Rick Warren - 6 Signs That God Is Testing You Right Now

Every test you're going to go through in life is

already in this book. And if you study this book,

then you're going to see from the characters in this

book how to pass each test. God's number one goal

in your life is to make you like Jesus. God's

goal on earth is not to make you happy. God's

goal on your life is to grow you up to

spiritual maturity. Happiness comes from holiness, and in heaven you're

going to be happy for trillions and trillions of years.

This is the growing stage. This is the development stage.

Not everything works perfectly and not everything goes the way

you wanted to go because God is much more interested

in your character than he is your comfort. So you know,

shouldn't expect everything to go right.

In this life.

It's not going to God wants to grow your character.

He wants you to make you spiritually mature. Then wants

you to be a spiritual baby all your life, and

he wants you to grow up in. Our model, of course,

is Jesus Christ, who was love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness,

self control. He was the fruit of the spirit, and

he's our model for spiritual maturity. Now one of the ways,

one of the ways that God grows you up is

by testing you. You know, when you work out in

a gym, you test your muscles by lifting weights, and

the more weight you can lift, the more it tests

your muscle, the more it grows your muscle. And God

builds your character the same way through a series of tests.

And those tests test your faith, They test your character,

they test your patience, they test all kinds of things

in your life. Now, the good news behind that is

that there is a purpose behind every problem in your life.

Problems are not simply arbitrary. Problems are not simply by chance.

The problems that come into your life are there to

test your character, to grow your character, to grow your faith,

to help you become all that God wants you to be,

the man God wants you to be, the woman God

wants you to be. So every problem has a purpose

and it's designed to help you grow. Now we know

that from what the Bible says. They're at the top

of your outline, James, chapter one. It says this, whenever

troubles come your way, whenever troubles trouble comes your way,

let it be an opportunity for joy.

Huh. Oh oh, I got another problem.

I'm happy. Whenever trouble comes your way, let it be

an opportunity for joy. Now, if it just stopped there,

that wouldn't make any sense. But then it gives you

the reason for the joy. For when your faith is tested,

your endurance has a chance to grow.

So let it grow. Let it grow, for when.

It is fully developed, you will be read it with me.

Strong in character and ready for anything. I want you

to be strong in character.

I want you.

To be ready for anything that happens in life that

you're able to handle. You are resilient, you are responsible,

you are strong.

You're a strong woman. You're a strong man.

Because you have strength of character and you have you're

ready for anything because your faith is tested.

Now notice those two phrases.

I want you to circle the phrase faith is tested,

and circle the phase strong in character, and draw a

line between those two because they go together. The way

you become strong in character is to have your faith tested.

God uses the conflicts and the problems and the pressures

and the trials and the difficulties and the disasters and

the dangers and the difficult dead end and the disappointments.

He uses all of it. Just test your faith and

to grow you strong in character. And if you intend

to be the man or the woman God wants you

to be, God will test your faith. Now, what I'm

going to do today is just take you through six

of the many tests you're going to go through. Fortunately,

God wants you to pass the test. Okay, he wants you,

so he gives you the answers in advance.

Didn't you always like those open book tests? You go,

you know, the.

Answers are right there. All you got to go do

is look it up. Well, the answers are all right here.

They're in that.

This is the answer book for all the tests of

your life. And God gives us many examples in the

Bible to prepare us for the many different kinds of tests.

Every test you're going to go through in life.

Is already in this book. And if you study this book,

then you're going to see from the characters in this

book how to pass each test. Now, all we have

time for today is to go through about five or

six of these different tests.

And we're gonna use three.

Different characters of the Bible, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, three

guys you've all heard of and they went through tests,

and you're going to go through those exact same tests,

these six tests.

I've been through them dozens of times in my life.

You have too.

You may not even realize it was a test, but

you have been going through these tests over and over

in your life. Now, good news. As I said, God

wants you to pass the test. Now let's start with

this first guy, Noah. The Bible tells us that when

God created the earth is perfect, there were no problems.

They're no sorrows, no sin, no sadness, no suffering, no tears,

no trials, no temptation. It was just a perfect place.

It was an Eden.

But man messed it up. And the longer man went along,

we start having pollution. We started having problems. We had conflict,

we had wars, we have injustice, we have racism, have all.

Of these problems in life.

We have sexual abuse and all the God didn't start

any of these things. Man started murder, Man started jealousy,

Man started you know, cheating and dishonesty and adultery and

all these different things. Anyway, the world got worse and

worse and worse, until the Bible says God was so

grieved that he had even made the Earth because it

was going in the wrong direction, and he said, I'm

just going to start over. And when he looked down

on the earth, the Bible says the earth was so

evil he could only find one guy. He'll only find

one righteous guy in the entire planet. And the guy's

name was Noah. And the Bible tells us that Noah

found grace in the eyes of the Lord. I'm grateful

for Noah because if it weren't for him, none of

us would be here. Now, when we talk about, by

the way, racism and race, really there's only one race.

It's the human race because we all came from Noah.

Every one of us here came from Noah. And after

the flood, his son spread out all around the world

and started at different cultures and different.

Things like that.

But we're all from no We all have all of

our blood bleeds red. None of you bleed green blood. Okay,

we may look different on the outside, but on the inside,

we're really all the same because we all came from

this one guy, Noah, who obviously came from Adam. Now,

imagine if you are this guy Noah, or you're his wife,

or you're one of his kids, and you know, the

world's a pretty evil place. And God comes to your

dad or your husband and says, I'm gonna start over.

I'm gonna wipe out everything.

I'm gonna flood the earth, and I want you to

build a big boat. We're gonna call it an ARC.

And I'm gonna bring all the animals to you. And

you're gonna put your families and you and all these

animals on ARC and we're just gonna start over.

You. Would you believe that? Would you think? Am I

hearing right? What? What are you talking about? Now? This

is the very first test. Write this down.

You're gonna go through a kind of test like this

in your life many many times. And it is a

new task, a new task, or a new dream. God's

gonna come to you and say, here's what I want

you to do, or here's what I'm asking you to do,

or here's what I'm telling you to do. And it

could be so big that it just seems impossible. It's

an impossible dream or it's an impossible task. I call

this the what test, because when God comes to you

and talks to you and says, here's.

What I want you to do, you go what.

Wa me, No way, you got the wrong guy. I

think that person lives down the street. What that's the

what test in life? When God asked you to do

something that's so new or so difficult, you don't.

You don't.

You don't even imagine yourself doing it. And here's what

the Bible says, and Hebrews chapter eleven, and all the

verses today are out of Hebrews chapter eleven. It was

by faith that Noah built an arc to save his

family from the flood, and he obeyed God who warned

him about something that noticed. This had never happened before.

The Bible tells us that up to this time, it

had never rained on earth. That's why they had never

seen a rainbow. It never rained. The Bible tells us

that a mist came up from the ground at night,

kind of like do a condensation. There was some kind

of condensation that happened in the earth that watered all

of the animals and all of the vegetables and all

the plants. This is why before the flood people lived

a whole lot longer. The atmosphere changed. People lived two hundred,

three hundred, four hundred years. I think God did that

intentionally so they'd have lots of kids to populate the earth.

But after all of a sudden, the flood, the birth,

that the age starts going down, and that people aren't

living as long. Something changed in the environment, in the firmament,

in the climate, in that environment. But notice it says

there it had never happened. For when you have this

first test, it's going to be when God comes to

you and says, I want you to do this.

Now.

That may not be building ARC, but it's something Number one,

you've never done before. And number two, it seems impossible.

That's the what test? What are you kidding me? You're

going to go through the what test? You've never done

it before? Or it is it seems impossible. Now, what

is faith? This is a test? Write this down. Faith

is facing the future without knowing what. Faith is facing

the future without knowing what. Noah built in Arc by faith.

And in Hebrews eleven, verse one, it says faith is

being sure of what we hope for and being certain

of what we do not see. Faith is facing the

future without knowing what's.

Going to happen.

And you've got this big task, this new task. It's impossible.

You've never done it before. You're going to have that

test many many times in life. God will ask you

to do something you've never done before. Number two, here's

the second test, a major change, a major change. First

a new task. The second is a major change. And

I call this the where test?

Where are we going? Lord? Where are we going? With

this one?

And you have a major change upset in your life.

A good example of this kind of test is the

guy named Abraham, and the Bible tells us in Hebrews eleven,

verse eight to ten, it was by faith that Abraham

obeyed when God called him to leave home. See, this

is a big change to leave home and go to

another land. He's going to make a major move that

God would give him as in his inheritance. And he

went noticed without knowing where circle the where this is

the were test? Without knowing where he was going. Now,

Abraham is a guy who lived in a city called Er,

which is in the er of the Kaldis over in

the Iraq Iran area or the Kaldis.

How'd you like to live in Er? Where are you from?

Er?

Sorry? Head gas, where are you from?

Er?

You burped again? Er? Okay?

Abraham lived in the city big city called Er and

God says, I've picked you out and I'm going to

make you a great nation. But I'm not going to

make you a great nation here in the Iraq area.

I'm going to move you over to the Palestine area,

to the Israel area, and I want.

You to get ready to move. Now.

This is an especially difficult move, major change for Abraham.

Why.

First, he's seventy five years old, and when he's ready

for social security, God says, get ready for social insecurity.

When he's ready to hang.

It up and slow down and play golf, God says,

take it down, put it on, get ready for the

adventure of your life at age seventy five. That's not

really when you're getting ready to start your greatest adventure

in life, Okay, But this is a major change. At

age seventy five, he's ready to retire. God says, I'm

ready to inspire. You're getting ready to move into your

greatest victory in life after age seventy five.

Now, Abraham had a lot to move because.

The Bible tells us he was a very wealthy guy.

So he had years of accumulation. He had a lot

of cattle, he had a lot of sheep, He had

a lot of goats, He had a lot of family,

He had a lot of people working for him, lots

of people employees. And God says, I'm going to move

you to a new country. And Abraham says, where are

we going? He says, I'll let you know. He said,

how will I know when I get there? He said,

I'll let you know. He said what direction? He said,

just head that way? And and and how long is

it gonna take?

I'll let you know. Would you move.

If God said I'm not gonna tell you where you're going,

how long it's gonna take, where you're gonna end up,

what it's gonna be.

Like, Just trust me.

This is the second test of life, a major take change.

The test of life is the wear test.

Imagine how how long is it gonna tay? I'll let

you know. It's totally on faith.

Abraham, by faith obeyed God to leave home and go

to another land.

Would you do that?

You're gonna be tested by God when he's gonna say

I want you to go that direction, and you go where?

Head that way? What's at the end.

I'll let you know. This is a test. Some of

you are in the wear test.

Of life.

Right now, some of you are in that first test, okay,

what But some of you are in the wear test,

and the wear test of God said I'm gonna move

you and you don't know where. That is a test

if your character, test your faith. Don't write this down.

Faith is following God's leading without knowing where. Faith is

following God's leading without knowing where. Sometimes God might say,

I want you to quit your job. What's the new job.

I'll let you know. I want you to sell your house.

Where we're gonna move, I'll let you know. That is

the second test of life, the where that builds your character,

the what and the where, the new task, and the

major change. Faith is following God's leading without knowing where.

So Abraham does this, and he packs up all of

his wealth and all of his cattle and camels and

chiefs and goats and employees and family and grandkids and everyone,

and he heads off that direction, having no idea where

he's going. He eventually gets to Canaan, but still when

he gets to the land, he doesn't get to settle down.

In fact, he has to live in tents the rest

of his life. And that leads me to the third

test and write this down. The third test you're going

to have in life is a delayed promise. You can

count on this one, folks. God has over seven thousand

promises in the Bible for you. He is not guaranteed

to fulfill every one of them instantly. I've told you this,

for God is not a vending machine where you put

in the prayer and pull the promise button and you

get everything instantly. If you did, it wouldn't require any faith.

If every prayer of yours was instantly answered, you'd think

God was your genie. Your wish is my command. God

is not your genie. God doesn't work for you. You work

for God. God is not your genie. He has made

all these promises, but he has all of eternity to

fulfill them. Some of the promises that God has made

you are not even going to be filled here in

this lifetime. They're going to be fulfilled in eternity. He's

got all of heaven eternity to fulfill them. But the

delayed promise is what I call the wind test. First,

you're going what, Lord, what? Then you're going where, Lord, Where?

And in this one you're going when Lord, when? When

are you going to answer my prayer.

When are you gonna hear me?

When are things going to change in my marriage? When

am I gonna get married? When am I gonna graduate?

When am I going to have a baby? When am

I going to get that promotion? It's the win question

of why that's the third test. You're going to go

through the wind test many many times in life. Hebrews

eleven eight to ten says this. Even after Abraham reached

the land God had promised him, he lived there by faith,

for he was like a foreigner living in a tent.

He couldn't even settle down. He's living in a tent,

moving around the country. God and said I'm giving you.

And by the way, he says, so did Isaac and Jacob.

That's his son and his grandson. So over three generations,

they're kind of like nomads. Even though God said I'm

giving you this country called Israel, you're not going to

get it in this time table, even living in a tent.

So did Isaac and Jacob, to whom God gave the

same promise. Abraham did this because he was confidently looking

toward forward to a city whose eternal foundations, a city

designed and built by God. Now in that verse, I

want you to circle the word it's in caps, promise.

Circle the word promise. It's used twice. And this is

a very important word. It was promised to him the

same promise. God wants us to base our lives on promises,

not explanations. If you ever understand that you're going to

take a giant leap in your character and a giant

leap in your faith. God wants you to build your

life on his promises, not his explanations. God doesn't owe

you an explanation for anything in your life. God is

God and you're not. And God is not going to

explain why everything happens and when it happens, and how

it happens, and the reasons and all. God doesn't owe

you an explanation for everything. He wants you to trust

his promises, not wait for explanations. Now, God had promised

him this land of Israel. But after he gets said,

there's this delay and transfer of ownership. And I'm sure

Abraham is constantly going, when Lord, when you gave me

this promise, when are you going to fulfill Is it

time yet? Is it time yet? Time yet? He lives

intents for three generations that's a long wait. He's unable

to settle down. The Bible calls him a stranger in

his own country. You may be in this test right now,

the wind test, where you've been waiting for an answer,

and that doesn't seem like there's any end in sight.

You're going to win when, Lord, when you're going to

take care of this problem? When are you going to

take care of this issue? When are you going to

take care of this relationship? When are you going to

take care of my finances? When are you going to

take care of my health? When are you going to

take care of my future? And here's going to win? Lord?

When? Not what? Not where? But when?

I want you to write this down. Faith is waiting

for God's timing without knowing. When waiting for God's timing

without knowing?

When? Now here's the fourth test.

Here's the fourth These are many, many tests, but I'm

just covering a few this weekend. Number four is an

unsolvable problem. Now you've all had this one, and this

is what I.

Call the how test.

You get a problem and you go, how in the

world we're going to solve this one?

This is a test.

Now God told Abraham that not only was he going

to move him to a new country and give him

this land, and he would be the father of a

great nation. He told him that he was going to

have a kid that would have more kids, would have

more kids wor kids, and they would populate it. He

was not just giving him land. He was going to

give him as his heritage, a great nation. They were

all going to come from Abraham. Now, remember he's seventy

five years old. When God tells him this promise. He

moves to the land of Canaan, which is going to

be called Israel. And while he's there, he keeps waiting

for his wife to get pregnant, and by age ninety nine,

he still doesn't have a son. This is what you

might call an unsolvable problem. Now it is physically impossible

for him, Abraham and his wife Sarah to have a problem.

It's physically impossible. This is how in the world we're

gonna have a baby.

I'm ninety nine, okay, Sarah's a little bit younger, but

Abraham's ninety nine years olgo. The Bible says Abraham looked

at his body and said no way, jose Sarah looked

at abraham body, he said yeah, double no way with

you and me, Okay, this isn't gonna happen. And the

Bible says when God said you're gonna have a baby,

and Abraham's ninety nine years old, it says Abraham laughed,

and it said Sarah laughed.

And so when they actually.

Did get pregnant and had this baby, they named him Isaac,

which means laughter, because Isaac was God's joke to the world.

You know, Abraham's now one hundred years old and he's

the father of his first child. Now, God had changed

his name from Abram to Abraham, which means father of

a great nation. How'd you mean, how'd you like going

into a restaurant today?

Sir?

What's your name? Father of a great nation? How many

kids you got?

None?

How old are you a hundred? It's kind of embarrassing.

God gave him the name way in advance.

But they laughed. God had the last laugh.

We know that Sarah, when God told her she was pregnant,

that she didn't believe it because she laughed. And the

truth is, any woman who's seventy five and told she's

pregnant and believed it would not laugh she cry. Sarah

did not cry she laughed, Eid, what a joke.

You know.

I got to tell you this story. Fred Krattick is

a famous preacher. He's now in heaven. Back in the South,

he overheard a conversation one time in a restaurant between

a seventy five year old a waitress and an older man.

And the older man said to the waitress, Anna, can

I walk you home tonight?

And she said no.

He said, well why not, because she said, because I

then would become great with child.

He goes, Anna, you're too old, you're too old, He said, well,

she said.

Well, Sarah had a child at seventy five. He goes,

how is that possible? He said, she believed in the

man upstairs. He said, well, if I were a woman,

I wouldn't believe in the man upstairs. But sometimes God

does what I call an unsolvable problem. This is the

how test. Hebrews eleven eleven and twelve says this. It

was by faith that Sarah, together with Abraham, was able

to have a child.

This is an unsolvable problem.

Even though they were too old and Sarah was barren,

Abraham believed that God would keep his promise, and so

a whole nation came from this one man, Abraham, who

was too old to have any children, but a nation

with so many people that, like the stars of the

sky and the sands of the seashore, there's no way

to count them. God had the last laugh. Here's the

fourth thing I want you to learn and write it down.

Faith is expecting a miracle without knowing how. That's what

faith is. I'm teaching you today what it means to

have faith. Faith is facing the future without knowing what,

following God's leading without knowing where, waiting for God's timing

without knowing when, expecting a miracle without knowing how is

the test of your character. That is a test your eight.

Let's go on to the fifth test. The fifth test

is also in Abraham's life, and it is a senseless loss.

A senseless loss. When you have a loss in your

life that makes no sense at all, it seems irrational,

it seems illogical, it doesn't make sense. And this, of

course was the ultimate test, the ultimate test in Abraham's life.

And I want to tell you, friends, it will be

yours too. This will be the ultimate test in your life.

A senseless loss. A lot of what happens in life, friends,

it just doesn't make sense, and when we look for

an explanation, we're not going.

To find one. A lot in life just doesn't make sense.

You spend your whole life thinking that if I get

an explanation, then I'll feel better this loss.

You won't.

If my wife were to drop dead tonight and I

knew why, I knew the explanation, it wouldn't make it

any less painful. Explanations never comfort. What you need when

you're in pain. What you need when you've had a

major loss is you need the presence of God, not

the explanation of God. Explanation will not make it any

less painful, So stop looking for the why. What you

need is simply God's presence in your life. A lot

of what happens in life doesn't make sense. Now, God,

after Abraham had had this miracle baby at a hundred

named Isaac. Isaac is now a young man, and God says,

one day, I want you to sacrifice your son to me.

Now this seems so unheard of, It seems so brutal,

it seems so bloody, it seems so nonsensical. Why would

God ask me to sacrifice the very son that he

gave me through a miracle. This is a test. God

knows what he's doing. He's testing Abraham's faith. God is

not a cruel god. God is not a capricious god.

God is not a mean God. Abraham knew that, and

so He's going to obey, knowing that God's going to

do something about it, because I know God is not

that kind of God.

But this is the ultimate test.

Isaac represented everything God had given Abraham.

If his son dies, there's no future nation. Now.

Our response to this, when we look at everything out says,

this is unfair. Have you ever said that in life

it's not fair? Well, let me tell you something, folks.

Life is not fair. Who said it was fair? This

is not heaven. This is life is not fair on

earth because it's filled with sin and sorrow and suffering

and evil and your choice and you do things that

aren't fair and everybody else does too. God could make

life very fair, just take away our freedom of choice.

But God asked him Isaac to sacrifice his own son,

and our response is shock. How in the world could

God even ask Abraham to do this. In Verses seventeen

and eighteen of Hebrews eleven, it says this it was

by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when

God was testing him. Abraham, who had received God's promise,

was ready to sacrifice his only son, even though God

had promised him Isaac is the son through which your

descendants will be counted. This is one of the most

gripping stories in scripture. Abraham is trusting the goodness of

God's that God's going to figure out a way. This

will be the most gut wrenching test in your life.

When God says the dream I've given you, do you

love the dream more than me?

Or do you love me more than the dream? Do

you trust me?

If you love the dream more than you love God,

you've made the dream an idol. Now God is a

good God, and we know there are many layers to

this story. The fact God had already a thousand years

before Abram had been born, before he asked Abram to do,

he already knew what he was going to do.

He was going to provide a lamb.

As a symbol, as a metaphor, as an illustration of

the fact that in a few thousand years he was

going to provide the lamb of God his own son,

and he would sacrifice God would sacrifice his son for you.

God is a god of love.

He is not a go out of anger or retribution

to those who love him and put their trust in him.

He says, I will provide the lamb, but you will

be tested in your life.

Do you love the dream?

Do you love the promise more than you love the

promiser and the dreamgiver? Abraham passed the test. How in

the world was he able to obey God in faith? Well,

the Bible tells us how Hebrews eleven, verse nineteen. Abraham

reasoned that word there literally means he calculated. It's an

accounting term. He reasoned, he calculated. He figured in his

mind that God could raise the dead. If God can

give me a miracle sign at age hundred, he can

raise him back to life. And figuratively speaking, he did

receive Isaac back from death. Abraham thought, well, if this

goes through, I know God can raise him back to life.

That's the kind of God I serve. I want you

to write this down. This is the fifth test. Faith

is trusting God's purpose without knowing why.

Faith is trusting God's purpose without knowing why.

If you can explain everything in your life, you are

not living by faith. There's some things in your life

that just aren't explainable, and you have to live by faith. Now,

I could do a series on the tests of God

and go for a year, but let me just give

you one more. This is test number six, and it's

a tough one too. The sixth test is prolonged pain.

Prolonged pain, and this is the how long test. It

could be a chronic pain in your life. That could

be a chronic physical pain. It could be a chronic

emotional pain. It could be a chronic spiritual pain. It

could be a chronic relational pain. It could be a

chronic financial pain. It is extended suffering. It's suffering that

doesn't go away. You're just having to live with it,

maybe maybe your entire life.

This is a test. It is the how long test?

How long? Lord?

And so many of the prophets in the Bible talk

and about this and ask how long Lord are you

going to let this keep going?

Now?

A good example of this is Moses. Moses had incredible persistence.

He put up with enormous pain in his life. His

life is divided into three passages forty years in Pharaoh's court,

as learning to be a somebody, forty years on the

backside of a desert learning to be a nobody, and

then forty eight years leading a million griping babies across

a desert. He put up with enormous criticism, enormous conflict,

enormous misunderstanding, enormous pain, and he has every right to say,

how long. Lord Hebrews eleven twenty four to twenty six.

Moses gave up everything that we try to spend our

lives achieving fame, fortune, pleasure, possessions.

Position. He was the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

I mean, he's a grandson of the most powerful man

in the world. At that time, he's living in the

lap of luxury. He gave it all up to go

lead a bunch of slaves across the desert. He gave

up the very things we spend our lives trying to

get satissex, salary, that passion, possession, position, the American dream.

He gave it all up. The Bible says in verse

twenty forty twenty six. By faith Moses, when he had

grown up. That's a mark of maturity. Remember, God wants

you to grow up spiritually. He didn't make this decision

as a baby. When he was a baby, his parents

made the decisions, but when he had grown up, he

refused to be known as a son of Favaro's daughter.

He knew his identity.

He chose to be mistreated along with the people of

God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for

a short time with the people who weren't the people

of God. He disregarded disgrace. He regarded disgrace for the

sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures

of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.

You know, our culture says, base all your decisions on

your feelings and live for the now. If it feels good,

do it. If it doesn't feel good, don't do it.

And most people today make their decision on, well, this

feels good, so it must be right. Not everything that

feels good is right, and not everything that feels wrong

is bad. You can't go by your feelings. Your feelings

lie to you all the time, tell you things are

better than they are or they're worse than they are.

Your feelings lie. You're manipulated by your moods. The truth is,

I don't always feel like being nice to people. Everybody

thinks I'm a nice person. I'm not always a nice person.

I don't always feel like being nice to people anymore

than you do. Sometimes I feel grumpy, cranky. Sometimes I

just want to go home and get in bed. I

don't always feel like teaching you. In fact, by so

what if I only preach the times that I feel

like preaching or taught to you at the times that

you like teach? Well, you know I it'd be a

lot less.

I just say that.

You don't always feel like doing the right thing. You

know what, I'm going to let you listen. I don't

always feel like helping my wife, and when my kids

were at home, I didn't always feel like helping my

kids with their homework. I hated homework. I didn't like it.

I didn't want my kids to do it. I didn't

want my grandest kids to do it. So if you're

a teacher, stop all homework just easing.

But I really didn't like it. But did I help him?

Yeah? I don't always like to read my Bible that

I know it helps. I don't always feel like praying.

I find that when when I least feel like praying,

that's when I need it the most. When I don't

feel like praying. Faith is being persistent. Faith is refusing

to give up. Faith is keeping on no matter how

tired you are. Write this down. Faith is continuing to

persist without knowing how long. Faith is continuing to persist

without knowing how long.

This is the how long test of life? Now? How

do you develop persistence? How do you develop endurance?

How do you keep on doing the right thing year

after year after year when you don't always feel like

doing the right thing, You don't always feel like staying married.

How do you keep on doing the right thing when

you don't feel like you always feel like get up

and going to work? How do you have that persistence?

How do you handle prolonged pain by doing what Moses did?

And that is hearing from God. Moses had a burning bush.

You don't need a burning bush because he wrote it

all down and it's in here. Everything God wants to

say to you is right here. You don't have to

go have some mystical experience. People say, why didn't God

just write it in the sky. He's not going to

do He wrote it in a book. Stop looking for

a vision, start looking for a verse, Stop looking for

a sign in the sky. Start looking for a scripture

in the word. It's all here. It's all here, and

it will give you the ability to pass the how

long test? When you're going through prolonged pain, continuing to

persist without knowing how long? Hebrews eleven twenty seven, last

verse by faith. He that's Moses left Egypt, not fearing

the king's anger.

He persevered. How did he persevere?

Because he saw him who is invisible. You keep your

eyes on God. If you keep your eyes on your pain,

you're going downhill. If you keep your eyes on the

pain reliever, on the Savior, on the God who loves you,

you're going to go through it.

Now.

There's a lot more I can say about this, but

we're out of time. Which of these tests are you

facing right now? An impossible task and you're going.

What Lord?

What are you considering a major change? And you're going where?

Lord?

Where are you facing a delayed promise?

Delayed answer? When? Lord? When are you facing an unsolved problem?

How?

Lord? How? How are you going to do this?

You're facing a senseleus loss that you're grieving over. Why Lord?

Why are you struggling with prolonged pain?

How long? Lord? You know there's nothing wrong with asking.

God what and when and where and why and how

and how long as long as you understand you're not

going to get the answer. The real issue is what

are you going to do when you don't get an answer.

Even Jesus on the cross said my God, my God, why,

So it's okay for you to ask why. But he

didn't get an answer, and you won't either. The key

is will you trust God without knowing how or when

or why or how long or where. I don't have

time to go in this, but there's a pattern seen

in all three of these men. I wrote it down.

Toot your outline. I won't teach you on it. But

and firse, God gives you an opportunity, He gives your promise.

Then there's an obstacle or an opponent that holds you back.

Then there's an ordeal, and it's a waiting or testing period.

You're going to go through that over and over and

over hundreds of times in your life. So let me

summarize what it means to live by faith. It's facing

the future without knowing what. Faith is, following God's leaving.

Without knowing where. Faith is waiting on God's timing without

knowing when.

Faith is expecting a miracle without knowing how. Faith is

trusting God's purpose without knowing why, continuing to persist without

knowing how long. This is a test that's bow our heads,

if their heads vowed. With human test, the key is

knowing all the answers. But with God's test, the key

is not knowing all the answers. With God's test, the

key is trusting God to know the answer. Pray this

prayer in your heart. Follow me as I say this prayer,

Dear God, stay it in your mind. Dear God, I

want to be a man or a woman a faith.

I want to be a man or a woman of

character that you can use in a mighty way. So,

Dear Jesus Christ, help me face the future in faith

without knowing what. Jesus, help me follow your leading without

knowing where. Help me wait for your timing without knowing when.

Help me to expect a miracle without knowing how. Help

me to trust your plan and purpose without knowing why.

And help me to continue to persist and endure without

knowing how long. If you've never opened your life to Christ,

say Jesus Christ, come into my life right now, Be

my manager of my life, the Lord of my life,

be the behavior of my life.

I need you. In your name, I pray Amen.