I just want to say, "Just live what you've just sung, and you'll be okay. Wow!" Thank you very much. Let me lead us in prayer one more time: Lord, we are poor and weak and hungry, and we come with excitement and anticipation to sit at your banquet table. Will you, as you've promised, come near to us and feed us from your Word, we would pray. In Jesus name, Amen. I don't know how much you've thought about this or not, but your life hasn't worked according to your plan. Last week didn't work according to your plan.
Your Story Is Being Written by Another
From the look of some of you, today didn't work according to your plan. Your story is being written by another. I know that your life hasn't worked according to your plan. I know another thing...that you're always trying to figure your life out. It is an intensely human thing to do. Everyone in this room, whether you realize it or not, is a theologian; everyone in this room is a philosopher. Everyone in this room is an archaeologist who digs through the mound of his existence in order to make sense out of his world.
And maybe the two most significant questions for a believer that rattles around in our minds and hearts all the time is, is this: What in the world is God doing, right here, right now? What is He doing? If you had a pencil and a piece of paper and you were going to write an answer to that, what is God working on? What is he doing right now, what would you write? And maybe the corollary question is important as well: What in the world is God doing, and how in the world am I to respond to it? My dear father was a hard-working man; he believed in the Protestant work ethic; he believed that work wasn't a curse; work was a dignity.
He got up every day and he worked hard. He was the first one up; he was the last one to go to bed. My dad had some businesses in our house besides the job that he had, and when he worked at home, he wanted all of us to work. I enjoyed that growing up. That's a lie. But the one thing that disappointed my dad was a piece of the "American Dream" that he was never able to enjoy; and that was, he was never able to buy a brand-new car, and that sort of bothered him. And, this will sort of age me, but that's okay; in 1959, that seems like centuries ago, my dad was able to cobble together enough money to buy (and this won't mean anything to most of you, but I'll explain) a 1959 Plymouth Belvidere-- that's a car.
I'll have to explain this car to you. In those days, cars had big fins on the back of them, like the fin of a shark. This thing had great big fins on the back of it; you couldn't drive this car in the wind. And it was real cool for cars to be two-tone, not just one color. This car was painted peach and cream; it looked like a bad mobile dessert. And the interior was all white, and it was a fake leather substance called "Naugahyde". Naugahyde would get very sticky in the heat, and so you'd get to a certain degree where you would say to the person next to you, "I want to get out of the car, but I can't."
Now, my dad was so excited about this car; this was his dream. I can remember him wheeling this thing into our driveway; he called for all of us to come out to look at this "whatever". And he had us rub our hands across the fins. We sat behind that big ivory steering wheel. We stuck to the Naugahyde! He was so excited; that was Friday. Saturday, he decided that, if he had a new car, he ought to join an American automobile club called the American Automobile Association; it just seemed right to do.
They would give you inexpensive insurance; they would help you map out trips. He just thought, "If I'm going to have a new car, I am going to join the club." And so, he piled my brother, Mark, and me in the car, we were little guys, and he wheeled us down to the center of the city in Toledo, Ohio, in the USA, where I was born. He was probably driving faster than he should; he wheeled this big boat into the parking lot of the American Automobile Association, was blinded by the sun, and crashed it on a post in the middle of the lot.
I mean it was destroyed! Smoking! He got out of the car and said, "I might as well join the club anyway;" walked to the front door, only to discover that it was closed on Saturday. And, I'll never forget my dear dad, standing in front of his car because it frightened me and screaming: "What in the world is going on?" Now, if you haven't experienced one of those moments, you probably will someday. And if you haven't experienced one, you're probably near someone who is...one of those moments when you can't make sense out of what God is doing...one of those moments where it seems like God is distant, His plan seems unclear, where you're in a moment you never thought you would be in.
And you say, "God where are you? God what are you doing? God, what is this about? I thought You were love; I thought You were mercy; I thought You were grace. God, I don't understand." I want you to hear what I'm about to say, "You simply can't make sense of that moment without eternity, you can't." It's only from the perspective of eternity that those dark moments, those painful moments, those moments of despondency and aloneness, and surprise and discouragement, become moments of grace and moments of glory and moments of rest.
It's only when I look at them from the vantage of eternity that those moments get transformed into something different. Turn if you would in your Bibles, to I Peter. I love, love, love, I Peter. I love it because Peter is writing the gospel to people who are suffering, and, so again, Peter has this balance between just being so honest, moments being uncomfortably honest, honest enough to make you squirm, but, at the same time, being so hopeful at the very same time. I want to read for you just verses three through nine of I Peter, chapter 1: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Born Again to a Living Hope
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 unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power of being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time. In this you greatly 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 glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; though you have not seen Him, you love Him though you do not see Him now, 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.
These verses in I Peter, have what I would call a "then-then-now" construction...a "thenthen-now" construction. This passage is meant to be a story summary. It literally wraps its arms around the entire plan of redemption. It's an amazing passage. It looks to the 'then' of the past. It looks to the 'then' of the future, and it focuses on the now-ism of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the reason it does that is Peter understands he can't possibly understand this moment that we are in, unless it is connected to the history of God's work and the future of God's work.
You must always look at the present in the light of the whole plan of redemption, because, literally, what's happening is the whole magnificent plan of redemption is actually being played out in this moment. This moment isn't isolated; this moment isn't abstract; this moment isn't somehow unique and cut off. This moment that I'm in is connected to the historical plan of God and connected to the future plan of God, and you must not ever try, in isolation, to dispatch this moment and examine it because you'll never understand the now-ism of the work of God, the present grace of God, the present plan of God, when you detach it from the whole redemption of God.
That's why as Peter wants to launch into the question for the rest of I Peter: What in the world is God doing? And, why in the world is He doing it? And, He can't possibly do that without embedding in the past and embedding in the future--that is it...'then, then-now.' Now his real focus is the here and now. But he's got to attach for us. It's the vitality of theological connectivity; that's what is. It's the vitality of theological connectivity. You can't ever view a moment in your life as disconnected from the larger plan of God.
It is vital that you live with theological connectivity. That's this passage. Now, notice what he does first. "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." Now, I don't know how you understand those words, but I just want to encourage you to think that Peter is doing more than celebrating new birth. He is doing that and he's saying, "Don't you understand you've been born again?"
What an amazing thing! Life has been breathed into your dead spirit by the grace of God. He surely is saying that, but actually what Peter is doing is summarizing everything that's happened from the beginning of time, before the foundations of the earth, all the way up to this process of new birth. Here's what he is saying, "Don't you understand what God has been doing? He's harnessed the forces of nature; He's controlled the events of human history because He's marching this broken world to this point where the Son of God would come, live a perfect life, die an acceptable death, rise and conquer death, so that you would know new birth.
All of history has been marching toward the grace of new birth. This is your history. Listen, when you read the Old Testament, you're not just reading the dusty details of saints of the past, you're reading your spiritual biography--because every judge and every king in every situation, every provision, every victory, every prophecy was for you because God had chosen to work history so, at some point in time, you would receive new birth. Praise him! Praise him! Praise him! If that doesn't excite you, I'm in trouble.
And then he looks to the 'then' of the future. Oh this stuff is just mind-boggling to me. I don't have the ability to give it justice. "To an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, 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." You have a spiritual trust fund that cannot be touched. What an amazing thing! I know how precious that is because I've lived through the downturn of the American economy. All of my savings are in stocks.
I lost a third of my retirement. God's sovereign! Praise Him! What an amazing thing that this is an inheritance, spiritual wealth, glorious spiritual wealth, that cannot be touched. And just about when you're celebrating that, it says this, "It's kept in heaven for you, you who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time." This is mind-boggling! Imagine your investment person not only guarding your inheritance, but saying, "I'm going to guard you.
The Best Security Guard
I'm going to give you the best dietitian; I'm going to give you the best physician; I'm going to give you the best security guard; so that you will be healthy and well and ready to receive the inheritance when it comes due." That's what this passage is talking about. God is not just guarding your inheritance, he's guarding you. Past...my spiritual heritage, literally moving back to the foundations of the earth; my spiritual future, coursing into eternity, sure and guaranteed. But all Peter is doing is creating for you vital theological connectivity because what he's actually interested in is 'now'.
Notice where the next verse goes, "In this you greatly rejoice though", (what's the next word) "now"-that's his topic of interest, and before we look at 'now', I want to look at verses four and five again, verses four and five point you to eternity. Look at verse seven, verse seven points you to eternity. So here's what Peter's doing; he has created for us theological connectivity. But he has done something else. In the midst of that theological connectivity, what he wants to do is have you look at "now" through the particular lens of eternity.
So he's bracketed verse six with four and five-- eternity; seven and beyond--eternity. Do you get what the passage is doing? Salvation past, salvation future, salvation now, looking at "now" through the particular lens of eternity; there is your passage. Now, I want to warn you; you need to fasten your seatbelts because this gets wild. I gave you warning; some of you laughed. When you fall out of your seats, I told you. Now, notice what it says, In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, even though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Now, think about what Peter does. When Peter begins to move to explain what it is that God is doing in the "here and now", of all the descriptive words that are available to him in the human language, he chooses these three descriptive words. Here it is: Grief, Trial, and Test. Grief, trial, and test--just the three words you don't want in your life. Now don't look at me like you don't know what I'm talking about. No one here has prayed this week, "Lord, I think my life is a little too easy; if you loved me, you would send some trial my way."
No one prayed, "I really need to be more holy, and so suffering is an instrument; why don't you just send some suffering my way?" What is it about the nature of the zeal of the Redeemer, the eternal zeal of the Redeemer, that makes these words such important descriptors of what it is that God is doing in the "here and now"--grief, trial and test? Now, I am about to hurt your feelings; if you can't answer that rhetorical question, I just asked, I would propose to you, you don't understand the present plan of God.
And because you don't understand the present plan of God, you have moments where you're confused, moments where you'll be tempted to doubt His goodness and doubt His love, moments when you look over the fence, and you are tempted to envy the life of someone else because you don't actually understand what God is doing. And because you don't understand what God is doing, stay with me here, it's very hard for you to be on God's agenda page. You're on your agenda page and you sort of wish God would get on your agenda page because you don't really understand what God is doing--grief, trial, test.
Well, Peter uses a very picturesque, a very descriptive word picture to help us. It's the picture of mining or metal work. This is gold country (South Africa), so you should understand this. When a miner or a metalworker mines a metal, digs it out of the ground, he finds it in an ore state. Ore is not very attractive. Ore is not very usable because ore has imperfections in it. And ore, those imperfections, rob that metal of its strength and rob it of its beauty. My wife and I just celebrated our anniversary, and I surprised her with a couple pieces of jewelry.
I didn't give her ore; that wouldn't have been very attractive. No one in this room, there is some jewelry in this room, no one is wearing ore. And so, the metalworker knows that it would be a bit of an act of irrationality and futility to mine this metal and leave it in its ore state. So what the metallurgist does, the metalworker does, is he adds a catalytic agent and white-hot heat and liquefies this metal, so boiling out of it, its imperfections, it's 'oreism,' so it reaches a higher stage of strength and a higher state of beauty.
Now is the time to fasten your seatbelts. When you come to Christ by His rescuing transforming grace, hear what I am about to say, you are an 'orerific' Christian; no-no-no, I didn't say horrific. You are an 'orerific' Christian. You have 'orerism' in you. And what that 'oreism' does is it robs you of your beauty, and it robs you of your strength. It would make no sense whatsoever for God to mine you from the mass of humanity by His powerful, selective, transforming grace and leave you in your 'oreism.' How ridiculous would that be?
God Will Take You Where You Did Not Intend
So God, in the grandeur and glory of His relentless love, will boil you. Here's the principle: God will take you where you haven't intended to go, in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own. God will take you where you haven't intended to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own. God will take you where you haven't intended to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own. God will take you where you haven't intended to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own.
You know what that's called-- grace! Grace! Grace! God knows how sturdy our self-righteousness is. He knows how reliant we are on our own strength and wisdom. He knows how attracted we are to the things of the world. He knows how easily satisfied we are, thinking we're grace graduates when we're not. He knows how much we are able to shift the blame and make excuses, how much we are able to swindle ourselves. And so, in grace, He will take us beyond our wisdom, beyond our strength, beyond our plan, beyond our righteousness, to places we would not have ever chosen to go, so that we do the thing that we desperately, that we need to do.
We reach out in hands of helplessness and hope and say, "I need your grace," because grace is only for the broken; grace is only for the weak; grace is only for the poor; grace is only for the diseased; grace is only for sinners; and unless you're there, you don't desire grace. God wants you there. He wants you there. He wants you there. And those moments of desperation are not God forgetting the plan, or God ignoring the plan, or something in the way of the plan, those moments of desperation are the plan.
It's the plan, it is the plan. So brothers and sisters, we better quit naming those moments as signs of God's unfaithfulness and inattention, because if you're God's child, those moments are sure signs of his covenant love. That's not God moving away; that is a glorious, faithful, ever present Redeemer moving closer. We need to begin to teach and encourage one another with the theology of uncomfortable grace. Did you hear what I said? We need to teach and admonish and encourage and comfort one another with the theology of uncomfortable grace, because this side of eternity, God's grace often comes to us in uncomfortable forms.
Oh, I know, because I'm like you-you want the grace of release; you want the grace of relief; and those come in little pieces. But ultimately, hear what I'm going to say: Release is coming; relief is coming; what you actually need right now is refinement. That's what you need. That's what I need. And perhaps if there are moments in your life where you're crying out, "Where is the grace of God?"...(and you're getting it,) but it's not the grace of release; and it's not the grace relief; it's the uncomfortable grace of refinement.
You already are getting the grace that you're crying out for, you're getting it. Now, here's what this means. You cannot treat this moment as a destination. Let me say it this way, you must not live with the destination mentality. The purpose of this moment is not for it to be as comfortable as it could possibly be. God is not actually working so that you would wake up every morning with a big smile on your face and say, "I love my life!" That's not what he is doing, because, there is, in you, greater need than that; there is in you 'oreism.' And so what is going on is: This is not a destination; this moment is preparation for a final destination.
That's why Peter says, "Don't you see where this is going? This is going so that your faith would ultimately resound to the praise and glory of Jesus at His revelation. I have a plan for you way glorious than anything you could ever desire for yourself. It is glorious beyond anything you're able to conceive. That moment will be amazing beyond your amazement. You have been chosen to be part of that, and right now I'm preparing you for that moment." I love the biblical metaphor of a pilgrim. Maybe the closest rendition of that, that we have, is modern camping.
Anybody here like to camp?--I'm sorry you do. Now, in my conception, the whole purpose of camping is to make you long for home. You know you go out that first day; you have all your equipment, and you have wilderness hopes and dreams. You start out putting up that portable dwelling, we call a tent, and you think that's very cool that this thing came in a tube, and it's now a dwelling for four. You know you open up the 'bloop' and you think, "How did that happen?" You gather firewood, and you're thinking about how food tastes better when it's cooked over an open flame-- that's ash!
You're thinking of sitting under the stars, and it's just, it's all just very romantic. About three days in, your tent has taken on smells you don't understand. Tents do this; they just collect odors that are rather subhuman. And your wife or your friend says to you, "Did you smell the tent?" You've got all the downed wood within a kilometer circle, and now, it's getting hard to find wood; you're back is sort of hurting because you have an air mattress, but you put it over a rock and it punctured.
Stupid Mattress, Stupid Rock
You are saying, "Stupid mattress, stupid air, stupid rock!" You open your cooler, your container where you are supposed to keep the cold food, and you've been saving this huge beef roast for a broth. It's now floating in water. And it's got this gray color, and it's oozing this purple liquid. And all of a sudden, you begin to long for home. Think of a stove that you just "sphst!"--flame! Praise God! You think of your mattress; you think of a refrigerator that can keep beef looking beef-a-logical.
And you're trying to get the person next to you to mention leaving. And you keep changing the subject about home. "Don't we live in a nice house? Don't you just appreciate what God has provided for us there?" Now, that makes sense to me. I've camped, and I always appreciate home more, but in the modern world, I know this in America, people camp in these great big huge luxury RVs. They are more luxurious than home. You know you park in this thing: It's got a widescreen television, a satellite dish, the luxurious kitchen of a chef.
You're camping vehicle is better than home. That's missing the point! And some of you are so focused on making sure that "here and now" is as easy and predictable and comfortable and pleasurable as it is. You have no ability to take in the glory of uncomfortable grace because one thing you have determined is: "My life will not be uncomfortable." Well if you are there, you are way off God's agenda page. Because He will take you where you haven't intended to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve in your own.
Now, what's the purpose of all of this? I'll just point to two things and then we'll be done. Here's the first thing: The purpose of all of this is the salvation of your soul--the salvation of your soul. Peter says, "Don't you know in these dark moments what is happening? You're getting what you prayed--your salvation." You are being saved. Yes, you have been saved, and, yes, you will be saved, but right now you are being saved. He's talking about the sanctification sense of the work of God. You're being saved.
Brothers and sisters, I mean this, when you're going through those moments, when you're marching through that kind of confusion and darkness and disappointment, you need to be saying to yourself, "I'm being saved; I'm being saved; I'm being saved; I'm being saved; I'm being saved; I'm being saved; I'm being saved. Praise God! I'm being saved." Don't say, "Where is God? Why would He do this?" Listen, you are either everyday preaching to yourself the true gospel of Jesus Christ or you're preaching to yourself an anti, false gospel that deepens your despondency and your discouragement.
And in these moments, preach the true gospel to yourself. "This is part of the glorious, eternal, salvation plan of my Redeemer-I'm being saved! Praise God, I'm being saved!" And then he says, "To the praise and glory of Jesus Christ." You will never understand the human existence; you'll never understand your creation in the image of God; you will never understand the plan of redemption; you'll never understand the future of eternity, unless you understand that you have been given physical life, and you have been given spiritual life for the glory of another.
It's not about you. You will never be in the center of the story; the stage lights will never be on you; the plot will never write in your magnificence because it all is meant to display the magnificence of the Lamb, the Savior, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, Emanuel, Jesus Christ--that's the plan! You see, you must live with vital theological connectivity; you must live with eternity as a lens on the here and now; you must learn to celebrate uncomfortable grace; and you must say, "How could it be that I would be chosen to be prepared for such amazing, eternal glory, how could it be?"
Let's pray. What a beautiful, beautiful plan. How amazing that we have been included in your plan. Yet, Lord, we would confess to you, I would confess, I lose my way. There are moments when I care little about refinement; I just want my life to be comfortable; I want people to be predictable; I want ease. And in those moments, I'm tempted to think I'm wiser than You, tempted to even doubt Your favor. Lord, connect my daily moments to the grand plan of redemption; connect my heart to the stunning glory of redemption.
Make me find joy in Your preparatory process, and may I live for a glory greater than my own. I pray this for myself because I haven't arrived; this, yet, is my struggle, and I pray this for every one of my brothers and sisters in this room. And I pray these things in the sweet and strong name of the King, Lord Jesus. Amen.
