This year, God wants to re-ignite our passion for Him and for the life that He has given us. Last week, we started a new message series entitled, “Fire of God.” We started with the two negative aspects of the fire of God learning how it can bring destruction as well as punishment for sin.
This week, we transition to another act of the fire of God that has good end results, but the process of it doesn’t feel so good to us. The fire of God refines us.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines refine as to free something from impurities; to free something from impurities. After these impurities are remove, the object being refined is far more valuable.
We love freedom! We want to be a free people; no longer slaves to sin! However, the process of gaining and maintaining that freedom isn’t a pleasant one. It is a necessary one, though, and the end result is worth it.
The fire of God refines us. It burns away everything that is not the person that God created us to be. In the end, we are free from things that have been tripping us up and weighing us down for so long. We are FREE!
As we read through our history, anyone who has ever been an instrument to do great things with God have had to go through this process.
Joseph received dreams from God revealing his destiny. Then, he spent decades in slavery and prison being falsely accused and unfairly treated before he was ready to rule over a nation. Joseph was being refined.
Moses. Well, his life seemed to begin in the refiner’s fire. Shortly after being born, he was sent adrift in the river to save his life. He ended up being raised by the very Egyptian family who decreed that he be aborted as a baby. When he was grown, he saw and Egyptian beating a fellow Hebrew and murdered him. He thought that his sin was well hidden and that no one knew, but that sin was revealed and he ran away as soon as the Pharaoh found out.
For time’s sake, I won’t go through the rest of his life, but he went through many refining seasons! Every person who ever placed their faith in God has gone through refining seasons of life. Even Jesus, Himself, who had no impurities, had to be tested before beginning His earthly ministry; by the devil, himself.
God refines us by placing us and His fire in a furnace. This furnace brings to the surface the impurities within us. Sin, character issues, bad relationships, wrong perspectives and opinions; anything that is not supposed to be in our lives gets revealed. Then, we choose whether to hang on to them and get burned and hurt like we learned last week OR to let go of them and rid our lives of them; repent.
Something else also happens when we are in that furnace. When those impurities are all separated out and revealed, something else is revealed as well. We get to see who we could be if we those things were no longer a part of our lives.
We get to see the good, pure things in our lives. We get to see what we are capable of. We get to see what some of our gifts and talents are that we may not have seen otherwise. Our faith is increased as we see our potential, the highly valuable things that God created within us, the person who God sees when He looks at us.
Sometimes, we are placed within a furnace that we never imagined that we would go through. We didn’t ask for it, never wanted it, and never thought that it would happen to us. However, we made it through that furnace and it revealed to us that we are stronger and more capable than we ever thought that we were. The furnace revealed good and valuable things within us that we would not have recognized had it not been for that refining furnace.
The refining process is a painful and uncomfortable and messy, but also a beautiful thing!
God refines us by placing both us and His fire in a furnace. What is that furnace?
It’s the Hebrew word ʿŏnî. Depending on the translation, this furnace is adversity, affliction, suffering, or troubles. This furnace that God uses is not something that our flesh desires at all, but it is something that our spirit longs for.
The person that God created us to be, which our spirit is aware of, longs to be set free from all of the impurities that keep holding us back from our full potential. It longs to be set free from the sin that so easily ensnares and entangles and weighs us down. God said:
Isaiah 48:10 (TPT)
See, I have purified you in the furnace of adversity, but not like silver – I have refined you in the fire.
Isaiah 48:10 (NIV)
See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
1 Peter 1:6-7
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 honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
When we squish a stink bug, when we run over a skunk, when we cut an onion, when we squirt a perfume or cologne bottle, when we cook steak, we are being such a furnace. We are causing affliction or adversity for these objects. What we end up doing is revealing what is within them.
We won’t make a stink bug, skunk, or onion stinky, we just cause the stink within it to come out.
We don’t make the perfume, cologne, or steak fragrant, we just cause the fragrance within it to come out.
We are the furnace of adversity revealing what was hidden within those objects.
What happens when in life, we end up in circumstances as Paul described:
2 Corinthians 4:8-9
8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
When the pressure is on, when placed within the furnace of adversity, what is revealed?
Is it our faith or our sin? Is it peace and patience or anger and a fit of rage? Is it self-control or sexual immorality? Is it gentleness and goodness or is it jealousy and discord? You get the idea. What fruits are squeezed out from Galatians 5? Flesh or Spirit?
Although it certainly feels that way, our circumstances are not the issue. God has simply permitted them and is choosing to use them as a furnace to refine us in. We have to trust the refining process, though. If we fail to recognize it for what it is, we will try to find our way out of the furnace of adversity instead of through it. Out of it instead of through it.
If we simply blame the furnace for revealing impurities within our lives, we completely missed the point and are refusing to be refined. The furnace reveals impurities within us, it does not create the impurities within us. It also reveals the goodness within us. If we fix our focus on that, it makes enduring the refining process more bearable because we can see the value of the end result.
If we bail on God instead, we’ll only find ourselves in a similar circumstance later on until we allow our impurities to be revealed and removed from our lives. The end is worth the process! God knows the goodness within us that He wants to reveal without spot or wrinkle. He loves us too much to allow those impurities in our lives that keep causing us issues.
If we find ourselves angry with our spouse, angry with our kids, angry with our coworkers, angry with the checkout person, angry with car in front of us; it may not be an issue with our spouse, kids, coworkers, the checkout person, nor the car in front of us. We just might have an anger issue that God is trying to free us from…
It’s similar to how many of us deal with medical issues. Something hurts and we know that something is wrong. However, we just keep taking pain meds or rubbing numbing ointment on that area or avoiding certain foods or situations that reveal that pain. We stop living, WE STOP LIVING, in surrender to our pain.
We choose to stop living instead of going to the physician and letting them put us through a short season of pain and suffering that will result in our healing. Why? Why do we choose to suffer and sacrifice for years or decades instead of suffering for a few weeks and putting it completely behind us?
Why would we rather take a pill or rub on some cream instead of dealing with the root issue?
We unfortunately do the same for our sin.
We find ways to hide it or to excuse and justify it instead of separating ourselves from it and putting it behind us.
We numbin ourselves to the penalty of our sin instead of getting rid of it.
We distance ourselves from God and from those who bring conviction to that sin.
Some of the blessings that God has planned for us will only be blessings for us if we are prepared to receive them.
God planned to take His people out of Egyptian bondage, into freedom, and then into His promised land. He was ready and willing to do it. However, the people were not. What was supposed to be a very short trip ended up taking 40 years until an entire generation passed away.
This was all because they refused to go through the refining process. Instead of remaining like clay in His hands, they hardened themselves and resisted God every step of the way. They whined and complained and grumbled and rebelled. They thought that they were ready, but they were not.
Exodus 13:17-18
17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” 18 So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt ready for battle.
The people thought that they were ready for battle, but God knew that they would run right back to their bondage if they faced it. They had the potential, it was within them, however, it needed refined. They needed to have some fear and doubt burned away so that they would have the faith and courage that they needed to drive out the occupants of their promise.
The refining process is worth it! Receiving His promises is worth it! We ALWAYS end up better when we just trust the process and go through whatever the Lord is taking us through. If we always perceive adversity as an attack of the enemy, when it may very well be God’s furnace of adversity, we will never win the battle and we’ll never be refined of our impurities.
The author of Psalm 66 realized this and wrote a song about it:
Psalm 66:8-12
8 Praise our God, all peoples,
let the sound of his praise be heard;
9 he has preserved our lives
and kept our feet from slipping.
10 For you, God, tested us;
you refined us like silver.
11 You brought us into prison
and laid burdens on our backs.
12 You let people ride over our heads;
we went through fire and water,
but you brought us to a place of abundance.
When God places us in the furnace of adversity, how will we choose to respond?
What our flesh wants us to do is to blame whatever put us into that furnace.
What God wants to do is to deal with what is revealed.
God wants us to own and accept responsibility for our own selves.
Our flesh wants to place that responsibility on anyone or anything other than ourselves.
God wants to transform us.
Our flesh resists change.
God wants to set us free.
Our flesh wants to keep us enslaved.
When we are placed within the furnace of adversity, which will we choose to submit to?
Which will govern and guide us?
God or our flesh?
Romans 8:5-13
5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
…
12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation – but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.
When in the furnace of adversity, which one is going to die? Which one is going to burn away?
Will it be the sinful flesh, our old selves, or will it be us?
Will we choose to confess and repent of our sin or will we choose to cling to it and ultimately suffer as a result?
Galatians 5:24
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Romans 6:6-11
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with (or rendered powerless), that we should no longer be slaves to sin – 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Will we be able to echo the words of the Apostle Paul who endured many furnaces of affliction and said:
Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
We will be able to if we simply respond correctly to the refiner’s fire and what it reveals. When we see impurities in our lives revealed by the furnace of adversity, we confess them to Jesus.
1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
When God reveals our sins, all that we need to do is to confess them to Jesus. He will forgive us and purify us.
Confession is the most important part of repentance. Confession surrenders our opinions about something and chooses to agree with what God says about them. If He says it is sin to us, then it is sin to us. If He says that it is good, then it is good. Confession allows the refiner’s fire to burn away that part of our old self so that it can become the new creation that He is transforming us into.
God is just. Justice for our sin will be administered. When we confess our sin, it is covered by the sacrifice of sinless Jesus on the cross. He paid the penalty for it in full and it will be applied to us. Jesus paid for that debt, we are forgiven that debt, and so we are purified and righteous.
The second part of repentance is to avoid that sin in the future.
1 Corinthians 10:13
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
When we are tempted to make that sin a part of our lives again in the future, we must take the way out.
Notice that in both aspects of repentance, we are not at all relying on ourselves in any way. Both times, we are relying on the faithfulness of God. God is faithful. He will never tempt us, He will never allow temptation to be more than we can bear, He will make a way out, He will forgive, He will purify us. God is faithful!
In closing, here is what the Lord says to Israel and I believe to us today regarding the refining process and what our lives can look like if we simply go through the furnace instead of out of the furnace of adversity that He leads us into.
Isaiah 48:6-11;17-18
“From now on I will tell you of new things,
of hidden things unknown to you.
7 They are created now, and not long ago;
you have not heard of them before today.
So you cannot say,
‘Yes, I knew of them.’
8 You have neither heard nor understood;
from of old your ears have not been open.
Well do I know how treacherous you are;
you were called a rebel from birth.
9 For my own name’s sake I delay my wrath;
for the sake of my praise I hold it back from you,
so as not to destroy you completely.
10 See, I have refined you, though not as silver;
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
11 For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this.
How can I let myself be defamed?
I will not yield my glory to another.
17 This is what the Lord says –
your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
“I am the Lord your God,
who teaches you what is best for you,
who directs you in the way you should go.
18 If only you had paid attention to my commands,
your peace would have been like a river,
your well-being like the waves of the sea.
Let’s pay attention to God. If we do, our peace will flow like a river and our well-being like the waves of the sea. Let’s stop the pain and suffering in our lives that results from our impurities and instead press into the refining fire of God and allow it to burn them all away!