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Weekend of August 28 & 29 “Don’t Let Dross be The Boss” Proverbs 25

There’s a neat little story of a group of children watching a silversmith at work. He would heat up the silver and scrape off the dross or impurities. He did this again and again. Finally, one of the children asked, “How do you know when it’s finished?” The silversmith answered, “When I can see my reflection in the silver.”
Silver is a precious metal made to be pure, valuable, and to shine. Sad to say, this doesn’t always happen. Like in our little story, we read that when silver is heated, the dross appears. The same is true in our lives. God made us to be His children, pure and valuable, shining for the kingdom, now and eternally. Sad to say, because of sin, we are all filled with dross, impurities that especially show up when the heat is on!
Let’s face it, when the heat is on, the pressure rises, trials and troubles come our way, so often what is seen is the dross of our lives. Jobs can be lost; bills can’t be paid, or we struggle with Cancer, pain, and pressure. The dross of anger easily appears. The dross of blame; blame God, blame our spouse, blame anyone we can. The dross of fear and worry rises to the top. This can lead to the dross of alcoholism, drug abuse, lying, cheating, stealing, and more. Do we just leave the dross floating there on the surface of our lives? Do we settle and keep all the impurities for all to see and hear? Are we just a dirty mess to be thrown away? I hope not!
A reading from Proverbs 25 tells us that when you take the dross away from the silver, the smith has something to work with. That Smith is our God. God can allow the heat to rise in our lives, not to punish us, but so He can scrape off the dross and help us to be who He wants us to be. No heat and the dross stays in place. Nobody likes the heat, but out of the heat can come healing. When we struggle, we are led to see how weak and dirty we are. Seeing that weakness, seeing that dirt of sin floating there, we ask God to forgive us for Jesus’ sake and He starts scraping off that dross. When we feel down, dirty, and defeated, living in the dross of our lives, one thing has to change; the D in Dross has to be changed to a C in Cross.
Looking to the cross shows us that Jesus came to earth and through His death and resurrection, wants to scrape off all of our dross of sin and replace it with the Cross in our hearts, bringing forgiveness, hope, joy, peace, and a heart that is clean in God’s sight. As we look at the heat in our pwn lives, we can seek out the cross and fmd the Savior Who
• took all the dross on Himself so that through faith in Him, we could shine for the Kingdom now and eternally. Our Bible Study, worship, prayers, Holy Communion attendance are important because God uses them to scrape off the dross of sin.
Because God is Good. .All The Time, He loves you so much that He wants you to be pure and clean before Him because we can serve others best when the face of Jesus is reflected in us. We all say God is Good. . . All The Time, do we show it? Amen. .pastor matthews