Rick Warren - How God Tests Your Faith

If you take out your message notes inside your program,

you may not have realized that for the past four

or five weeks, I've had you in a series on

building character. We didn't announce it, but that's where we

were going. I started with a series with a message

called Making the Hard Changes in Me. That was the

first message right after Easter, Making the Hard Changes in Me,

about character development. Then the next week, I had Jason Friend,

teach on building or breaking the destructive patterns in your life.

Breaking the destructive patterns in your life. The next week,

George and Tondra Gregory talked about how God uses marriage

to build your character and how God says that marriage

is not simply to make you happy, it's to make

you holy. And then last week, of course, Kay taught

us on learning to see your blind spots. What a message, huh?

What a message. I wanna continue in that theme this

week by looking at how God uses tests in your

life to grow your character and to strengthen your faith.

Now Kay said this last week, it's one of the

fundamental laws of spiritual growth and one of the values

in our church is that 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 gonna 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 want it

to go because God is much more interested in your

character than he is your comfort. So you 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. He doesn't want you to be

a spiritual baby all your life. And he wants you

to grow up, and 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's 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. There 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. Four, 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'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. And

Kay talked about this and George and Tondra talked about

this and Jason talked about this and I talked about

it in the first special series that God uses the

conflicts and the problems and the pressures and the trials

and the difficulties and the disasters and the dangers and

the dead ends and the disappointments, he uses all of

it to 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 gonna do today is

just take you through six of the many tests you're

gonna 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 know,

the answers are right there. All you gotta go through

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

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 gonna go through in life is already

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

you're gonna 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

gonna 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, it was perfect.

There were no problems. There were no sorrows, no sin,

no sadness, no suffering, no tears, no trials, no temptation.

It was just a perfect place. It was Eden. But

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

we started having pollution, we started having problems, we had conflict,

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

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 cheating and

dishonesty and adultery and all these other 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 gonna 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 could 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 sons spread out all around the world

and started at different cultures and different things like that.

But we're all from Noah. 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. And I want you to

watch this first clip, and then we'll talk about the

first test. Watch this.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

The earth was a formless void, and darkness covered the

face of the deep.

And God said, let there be light.

And there was light.

On the second day, God separated.

The waters to form the seas and the sky.

On the third day, God created the land.

With trees and plants and fruits.

Will we ever see land again? Of course.

Of course we will.

The next day, he put the sun, the moon, and

stars in the heavens.

And on the fifth day, all the creatures of the sea.

And of the air.

And on the sixth day, all the creatures of the ground.

And then he made.

Us to live in paradise. Until Adam and Eve disobeyed God,

and ate the forbidden fruit. And with one choice, they

learned both good and evil.

Since then, since Cain killed Abel, God has seen too

much evil in human hearts.

Wrong choices, wrong decisions.

That's why this is happening.

Our Creator decided to cleanse the earth.

God warned me.

He told me to build a boat.

A boat to save our family and all the animals.

Every other living creature would die.

I'm on the seventh floor.

God rest.

It.

God rest it.

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 ark. And I'm gonna bring

all the animals to you and you're gonna put your

families and your and all these animals on an ark,

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? Moi, 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 asks you

to do something that's so new or so difficult, you

don't even imagine yourself doing it. Now here's what the

Bible says in Hebrews chapter 11, and all the verses

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

today are out of Hebrews chapter 11. It was by

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

faith that Noah built an ark to save his family

from the flood and he obeyed God who warned him

about something that, notice this, had never happened before. The

Bible tells us that up to this time, it had

never rained on Earth. That's why they'd never seen a rainbow.

It had never rained. The Bible tells us that a

mist came up from the ground at night, kinda like dew,

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 200, 300, 400 years. I

think God did that intentionally so they'd have lots of

kids to populate the earth. But after the flood, 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 before. When you have this first test,

it's gonna be when God comes to you and says,

I want you to do this. Now it may not

be build an ark, 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 gonna

go through the what test. You've never done it before

or 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 an ark by faith. And in Hebrews 11

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

gonna happen. And you've got this big task, this new task,

it's impossible, you've never done it before. You're gonna 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 11, verse eight

to 10, 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 gonna make a major move, that God would give

him as his inheritance. And he went, notice, without knowing where,

circle the where. This is the where test. Without knowing

where he was going. Now, Abraham is a guy who

lived in a city called Ur, which is in the

Ur of the Chaldees over in the Iraq, Iran area,

Ur of the Chaldees. How would you like to live

in Ur? Where are you from?

Ur.

Sorry, you had gas. Where are you from?

Ur.

You burped again. Ur, okay. Abraham lived in this city,

big city called Ur, and God says, I've picked you

out and I'm gonna make you a great nation, but

I'm not gonna make you a great nation here in

the Iraq area. I'm gonna 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 75 years old. 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 75, 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 75. 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 75. 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 gonna 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?

I said, just head that way. 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 change. The test

of life is the where test. Imagine, how long is

it gonna take? 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. 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 where test

of life right now. Some of you are in that

first test. Okay, what? But some of you are in

the where test. And the where test is God saying,

I'm gonna move you and you don't know where yet.

That is a test of your character to test your faith.

Now write this down. Faith is following God's leading without

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

Sometime 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 are we 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 sheeps 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. Write this down.

The third test you're gonna have in life is a

delayed promise. You can count on this one, folks. God

has over 7,000 promises in the Bible for you. He

is not guaranteed to fulfill every one of them instantly.

I've told you this before, 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 to you are not

even gonna be filled here in this lifetime, they're gonna

be fulfilled in eternity. He's got all of heaven and

eternity to fulfill them. But the delayed promise is what

I call the win 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 gonna answer

my prayer? When are you gonna hear me? When are

things gonna change in my marriage? When am I gonna

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

gonna have a baby? When am I gonna get that promotion?

It's the when question of life. That's the third test.

You're gonna go through the when test many, many times

in life. Hebrews 11, eight to 10 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 had said,

I'm giving you. And by the way, he says, so

did Isaac and Jacob. That's his son and his grandson.

So for three generations, they're kinda like nomads, even though

God said, I'm giving you this country called Israel. You're

not gonna get it in this timetable. 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 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 gonna 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 gonna 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 in this

land of Israel that after he gets there, there's this

delay in transfer of ownership. And I'm sure Abraham is

constantly going, when Lord, when? You gave me this promise,

when are you gonna fulfill it? Is it time yet,

is it time yet, time yet? He lives in tents

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 when test. where you've been waiting for an answer

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

You're going, when? When, Lord, when are you gonna take

care of this problem? When are you gonna take care

of this issue? When are you gonna take care of

this relationship? When are you gonna take care of my finances?

When are you gonna take care of my health? When

are you gonna take care of my future? And you're

just going, when, 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 are we gonna solve this one?

This is a test. Now God told Abraham, that not

only was he gonna 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, more kids, and they would populate it.

That he was not just giving him land, he was

gonna give him as his heritage a great nation. They

were all gonna come from Abraham. Now, remember, he's 75

years old when God tells him this promise. He moves.

to the land of Canaan, which is gonna be called Israel.

And while he's there, he keeps waiting for his wife

to get pregnant. And by age 99, 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.

How in the world are we gonna have a baby?

I'm 99, okay? Sarah's a little bit younger, but Abraham's

99 years old. The Bible says Abraham looked at his

body and said, no way, Jose. Sarah looked at Abraham's

body and 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 99 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. Abraham's now 100 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 like going into

a restaurant and say, sir, what's your name? Father of

a great nation. How many kids you got? How old

are you? 100. It's kind of embarrassing. God gave him

the name way in advance. But they laughed, 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

75 and told she's pregnant and believed it would not laugh,

she'd cry. Sarah did not cry, she laughed. What a joke.

You know, I gotta tell you this story. Fred Craddock

is a famous sub. preacher, he's now in heaven, back

in the south. He overheard a conversation one time in

a restaurant between a 75-year-old 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 75. 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 11 and

12 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. 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. That

is the test of your character. That is the test

of your faith. 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 wanna 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 gonna

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 about 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 100 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. 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 gonna 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 it from the outside, 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 earth. 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 can 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 17 and 18 of Hebrews 11,

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, saying God's gonna figure

out a way. Watch this on the screen.

Father, we have the firewood, but where's the lamb?

The Lord will provide a sacrifice, my son.

Did Abraham take a lamb?

No, mistress.

Bring the wood.

Father?

What are you doing?

You're hurting me, Father. Isaac, you must trust in God.

Please, please.

Please, father. The sacrifice. Oh, my boy, my boy, my boy. Oh,

my God.

Oh, he's dead!

Isaac!

No!

No!

Abraham has passed the ultimate test. He will become the

father of God's nation. Now it's up to Isaac. He

will have a son called Jacob. God will rename him Israel.

The promise of descendants as numerous as the stars is

coming true.

As I said, 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 Abraham had been born, before he asked Abraham to,

he already knew what he was gonna do. He was

gonna provide a lamb. As a symbol, as a metaphor,

as an illustration of the fact that in a few

thousand years he was gonna 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 God 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 dream giver? Abraham passed the test. How

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

the Bible tells us how. Hebrews 11 verse 19. Abraham reasoned.

Hebrews 11:19

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 son at age 100, 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 test 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

about this and ask, how long, Lord, are you gonna

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. 40 years in Pharaoh's court, as learning to

be a somebody, 40 years on the backside of a

desert learning to be a nobody, and then 40 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 11, 24 to 26, 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. That means 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. Status, sex, salary, passion, possession, position.

the American dream, he gave it all up. The Bible

says in verse 24 to 26, 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 a decision. But when he had grown up,

he refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh'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.

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 any

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

I just wanna go home and get in bed. I

don't always feel like teaching you. In fact, bye. So what?

If I only preach the times that I feel like

preaching or taught you the times that you like to, well,

you know, 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 gonna let you in on this. 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 grandkids to do it. So if

you're a teacher, stop all homework. Just teasing, but I

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

Yeah.

I don't always like to read my Bible, but I

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

find that 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 don't always feel like getting

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. getting close to God,

listening to God, hearing to God, staying connected to God.

Watch this last clip.

Your people are out there, Moses.

You're not one of us.

They worship the God of Abraham.

You should never have let her keep him.

And he has deserted them.

I will be Pharaoh!

Moses.

Moses.

I am here. I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac,

and Jacob.

You are real.

I am.

I have seen the misery of my people.

I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring them out

of Egypt.

How can I set them free?

I will be with you.

With your power, I will.

Set my people free.

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 gonna, 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 11, 27, 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 gonna

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? A delayed answer, when, Lord, when?

Are you facing an unsolved problem? How, Lord, how? How

are you gonna do this? You're facing a senseless 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 gonna get the answer.

The real issue is what are you gonna 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 into this,

but there's a pattern seen in all three of these men.

I wrote it down, it's about your outline. I won't

teach you on it, First, God gives you an opportunity.

He gives you a 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 gonna 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 leading 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. Faith is continuing to persist without knowing

how long. This is a test. Let's bow our heads.

With their heads bowed, 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, say it in your mind, dear God, I

wanna be a man or a woman of faith. I

wanna 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 Savior

of my life. I need you. In your name I pray. Amen.