Trial: Temptation from Sin

"Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your hope and faith are in God."

(1 Peter 1:13-21 NIV)

We are tempted to sin in two ways:

1. To go back to our old way of life

2. To stop believing that God will help and will be there for us in our future.

Peter writes this section to give those under trial some hope and to encourage them to persevere. To understand what he is trying to say, it is necessary to define what Peter means by 'hope'. He defines hope as a "confident certainty in God", therefore our hope should have Jesus as it's foundation since:

- (1 Peter 1:3) Jesus is alive and so our hope is alive

- (1 Peter 1:13) Jesus is coming back and will give us grace

- (1 Peter 1:21) Our hope should only be in Jesus and all the he is

The problem is, once we lose hope in God, we stop changing, learning, growing and repenting. In other words, once we stop hoping in God, we stop trying and so we start dying.

Listed below are 6 ways we can hope:

1. I can be a wise learner (1 Peter 1:13)

- Hear God's word: listen to sermons, download an audio Bible, listen to good, sound teaching on God, download theology seminars from websites (Reformed Theological seminary allows free downloads of it's courses)

- Read God's word: don't just rely on other people to tell you what God's word says. Read it for yourself, so that you can be informed of the truth and know how to recognise sound or false teaching. Be like the Bereans (Acts 17:11).

- Memorise God's word: this can be individual verses or whole books of the Bible. Start small and work up to it.

- Study God's word: don't just read the Bible. There are different ways to study it like inductive Bible studies, reading around in history, looking at the context of the book and getting a good study Bible.

- Discuss God's word: share what you've learned with others and learn from their insights.

2. I can be a sober thinker (1 Peter 1:13)

- This is a result of studying the word of God and being absorbed in it. The more you study, the more you will be able to make sound, biblical decisions.

3. I can be a grace seeker (1 Peter 1:13)

- When we are focussed on what we lack, we are unable to see God's grace in our lives. The idea here is to make a conscious decision to look for God's hand in our lives, even the small things of each day. Another way is to listen to the stories of others, how God is helping someone get through cancer, how God is helping a couple to restore their marriage; God's grace is all around us and we need to open our eyes to see it, so that our hope can be strengthened and we will persevere because the same God who's been faithful to them will also be faithful to you.

4. I can be a holy worshipper (1 Peter 1:14-16)

- Holiness is the attribute most mentioned in the Bible when describing God. Holiness means to be set apart and to be completely other from anything else. Striving to be holy in everything we do is an act of worship. Being holy is not something we have to be to get God to love us. He already does! In loving us, he enables us to obey him and it is by his love that we are transformed into someone more like him - someone holy!

5. I can be a ransomed sinner (1 Peter 1:17-19)

- Just like the Israelites were exiles in Egypt under the cruel taskmaster, Pharoah, though their home was the promised land, we were exiles in the world under the sin as a cruel taskmaster. Our 'promised land' is heaven. Jesus came, died and rose again to free us from sin and one day we will be in heaven with him.

- However, just like the Israelites complained once they had been freed from slavery and longed for the 'good old days' in Egypt, we too lose sight of what we have in Jesus and look back on our life before Christ and sometimes long for it. We romanticise our sin and think of ourselves freer than we are now, forgetting that we were slaves to sin.

- We have to realise that our slavery to sin is voluntary. Nobody else puts us into that position. Unfortunately, we only realise that we are once again a slave to sin once it's 'shackles' are on us.

- But just like God sent Moses to rescue his people from slavery in Egypt, he sent Jesus to free us from our slavery to sin. With Jesus we can overcome sin and not just manage it. He can release us from our addictions.

6. I can be a legacy leaver (1 Peter 1:19)

- In Jesus, we are freed from the legacy given to us by our family. We do not have to continue in the same way our families did before. With Jesus's help, we can change and leave a new legacy for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We can change and transform our family history.

The last point is why we should have our hope in Jesus . This is what is covered in 1 Peter 1:20-21. Before we can put our hope in Jesus, we have to see him as he really is. The view we tend to have of him is a weak, passive person, but that is not how Isaiah saw him in Isaiah 6 or as John saw him in Revelation. He is strong, powerful, he has been glorified and now sits at the right hand of God. This is the Jesus we have our hope in. He will never fail us and he will see us through to the very end.

Trial and Scripture

So we come to sermon number 3.

"Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things."

(1 Peter 1:10-12 NIV)

The Bible is a history book, which tells us of our need of salvation and a Saviour. It is full of prophecy that culminates in the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus. No other religion has the amount of prophecy that our Scriptures have. The writers and prophets in the Bible did not write just their own ideas, but they were divinely inspired by God through the Spirit and so essentially, it is God who wrote the Bible. The Bible, therefore, is not speculation and it's main theme is grace - the story of us, ill-deserving sinners, pursued and saved by God. This also makes the most perfect thing on this earth the Bible.

There are only three things that the Bible is about:

1. Salvation

2. by Grace

3. through the suffering and glory of Jesus

This is where the doctrine of Verbal Plenary Inerrancy comes in. This is the doctrine that means that you have to take the whole Bible, all it says and all the words and ideas, at it's word. There is not one part of the Bible that can be left out or thought to be useless. Some might think that the Old Testament is obsolete and useless, but we have to remember that when Jesus preached to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, the only Bible there was was the Old Testament and he showed them how it all spoke about his birth, death, resurrection and how God would save his people. Moreover, in this passage, Peter is referring to the Old Testament and saying that it was written by God because no-one other than God could know the future and bring it to pass.

Following is the summary of some of the prophecies about Jesus:

700 BC: Isaiah 7:14

The Lord will give you a sign - a pregnant virgin, who will give birth to a son.

700 BC: Micah 5:2

God will be born in Bethlehem, an inconsequential town, as a baby.

400 BC: Malachi 3:1

Before he comes, he will send a messenger - this we now know was John the Baptist. Also, God is coming to his temple, therefore, it had to have been before 70 AD when the temple was destroyed, which implies he has already come.

700 BC: Isaiah 35:5-6

God on earth would perform many miracles including healing the blind, deaf and lame.

500 BC: Zechariah 11:12-13

Jesus would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver and this betrayer would throw the money back into a specific part of the temple, namely where the potter was.

1000 BC: Psalm 22:16

A band of men would surround Jesus and crucify him by piercing his hand is feet. This is one of the more astounding prophecies because crucifixion was not invented until a few hundred years later.

700 BC: Isaiah 53:6-11

The end of Isaiah 52 and the whole of Isaiah 53 is packed full of messianic prophecies. The suffering servant would come, be sinless, he will bear all our sins, we have all wandered away from God, he would be buried in a rich man's tomb, and then he would be resurrected and give salvation to his people. If this isn't talking about Jesus, who does it describe?

Religious people tend to moralise the Bible, looking at it as a book full of inspiring stories that will enlighten us, but this takes us away from the hero of the Bible - Jesus! The Bible is not just information, it is about transformation. Informing ourselves and being intelligent is good, but the whole point of the Bible is telling us about Jesus and enabling us to love him. The Bible is all about Jesus and it is only about Jesus.

To believe in the Bible requires faith and this comes from God. A by-product of faith is holiness. So by faith, we will love him more and by loving him more, we will become more like him, therefore, we will be holy.

Another point is that the Old Testament was written by prophets, but the New Testament was written by eye-witnesses. The prophets were told about what the apostles saw and experienced. The New Testament is all about eye-witness accounts and so it was not made up. Peter says in 2 Peter 1:16-18 that what they wrote was not "cleverly invented stories". Along with this verse, there are other verses in the New Testament which back up the fact that the Bible was not made up - 2 Timothy 3:16 (scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, training and correcting), 2 Peter 1:20-21 (the prophet's were inspired and didn't make it up) and in 2 Peter 3:15-16 (Peter refers to Paul's letters as Scripture). Not accepting the truth of the Bible reveals a hardness of heart.

Finally, there are two ways to view Scripture:

1. You have authority over it and so you can pick and choose what you believe.

2. You are under the authority of Scripture and so you change your mind, repent and submit to it in humility.

Peter ends this section by saying that all this is so wonderful that even the angels long to look into it. Fallen angels have no chance of repentance, but we fallen humans have a chance to repent and be saved because of Jesus. They have no hope, but we have hope in Jesus. He has given us a way out of this life of sin and a way into an eternity in heaven with him. :)

Trial and Jesus

Trial and Jesus

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade - kept in heaven for you, 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. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus is revealed. 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, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

(1 Peter 1:3-9 NIV)

The main focus of this sermon was on verse 6 - grieved by various trials, but greatly rejoicing. Trials are what all of us go through at various stages of our lives and this causes many of us to be grieved. There is no sin in grieving because Jesus was also grieved by his suffering. As Christians, we should not hide behind the lie that we should be smiley, happy, positive people all the time.

Grieving takes many forms. It can be a heaviness that hangs over us, anxiety about the future leading to difficulty in getting to sleep, dread, fear, malignant sadness, deep sorrow, weeping, despair and depression. In these times, our friends will try to counsel us and sometimes this causes us more pain. They may be like Job's friends asking us to confess sin believing that God sent the trial to punish us. They may also be painful friends in that they don't seek to understand and grieve you, but tell you instead to 'be positive' or that 'you're a winner'. This is because many of us fail to realise that sorrow and trial are a very real part of being a Christian that the Bible talks about sorrows as well as joys. What we have to remember is that Jesus was described in Isaiah as the 'man of sorrows' and that Jesus was not immune to sorrow and suffering.

Another lie is that in grief, Jesus will fix everything. The Bible does not say this. Of course, in the midst of trial, it is not wrong to pray that God will deliver us from it, but it may not be his will to do so. False teachers claim that God will fix it if you pray hard enough or have enough faith, but this will only lead to more pain because what if it doesn't happen? What will you do then? The Bible does promise, however, that God will get us through our trial and that he will be there with us. The purpose of trial is to purify us so that we can be more like Jesus.

The correct response to suffering and trial is to rejoice. This is not a feeling that you can muster up, but an action that we should will ourselves to perform. Later I'll list the 10 reasons in the text for us to rejoice, but for now, these are some more natural responses to trial:

- You judge God - just because the trial may obscure God, does not mean that he ceases to be God or that he ceases to be good.

- You envy people - you want what they have because they are not suffering like you, but envy is a sin.

- Fall into self-pity - not only is this a form of pride, but it causes you to focus on yourself and takes your focus off God.

- You run to a 'functional saviour' - you go to alcohol, a boyfriend/girlfriend, sex, food or anything else other than God, but instead of relieving the trial, it only exacerbates it.

Once again, the correct response, though it doesn't come naturally to us, is to rejoice. It is not wrong to feel grief, but we should respond in rejoicing. We should give God the glory and focus on the weightiness and importance of God instead of the weightiness and importance of the trial.

Here are 10 reasons and ways that Peter gives to rejoice:

1. Verse 3: "In his great mercy" - a lot of our trials are a result of sin, but God is present, loving and affectionate. The world is not full of mercy, but God is.
2. Verse 3: "he has given us new birth" - he has caused us to be born again. He has given us salvation and therefore, a complete re-orientation of who we are.
3. Verse 3: "living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" - because Jesus has conquered death and is alive, the source of our hope is also alive.
4. Verse 4: "into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade" - the treasure in heaven that we store up instead of here on earth will never be destroyed.
5. Verse 4: "kept in heaven for you" - this is a reminder that the earth is not ultimately our home, but heaven is. One day, this will all get better because we will be with our saviour for eternity.
6. Verse 5: "shielded by God's power" - our salvation is secure. When you don't feel like you can hold on to God, he will hold on to you. When you feel like you can't walk with him, he will carry you.
7. Verse 6: "though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief" - a little while refers to our life here on earth, which is long, but looks like a day in comparison to eternity.
8. Verse 7: " These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine" - trial really purifies our faith just like fire purifies gold. For this reason, many of the godliest people we know are the ones who have suffered the most. Don't rejoice in the trial, rejoice in the result of the trial. To God, your faith is much more precious than gold.
9. Verse 8: "Though you have not seen him, you love him" - and though we do not see him, he loves us.
10. Verse 8: "though you do not see him now, you believe in him" - it is in trial that we see if we really believe in him.

And finally in verse 9 we have the whole reason of the trial which will give us yet another reason to rejoice - "for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls". We shouldn't forget that the sanctifying work of the Spirit in our lives is not instantaneous. We are a work in progress and trial is one way God uses to sanctify us and make us more like him.

I hope in this you don't misunderstand. Mark Driscoll does not want us to sing and dance because we are suffering in a masochistic way. He merely means that we should rejoice in anticipation of where the trial will bring us - closer to God, deeper into our knowledge of him and ultimately, we will be more like Jesus and because of these things, we should rejoice.

Trial and Sin

Going to try a new thing. See what you think. I am basically going to write what I've learned from Mark Driscoll's sermons on Trial (1 and 2 Peter). I might also intersperse it with things I've noted from John Piper's book "Battling Unbelief". I don't know. I hope it encourages your walk.

Trial and Sin

"Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To God's elect, stranger in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood:

Grace and peace be yours in abundance."

(1 Peter 1:1-2 NIV)

Though these are just 2 verses, in these two verses we get all the truth of our salvation - namely that we are elect, we have been chosen by God, we are sanctified by the Spirit and therefore we can obey Jesus.

I don't know what your viewpoint is on election and predestination. I don't mean to cause a stir, but in these verses we are told that we are elect and God foreknew us. We know from Romans 3:10-18 that we didn't seek God because we were lost and we all sought our own way. Despite our unwillingness to follow God, God chose us and enabled us to have a relationship with him. We didn't do anything to deserve his grace and yet he pours it out on us anyway.

We know from the outpouring of his grace that God is never going to fail us and we are never going to surprise him with our sin. On the cross, Jesus died for our sins - past, present and future. We are no longer condemned, but have been given the right as sons and daughters to approach the throne of grace which we can approach in prayer.

Once we believe by faith in the truth of our salvation, we are given the Holy Spirit, who works in us to sanctify us, which means he is transforming us from the inside out so that we may one day be like Jesus. Phillipians 1:6 reminds us that we are a work in progress, but that God will finish what he started. The Spirit also transforms our desires, so that the closer we are brought to God, the more we desire to get closer.

Peter also refers to us as 'strangers'. The ESV uses the word 'exiles' instead, which makes his idea a lot clearer. The world is not our home, but heaven is. To make the world home is to make yourself depressed. It can't satisfy because we are being made for an eternity with our Saviour. This doesn't mean that life on earth is easy. To be a Christian means to be at war and we will be persecuted.

Persecution comes in two forms. In the West, what we experience may be verbal persecution - snide remarks by friends and colleagues, people maligning Christians, people calling us all stupid and misguided, etc. This gradually eats away at us and takes away our joy. The persecution that our brothers and sisters in the East face is physical. They put us to shame because they face up to it, but we merely try to be politically correct and sometimes say nothing at all.

There are 5 ways to respond to our form of persecution:

- Be liberal - take what seems palatable from the Bible and leave behind the things that make us uncomfortable

- Privatise your faith - keep silent and keep your faith to yourself without sharing it with anyone

- Quit - life as a Christian is too hard, so we give up under pressure

- Be fundamental - instead of loving our enemies and showing them gentleness, we fight against them

Or

- Live as an exile - this means living as a missionary and living differently, not for our glory, but for God's glory.

I don't know what this looks like, but the early Christians loved their enemies in such a way that they too became fellow followers of Christ. We are to do this too. It is easy to retaliate and not love, but we are to love and forgive others as Jesus has loved and forgiven us. This is really scary, but we have to look at Peter as an example. He was, at the beginning of his faith, like us - someone who was afraid and affected by what people thought of him. The New Testament gives us two examples of when Peter caved in to the fear of man - when he denied Jesus three times and when he followed the Judaisers, who expected the Gentile Christians to live as Jews. However, church history records that Peter was so transformed later in his life that he was willing to die crucified upside-down instead of denying Jesus.

Like Peter, we should keep our eyes on Jesus and trust in the sanctifying work of the Spirit. If we persevere in our faith, we too will be transformed so that we will pay more attention to what God thinks of us and not what people think of us. By God's grace, I hope we will all become people who will be bold for Jesus and will be vessels God uses to bring people to Him and to disciple them.