There have been hints of late that something shiny would be nice. No outright demands, you understand, and no whining. Just a hint that as our wedding anniversary approaches, a little chip of something shiny might be appreciated.
Now fortunately we are not yet at the fiftieth year, so it will not have to be gold. I think forty is the ruby anniversary. Ruby, huh? That’s expensive too, isn’t it? Don’t think you can pick up a much of a ruby at the Salvation Army thrift shop. What can I do? What can I get her that is affordable and still a ruby? Hey, I have an idea. Suppose I go out to our garden path, pick up a piece of gravel, and then grab some red fingernail polish. As long as she doesn’t take a fingernail to the fingernail polish, I might get by. And if that works – fake rubies at the fortieth year – I already know what I will do in ten more years. Would you believe yellow paint on a steel faucet washer? Yeah, that would look like gold, wouldn’t it? That’ll pass, won’t it?
It will not. It will not, because it isn’t really what it pretends to be, and the slightest testing will prove that it isn’t. If I were to try to pass off painted steel as gold, all my wife would have to do to is to leave it in water overnight. And the rust would show me up. Gold doesn’t rust. Steel does. Or, if I were to manage to keep the thing dry, she could let it sit out in the open air a few days, and watch it discolor. Gold doesn’t tarnish; iron and steel do. Fake gold just won’t pass muster.
And then there is a deeper issue, isn’t there? Do I really want to celebrate a relationship with something phony? Do I really want to commemorate forty or fifty years of marriage with something unreal? It’s not the way to celebrate a relationship, is it? I know that if I am solvent in the year of our Lord two thousand eleven, I will have to pony up for genuine 24-karat gold. 24-karat gold, pure, without alloys or impurities. The real thing.
When Peter speaks of eternal life, he speaks using the image of gold. He tells us that what we have from God is like fine gold, 24-karat gold.
Do you know anything about the process of refining precious metals? Well, it’s been a long time since my metallurgy class in engineering school, but I do recall that impurities are typically removed with heat. The longer heat is applied to the ore, the more the gold melts and the more the worthless stuff settles out. This refining process is pretty intense. The fire is hot. But the result, if it’s 24 karat gold, is pure, valuable, durable, attractive. It’s something to celebrate. 24 karat gold.
Peter tells us that our impurities have to be dealt with. The immaturity and the outright sin in our lives have to be refined out. But, says Peter, look what you get for it. You get something finer even than gold; you get an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. You get 24 karat.
By [God’s] great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you … In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed … believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
You are receiving a 24-karat inheritance. But on the way to that 24-karat inheritance, all of us undergo some refining. All of us take some heat. There is no pure gold without refining. And there are no lives prepared for eternity without God’s purifying. I invite you to think with me about our inheritance, imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.
I
First, God wants to give us something imperishable. Something that does not die, does not decay, does not degrade. Like gold, that does not react with its surroundings or decay into something worthless. God wants to give us an imperishable gift. In so many places the Bible tells us that the free gift of God is eternal life. God so loved … that He gave His Son … that whosoever believes should have eternal life. That is imperishable.
But on the way to this imperishable gift, God refines in us what is perishable. God refines our attachment to things that do not last. And when we lose those things on which we have depended so much, then God can show us what really matters.
Jackie Dixon lived in a showplace. Her home in Fort Washington was a sight to behold. I had visited her there a few years ago, and was struck by the color, the boldness, and the number of artistic pieces in her home. It was almost like a museum. And when her funeral was held, nearly every tribute mentioned Jackie’s home and its grandeur.
And yet, as illness came, Jackie found that she could not manage all of these things. She sold or gave away much of it, and finally pared down to the point where she could live in a room of her daughter’s apartment. No art, no pizzazz, little color, only a few things. The refiner’s fire had burned away, so that in her last days Jackie Dixon did not focus on her property, nor on her house, but on a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. That’s what really matters, in the end. It’s not your collections, not your bank account, not your properties, not your stuff. What matters in the end is that you have received the love of God, who is working to give you something imperishable, something 24 karat.
I think of Margaret Hill. Margaret was deeply devoted to her home at Leisure World. She proudly invited me out so that she could show me her house and could demonstrate how she could drive her specially equipped car. One of the most careful and meticulous people I have ever known, she told me about her work as a secretary at Metro, where contracts had to be prepared with complete accuracy, not one mistake. Margaret Hill was proud and careful with everything she possessed – including, incidentally, the church’s membership records, for she served as our clerk for a number of years.
But the day came when careful, cautious, conservative Margaret could no longer keep all that she had built up. The day came when the refiner’s fire burned away what was unnecessary even in her careful life. She said she did not want to be a burden to us. So Margaret sold her house and her car, turned in the church records, and, with tears in her eyes, moved to South Carolina. There she hoped for the love of her family. There she expected to be cared for until the end. Margaret was sure that family, however distant, would take better care of her than church folks would.
The refiner’s fire, you see, burns away superficial friendships and lip service, and gets us down to those who love us. That’s what is imperishable. Love is what lasts. Margaret Hill felt she had to give up her home and her way of life in order to find loving care through the end. Actually it would not have been necessary; here there would have been brothers and sisters who would have been faithful to the end. Some of us had even banded together to guarantee her financial security. She simply chose not to depend on that.
This church is a great family. In this church, we do care for one another. What do people do who have no church family? How they must shrivel if church folks are not around until the end! I tell you, Jesus warned us that real family are not necessarily those who are blood kin, but that real family are those who are committed to doing the will of the Father. The love of God’s people in this church is imperishable. Burn away all possessions, take away all creature comforts, destroy all the props – and still here there is love. Here there is love. It’s imperishable. 24 karat genuine.
On the way to giving an imperishable gift, God refines in us what is perishable. God refines our attachment to things that do not last. Even when mental faculties, as they did for Maizie Scott and for Isabelle Saunders, God is giving us a gift. God is stripping us down to the things that really matter. So when we lose those things on which we have depended, then God can show us what really counts. Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven and its righteousness, and everything else you need will be yours as well.
He is giving us a gift, imperishable. 24 karat.
II
God also wants to give us something that is undefiled. In addition to His imperishable gift, He wants to give us something undefiled. Something that is clean and pure and holy and spotless. Fine gold exhibits no spots, no stains, no pockmarks. It is clear and pure; it is undefiled.
But on the way to giving us an undefiled gift, the refiner’s fire deals with everything in us that feels guilty, ashamed, wrong. Some of us walk through life feeling that we are less than we should be, and we never quite get past our feeling of unworthiness. Some of us are caught up in a terrible self-esteem problem, feeling that we are not good enough, not right enough. And will God accept us like that?
Oh, if you hear nothing else today, hear the good news – that “just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me,” I can come to God through Jesus Christ and be accepted. Hear that good news, if you are at all concerned that you might be rejected. On the way to becoming undefiled 24 karat, our refining God will remove from you the dross of a flawed self-esteem.
Beulah Ottiger came into our church on the wings of an apology. Beulah told me right up front, when she joined us, that she had not been to church in years. In fact, the church where she had been a member no longer even existed. She had spent her life taking care of her parents, and now that they were gone, she was at last beginning to look after her own life. But it was late, and she knew it. She was coming back to God’s people, and would she be accepted? Would she find a home?
There were several things against Beulah on that count. She had been away from church for a long time, and so her notions of what church was about were outmoded. She knew only the King James Bible and never understood why we had a different translation. She grew up in an era in which white folks and black folks went to different churches, and was not sure that the ninety-five per cent would want a little white lady among them. She just felt a little anxious.
But you undertook to love Beulah. You made sure she got into a Sunday School class. You made sure she had transportation when she needed it. You went to see her and loved her and prayed with her. In Beulah’s last weeks time and again she raised with me the question, “Do you think God has forgiven me?” That’s the question of a heart that is still insecure. But I did not have to answer from a theoretical standpoint. I did not have to spout Scriptures and prate platitudes, because you had already done what needed to be done. You had offered grace. You had touched her life. You had accepted her; and in your acceptance she felt God’s acceptance. In your love she experienced God’s love. God refined from Beulah Ottiger her fear of not being accepted, and gave her a gift undefiled. 24 karats’ worth. So at home did she feel in the end, that she gave us $10,000 out of a very modest estate. She received your love, and it healed her. She was accepted, undefiled.
Betty Parker would call me from time to time and ask me to visit. When I would do so, she would share, painfully, about some conflict. She would tell me that she had had a falling out with this person or that. Betty was one of those very sensitive souls who often felt that someone was unhappy with her. And she would assume, almost always, that she was the one at fault, she had done something to offend.
I would listen, I would try to interpret what I thought might be going on, and then I would remind her of the love and grace of Christ, who is about forgiveness, and who taught us to forgive seventy times seven. I would leave thinking that this time the issue had been settled. But in a few months or a year there would be another call and another issue. Betty felt, more often than most, that she created problems for others.
But God has a way of refining us. And His refiner’s fire removes from us all guilt, all shame, all self-concern. His refiner’s fire moves us toward 24 karat, undefiled. I will always count it as one of the high moments of our church’s life that several of us walked with Betty through her hospice days and into her final encounter with Christ. I do not know that I have seen a more complete person than Betty Parker became in her last days. With complete serenity, with total faith, and with unabashed love for her family and for her brothers and sisters in Christ, she prepared us for her death. We did not prepare her; she prepared us. And when she left this life, I saw one who knew forgiveness, knew her gift, knew that what was promised was hers. And it was undefiled. It contained no spot or wrinkle or blemish or any such thing. Undefiled. 24 karat.
The refiner’s fire deals with everything in us that feels guilty, ashamed, and unworthy. Some of us are caught up in the feeling that we are not good enough. Will God accept us like that? Yes. He will. He will. He gives us a gift undefiled. 24 karat.
III
Imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. Unfading. Something that will persist, just as beautiful now as it ever was. Something that will defy the tests of time and exposure to the elements. Something that, like gold, is as bright tomorrow as it is today. Gold coins have been found by explorers, uncovered after centuries buried in the dust, and once they are cleaned, they shine like stars in the heavens. Unfading. God has kept an inheritance for you that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, as beautiful as 24-karat gold.
But on the way to giving an unfading gift, the refiner will wash away dust and debris. On the way to recovering unfading gold, the refiner will clean away things that cling to the gold. He will put away that sin that so easily clings to us. He will lay aside every weight, and will turn us toward the prize. An unfading prize.
Mary Knight was a prayer warrior. Mary believed in prayer. She prayed about everything. She prayed about the phone calls she made. She prayed about where to go on her daily walks, asking the Lord to put in her path somebody who needed her. If there was a decision to be made, Mary Knight prayed about it first.
One day Mary came to the office, trembling. She wanted to tell me about herself. She wanted me to know of the things that had happened in her life. She told me about some relationships that had gone bad. It was holy ground, because here was this lady, many years my senior, pouring all of this stuff out, telling me her business. And why? What did she want? Did she want me to pronounce forgiveness? She did not. She already had her forgiveness from Christ Himself. Did she want me to justify her and tell here that she had done right and that those with whom she had a quarrel were all wrong? She did not. She knew better than that. No, Mary Knight was telling me all these things in order to prepare herself to do what God had called her to do, and that was to establish a prayer ministry in this church. For Mary Knight, it was not enough to have prayers in the Sunday services and prayer meetings on Wednesday nights. She wanted daily prayer, prayer every day; and so here she came, sometimes with a few others, often alone, praying for this church, praying for this community, praying for others. Praying, prepared by the cleaning of her soul.
If we are anything today, then we owe much of it to Mary Knight’s vision of a praying church. As long as we maintain that vision, her memory and our ministry will be unfading, fresh and bright and brilliant. We shall remember and honor her for years to come, with unfading appreciation, for God refined her and made her an unfading gift.
Chastine Bailey, if anybody at all deserves the title, was God’s unfading gift to this congregation, as to her family, and to her community. It is not likely that any of us will ever forget her smile, her wisdom, her good sense, her commitment to children, and her love. She will be one of those people that will still be talked about for years to come.
But even with her, on the way to this unfading gift, the refiner’s fire gave her some challenges. Chastine had not always had it easy from a health standpoint. Not everyone knew that a number of years ago she had had a serious illness and had undergone a surgical procedure which often leaves women feeling less than attractive. I did not know Chastine in those early days, and so I cannot speak about how she dealt with that surgery. But I do know that one day, as the news came out that a sister in Christ was to have a similar procedure, Chastine told me her own history and then volunteered to serve as a coach and a counselor for that woman. She said, “I understand what she’s going through. Let me get her through the emotional load of a disfiguring surgery.” I was surprised to know her history; she did not appear faded or diminished in any way. But then I began to see that beauty does not depend on physical measurements; beauty comes from within. Beauty comes from a relationship with God, beauty unsurpassed and unfading comes when you have passed through the refiner’s fire, and He has removed every pretense, every prop, and every façade, and has left you with the glow of a pure heart.
Chastine Bailey is an unfading gift, and will long be cherished by a number of women in this congregation whom she encouraged. She is unfading, 24 karat, pure gold.
And so today, brothers and sisters, as Peter says, rejoice! Families, rejoice! Friends, rejoice! Church, rejoice! Rejoice for these eight esteemed sisters, now in the presence of their creator and their redeemer.
Rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Rejoice in your 24-karat, imperishable, undefiled, unfading inheritance. Embrace it, keep it, polish it, witness with it. For it is yours and it is ours, forever. 24 karat.
And the twenty-four elders fell before the Lamb, each holding a harp and a golden bowl full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. They sing a new song: “… you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth.” Then I looked, and I heard … singing with full voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”
From our God an inheritance imperishable, undefiled, unfading. 24 karat. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!
