Refine

 Today we begin worship with:

1 Peter 4:12–14

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

This summer the fridge went out, when we had a house full of people, the stove stopped working in the strangest way, and the boat decided when it would start and when it would not.

Those were not "fiery trials".  A fiery trial (pyrōsis) comes when you are "insulted for the name of Christ".  It is the refiner's fire.

There is a curious verse in Proverbs that illustrates this:

Proverbs 27:21

The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold,

    and a man is tested by his praise.

One is refined by who and what one praises.  

When you praise a Ford, when you are with a group of Mopar buddies; when you are the only one rooting for the Yankees at a Braves watch-party; when stand up of the name of Christ when it is taken in vain.  You will be tested.  That lick of flame will refine you.

Weakness

 Today we begin worship with:

2 Corinthians 12:9-10
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

God does not pick people based on what He can receive from them, but rather for quite the opposite.  We are chosen for how He can demonstrate His power through our weakness. 

Growing up not only was I in the running for the worst handwriting of the class, I labored to form a cohesive a sentence.  To God’s glory, today I write. 

Do I have my shortcomings (or better said “faults”)?  Yes, absolutely.  But I know that when God wants the corresponding strength demonstrated, He will supply it.

LORD

Today we begin worship with:

Philippians 2:9-11

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

“Jesus” (iēsous) was and is today a common name.  It derives from the Hebrew Joshua (yᵊhôšûa) and was used by many a Jewish parent to charge their son to achieve the same level of courage that Joshua demonstrated in his many victories. In fact, some Greek texts and English translations include the full name of the notorious prisoner released by Pilate as “Jesus Barabbas” (See Matthew 27:16 NIV).

“Jesus” is not the name referred to by this passage. The name higher that all names in Hebrew is “LORD (Yᵊhōvâ) or in Greek kyrios (via the Septuagint):

Exodus 3:14-15
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

That is why we are told in today’s passage that “Jesus Christ is Lord”.  He is the self-existent, unchanging, and eternal God.

Know

This morning we begin worship with:

John 6:66-69

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

At first it was easy to walk with Jesus.  He said pleasant words of blessing, healed many, and fed even more.  In fact our passage today is just after the feeding of the Five Thousand (John 6:1-14).

But in this chapter which is occurring at the time of the Passover (John 6:4) Jesus says for the first time “I am the Bread of Life” (John 6:35) and begins to speak of the eternal and the spiritual and many walked away with their focus on the temporal and the physical.

To His disciples He asks “Do you want to go away as well?”.  This not to encourage it, but rather to settle the question, for it was to these twelve that He was entrusting the words of eternal life.

Peter’s response reveals some of the internal questioning that occurred during their walk with Jesus.  They heard.  They believed.  But eventually they came to “know” (ginōskō) His were truly the words of eternal life.