REJOICE: GOD STRENGTHENS YOUR FAITH THROUGH YOUR STRUGGLES

REJOICE: GOD STRENGTHENS YOUR FAITH THROUGH YOUR STRUGGLES

1 Peter 1:6–9 (ESV)

Living Hope Series • First Baptist Church of Blairsville, Georgia

Pastor Ricky Powell

INTRODUCTION: “SON, WHAT KIND OF CHURCH DO YOU GO TO?”

When I was sixteen years old, I was a part of a nursing home ministry in Valdosta, Georgia, at the Holly Hill Nursing Home. I was actually fifteen when I started volunteering with the minister of music at Corinth Baptist Church in Lake Park. I would meet him there. He would pick me up, along with a couple of other teenagers, and he would have us greet the people as they came into the cafeteria. We would hand them a hymnal. He would lead in songs, and then he would do a devotional. Then our job was to clean up the room and get everything straight, and we would get back to our church by the 11:00 service.

When I turned sixteen, Robert turned to me and said, “Okay, it’s yours now. I’m backing out. That’s your ministry. You get some teenagers; you guys handle that.” And so that’s what I did. I’d pick up two or three of my teenage friends on Sunday mornings. We would go to the nursing home, and I would lead the music. That’s a scary thought. We’re blessed with Ed and with Ben. But I would lead the music, and typically I would say, “All right, you’ve got your hymnal. Call out a hymn number, and we will sing the first and last,” because Baptists don’t sing the third or the fourth, you know. “And if I don’t know it, you have to lead it.”

One Sunday, someone in that congregation called out the song “When Morning Comes,” and I said, “Oh, I don’t think I know that one.” As soon as I said it, the little lady who was a resident there, the one who played the piano for us, turned her wheelchair around, looked at me, and said, “Son, what kind of church do you go to?”

I’d only been saved a few years. I didn’t know all the hymns in the hymnal. But I’ve never forgotten that one. It’s one of those songs you learn in those country churches.

“Trials dark on every hand, and we cannot understand

All the ways that God would lead us to that blessed Promised Land;

But He’ll guide us with His eye, and we’ll follow till we die,

And we’ll understand it better by and by.

Temptations, hidden snares, often take us unawares,

And our hearts are made to bleed for some thoughtless word or deed;

And we wonder why the test when we try to do our best,

But we’ll understand it better by and by.”

I think she was concerned that I didn’t know that song, and not just because it’s a great song. I think she knew I was going to need that song.

If you think the Christian faith immunizes you from pains and problems, trials and tribulations, then you’re not reading the Bible I’m reading. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ said, “In this world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” Jesus says, “I’m not going to immunize you from the problems of this world, but I am going to be with you through those problems, and you have the victory that I have provided through my own life, death, and resurrection.”

The Apostle Peter understood that. He knew Christians are going to face problems. Christians are going to face trials. Christians are going to face troubles that break their hearts, cause sleepless nights, and bring tears to their eyes. And he wanted them to know that even in the midst of your pain, even in the midst of your problem, there is a joy that suffering cannot touch.

That’s one of the Christian distinctives. We are not masochists. We don’t enjoy pains and problems. But we have a secret, through the indwelling of the Lord Jesus Christ, that causes us to have joy even as we suffer.

Peter writes here in verses 6 through 9 to some hurting Christians. They’re being persecuted in the first century because of their faith in Christ. They’re living in a culture that was antithetical to everything they believed. They were living under a government that was opposed to their faith and that persecuted them because they would not worship Caesar as Lord. Declare Caesar Lord? They would declare, “Jesus is Lord.” They were losing family members and friends who turned their backs on them because of their faith in Jesus Christ. They were hurting financially, losing business deals, because people said, “If you’re not going to be a part of our guild that worships these gods, then we don’t want you, and you don’t have our business.” Some of these Christians were losing their lives in waves of persecution that came sporadically throughout the Roman Empire.

And then, on top of all that, there were the everyday sufferings every human being faces. Good days and bad days. Health and sickness. Christians were facing all of that, plus the pains that came because of their faith in Christ.

Peter has already written to them in these first few verses, which we’ve looked at over the last two weeks, about how we have been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our true citizenship is in heaven. All the blessings and rewards of salvation await us there, and one day we’ll see Jesus.

Then he continues in verse 6. I’m reading from the English Standard Version. He is continuing his thought about the living hope and the salvation and the inheritance that we have waiting for us. He writes:

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 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. 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, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” 1 Peter 1:6–9 (ESV)

May God bless the reading of His holy Word this morning.

Now notice something before we go further. Peter does not say, “In this you must rejoice.” He says, “In this you rejoice.” That’s not a command barked from a safe distance. That’s a description. Peter looks at these suffering believers and tells them what is already true of them: you rejoice. Grieved, yes. Pressed down, yes. And rejoicing at the same time. Their joy was not a duty stacked on top of their grief. It was the evidence that their faith was real. And that is the invitation of this text. The same grace that produced unquenchable joy in them can produce it in you.

So here is what Peter is saying:

Rejoice: God strengthens your faith through your struggles.

To see how God does that, Peter wants us to know three things today.

I. FACE THE REALITY OF YOUR TRIALS

First, you’re going to have to face the reality of your trials. Peter does not mince words. He doesn’t hide behind pious platitudes. He tells us outright that we’re going to be grieved from time to time through various trials. You read it in verse 6: “In this you rejoice, though now…” So we’ve got the sweet by and by, but now the nasty here and now. “…for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.”

Peter wants us to confront the reality of our trials. And notice the severity of these trials. He uses the word “grieved.” He’s talking about being harassed, being saddened, being brought low because of some trial you are facing.

One of the things I am keenly aware of is the hurting hearts represented in this room today. As a pastor, I deal with people every single day who are hurting, who are grieving, who are sad, who are brought low because of the trials in which they find themselves. And their faith in Christ amazes me. In the midst of their trial, they don’t run away from God. They run to God.

I visited a family not long ago, and as I walked into their living room, I saw three of them: husband, wife, son, each going through grievous trials, each one carrying their own burdens. I walked in, and I felt like I was in an ER, a trauma center. There was so much heaviness and pain in that room. And yet, do you know what they said to me? To a person, they said, “Oh, Pastor, there are people worse off than we are. God is getting us through.”

Your trials are going to be severe. You have to face that reality. But Peter also talks about the variety of these trials. You have been grieved by various trials. Later in this letter Peter will hint at some of them. He’ll talk about how some believers need to respond when they are slandered as evildoers by the culture around them. We need to recognize that we live in a world that won’t always approve of or applaud our faith. In fact, the Bible prophesied that there will come a day when people call good evil, and what was evil they’ll call good. You’re not always going to win a popularity contest if you’re living for Jesus. Sometimes you’re going to be slandered as an evildoer, not because you did anything wrong, but because you tried to live for the Lord and the world doesn’t like it.

Later in the letter he’ll talk about spiritual opposition. We have an enemy of our souls, the devil. He prowls like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. But if Peter had simply listed the problems Christians face, you would scan that list, and if your problem wasn’t on it, you would say, “See? Peter doesn’t know what I’m going through. How can he talk to me about rejoicing?” We would sing the blues, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,” and we would count ourselves the exception to everything Peter describes.

The word “various” was used in the Greek language to speak of the spots of a leopard or a multicolored coat like Joseph had. Multifaceted. Variegated. As multiplied as the colors of a child’s kaleidoscope are the problems Christians are going to face. What you may be dealing with may not even be a blip on my radar screen, and what I’m dealing with, maybe you’ve never thought about. We all have something, either now, or behind us, or ahead of us. There’s no end to the kinds of trials Christians will face. We often use that little phrase when we hear about someone’s pain: “Just when I thought I’d heard it all.” And then comes something new.

But as you face the reality and variety of your trials, don’t forget the temporality of your trials. They are temporary, and you can count on relief from your trials. In verse 6 Peter gives us a glimpse of it. Did you hear it? “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.” For a little while.

There was a country church where the pastor asked people to stand and recite their favorite passage of Scripture. People were calling out passages on God’s comfort, God’s forgiveness, God’s mercy, God’s grace. Finally one old man stood up and said, “Well, my favorite words in the Bible are ‘It came to pass.’ Because when I’m sick or hurting, I just remember: it came to pass. It didn’t come to stay.”

Maybe he was taking the words of Scripture a little out of context, but he had a good point. All of us in this room can look back on our lives and remember trials that in the moment felt like they would never end. And yet now we look back and see the faithfulness of God who got us through. That trial is over. It’s behind us. And we’re stronger in our faith because we endured it. We didn’t like it. We didn’t ask for it. We didn’t want it. We didn’t always understand how God could bring good out of it. But we look back now and say: what felt like it would never end was really just for a little while. But I had to get through it.

Maybe that’s where you are today. Maybe you need some hope to not give up. You may be hurting for a little while, and you say, “But Pastor, what I’ve got to deal with will never end.” Oh no, no. Even if we die, our problems come to an end, and our loved ones who go to be with the Lord are at peace. They’ve laid their burdens down. That’s why the Apostle Paul would say in the book of Romans that the sufferings of this present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed in us. It is why Paul would say in 2 Corinthians 4:17, “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment,” when you compare it to eternity, “is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”

Your pain will not have the last word over you. God and His purpose will.

I think about Job. Job had to face the reality of his suffering. He was a righteous man, and yet God allowed him to suffer grievous trials and various trials. He lost his flesh. He lost his family. He lost his fortune. He was left with three accusing friends and a nagging wife: “Why don’t you curse God and die?” And yet Job says, “No. Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”

Job never lost his perspective. He kept his eyes on God. Did he call out and ask why? Oh yes, many times. And there will be times you find yourself asking, “God, where are You? Why are You letting this happen? Help me make sense of this.” God may or may not give you all the answers you’re looking for. But as you look at Job, you see a man who faced the reality of his trials and saw the faithfulness of God through them, and God strengthened his faith through those trials. And those trials were temporary. God gave him his health back. God gave him a family again. Even the children he lost down here, he still had waiting in glory. God gave him his fortune back. But most of all, God gave him his testimony of faithfulness: “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

II. FIND THE REASON FOR YOUR TRIALS

So you have to face the reality of your trials. But second, if you want to see how God strengthens your faith through your struggles, you need to find the reason for your trials.

Sometimes we try to make sense of why, and we start talking to God: “God, when are You going to get me out of this?” There’s nothing wrong with that prayer. But I think that prayer doesn’t go far enough. Not only should we say, “God, when are You going to get me out of it?” We ought to say, “God, what do You want me to get out of it? God, what are You trying to teach me here?”

And before we even get to verse 7, did you notice the little phrase tucked into verse 6? “Though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.” If necessary. Peter is telling us that trials do not wander into the life of a believer at random. They come only when, in the wisdom of God, they are needful. No trial reaches you that God has not deemed necessary for you. That doesn’t make the trial hurt less. But it means your suffering is never pointless and never out of control. If it were not necessary, it would not be there. And if it is there, your Father has a purpose in it.

What purpose? Peter tells us in verse 7. The reason there can be joy, even while you suffer temporarily, is “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.”

If you are an atheist, and you believe there is no God, then you have also said there is no ultimate purpose for the sufferings of this world. It just is what it is. But if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you can know there is an ultimate and an immediate purpose to your pain. God doesn’t cause every bad thing that happens to you, but in His sovereignty He allows it to come into your life. And even then, Romans 8:28 assures us that He makes all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. God’s got a purpose. God has a plan.

There’s a present purpose. When you go through trials, Peter says, it is like gold going through the refiner’s fire. The trial burns off the dross and gets down to what is pure and precious. Your trials test the genuineness of your faith. They prove the sincerity of your faith. They demonstrate that your faith is real and that it’s valuable.

An untested faith is a faith that can’t be trusted.

It’s like an army. An army can go through boot camp, but it’s not really ready until it has faced the fire of battle. A police officer can go through all the training, but until she hits the streets and faces her first danger, she may not know if she’s really ready. A ship that has only seen dry dock is untested. It can’t be sure it’s seaworthy until it hits the seas. Our faith is invisible. Our trust in God is personal. But it becomes real and visible as people see how we handle the trials of life with confidence in God.

Who needs to see this genuineness of your faith? You say, “Well, God.” No. God knows everything. God knows all about us. This test isn’t to reveal anything to God. It is to reveal the genuineness of your faith to you. My tests reveal the genuineness of my faith to me. There are times I need to know that my faith in Christ, my hope in Christ, my assurance in the resurrected Savior, is real. And the only way I can know it is when it’s tested, and He’s all I’ve got, and I realize He was all I ever needed.

You are the one who needs to see the reality of your faith. Remember Jesus’s parable about the two houses. One man built his house on sand; the other built his house on the rock. When the storm came, and the winds blew, and the rains fell, and the flood rose, the house built on the sand washed away, but the house built on the rock stood. Jesus says that’s what a life built on His word looks like. But it is only revealed to you that Jesus truly is the solid Rock when everything else is kicked out from under you and He’s all you’ve got.

And our watching world needs to see the genuineness of our faith. There are people who will not believe in the authenticity of the gospel message until they see the reality of it in your life. You are a testimony to God’s grace. It has been said that nobody in the book of Daniel wanted to hear anything those three Hebrew boys, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, had to say before they faced the flames. But when they came out the other side, unscathed, unsinged, everybody wanted to hear what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had to say about their God.

There are people whose opinions I don’t need, because they’ve never seen anything. They’ve never gone through anything. But I will sit down and listen to some people in this church who have seen some flames of trials. You’ve seen pain. You’ve seen hurt. You’ve had sleepless nights, and God got you through. I want to hear from you, because I’m going to need your testimony to encourage me. And there are other people who need to hear your story, because it’s going to help them get through. Other people need to see the genuineness of your faith.

So there’s an immediate purpose: to show you and a watching world that your faith, more precious than gold, is real. But there’s a future, ultimate purpose for your pain as well. Did you catch it? Peter wrote in verse 7 that your tested faith “may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

When we stand before Christ, when He comes back, at the revelation, at the unveiling, at the second coming of Jesus. You do know He’s coming back, don’t you? He promised. The same One who promised to come the first time, live a perfect life, die our death, pay the penalty of our sin, and rise from the dead three days later, went back to God the Father. He said, “In the meantime, you go and be My witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.” And the angels told us, “This same Jesus will come again in like manner.” We don’t know the day or the hour; that’s for the Father. But in the meantime, we live for Him. He is coming back one day, not as the suffering Savior on a cross, but as the conquering King of kings and Lord of lords. He’ll establish His kingdom, and all wrong will be made right.

In the meantime, we live for Christ, knowing that the sufferings we face down here will then, at the revelation of Christ, be found to result in praise, glory, and honor. We will lift up our praise to Jesus for what He did for us and what He brought us through. We will bring glory, not to ourselves, not to the Southern Baptist Convention, but to the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. We will honor and worship Him in reverence, not only for who He is, but for what He’s done in seeing us through. And then it will make sense to us, when the morning comes. Until then, we just keep living for Him.

Think about the Olympics. Athletes spend years disciplined in their dietary habits, their exercise habits, their sleeping habits, all so they can compete. Some of them win medals. Some of them don’t. But to win one has to be an amazing moment, to be declared a world-class champion.

But Christian, I know some of you have been walking with the Lord for decades. No human being is ever going to put a medal around your neck and say, “I just want to applaud your faith.” That’s okay. Because when Jesus Christ comes back, your reward is to hear Him say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.” That’s the reward we look for.

III. FOCUS ON THE REDEEMER THROUGH YOUR TRIALS

So face the reality of your trials. Find the reason for your trials. And then, number three: focus on the Redeemer through your trials.

Look at verses 8 and 9. Peter writes, “Though you have not seen him.” In the Greek, it’s emphatic. You have not seen Him. Never seen Him. Not once. “You love him. Though you do not now see him,” even as you’re hurting, even as you’re walking through these grievous trials, “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.”

Now think about who is writing this. Peter saw Jesus. Peter walked with Him. Peter heard His voice on the boat, watched Him touch lepers, saw Him alive after the grave. Peter is one of the last living eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ. And he looks at these scattered, suffering believers who never saw any of it, and he doesn’t pity them. He commends them.

You love Him. And you’ve never seen Him. You believe in Him. And you cannot see Him now, not even in this trial.

Friend, that is your faith Peter is describing. You have never seen Jesus with your physical eyes. You’ve never touched Him with your hands. But you love Him. You believe in Him. And Jesus Himself said that puts you in a blessed company. After the resurrection, Thomas said, “Unless I see the nail prints, I will not believe.” A week later Jesus stood in front of him, and Thomas fell down crying, “My Lord and my God!” And Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John 20:28-29.

That’s you. That’s your beatitude.

Let me tell you about a woman who understood this. Fanny Crosby was six weeks old when she lost her sight. She lived ninety-four years and never saw a sunrise. Never saw her mother’s face. Never saw the pages of the more than eight thousand hymns she wrote. “Blessed Assurance.” “To God Be the Glory.” “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior.” Someone once remarked to her what a pity it was that God had not given her sight. And Fanny said something like this: if she could have made one request at birth, it would have been to be born blind. Why? Because the first face she would ever see would be the face of Jesus.

She never saw Him. But oh, how she loved Him. She wrote, “And I shall see Him face to face, and tell the story, saved by grace.”

That is 1 Peter 1:8 with skin on it. Loving a Savior you have not seen. Believing in a Savior you do not now see. And rejoicing, Peter says, with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.

But don’t stop at verse 8, because verse 9 may be the most stunning word in this whole passage. “Obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

Notice the tense. Peter does not say you will obtain it someday. He says you are obtaining it. Right now. Present tense. These hurting, persecuted, grieving Christians are presently receiving the very thing their faith has been reaching for all along.

How can that be? Isn’t salvation future? Isn’t it waiting for us in heaven? Yes, the fullness of it is. Peter already said our inheritance is kept in heaven for us. But the salvation of your soul is not just a someday thing. It is a right-now thing. You have been saved from the penalty of sin. You are being saved from the power of sin. You will be saved from the very presence of sin. And in the middle of your trial, in the middle of your tears, God is already handing you the firstfruits. His presence. His peace. His Spirit. A faith coming through the fire more precious than gold.

Your trial cannot take your salvation. Your trial is the very place you experience it.

So where do you fix your eyes? Not on the trial. Not on other people. The writer of Hebrews says we run our race “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.” Jesus knows suffering from the inside. We serve a Savior who was grieved. We serve a sympathetic High Priest. He has already run this course, and He finished it, and He is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Keep your eyes on Him, and your groanings down here will one day turn to glory up there.

Now let me get very practical, because I know some of you are sitting there saying, “Pastor, I believe all of that. But I’m hurting today. How do I actually do this?” Let me give you three handles to hold onto this week.

First, pray both prayers. Go ahead and pray, “God, when are You going to get me out of this?” He can handle that prayer. But don’t stop there. Pray, “God, what do You want me to get out of this? What are You refining in me?” That second prayer is where the trial starts to turn into treasure.

Second, rehearse God’s past faithfulness. When the old man said “It came to pass,” he was preaching to himself. Do the same. Write down, speak out loud, tell somebody at your table the trials God has already carried you through. A remembered faithfulness fuels a present faith.

Third, borrow some testimony. If your faith feels weak this week, sit down with a saint in this church who has been through the flames. Let them tell you their story. And if you’re the one who has been through the fire, somebody needs your story. Don’t keep it to yourself. That’s one of the reasons God brought you through.

And underneath all three: keep looking at Jesus. The One you have not seen. The One you love.

CONCLUSION: WHEN THE MORNING COMES

And our job today is not to leave this place saying, “Wasn’t the music amazing?” By the way, it was. I leaned over to Roy and said, “If you can’t preach after that, you should turn in your preaching license.” We don’t leave saying, “Isn’t Ricky a great preacher?” I will debate you on that. My wife will debate you on that. We don’t even leave saying, “First Baptist is an amazing church.” It is. But if that’s what we walk out with, we’ve missed it.

We leave with our eyes fixed on Jesus.

Let me take you back to that nursing home in Valdosta. A sixteen-year-old boy who didn’t know the song. And a little lady in a wheelchair who turned around and asked, “Son, what kind of church do you go to?”

I used to think she was just teasing me. I don’t think that anymore. I think she was looking at a young man who hadn’t suffered yet. She had buried her people. She had lost her health. She was living out her last days in a nursing home. And she knew something I didn’t know yet. She knew I was going to need that song.

“Trials dark on every hand, and we cannot understand

All the ways that God would lead us to that blessed Promised Land;

But He’ll guide us with His eye, and we’ll follow till we die.”

Some of you are in the dark trials this morning. You cannot understand the way God is leading. Peter would tell you: face the reality of your trials; they are real, and they are for a little while. Find the reason for your trials; God is refining a faith more precious than gold. And focus on the Redeemer through your trials; the One you have not seen, the One you love, the One who is even now giving you the salvation of your soul.

You may not understand it today. You may not understand it tomorrow. But one day, at the revelation of Jesus Christ, when faith becomes sight, when we see the face Fanny Crosby is seeing right now, we will understand it better.

By and by. When the morning comes.

CLOSING PRAYER

Let’s pray together.

Heavenly Father, I pray in the stillness of this moment, if there’s anyone who has never received Christ as Savior, they will right now turn from their sin and look to Jesus, who loved them, who lived the perfect life they have not lived, and who exchanged it for them. He died on the cross for them. He rose from the dead for them. He offers them the gift of forgiveness and eternal life if they will simply turn from their sin and believe in Him. I pray, Father, that today, for the first time in someone’s life, they will put their trust in Jesus. Having not seen Him, not even once, I pray they will love Him. And having not seen Him, even today as they struggle, they will believe in Him and trust in Him, not only for the salvation of their soul, but to sustain them throughout their life.

But Father, most of the people in this room have already done that. I pray that today we will leave this place with our eyes fixed upon Jesus, because Your purpose in allowing us to go through the trials of this life is to strengthen our faith in Him, even as we struggle. So Father, we look to Him, to His nail-scarred hands and His spear-riven side, knowing that He is victorious and alive today, that He can sustain us no matter what we go through, and that He is strengthening our faith in the meantime. Thank You for Jesus. In His name we pray. Amen.