Purified Jewels For His Crown

1 Peter 1:6-7 ESV

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.

As we have worked through this series of messages, what I guess you could say that we have primarily been talking about is orthodox, or accurate theology.

Now, that word ‘theology’ scares some people. To many people, theology means something that is too deep and too difficult to understand. But theology is something that every Christian should be interested in and actively studying, for theology is the study of God Himself, it is the study of the attributes and character of God.

This is something that every Christian should be interested in, every Christian should aspire to know more and more about God, thus, it might well be said that every true and sincere Christian is indeed a theologian.

I say this because a theologian is one who studies the Word of God in order to know more about God, and thus, the conclusions about our theology should always come from our own personal study of God’s Word, which is something that every legitimate Christian should partake in.

And if you slow down when you study your Bible and look carefully at what it is saying, you will see that understanding and knowing God better is not only possible, but it is also enjoyable as God shows you more of Who He truly is. And our reading for today does just that for us.

Now, it seems as though there are some portions of Scripture that just jump out at us more than others at times, and what I particularly love about this portion of Scripture that we have been studying is that when you just slow down and pray that the Spirit shows you what it is that He is saying here, He grants us an abundance of spiritual knowledge and insight that jump right out at us off the page.

Thus far in this series, in our theological study of this passage, we have looked at the doctrines of election, predestination, salvation by grace through faith, our heavenly inheritance, and our eternal security.

This week, as we continue through this series of messages, we are going to take a closer at one of the specific aspects of the sovereignty of God. That aspect of God’s sovereignty being how God uses the sufferings and hard times that Christians endure to result in our good and in His own glory.

And as we look at our reading for today, the very first thing that we will notice is the beautiful reality that God uses the Christian’s knowledge of his own salvation and the guarantee that God will inevitably bring us to Him to cause the Christian to rejoice as he suffers through the hard times in life.

We see this in verse 6 of our reading, where it says:

1 Peter 1:6 ESV

6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,

Peter begins our reading by saying “In this”. The “In this” that is being referred to here is what we spoke of last week, and that is the reality that God chose us before the foundation of the world to be saved by Him and to inherit a kingdom that He has prepared for us and that God will indeed keep us saved so that we will, against all odds, inherit what He has prepared for us.

Peter says, “In this” or, because we as legitimate Christians know this to be true, we rejoice. For someone to rejoice over something means to be exceedingly happy, delighted, overjoyed, to celebrate.

Thus, Peter declares that the Christian who truly understands what God has graciously done for him and will do for him, is extremely happy, he celebrates, rejoices in light of what God has done for him and is doing for him on his behalf.

Furthermore, Peter says that such a Christian does this “though” or, in spite of the fact that for now, we suffer and are grieved by various trials.

But though we suffer now, Peter says that our suffering here on earth is but for a little while.

Now, when we suffer, it is never easy, and sometimes it seems as though our suffering goes on and on, but in comparison with the inheritance that we as Christians will receive, an inheritance that Peter described in verse 4 of this chapter as imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for us, when compared with eternity, our suffering is so temporary and fleeting that it’s not even worth ceasing to rejoice over what we know we will receive.

But what is even better is knowing that the suffering that we as Christians endure here on earth is not pointless. Not even our suffering is outside of God’s control and providence, for when we suffer, we suffer for good reason, a reason that finds its origins in God Himself. Indeed, as Peter says here in our reading, if we suffer, we suffer because it is necessary for us to suffer.

In other words, if we as Christians suffer, it is because God has required our suffering to be essential to what He is effectively accomplishing through us.

But what is our suffering necessary for? What is it essential for? Furthermore, what does it inevitably accomplish? We find out in verse 7 of our reading, where it says:

1 Peter 1:7 ESV

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.

What the suffering of the Christian is necessary for is to test the genuineness of our faith. In speaking of this testing, Peter highlights how the purity of gold is tested.

You see, when purifying gold, what the refiner does is he actually burns the metal with fire for a considerable amount of time, causing the impurities that are within the metal to rise to the surface. Then after those impurities rise to the surface, the refiner washes them away, with the end result being a purified, highly valuable piece of metal.

Now, for us, gold is extremely valuable. People will spend a fortune in order to obtain it, but as Peter says here, even gold, even something that we would consider to be extremely valuable, will eventually perish. We may do everything that we can to maintain and preserve what we deem to be valuable and precious, but in the end, it will perish, because we are powerless to keep anything from perishing.

But something that is even more valuable than gold, something that will never pass away or perish, is our faith. And the reason why our faith will never pass away is because we don’t maintain it, God maintains it.

And the refining process that God uses to maintain our faith is very similar to the refining process that a gold refiner utilizes to purify gold.

As a gold refiner uses fire to purify gold, so does God use the trials and sufferings that we endure in this life to purify our faith and commitment to Him. In other words, the purpose of our trials and sufferings is to bring us closer to God. But there is a process to this.

Once again, when we think of the gold refining process, we know that it requires for the gold to pass through fire. And when we think of passing through fire, we don’t think of something easy and enjoyable, rather, we think of torment and pain. But though the gold passes through the fire, the fire ultimately helps to contribute to a purer, more valuable metal.

And in the same way, while the trials and sufferings of Christians are never easy or fun and the farthest thing from what we want to endure, what they always result in, what they always inevitably contribute to is a closer walk with God, a greater assurance that God loves us, that He has saved us, that He is always for us and never against us.

But ultimately Peter says that the main reason for our suffering is so that our faith may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

I have asked this question so many times throughout my career, and I know that I have asked all of you this question before as well, but let me ask again, Who or What does God love more than anything?

Who God loves more than anything is Himself. There is nothing, no one greater to love than God; therefore it makes sense that God loves Himself more than anything.

And because God loves Himself more than anything, that then means that God uses everything that occurs in all of creation to result in His own glory.

That means that even the hardest situations that we endure, the hardest trials that we face, God uses to accomplish His own glory. For while what we as Christians endure will inevitably result in a purified faith, what that purified faith will result in is glory to God.

As Peter says here, at the revelation of Jesus Christ, that is, when Jesus comes again and is gloriously, publicly made manifest as the King of heaven and earth, our sufferings, our trials will realize their eternal purpose as God is glorified through the purified faith that resulted in them.

At that time, at the full revelation of Jesus Christ as the King of heaven and earth, the vision of John in the fourth chapter of the book of Revelation will be fulfilled that says:

Revelation 4:10-11 ESV

10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, 11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”

We will receive a crown from He Who is, was, and always will be. And the sufferings and trials that we endure is what God will use to contribute to that crown.

But when we behold Him in glory, we will take our crowns that He has given to us and we will cast them before Him, and we will cry “You alone, O God, deserve this crown! You graciously gave this crown to me for Your own glory, and You alone are worthy of this crown, therefore, use this crown for its intended purpose, to glorify Your name!”

Beloved, may it be the wish and truly heartfelt desire of each one of us for God to take the jewel that He has produced in us through our sufferings and to place it in His own glorious crown!

Beloved, may God sovereignly make us and our sufferings to be found worthy to be placed in that gloriously crown! O may God be so gracious to make us worthy to be jewels in His crown for the praise and honor of His glorious name! May we earnestly desire that above any earthly reward that this world can afford!

Amen?