Refiner — Part 4 — What the Fire Reveals

1 Peter 1:3-9:

³ 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, ⁴ to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, ⁷ 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. ⁸ 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, ⁹ obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Peter in this passage says that the focus for us is to bee on the promise of God…not our circumstances. And when we focus on the promise, we find ourselves rejoicing…even in the midst of our trials!

Peter is challenging us to remember that the focus of our trial is not the suffering, but the result of it…the tested genuineness of our faith! And that faith brings about praise and glory and honor to Jesus Christ!

So, we begin by keeping our eyes open during the trial. And when God reveals a sinful attitude, action, or position, we see it. Remember the story of the dirty room.

We continue in this process by submitting to God as a sacrifice. The living sacrifices God asks for in Romans 12:1-2 are those of us submitting to God in all things.

So the pattern is:

1. Recognize sin.
2. Renounce sin.
3. Repent of sin.

So, we begin by recognizing our sin. We allow the Holy Spirit to have His way in our lives. We must recognize God’s presence with us. That presence will help us to be reminded of all the things we need to stay away from.

Secondly, we must renounce sin. Another way of saying this is that we need to “confess” our sin…or agree with God that what we did was wrong.

1 John 2:15-17

¹⁵ Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶ For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. ¹⁷ And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

The Lust of the Flesh

This is sexual sin. The Bible tells us that when confronted with the temptation to indulge in sexual sin, we must flee! Run away so fast that it makes our head spin. This is the example of Joseph in Genesis.

We also need to renew our minds (Romans 12:2) so that we are focused on God’s Word and all He is and has done.

The Lust of the Eyes

This is the desire to have whatever we see. Things like greed and envy come out of this sin. And when they pop up to tempt us, we must first remain content with what we have been given by God.

We also need to guard against comparisons, because they will undercut our contentment pretty quickly. Staying away from Social Media or the internet or TV will help us with this as most of the advertising on these platforms is designed to make you discontent so you’ll buy more stuff.

And finally, we must be generous people. Because when we are giving away what we have been given, we remember that it isn’t ours to begin with.

The Pride of Life

This one is obvious. We must begin with a proper perspective of who God is and who we are. He is God…we are not! We must keep God on the throne of our lives.

Keep being teachable and correctable. Don’t think you are above mistake, and take criticism and correction gracefully and humbly. This will keep us from becoming “The Fool” of Proverbs.

We must also keep short accounts of our sin. When we fail (and we will fail), we must confess it quickly to God and just as quickly to those whom we have sinned against.

Most of the sins we face can be traced back to these three ROOT CAUSES. If we can handle these three in our lives, we will go a long way to becoming what God is calling us to be. But the issue is that the refinement process, while not ALWAYS about sin, does tend to reveal this wrong attitudes in us. And when they do, we must then repent of our sin.

Remember the story about the boil!

Sin is an infection that if left unchecked will make us look too much UNLIKE Christ. So let God have His will and way in your life. You will not regret it!