll see, he reminds them there's reason to rejoice even when everything seems to be going wrong. God allows trials to come our way so that our faith in Christ can be strengthened and proved to be "the genuine article", resulting in praise for Him and joy for us.

Pep Talk to the Troops: Recalling the Big Picture (1Pet.1:3-6a)

Peter's first section sounds like a commander speaking to his battle-weary troops, giving them a pep talk by reminding them of the noble goals of their mission, the big picture. In verses 3-6a the Big Fisherman rhymes off seven unalterable ways in which God has already blessed believers that make "sticking with it" through tough times worthwhile.

        V.3 refers to God's "great mercy": we had no claim on God, no right to call for help, no righteous deeds that merited our appeal to Him or even approach to His eternal throne. It's simply by the Father's great mercy and forbearance that He loved us and chose to save us through the once-for-all offering of His precious Son.

        Peter points out, "He has given us new birth": this is the number one miracle of Christian experience, that when we commit our lives to Jesus as Lord and Saviour, the Father receives us as His own child, and implants His Holy Spirit inside us. We are new creatures, born again, born from above, there's a radical difference from what we were before (2Cor.5:17). Through forsaking our sinful ways and turning to Christ we are given the right to become God's children, we have already passed from death to life; that goes on into eternity (Jn.5:24). This is a bigger and more significant miracle than any other that might happen to us, bigger even than physical healing: even Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead, was still bound to a mortal body and eventually died. But the spiritual birth means we will have a home with Jesus in heaven for eternity, when all this life's troubles are long forgotten.

        Peter says believers have "a living hope" through Christ's resurrection. Not just "hope" but a "living" hope - real, actual, practical, for everyday life, where the rubber meets the road. Hope that, when you're down, gets you up again. Not a teaspoon or a cup of hope or even a whole tankerful, but an endless supply.

        An earthly commander in ancient times might encourage his troops through the prospect of plunder and booty; for Christians, the rewards for "hangin' in there" are far better. In v.4 Peter refers to "an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade -- kept in heaven for you..." Better than a fancy car or nifty electronics or the poshest pad: all these things wear out and eventually we have to leave them behind. In the hospital this week I was speaking to a gentleman in his early 80s who with his wife had just found out they had to move to a nursing home some distance away. He admitted longingly that there were a lot of memories attached to their house, then added, "But now I wouldn't give somebody a dollar for it." It was all worth nothing to him because he had to be leaving it all behind to go into the retirement home. By contrast, Christ's followers are promised an eternal inheritance reserved for us personally that no one will ever be able to take away from us.

        V.5 says that through faith we "are shielded by God's power" until salvation comes. We're protected by the Lord's mighty power. In the news we hear reports of Iraqi tanks and Apache attack helicopters, both fiersome weapons with substantial armour, but though they're so heavily protected they still get blown up or shot down. Sandstorms delay whole armoured columns. No sooner does one country come up with a heavier armour than someone else is designing weapons to destroy it. God's protection, on the other hand, is final. The only way Satan could attack Job was for God to temporarily withhold His protection, to remove that invisible shield (Job 1:10,12).

        Peter refers to "the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time." We have been saved through the cross, we are being saved through the ongoing sanctification of the Holy Spirit, and we finally will be saved from the outpouring of God's wrath at judgment by being teleported and transformed to be with Jesus forever. It's "to be revealed", unseen for now, but it will happen. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.And so we will be with the Lord forever.Therefore encourage each other with these words." (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18) Because Jesus dealt with our sin and guilt by dying in our place, He is the one who is worthy to rescue us from this sin-bound order before its purging and renewal.

        V.6, Peter adds, "In this you greatly rejoice..." We have great joy - in what? In "this", what he's been listing - great mercy, new birth, living hope, imperishable inheritance, God's protective power, final salvation. These are the great treasures by which God has changed our lives from being lost to found, from sin-bound to heaven-bound. These are the great intangibles that surround and dwarf our immediate troubles, the "big picture" of God's timeless blessings.

Trials Test Trust: Faith Fortified through Suffering (6b-9)

Having said that, the apostle acknowledges realistically that his Christian sisters and brothers are going through pretty rough times. They're going through the wringer of persecution, being killed and imprisoned. V.6 continues, "though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials." A few weeks ago Emily was telling us how difficult it is for Muslims in Lebanon to become Christians: their families may kill them, or at least alienate them, and intimidate them by tearing up their Bibles if they catch them reading it. The situation was similar in the early church. To be different from the surrounding culture brought trouble.

        Here in North America, we still have enough religious freedom that it's not a crime to be a Christian (though it's becoming increasingly difficult for believers in public occupations such as teaching to advocate a Biblical point of view). Yet we too "suffer grief in all kinds of trials". For our own family, the greatest trial of course recently has been Yvonne's brain tumour. Yet even such great trials are often compounded by other things going wrong. The same day that Yvonne came home from the hospital, our teens discovered someone had damaged and tried to steal our van while they were staying overnight at a Bible college event in Cambridge. Then a few days later (a relatively minor thing) our printer quit working, and all my wiley computer-nerd attempts to fix it were to no avail. It seemed the troubles just kept on coming and coming!


        When we're suffering, there's a natural tendency to ask, "Why me? What did I do to deserve these hassles?" One card we received from a very devout woman up north said, "We need not ask 'why' but 'What, Lord, do You want to do through this sharp turn in my road?'" That doesn't mean it's not OK to ask 'why' when we're suffering. In fact Peter suggests one answer to the question 'why' right here in v.7: "These [trials] have come SO THAT your faith...may be proved genuine..." In other words, without the trials, without what we say we believe ever being tested, it would be hard to know whether it was really solid faith or just make-believe. The trials prove faith genuine.

        Genesis 22 begins with the statement, "Some time later God tested Abraham." There follows the account of how God directed Abraham to sacrifice his "miracle" son Isaac on Mount Moriah, commonly thought to be the temple mount in Jerusalem - a foreshadowing of Jesus' sacrifice. Abraham passes the test with flying colours. He doesn't balk at the challenge; but just as he is about to kill his beloved son an angel stops him, saying, "Do not lay a hand on the boy...Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." (Genesis 22:12) Abraham's faith proved genuine because he trusted God enough to be totally obedient; he believed God could even raise Isaac from the dead if needed to keep His promise (Heb.11:19). The testing demonstrated that Abraham's faith was the genuine article. It must have given Abraham real assurance to know he had passed the test.

        Peter also says in v.7 that our faith is "of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire..." Faith is that part of us God is most concerned about, for believing is the basis for our relationship with Him. The Lord's goal in growing us is to primarily increase our faith, not our comfort. Faith is so precious, says Peter, it's more valuable than gold. The world's markets put a high price on gold, especially during crises; but all the gold in the planet wouldn't help Yvonne when she had her tumour. There are many things money cannot buy. (We do praise God for the way our health care system responded to her need; she was treated just as royally and caringly regardless of whether she was a millionaire or penniless and unemployed. From diagnosis to surgery took less than 2 weeks: that's fast!)

        Gold is valued in this passing life, but faith matters for eternity. God allows suffering to impact our lives in order that our faith may be proved genuine, "it's the real thing". I remember having my quiet time the morning after the CT scan in Walkerton and the tumour was diagnosed. I was feeling shaken, threatened, even scared because of what had befallen my wife. The possibilities were frightening: Yvonne might die on the operating table (as one of my parishioners had in northern Ontario when undergoing what was supposed to be a routine procedure). Perhaps they would find the cancer was drastically malignant. The neurosurgeon had warned us that Yvonne might lose the use of her left leg, or her eyesight might be affected. Then there was the chance that the lobectomy might result in a change of personality, loss of memory, ability to speak or to recognize other people. It was a shock, a very scarey, uncertain time.

        But as I went ahead with my daily Bible reading and prayer time, God seemed to be reassuring me that whatever might happen, our faith in Christ was not a mistake. The Lord would somehow bring us through it, even in the worst-case scenario. I experienced the assurance of what Peter describes here as "a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead..." Paul reminded the church at Corinth that he had passed on to them "as of first importance" what he had also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, was raised, and appeared to hundreds of people on various occasions. This is the core of our belief, and it is expressed as a fact of history. Yes, I was threatened by the diagnosis and the possibility of losing my mate, the woman I love. But I realized that this very thing I was feeling, the threat of death, was the very thing that also guarantees the Gospel of Jesus as true and historical. You see, the apostles and other martyrs were all confronted just like Yvonne and me with the threat of death: but they stuck to their story. People don't do that if they know something isn't true; a person wouldn't choose to die defending something they know to be a hoax or a conspiracy. In this way, Christian hope transforms the scariness of our own life-and-death crises because its historical factualness prevented the apostles and martyrs from being scared out of their eyewitness testimony. They didn't recant in the face of death.

        Read the accounts of Stephen being stoned, Peter awaiting execution in prison, Paul under house arrest and torture, John exiled on the island of Patmos. They didn't shiver and shake wondering whether the "trick" would be exposed; they calmly faced circumstances fully assured of the truth of the wonderful events involving Jesus they had seen and heard. Their faith in the face of death gave me confidence and assurance during my own testing. Should the worst happen to Yvonne, we still had the hope of reunion in eternity. I almost felt like saying to Satan (though I wouldn't because he is an angel even though fallen) -- I almost felt like saying, "Is this the worst you can do?" Jesus calls His followers to take up our cross and die to self daily, to hold loosely the things of this world and our relationships, with the consciousness that it may all be taken away from us at any moment. This frees us to live more confidently, securely, trusting Him to make good in eternity anything He asks of us in this life.


        Job said of God, "Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him." (Job 13:15) The three faithful friends of Daniel who refused to worship Nebuchadnezzar's idol told the king, "If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king.But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." (Dan.3:17f) That's the attitude faith gives us when confronted with the terminal: trust and obey the Lord whether or not you experience deliverance in this life. Others have already paid the supreme price, sticking to their story, that you might know the certainty of Jesus' giving His life to redeem you eternally.

        Yvonne's own peace and tranquility despite the seriousness and possible consequences of surgery for a brain tumour have been a real witness to us who've been around her through this time. Yes, there was irritability and tension and stress, as you would expect with any head pain and major upheaval. But at no time was there panic; she was very calm going in for the surgery. Her main concern was not whether she lived or died, but that whatever God was seeking to accomplish through it all might happen. We trust His means to bring about His goals. At the darkest moments following the diagnosis, our common faith in Christ and His resurrection power held us fast like an anchor. This "Jesus thing" really works!

        Vance Havner has written: "Our Lord's life was full of storm and tempest, yet in the darkest days of all He bequeathed to us His legacy of peace. His rest is no imaginary escape from reality...(but) that blessed consciousness that in the midst of trouble our real lives are beyond the reach of circumstance, hid with Christ in God."

Joy in Jesus' Footsteps (8-11)

The second half of v.7 says when trials prove our faith genuine, that results in praise, glory, and honour when the main event happens -- that is, "when Jesus Christ is revealed." That's the moment Peter was longing and waiting for. He can't wait to see the Lord again in person. The unseen Christ is the focus of the apostle and other sincere believers: v.8, "Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy..." Peter can't see Jesus with his eyes, but the Lord is as real and close to him as his next breath. It's this partnership, this identification and oneness with the crucified and risen Jesus that pours into us love and confidence and joy even through the midst of trials. Jesus saves us -- that's the meaning of His name. He suffered to make it all possible; now our sufferings are just completing or supplementing His own trials. 1Pet.4(13) says, "Rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ..." 2Cor.1(5) adds, "...Just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows." Peter in v.11 refers to the prophets sensing that the Spirit "predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow." Suffering with Jesus prepares the way for the glory. He endured the cross for a redemptive purpose, to buy us back from damnation. He deserves infinite glory for finishing up the payment of our debt, and cleansing us to be born anew as His very own brothers and sisters. Now our privilege is to participate or share in the same pattern as Jesus, to walk in His blood-stained footprints, to let His tortured and healed hand hold ours when times get rough. As He was vindicated for His sufferings, so He helps us find redemptive purpose in ours too.

Getting Established with "the Nun From Hell"

One woman who has suffered for a redemptive purpose is Sister Connie, a tough 61-year-old one with a black patch over one eye. A dozen years ago Sister Connie opened St.Martin dePorres House of Hope for Women in the heart of Chicago's south side. It's a tough neighbourhood: her nearest neighbours are gang members and drug dealers. But this special woman reporters have nicknamed "the nun from hell" continues to share tough love that turns people's lives around.

        Residents at Sister Connie's home for women must accept a strict schedule, rising at 6:30 am; classes in parenting and life skills are mandatory, along with daily twelve-step programs for substance abusers. Mothers must clean both their children and their rooms before breakfast. Women who don't have a high school diploma must work toward one. And if Sister Connie suspects residents are hiding drugs, she's not above calling in a SWAT team to bust her own shelter!

        Chuck Colson tells of one prostitute and drug addict named Cynthia who confronted Sister Connie one day in a disagreement. Sister Connie replied with steely face, "Do you want to take me on? Come on, I'm ready." Cynthia took a second look at her opponent and reluctantly agreed to obey the strict rules of the homeless shelter. Today Cynthia works as a restaurant cook, rents her own apartment, and supports her own children. Sister Connie's assistance requires that people learn how to behave responsibly, and it works. On average, nearly 40% of those who pass through Chicago's shelter system return seeking help; but only 4% of the women who pass through Sister Connie's boot camp ever end up back in the shelter system.

        It hasn't been easy for this dedicated, unusual nun. Sister Connie has dodged bullets and taken knife wounds in the course of her work. But Christ's love makes her tough enough to take the suffering, and even more, to suffer along with the homeless, getting personally involved with people who truly need help.

        Good can come out of "going through the wringer". Suffering tests our faith and proves it genuine, so we can be a loving witness to others, offering the same living hope we have discovered in the Lord Jesus. Let's pray.