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Now, here's today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Notice the wording in the text. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a while, if need be, you have been grieved. A better translation would be distressed, made heavy is the idea. It's like you're you're walking around.
Life carrying you, your load, your burden, and somebody puts something on you, or something comes upon you, and it's unbearable, it's weighing you down. It's crushing you. You are grieved by it. And when things happen to you, It grieves you. You got to know something.
Grief is a normal. and healthy Human expression. Anybody that tells you, well, if you're a Christian, you want to put on a fake smile and march through life with a brave face so that you look more spiritual, they don't know what they're talking about. You're only making the trial worse. Best thing to do is to be honest and say what the Bible says.
I'm grieved. Jeremiah the prophet. Said, why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? Even Solomon said, There's a time to laugh, and there is a time to weep. Mourn.
Gree. In ancient times, The Hebrews, when they would lose somebody in their family or a loved one, They would have A public period of grief that lasted 30 days. In other words, society expected you for a month. To show emotional grief, they gave you a month break. That didn't mean you get a month off.
But it means you can publicly grieve with the wearing of sackcloth, ashes, the ripping of the garments. It was a public display of grief, 30 days. The Egyptians did it for 70 days. I had a friend visit me from another country and he said, you know, of all the things I notice in the differences between where I live and America is you Americans are like really low on the emotional scale. I mean, it's like at a funeral, it's like the weirdest, softest.
goriest music and everybody's just like really quiet. He goes, in the country that I live in, We give full vent to our grief and our emotions when somebody dies. There's a wail that takes place.
So Trials cause grief. Here's the third characteristic. This is going to take you a little bit off guard. Trials Can be. Helpful.
They can be helpful. They can be so good for you. I know I sound like your mom, right? Take this medicine. It really, really tastes bad, but it's good for you.
Sort of like that. Look at what the text says. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a while. Look at this phrase. If Need B Have you ever thought about this?
Do you think Peter is actually saying that there are times when God knows you need? A trial. Is that what he's saying? Uh-huh. It's exactly what he's saying.
Listen to Philip Yancey, who writes a lot about suffering. He said: if you pin them against the wall in the dark, In a secret moment, Many Christians would probably admit that pain was God's one mistake. He really should have worked a little harder. and invented a much better way of coping with the world's dangers. But Peter, by that little phrase, if need be, is indicating that there are special times when God knows we need trials.
that they can in fact be the will. of God Now, that is contrary to a modern faith theology that says it's never God's will for you to suffer. They have never read the book of Peter very well if they say that. Peter writes a lot about suffering, but more specifically, suffering according to the will of God. Here's two examples.
1 Peter chapter 3, verse 17. For it is better if in the will of God to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. Chapter 4, verse 19. Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good. When we suffer.
We have no idea. What need in our life is being met? By a sovereign God, and you need to know something, Christian. God is in control. He is in control.
He's got you covered. He has this wired. He's been doing this a long time before you and I ever got around here. He is in control. He knows what he's about.
A need is being met. You're going, need? What need could I possibly have that suffering would help?
Well, let me answer that for you. It's quite simple, actually. Trials Correct us. A course correction. If you're a parent, you understand.
You get this. Your kids start growing up and exerting their own private will. They don't want to do what you want them to do. And if they get really hardened and really recalcitrant, if you're a good parent, at some point in their life, you're going to spank that child. If you don't spank that child, we need to spank you perhaps.
Because you need to correct the course of that child. You don't want to break the spirit. but you definitely want to change the will. And that comes through a course correction. Give that child a trial.
David said in Psalm 119, Okay. Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your commandment. Word. There it is. He said it.
Before I was afflicted, before I got spanked by you, God, I went astray, but now I keep your word. Trials correct us. C.S. Lewis eloquently said it this way: pain. Plants the flag of truth.
in the fortress of a rebel soul.
So that's why it's needful. It corrects us. Here's something else it does. It humbles us. Achaya.
Pain does something to just sort of get us right back down to the ground. Even Paul the Apostle was humbled by a trial. In 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Paul indicates that He had so many revelations from God that God needed to keep him humble.
Now just listen to this. According to the scripture, Paul had four. Personal. Revelations From God. God spoke to Paul.
I don't mean he had a pizza late at night and he woke up the next day thinking, I think God. Speaking to me. No, no, God spoke to him. On one occasion, he was taken to heaven, the third heaven, and it was just so amazing. He said, It was just so cool, I can't even tell you how cool it was.
And I've always hated that verse in scripture. It's like, come on. What was it like? I can't even tell you. It was just so great.
But this is what he does say: lest I should be exalted above measure, a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, was given to me. to torment me. For three times I asked the Lord to remove it, and he said, My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness. It humbled him.
Well, I guess God talking to you could puff you up. I mean, you're having lunch with a guy at. Flying star and You take a bite of your sandwich or your salad or your ice cream or whatever it is. Oh, by the way, God has been speaking to me, and I got taken to heaven the other day. Really?
Humble. By a trial. They correct us, they humble us. Number three, they strengthen us. When James writes about trials, he said, The testing of your faith produces Patience.
Now that's pretty needful, isn't it? Any of you struggle with patience issues? Yeah, your prayer is sort of like, God, give me patience now. Yeah, you have an issue with patients then?
Well, you know what gives you patience? You know what gives you that kind of softening of the character? Storms? Trials? Hardship.
They're also needful because they equip us. They equip us to deal with. Other sufferers. You are never equipped to comfort a suffering person until you become. A suffering person.
That's why support groups are so big and they work. Is because you get people struggling with the same issues together, sharing their secrets, how they deal with stuff. That's powerful. 1 Corinthians 1, the God of all comfort comforts us in all of our troubles so that we can be a comfort to those who are in any trouble with the comfort we have received from God.
So, bare minimum, we go through trials so that we can help people who will go through very similar experiences later on. And you can say, let me tell you how to get through this. And to do it right. Because you've been there. A.
B. Simpson wrote You will not have any test of faith that will not fit you to be a blessing. I never had a trial, but when I got out of the deep river, I found some poor pilgrim on the bank. that I was able to help. By that very experience, you're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition.
When you give to this ministry, you're helping reach thousands of people every day with God's life-changing truth. encouraging them to know him and grow in his word. And to thank you for your support this month, we'll send you The Making of a Biblical Leader, a Practical Guide to Leading Others by Robert L. Furrow. This practical guide, featuring chapters by Skip and Lenya Heitzig, offers biblical wisdom to help you lead yourself and others with Christ-like integrity.
Request your copy when you give $50 or more to reach people around the world through Connect with Skiff-Heitzig. Call 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash offer.
Now, here's more from Pastor Skip. The trials are diverse. Trials cause grief. Trials can be needful. That's why we should love them because we need them.
Number four, trials reveal. Safe. Trials reveal faith. Let me be more direct. They reveal what kind of faith you have.
Verse 7. That the genuineness Mark that word of your faith. being more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested By fire. You know how a jeweler could always tell if the gold that was brought to him was real or fake. You know how he could tell?
Put it in the fire, heat it up. You heat it up? To the right smelting temperature in a smelting furnace, you can tell if it's fake. Or, if it's real, or how pure that gold is. You know how you can tell what your faith is like?
Heat it up. Put it in the fire. See what kind of purity or impurity exists in that person's faith. A faith that cannot be tested is a faith that cannot be trusted.
So God tests it. Tests it. To strengthen us, but also to reveal to us what kind of faith we have. If you recall, Jesus gave a parable, a story about different kinds of people who listened. Four different ways to him.
Not everybody listens to sermons or truth. The same way, Jesus said.
Some of that seed that was sown fell upon stony places, where it did not have much earth. And they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up, They were scorched. And because they had no root, They withered away.
So that sun coming out, that scorching, that trial, that turning up the heat, reveals what kind of faith we have. Where we might be lacking. I've watched people go through. fiery trials and they just Get wiped out. It just totally consumes them.
It's irrecoverable. It's like it wastes them for their whole life. I even walked into somebody's office. I was so stunned by the plaque, I wrote the words down. The plaque says, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown.
Period. I've earned it. I deserve it. I've worked hard for it. and no one is going to keep me from having it.
So there you go. Just want to announce to you, things are going to get really bad. When I go through this fiery trial. But I've watched other people go through fiery trials. Same heat, same experience, they feel it just as much.
Christian or not, they feel that pain. But They seem to improve because of it. They seem at the other end to get purer. Because of it.
So, don't look at trials as a personal attack on you. God's after your faith, not you. He's trying to stretch and strengthen and firm up. Your faith.
So trials reveal faith, the genuineness of your faith. Fifth and finally, Ah, trials refine us. They refine us. Verse 7. It says, Your faith is more precious than gold.
that perishes. Though tested by fire, may be found, here's the end game, to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. God pouring all of these experiences into you, at the very end, when you see Jesus Christ, your life will be that much more refined. God is not out to burn you. He's out to bless you.
But sometimes those blessings are disguised in trials. You go, I don't want that. I'm not taking that. Take it. Lord, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me.
He took the cup, he drank it. Cup of suffering. Take it. You know, I have a toaster at home. You probably do too, but there's one thing that just always.
I never understood about all toasters in general. is there's a setting on all of them. That will burn the toast to an absolute crisp that no decent human being would ever, ever, ever eat.
So why is it there? I don't know, these are the things that keep me up at night, okay? I'm glad God does not have that setting on his toaster. I'm so glad that when I get in the toaster, God isn't going. Woo, this is gonna be fun.
Crispy critters, God doesn't do that. As Warren Worsby says, if God puts you in the furnace, his eye is on the clock and his hand is on the thermostat. And even Job, who suffered so much. said he knows the way that I take. He knows.
God knows the way that I take. And when he has tested me, listen to him, I will come forth like. Gold. I will be refined. Uh Now Peter is using the analogy of an ancient goldsmith with a smelting furnace, and he lets a The liquid gold bubble up and fire up and burn, and the impurities rise to the top.
And he takes a skimmer and skims them off and keeps it under the fire a little more and skims off the impurities, and he keeps that up. It gets really, really high-grade gold.
Now, I've read, I've been told on many occasions and read it in many books that in ancient times, the goldsmith knew that. That the refining process was done when the goldsmith could lean over the pot of boiling gold and see his reflection. When he could see his reflection in the gold, it was done. You see the analogy there? You know when the trials will be done in your life?
when God the Father looks and sees His Son reflected in you. That's why We're going to have them. the rest of our lives. Because that process takes a lifetime to get us to be like Jesus. But you know, that is God's plan.
Romans 8:29 says we have been predestined to be in the image of Jesus Christ. Paul said, I labor for you, Galatians, because I want to see Christ formed in you. And so Fire goes up. We come through purer, hopefully, better, more refined. God looks at us and goes, Boy, I see a lot of my son in you.
He goes down, who. Great, life is good right now. Happy. I'm having a lot of fun. And then, you know, we get a little bit of crustiness and impurities.
Heat goes up. Oh, man, I hate this. God says, oh, but I see my son. Revealed in you. There's one final thing I want to draw your attention to.
Verse 6. He mentions various trials. And I mentioned the King James word was manifold. Trials. Many colored trials.
That's the idea. There's one other usage of that term also by Peter in this book, and I want you to see it to compare one verse with the other. 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 10. As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another. This is for Chapter 4, verse 10.
As each one has received a gift, Minister it to one another. As good stewards, watch this, of the manifold. Grace Yeah. There are manifold trials you go through. Peter talks about the manifold grace of God.
In other words, for every shade of trial you go through, God has a color match. God has a color match. Oh Lord, this is so unique. This is so, nobody's gone through this. I've got a color match in my grace palette for you.
God is not like the dude in the hardware store that has every single color except the one you need for the job you're trying to finish. Ever had that experience? God has the color match. Various trials? Various shades of God's grace.
There was a young woman who was having a hard time in life. She went to her mother. She said, Mom. Life is so hard. And I want to give up.
Frankly, I just don't want to fight. I don't want to struggle. Any more?
Well, that was like a red flag to mom. Mom took her daughter into the kitchen at her house and did something very unique. She took three pots, filled them with water, put them on the stove. In pot number one, she put carrots, pot number two, eggs, pot number three, ground coffee. Turned up the heat, 20 minutes.
But the heat. Let the flames get to the water and boil the water. 20 minutes later, she turned the flame off. It cooled down, she Took the pots off of the stove and put the carrots in a bowl, eggs on a plate, and the coffee in a cup. And said to her daughter, Touch those carrots.
What do you notice? He goes, well, they're soft. He said, crack open that egg. And she took the shell off and noticed it was hard. And mom said, Now that coffee, take a sip of that coffee.
She took a sip of that coffee, and she said, Actually, pretty good. Very flavorful. Uh And she said, sweetheart, let me ask you this question. Which are you, the carrot, the egg, or the coffee? His mom explained that to me.
So, well, the carrots went in hard. Strong. It came out weak. Wilted.
Soft. The egg When in fragile with that liquidy center. It came out stiff. Hard. But the coffee.
The coffee is the only substance that actually changed the water that it was in. With a fragrance and a taste that you just admitted to me was quite flavorful.
So which are you, the carrot, the egg, or the coffee? All three of those substances experience the same adversity, the same heat for the same amount of time. But they reacted differently.
So how do you react in a trial? How do I react in a trial? Does that trial weaken us and wilt us? Or do we get stiff and hard and push people away afterwards? Or will we, by that experience, Release a fragrance.
and add a flavor. That is unmistakably the imprint of Christ. in our lives. You know what I think? I think it's time to stop telling God how big our storm is and start telling the storm how big our God is.
God is big. He is in control of this. He knows what he's about. He has given me this. This trial.
I hate it. I'm grieved by it. But I'm glad. Because he's refining me. He's correcting me.
He's strengthening me. He's equipping me. And he is testing. My faith.
So that it would be to the honor and praise and glory. Of him. We're so glad you joined us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before you go, remember that as our thanks for your gift of support today we'll send you The Making of a Biblical Leader, a Practical Guide to Leading Others, by Robert L. Furrow, featuring chapters by Skip and Lenya Heidzig.
This resource will encourage you to grow in faith and lead others with wisdom and grace. When you give, you help keep this Bible teaching ministry on the air, connecting more people with the truth of God's Word and the hope found in Jesus. Gift today at connectwithsgift.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your resource when you do. We'll see you next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect the Skiff-Heitzig Weekend Edition. Make a connection.
Sure. Not the fuck. Of the crossing. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of connection communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
