This is my “good” week. Still not much energy and a few of the weird side effects linger; like my fingers and toes tingle if exposed to cold things. I coached soccer practice Tuesday night and my hands were almost burning with the tingling feeling because it was so cold out. I’ve enjoyed getting to meet with a few people while I also work on sermons and writing bible studies and other things.
I was thinking this morning that I have not commented on what has been, ever since Jared’s accident, one of the passages that has helped me the most to understand God’s purposes in suffering and to endure the difficulties and sorrows of his condition. 1 Peter 1:1-9 is that passage. I had memorized it prior to Jared’s accident and I prayed it and spoke many times during those first weeks and months. Here is what it says (ESV):
“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles… according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: …Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 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.”
After giving a magnificent description of all the benefits we receive according to God the Father’s decision to love us before he made the world (foreknowledge) and his great mercy by the work of the Holy Spirit and through the resurrection of Jesus he tells us that the source and ground of all joy are all these benefits. “In this you rejoice”, means that the normal state of every believer is rejoicing in the great, gracious, sovereign, saving work of the Triune God. You can see the same thing stated in even more dramatic language in the last couple of sentences. We “rejoice with joy inexpressible and filled with glory” as a result of our faith in Christ to save us. This is the joy of God’s salvation that David asked the Lord to restore to him after his great sin (Psalm 51:12). There is to be in our lives an undercurrent of joy because we are so amazed at this love and this Christ and this salvation given to us who are so undeserving. When we are struggling to find joy in our lives we ought to turn our attention to the promises and truths which Peter has outlined for us and which are enumerated throughout the Bible. We are to ask the Lord to restore this joy as it is ours by virtue of our being born again into a living hope.
However, notice that immediately after declaring that we rejoice in all that God has done, yet at the very same time, for a little while, we “have been grieved by various trials”. So at the same time we are rejoicing in God’s salvattion, we are grieving in the various temporary but “necessary” trials. (I preached a sermon at Blackhawk Church in Madison with this title, “Joyous Grief” in March of 2003 a couple of weeks before we brought Jared home. I think the video of it is still on our website if you’d care to look at it.) This is an amazing thing that we are told here. It is possible, according to Peter to, at the same time and in the same human heart, be rejoicing and be grieving. I have experienced this during the last 10 years. Impressed deeply upon me is sitting next to Jared’s bed the second night after his accident, not knowing if he was going to live or die. I was sobbing uncontrollably, so overwhelmed with grief for my dear son. Yet at the same time I was praising the Lord Jesus that because of his great suffering my son was safe. He had an inheritance that could not perish, spoil or fade that was at that moment reserved in heaven for him. I praised God that I was following a suffering Savior. I worshipped God as I grieved the great blow that had come to Jared and to my family.
I also praised God while I grieved because I knew that God himself had sent this trial as Peter makes clear when he says that we are grieved by these trials “so that the genuineness of our faith may result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus is revealed.” It is those two little words “so that” that give me the ground for praising God that he stands behind Jared’s accident as well as my cancer. The grief producing trials have a purpose and only a person can do things with a purpose. As it is not possible that Satan would want the genuineness of my faith to result in praise when Jesus returns; it must be God who has this purpose.
What exactly does it mean that God’s purpose in our sufferings is that the genuineness of our faith will result in praise and glory and honor? Part of the answer to that lies in that parenthetical statement he inserts; “faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is refined by fire--.” All the impurities are burned out of the gold when it is subjected to the fire of the smelter. In the same way these grief producing trials burn out the impurities of our faith. The trials require us to believe that Jesus and his saving work is better than whatever loss we have experienced. To be loved by Jesus, to belong to God and be the heir of eternal life is better than not having a brain-injured son. He and his salvation is better than not having cancer. He is better than …. You fill in the blank in your own life. All the suffering is sent by God so that we will discover and believe in a more pure and clear way that Jesus is the most necessary person in the universe to us. You and I need the grief of various kinds of suffering to learn that he is better than everything. We cannot learn it without the suffering.
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