Transcript
Speaker: Hey guys, welcome back to Grove Hill Church's podcast where we do our very best as ordinary guys to help ordinary Christians live an ordinary life. Ooh, that was good. We don't want an ordinary life. How about extraordinary Extraordinary. Extraordinary. Oh, yeah. ah Hey, good subject today as we continue our journey on walking through the Christian walk and the questions people have, the challenges they come up against. This question of trials. Last week we dealt a little bit with doubt.
Speaker: um Today we're talking about trials, and the Bible has much to say about it. Obviously lots of stories, characters in the Bible who went through different trials. um So let me ask this question. We read the stories, 66 books, just about every one of them have trials of some kind mentioned in them.
Speaker: Why are we so surprised when trials happen in life? I don't know why. Scripture directly tells us. Yes. that ah Jesus tells us that in this world you're going to face troubles. and um Paul tells us. and It's just over and over and over that you're going to experience trials.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I get kind of confused by that myself because the Bible is very clear to say that it's something you should expect as part of this life, which causes me to go even deeper into that and go, how do all these false religions get by by going, hey, you follow God, it's going to be really good, and he's going to bless you, and you're going have wealth. And I'm like, I don't see that anywhere in Scripture. Yeah. There's a word that I've used a lot. I may have overused it to some the people that are... Is it nice word or even? No, it's a good... Do have to get fever ready? Just a descriptive word. This is a kid-friendly podcast. It's just a descriptive word. There's rhythms that we have in our lives. And I think we've got really this bad misconception that our rhythms should be...
Speaker: um easy And I think it's the Americanized and really all of Western culture that our rhythm should be easy and we should know what's coming. We should be able to expect it. We should be able to handle it. And there are things that are outside our control and our rhythms. There's things in life, kind of like an EKG. I think about my wife. She's in ah the cardiac field. She's been a nurse for a long time. But over the course of somebody's activity throughout their life, there are things in their life that will spike that rhythm. yeah And so we've got to see those things as inevitables, but sometimes even us as believers, oh we expect the normal, but there's got to be ah an expectancy too sometimes of, that's just the nature of how life is. We're in a sinful world. We deal with things. People are inadequate. People are messing up. It's just going to happen.
Speaker: Yeah. Kyle, you mentioned that the Bible says it specifically. Let's go back a couple weeks in our sermon series here. We've been doing the book of James. James puts it as directly as anybody when he says, Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds. It's not an if. Right. It's a whenever. But I think the mistake here that a lot of people make is he doesn't say be joyful for the trial. He says be joyful in the trial.
Speaker: Why should we be joyful in trials? Right. um Because the end of that verse. Okay. Which says? Because it says the testing of your faith produces endurance. And it's like a refinement process ah to where, I mean, you think of anything good. A good football team. um A good um carrot of gold. Yeah. Whatever it may be.
Speaker: there was a refinement process that took to get to that point, and it wasn't an easy one. In fact, gold and silver gets put to the fire. A football team gets put through the rhythm of workouts and grinding in order to refine, right? And so um this whole process of going through a trial to refine yourself or to allow God to refine you produces something good at the end of it. Can. Can.
Speaker: Can. Can. Because you're going to allow it tear you down and you walk away from the Lord. Exactly. um You used the word refine. The Bible talks about that process literally from beginning to end. We like to use the big word sanctification. we talk about that. All of us who follow Christ are on a journey of sanctification. Yes.
Speaker: We want to arrive to the very end of our lives. We'll get to that place. So... um Trials are not some kind of indication that you're off course necessarily or that God has somehow abandoned you. Instead, it's actually the place where, ah kind of like the sandpaper that meets the wood. That friction begins to refine, to use your word, to make you more polished, to be like Christ Jesus. And so... um That kind of moves into another great question. What are the kinds of things that you think God is trying to produce in us through trials?
Speaker: What are some of those lessons, those character traits that maybe God's working on for us? Perseverance is one you've already mentioned. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think the endurance, you can go through the list of things. I think God's trying to build inside of us a testimony that glorifies Him. So you can kind of tie all these things together, and they they do. they There's such a cohesion to it.
Speaker: And you see certain things that God ah desires to see in his leaders. We see that in 1 Timothy 3 and some other areas where you know you don't want to have somebody that's going to be quarrelsome in ah these heavy moments. You don't want to see somebody that has a family that's all over the map. ah But how do you get to those places? Mm-hmm.
Speaker: You get to those places by walking through difficulties. And i think as we look at the the things that God desires to build in us, it's the things that are um those attributes that He has that He says, man, I want you to walk through this, and then I want you to adopt this as a way of living. And I think it's through those tough times that we get you know a little taste of those, but they don't To your point, Kyle, ah we can choose to adopt those or not adopt those. yeah It's whether we ride on the absolutes of God's truth or we ride on the variable nature of our emotion. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: If you look at, I mean, Bible characters from the beginning, um those who did amazing things for the Lord's name, ah it wasn't some perfect life that they lived that got them to that point. There's actually a lot of trial. Sometimes them being a murderer, right? If you think of the the story of Moses where he killed a man and he ran, and you can think of what he was going through for the next years in the desert or years in the wilderness, um what what he was going through with the Lord and what he figured out and what he what he progressed to by the time that the Lord came back to him in the burning bush and called him to do something great. Yeah. And so um a lot of this is God's going to use the things that we go through. he's not goingnna He's not going to waste it. We're going to go through some very heavy struggles here on this earth, yeah and God's going to use us to create us to do something great in his name. um And without those trials, ah we don't have the weight that we would unless we've walked through them.
Speaker: um James, that same verse that we were talking about says that you're going to wind up being mature and complete, lacking nothing. What does that mean? Lacking nothing. I mean, because I've been at this since I was eight years old and I still lack a lot of things. I still lack a lot of things. Yeah.
Speaker: Lacking nothing. um I look at that. It's not stating that we reach a moment of perfection, especially as we sit here in these very, very imperfect bodies and and sit here on this earth. But I believe what God is saying is that we'll have all that we need. Yeah.
Speaker: It's more of like a wholeness. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Romans 5, 3. Paul, again, talking about this whole concept of suffering. He says, not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance. There's that word again.
Speaker: and want to come back to that in just a second. Perseverance produces character. Character produces hope. What is life without hope? um Right? I mean, i when i when I spoke in hospitals ah for all those years, we used to talk about hope. And the definition I would use for hope, which is my definition, it's probably not a perfect one. Hope is the belief that tomorrow would be worth getting up for. Yeah. You know? Yeah.
Speaker: And the days and and weeks and months after my accident with my family, when when half of my family's taken from a car accident, no um there were days that hope was all I had to cling to. And it had to be this belief that tomorrow God's going to make me move one more step closer to healing, one more step closer to you know that ah that maturity that I need in my faith that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. um So...
Speaker: Mature and complete, lacking nothing. And then you get to that place of hope. I think it's... the difference between us and the way that the world lives. If we say we are Christ followers, we look towards the future. See, one of the things that the world does, and I say this, ah knowing that there are those that they look at Christ as like, a hey that's a cool thing that you do that, but they don't adopt, they don't know relationally who Jesus is. When they look at hope and they look at the future, a lot of the world
Speaker: will shy away from looking towards down the road. Because down the road, they see a finite, I have only so many years to live, and sometimes their hope is very bleak. So I don't don't think they like to look forward too much, and their hope becomes very temporal. Things in the here and the now, things that they can touch, feel, and see. Mm-hmm. Back in the law enforcement days when I was encountering a lot of people who were suicidal or ready to end their life, that was that was the one word that always came out of their mouth. As I was you know driving them to the hospital or yeah whatever wherever they need to be transported, um it was, I have no hope. There's no hope. And so to me, it became hope became like a life or death
Speaker: situation where with if people don't have hope, they literally have nothing to live for. yeah But in Christ, there's everything to live for, which gives us that that completed hope.
Speaker: Yeah. So you've got Paul over here in Romans who's writing about suffering that leads to perseverance. You got James, the half-brother of Jesus, who's writing about trials that lead to perseverance. Why is perseverance such a necessary thing for believers? Yeah.
Speaker: Because the trials keep coming. Life does not... It's so true. It's funny you say that. There's a passage that came into my mind that I've been walking through in Philippians chapter 1 where Paul's talking about in life or in death. like In both, God's asking me,
Speaker: Yes, he is the the prize. He is the the penultimate. like This is who I follow. yeah But Paul says, if you called me to life, then I will live yeah for Christ. And so that's what we're doing. is That's why we're called to persevere. Because we're still breathing.
Speaker: We've breath to breathe. So go live it accordingly. And think of it in in regards to your testimony. You're going through a trial and you don't have the perseverance. What's the world going to look at when they see, oh, that's a follower of Christ and they're just like putzing around with no hope and no perseverance and I give up. But in a situation where you're you're going through it, to be able to look up, have that hope, have that perseverance, the world looks at you and goes, what's different about that person, right? And Romans 8, 28 talks about that. It says that all things work together for the good of those who love Him who are called according to His purpose. And so God uses the things that we've we've gone through or the things we've had to endure. Yeah.
Speaker: to bless us in a way that brings people to him if that makes sense yeah you know and elsewhere in his writings paul uses that analogy of running the race yeah and when he's talking about he's not talking about a sprint and he's talking about a marathon yeah you know um as part of our sermon coming up the next few weeks i talk about this a little bit they've done studies on marathoners and and and all these marathoners they have determined that very few of them ever quit in the first mile they always quit near the end of the race because they just they burn out you know they can't hang in there um and and so perseverance is like you know
Speaker: taking that journey running that race getting through those obstacles to get to the end and find the realization of that hope yeah it's like if you sat for 365 days leading up to christmas going i hope i get a pony i hope i get a pony and then that day you wake up get that pony it's like okay the way the way it was worth it right yeah it was worth it uh obviously what we've been promising is something far better than a boy better than a pony way better than a pony But, ah yeah, it's it's important for our perseverance. Growing through trials requires the right response to trials. In other words, trials come. We all have them. But if you don't respond correctly to them, what do you walk away with?
Speaker: Uh, disappointment, there't no hope. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I think it's, it's, I don't think in your question, I don't think it's saying, and I i say that because of little things that I've walked through in my life.
Speaker: It's not saying that you can't have micro responses in that where there's blips of, I really didn't respond that well, but I think collectively, as you look at the body of the trial, uh, if it's over a couple of months or a couple of years, you're trying to work through this really big pain point.
Speaker: uh god's not gonna smite you because you you make a a bad you know judgment here there i think at the end of the day god's wanting you to be refined and from point a when you're on the the front side of the trial to the very back end as you're looking back at it that you are learning from that and you make different actions not reactive but proactive actions going forward Yeah. We were watching the remake of Little House on the Prairie the other day, and Charles had said, trials are a tutor sent from God.
Speaker: If you don't learn from it, you fail twice. If you learn from it, you gain wisdom. And so by learning through it, navigating it, seeing what God had through it, when we get to the next trial, it's almost like that mindset of, oh, we've been here before. yeah We know. We know that God is faithful. He has been faithful.
Speaker: He was faithful when I went through that in high school. He was faithful then when we went through that in our marriage. and now he's faithful now that we're going through this now and so it's it's a it really is a refinement and learning experience um and you know that quote could be picked apart because was it from god was from satan you know whatever it may be or was it this this world treating you of the way the world does um but in the end if we don't learn from it We'll be in the same bad place we are the next time we hit a trial. I think that that permeates too. Sometimes people think they can run from it, what you just said.
Speaker: And I tell people this in relationships, the way they treat friendships, the way that they treat family members. And then they walk into things like a marriage. And then they think that they're going to totally separate the two.
Speaker: When you're dealing with... character refining things. yeah You think all of a sudden you're going be a different person right inside of this relationship. No, it further magnifies yeah the ability for you to, you know, make glaring mistakes and sometimes really, really grave pivot points in your life that may be a little painful. yeah right um We talk about this a lot in our sermons here and and in other places as well, life groups and stuff like this. This danger we have of wanting to wriggle out from underneath God's trials too soon. And it's something we do in the Christian life just by nature. And it's not necessarily bad. It's just a ah word of caution that when somebody's going through something, say, like cancer,
Speaker: Our first prayer is, God, will you take away the cancer? And God says, I'm the one that gave him the cancer. I wanted him to walk this journey. I wanted him to be a part of this challenge because he's going to come out on the other side of it.
Speaker: and And that doesn't mean coming out means necessarily healing. And sometimes it doesn't even mean surviving. It just means that in this trial, as I walk with you, you're going to give me glory in ways you couldn't any other time. So I think it's interesting and in James 1, where we were just reading, those that was verses 2 through 4. At the end of it, James doesn't say, pray that you can get out of this trial. yeah He says, pray for wisdom in the trial. Right.
Speaker: So think of it and I mean, go back to the analogies football. If a player decides, oh, this is hard. I'm a step out of this practice style. yeah They're not ready for the game. yeah Think of cooking chicken, right?
Speaker: It's hot in the oven. It's going to take a while. But if you pull it out early, nobody likes rare chicken. Right. And so you got to let it you got to let it finish. And so to pray ourselves out from underneath the trial, um we're not done.
Speaker: yeah we're We're not ready. We're not refined to the point where God wants us so to be able to be used for those big things He wants to use us in. I think too, that that's the biggest thing that God's been teaching me lately is that it's not about the the stage you're going to be on.
Speaker: And I say that from any point, from any perspective, I'm not talking about a physical stage. I'm talking about the things that we aspire for, that we dream for, that we feel like maybe God even has for us. God just wants obedience now.
Speaker: ah Let that be the satisfaction, the obedience and the suffering. Yeah. So trials obviously develop our character. They teach us a lot about ourselves, but they also teach us a lot of things about God, things we wouldn't know any other way.
Speaker: ah Like we talk about God being a provider for us, but you don't know that until you've gone without. There's a great Christian song now that talks about that. I would have never known what it was for you to give me relief if I had never gone lacking. I can't remember the song, but it's words like that. you know Sing it. let's see yeah Let me hum a piece. Throw it down a tune. Yeah. A few bars. no oh But it's it's true. you know We like to talk about how, yeah, God will give you strength. Well, how do you know that until you've needed it Sure. Right? So I think trials have a two-way purpose there in that they do show us a lot about ourselves. And he gives us the confidence to believe we can do it with God's strength. But that's because it also reveals us a lot about the faithfulness of God to be there with us in those seasons and in the darkness, remember, He's still there.
Speaker: so I think the question is is, will you allow God to use you with what you've been through? um you know You hear stories all the time of maybe that person who went through the foster care system.
Speaker: yeah And they were abused and they were molested and they finally get out the other side. And that that that life, the world may look at that and say, man, that person went through some rough stuff. They're going to be no use to anything. But God goes, man, I could use that person with with what they went through to reach hundreds of thousands of foster care parents. And just just to see those stories come come to fruition to where no one wants the abuse. No one no one wishes that on anybody. but in this world
Speaker: you're going to have troubles. And so you're going experience hard things in this world. And then God wants to redeem you from that and bring you into a place where you bring glory to him. Here's the good news.
Speaker: If you trust God in the midst of your trials, then the trial doesn't get the last word. God does. I love 2 Corinthians 12, 9, where it says, my grace is sufficient for you, that in your weakness I am made strong. And Paul talks about that, you know, that every time my weakness became evident, God's strength became more evident. he kept showing himself faithful over and over and over again, and Not to sound like your daddy sitting here talking to you at 59 years. I've seen it happen so many times and not just in my life, but the life of people i have been ministering alongside of. And man, it's it's a, dare I dare say it's a beautiful thing to watch someone come out of a trial. And it's it's almost like when when Moses came down the mountain that he says,
Speaker: He couldn't even look at him because there was such a glow about him. People come out of those situations, you're going, you have been in the presence of God, even in the midst of your trial. Thanks, Dad.
Speaker: Yeah, you're welcome. i could teach Glad I could teach you son something. um Hey, good conversations about trials. Hey, let me just put this out there. If you're going through a trial, we'd love to pray for you. We'd love to offer encouragement, support. um So if you if you want to reach out to us via email, phone call, you can do that. Our website's a place where you can find information to get in touch with us. You don't have to be a member of our church. You just need to be somebody who's sincerely desiring to follow God and and just need some encouragement or words of hope. There's that word again. So do that for us. If you are in the area, we would love for you to come visit us. Come on over. If you're not in the area, we're live streaming, just like every other church in America nowadays. But you can go to our a Facebook page, Groville Church, trying to think of the word. um
Speaker: Or you can follow us on YouTube. We have a YouTube channel there where all this stuff is located. We're going to say a prayer here now. We're going to exit here. Go find our trials, what they are, and get into them. um But we are thankful that you've chosen listen to us. Hopefully you'll come back next week. Hopefully you're gaining some information, some tools you can put in your belt to get through life and continue to follow God in faithfulness. Let me pray for us. Father, we thank you for today, and thank you even in our trials. Life doesn't always go the way we plan it, but it always goes according to your plan. And so when we trust you and watch you and watch your hand in these things, Father, it's there that we gain not just perseverance but the development of our character and that we and we learn more about what our maturity should look like as a follower Jesus Christ.
Speaker: So I thank you for the hope that we are given. And my prayer is for the man or woman that's on the other end of this podcast today as they're listening, Father. If they are without hope, I pray that they would reach out.
Speaker: um that they would find that brother or sister in Christ, that they would find that local church. They would find even a family member who trusts and follow Jesus Christ, and they would have that conversation about, how do I keep moving?
Speaker: How do I keep running this race? How do I persevere in the midst of my own trials? Father, we do thank you in the midst of our trials. That's not an easy thing to do for any of us. Human nature is to complain and whine and be frustrated. But Lord, when we trust in you and keep our eyes focused on you, we come away amazed at your goodness and kindness to us. And it's your compassion that leads us to forgiveness, Lord.
Speaker: We thank you for the opportunity for this podcast, and we pray that it's fallen on the right ears and entered into the right heart today. And we look forward to doing it again for your glory and next week. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Thanks. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye.
