The Growing Pains of a Believer

Good evening. Welcome to Calvary Chapel. I want to welcome those of you who are online joining us. Would you stand with me? Would you join me in prayer? Father, we thank you for this opportunity this evening to come and worship in song and to study your word. Father, we thank you for this time to come together to fellowship, to worship you, to study, Lord. And encourage us tonight in our walk and witness for you, Lord.

As we're in the middle of the week, Lord, and we've had our week up to this point, and it may be different for different folks, but you never change, Lord. You're the same yesterday, today, and forever. And we thank you that we can look to you. We give you praise.

And so, Father, we thank you for your goodness to us and for your son, Jesus Christ, who you sent to die on that cross for us, Lord. We praise you. We thank you. He's risen and ascended.

God the Son became very God and gave us a victory. Because of what you did on the cross, raising from the dead and ascending on high, Lord, we accept you, Lord. We've been declared righteous, justified,

as long as we're able, God, to sing of your goodness, your mercy, your loving kindness, your sovereignty, Lord. What you rule is always. You're the best. You're a good, good God, a great God. We praise you now. So now, Father, we ask for your blessing on Rick as he comes up, Lord, anointing him by the power of your Holy Spirit to bring forth your word with your power.

Just impart your spirit of wisdom to him in the revelation of the knowledge of you, Lord. Just strengthen him, encourage him in Jesus' name. Amen? Amen. Amen.

Mr. Allen, could I have these lights back on up here?

Yeah, thank you. Now, those of you that are familiar with my teaching know that I don't, I'm not any good at teaching out of just one chapter. I bounce all over the place. I've got three pages of notes, and I have three pages of scripture references that I'm going to read. I've typed out the scriptures I'm going to read, and so you're not going to be able to keep up with me flipping in the scriptures.

I would just assume you sit back and listen and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you. That's what I'd like to have happen. And as we go through it, those of you that like to take notes, Matt's going to put up on the screen the verses that I'm saying, so if you want to write them down and look them up later, something that you can. I've titled this message, The Growing Pains of a Believer.

All of us as believers are children of God, and as children of God, we all go through growing pains. It's just a part of being a believer. And in James 1, verses 2-4, it says, Well, I was reading about where it says, when you encounter various trials, I got to thinking about the different types of trials that we as Christians face. And I came up with eight different types of trials that I've encountered.

I've seen, and one of them has three different applications. This is an all-inclusive list of trials. This is just the eighth that I've come up with. And hopefully as you listen, more than likely you're going to be able to identify with a lot of them. The first trial that I've got on the list is the trials of life. These are the trials that we face because of a fallen world.

We all have to pay bills. We all have responsibilities to take care of. We all get sick. We're all going to die sometime. These are all trials that we face in life. And whether you're a Christian or not a Christian, you have to face these trials. But the difference is, as a believer, we have the Lord in our lives to go through these trials with, and the unbeliever doesn't.

In John 16, 33, it says, These things I have spoken unto you, that in me you may have peace, in the world you have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world. In Christ, I have spoken unto you, In Christ, we get to have that peace as we go through the tribulations in this life. A lot of you are familiar with this poem. Mary Stevenson wrote it back in 1936, called The Footprints in the Sand.

It says, One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky. In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there was two sets of footprints, other times there was only one. This bothered me because I noticed I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow, or defeat,

I could see only one set of footprints. So I said to the Lord, You promised me, Lord, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life, there has only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you the most, have you not been there for me? And the Lord replied, The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you.

And that's what happens in our lives as believers. We go through trials. It's just a part of life. But we've got the peace of Christ inside of us to go through those trials with us. And the unbeliever doesn't. To find peace, an unbeliever will get drunk or get high, or they'll sit in front of the TV set and stare at it all day. But at some point, they have to turn the TV set off, and the problems are still there.

They come down off their high. The problems are still there. They get over their being drunk. The problems are still there. They haven't gone away. And they're still trying to escape it and find peace. But God has blessed us as believers that He goes through the trials with us. And in Him, we have hope to face life's trials head on. The second type of trial that I came across was a trial that results from our flesh being at war with the Holy Spirit in our lives as believers.

In Galatians 5, 16-17, it says, Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. For these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. You didn't experience this kind of war inside of you before you were a believer because you weren't saved.

You were just, Satan already had you where he wanted you. But now that as a believer, your flesh and your spirit are at war with each other, and it's a constant thing that goes on. In Romans 5, 16-17, it says, In Romans 5, 16-17, it says, In Romans 5, 16-17, it says, For the good that I wish, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not wish. But I am doing the very thing I do not wish.

I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in my members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, making me a prisoner, a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then on the one hand, I myself with my mind am serving the Lord God, but on the other with my flesh, the law of sin. At some point, the Lord's going to give us a new body, and we won't have this conflict anymore. But right now, it's kind of like, if you picture your life as a house, and you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, and he comes into your living room, and he doesn't want to just be your Savior, he wants to be your Lord.

And when he comes into your living room, all of a sudden he looks around, and he sees all these magazines thrown all over the place, and cobwebs up in the corner, and stuff thrown every place. And all of a sudden, he starts going through the living room, and he starts picking it up, and he says, no, no, no, Lord, don't bother with this. And he keeps picking it up, he cleans up the living room, and when he gets done, you're thinking, wow, this is really nice, Lord. I really like what you do with my living room.

And then he goes, well, what's in that room? And I said, that's the kitchen. And he starts to have the kitchen, and he says, no, no, no, Lord, don't go to the kitchen. And he goes in there, and there's dishes piled up that need to be washed, there's trash that needs taken out, and the Lord starts cleaning up the kitchen of our lives. And he gets done, and he says,

and you think, well, that's really great, Lord, I really like what you've done in my life. He goes, what's in that room? He goes, no, no, Lord, and we fight him the whole way. Every time he does something for our lives, it works out that we like it, but we still resist. We want him to be our Lord, but we still have a hold of the world, and we don't want to give it up.

And he's wanting us to surrender those things and let him just do what he wants to. And that's what takes place in our life as believers in this war between the Holy Spirit and our flesh. In 1 Peter 4, it says, Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for the lust of men, but for the will of God. So when you're going through those kind of trials, just know that God is with you.

He's with you. He's with you. He's with you. He's with you. He's with you. He's with you. And God's working on you to conform you into his image because he wants you to do his will and not your own. Third type of trial is the type of trials where we bring on ourselves. This is where we just flat out say, God, I don't want to do what you want to do. I'm going to do things my own way.

And in Hebrews 12, it says, starting in verse 1, Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witness surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endures the cross, despising the shame that has set down on the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him who has endured such hostilities by sinners against himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart. You have not resisted to the point of shedding blood on your striving against sin. I have yet to meet a human being besides Christ who resisted sin to the point of,

sweating drops of blood. We don't resist sin in our life. We give in to it. And he's acknowledging that there. You have not resisted to the point of shedding blood. And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons. My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him. For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines,

and he scourges every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father, it is not discipline. But if you are without discipline, of which all become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them.

Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father's spirits and live? For they discipline us for a short time, as seems best to them. But he disciplined us for our good, that we should share his holiness. And all discipline for the moment, it seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. Yet those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields a peaceful fruit of righteousness.

I guarantee you, if you've been a Christian very long at all, God is going to discipline you when you get out of line. He just does. It just happens. And it's because he loves you that he does that.

Sometimes when we go against his will, it's not as blatant as just going against him. Sometimes we drift. And what I mean by that is a lot of times when you backslide, it's not just all jumping off the cliff kind of thing. It's you start reading the Bible less and less. You stop praying as much. You stop spending time in worship. And pretty soon you're drifting.

And pretty soon you're just kind of walking around in a sleep. You're not spiritually doing anything. And God will have to put a shock in your life to wake you up, to get you back on course, because you've drifted off course without really realizing how far you've gone. You've drifted off course without really realizing how far you've gone. You've drifted off course without really realizing how far you've gone.

So he brings a trial on your life to get you back in place, to get you back focused, right? Now, there's sometimes that in extreme cases, that God will take a person home rather than leave us here to hinder his work here on earth. In 1 John 5, verse 16, it says, If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death.

I do not say that he should request, but I do say that he should request for this. Ananias and Sapphira are an example of this. They lied against the Holy Spirit, and they lost their lives. And a modern example that I can think of is a brother out in California. His name was Herb Peters. He had an end times prophecy website called fulfilledprophecy.com. And he and I talked on the phone a lot of times,

and the Lord had given him a lot of insights and things. But the problem was, he didn't believe in the rapture. And in 2007, the European Neighborhood Policy started, which was a seven-year agreement that had a midterm review that included a bunch of nations, including Israel. And they're in their third one right now. But everything was in place. It looked like it could have been the tribulation period

if the rapture had happened. But there's some things that didn't happen. But because he didn't believe in the rapture, and his website in 2006 was the most hit website on end times that there was, that when 2007 came and he was teaching that we were in the tribulation period, he was teaching that we were in the tribulation period. And he was teaching that we were in the tribulation period.

And he was teaching that we were in the tribulation period. Six months later, the Lord took him home because he was hindering a lot of people and causing confusion. And God has a work to do, and he doesn't want people doing that. So sometimes God allows that to happen. Herb was a believer, I believe. Ananias and Sapphira were believers. But they weren't heeding to the Holy Spirit.

They were resisting him to the point they were causing trouble. The next type of trial that I can think of is the trials that are a result of an attack by Satan. In Luke 22, it says in verse 31 through 32, Jesus is talking, he says, I don't know if you've ever thought about it, but I've never really thought about that Satan has to get permission from God to attack us. It's the same thing what happened to Job.

In Job chapter 1, it says, starting in verse 6, Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan, From where do you come? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, From roaming about the earth and walking around on it. And the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job?

For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil. Then Satan answered the Lord, Does Job fear God for nothing? Has thou made a hedge about him and his house and all he has on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But put forth your hand now,

and touch all that he has. He will surely curse thee to thy face. Then the Lord said to Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not put forth your hand on him. So Satan departed from the presence of the Lord. And we all know about the story of Job, how Satan just hassled Job like crazy. But he got permission from God to do that. I can only think of one time in my life as a believer

that I felt like it was naturally attacked by Satan. And that was when we were planting the church in Joplin. And we had three Bible studies going, one in Joplin, one in Goodman, one in Pierce City. And the people that made up those Bible study groups were the nucleus for the church that we were starting. And things were going really well. And I worked at a turkey processing plant on the third shift.

And one night on our shift, there was a fire and a USDA grader was asleep in his office. And he died in that fire. Well, exactly one month later, on the very same night, at the exact same hour, there was another fire take place. And this time, I ran a computer system. And the foreman that was in the gradient distribution department, she came over to me and said,

Rick, I'm not feeling very good. We need more cardboard from up in the warehouse. Could you go up there for me and get it? And I'll watch your computer for you. And so I went up there and got the cardboard, came back down, and I wasn't hardly down there very long at all. And then all of a sudden, the fire alarms went off, and they had to evacuate the building.

The fire had started up in the area where I was at. And I was the last known person to be up there. Well, the company put out a $10,000 reward for anybody who could pin down somebody who did that. Because in the first fire, somebody died. Right? Well, he had 400 people at that plant that could all use $10,000. And I was the last known person to be in that area.

So everybody was doing their best to try to pin it on me. And here I was trying to start a church, and Satan comes along with a lie and tries to accuse me of starting a fire. The U.S. Justice Department sent their fire, tobacco, arms, and explosive people down, and I had to take a lie detector test. And I got cleared of everything. But it's just the fact, that Satan will use a lie.

When Satan attacks you and you're being used by God, it doesn't have to be the truth when he attacks you. He's using that flat-out lie because he wants to try to discredit what you're doing. And the Lord blessed. I mean, the church went on. Everything was fine. But that was a very trying experience to be accused of something that I didn't know. And it was just Satan hassling us

because we were starting that church in Joplin. Another type of trials that we face is the result of persecution. In 2 Timothy 3, 12, it says, And indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. We don't experience much persecution here in the United States. The times I've gone to the Voice of the Martyr conferences, and they have people from other countries

that are facing life and death situations every day would share their testimonies of what's going on in those countries and the grace and the power in their life because every day they get up in the morning, they don't know if that's their last day here on earth. And those people, those people over there, believe it or not, are praying that we will experience persecution over here in the United States, not because they want us to suffer, but they want us to experience the grace and the power that they're experiencing in their lives by knowing that every day their life is on the line for Christ. And it's just, it's something to watch. Here in the United States, most of the persecution that we receive actually comes from within the church.

In Psalms 55, it says, starting in verse 12, For it is not an enemy who reproaches me that I could bear it, nor is it a enemy who reproaches me. And it's not an enemy who reproaches me that I could bear it, nor is it a enemy who reproaches me. Nor is it one who hates me who has exalted himself against me that I could hide myself from him. But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, and my familiar friend, we who had sweet fellowship together walking in the house of God with the crowd.

In some ways, the most difficult, it's more difficult to be persecuted by fellow believers when you're doing something for the Lord than it is for a non-believer because a non-believer attacks you, persecutes you. You actually feel strengthened by it. But when somebody that you're expecting to help encourage you, build you up, attacks you, it's harder to take. And here in the United States, we have more of that than we do non-believers attacking us.

It's the believers attacking each other. The next type of trial is a trial in relationships. And this actually has three applications. The first one I want to take a look at is marriage. Now, finances seem to be the number one area that couples fight about and sex comes in at second place. A lot of this stems from the result of the fall back with Adam and Eve.

In Genesis 3.16, God says to the woman, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In your pain, you shall bring forth children. Yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. At first, it kind of sounds like her desire shall be to please her husband, but it's actually, we're really talking about her desire shall be to rule over her husband, but he shall rule over you.

So there's a conflict in who's going to be in control in the marriage. And the woman wants to be in control and the guy wants to neglect his God-given responsibilities to his wife. And men, I'm going to read this because I don't want to mess it up. Men, your wife is not just your wife to treat and do with as you want. If she is a believer, she is also your sister in the Lord.

She may be your wife, but she belongs to the Lord. And it is your responsibility as her husband to treat her as such and not just use her to satisfy your fleshly desires without concern for her spiritual well-being. You may not like to hear that, but it's the truth. In Ephesians chapter 5, there's several verses that speak to the men first and they'll speak to the women.

It says, Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. So husbands, in verse 28, so husbands ought to also love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. Verse 33, Nevertheless, let each individual among you also love his own wife even as himself and let the wife see to it that she respect her husband.

And then back in verse 22, it says to the wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. And then in 1 Peter 3, also, for the women, it says, and let not your adornment be merely external, braiding the hair and wearing gold jewelry and putting on dresses, but let it be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. We're supposed to, in a marriage relationship, both serve each other. And a lot of what happens as a result of too high of expectations of our spouse and too low of communication with our spouse.

And I'm going to give you an example of somebody that is of too high expectation. If you're not married, this is a good one for you to pay attention to. A lot of times as children, we grow up and we've heard stories and we've watched TV and we've watched our parents and we've watched other people. And as we're growing up as kids, we develop a ideal of what our spouse is supposed to be like.

So by the time we become old enough to get married and we find the, this woman that we love, when we marry her, at the same time we're marrying her, it's like we're really marrying that ideal that we've created in our mind of what the wife's supposed to be like. So that after you marry her, all of a sudden she doesn't measure up to what you wanted her to be and you start finding fault. She's not living up to being the spouse I thought she'd be. And the same thing goes with a woman.

He's not living up to my expectations. And it's because we've set our expectations too high. Instead of marrying that person for being the person that they are with all their faults, we marry an expectation of what we think they ought to be like. And so you need to not have those high expectations but to love the person as they really are, just the way they are, with all their faults.

Now an example of too low communication, after Christy and I got married, there would be things that Christy did that would bother me. But I didn't want to start an argument. I wouldn't say anything. So I held it inside. And the longer I held it inside, the pressure would build because I didn't want to say anything. And finally she would just do one little thing,

wouldn't be much, just some little thing, and it would be the straw that broke the camel back and I would explode and I would just volcano all over her about nothing. And after a few times of that happening, she sat me down and says, Rick, if there's something that I'm doing that's bothering you, when it first starts bothering, let me know. We'll talk about it and I'll try to make any changes that I need to make. And you know what?

I haven't volcated on it in a long time because all we had to do was communicate instead of me holding it in. And I think guys are a little bit more bad about that than women are. Women are a little bit better about communicating. Most guys like to hold stuff in. But another thing in the marriage relationship that is a problem is you can't sustain it by romantic feelings.

Romantic feelings, they're great, but it's kind of like your walk with the Lord. When I first got saved, I felt like the Lord gave me a double portion of grace. I didn't know anything about the Bible. All I knew is that Jesus loved me and I just felt his presence just all around me all the time. I just loved being saved. But then as I got into the Bible and started growing,

I started walking more by faith. The feelings began to go away a little bit because I was walking by faith, not by my feelings. That's the same way in your marriage relationship. It's nice to have those romantic feelings, but you can't keep a marriage going on romantic feelings. It's going to be a rollercoaster ride. You're going to be up and down like this all the time

if you're trying to maintain it like that. Your marriage is sustained by companionship that is based, built on trust. The deeper the trust and your love for that person as the person they are without expectation, over time, the deeper the companionship will be for the long haul. It's a companionship that you're looking for through thick and thin. Now, the same deal of trials for relationships

also relates to men-to-men relationship and women-to-women relationships. In Proverbs 27, verse 5-6, verse 17, it says, Better is open rebuke than love that is concealed. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. When iron sharpens iron, there's friction take place. That's how it works.

And it's the same way with your friendships. If you have a good friendship, there's going to be times when you're going to rub each other wrong. And a good example for that in the Scriptures is Paul and Barnabas and John Mark. Barnabas was in the ministry for Paul. In Acts chapter 11, he goes and gets Paul and has him join with him. In Acts chapter 13, they go on their first missionary journey

and John Mark goes with them. But after they leave the island of Cyprus, John Mark bails on him. He doesn't want to keep going with them. He quits and goes back to Jerusalem. Well, it turns out that Barnabas was, or John Mark was Barnabas' cousin. And in Acts chapter 15, when they went on the next missionary journey, Barnabas wanted to take John Mark again and give him a second chance.

And Paul said, No way. He bailed on us the first time. We're not going to do this again. And so they ended up splitting. Barnabas took John Mark, and Paul took Silas with him. And so they went different directions. It's the first split in church history. They went different directions. But the Lord used it to further spread the gospel and stuff. But even though they went different directions,

in the end, Paul and Barnabas remained close. In 1 Corinthians chapter 9, Paul talks about him and Barnabas. Are we the only ones that are allowed to go do missionary work without our wives? In other words, he's stating the fact that, him and Barnabas still have a relationship. They're still going good with each other. And then he says, concerning Paul talks about Philemon,

he refers to John Mark as a fellow worker. And in his last letter before being put to death, Paul speaks of John Mark's usefulness. In 2 Timothy 4.11, it says, Only Luke is with me. Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to my service. Where before he didn't want to have anything to do with John Mark, now he's useful. They iron sharpened iron,

and the two guys got along. And what I think is interesting is, John Mark is the one who wrote the gospel of Mark. And each one of the gospels looks at a different aspect of Jesus' life. Matthew looks at Jesus as a king or a messiah. Mark looks at Jesus as a servant. Luke looks at him as his humanity. And John looks at his divinity. But Mark, who struggled with servanthood,

wrote about Jesus as an example of being a servant. Because that's what Mark learned how to do. By rubbing with Paul and Barnabas, he became a servant himself. And that's what happens to us as believers. As we spend time fellowshipping each other, we make each other better servants of the Lord to each other. The third type of relationship has to do with trials

and relationship with the opposite sex. In 1 Timothy 5.1-2, it says, 1 Timothy 5.1-2, it says, Paul is talking to Timothy and he says, Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father and to the younger men as brothers. That's verse 1. And then verse 2 he says, The older women as mothers and the younger women as sisters. And then he makes a statement at the end.

In all purity, he qualifies this relationship that Timothy is to have with the women and the younger women. He says, In all purity. There are limits imposed upon this type of friendship between sexes, and that's because males and females the way we're wired. Our friendships with those of the opposite sex as believers should be focused on Christ. This is especially true if you're married.

In John chapter 10, verse 10, it says, The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they might have life and might have it more abundantly. Satan comes, comes to steal, kill, and destroy. And the way he does it in marriage is the same tactic he uses all the time. But if he can steal your affections away from your spouse, then he can kill that relationship.

And if he can kill that relationship, then he can destroy that marriage and that family. And he uses the same tactic over and over again. He steals your affections away from your spouse, kills the relationship, and destroys the family. And it's happening all the time. If you have a friendship with someone of the opposite sex, especially if you're married, and you know in your heart

that you are starting to have feelings for that person beyond just a healthy friendship, whether it be a physical attraction or you're becoming emotionally attracted to that person in an unhealthy way, or you sense that the other person is becoming attracted to you in an unhealthy way, then it's time to put some distance between the two of you and commit the other person to the Lord. I had one guy one time ask me, he says, why is God so down on sex? And I had to explain to him that God is not down on sex. He created it.

It's just that God is really big on faithfulness. He wants you first to be faithful to him as a creator and then have sex the way he created it to be done. And then secondly, he wants you to be faithful to your spouse. It's not that he's down on sex and all that stuff. It's just that he's really big on faithfulness. That's the thing that he really likes. In Galatians 5, verse 13, it says,

For you were called to freedom, brother. Only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity. for the flesh, but through love, serve one another.

In 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 22, in the King James, it says, Abstain from all appearance of evil. And in the New American Standard, it says abstain from every form of evil. And it's one thing to abstain from every form of evil, but if you're worried about appearances and you're more concerned about what people think, then you're not going to be able to do any good to the service in the kingdom. Jesus spent, he had the reputation of spending time with sinners and tax collectors.

They were always putting him down because he's hanging around with the wrong folks. He spent time with a woman at the well. And when the disciples came back, they were amazed to see him talking to a woman. Don't put hindrances in your way of being able to serve the Lord. It's more important, as a guideline, don't put yourself in a position where you'll be tempted

or put someone else in a position where they will be tempted. That's the guideline you should use. Be more concerned about what God thinks about you and what you're doing than what people think about you because people are fickle. They like you one minute, the next minute they don't. But be more concerned about what the Lord thinks about you and what you're doing.

It's easier to just be yourself in the Lord without getting hung up about what everyone else is thinking. Be yourself, but be yourself for the Lord. There was a time when we used to put concerts on the park, rock concerts, and um, um, we'd have Petra Down and we'd have Daniel Amos, different groups, and I would take the posters for these concerts and I would take them around and I'd put them up in all the bars in Arc City, Winfield. I'd went as far as Wellington.

Posted, put it in other, but if somebody was walking, driving down the street and seeing me going into a bar, they think, well, Rick's really backsliding. You know, but if, but if I'm more concerned about what people think than what I'm supposed to do for the Lord, I won't do anything. You've got to, you've got to live your life for Him and let everything else take care of itself. And, because if you're focused on pleasing Him and doing what He wants you to do, then you're going to pretty much be where you're supposed to be.

But if you worry about what everybody else thinks all the time, you're never going to be able to please anybody. Um, there's only two trials left to go and we'll be done. The trial of purpose. You don't know what God has planned for your future in this type of a trial, so when you go through the trials, they don't make any sense. You don't know why you're going

through this trial. And Joseph is a good example. Joseph, his brothers were envious of him. They sold him into slavery. An officer, a pharaoh, bought him in Egypt. His officer's wife, she accused him of doing something that he didn't do. He ended up in jail. While he was in jail, the Lord used him in there, but then he got forgot about. And then, but all this time that he's,

all this is going on, God is preparing Joseph for the future of what his role in taking care of everything because there's a famine coming on the land. And after Jacob passed away and his brothers were afraid Joseph was going to kill him, kill them all. He said, he said, what you meant for me was evil, but what you did, God meant for good. And he had, he had to, after he went through all the trials, he knew what God was doing, but he had to wait till he got out of the trial to find out about it.

It was a trial of purpose. So sometimes you go through trials and you don't know why you're going through it and he's preparing you for something you don't even see down the road yet. The last trial is a trial that not very many people go through. And I call it the trial of going through the ringer. In first Corinthians 10, 13, it says, no temptation has overtaken you,

but such as is common to man. And God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also that you may be able to endure it. He says, God will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. He doesn't say, God will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you think you are able.

That's usually how we look at those kinds of things. And if you had a car wash, if you take a rag and you wring it out with your hands and you get every bit of water out of that rag that you can, and you think you can't get any more out of it, then you take that ringer thingy and they got the car washes and you stick that rag in there after you've wrung as much out as you can and all of a sudden that ringer starts pouring out water that you didn't think could come out of you. That's what I'm talking about at trial where you go through the ringer where you just don't think you can handle it and God's allowing you to go through something that's very extreme, more than what you think you can handle. In 2 Corinthians 1, 8-9, Paul's talking and he says,

for we don't want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively beyond our strength so we despaired even of life. Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves in order that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raised the dead. These guys were burdened to the point that they despaired even of life. And the people that I've talked to that have had a desire to commit suicide, I've tried to share with them that rather than killing yourself, why don't you just die to self?

Instead of taking your life, surrender your life and quit living for yourself and allow Christ to do what he wants to with you. And that's what Paul said at the end. He says, we have the sentence of death within ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. Most of the people that I see that go through these kind of trials are the really godly people in life.

And if you look down the road, you'll see that there are a lot of people that go through history, these godly people who go through some horrendous trials. But when a diamond is formed, how a diamond is formed, it takes extreme pressure and extreme heat. And God will use that. And it seems like usually the people that go through the ringers are the people that seem like they're the closest to him.

And all of a sudden, their life is just, you're looking at them like, Lord, why are you allowing that to happen? And yet you're going through trials, and it's because God's turning you into a diamond. And it's a type of a trial that is very, very hard to go through. And I would say very few of us have really ever experienced that type of a trial. But God uses it to turn us into diamonds.

And if you look back at church history and look at the people that God used and people that were really godly, they suffered a lot of things in their lives. And they were going through the ringer. Now, there's a couple of things that I want to talk about. There's a couple of things that I want to talk about. There's a few things that all these trials have in common.

One, they all teach us to die to self, to deny ourselves and pick up our cross and follow Jesus daily. That's something we're going to do every day. Secondly, our prayer lives are strengthened when we go through trials, as is our relationship with Christ. Thirdly, our faith is made stronger and our hope is made fuller. And finally, our understanding of who we are in Christ

and who we represent to a dying world begins to change. It begins to take hold a little bit better. As you go through trials and realize that you don't have it all together and the world doesn't have it all together and you realize it's just God using you by His grace and you're able to minister to people that don't know Christ in a way that you couldn't if you hadn't gone through all those trials.

That's all I've got to share tonight. And I hope I didn't come down on you too hard. But after we get done praying, if any of you are going through trials that you just feel like you would like some prayer for, I'm going to do like I usually do. I'm just going to sit up here in the front and hang out for a while up front. So if anybody wants some prayer for something going through,

just come on up and we'll just do some praying. So let's go ahead and pray and we'll be dismissed.

Lord, we love you and we appreciate your grace in our lives. And we know that you discipline us because you love us and you bring trials in our lives because you want us to die to self and allow you to be Lord in our life. And I pray, Lord, that you will just help us to just surrender ourselves to you as completely as we can and allow your Holy Spirit to do a work in our lives, draw us closer to you, give us the boldness to share, to be the life that you've asked us to be and just have your way with us. And we just commit ourselves to you and give you peace.

Praise in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Thank you, guys.