Best of 2020: Why Does God Allow Trials in the Life of the Believer?: The Benefits

The following message from Pastor Greg Laurie is made possible by some special friends of this ministry. Pastor Greg? I wanted to say a special word of thanks to the Harvest Partners who make this ministry possible.

Next time you're online, check out Pastor Greg's personal blog at blog.GregLaurie.com. From a theory to reality so we can start living out our faith in the real world. Trials make us strong. Why do believers face trials?

If we're God's children and He has infinite power, why doesn't He use that power to spare us? So many have asked that question. It's easy to ask.

It's not so easy to find a satisfying answer. That's why we're so glad you've joined us for today's edition of A New Beginning. Pastor Greg Laurie tackles that question head on. You'll get some solid, straightforward biblical insight on trials today from one of this past year's most requested studies. Well the theme of this series is what every growing Christian needs to know. And as I've said before, these are certain truths that every believer needs to have in play in their life.

No matter if they're a brand new Christian or if they've known the Lord for decades. Certain things that you never move beyond. Certain things you never outgrow if you want to make progress as a Christian. So let's quickly review what we've seen and then we'll dig into our topic before us.

Number one. If you want to be a growing Christian you must read, study, and love God's Word. Joshua 1 says, This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth. You shall meditate in it day and night, which you may observe to do according to all that is written in it.

And then you'll have good success. The wise man of Psalm 1. The happy man. Of him it says, Happy is the man that doesn't walk in the counsel of the ungodly or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of the scornful. His delight is in the law of the Lord. Or we could just as easily say the Word of God and in it does he meditate day and night.

Number two. If you want to be a growing Christian you need to have a prayer life. The Bible tells us that we are to pray without ceasing for this is the will of God and Jesus Christ concerning you. I mean it's great to have a time of prayer in your day somewhere. But it's also a great thing to understand that you can pray anywhere, anytime, in any posture. So we need to be in an attitude of prayer.

Number three. If you want to be a growing Christian you must be actively involved in the church. You are just not going to make it as a solo Christian. I remember after I became a believer I wasn't really sure if I wanted to go to church.

And I said to a couple of my friends, you know I think I am just going to kind of do this all on my own. It is just like me and God. Ok. But I found out pretty quickly that I needed other Christians in my life. And as you mature you will find that other Christians need you as well.

Listen. You need the church and the church needs you. And the Bible commands us to go to church. And not just to attend but to be a functioning part of it.

Hebrews 10 25 says, Let's consider one another to stir each other up to love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the matter of some is, but rather exhorting and encouraging one another and so much more as we see the day of the Lord approaching. So let's say you are doing all of these things but you don't see much change in your life. Well listen. It takes time to grow spiritually. It doesn't happen overnight. If you were to pull up a chair in front of a peach tree and just fold your arms and stare at the peach and you could sit there for a week and say there has been no growth whatsoever. But if someone were to come and visit that tree one week and come back a week later or two weeks later they would notice the growth. Sometimes when you are up close and personal you don't see it. Sometimes in your own life you might say, You know I don't really see that much growth in my life as a follower of Christ. I don't really think that I have changed that much. But sometimes the best way to find out if you are growing spiritually is, Well if you are married ask your spouse. They will tell you. Or even people that are close to you.

They will say, You know what? I have actually seen changes in you. You are not the same person you used to be. But it does take time. And some people grow faster than other people or so it would seem. But just be patient. It takes time to grow spiritually.

But then sometimes when you are doing all the right things you may come to a moment in your life where you don't feel God's presence like you did at first. Some of the pastors from our church and I were out at lunch just the other day and this server has waited on us a number of times. She is very nice and we will chitchat with her and usually just kind of like conversation. And so she brought our meal and then she said, I have a serious question for you guys. We said yes. She said, What are the service times of your church?

And we said, Well they are 8, 10, and 12 on Sunday. She said, Good because I am coming to church this Sunday and I am going to commit my life to Jesus. And I said to her, No. You are not coming to do it Sunday.

You are doing it right here right now. And she slapped me across the face. No. She didn't. And I don't do that with just anyone by the way. But I really felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to do that. I said, You are doing it right here right now. She says, Here?

I said, Absolutely right here. Let's pray. I will lead you in a prayer. And she just bowed her head and prayed and committed her life to Christ.

It was so fantastic. And after she prayed she said, I feel better. I feel different. I said, So now come to church Sunday as a newly committed Christian. But that is a wonderful thing that does happen when we come to Christ.

There often are emotions connected to it. Quick poll. How many of you had kind of an emotional experience when you prayed and asked Jesus to come into your life? Raise your hand. How many of you did not have an emotional experience? Raise your hand. That's ok. By the way you are not second class citizens.

Category number two. Because to the point I had no emotional response when I prayed and asked Christ in my life. And because of that I concluded it must not have worked for me. But of course fortunately I realized later that it wasn't about my emotions. It was about faith and what the Word of God says and so forth. But of course over the months after I started having wonderful emotional response.

And you would come to church and you would feel God's presence in such a tangible way. And I remember that some of the Christians said to me, Now Greg be careful. You are going to go through trials. And I said, What? I am going to go on trial? No.

No. You are going to go through trials. What are trials? You are going to go through times of testing where you may not feel the presence of God. And that is what I want to talk about in this message. Why does God allow Christians to go through trials and testings?

I mean it happens. To all of us things are going along wonderfully and suddenly without warning or so with seeing. One problem after another comes tumbling into our life.

Things are looking bleak. And then the clouds just sort of part and the sun shines again and everything is better. Why do we go through those hard times? Why do we go through those emotional lows? Why do we go through those days of difficulty? Why do these things happen to us? Answer.

I have no idea. Good night and God bless. Well the Bible has a lot to say about it. And that is what we are going to look at now. James chapter 1. We are going to talk about this from many verses.

But this will be our anchor text. We are going to read verses 2 to 4. "'My brothers,' writes James, "'count it all joy when you fall into various trials, "'knowing that the test of your faith produces patience. "'But let patience have its perfect work in you, "'that you may be mature, lacking nothing.' Okay so we wonder why is this happening?

What have I done to deserve such a fate? I have a grandson Christopher. He is three years old now. You know what his favorite word is? Why? Everything is why with him. Christopher don't climb up there. Why? Well because if you climbed up you could fall. Why?

Well probably because you lost your grip and we don't want that to happen. Why? Well because we love. Why? It is why. Everything is why. You know and we realize after a while there is just no answer just because I said so.

That is all. Why? And we say the same thing to God. Why?

Why is this happening to me? Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. We love to hear stories of how lives have been changed through Pastor Greg's radio teaching from God's Word. Pastor Greg has been instrumental in my walk with the Lord. I came to Christ eleven years ago after having been an addict for seventeen years. I just started hearing him on the radio.

My mom used to leave it on that station so that maybe I would hear something. Well what I heard back then is still helping me today along with all the things I have heard in between in every way in every part of my life. He has helped me and I am so grateful. Thank you Pastor Greg.

God bless you. We are so glad to hear that this program is changing lives. And if you have a story to tell I hope you will contact us today. Tell us your story by calling 866-871-1144.

That's 866-871-1144. Well Pastor Greg is helping us wrestle through one of the tough questions of the Christian life today and one of his most requested messages. Why does God allow trials in the life of the believer? Let's continue.

Okay point number one. If you are taking notes you might write this down. God allows trials in our lives so we will grow up spiritually. You want to be a growing Christian right? God will allow trials in your life so you will grow up spiritually.

The GB Phillips translation of verse four says let this process go on until you become men of mature character. You know God wants to make sure we are learning the material right. Now I remember when I was in school I hated tests. And the reason I hated tests is I never studied for them.

And I wasn't prepared. And there would be those days in class when the teacher would stand up and say we are going to have a pop quiz today and my stomach would sink and all the geeks and nerds would be like yeah. And the reason the geeks and nerds were so excited was because they were prepared. By the way we don't call them geeks and nerds anymore.

Now we call them boss. Right. Yeah. Think Bill Gates. Right.

But those people were prepared. But I never was. And because of that I failed many a test. Though I did discover that an F can be turned into an A with one line.

Just make sure you use the same color pen. It is a dead giveaway. Right. So yes God will allow tests in our life. He rarely announces them ahead of time. He just lays them on us. And effectively the Lord is saying well you know you say you know this material.

Let's test you and see how well you are doing. Here is a classic example of this. In John chapter 6 we have a vivid account of a test that Jesus sprung on his disciples. By the way that particular miracle that we are alluding to the feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle found in all four gospels. I find that fascinating. You would think that maybe the resurrection of Lazarus might be in all four gospels or some of the other dramatic miracles of Christ.

No. The only miracle repeated four times is the feeding of the five thousand. You remember that Jesus was speaking a great multitude gathered. Five thousand plus women and children.

So there may have been as many as ten thousand. Lunch time hit. And stomachs were growling. So in John 6 we read Jesus saw this great crowd of people climbing to the hills looking for him and he turned to Philip and he said, Philip where can we buy bread to feed all of these people?

Listen. He was testing Philip. For he already knew what he was going to do. Philip said well it would take a small fortune to feed all of them.

Then Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up. Well there is a little boy here with five barley loaves and two fish but what good is this with this huge crowd? So Jesus is trying to determine have his boys learned anything. Had they learned how to trust him yet hey wow there is a big crowd here.

How are we going to feed all of these people? Now did Jesus know the answer? Of course.

He just wanted to know if they knew the answer. The test was really do you believe God can take care of you even when the odds are not in your favor? Do you believe that God can provide for you?

Well I know he can. You know I have been a Christian over 40 years and I have always had the Lord come through for me. He has promised to provide all of my needs according to his riches and glory in Jesus Christ. Oh by the way he didn't say all of my greed. But he did say all of my needs.

He gives you what you need doesn't he? But this was a test so he could see if they were learning. And by the way just because you have learned something doesn't mean you don't need to be retested again.

Right? I had to I got a physical the other day and I had to have everything tested. My hearing was tested. My vision was tested. And you know they will do that to see if it is going downhill or not. And you know I always am hoping I will do better than the time before.

I am happy to report that actually there was some improvements. And I was happy to find out that my cholesterol was low and my blood pressure was down. I used to have higher blood pressure and I would say to my doctor the reason my blood pressure is high is I know you are going to take it and say something about it so it goes up when I see you. So you need to like sneak up on me and take my blood pressure.

You stress me out doc. But so we are retested. Oh you have learned it. You have known it.

But do you still know it? Here is what the Bible says about these things coming back to James 1. Let me read on from a more modern translation. Listen to this. When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers don't treat them as intruders but friends.

I love that translation. Don't treat them as intruders but friends. Realize they come to test your faith and to produce in you a quality of endurance. Let that process go on until that endurance is fully developed. And you will find you will become men and women of mature character.

Men and women of integrity with no weak spots. It is going to make you stronger. It is like going to the gym. How many of you like to go work out at the gym? Okay good. Not that many of you.

Interesting. Some of you. How many of you don't like to go? You don't like to go.

I am probably more like you. You know I do go. I hit the gym. I hate it. The whole time I watch the clock. You know I watch it. Just watch. Watch.

It is almost over. I hate all of it. I could walk away. Never work out again and be happy and just eat hamburgers every day. But that is not good for me you see.

And I will go and do these things not because I enjoy it but because it will help me. You know as you get older sometimes people will say oh I am just so old. I am just so lethargic. I am so tired. I guess I am just getting old.

It could be you are getting fat too but that is another subject. I can't stop aging but I can fight the battle of the bold somewhat. At least have a passing thought about it. You are looking at me saying Greg you are not doing that well. I told you.

It is a struggle. I have a scale I got recently. It is a digital scale.

I weigh myself in the morning. I forget that it talks to my email account. So I put my email in and it is a wireless thing.

I actually got an email. I am not making this up. It is like from the name of the scale company. What is this? I opened it.

It was a big bold headline. It says time to step up your game Greg. Exclamation mark. Shut up.

You inanimate insulting object. But you know what? The scale is right. But you see when you work out. When you do weight lifting and cardiovascular things. You know the objective is to get stronger not weaker. And in effect you break down muscle to build muscle up. Trials are like God's gym.

Where you are broken down to be built up. So I don't like it. You know I don't like it.

But listen to this. You are going to like the results. Because I have to admit that after I worked out. I am pretty happy I did. But I make up so many excuses as to why I can't go oh I have a sniffle.

Oh you know whatever. But you discipline yourself. And God uses these trials. Trials take us from the realm of theory to reality so we can start living on our faith in the real world. Trials make us strong.

And people need to understand this. Now when these trials come in our life we want to hang on to the Lord and learn the lessons He is seeking to teach us. Look at verse 3. Knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.

That is really not the best translation by the way. Patience. It comes from a Greek word epimony. But the word could better be translated perseverance. The testing of your faith will produce perseverance. Or steadfastness.

Or staying power. Even another translation translates it as heroic endurance. I like that translation.

Here is another translation. Spiritual toughness. So the testing of your faith produces spiritual toughness. Heroic endurance. Staying power.

God wants iron to enter your soul. We all know the story of Joseph. That young man who loved the Lord and resisted sexual temptation and lived a life of integrity. We know how he was falsely accused by the wife of Potiphar an older attractive woman who was effectively preying on Joseph sexually.

As I have said before she was the original cougar. One day she had all the servants leave the house and had it all set up to just basically pull Joseph down on that bed and go for it. When she grabbed him he ran like crazy.

She screamed and falsely accused him of rape. He was arrested and sent to prison unjustly. And it was while he was in prison that God was preparing him for a greater work that would take place later.

In fact we read an interesting passage Psalm 105 verse 18. They bruised his feet with fetters. That means they put his feet in stocks. And they also placed his neck in an iron collar.

Can you imagine how hard that must have been. An iron collar. But there is an interesting twist on this particular verse that can also be translated this way. As he was laid in iron, iron entered his soul.

Isn't that interesting. So as he was in irons, iron entered his soul. You say what are you talking about. It means that he toughened up. It means that he got steel. Nerves of steel.

You have heard that expression. He had a boldness and a courage and a strength he did not previously have. Frankly he was a little bit of a pampered young man. His father favored him. Gave him a really cool shirt while the other brothers had to have basic workout clothing. But a special shirt was given to Joseph and Ed Connie. You know strut around.

And hey guys what's up. And he had his fancy shirt on. And if anyone wasn't working hard he would go back and tattle on them. And the brothers really began to resent him. And that is why they sold him into slavery. Granted it was an overreaction.

But still. He was a little bit pampered. Perhaps spoiled. But man God changed him from a young pampered boy into a heroic strong man of God. That is what God wants to do with you. Verse 4. Let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete lacking nothing.

A modern translation puts it this way. So let it grow and don't try to squirm out of your problems for when your patience is in full bloom you will be ready for anything strong in character, full and complete. Don't try to dodge it. Don't try to get out of it.

I mean generally we see a trial coming. I am out of here. You know. I don't want to go through that. No. Remember what James said.

Treat these things as not as intruders but as friends. Because God is in control. Everything that we go through life is father filtered.

I mean it is either done by God or allowed by God. That is a phrase my friend Randy Alcorn coined. Father filtered. He knows what you can take. He knows how weak you are or how strong you are.

And these things will be adjusted to where you are at in your life at this particular moment. But you should count it all joy according to verse 2 when you fall into various trials. By the way that could be translated many colored. Many colored trials. Various trials. Many colored trials. In other words no two trials are always exactly the same.

You are going to go through different variations of them. And notice it doesn't say if you go through trials. It says when you go through trials. You are going to be tested.

The question is will you pass or will you fail. And number one God allows trials. So we will grow up spiritually. Pastor Greg Laurie with important insight on trials today here on The New Beginning. And there is a lot more to come as this study continues. It is part of our top 10 most requested messages of the year.

For an instant replay of today's presentation go online and look for the title Why Does God Allow Trials in the Life of the Believer. Our web address is harvest.org. Again harvest.org. Or get a permanent copy on CD by calling us at 1-800-821-3300. We are here to take your call around the clock.

Again at 1-800-821-3300. Someone has said 2020 will go down in history and we ought to just leave it there. And it has been a tough year. And Pastor Greg couldn't have chosen a better time to release his new film A Rush of Hope. You know hope it seems to be in short supply these days doesn't it? A famous cardiologist wrote these words quote hope is the medicine I use more than any other hope can cure nearly anything end quote. Let me ask you a question do you find yourself without hope for your life for your future?

It's been said that man can live 40 days without food about three days without water about eight minutes without air but only one second without hope. I have hope for the nation. I have hope for our world and I have hope for you. A Rush of Hope the new film from Pastor Greg Laurie a cinematic crusade available now on DVD exclusively from A New Beginning. Pastor Greg this isn't just a movie for fun this is an evangelistic tool. People can use this DVD to help them share Christ.

That's right this is a tool you're going to be able to use again and again and again. You can invite someone over and say watch this movie with me. It's not longer than an hour and then you can talk to them about how they can come into a relationship with God. So not only will we send you this DVD copy of A Rush of Hope we'll also send a special information piece that shows you how to host a watch party and also we have a downloadable version as well that you could show on a tablet device or a computer or even a phone. We also in the special offer that we have right now have a little evangelistic booklet called A Rush of Hope find answers to life's most important questions and so all of this is in the special resource that we want to send you for your gift of any size. Yeah that's right and we can't overstate how important your support is right now. We're poised to reach out further than we ever have before and your investment right now will help change lives.

So thank you for your support and we'll show our appreciation by sending the DVD of A Rush of Hope along with all of the bonus resources. So write today at a new beginning Box 4000 Riverside California 92514 or call us anytime 24 7 at 1-800-821-3300 that's 1-800-821-3300 or go online to Harvest.org. Hey everybody Greg Laurie here personally inviting you to join us for what we call Harvest at Home. It's a Bible study. It's a worship service. It's church in your home.

Maybe you're not able to get out to your church right now. If so join us for Harvest at Home. People are listening in from around the world and listen to this we have seen thousands of people make a commitment to follow Christ. So join us this weekend for Harvest at Home at Harvest.org. Well next time Pastor Greg continues with his insights from our listeners most requested messages of the past year with another look at the trials we face.

Why does God allow them? Some good encouraging insights coming next time here on A New Beginning with Pastor Greg Laurie. The preceding message from Greg Laurie was made possible by Harvest Partners helping people everywhere know God. Sign up for Pastor Greg's free daily email devotions at harvest.org