I Peter 1:3-9
“Precious Faith”
April 19, 2020 – Second Sunday of Easter
When Beth and I were in Nome, Alaska a little over three years ago, I walked out on the frozen Bering Sea. There, just a ways up the ice from me, were a couple of tented structures. Our hosts told us they were gold mining rigs, which sat over holes cut through five or six feet of ice. Divers go down into the icy water hauling huge hoses which suck up material from the sea bottom and sift it for gold. I learned they filmed a reality show about it, “Bering Sea Gold.” I watched a couple episodes when we got back home and marveled at how men and women risked their lives to extract that shiny metal.
One of my thoughts as I watched that show and remembered the cold seeping up into me as I just walked and stood for a few minutes on that ice was, “What kind of person does that? How crazy or brave or tough do you have to be to drop down a hole into frigid depths with your life hanging by a thread of an air hose and a pump the folks up above must keep running for you? What sort of human being does that?”
I don’t know the answer to my question about Alaskan ocean gold miners, but it reminds me of a question that some of the greatest minds, both Christian and non-Christian, have thought is at the heart of a good life. “What kind of people should we be?” Both ancient philosophy and the Bible have answered that question in part with lists of what are sometimes called virtues.
Aristotle and others talked about four cardinal virtues: temperance, fortitude, justice and prudence. Confucius spoke of loyalty, benevolence, filial piety, and trustworthiness, among others. In Scripture we find several lists, like the Beatitudes and the fruit of the Holy Spirit, which call us to be merciful, peaceful, patient, kind, pure and several others. But the short list which crops up all over the New Testament is that which appears at the end of I Corinthians 13: faith, hope, and love.
Last fall as I planned sermons for this year, I asked myself and prayed about that question, “What kind of people should we be?” for Valley Covenant Church. I hoped an answer would spark some ideas for sermons. What came to be was to go back and dwell for a while on those basic three, faith, hope, and love, spending more than one sermon on each of them. So that’s what I planned for this season after Easter and into the summer.
Now as I begin to unfold that plan in the season that is not just Eastertide, but is also the season of coronavirus, it strikes me that sermon plan was providential. I take no credit for it. I am sure God was leading. If you and I are going to get through all the difficulties of this time and come out of it as stronger Christians and remain a strong church together, then it is crystal clear that we will need to be people of faith, hope and love.
Faith comes first in that list of what are sometimes called the “theological virtues,” the virtues we only know about and cherish because we know God. And faith is the virtue by which we know and hope in and love God. In our text, Peter first mentions a “living hope” and an imperishable inheritance kept in heaven, but then in verse 5 we hear the first of at least four mentions of faith as Peter tells his people they “are being protected by the power of God through faith…”
Like those arctic gold miners, we worry about all sorts of earthly valuables. We make jokes about how precious toilet paper is at the moment, and face masks, and eggs. Peter wrote to persecuted Christians around Asia Minor, modern day Turkey. His readers were ostracized and ridiculed by unfriendly neighbors. Christian wives were pressured by non-Christian husbands and Christian slaves were mistreated by pagan masters. Some lost property or lives or jobs because of prejudice. Peter reassured those believers that in the trials they experienced they would lose nothing of real value.
Verse 3 tells us Peter’s scale of value. Everything worthwhile for a Christian is based on the event we celebrated last Sunday, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Because Christ is risen, we have hope—Peter calls it living hope—that we too will be raised with Him and enjoy unending life. In other words, we have the prospect of endless happiness, an infinity of happiness. Anything of finite value is worthless in comparison.
In verse 4, our hope of infinite, happy life is pictured as an inheritance kept in heaven. Through faith in Jesus the Son of God, we have an inheritance as children of God. In contrast to what is inherited on earth, we look forward to riches “that can never perish, spoil or fade.” In the original language those three words make a nice alliteration, something like “that can never die, decay or diminish.” It’s just the opposite of much modern wealth invested in stocks or other financial instruments which, as recent days show, can just fade away as if it had never been. We know as well as ancient Christians did how fleeting earthly inheritance can be. But an inheritance kept by God for us is eternal.
But an inheritance is pointless if one is not around to receive it. Earthly wills have contingencies about how to dispose of an estate if the named heirs do not survive the person leaving it. Verse 5 addresses the other condition for an inheritance. It is not enough that wealth be secure. In addition, the heirs must survive to inherit. Peter assures us that through faith we ourselves are protected, secure, so that when the time comes—when the inheritance which is our salvation in Jesus is finally paid out—we will be able to receive it. By God’s power, both the inheritance and the heirs are secure, through faith.
Everything else Peter has to say here and in the rest of his letter follows from what it means to be people with that faith. He is particularly concerned to tell them and us how such faith deals with suffering and persecution. People whose faith is focused on this life respond to their trials in one way. Christians who have faith in God to protect them to receive something eternal deal with troubles differently.
So verse 6 begins “In this you rejoice,” and continues, “even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials.” Rather than regarding their pain and loss as a setback in progress toward their goals in life, people who faith in God to protect them for eternal salvation regard such trials as moving them closer toward their goals.
Honestly, it sounds crazy. Christian philosopher Eleonore Stump says that it is a view of life and suffering which is completely upside down from our usual attitude.[1] Usually, when bad things happen to good people we ask God why. It feels wrong for those who do right to suffer. Yet Peter tells us there can be a spiritual reason for bad things happening to us. God uses those trials to prove and refine our faith.
Verse 7 explains that suffering on earth is like heat in the refining process which purifies gold. He pictured gold melted down in a crucible. Since most other materials are lighter than gold, impurities float to the surface and may be skimmed off pure gold. By analogy, trials purify and test our faith so it “may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
Thus Peter compares the value of faith to gold. Faith is worth more. Yet faith, like gold, comes mixed with impurities. As Josef Pieper says, that is what makes faith different from simple knowledge.[2] To have faith is not to see some truth with crystal clarity. There is room, as we heard about the apostle Thomas this morning, for doubt. So we have faith, but we doubt. We constantly have trouble believing God. So He lets trials happen to keep refining our faith. God can use suffering to refine and produce a purer faith in us.
That refining of our faith helps us grow in our ability to trust and rely on more than what we can see. It’s a process designed to turn our eyes and hearts away from visible wealth and comfort, and to make us focus on the unseen God and His waiting salvation. In verse 8 Peter echoes the words of Jesus in our Gospel lesson this morning, John 20:29. He said to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” So Peter tells his readers, tells us, “Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy.”
All of us receive that special blessing from Jesus and Peter. None of us have seen with our eyes the one we believe in. Yet Peter says, in the testing and trying of our faith, we love Him nonetheless, and in believing in Jesus whom we have not seen we come to be filled “with “an indescribable and glorious joy.”
God did not directly cause the coronavirus. God does not want millions of people to get sick and thousands to die from it. Yet He does permit such things in this world. He always has. This is not the first pandemic and likely not the last our world will see. God allows suffering to come into our lives. As long as we have visible “means of support,” as they say, we will tend to trust our safety to what we can see. We will rely on financial security, jobs, homes, health, family, and friends. But the trials which come to us can take away some of those visible supports on which our lives are built and force us finally to rest in faith upon the unseen grace of God in Jesus Christ. That is how Peter asked those persecuted Christians long ago to think of their sufferings. It is how God asks us to consider our struggles today.
It makes perfect sense to work at keep yourself secure and supplied during Covid-19 time. I hope you will, in fact, stay home if at all possible, wear a mask if you go out, and wash your hands well and often. If you can, stock up on toilet paper and groceries, and look forward to that stimulus check in the mail. I hope you don’t, but if you need to, apply for unemployment and get your mortgage payment deferred. And listen to knowledgeable authorities about when it will be safe to resume some activities currently on hold. All of that makes very good sense, but as you know, it can be depressing and discouraging.
So I hope that you will also find this time an opportunity to remember that no matter what our time on earth is short. Everything we “stock up,” whether on a shelf or in a brokerage account, is going to belong to someone else one day. Yet we believe in someone who always tells us the truth and He has promised us a security and a wealth that will last forever. Faith in that hope offers us the prospect of a glorious joy, a better prospect than may be obtained by simple, earthly, pragmatic concern for our own welfare.
All of this is very difficult for us, I know. We rare not very used to thinking Peter’s way. We sympathize a great deal with the disciple Thomas who insisted on seeing before he could believe. It is extremely hard for us to stake very much on the unseen, and to view the troubles and suffering we do see as something positive and beneficial for our souls. I know it is hard for me.
Yet what Peter is saying is nothing other than we ought to expect if our faith is true. If Christ is risen and our hope is in fact to be raised with Him, then what we cannot see is far, far more valuable than anything we can see. That eternal, infinite inheritance waiting unseen for us in heaven cancels the value of whatever wealth we may accumulate on earth. Even gold will be left behind for something better.
Moreover, our faith is not entirely blind. We may not yet see Jesus with our eyes, but Peter tells us that we are not completely unaware of His presence. Those words about being “filled with an indescribable and glorious joy” in verse 8 and “receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” in verse 9 are in the present tense. Though we walk by faith and not by sight, we do not walk without the present love, care, and direction of our Lord. As I never get tired of saying, eternal life with Jesus begins now.
In that muck from the bottom of the Bering Sea, the gold is almost invisible. It takes a huge effort to wash away all the worthless dirt and leave just the gold. For Christians, it sometimes takes the huge effort of living through serious trials to remove the worthless distractions which keep us from perceiving the gold of Christ being present now. He is with us already. Sometimes it takes a trial to become aware of it.
I grew up singing the hymns of Fanny J. Crosby. Though I later learned that some of them were pretty weak poetry, simple and sentimental, I also learned the story of her life, which is remarkable. She wrote all those hymns without sight because she was blinded by a quack doctor when she was only six weeks old. Not only did she not see Jesus, she did not see anything. But she loved Jesus and wrote and sang with joy about Him all her long life.
You might think she would have grown up bitter about the medical malpractice which made her blind. But instead she grew up with a joyful faith which only deepened through her life. Her very first poem at age 8 went like this:
Oh, what a happy soul I am,
although I cannot see!
I am resolved that in this world
Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy
That other people don’t,
To weep and sigh because I’m blind
I cannot, and I won’t!
Among the many well-known hymns Crosby wrote is “To God Be the Glory.” The last verse is:
Great things he has taught us,
great things he has done,
and great our rejoicing through Jesus the Son;
but purer and higher and greater will be
our wonder, our transport,
when Jesus we see.
She always said she was happy to be blind because when she got to heaven the first thing she would see would be the face of Jesus. God did not make Fanny Crosby blind. A bad doctor did it. But God used the fact she could not see to build a faith in her that has blessed millions of other people through her poetry and music.
Of course, people like Fanny Crosby seem almost too good to be true. I’d like to say, “Be like her!” But as I worry about coronavirus and what comes next, I find that hard to do myself. I worry that I don’t and won’t have a faith anything like hers. But thankfully, God uses our trials to make even the little faith we have into something better and even joyful which can bless the people around us.
One of my younger Covenant pastor colleagues who served here in the North Pacific once preached years ago at Valley Covenant. She now serves in Florida. She was feeling discouraged as Easter rolled around last week there but she woke up singing that morning anyway. Then on Monday she got this message:
Dear Pastor Sarah,
We live in the neighborhood across the lake from you… We have said hello to you many times when out walking past the church and your house.
We got up yesterday to watch the sunrise as it is our tradition to attend Easter sunrise services at our church. We heard you singing at sunrise and it meant so much to us. Particularly so on this Easter morning as a very dear friend of ours passed away the night before. We woke up filled with grief and hearing your voice reminded us of His promise of hope and victory over death.
Peter said that even though we cannot see Jesus right now, to believe in Him fills us “with indescribable and glorious joy.” That joy is more contagious than any virus which can afflict us. It is greater than all the grief the world can give us. When we live in what faith we have at the moment, our Lord will produce the outcome, the salvation of our souls and of others. Even the smallest faith is more precious than gold.
My prayer for this time is that you too can feel your faith being refined like the gold it is. Most of all, I hope and pray that in every trouble that comes you will know the glorious joy which is given now through the living presence of Jesus unseen. And may such joy carry you through whatever you face to the day when you see His face. He will shine like gold, revealed as the precious Savior who has always been here with us.
Amen.
Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2020 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj
[1] “Aquinas on the Sufferings of Job,” in Reasoned Faith (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 343.
[2] See Belief and Faith: A Philosophical Tract translated by Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Random House, 1963), chapter V.