As The Silver Is, So Are We
Scripture: John 14:16-17; 16:13; Acts 1:8; Psalm 71:7; Romans 12:2
Introduction
This is part two of my series “As The Silver Is, So Are We”. Last time I shared with you that I had received an email about the refining of silver. In that email, a women’s group was studying Malachi 3:3 and wondered what the statement “He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver…” meant about the character of God. One of the women volunteered to go and find out the process for refining silver. She found a silversmith and visited him at work, watching how he purified the silver. When she left him, she understood more about Malachi’s prophecy.
In part one I shared with you the first two traits about silver that can be compared to the Christian life. The first trait focused on how to actually get the silver. To obtain pure silver, you must separate it from the other minerals that it is usually combined with. Just as with silver, in order for God to equip us, He has to first separate us from the world in which we live. This separation is necessary so that we can separate out of our minds the world’s view and replace it with God’s views. The second trait focused on the purification process. To purify silver, you must use heat and the same happens with us. When we are going through heated situations, the weaknesses that lies within us tend to come to the surface. We allow our guards to come down and that which resides within us (which we keep hidden from everyone) peaks it head out. God wants to cleanse us of these while we are going through so that when we come to the other side of our problems, we are stronger. This morning we will examine three other traits of silver that are common to Christians. The final three traits are:
• Since pure silver is very soft and cannot be used for jewelry, it is often mixed with copper (sterling silver).
• Silver tarnishes (change color) when exposed to air and water.
• The tarnishing of silver is reduced when it is being worn.
A. Pure Silver Is Too Soft To Be Used In Jewelry So It Is Mixed With Copper
If remember from part one, I shared with you that sterling silver is a combination of 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper. It is the copper component when mixed with the silver that gives it the silver its strength to be used in jewelry. When you mix the two in the right combination some beautiful, expensive products are the outcome. Well think about what happens when we become Christians.
When we become Christians, we have so many things that are attached to our life that we really are not strong enough to handle living. If you were to look around you I am sure that many of you know someone who is struggling just to live or exist in this life. When you look into their eyes you see that there is no hope, no peace and they just exist from day to day. Now if you think about where they are, think about the fact that without Christ in our lives, we could be the same. Christ understood that we would need help and He promised His disciples that He would send a helper for them and for each of us. That Helper is the Holy Spirit. Jesus said “I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. (John 14:16-17) Also notice what Jesus said in the sixteenth chapter: “But when He, the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiatives, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.” (John 16:13)
In these verses we find that Christ understood that we needed help, we need someone to make us stronger. That someone is the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised that when He left, He would have the Father send the Holy Spirit to dwell within us. The Holy Spirit’s job is to combine with us and make us stronger. When this happens He will lead us into truth as He guides us through life. Remember the sterling silver – 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper? Well you can say that I am a sterling Rodney, 75% Rodney, 25% Holy Spirit. The pure Rodney is not strong enough to handle anything. I would panic in situations when I did not know what to do. I would allow “my other side” to come out in any situation. I would not be able to tell which way to go as my mind would be so confused. But with the Holy Spirit dwelling within me, I am able to focus, to have peace, to yield. The Holy Spirit strengthens me. It is not just me living, but the Spirit of God living within me. Now noticed for my example I said that I was 75% Rodney and 25% Holy Spirit. I am still a work in progress and my desire if to get to 20% Rodney and 80% Holy Spirit. If and when I get to that point, most of you will not recognize me because my responses to life will be so much different than they are right now. It is when we are mixed with the Holy Spirit that we gain the power and the strength to fully exist in this life. It is the Holy Spirit living within us that gives us the strength to reach out and touch someone else when we ourselves are hurting. It is the Holy Spirit that enables us to walk away from our old selves and live a new life.
When Jesus rose from the dead, He appeared to His disciples on a number of occasions. Before He ascended into heaven, He instructed His disciples to remain in Jerusalem until God fulfilled the promise. What was the promise? The Holy Spirit. The disciples after Jesus’ crucifixion went into hiding for they were scared for their lives. After Christ appeared to them, they received strength to continue, but they were still not strong enough. Christ commanded that they wait for the Holy Spirit. He said to them: “….but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) Jesus asked them to wait for the power. After the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit ascended upon them, they received power. Now these same disciples, who had been in hiding, came out of hiding and began to evangelize the world. They were no longer afraid for their lives – they were on a mission. Just as pure silver is too soft to be used in jewelry, pure me and pure you are too soft to be used this world – we need Christ and through Christ come the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes, we receive power; power to live, power to overcome, power to help others even when we are going through the fire ourselves. If you have not allowed the Holy Spirit to begin to direct your path – I encouraged you to do so. The more we yield of ourselves to Him, the more He is able to reveal God’s truth and guide us. The more truth and guidance we receive from the Holy Spirit, the more power we will have.
B. Silver Tarnishes When Exposed To Air & Water Containing Ozone Or
Hydrogen Sulfide.
I know that most of you adults know what silver looks like when it is tarnished. For you young people, I want to show you. When silver begins to tarnish, it takes on a brown, golden color. The silver is actually responding to the ozone within the air or the hydrogen sulfide in the water. This interaction between silver and air/water is constant and can happen at different rates. For example, silver that is not worn consistently will tarnish faster than silver that is worn. (I will talk more about that shortly.) Because silver tends to tarnish, it is important to constantly polish it to ensure that it remains presentable – especially if you are talking about silverware. This tarnishing and subsequent polishing of silver is a cycle that is repeated over and over again as long as you own the silver. Well, the same thing happens with us.
Have you ever wondered what David meant when he said “Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” (Psalm 71:7) David wrote this after he had sinned with Bathsheba. He recognized that he was filthy and knew that God could clean him. David had operated according to a world standard – he was the king and could do whatever he pleased and take whatever he wanted. However, that was not the standard that God had for him or for us. When we begin to take on the standards of the world in which we must live, we begin to get tarnished. We begin to rationalize our wrongs and justify our actions. Because whatever we choose to do is okay with the world, we vainly attempt to make it okay with God. This tarnishing, this dirtying of our inner self, eventually will work its way to our outer self and everyone will know what we have kept hidden within us. Believe me, getting dirty can be more fun than getting clean, but it carries consequences.
When I was a young boy, we lived in the “projects”. For those of you who have never experienced this or know what I am talking about, the “projects” were a housing project that provided homes (duplexes) to low income families. Our “projects” were primarily made up of black Americans. We lived there until I was almost 6 years old. When my parents finally saved enough money for a down payment on a house, I remember how excited my mother was that we would be moving from the “projects”. She told us that we would have our own yard and would be able to play outside in the dirt, making mud pies, etc. Now telling a child that they would be able to play outside in the dirt was a mighty temptation. You see, in the projects, all of the yards were connected (there were no privacy fences) and we were only allowed outside when one of our parents were home. So when my mother told us that we could play in the dirt in our own yard that was something we looked forward to. Now, as you can imagine, once we moved into the house my mother would not let us play in the mud. Why? Because she did not want us tracking mud through her new house. Although we were allowed to play in the dirt, as soon as we came in the house, it required a bath.
My point with this story is this; as long as we were inside the house, we could remain pretty clean. When we left the house and went outside, even though it was promised to us that we could play in the dirt, when we came back in, we had to get clean. Going from the inside of the house where we stayed clean to the outside where we were immediately attracted to the dirt is similar to what happened with silver. If you pack it right, you can keep it from tarnishing because the air cannot get to it. However, when you take it out of the bag, overtime it will start to tarnish. Paul says that we should not “……be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2) Why is it important that we renew our minds? Because as we exist in this world our minds, once again, begin to think according to the world that is trying to influence us. The only way to combat this influence, this tarnishing if you will, is to renew our minds – to polish it. This is an ongoing process that must be done continuously because the world is constantly influencing us. Although silver tarnishes when exposed to the ozone in the air, it does not tarnish as fast when it is being worn and that brings us to the last point.
C. The Tarnishing Of Silver Is Reduced When Being Worn
It is a proven fact that silver will tarnish at a much slower rate when it is being worn. There is something about the silver’s contact with the body, even in the presence of air, that slows down the tarnishing. Think about my earlier example with my mother and our moving to our first home. When I was inside of the house, I was able to stay clean. When I went outside of the house, I became dirty. This happened every single day without fail. Although I was clean when inside, I became dirty when I went outside, EXCEPT when my mother was outside with me. I found that I did not get nearly as dirty when my mother was outside with me as I did when I was alone. I was the same, the dirt was the same so the only thing it could have been was some special powers that my mother possessed that kept the dirt off of me. Those powers were exhibited at different times throughout the day. They would come out like this: “Boy, get out of that dirt!” “Stop playing in that puddle of water before you fall in and drown!” “I just washed those pants, if you get them dirty you will wear them dirty!” “You must be out of your mind if you think I am going to let you dig in the dirt while you are wearing your good clothes!” I bet some of your mothers had these same magical powers that kept you from getting too dirty when you were outside. Well apparently, our bodies have a similar interaction with silver that when it is worn consistently upon us, it does not tend to tarnish nearly as fast as when it is left alone.
If you think about our Christian walk, it is the same. When we stop going to Church or studying God’s word for ourselves, we begin to tarnish faster. We are constantly bombarded with the world’s message on a daily basis. It comes through our jobs, through the school and especially through the television. If we are not constantly doing something to combat all of these images, we are left with just those negative, faith limiting images that will cause us to walk in worry, doubt and fear. Paul told us that we need to renew our minds and the only way to accomplish that is through God’s word. We cannot do this on our own and we definitely cannot do it through the television. As we put on more of Christ, allowing the Holy Spirit to operate in our lives, His presence reduces the tarnishing that we experience on a daily basis while living in this world.
Conclusion
There are many comparisons that can be made between the Christian walk and silver but I chose only five. As you consider what you have heard, please remember that just like the silver, we must be separated from what is binding us in order to serve Christ. We must separate from the world and then go back into the world to try and help others. Also like the silver we must go through the fire in order to be purified. When we are going through trying times, it is those times that expose our weaknesses that we must deal with. Like the silver, we are too weak to stand alone so we need to be combined with the Holy Spirit in order to walk in power. It is the Spirit of God that gives us the strength to be victorious. Finally we must fight against being tarnished, just like the silver. To do this we must renew our minds through God’s Word and allow the Holy Spirit to operate through us. Silver that is worn tarnishes at a much slower rate than silver that is not worn at all. We tarnish at a much faster rate when we are not allowing the Holy Spirit of God to operate through us. For this reason many walk in fear, worry and doubt. Try Jesus; allow the Spirit of God to operate in your life and you WILL SEE the difference.
May God bless and keep you is my prayer.
