Trials and Glory - Part 1 - 1 Peter 1:6-12

If you are in the furnaces of life, don't look for reasons. Don't look for explanations. Look for deepening relationships to your Lord. That is what really counts.

Well, there are many things about the Christian life that we just cannot explain. I can't explain why God does what He does, why He permits what He permits to happen. But my Christian life is not built on reasons. We do not live on explanations; we live on promises. And promises involve relationships. I can get explanations from strangers on the street. I can stop someone and say, "How do I get to the post office?" and he can explain it to me. But I wonder if a stranger would give me a promise.

The Christian life is not built on explanations; it's built on promises, and that means relationship. Some Christians build their Christian life on results. If God doesn't do certain things, they get angry, they get bitter. Some build their Christian life just on empty rituals; they're going through the motions. Well, Peter tells us in 1 Peter 1:6 that the Christian life is built on relationships, relationships to the Lord Jesus Christ.

You know, the trials of life that we go through reveal the kind of relationships that we have. This is what Peter has to say in 1 Peter 1:6: "In this ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold trials: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls."

Trials reveal the kind of relationships that we have because trials test our faith, and faith is a relationship, isn't it? Trials have a way of verifying our faith, proving whether or not it's really true. Trials have a way of purifying our lives. Trials have a way of glorifying our Lord. And Peter describes here a fourfold relationship to Jesus Christ, a fourfold relationship that will transform our trials into glory. That's what he's talking about. He's talking about going through the furnaces of life and coming out on the other side glorifying God.

Now nobody, anywhere in the Bible or outside of the Bible, ever said that the trials of life are easy. The Christian life is not easy. The Christian life is not a playground; it's a battleground. And the closer you get to the Lord, the more the enemy attacks you. And the more you seek to live for the Lord, the more difficult it seems to become. But if we would cultivate this fourfold relationship to the Lord, what a difference it will make. Remember now, if you are in the furnaces of life, don't look for reasons. Don't look for explanations. Look for deepening relationships to your Lord. That is what really counts.

And Peter tells us there's a fourfold relationship: loving, believing, rejoicing, and receiving. Let me repeat that now. You'll find these four relationships in 1 Peter 1:8-9. "Whom having not seen, ye love"—loving. "In whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory"—so we have loving, believing, rejoicing. And then 1 Peter 1:9, "Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls."

Let's start with 1 Peter 1:8, loving: "Whom having not seen, ye love." You see, the love of the Lord Jesus Christ for us is something so wonderful that we can't comprehend it. We love because He first loved us. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." It's so easy for us to talk about our love for the Lord, but when you're going through the furnaces of life, when you're going through the fire, it's difficult to really express our love for the Lord. Sometimes people get bitter. They get angry. They turn their back on the Lord. They say, "I'm going to stop praying, I'm going to stop reading the Bible, God is mean to me." Peter says, no, when you're going through the furnaces of life, just remember, we don't walk by sight, we walk by faith. Notice what he says: "Whom having not seen, ye love." These people had never seen the Lord Jesus. "In whom, though now ye see him not." In other words, this love is not based on sight. We talk about love at first sight. Well, this love is not based on sight.

We have never seen Jesus Christ. And when I read about people or hear about people who tell me about their visions, that they saw the Lord Jesus, I think about this verse: "Whom having not seen, ye love." We don't have to have a vision of the Lord Jesus to love Him. We have the Word. We have the Holy Spirit. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit of God. We don't have a love that's based on sight or that's based on shallow feeling. We don't try to manufacture and work up some kind of devotional feeling. No, we just simply love Him. And the best way to show that we love Him is to obey Him. John 14:15: "If ye love me, keep my commandments." This must be why Peter talks so much about obedience. In 1 Peter 1:2, he talks about obedience. Also in 1 Peter 1:14, as obedient children. In 1 Peter 1:22, obeying the truth through the Spirit. Loving. Now when you're hurting, when life is difficult, when you're wondering what God is doing, just get closer to the Lord and love Him. That's all. Just love Him. Tell Him that you love Him. Bask in His love, receive His love, and share your love with Him. Loving, that's the first.

The second relationship is believing. "Though now ye see him not, yet believing." Believing what? Believing His Word. Love always encourages faith. When you love somebody, you trust that person. Over in 1 Peter 2:7, "Unto you therefore who believe he is precious." You see, when Jesus Christ is precious to you, you love Him and you believe Him. You believe His Word. Once again, I would remind you, we do not walk by sight, we walk by faith. You say, "I don't see what God is doing." I don't either, but I don't have to. I don't see where this is going to lead me. Well, I don't know either, but God knows. You'll recall what our Lord Jesus said to Thomas in John 20:29: "Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." Gideon said, "Now Lord, show me some signs," and he put the fleece out, and God condescended to stoop to Gideon's level and give him those signs. But you know, we don't have to have signs or wonders or evidences that God is going to do His will. Believing. When you love someone, you trust them. Believing the Word of God.

Now the third relationship is also found in 1 Peter 1:8, rejoicing. "Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Now he's not telling us here to rejoice because of our circumstances. It's no easy thing to lie in a hospital bed or to be by an open grave and to say, "Well, I'm rejoicing in my circumstances." We know all things work together for good. We know God is in control. What he's saying is this: because you believe in the Lord and because you love the Lord, you will experience a rejoicing; it is a joy unspeakable. Now that means you can't express it. There are no words to express the joy that we experience. You say, "Well, how can you have joy in the midst of heaviness and trial?" That's the gift of God. It's the work of the Holy Spirit of God. It's a glorious joy. Joy unspeakable and full of glory. Now notice, the joy doesn't come first. I meet people who say, "Oh, I wish I had joy." Wait a minute, it starts with love. "Whom having not seen, ye love." And when you love someone, you trust that person. "Whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing." Ah, then what's the result? "Ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory."

I've met a lot of people who want to have the joy, but they won't share the love. I've met people who want to have the joy, but they won't believe the promises. Which leads us to the fourth of these relationships: receiving. "Receiving the end of your faith"—the thing your faith was destined to produce, the purpose of your faith, the logical result of all this process—"even the salvation of your souls." Now the word "souls" doesn't mean just some little part of you. Peter uses the word "soul" to mean the whole person. In 1 Peter 2:25, "ye are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls." That means your life. He's watching over you. The soul represents the whole person. He's talking here about something happening to me because I'm going through trial. What is that something? Salvation.

Now there is a future salvation yet to be experienced. 1 Peter 1:5: "unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." That's talking about the consummation of this whole process. But there's something for us now. "You are receiving," is what the Greek says in 1 Peter 1:9. You are receiving right now the purpose for which you believed in Jesus Christ, namely the salvation of your whole person. There is a process of sanctification, a process of blessing that goes on in your life when you experience this fourfold relationship to the Lord. You see, the more you love Him, the more you trust Him. And the more you trust Him, the more you're going to rejoice in Him. And the more you rejoice in Him, the more you're going to receive what He has for you. Believing, receiving. Notice the sequence now: love Him, believe in Him, rejoice in Him, receive from Him. Receive the purposes that He has for your life and for the trials that you are going through.

The theme of 1 Peter 1:1-12 is God's grace in salvation. Well, when we start taking that for granted, we are in trouble spiritually, aren't we? Oh, the wonder of it all. The wonder that God would love us, the wonder that God would send His Son for us, the wonder that God would reserve a place in heaven for us. Oh, the wonder of it all, and yet we take it for granted.

In 1 Peter 1:10-12, the Apostle Peter introduces us to two groups of persons who were lost in the wonder of salvation: the inquiring prophets and the inquisitive angels. Now the interesting thing is this: the angels cannot experience salvation. But the prophets could experience salvation and they wrote about that salvation and they inquired into it. Let's read the text. 1 Peter 1:10: "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when he testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into."

It's interesting that he puts together the inquiring prophets and the inquisitive angels. But both of these groups, each of these groups is saying to us: look, don't lose the wonder of your salvation. When your body hurts, when circumstances are difficult, when nothing is going right, just stop and praise God for the wonder of your salvation. Remember, Peter was writing to people who were going through a fiery trial. In 1 Peter 4:12, he told them about the fiery trial that was going to try them. And the best way to be prepared for a fiery trial is to make sure that you are just thrilled with the wonder of your salvation.

Let's look now at the inquiring prophets. What Peter does in these verses is correct some misunderstandings that people have about the Old Testament scriptures. You know, I meet people who say, "Well, Brother Wiersbe, I enjoy reading the Gospel of John, or I enjoy Romans or Revelation." Well, do you ever read the Old Testament? "Well, not too much." Well, why? Well, number one, they say, "Well, the Old Testament's a book of condemnation." That's not what Peter said. Peter said that the Old Testament is a book of salvation. "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you." People say, "Well, the Old Testament's a book of law." Peter says it's a book of grace. The Old Testament writers had as their theme, not condemnation, but salvation. Beginning at Genesis 3:15 when God gave the first promise of a Redeemer and continuing all the way through the Old Testament, you find the thread of salvation running straight and true.

You see, the whole theme of the Old Testament is the salvation of God. Why did God call Abraham? That he might bring a Savior into the world and that Abraham might be the father of the believing. Why did he call the Jewish nation and give them the law? To prepare the way for the coming of Christ. Why did he call Isaiah the prophet? That he might talk about the sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus. All the way through the Old Testament scriptures, God is saying salvation, salvation. The message is about the Lord Jesus Christ. There's only one plan of salvation in the Bible. Let's make that very clear. Though God has different stages and ages in His revelation and in the working out of His plan, there is only one plan of salvation. Abraham was saved by faith. David was saved by faith. Romans 4 tells us that. Noah was saved by faith. Hebrews 11 tells us that. All the way through the scriptures, there's only one plan of salvation and there's only one theme, and that's Jesus Christ and God's gracious salvation.

The second misunderstanding that Peter corrects is this: people say the Old Testament was just written for the Jews; it was not written for us today. May I remind you that the whole Bible is a Jewish book? Salvation is of the Jews, said Jesus to the woman at the well in John 4. And the Bible is of the Jews. Were it not for the Jewish nation, we would not have this precious, precious Word of God. But this book was written for all of us, not just for the Jews. Notice, please, these prophets were searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them did signify, when he testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you.

In other words, what Isaiah was saying, Jeremiah, and all the prophets was for us. You see, the early church had only one Bible: the Old Testament. They didn't have a New Testament; it was being written. When Philip led that Ethiopian to faith in Jesus Christ, he used Isaiah 53. When the early apostles preached, they preached from the Old Testament. You can lead people to Christ from the Old Testament scriptures. And someone says, "Well, the Old Testament's just for the Jews." No, the Old Testament's for everybody. Do you ever turn to the Old Testament scriptures and let God encourage you? We read in 1 Corinthians 10:11, "Now all these things happened"—happened unto them in the Old Testament—"for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." In other words, the Word of God can save us, the Word of God can encourage us, the Word of God admonishes and warns us. The Old Testament scriptures are for us today.

There's a third misunderstanding that Peter corrects. He says the Old Testament is a message of salvation, not condemnation. It's written for all of us, not just for the Jews. And it is easier for us to understand it today. Isn't that interesting? You can know more about the plan of God today than Isaiah did when he was prophesying. That's an interesting statement, and it's true. We read that when our Lord walked with those Emmaus disciples, He opened their understanding that they might understand the scriptures. What did He do? Well, Luke 24:27: "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures"—that's the Old Testament scriptures—"the things concerning himself."

In other words, today we have the privilege of reading a whole Bible. David didn't have that privilege. Moses didn't have that privilege. I know they had other privileges that perhaps we don't have today. Moses saw the glory of God with his own eyes. We don't see that today. But we have the privilege of studying the whole Word of God, which means we have a greater responsibility and a greater obligation. The inquiring prophets are saying to us today: don't ignore your Bible. It's written for you, Old Testament and New Testament. The Holy Spirit who wrote it will help you to understand it. Oh, the privilege you have of inquiring into the wonder of God's salvation.