Battle Drill #35:

Endure the Refining Process!

Proverbs 25:4-5 (NAS95)

Isn’t that what God is doing with us in the long slow obedience of progressive sanctification? We have all picked up a lot of bad habits through our years of living “under the sun” and He is refining us by teaching us how to bring all things in submission to His Son. We were enlisted to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ and that gave us our justification before God (our positional holiness), but our ability to be good soldiers doesn’t happen just because we are saved; it’s a process of growing in our personal holiness – breaking the habits of the flesh so that we can live in the freedom of the Spirit. There’s a new language to learn, and some old language to work out of our system. There’s a new way of communicating and dealing with conflict, and some old communication patterns and ways of dealing with conflict that need to be unlearned. There’s a new way of living if you are going to represent the Commander and live on mission for God. Let’s turn to the Field Manual and take the first step of a soldier’s training regimen.

Action Step #1) Know the Field Manual.

Action Step #2) Train together as one unit.

As a disciple of Christ, I am to simultaneously trust God for the completion of my life – when I will reflect Him perfectly, while I learn to walk with Him, becoming like Him each step of the way. This gives me the hope to be courageous throughout the long slow obedience in the same direction of Christlikeness. We see this dual charge in Philippians 2:12-13, “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” There is a promise to be trusted – our perfection before God – and there is a praxis to embrace in every area of our lives – the reflection of His holiness in our relationships, marriage, parenting, etc. Remember, this is the will of God, His good pleasure, for your life – “to become conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29).

Brothers and sisters, I am here to teach you that you can’t have it one way or the other; it is a both-and that must be trained into your perspective of life circumstances, and in the mindset of your training regimen as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. If you are going to become the best version of you to the glory of God, then you need to trust God and His ways for the completion of that which He calls you to embrace wholeheartedly. Stop trying to hijack the process! For example, your marriage is more about your holiness than your happiness because He called you to represent Him in and through it. Until you get this, then you will continue to chase your tail.

Let’s pull at the thread of the biblical theme of today’s battle drill then we will understand how God intends for it to be applied to our lives as good soldiers. “Dross” is the waste material (scum or impurity) that is extracted from the silver during a repetitive process of heating and melting the silver to purify it. While dross is literally the impurity of metal removed during the smelting process, it was used to symbolize personal or national impurity, specifically the spiritual contamination of God’s people, as in Ezekiel 22:18, “Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me; all of them are bronze and tin and iron and lead in the furnace; they are the dross of silver.” God wanted His people holy – set apart for His purposes and His glory!

In Proverbs 25:4-5, dross represents the wicked of the kingdom that renders the whole society impure – the wicked and unrighteous. If a king wanted his kingship to be marked by justice and righteousness, he had to remove the dross – the wicked and unrighteous who were corrupting his kingdom. We see it used this way of God’s kingdom in Psalm 119:119, “You have removed all the wicked of the earth like dross; therefore I love Your testimonies.”

This repetitive process for the spiritual refinement of God’s people through discipline and difficulties became deeply imbedded into the psyche of God’s people through Israel’s history of prophecy, as in God’s promise to His people in Isaiah 1:21-26:

How the faithful city has become a harlot, she who was full of justice! Righteousness once lodged in her, but now murderers. Your silver has become dross, your drink diluted with water. Your rulers are rebels and companions of thieves; everyone loves a bribe and chases after rewards. They do not defend the orphan, nor does the widow’s plea come before them. Therefore the Lord God of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, declares, “Ah, I will be relieved of My adversaries and avenge Myself on My foes. I will also turn My hand against you, and will smelt away your dross as with lye and will remove all your alloy. Then I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning; after that you will be called the city of righteousness, a faithful city.”

This is how God’s people were taught to interpret their history and their current events – through a lens of God’s providential purposes of refining them for His glory. During God’s justice, in Jeremiah 6:27-30, God made Jeremiah the prophet an assayer, a tester of metals:

“I have made you an assayer and a tester among My people, that you may know and assay their way.” All of them are stubbornly rebellious, going about as a talebearer. They are bronze and iron; they, all of them, are corrupt. The bellows blow fiercely, the lead is consumed by the fire; in vain the refining goes on, but the wicked are not separated. They call them rejected silver, because the Lord has rejected them.

This prophetic tradition continued in Ezekiel 22:18-22, then it ultimately culminated with the foretelling of the coming of the Messiah in Malachi 3:1-3:

“Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says the Lord of hosts. “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness.

What is the refiner’s fire, and why does God use this imagery of the smelting process in His people’s lives? God is described as a consuming fire, but the consuming fire did not consume the burning bush when God called Moses. The friends of Daniel were tossed into the fire but were not consumed – the Fourth was with them! God is not a wildfire – He is controlled and has our best interests in mind. God is a holy fire because His fire has a purpose – to refine us into His image! Just as we see in God’s Creation, fire is an essential ingredient to life – for our warmth, for cooking, for production of materials, for the cauterization of wounds, and even for forests to thrive. So often we only think of the destructive power of fire, rather than its life-giving intent!

In the spiritual, Psalm 12:6 explains, “The words of the Lord are pure words; as silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times.” This sevenfold refining process of the Word speaks to its perfection, and the purpose for which God sent forth His Word – to bring His people to perfection so that they can be with Him. As Isaiah 45:23 states, “I have sworn by Myself, the word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness and will not turn back, that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance” (cf. Isaiah 55:11).

This is the purpose of the smelting process – to bring all things to completion through the fire of God’s glory, the refinement of His presence upon the earth. This is the reason for Christ coming! This is the purpose of His church! This is God’s plan to enlist you, and it is His pleasure to refine you through His Word and Holy Spirit. That brings us to the third action step of a good soldier of Jesus.

Action Step #3) Seek the Commander’s approval.

Jesus is the Living Word and His coming brought God’s refiner’s fire not only to Israel, but through Israel to all the nations. Jesus fulfilled the prophetic imagery of Israel. This is the imagery of Pentecost as the glory of God fell on the early church in “tongues as of fire” (Acts 2:3). The Holy Spirit came as a refiner’s fire to purify a new priesthood through faith in Jesus Christ, one that would offer right sacrifices in righteousness as foretold in Malachi 3:3. Peter expressed this plainly in 1 Peter 2:5 and 9:

You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. … But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

This is who you are, and that is why Christ has enlisted you, but let’s not forget that the smelting process, which removes the dross from your life, is a repetitive one. This is not a “once upon a time” or “one and done” proposal. While your salvation is exactly that – you are justified by the blood of Jesus – your “usefulness to the Master” is dependent upon your willingness to participate in the refinement process that the fire of the Holy Spirit continuously is doing within you, with every thought, word, relationship, and deed. As Paul taught his protégé in 2 Timothy 2:21, “Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.”

Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). With God’s continuous presence in your life, what are you asking the Holy Spirit to cohabitate with? What impurities are you asking God to “tabernacle with” in your life? Are you useful to the Master?

Interestingly, each time the refiner of metal repeats the refinement process he raises the heat to skim even more dross. His goal is to increase the quality and purity of the refined metal. Should it surprise you then that God does the same in our lives – He turns up the heat to increase the quality and purity of your life. Maybe you thought the hardest (hottest) work of your Christian life was at your conversion, and in the beginning years of sanctification, but I believe, from biblical and anecdotal evidence, that the work of the Spirit gets hotter the deeper it goes into your life. Issues of external holiness, what so many churches and pastors are focused on, are superficial compared with the deeply rooted issues of rebellion that fuel them. Therefore, when you experience fiery trials in your life, you can take comfort in knowing that God’s refining fire is removing the dross for your ability to reflect His glory through your effectiveness and fruitfulness in the mission! He perseveres in this work until the last breath – so that you may learn how to, and then, ultimately, surrender all to God unto death for His glory!

It is because of this understanding of God’s intent that Tevye, the beloved father from Fiddler on the Roof, prayed during suffering and hardship, “I know. I know. We are Your chosen people. But, once in a while, can’t You choose someone else?” God loves His chosen people, and He continuously increases the heat so that we may reflect Him more to allow who watch our lives – this is our mission! This leads us to the final action step of our soldier’s training regime.

Action Step #4) Live on mission.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

In conclusion, the mission of God in and through your life is found in your faith and in how you walk through the refiner’s fire of your life with faith. Paul expressed this purpose to His followers in 2 Corinthians 4:5-10:

For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

God is at work in your life because you are a temple of the Holy Spirit. You and your life are the very presence of the refiner’s fire in the world. May God’s unquenchable fire of holiness, His refiner’s fire, remove all that is perishable from you and purify all that is imperishable. May God’s image be reflected more and more in you and through your life as you shine His piercing light in the darkness of these last days. May you start seeing every circumstance and every challenging situation as an opportunity to become more like Jesus until your very life proclaims the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Make this battle drill a reflexive, instinctive, and habitual part of your Christian life so that you can CM – Continue the Mission! Therefore, live on mission today and train the battle drill of the week for the glory of God. Let us pray.

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Extra Materials

(not preached, but still for the edification of the brethren):

Today’s battle drill helps us make sense of the smelting process of our difficulties, as described in Romans 5:1-5:

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Every circumstance of your life – the good, the bad, and the ugly – now makes sense when you learn to endure God’s refining process. As Paul taught in Romans 8:26-30:

In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

Even the evil of this world – the wickedness and injustices – will be used by God for His glory, and in the refinement process of His people, as taught in 1 Peter 5:6-10:

Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.