Turn back to 1 Peter chapter 1. Last Thursday, we looked at the first five verses.
Peter says that God has chosen us through His foreknowledge
through sanctification of the Spirit, through obedience and
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." And he said, we have
been begotten again into a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead to an inheritance. We have an inheritance waiting
on us. Every believer has an inheritance
waiting. in heaven, reserved in heaven
for you. And you are kept by the power
of God. It's kept in heaven for you,
and you're kept for it. It's ready to be revealed, he
said, in the last time. It's waiting. It's just waiting
to be revealed. And we get to verse 6, and he
said, wherein you greatly rejoice. We should be... we should be... ought to be... the most glad, happiest people
on this earth. I can't emphasize that strong
enough. Put it that way. We ought to
be so exceedingly glad on account of God's election of us, God
chose us. You believe the gospel? God chose
you. Before the world began and all
that's happened and all that is, God set His heart on you. He did not pass you by. He has sanctified you by the
work of the Holy Spirit. He has set you apart and made
you holy, whether you feel like it or not. I know you don't feel
like it. But He's made you holy. And He's given us an inheritance
in heaven. And we ought to be the most happiest
people on earth. It should give us much joy in
the Lord. We sing, It is well with my soul. For it is, in Christ, whatever
the situation is, and that's what Peter's going to deal with
here. Whatever the situation is, it is well with my soul. He's 12 of my soul. Even though now for a season,
he says. For a season. A season, you know,
we know something about seasons. They come and they go, don't
they? They change. And whatever God is putting us
through at this time is for a season. It's for a little while. That's
what it means, a little while. You know, if what I'm going through
lasts my lifetime, it's still just a little while. Really,
when you think about the length of life, it's usually around
70 years. That's not very long. That's
not very long at all. But even though now for a season
you are being tested, tried, they said, you're being distressed
by trials and sufferings. All God's children go through
trials. They go through this. God's going
to put them through this on purpose. Whatever I go through, whatever
you go through, God is putting us through it on purpose. It's
not an accident. It's on purpose. God tries the
faith He's given. Peter said, if need be. And I
wrote down here when it needs tried, because sooner or later
it's going to be tried. If God's given it to you, He's
going to try it. God in faithfulness tries His
children. Look over at Psalm 119. Psalm
119, in verse 75, David writes, "'I know,' this
is something I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are right
or righteous, and that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me,
put me through a hard experience, but You have faithfully done
this.'" God is faithful to do this. He's appointed it, and
He's faithful to bring it to pass. And here's the reason why. So that in verse 7, and I'm putting
it in my language, so that the genuineness of your faith may be proved. It may be proved. God will test, now listen, your
faith. God's not testing faith. He's
testing your faith. Faith is a gift of God. It is
the work of the Holy Spirit. He works faith in us, but listen,
it is your faith. God does not believe for me.
It's your faith. He creates it in you, gives you
light, gives you understanding, and you see and you believe.
You believe. It's your faith. And it's your
faith that God is trying. Would you know, and I've thought
about this yesterday and today, and day before yesterday I've
been working on this for about three days or so. I want to know,
and I say this carefully because I know what it takes to know,
to know this. But I want to know that the faith that I have, the
faith I claim to have in Christ, I want to know it's of God. I want to know it's real. I want
to know that. I don't want the faith of devils.
You know the devils? Scripture says the devils believe.
And they tremble. Have you ever really, really... I preached on Felix last Sunday.
Felix trembled. Have you ever really trembled
under the preaching of the gospel, under the preaching of God's
Word? The devils, they tremble. When the Lord came into the presence
of one of them at one time, He said, Have you come to torment
us before our time? They tremble. I don't want that
kind of faith. I don't want the kind of faith that devils have. Tremble, but they're still lost.
Still lost. Not all faith is faith. There's
only one faith that saves. It's the faith that God gives
and works into His children. But not all faith is faith. There's
a historical faith. I think this is basically what
the Armenians sell. They give you some facts about
who Jesus Christ is, what He did, and if you'll accept Him
as your personal Savior, you're saved. No, you're not. No. I'm not just believing some historical
facts. That's not faith. And then there's just the faith
of doctrine. You believe doctrine. But that's not the faith of God's
elect. Then there's family faith. This
is what my mom and dad believed. This is the way I was raised.
This is what I believe. There's family faith. And then there's
a faith of God's elect. And this faith, first of all,
believes God. It's not just believing some
facts, although what we believe is not facts, but we believe
the truth of the gospel. There's a difference. Somebody
just giving you some facts out and then you accept them and
that's it. No. True faith believes God. And
true faith is always in the Lord Jesus Christ. And true faith
always follows the Lord Jesus Christ. It always bows to the
Lord Jesus Christ. And it receives Him as Lord and
Savior. My Lord and my God. My Lord and my God." And the
faith of God's elect is precious. Peter says it's more precious
than gold. It's worth more than gold. Gold can't save you. And gold
is perishing. Sooner or later, it will be gone.
It will be gone. It's more precious than perishing
gold, though it be purified by fire. Now why does he mention this?
Why does he mention that of gold being tried by fire? Why does
he make this comparison? Well, gold is purified by fire
to remove the impurities of it that's in it. And it tests the quality of the
gold, that it's real. It's really gold. God will try
the quality of your faith, you can just rest assured God's going
to try it. He's going to refine it. He's
going to purge it. He's going to purge it from pride
and hypocrisy and self-righteousness. Faith in this life, faith that's
a gift of God, in this life is never perfect because we are
still so full of sin. How many times did the Lord say
to his disciples, why are you so fearful? Why are you afraid? Why do you doubt me? That's what
he's saying. Why do you doubt me? But you
trust me. Trust me. Peter said, Lord, if
it's you, command me to walk out here on the water and come
to you. He said, well, come on, Peter. And you know that for
a few steps that man walked on water. until he quit looking
to Christ and started looking at the water, and the wind, and
the waves, and he became afraid. The Lord said to him one time,
he said, Peter, Satan has desired you to sift you as wheat, but
I've prayed for you that your faith fail not. And it wasn't,
but a few hours later, Peter denied Him three times. The Peter
who said, although everybody forsake you, I won't. Oh yes,
you will. Yes, you will. In a moment of
weakness. But that's why God tries our faith. He tries it
to exercise it, to strengthen it, and to increase it. And the
only way that's going to happen is for God to test it. Put it in the fire. You know,
Peter calls it in one place, fiery trials. Fiery trial. You know why they're fiery? They
hurt. They burn. They burn. They leave a real impression
on you. They leave a real hard impression on you. But that's
the way God is going to strengthen, increase. Lord, increase my faith. You really want that? The only way faith is increased
and strengthened is through the exercise of it, and the only
way it's going to be exercised is if God puts it in the furnace. That's what Peter's saying. Listen
to him. It says here, wherein you greatly rejoice, so now for
a season, if need be, you're in heaviness. Your heart's so
heavy, You're sitting in the dark. You don't know which way
to go, what to do. You know, the Scripture says,
over in Isaiah, and I'm going to have to just paraphrase this,
but if a child of God is sitting in darkness, it says, let him
trust in the name of the Lord. I don't know what's going on.
I don't know what's happening. I don't know straight up or straight
down, but I know He does. and I'm going to sit down, and
I'm going to trust Him to bring me through it." And that's what
Peter's saying. That's a trial of your faith.
Don't complain about it, but rejoice in it, because God is
proving the genuineness of your faith. That it's real. That it's real. God has a purpose. Remember this. God has a purpose
for every trial He brings into our lives. There is a divine,
eternal purpose for everything that comes our way. For every
tear God will wring out of you, God has a purpose for it. An
eternal purpose for your good, His glory. Though you can't see
it now, He does. Every one of them. But one of
the purposes, there's two or three purposes I'm going to give
you here. I don't know all of them, you know that. But first
is to reveal the realness of it to ourselves. Now God knows
whether or not I have faith. God knows that. The Lord knoweth
them that are His. He knoweth them that trust in
Him, it says. He knoweth them that trust in
Him. But the test, It's for me. It's for me. To reveal the realness
of it to me. And then secondly, to help us
be comforters to others going through the same trial. There's a lady sent me a text that's having some real trouble.
And I thought of I thought of someone, I haven't told her yet,
but I thought, I know somebody you need to talk to. I know somebody
you can talk to because they've been through it. They've been
through it. Be a real comforter. Comforter. To help us be comforter to others
going through trials. Listen, we become brothers and
sisters born for adversity. It's hard to find one of them.
Most people, when you're in trouble, they want to get out of the way.
They don't want that to get on them. They don't want trouble
around them. But a brother or sister is born
for adversity, they'll open themselves up and they'll put their arms
around you and they'll say, I've been through this. I've been
through this. The Lord will provide. His grace
is sufficient and He'll bring you through it. He'll do it. Look over in 2 Corinthians chapter
1. 2 Corinthians chapter 1. Listen here. Verse 3. Let me see here, let me get it.
Yeah, verse 3. Blessed be God, even the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God
of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that
we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble. He
comforts us in our tribulation when He puts us through it, and
then turns around and makes us to be comforters. that we may be able to comfort
them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves
are comforted of God." You don't realize what you're
going through. Somebody else is going to need that someday,
going to need that help. And then thirdly, God sends us
these things to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ. Now that ought to take away all
complaining. All complaining. He's burning
off. This may not be a good illustration,
but I was thinking of this today. He's burning off everything that
doesn't look like his son. He's burning off the dross. And then faith that is tried,
verse 7, faith that is tried, and that faith at last will be
honored and praised at the appearing of Jesus Christ. It will be found
to be real and genuine and of God. And if that be so, it will
be found unto honor and praise at the appearing of our Lord. And He, Christ, will be honored
and praised Buy it. Now in verse 8, Christ, in whom
faith rests, we've not seen Him. Have you seen Him? I've never
seen Him. I've never seen Him. Not with these eyes. I've not
seen Him with these eyes. I couldn't tell you what He looked
like. I could hang 50 pictures up on the wall back there and
say it's Him. No, I don't know what He looks like. I've not
seen Him. And you haven't seen Him. But you love Him. You love
Him. Yeah, you love Him. And it's
real. It's not a fake. It's not a fake,
and it's not something that's just human love. It is divine
love. It's of God. It's the love of
God, shed abroad in the heart. And you love Him, though not perfectly, whom the
Father loves. You love Him, and the Father
loves Him. Faith is evidenced by real love to Jesus Christ. And a real love for Christ is
evidenced by real joy, even under the heaviest trials. That doesn't
mean you're under a heavy trial and you're laughing and you're
smiling. No, it hurts. And you're crying and you're
weeping. But there is a joy that you cannot... He talks about
joy, it's an unspeakable joy. You can't put words to it. You
can't explain it. You can't define it. But there
is an abiding joy and comfort that you have even under a heavy
trial. You know that your Father sent
it. You know it's under control. Job said this, He knoweth the
way that I take when He has tried me, He didn't stop there. And Job said, and I will come
forth as gold. I know this. That's how confident
he was in his Redeemer. He was that confident. And the
result or the goal of faith, that tried faith, that faith
that God is trying, that goal is the salvation of your souls. God is saving you. You know God is saving you who
believe, every one of His children. You know God is saving you every
day, every moment. God is saving you. And the goal of faith in Christ,
the end of it, the goal of it, the purpose of it, is the salvation
of your soul. I want to be saved. I want to
be saved when this is over. I want to be saved in Christ.
It's to be saved from sin? I want to be saved from that,
because that's what I am. I might as well say, I want to
be saved from myself, because that's what I am, sin. It's to
be saved from the curse of the law? And that's a real curse.
That is a real curse. It's to be saved from the power
of Satan? You know, we have no idea how
powerful that man, he is. Now he has the power that God
allows him to have, but now he's powerful. You don't want to deal
with him. I don't want to deal with him. See these people on
TV telling Satan to get out of here, tell him to run down to
Rosh? You've got to be kidding. Was it Gabriel or Michael? Gabriel,
I was thinking, let's say Gabriel. You know, he would not argue
with Satan over the body of Moses. He would not argue with that
guy. He just said, the Lord rebuked
you. I ain't dealing with you. He
knew not to deal with him. He said, the Lord deal with you.
I'm not. I'm not. And this salvation in Christ
that is received by faith and that God tries is real. It's real. This is not a fantasy. It's not a fairy tale. This is
real. It's real. And it's the same salvation in
verse 10 that the prophets spoke of in the Old Testament. It's
nothing new. I'm not preaching anything new this evening. We are not believing a new gospel,
a new way of salvation. God saved those Old Testament
saints the same way He saves us, in Jesus Christ, through
His blood and through His righteousness. It's the same way. It's the same
message. Same Savior. Same gospel. Same gospel. And these prophets
searched diligently about this salvation, it says. They looked
into it. And these prophets sought to
find out when these things would come, when Christ and the sufferings
of Christ, what time they had come. And the Holy Spirit working
in them to speak of Christ and His sufferings was not for that
time. A lot of what they had to say,
they didn't understand. They didn't understand a lot
of what they had to say. A lot of what was written, it
was God speaking through them. It says they ministered to us.
They were writing these things down for us. For us. we see and we understand
what they diligently sought to look into." That's amazing. That's amazing. It says there in verse 12, "...it
was revealed to them that the person and times that they were
predicting was not for them, but for us." It's for us. And it was also given by them
that when the Messiah came, all those prophecies would be fulfilled
by Him. And we could look at the Scriptures
and say, that's Him. We could look at this prophecy
in Isaiah 53. That's Him. That fits Christ.
That fits Him. The Passover lamb, that's Him.
That's Him. And these very things, He says,
the angels desire to look into. They desire to look into the
things you and I understand, that God revealed to us. Now, in verse 13, seeing you
are the recipients of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one the prophets
spoke of. He says, then gird up the lungs
of your minds, or brace up your mind. That's what He's saying. And this has to do with self-control. Brace up your mind. Be sober-minded. Set your affection on things
above, not on things of this earth. Be sober-minded as opposed to
being drunk with this world. It's easy to be drunk with this
world. It is. Set your hope firmly in Jesus
Christ all the way to the end. Don't waver. Be sober-minded.
Be determined. Be absolutely determined. You
and I have a living hope in Jesus Christ. a living hope. It's not
a hope, hope, hope, hope. It's not a wish. I sure hope
I make it. Oh yeah, you won't, if that's
the way you hope. This hope that we have in Jesus
Christ, now listen, it is an expectation of being saved based
on the Word of God. We have the Word of God as the
foundation of our faith. I have an expectation that when
I die, I'm going to look into the face of Jesus Christ. He's
all my hope. He's all my righteousness. He's
all my salvation. He's all I need. That's it. And brother, that's the solid
hope. God has given us, Paul said, a good hope through grace. Through grace. In verse 14, now
because of this, because of what He's done for us in Christ, live
out your life on this earth as obedient children of God. We have children, some of you
still got children, and I had children, they were grown up
now, but some of you had... You want them to be obedient,
don't you? You didn't want to take them to somebody's house,
and they'd just embarrass the life out of you. I'll tell you, there
were seven of us kids in the family. I'm telling you, Mom
and Dad took us to different places and different homes, and
you wouldn't know there were seven kids in that house. You
wouldn't know it. My grandfather, my other son
probably listened to this. My grandfather said, my grandfather
always said to my brother, he said, he said, I always liked
it when Charlotte's kids come by. He said, you all were so
mindful and quiet. He said, but the rest of them
just drives me nuts. Now somebody, one of my brothers
is going to hear that. But it's so. It's so. Live out your life. on this earth
as obedient children of God." I don't want to bring reproach
on the name of my Lord by my conduct. I don't want to do that.
I don't want to do that. Do not conform your lives after
the lust of your flesh as you once did before God saved you.
You're a new person. And Paul says, put on the new
man. Put on the new man. Put off the old man. He's still
there. Put Him off. Don't make provisions,
He says, for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. Because the one who has called
you, He says in verse 15, the one who has called you is holy. So be you holy in all your conduct,
all your conversation, all your life, your conversation, Whether
you're on the job or at home, it doesn't matter. There's no
time that you're not a believer. I had a man talking to me once
that owns a business. He and I were talking. You know,
we was talking about as believers. And he was talking about, well,
business is business. I said, you cannot be not be
a Christian. You cannot be a believer whether you're at home or whether
you're on the job. It doesn't matter. It doesn't
matter. It doesn't change who I am. I'm
a child of God over there, here, and if I'm out on the street,
I'm a child of God. I represent my Father. And Peter points out that Scripture
which is in Leviticus 11, 44 and 45. God does not, listen,
God does not And He says, Be ye holy, for
I am holy. God does not require us to be something He is not. But He does require us to be
what He is. Now listen. In Jesus Christ,
I'm as holy as God. In Jesus Christ, everyone in
here that believes the gospel, you are holy. You are righteous. But in this life, in this life,
let us strive to be, in our daily lives, holy." He said, how do
you explain that? Well, I'm going to do that by
just... I'm just going to turn over to Titus chapter 2, and
I'm going to let it just speak for itself. There's no need for
me to add anything to it. Titus chapter 2. You got Thessalonians and then
you got Timothy, it's the last T. Titus. Titus chapter 2, listen to this.
This is Paul writing to him, "'But speak thou of the things
which become sound doctrine, that the aged men be sober, grave,
temperate, sound in faith and charity and patience, the aged
women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness,
not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good
things, that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love
their husbands, to love their children. to be discreet, chaste,
keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the
word of God be not blasphemed. Young men likewise exhort to
be sober-minded in all things, showing thyself a pattern of
good works, in doctrine showing uncorruptedness, gravity, sincerity,
sound speech that cannot be condemned, that he that is of the contrary
part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you. Exhort
servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please
them well in all things, not answering again, not talking
back and arguing with them, not purloining, not stealing, that's
why he's saying, don't steal from your employer, but showing
all good fidelity that they may..." Listen, this is it. "...that they may adorn the doctrine
of God our Savior in all things." in all things. Come Thou Almighty King.