Trials refine your hope in Jesus

I enjoy going on walks. Many times, while on a walk, I will stop to look at or pick up a rock that stands out from the rest. When I was young, I had quite a collection of rocks. Still today I have a small collection of rocks, one of which is this piece of iron ore. The iron in this rock makes it worth something. If you were to break it into smaller pieces, add some other substances and heat it up like is done at a refinery, then you would get iron. The iron that results from the refining process can be used to make things like steel which is found it all kinds of things we use and depend on every day, but it is not always easy to picture the iron when it is trapped in a lump of ore.

The things that bring us joy in life are often trapped, lumped in with all kinds of other things. When you are young, it is easy to get distracted by the many different pebbles on a walk to the park. When you get older, it is easy to get distracted by a crowded schedule or scraps of paper scattered around your home or office with lists of things to get done while the cover of a children’s bible collects dust. Churches also get caught up in chasing so many different things that they lose focus on what brings true joy. When God inspired Peter to write his first letter, the original recipients were trapped by many trials. Their local communities insulted and persecuted them for their faith and unwillingness to join in their wicked lifestyle. They also lived under the rule of the Roman Emperor Nero, who infamously used the great fire of Rome in AD 64 as an excuse to persecute Christians. Daily trials left them filled with grief.

Trials, grief and suffering are not unique to the Christians living at the time of Peter. The original recipients of Peter’s first letter lived in modern Turkey, but we can relate. In our New Testament reading from 1 Peter 1, we read, ⁶ In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. Like those Peter first wrote to, we rejoice in our Savior Jesus. Sundays like Easter are filled with some of our favorite hymns of praise to our living Redeemer and fellowship around special meals, but then we quickly return to a fast paced or lonely or peer pressured life. Trials, grief and suffering may last a little while compared to eternity, but we are creatures who live in the moment. It is not easy to look ahead to joy when the moment or season or decades long struggle persists. And there are trials from the outside, but we face them internally as well. Our own thoughts plague us with questions and doubt about Jesus, forgiveness, heaven, the fear of death or the certainty that we really believe or are saved. These trials, griefs and struggles either drive us inward so that we lose ourselves in confusing, anxious thoughts. Or we throw ourselves outward hoping that a full life on the border of frenzy will keep us from feeling and dealing with our problems. Trials, grief and suffering threaten our joy as Christians. They tempt us to find relief in the dross. When you refine a metal ore, dross is the unwanted stuff. When trapped by trials, grief and suffering the most dangerous temptation is to forget what Jesus has done for you.

God keeps your eternal inheritance safe. Even in trials, what God has given you remains. God inspired Peter to write his first letter to make absolutely clear your eternal inheritance will be waiting for you after this life. As a headline to a detailed report Peter wrote, ³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Peter praises God our protecting Father who sent our Lord Jesus Christ. Then, he begins reporting of all the praiseworthy work God has done, “In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” God did not leave us to suffer in sin. He did not commit us to a hopeless life that ends in certain death. Instead, God showed us mercy. He gave us a new birth just like Jesus told Nicodemus about. He gave us living hope, a hope based on tangible truth. These all rely on Jesus’ resurrection.

The truth of Easter is life after death for you through Jesus. The truth of the resurrection stands against any doubt you may have. It also stands to give you joy even when faced with trials. Peter writes with confidence that nothing you endure in this world ends, damages or changes what you have because of Jesus’ resurrection. You have been reborn, ⁴ … into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. God’s power protects your inheritance in heaven. It is locked up like treasure in a safe, and you will see that treasure through faith. The strength of your faith comes from God. And the Word of God fuels your faith. You know that a car without fuel goes nowhere, but a car filled with gas gets to its destination. The Bible, Scripture, the Word of God, the message of Jesus, the gospel, etc. fuel and give power to your faith.

In our Old Testament reading from Acts 2, we hear part of Peter’s sermon on Pentecost shortly after the first Easter. Peter unleashed the power of the Holy Spirit to create and strengthen faith by sharing the message of Jesus’ resurrection, which even King David spoke of 1,000 years before Jesus lived. Peter said,

²⁹ “Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. ³⁰ But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. ³¹ Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. ³² God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it.”

Acts 2:29-32

Peter assured his fellow Israelites that Jesus rose from the dead. David believed in the resurrection of the Messiah. Jesus was the promised Messiah. With faith in Jesus, you have an eternal inheritance.

Your trials prove the genuineness of your faith. In our New Testament reading from 1 Peter 1, we read, ⁷ These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Just like iron ore, gold ore must be refined. No one wants unrefined gold. You want the refined gold, the shiny ring, not a pile of ore. During trials, the details of your faith in Jesus remain, while the clutter in your heart is burned off. Trials, griefs and suffering that attack your faith are ultimately an attack on Jesus. And Jesus is undefeated; he is risen. So, your risen Savior will return one day, and you will be there to welcome him with praise. Until then, Peter writes, 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, ⁹ for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. You have love and joy for Jesus, not because you have seen him, but because of what he has done. You will not go to eternity in hell, but to eternity in heaven. And if you still have doubts, we have the words of our Gospel reading from John 20 to strengthen our faith. Here in John’s Gospel, we find one of Jesus’ disciples, Thomas, doubting the resurrection, which the others had also done as we hear in Luke 24, ¹¹ But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Thomas was absent when Jesus appeared to the disciples on Easter, but Jesus appeared again a week later to address his doubt as we read in John 20, ²⁹ Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Faith does not come from seeing, but from God working in a person’s heart through Scripture as John went on to write:

³⁰ Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. ³¹ But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John 20:30-31

You face trials, griefs, suffering and doubts, and the remedy to give you hope and joy is God’s mercy through Jesus’ death and resurrection giving us an eternal inheritance, and that truth is found only in Scripture.

The iron in this rock makes it worth something. When it is refined, all that remains is the iron which is used in many things we use every day. Whether you are young or old or even a church, trials and doubts distract you from the joy of your faith and the eternal inheritance kept safe for you in heaven. Next time you go on a walk with your kids, talk to them, find out what their trials are and point them to Jesus. When your schedule and to do lists overwhelm you, stop, read your Bible and God’s power will strengthen your faith filling you with joy. May God continue to give our congregation a focus on teaching solid biblical truth. We hear again the solid biblical truth from 1 Peter 1, ³ In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Even in trials he refines your hope in Jesus. Amen.