SPEAKER_00: You're listening to a message preached at Front Range Baptist Church by Pastor Dean Miller.
SPEAKER_00: It is our prayer that this message will be a help and an encouragement to you in your spiritual walk.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's Pastor Miller.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Thanks, man.
SPEAKER_02: First Peter chapter 1 and verse number 6.
SPEAKER_02: This morning we're studying through the book of 1 Peter on a rock solid faith, having an unshakable faith.
SPEAKER_02: And Peter, of course, you know, was named Simon, and Jesus named him Peter, which means rock.
SPEAKER_02: And Peter became a fortress, really, for the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: He became one of the great foundation stones.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible says that the church was built upon the apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
SPEAKER_02: Peter was not the rock, but he was a rock.
SPEAKER_02: And we also, as living stones, can be used in the work of God.
SPEAKER_02: And so, but if we're going to do that, we have to have a rock solid faith.
SPEAKER_02: And in order to have a rock solid faith, we have to preach this message this morning.
SPEAKER_02: The title of the message is You Need This.
SPEAKER_02: You need this.
SPEAKER_02: Look with me, please, in verse number six.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible says, Wherein ye greatly rejoice?
SPEAKER_02: Now we've been talking about salvation, and Peter is saying, You greatly rejoice.
SPEAKER_02: Now I wished I saw a little bit more of that in the church.
SPEAKER_02: I wished I saw a lot more great rejoicing in being saved.
SPEAKER_02: But he says, Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptation.
SPEAKER_02: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Father, bless the reading of your word.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for the power that is in the Word of God.
SPEAKER_02: Now today, Lord, I'm asking for you to anoint the Word with your Holy Spirit and the preaching and speak to every heart.
SPEAKER_02: We need this today, and so I pray that you'll have your will and way.
SPEAKER_02: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of uncanny to see in the same verse, you greatly rejoice while you are in heaviness.
SPEAKER_02: The word heaviness means grief and sorrow, great burden of grief.
SPEAKER_02: It's almost like it's almost a kind of a paradox, you know, rejoice in grief.
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of one of those jumbo shrimp kind of things.
SPEAKER_02: The two things don't go together: rejoicing and grieving, rejoicing and sorrowing.
SPEAKER_02: But Peter is giving a clear explanation today that you are going to go through trials and tribulations.
SPEAKER_02: And those trials and tribulations can be associated with joy.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, they oftentimes can produce the greatest amount of joy in the life of the believer if they are done and handled biblically.
SPEAKER_02: So today that's what we're going to see.
SPEAKER_02: We're going to see how to handle trials and tribulations in our life with a biblical mindset and a biblical heart.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I just want to be clear.
SPEAKER_02: Not all trials and not all troubles that come into our life are God's doing.
SPEAKER_02: Some of those troubles are our own doing.
SPEAKER_02: Do I have a witness this morning?
SPEAKER_02: There was a man who got injured while he was working and he had to file an insurance claim, and they needed to have more information.
SPEAKER_02: And I know that many of you have most likely heard this before, but I want to give you this man's letter back to the insurance company of giving his response.
SPEAKER_02: Here's what he said.
SPEAKER_02: I'm writing in response to your request for additional information for block number three of the accident reporting form.
SPEAKER_02: I put poor training and poor planning as the cause of my accident.
SPEAKER_02: You said in your letter that I should explain more fully, and I trust the following detail will be sufficient to understand the poor planning involved.
SPEAKER_02: I am an amateur radio operator, and on the day of the accident, I was working alone on the top of the section of my new 80-foot tower.
SPEAKER_02: When I had completed my work, I discovered that I had, over the course of several trips up the tower, brought up about 300 pounds of tools and spare hardware.
SPEAKER_02: Rather than carrying the now unneeded tools and material back down the tower by hand, I decided to lower the items in a small barrel by using the poolie attached to the gin pole at the top of the tower.
SPEAKER_02: Securing the rope at ground level, I went to the top of the tower and loaded the tools and material in the barrel.
SPEAKER_02: Then I went back to the ground and untied the rope, holding it tightly to ensure a slow descent of the 300 pounds.
SPEAKER_02: You will note in block number 11 of the accident report that I only weigh 165 pounds.
SPEAKER_02: Due to my surprise of being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope.
SPEAKER_02: Needless to say, I proceeded at a rather rapid rate of speed up the side of the tower, and in the vicinity of the 40-foot level, I encountered the barrel coming down.
SPEAKER_02: This explains my fractured skull and broken collarbone.
SPEAKER_02: Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley.
SPEAKER_02: That explains the broken hand.
SPEAKER_02: Fortunately, by this time, I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold on to the rope in spite of my pain.
SPEAKER_02: At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of tools hit the ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel.
SPEAKER_02: Devoid of the weight of the tools, the barrel now weighed approximately 20 pounds.
SPEAKER_02: I refer you again to my weight in block number 11.
SPEAKER_02: As you might imagine, I began a very rapid descent down the side of the tower.
SPEAKER_02: In the vicinity of the 40-foot level, I encountered the barrel coming up.
SPEAKER_02: This accounts for the two fractured ankles and the lacerations in my legs.
SPEAKER_02: The encounter with the barrel slowed me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell onto the pile of tools, and fortunately, only three vertebrae were broken.
SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry to report, however, that as I lay there on the tools in pain, unable to stand and watching the empty barrel 80 feet above me, I again lost my presence of mind and let go of the rope.
SPEAKER_02: Now, there's a lot of Christians who would be laying on that pile of rubble saying, God, why did you do this to me?
SPEAKER_02: And the Lord would say, I had nothing to do with that.
SPEAKER_02: That was your own decision, your own choosing, and these are the consequences of your own actions.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm going to tell you, uh, not every trial that comes into our life is God's doing.
SPEAKER_02: However, there are plenty of trials that come by God's design.
SPEAKER_02: And I want to help you today with understanding the trials that you have and maybe that you're going through.
SPEAKER_02: And I often say that in this room, every single person in this room is either A, in a trial, or B, coming out of a trial, or C, about to go into a trial.
SPEAKER_02: So every one of us today needs the message that you need this.
SPEAKER_02: This was God's design in your life.
SPEAKER_02: Let me, by the Holy Spirit, put three things on your heart about the purposes of these trials.
SPEAKER_02: Number one, what Peter's going to explain to these people, number one, is that trials come in variety.
SPEAKER_02: Trials come in variety.
SPEAKER_02: Look at verse number six.
SPEAKER_02: Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness.
SPEAKER_02: Now, watch this, through manifold temptation.
SPEAKER_02: That word manifold is a word that means varied.
SPEAKER_02: It means diversified.
SPEAKER_02: And actually, the best way to say it is multicolored.
SPEAKER_02: Trials and testings and trouble come into our life multicolored.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I'm gonna tell you, I married a woman who is a great interior designer.
SPEAKER_02: And uh, my wife is just as an uncanny gift of being able to design.
SPEAKER_02: And so, because of that, she has these color wheels.
SPEAKER_02: Now, isn't that beautiful?
SPEAKER_02: Now, on your side, it's all white.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I wish that's how I wish that's how uh trials came, just black and white, but they don't.
SPEAKER_02: Trials are multicolored, trials come in every color of the wheel.
SPEAKER_02: I can't even believe how many colors there are.
SPEAKER_02: My wife sends me sometimes a Sherwin Williams to pick up colors, and I'm looking at colors that are baby bok choy.
SPEAKER_02: Baby Bok Choi.
SPEAKER_02: I don't even know what that is, but I have to go order stuff like that sometimes.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, do you have any ravishing coral?
SPEAKER_02: Um, sir, I would like to have uh afternoon.
SPEAKER_02: There's a color called afternoon.
SPEAKER_02: Now, listen, there are so many colors that you cannot imagine all these colors.
SPEAKER_02: And let me just tell you something.
SPEAKER_02: This is how trials come into our life.
SPEAKER_02: If I started on my right hand side and I just begin to move through this church, I would tell you that I know about 95% of everybody in here, and at least something that you're dealing with and going through in a trial in your life.
SPEAKER_02: And we would weep by the time we got over here at the various colors of trials and heartaches and burdens that people go through and that they're dealing with all through the room today.
SPEAKER_02: Our church family has multi-colored trials.
SPEAKER_02: And I will just tell you something.
SPEAKER_02: As soon as you get through one of them, you're gonna go through another one.
SPEAKER_02: And uh God has told us that these are these are manifold temptations.
SPEAKER_02: They are varied in color.
SPEAKER_02: Now, how do they vary?
SPEAKER_02: Well, some trials are physical.
SPEAKER_02: Some trials are physical trials.
SPEAKER_02: For some, it is a diagnosis, it is terminal, it's malignant.
SPEAKER_02: Uh for some, it is it's gonna be a long journey.
SPEAKER_02: This is incurable.
SPEAKER_02: And you're gonna deal with this the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_02: That pain's not gonna go away.
SPEAKER_02: And for some, it's just a physical trial.
SPEAKER_02: You have to deal with things physically all through your life, and you're in a trial, perhaps, of something that's outside of your control.
SPEAKER_02: And uh, some trials are physical, some trials are emotional.
SPEAKER_02: There are some people that just battle emotionally with depression, darkness, um, lack of drive, and uh a lack of will to go forward.
SPEAKER_02: And uh just really feel the deep darkness emotionally.
SPEAKER_02: Perhaps it's even loneliness, uh, emotional loneliness.
SPEAKER_02: Do you know that you can be married and you can be in a family and you can sit in a crowd of people like this today?
SPEAKER_02: You can be surrounded by people and be lonely.
SPEAKER_02: Feel all alone in the world.
SPEAKER_02: There are people who are suffering emotionally.
SPEAKER_02: There are trials that come in the color of spiritual trials, great spiritual tests, great battles spiritually.
SPEAKER_02: And I want to tell you, I'll just let you know that when you go through spiritual trials, these things are confounding.
SPEAKER_02: I think of Job.
SPEAKER_02: Job had no idea that the trial that he was going through in his life had great spiritual ramifications and spiritual warfare that was going on in his life.
SPEAKER_02: And there are people in this room that are gonna go through things in your life and you don't know.
SPEAKER_02: You're going through spiritual trials, you're going through lapses of faith.
SPEAKER_02: How do I really know the Bible's true?
SPEAKER_02: How do I know that God is real?
SPEAKER_02: How do I know that I'm really saved?
SPEAKER_02: I've just, I have met people, I have I have met people who have struggled and struggled and struggled and struggled and struggled to just get a handle and a grip on, am I really saved?
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they just go through great trials of faith.
SPEAKER_02: And these are spiritual trials.
SPEAKER_02: But trials come in every shade and color.
SPEAKER_02: And I promise you, you will encounter these.
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna experience a trial in your life, and not every one of us are gonna experience the same trials, and not all of us will experience the same trials in the same way.
SPEAKER_02: And that's why the Bible says that we are to have grace one for another.
SPEAKER_02: I love this.
SPEAKER_02: But that's why in chapter four of the book of 1 Peter, Peter talked about in chapter 1 manifold temptations, but in chapter 4, he talked about manifold grace of God.
SPEAKER_02: Listen, for every trial of the color, every color of the trial, there's a color of God's grace.
SPEAKER_02: God has a grace to match every trial.
SPEAKER_02: There's manifold trials, but there's manifold grace.
SPEAKER_02: If you're happy about that, say amen this morning.
SPEAKER_02: But trials come in variety.
SPEAKER_02: Number two, trials come for necessity.
SPEAKER_02: Trials come for necessity.
SPEAKER_02: If need be, you're in heaviness through manifold temptation.
SPEAKER_02: God sometimes puts you in places of great burden and great heaviness and great grief and great sorrow.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because you need it.
SPEAKER_02: And I want to tell you, there gives me great comfort to this to know that behind those kind of trials, divine wisdom is at work.
SPEAKER_02: That God's mind has already worked it all out.
SPEAKER_02: And God says, Dean, you need this.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna take you to this place.
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna go through a heavy trial, you're gonna go through a great time of sorrow and grief.
SPEAKER_02: But I've ordered this, I've designed this in my wisdom and in my perfection.
SPEAKER_02: I've designed this because you need it.
SPEAKER_02: And I think uh as we go through these trials, when we see this, God sends these things into our life and they're never unnecessary.
SPEAKER_02: Listen to me.
SPEAKER_02: If God has put you in a place of trial right now, if you're going through trials that are out of your control, that God has brought you to, you better rest in this fact that with God there are no trials that are unnecessary.
SPEAKER_02: If God brought you there, it's need be.
SPEAKER_02: You need this.
SPEAKER_02: God never wastes pain.
SPEAKER_02: All of it passes through his sovereignty.
SPEAKER_02: Now, why are trials necessary?
SPEAKER_02: What could be the outworking of trials?
SPEAKER_02: Well, let me give you a couple of things.
SPEAKER_02: First of all, trials are necessary because some trials are for correction.
SPEAKER_02: Some trials are for correction.
SPEAKER_02: God will sometimes lead you to a trial to correct you and to give you discipline.
SPEAKER_02: Listen, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth.
SPEAKER_02: And he correcteth every son that he receiveth.
SPEAKER_02: Listen, if God is going to be a true, loving heavenly father, he is going to give correction to his children.
SPEAKER_02: And I want to tell you, every good parent in this room understands that your children need correction, and you have to love them enough to give them the correction that they need.
SPEAKER_02: Listen, if you're a parent who does not discipline your children, do not tell me it's because you love them so much.
SPEAKER_02: If you don't discipline your children, it's because you love you so much.
SPEAKER_02: But God loves us enough to correct us.
SPEAKER_02: Some trials are for correcting.
SPEAKER_02: God has had to take me through some things in my life to work it out, to take me to the woodshed to make me listen to him.
SPEAKER_02: My son-in-law called me one day and he said, uh, hey, Pops, uh, you know, our little boy is two and a half, and he's starting to have his own will and exercise that will.
SPEAKER_02: And uh, what do we do about this?
SPEAKER_02: And we had some talks about what the Bible says about discipline and how a parent needs to be firm and be fair and uh make sure that they lay the rules down and they make sure that they're communicated and that they're upheld and you're teaching and training.
SPEAKER_02: So we had some talks about that.
SPEAKER_02: And a few days later he called me back and he said, Hey, this discipline thing.
SPEAKER_02: I thought my parents were lying to me when they said it hurts them more than it hurts us.
SPEAKER_02: And he said, I thought they were lying, but they're not lying.
SPEAKER_02: And this heart was broken because when you look at your kids, it breaks your heart to do it.
SPEAKER_02: But if you love them enough, you'll do it.
SPEAKER_02: Listen to what the Bible says God will correct you because he loves you.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible says in Psalm 119 and verse 67, before I was afflicted, I went astray.
SPEAKER_02: But now have I kept thy word.
SPEAKER_02: Before I was afflicted, I went astray.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I went astray.
SPEAKER_02: God afflicted me, and now I'm keeping your word.
SPEAKER_02: Now listen, I don't know about your mama, but my mama and my dad, they were people of their word.
SPEAKER_02: I've told you before, my mother was.
SPEAKER_02: Remember, I told you not to underestimate the unassuming people?
SPEAKER_02: My mother was so gracious and kind and loving, but I'm gonna tell you something.
SPEAKER_02: She was Scandinavian, daughter of the Vikings.
SPEAKER_02: She could pillage your village in a hurry.
SPEAKER_02: And my mother never counted us down for anything.
SPEAKER_02: My mother never said, Come over here.
SPEAKER_02: One, two.
SPEAKER_02: We had a neighbor kid that lived across the street from us.
SPEAKER_02: His name was Jamie.
SPEAKER_02: And I the only reason I know that, we used to we used to ride bikes and stuff together, but we would hear his name every day.
SPEAKER_02: His mom would come to the door, Jamie?
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: One.
SPEAKER_02: And Jamie just keep riding his bike.
SPEAKER_01: Bring bring.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Two?
SPEAKER_02: I always wanted her to get to three.
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to see what happened when she got to three.
SPEAKER_02: She never got to three.
SPEAKER_01: Two and a half.
SPEAKER_01: Two and three quarters?
SPEAKER_01: Two and eighteenth, one thousandths?
SPEAKER_02: And Jamie's just like bring bring.
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, get the three, lady.
SPEAKER_02: I want to see what happens.
SPEAKER_02: Now, my mother never counted.
SPEAKER_02: The only thing she was counting was spanking.
SPEAKER_02: One, two, three.
SPEAKER_02: She didn't really count spankins.
SPEAKER_02: She spanked in syllables.
SPEAKER_02: Didn't I tell you not to?
SPEAKER_02: I'm just telling you, it was correction.
SPEAKER_02: Now, listen, there were times I went astray, then I was afflicted, and then I kept the word.
SPEAKER_02: I was afflicted when I went astray, but now I've kept thy word.
SPEAKER_02: In Psalm 119, verse 71, he said, It is good for me that I have been afflicted.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: That I might learn thy statutes.
SPEAKER_02: It was good for me that you afflicted me and you corrected me so I could learn what you wanted me to do.
SPEAKER_02: Thank God that my parents didn't have to tell us 15 times to do something, that they trained us one time.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because when I was a boy running into the parking lot and my mother said, Stop.
SPEAKER_02: That we learned to stop and obey on the first thing.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because that car would not have been as gracious as my mother was.
SPEAKER_02: I was afflicted when I disobeyed before, so I learned her statutes so that when she gave me her word, I kept it.
SPEAKER_02: Everybody with me so far?
SPEAKER_02: God gives you trials for correction.
SPEAKER_02: And some of you keep repeating these things because you haven't learned the statute.
SPEAKER_02: And how to keep his word.
SPEAKER_02: In Psalm 119 and verse 75, the psalmist just says, O Lord, I know thy judgments are right, and that thou in thy faithfulness hast afflicted me.
SPEAKER_02: When God afflicts you, it is faithful.
SPEAKER_02: When God afflicts you, it is not just for his pleasure, it is for your good.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible says in the book of Hebrews, chapter 12, that we had fathers according to the flesh, who they afflicted us for their own pleasure.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it was just like, get over here.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm upset.
SPEAKER_02: God never afflicts you in his own pleasure.
SPEAKER_02: God always afflicts you for his glory and for your good.
SPEAKER_02: But it's always for correction.
SPEAKER_02: Second of all, trials come for necessity.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because they are humbling.
SPEAKER_02: Trials are humbling.
SPEAKER_02: What is one of the greatest offenses to God?
SPEAKER_02: Seven things, six things the Lord hates.
SPEAKER_02: Seven are an abomination.
SPEAKER_02: Number one on the list, a proud look.
SPEAKER_02: It is pride that is the secret killer of so many of our of our relationships with God.
SPEAKER_02: Pride is that silent killer.
SPEAKER_02: We don't even notice when it comes in, it creeps in, and we're prone to pride.
SPEAKER_02: And I want to remind you, pride made a devil out of an angel.
SPEAKER_02: And it'll make a devil out of you.
SPEAKER_02: God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.
SPEAKER_02: God will use the humble, and so God will send correction sometimes to humble you.
SPEAKER_02: Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse number 7, lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations that were given unto me, God gave unto me a thorn in the flesh.
SPEAKER_02: God gave to Paul a trial that he would not take away to keep Paul humble.
SPEAKER_02: Why was Paul so humble?
SPEAKER_02: Because of all the revelations that God had given to Paul.
SPEAKER_02: Do you know that Paul got to go to heaven?
SPEAKER_02: Paul was caught up into the third heaven.
SPEAKER_02: He got a tour of heaven by the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Paul got to walk through it.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul said, What I saw up there, it's unlawful for me to tell you about.
SPEAKER_02: And not because he wasn't permitted to do it, because it would have had it would break all the laws of language, it would break all the laws of science, it would break all the laws of physics, it would break all the laws of art, it would break all the laws of this world to try to explain to you what heaven is really like.
SPEAKER_02: In heaven, it is not like this world.
SPEAKER_02: God makes all things new.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul said, I can't explain it to you.
SPEAKER_02: But I saw it.
SPEAKER_02: Now let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_02: If I had a tour of heaven with Jesus, I would want you to know about it.
SPEAKER_02: Could you imagine going to lunch with Paul?
SPEAKER_02: And somebody said, Hey man, what have you guys been up to?
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I got a new I got a new car.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, really?
SPEAKER_02: What'd you get?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: I got this new carriage, I got this new car, and it's nice.
SPEAKER_02: The leather interior, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, so what have you been up to?
SPEAKER_02: Oh man, I just got a promotion at work.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul's just sitting over there.
SPEAKER_02: So, Paul, what have you been up to?
SPEAKER_02: Heaven.
SPEAKER_02: I went to heaven.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus just picked me up, took me up there, and I got to walk through glory and see all that.
SPEAKER_02: Tell us about it.
SPEAKER_02: Nope.
SPEAKER_02: It's only for those of us who have a personal connection.
SPEAKER_02: Now listen, if you give me all the, I mean, Paul got taken out into the deserts of Arabia, and the Lord himself explained to Paul the mysteries of the church.
SPEAKER_02: Explained to him these things that had been hidden for ages before that were now being revealed.
SPEAKER_02: And God said, Paul, I want you to reveal these things.
SPEAKER_02: He wrote 14 books of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_02: Paul had been given such great revelation.
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_02: That would have puffed up any man's pride.
SPEAKER_02: So God gave him a trial and an affliction to keep him humble.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because God resists the proud, he gives grace to the humble, and God can only use those humble vessels.
SPEAKER_02: Listen, I've seen this many times in my own life.
SPEAKER_02: My marriage is going well, my children are doing well, the church is growing, people are getting saved.
SPEAKER_02: I can preach and people get saved, and before long you start thinking that you're doing it.
SPEAKER_02: And God said, wait a minute, Dean.
SPEAKER_02: You're not going to think that.
SPEAKER_02: This is my church.
SPEAKER_02: And what you preached when people got saved was my message.
SPEAKER_02: And the power that was in that was in my word.
SPEAKER_02: When Balaam heard my message, there was power in that message, but remember, it came out of a donkey.
SPEAKER_02: When Peter heard my word, there was power in that word, but it came out of a rooster.
SPEAKER_02: When Jonah heard my word, there was power in my word, but it came out of a whale.
SPEAKER_02: So don't you ever think that you're the source.
SPEAKER_02: I'm the source.
SPEAKER_02: And so sometimes God will put you through a trial to keep you humble, to keep you on your knees.
SPEAKER_02: By the way, listen, many people want God to use us.
SPEAKER_02: We want God to use us, but we don't want God to break us.
SPEAKER_02: And the vessels that God uses to the greatest glory are the vessels that have gone through trials and tribulations.
SPEAKER_02: When you let God use you, we want to say to God, Oh, God, make me.
SPEAKER_02: And God says, Okay, I'm gonna have to break you.
SPEAKER_02: If I'm gonna make you, I gotta break you.
SPEAKER_02: And so some trials are for humility, and some trials are for preparation.
SPEAKER_02: Some trials prepare us.
SPEAKER_02: Prepare us for what?
SPEAKER_02: Well, ultimately in verse number seven, to see the Lord Jesus Christ, to meet him.
SPEAKER_02: Listen, I don't want to see the Lord ashamed.
SPEAKER_02: And so God is using trials and tribulations to work out in me a way that I'm prepared to meet the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: I'm ready to meet him.
SPEAKER_02: I've been I've been tried and tested, but listen, uh, not only to meet the Lord, but God is preparing you through trials for some other service that God has for you.
SPEAKER_02: Think about a 17-year-old kid.
SPEAKER_02: God comes to a 17-year-old boy and he says to this 17-year-old boy, I'm gonna use your life, I'm gonna set you up on a throne, and all your brothers are gonna bow down to you and they're gonna serve you.
SPEAKER_02: Even your mother and father are gonna come and bow down and serve you.
SPEAKER_02: And that 17-year-old boy said, Hey, let's get to it.
SPEAKER_02: And God said, Okay, come here.
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna spend some time in that pit.
SPEAKER_02: Then we're gonna pull you out of that pit, and we're gonna sell you, we're gonna human traffic you to the Midianites, and they're gonna take you to Egypt, they're gonna sell you on the human slave trade, and you're gonna become a slave at Potiphar's house.
SPEAKER_02: And as a 17-year-old boy in a foreign country, rejected and forsaken by your family, nobody in the world knows where you are.
SPEAKER_02: You're all alone in this man's house as his servant.
SPEAKER_02: His wife is gonna come every day, and she's gonna seduce you, and you're gonna face sexual temptation day by day by day by day.
SPEAKER_02: Not just once, not just twice, but day by day by day.
SPEAKER_02: And you're a boy alone in the world with every reason to satisfy your own flesh.
SPEAKER_02: You can justify in your own heart.
SPEAKER_02: I deserve this.
SPEAKER_02: You can justify in your own heart, I've earned this.
SPEAKER_02: Nobody knows where I'm at.
SPEAKER_02: Who's gonna find out about this?
SPEAKER_02: And yet Joseph, in that place, was sexually uh uh tempted every day, and he stayed faithful to God and he said to that woman, How could I sin and do this wickedness in the eyes of God?
SPEAKER_02: And she grabbed a hold of him and took his coat, but he ran out of that house and kept his character.
SPEAKER_02: And then he went to prison, not for doing wrong, but for doing right.
SPEAKER_02: And he languished in that prison for month after month after month.
SPEAKER_02: He interprets the dream for the butler and the baker.
SPEAKER_02: He tells them when they get out to not forget him, but they forgot him, and he languishes in there for another two years, forgotten by everybody.
SPEAKER_02: And I know that in that prison, he probably looked up at God and said, When did we get into the obeisance thing?
SPEAKER_02: When did we get into the bow down thing?
SPEAKER_02: God gave him that dream when he was 17 and he was in his 40s when he went to the throne.
SPEAKER_02: And God put him through years of trials so that when he finally sat in a place of authority over the people who had misused him, he could look at them and say, Fear not.
SPEAKER_02: I am not in the place of God.
SPEAKER_02: What you meant for evil, God meant for good.
SPEAKER_02: And God did send me before you to preserve life.
SPEAKER_02: And it was there in his grace, it was there in his humility, it was there in his preparation that Judah, his brother, repented of his wickedness.
SPEAKER_02: Judah, who had children born illegitimately, Judah who was destroying his own life, his father Jacob, who was a liar and a deceiver, the whole family came to Egypt and sat under Joseph, and the family was restored, and God made a nation out of them.
SPEAKER_02: And when you read about the birth of Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 1, you've got to go back to Genesis 37 to a faithful kid who let God prepare him for ministry.
SPEAKER_02: Some of your trials are just that.
SPEAKER_02: God will prepare you for what's next.
SPEAKER_02: Trials are in variety, trials are for necessity, and I'll finish with this and we'll be done.
SPEAKER_02: Trials result in purity.
SPEAKER_02: That the trial of your faith, mark that, your faith.
SPEAKER_02: The trial of your faith mark that, that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Notice that, that it might be found.
SPEAKER_02: That it might be found.
SPEAKER_02: This is a refiner's term of refining and a refiner's term of a purity in the gold.
SPEAKER_02: Listen, this is a trial, and I told you to mark it of your faith.
SPEAKER_02: It's not a trial of you.
SPEAKER_02: God didn't put you on trial, He put your faith on trial.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because without faith, it's impossible to please Him.
SPEAKER_02: Faith is dependence on God.
SPEAKER_02: God will put you in trials to try your faith, to test your faith.
SPEAKER_02: Listen, a faith that cannot be tested is a faith that cannot be trusted.
SPEAKER_02: If your faith cannot endure trial, then your faith is not worth much.
SPEAKER_02: Listen, do you know what a storm does to a foundation of a house?
SPEAKER_02: It proves it.
SPEAKER_02: A storm proves if the foundation was solid.
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what refining does to your faith?
SPEAKER_02: It proves if it's real faith, if it's true faith.
SPEAKER_02: Do you have faith in a man?
SPEAKER_02: Do you have faith in a church?
SPEAKER_02: Do you have faith in a leader?
SPEAKER_02: Do you have faith in, or do you have faith in God?
SPEAKER_02: People will fail you.
SPEAKER_02: God will never fail you.
SPEAKER_02: And here he is testing your faith.
SPEAKER_02: Testing reveals your faith.
SPEAKER_02: Gold, when it is put into the fire, is being refined.
SPEAKER_02: Faith, when it's put into a trial, is being refined.
SPEAKER_02: God is taking the impurities out of it.
SPEAKER_02: God is moving all of the dross.
SPEAKER_02: He is taking everything out that does not glorify him.
SPEAKER_02: The heat, listen to me, the heat does not destroy the gold, it just removes the impurities.
SPEAKER_02: When God puts you in a furnace and turns the heat up, it's not to destroy you, it's to purify you.
SPEAKER_02: Gold perishes, faith lasts forever.
SPEAKER_02: Gold is earthly, faith is eternal.
SPEAKER_02: Gold is tested by fire.
SPEAKER_02: Faith is refined in trial.
SPEAKER_02: And what I love about this story here, about Peter referring to this, is because he's taking us back to Malachi chapter 3, where God says in Malachi 3 that he sits as a refiner in the furnace.
SPEAKER_02: God is sitting at the refining fire.
SPEAKER_02: He is looking at your life, he is watching you in the fire.
SPEAKER_02: God is the refiner, he's the one that's sitting at the control.
SPEAKER_02: And I love what Warren Wearsby said in his commentary.
SPEAKER_02: Warren Wearsby said, when God permits his children to go through the furnace, he keeps his eye on the clock and his hand on the thermostat.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: When God puts his children in the fire, he keeps his eye on the clock and his hand on the thermostat.
SPEAKER_02: He knows how long you're supposed to be in the oven.
SPEAKER_02: Now, when we rebel, God sometimes restarts the clock.
SPEAKER_02: When we resist, God sometimes has to turn up the heat.
SPEAKER_02: But when we submit to him, God has his eye on the clock, his hand on the thermostat, and like a goldsmith, a goldsmith would never waste valuable gold.
SPEAKER_02: He's only going to heat it until it's refined, until he can take that gold and shape it with the skill of an artifacer.
SPEAKER_02: Make that gold into something beautiful and valuable.
SPEAKER_02: He's shaping it.
SPEAKER_02: It is said that the Eastern refiners in Peter's time kept the metal in the furnace.
SPEAKER_02: They would heat it up and they would scrape off the dross, and then they would heat it up and they would scrape off the dross, and they would keep doing that.
SPEAKER_02: The eastern goldsmiths would keep the metal in the fire until they could see their own reflection in it.
SPEAKER_02: And I believe that's what Peter meant.
SPEAKER_02: That as gold tried in a furnace of fire, you might be found in a glory and honor and praise at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Not just his coming, but when he shows up in you.
SPEAKER_02: That God is doing a work in you to make Christ visible in you.
SPEAKER_02: That's the purpose of the refiner.
SPEAKER_02: To see his face in you.
SPEAKER_02: Let me just remind you, you've heard me say it many times before, but God did not save you just to get you into heaven.
SPEAKER_02: God saved you to put heaven in you.
SPEAKER_02: He saved you to make you like Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: He's conforming you to his son.
SPEAKER_02: Look at Michelangelo, take a big block of marble.
SPEAKER_02: Somebody said to Michelangelo, How did you take a block of marble and get that angel out of it?
SPEAKER_02: He said, I just took a hammer and chisel and knocked off everything that didn't look like an angel.
SPEAKER_02: You know what God's doing to some of us?
SPEAKER_02: He's knocking things out of your life that don't look like Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: It's the refiner's fire.
SPEAKER_02: And he'll keep you in the heat until the glory and beauty of Jesus shows up.
SPEAKER_02: And with every manifold multicolored trial, there is a manifold multicolored grace that God will use in your fire.
SPEAKER_02: So let me close with this.
SPEAKER_02: Don't waste your trial.
SPEAKER_02: If you're in a trial today, do not complain and murmur and resist God.
SPEAKER_02: You're wasting your time.
SPEAKER_02: Don't waste the trial.
SPEAKER_02: Number two, don't compare your trial with somebody else's.
SPEAKER_02: Listen, they're going through their own trial, you're going through your trial.
SPEAKER_02: Theirs is different color than yours is.
SPEAKER_02: God has one for you.
SPEAKER_02: Don't compare your trial with anyone else's trial.
SPEAKER_02: Number three, don't doubt God's love in the fire.
SPEAKER_02: You're going to be going through things and you cannot see him.
SPEAKER_02: It feels like you cannot hear him.
SPEAKER_02: It feels like he cannot hear you.
SPEAKER_02: How many of you have ever been in a place of darkness where I can't find God?
SPEAKER_02: What is God doing?
SPEAKER_02: I can't talk to him.
SPEAKER_02: I can't hear him.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what he's doing.
SPEAKER_02: Listen, in those moments, just rest in faith that God loves you and God knows where you are and he knows what he's doing.
SPEAKER_02: He's got his eye on the clock, his hand in the thermostat, and he's going to bring you out at the right time.
SPEAKER_02: Look beyond the fire.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, if need be, you're in heaviness through manifold temptations for a season.
SPEAKER_02: This trial's not going to last forever.
SPEAKER_02: The temporary trial is going to give way to eternal weight of glory.
SPEAKER_02: Look past the fire to eternity.
SPEAKER_02: Now I'll tell you something.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord knows how to keep you in the fire until you can hear, well done.
SPEAKER_02: Now that's not how I like my steak.
SPEAKER_02: But that's how God likes his people.
SPEAKER_02: Well done.
SPEAKER_02: Stay in the fire until it's well done.
SPEAKER_02: And God will bring you out.
SPEAKER_02: We greatly rejoice, though we are in heaviness, because God's in control of it.
SPEAKER_02: You can trust God with your trial.
SPEAKER_02: Father, I pray today that you'll speak to every heart.