Still Struggling, Still Living in Faith and Hope
6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Peter has been talking about how we rejoice because we are receiving life in the resurrection of Jesus. We might have struggles now, but we will always have life in Christ. The focus on Jesus we saw this past Sunday, as we looked at Peter stepping out of the boat, and then being brought back in. We see Jesus with us over the struggles of what goes on in life.
Peter takes another step with us in this regard. He shows us that the struggles of life prove our faith. Peter will speak of the way we live out faith in a world that does not agree with the life of faith. He speaks of the struggles of his day, but we see the struggles of our own day. Noting that the struggles are not so different, just how they come to us.
We may have increased technology, but it brings the same struggles of focusing first on Jesus, not the things we try to keep in life. We have speedier travel and a more interconnected world, but we still struggle with getting along and seeing the image of God in all people. Any struggle we find today has something in the past that brought the same temptations.
Solomon, in Ecclesiastes 3 writes to us all:
15 Whatever is has already been,
and what will be has been before;
and God will call the past to account.
16 And I saw something else under the sun:
In the place of judgment—wickedness was there,
in the place of justice—wickedness was there.
17 I said to myself,
“God will bring into judgment
both the righteous and the wicked,
for there will be a time for every activity,
a time to judge every deed.”
We might all like to point out the ways so many people are in need of change. But Peter and Solomon agree that we can work out our own faith. God will deal with us, and with all, in justice and mercy. But we have the joy of knowing that the result of our faith will be our complete salvation, inherited because of Christ’s resurrection.