The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
We often hear the old adage “No pain, no gain” blithely stated in response to adversity in our lives. The Biblical version of this is found in 2 Cor. 12:10b, “when I am weak then am I strong.” Without suffering, pain, distresses, and hardships we would remain spiritually immature and untested (i.e. not challenged).
As teachers we try to find ways to challenge our more intelligent students while keeping the less intelligent students engaged as well – not an easy task. So too are Christians challenged by God to spiritual maturity through testing. One metaphor used to explain this in the Bible include the refining of gold and silver towards purification. It appears in Malachi 3:3 with regard to the nation of Israel: “And He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. And He shall purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.”
In 1 Peter 1:3-7, Peter brings this concept into the New Testament and relates it to the process of Christian maturity: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through manifold temptations that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”
It is through fire that gold and silver are refined. In a similar way it is through death, being cut down, that a tree gives forth heat in the family woodstove and is used for building houses and furniture. Likewise, a piece of furniture might last much longer than the tree it was made from would have lived in its natural life. We have pieces of furniture in our house décor that were brought to the U.S by family members as many as a hundred and fifty years ago. Who knows how many years they had been used in our great-great grandparents’ parlors before the trip across the Atlantic.
So too, a Christian growing in faith through difficulty leaves a legacy for longer than his own natural life might have lasted. Think of the famous nineteenth- and early twentieth-century preachers, hymn composers, and writers whose spiritual progeny continue to multiply: people like Billy Sunday, D. L. Moody, C. H. Spurgeon, H. A. Ironside, Fanny Crosby, Francis Havergal, Ira Sankey, Isaac Watts, John Newton, and Charles Wesley. The list goes on and on. These people each overcame great testing in their lives, in the strength of their relationship with Jesus, in order to produce the spiritual nurture that we still enjoy today through their writings and hymns. Looking even farther back in time, the same is true of Martin Luther, John Wyclif, John Calvin, Brother Lawrence, and even the apostles of Jesus.
“Jesus answered them, saying, ‘The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone: but if it die, it brings forth much fruit” (John 12:23-24). Jesus daily calls us to be that seed and yield all we are, dying to self, in order to live in His Life and strength. When we are self-sufficient, He disappears in us to the world. It is only when we are submissive and submersed in Jesus that He can be seen in us by others.
Knowing this, we gladly proclaim with the Apostle Paul, “therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Cor. 12:10).
